So, that happened

This weekend, I got an idea of what my next year might be like. For all three of you I haven’t told, I intend to see a movie a week at the movie theater for all of 2011. I saw two movies in one weekend, and I’m beginning to understand that there may be some theater-going overload with this plan. Then again, going to two movies right after the other is a good way to really put my reasons for liking/disliking them in perspective.

 

The two movies I saw were Tron Legacy and Black Swan. I didn’t particularly care for either, but both had a strange effect on me in that, while watching them, I was rather transported. It was only upon their ending that I felt dissatisfied. This is entirely due to heightened expectations, though I hadn’t really realized how much hope I’d sunk into Tron Legacy in particular until it ended and I almost wanted to cry because I was so depressed about how little I liked it. I admit to having been inordinately in love with the idea of seeing Tron on the big screen, especially after falling in love with it via the original on DVD and by playing alongside Tron in Kingdom Hearts. I seriously <3<3<3<3<3 Bruce Boxleitner, especially as the adorable, innocent –but-kick-ass Tron, and there plain wasn’t enough of him. I am glad, at least, that mithras03  was with me on finding his silver-fox status THE SEXXAY, even as I spent much of the movie bemoaning the lack of him. While I admit that this is my own bias making me inordinately hard to please, I do not think it too much to ask that the movie feature the goddamned character it from which it took its name. Alas and alack, the siren lure of Oscar-Winner Jeff Bridges combined with the endlessly rapacious studio need to build a franchise on the back of a younger star meant that Tron was given the short-shrift in his own sequel.

 

And? Honestly? Neither Bridges nor Flynn-the-younger had the chops to carry this thing.

( Some minor, minor spoilers )

That said, getting to watch lightcycle racing and the disc wars gaming in the movie was supremely satisfying. The updated effects were fun, though as moonlightalice  pointed out, dreary in their palate. It was a thrill with the early action sequences, though. I happened to love the soundtrack, though others thought it was distracting, especially because it added a drive to the movie that was otherwise lacking, plot-wise. If nothing else, the booming base kept things surging.

 

Black Swan intrigued me, and, although my expectations for it were lowered by reviews, I did go in with an open-to-optimistic mind. I wasn’t thoroughly disappointed as I was with Tron Legacy, I was just indifferent to mildly unimpressed by it.

( No spoilers if you've seen the trailers, but just in case... )

 

Another improbable thing that happened--besides my seeing two movies in a weekend and liking neither of them? I won Twilight Scene It. I'd bought it as a Christmas present for viridian , who, along with feiran was the only person to have read the books and seen the movies. We had to play it. Predictably, those two ladies dominated most of the game. If I got anywhere, it was out of sheer luck. The best run of said luck was where I followed someone else who revealed, in her question, what the name of Dakota Fanning's character was and what her SOOPER vampire power was, and then the next two questions I got were about those exact things. (So as with other franchise-specific Scene It games, Twilight Scene It suffers from a lack of sufficient material upon which to make questions more varied.) I'd been far behind the leaders for most of the game, then I ended up tied with them at the end. I got lucky on a couple of questions and guessed correctly on the third to win. HIGHLY IMPROBABLE VICTORY. I don't know whether to be ashamed or pleased that I continue to dominate at Scene It given that this dominance was achieved PLAYING TWILIGHT SCENE IT. (I HATE MYSELF AND WANT TO DIE.)

I will take this moment to credit glvalentine for making a point of saying how awesome Bella's friend Mike is, because I did win a question with his name. Thanks!