January 4, 2008
For the past few months, a friend and I have been getting together during the week and inevitably we see a movie. While we aren't able to meet every single week, we recently met twice in a row, ate some food and saw a film. The first film, Beowful, was awful. The second film, Juno, was awesome. The viewing experiences, however, were reversed. The viewing of Beowulf was fairly pleasurable--I added the fairly because since it's in 3D and I wear glasses, having to adjust to wearing an additional pair is not exactly a thrill a minute. The viewing experience of Juno, sadly, was not that great--in large part because we did not follow my rules for watching films in the theater.
Beowulf is perhaps only worth watching for the fact that it is in 3D. It would not be worth it to watch it if you could not see it in 3D. The dialogue was terrible--the main character--the titular hero--grunted more than once. Grunted! The story was...well, the story of Beowulf, but I might have at least respected the efforts if they hadn't set it up in the end for a possible sequel. Really, just awful. However, it was actually so awful that it was rather awesome. I know that seems contradictory, but really, there are films that are so awful as to provide a rather awesome experience. And this is definitely one of them. One of the scenes that caused it to achieve its level of awesome was the fight between Beowulf and Grendel. Beowulf fights Grendel naked. There are some hilarious bits when Beowulf's, well, bits have to be covered up in amusing ways. The technology is cool, but they chose a terrible way to show it off. It was a pretty good viewing experience though--stadium theater and the 3D glasses were rather substantial--with plastic frames instead of cardboard (though this just means that I feel as though I cannot throw them away without feeling massive amounts of guilt) and since it was a week night the theater was not overly crowded.
Juno is excellent. One might even say awesome. A rather sweet film (though with some kicks to it) that satisfies. Ellen Page and Jennifer Garner are both marvelous. My one--well, not complaint exactly--but perhaps hedging of the film is its soundtrack. Do not misunderstand, it's a great soundtrack. There were times during the film, though that I thought perhaps it was put together in hopes of selling as a soundtrack and not just music for the film. Though this could be due to the fact that it was not a good viewing experience. In fact it was rather awful.
Since we saw it before it had a wide release, there was only one theater within easy distance for us to meet. It's in DC and as it often shows independent films I had often thought about going there, but could never get up enough energy to do so. It's a poorly designed complex in the first place. It's near the Portrait Gallery and obviously in DC space is problematic to begin with. We were in theater 6 and had to walk down a long hallway to get there. A very long hallway. One might even say a looooooong hallway. Plus the size of the theater was small. But the screen was huge. Unlike with The Flick's smaller theaters, this DC theater does not compensate the screen size for the size of the room (forgive the Boise reference--but those who have been to The Flick's will know what I mean). It certainly did not help that we did not follow my first rule to watch by--arrive early. We had dinner beforehand and with one thing and another (my friend decided to get dessert) we arrived--thanks in part to the long hallway--just about 2 minutes before the previews began. And since we had not anticipated such a small theater (it sat about 84 people--and surprisingly given that it was a week night was almost completely full) we were unable to sit together and had to make do with some rather unpleasant seating arrangements. I was in the second row on the end. It was not comfortable. It was pretty awful, but the film was awesome.
Of course in the end I've decided to use the awful experience to justify seeing the awesome film again when the viewing experience will also be awesome. But never will I see the so-awful-it's-awesome film again. No matter the viewing experience. Not even if they do what they should do and design clip-on 3D glasses for those who have to wear glasses. Nope, not even then. Though really, it was so awful it was pretty awesome.
