Cult of Jef

I don’t go to the movies much.  In between work­ing my day job and the book­store, keep­ing up house­hold chores, exer­cise, and writ­ing, there’s not a lot of time left.  How­ever, on three-day hol­i­day week­ends, 2Fs and I have made a habit of ven­tur­ing out for a least one sum­mer block­buster.  Last night, we decided to check out Star Trek into Dark­ness.

The first chal­lenge is to decide what time and which the­ater.  We raised the level of dif­fi­culty by adding din­ner to the scenario.

““It’s show­ing at 7:05 p.m. at Mid­town Land­mark,” I said.

““That won’t give me enough time to close up the book­store and get home,” Jeff said.

““There’s an 8:20 p.m. at Phipps AMC.”

““If we go to that one, there won’t be any­where to eat by the time the movie’s over.  What else?”

““We could drive to Alabama and cross over into Cen­tral Stan­dard Time and then we could make the 7:05 p.m. in Midtown.”

““Ha, ha,” 2F’s said.  “I see a 9:00 p.m. in Mid­town.  We can grab din­ner before hand.  How about Eats?”

“I was really crav­ing a cheese­burger,” I said.  “Where can we get a cheese­burger in Midtown?”

We decided to climb into my Miata since it was such a gor­geous day.  As we neared Pied­mont Park, though, we ran into traf­fic for the Atlanta Jazz Fes­ti­val, which we had for­got­ten about.  Find­ing a 9:30 p.m. movie at Atlantic Sta­tion, I drove down side streets to cut over to Peachtree, only to be redi­rected by police­men sev­eral times.  “It should not be this dif­fi­cult to go see a movie,” I said.

At Atlantic Sta­tion, we encoun­tered another sur­prise at the Regal The­ater.  “When did tick­ets go up to 12 dol­lars?” I asked.  “Is it in 3-D.”

““No, just the reg­u­lar 2-D ver­sion,” 2F’s said.  “Do you want to see it in 3-D?  Or the IMAX experience?”

““What’s the dif­fer­ence between 3-D and the IMAX experience?”

““Um …”  Jeff looked at the sign.  “Well, the IMAX expe­ri­ence costs more than 3-D; beyond that, I don’t know.”

I’m not a big fan of 3-D.  There are few movies I’ve seen in 3-D that didn’t seem hokey, because they included osten­ta­tious scenes that weren’t essen­tial to the story to show­case the tech­nol­ogy.  How­ever, I will admit that Hugo and Life of Pi did uti­lize 3-D in a way that made those movies more enjoy­able with­out call­ing atten­tion to itself.  Still, I keep wait­ing to see an adver­tise­ment for some­thing ludi­crous, like Kramer vs. Kramer being re-released in 3-D.

After scor­ing a burger nearby, 2F’s and I entered the the­ater with time to spare.  He was non­plussed that most of the the­ater was already full, with the excep­tion of the first three rows.  “What about the mid­dle of the third row?” I asked.

““That’s so close,” he said.  “I still have flash­backs to when we saw Spider-Man on the front row when­ever I see Toby McGuire; I’m haunted by his six-foot wide nostrils.”

Just then, some­one called Jeff’s name.  Some of his friends from church were seated fur­ther back and had two seats beside them.  They saved the day!

I’ve heard peo­ple com­plain of peo­ple check­ing their e-mail on their Smart­Phones or talk­ing on their phone while in the movie, but I’ve never had that prob­lem.  I was both­ered, though, that our arm­rests didn’t have a cup holder.  Jeff reminded me I didn’t have a drink, and I had to explain I could enjoy the movie more if I knew a cup holder was there, just in case I got thirsty later.

Then the lights went down and the movie started.  Star Trek into Dark­ness was fun.  Bene­dict Cum­ber­batch did a great job as the vil­lain, although I did expect to see Mar­tin Free­man, his co-star from the BBC’s Sher­lock, pop up to ban­ter with him.  Ter­ror­ism seems to be the theme of most block­busters this year, and Star Trek into Dark­ness is not exception.

We waited for all the cred­its to fin­ish to see if a blooper might pop up.  We decided it would be fun if the crew of the Enter­prise stopped off for a drink at the can­tina from Star Wars and ran into Robert Downy Jr. in his Iron­man cos­tume. Sadly, Star Trek into Dark­ness only offers the tra­di­tional credits.

As we walked out, I said to Jeff, “Man, the crew of Enter­prise had more cos­tume changes in this film than a Diana Ross con­cert.  Did we learn any­thing else?”

“No trib­bles were harmed in the mak­ing of this movie,” he said.