To Rome With Love

I generally go to all the Woody Allen comedies. I was one of those weird kids, like Dawson Leery's sister, watching Annie Hall and Radio Days. There was a conservative period where I went off him a bit but that only lasted a few years.

To Rome With Love continues Allen's European film series after the awesome films, Vicky Cristina Barcelona and Midnight in Paris. Personally, I would love if he just did an Imax tour of Europe with music. You can tell how much he loves what Europe has to offer and it's all so pretty. I always find myself wanting him to linger a little more on all the sights. I usually end up wanting to go to Europe after one of his last three films. My mom on the other hand...after seeing Midnight in Paris, she remarked how well they had captured the look and feel in Epcot...

Unfortunately, none of the Avengers or their nemeses are in this film. It does have Kitty Pryde but I'll get to her later...
However, it does have Penelope Cruz and Alison Pill so I was pretty psyched.

Yes, it does have Ellen Page. I used to think I hated Ellen Page because I tended to hate all of her movies. Then, I saw Inception which was decent and I liked her character so I realized it had a lot more to do with the writing and the fact that I tend to hate Page's characters. Unfortunately, this film also falls into the hating her character category...
I think Alec Baldwin might also have been an imaginary figment of Jesse Eisenberg's character's mind. Either that or all of Jesse Eisenberg's plotline was Alec reliving his youth from a modern perspective.

It was cute, not as funny as his last two films but funnier than a lot of "comedies". It felt more like an exploration of ideas, including whether it's cheating when love isn't involved in the sex...
Plus, it was nice to see Roberto Benigni again.

Avengers

I was watching The Colbert Report and they were discussing New York City as usual. Colbert said how the power is out below 39th street and my mom goes, Wasn't that the cutoff in Avengers, too?

It's really weird seeing all the landmarks from the film among actual chaos rather than carefully crafted destruction that gets easily cleaned up once the filming is done. It's sad. I can't help but wonder about filming locations in The Sorcerer's Apprentice and the Kevin Smith movies.

It's a bit better than reading over the dead lists for familiar names...

Also, Jeremy Renner will be hosting Saturday Night Live on November 17. My mom's reaction? "I hope he gets better material than Daniel Craig did."

The Avengers July 30, 2012 at AMC Veterans 24

You know what's nice to see less than two weeks after a major shooting incident at a theatre?
A giant poster proclaiming, Think globally, kill locally.
*facepalm*

We finally got very different trailers with this showing, including our very first viewing of the Man of Steel preview. My mom admitted later that, despite my not mentioning it, she thought it was going to turn out to be a new Punisher film. I think she was a little disappointed that it wasn't...

This was my eighth time, her seventh time. She definitely wanted to tie it with her other most watched film, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest.

I love how the steps of The Other's place look like teeth.

The way Selvig talks about the Tesseract and calls it a "she", I almost wanted to retort, "Oh, get a room already!" He was SO semi-possessed already...

That third guy that Loki takes over? I'm pretty sure Loki kills him to try and slow down Maria, that's why he's never mentioned again at all.

I love how when everyone walks onto the bridge for the first time, the music sounds just like Soarin' at Epcot.

I love the numbers, not sure what they all mean but it's fun to look for them. The helicopter that gets shot down at the start is 30.The containment level with the cage is P62. 1962 is the year that Spider-man and Clark Gregg were born. There is one shot where the level right above the cage is P63. 1963 is the year the Avengers were born. The Helicarrier itself is 64 which is both from the original military vessel and Joss Whedon being born in 1964. 42 is the number of the Quintjet that Phil uses to get Steve, on Tony's file of Loki and a license plate in New York because 42 is the meaning of life, hehe.

I also love how on the bridge where everything happens in New York, there's a sign saying "Tunnel Closed Ahead". I always think...well, duh, even if it wasn't closed before, there's aliens and destruction and crap...

The movie keeps wanting me to ship Natasha/Steve because of how much he totally trusts her. She just has to nod and he's cool with Clint being a part of their plan despite Clint trying to kill them like twenty minutes before? Then, he helps Natasha bounce up to the Chitauri vehicles after earlier protecting her from the blast with his shield.

Afterwards, we were both a little sad especially my mom. It was assumed to be our last viewing and she likened it to finishing a really good book that you didn't want to end.
I didn't tell her that I had a dream a week or two before that I had seen the movie ten times in the theatre.