Yo. Jeff Green here. How you doin? It is 6 pm PST, and we are T-minus 1 hour before leaving to go see the new James Bond movie. WOOT. Daniel Craig: Best Bond since Sean Connery. Notice I didn't phrase that as a question, so this is not actually up for discussion. Craig is one of those manly men that men are allowed to idolize--kinda like Clive Owen now, too. So the wife and kid and two of the kids' friends and I are all heading over to Emeryville to brave the Saturday night crowds, which means I will be battling my usual impulse to rip the skulls off of the morons talking and not turning off their cell phones and explaining the movie to all of this. "Wow, that was awesome, did you see that? He totally shot that guy in the head." Why, yes, yes I did see it! Because I'm sitting right behind you at the same theater! I didn't, however, HEAR it, because you were too busy flapping your popcorn-breath gums in my ears while it was happening, you selfish, inconsiderate dillweed! Wow, I'm mad already and I haven't even gone yet. See, this is my problem. I'm expecting something to piss me off, so this means that the slightest little thing is going to do it, no matter how innocuous it might be. Like, what if some sweet little 80-year-old woman just gives a little sort-of half-cough in my ear, and I turn around and, because I'm a little unhinged about this sort of thing, yell "SHUT THE FUCK UP YOU STUPID PIECE OF SHIT!" only to see too late who I'm yelling at? That wouldn't be good. So what I need to do now is get into a more Zen state about it all. I need to get to a place of acceptance, to realize that not everything is in my control, and to let what happens happen. I need accept the fact that:
1) It is the first Saturday night the movie is playing.
2) It is playing in a crowded mall, which means a higher-percentage of dimbulb cretins and lowlifes in attendance.
3) It is an action movie.
All of which means that the chances of this being a quiet, respectful movie crowd are mathematically determined to be less than zero. So why fight it? Why be the one stick-in-the-mud in a crappy mood just because everyone else is yelling and talking and chewing with their mouth open and having a great time? Shouldn't I just join in with the crowd? Maybe I should be one of those guys loudly heckling the characters on screen. I could start yelling "TAKE IT OFF BITCH!" the first time the new Bond girl shows up. I'd get big laughs and be the hero of the theater, carried out on the shoulders of all my new friends, who would take me to TGIFridays afterwards for a nice lukewarm Coors Light and some potato skins.
Anyway. Yeah. That's my night tonight. I hope yours is as fun as mine is going to be. Hopefully I won't get an ulcer or cardiac or get my ass kicked having all this fun.
39 comments:
Jeff, I'm no psychiatrist but I don't think you are going to the Bond movie in the right frame of mind. I detect a lot of pent up hostility. It's those animal sims @ EA, isn't it?
I think that no matter how bad the crowd is, you'll enjoy 007. I saw it at a midnight showing, so no screaming little kids.
Hey now, some of the dimbulb cretins and lowlifes that you insulted may be the same people that made you into a legend in PC gaming land.
I'm, of course, talking about the socially inept people who "excel" well at Warhammer and WoW, but can't seem to hold a relationship with a real woman for more then 5 minutes.
But it IS a mall, so anything's possible.
Even a kiosk selling 80 games (which is really 8 games reiterated 10 times) in one N64 controller rip-off.
Good luck Jeff. If anything happens though, just blame the people that dragged you there. It usually works for me.
Yeah, if I yell at someone and they turn out to be big and scary and violent, I can point to my wife and tell him she did it.
LOL! All your Bond bases are belong to us.
Dang Jeff, you never fail to make me crack up out loud. Ended up reading some of your post to my wife cuz I was laughing so much. Hope Quantum of Solace was good!
ROFLMFAO! That was absolutely f*cking outstanding! I haven't laughed this hard at a blog post in ages.
I love the concept of you becoming the hero of the crowd and being taken to TGIFridays on a Saturday night for a warm Coors.
Classic stuff!
LordCrom
http://www.youtube.com/lordcrom
Watch yourself, Jeff. All it takes is one Cape Fear move theater scene and BAM- Robert De Niro's going to be following you around town calling you "councilor" in a southern accent and trying to have his way with your family.
Can't let that shit happen, man.
I'm kind of scared of you now Jeff. I'll be sure to buy 10 copies of whatever game you're putting out next as to prevent you from burning down my house.
Well I guess I'l see you on the news tomorrow morning then?
Right on! Tell those old people to quiet down or else your going to force feed them their own catheter's.
Anyways, I hope you enjoyed the movie!
well, hopefully you enjoyed the new bond flick. I watched it with friends opening night, but luckily no distractions like you deeply feared. Look forward to future posts!
The new bond isn't as good as Casino Royale, but still better than the rest of the Bonds. It seemed to rely on an action sequence in every scene, which bothered me; I ended up caring less about all the characters involved. To its credit, however, the direction was great. The film had this really strong visual language, and a lot of character was built just from body language.
Love your blog Jeff.
Don't push that Zen stuff too far, you don't want to fall asleep during the movie or start sympathizing with the bad guy because suddenly you realize it was just a bad youth that caused all of this....
Don't you just hate these long-ongoing-one-sentence replies? ;)
That was LOL funny. Thanks
You know, that's exactly the same psychotic reason I stopped going to the theater and started watching movies only on Netflix.
The worst part is, it's like living in a time warp. "Hey, did you see the new Bond flick?" "Yeah, 'Casino Royale' was great." "No, no 'Quantum of Solace'..." "Oh, uh, I'll see that in six months or so..." So lame.
Since no one else said it, I am legally bound to comment:
TAKE IT OFF, BITCH!
Thank you for your assistance with compliance to Internet law.
I am relieved to see there was no "Ex-GFW Editor Goes On Murder Rampage At Emeryville Theatres" article in the paper this a.m. I trust the Bond movie went well then? Or not ;-)
Dear Jeff,
I hope you can share with all of us what you thought of the new "Bond". I personally belive that it was the worse Bond ever and it shouldn't be even considered a "Bond" film due to many reasons which i don't know if i want to state here (coz of spoilers for others), but I think you will notice that there are many key Bond elements missing (such as: music theme during key moments, "my name is Bond..", gadgets, grace an elegance etc).
But, thats just like ma opinion man...
ps. D. Craig is super manly, but too butch for James.
I thought the new Bond was pretty good, but your post reminded me of when I went to Grindhouse and nearly got into a fight with a huge guy (who probably would have killed me) because I told him to quit talking and answering his phone after he took his third call.
This probably needs to be said as much as possible,
TAKE IT OFF BITCH!
Good to see you went in prepared for the worst.
So how was the scumbag count?
There was a time when I too would go to the movies.
But then this thing called Fallout 3 came along - and now whenever I'm not at work, or commuting to work, or getting ready for work, or recovering from work, or worrying about work, or wondering how I'm ever going to manage to retire from work, then I'm playing Fallout 3.
Fallout 3. One word: Masterpeace.
Er, masterpiece.
I cannot find the words to describe how passionate I feel about this game. This is maybe the most atmospheric game I've ever played. Just last night my Level 8 melee character was hobbling along a riverbed after having gotten beaten up by a super mutant. I was clean out of both stims and caps, and was searching for loot (in order to trade the loot for stims back at Megaton) when suddenly I came up on what appeared to be a drive-in movie theater.
The moon was shinning down and casting a white light on the barren trees and on the barren land, and suddenly I saw, looking ahead, that behind the drive in theater's movie screen was an old baseball field where two raiders had setup camp. I immediately prepared my Tenderizer sledgehammer for action.
Then, crouching, and shifting into third person mode, I snuck up on the raiders (sneak skill = 95) and clubbed each one on the head (3 perks in Little Leaguer + 80 melee skill). Basically, I decapitated the both of them, their blood spewing everywhere.
Simply awesome.
Then I looted all their stuff and fast travelled back to Megaton.
This game keeps distracting me with stuff to do, which is making it tough for me to focus on the main quest - it seems that wherever you go, somebody is always requesting your services, and that whatever it is it's always interesting. I doubt that I've ever played an RPG that contained so many fun and rewarding side quests as Fallout 3.
And my god the perks! You just can't wait to level up in this game - there's always some advanced perk, just slightly out of reach, which you know is going to transform your character when it's finally made available to you. (Silent Running - I want it badly, I want it now.)
And did I mention the atmosphere? Try turning on your pipboy's radio (you've got to tune in to Galaxy Radio, of course - Three Dog!) and listening to some music from the 30's while exploring the wasteland - this is one of the most unique experiences you'll ever have as a gamer.
Just a frickin' masterpeace.
Okay, Daniel Craig: The best performance he's given so far was in Munich. God I loved that movie. I don't have time for the movies right now though. Quantum Solace (weird name, that): maybe I'll play the game one day instead - ha!
Anon. E. Moose.
Agreed Anon. E. Moose. Fallout 3 is my Game of the Year (and probably the decade).
Jeff, do you have any Fallout 3 impressions?
Oh ...and also Quantum of Solace impressions.
Yah..Fallout 3 rocks! (so does Jeff Green)..Jeff...please, help keep my veal fattening pen interesting!!!!
I was the same EXACT way when I went to see it earlier tonight. I lucked out in the noise regard, as there weren't many distractions.
BUT, the movie theater was absolutely DISGUSTING. There was so much leftover trash from God knows how long ago. It was incredibly difficult to find a seat that wasn't surrounded in a sea of popcorn and giant soda cups.
And we showed up a half and hour early when there were only two other people in the theater.
You should have yelled that there is an advanced screening of Twilight at another theater.
"take it off" (and I know this is late) you'll be saying more than that when you see the redhead in the trenchcoat
I liked the bond film. The newer ones have all been more action-oriented than actually spy oriented, which doesn't bother me particularly. I'm not going to the Bourne films to see a psychological portrait of a man slowly learning about himself and his past; I'm going to see a Batman-without-the-baggage turn a phone book into a deadly weapon. Just so, I'm not going to Bond to see a meditation on the complexities of international politics, I'm going to see someone calmly hold a dude down while he waits for him to bleed to death.
See, I disagree with anna: the Bond films really weren't ever about the gadgets and crap, any more than Batman was about all that campy junk like the giant penny. Even though they were a feature of the movies, I think those things took away from the potential of the films to really just emphasize what a badass James Bond is. In the new Bond, they've realized that you don't need a car with missiles and a pen that turns into a rocket launcher if you can literally beat down three other guys with your hands tied behind your back.
And in paring away all that other garbage, they've also given the actual humanity of the character a chance to shine through. That's what I think, anyway.
Emeryville aint so bad...at least you dont have to watch your movies in Vallejo, like me :(
Quantum of Eh is right. Not so much a Bond film as a tribute to Michael Bay.
That is why I came up with this solution
HOME THEATER
Don't watch the new Bond films in that state of mind Jeff, you'll end up in prison (and you won't have M to get you out). That being said, I hope you enjoyed it. At least you're not whining about the film like everyone else I've heard.
~sLs~
You know, there's one good thing about LA. Arclight theatres and their reserved seating, no ads, and ushers that make sure nobody is acting up!
more like Quantum of Meh!
Horrible.
Absolutely hated the film. Stilted acting, nonsensical transitions, horrible editing, meandering script.
Now it'll be easier to prompt the character property designed by Jeff in the next Sims "anything".
How I miss your angry rants.
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