Tag Archives: movies

Reconnecting With Old Friends (or My Adventure to See “Oz”)

In trying to take full advantage of my time off, I’m making sure I schedule time to see friends that I normally don’t get to see.

Lupe and I worked together at an old day job (neither of us work for that company anymore). When we worked together, she was in charge of the quality of my work (and everyone else’s work in the department I was in). Since my quality was pretty high, she and I got to work together a bunch on what we could do to ensure that other’s maintained the high standard of work that was expected of us.

I hadn’t seen Lupe since my last day at that job, although we have chatted on Facebook a bunch. I originally had plans on Saturday evening that fell through, and I wanted to find something else to do instead. I put it out of Facebook that I wanted to go and see “Oz the Great and Powerful” and Lupe wanted to come too! So we made a plan to meet up at the Landmark Theatre near my house.

I personally love the Landmark (and they aren’t paying me to say that). The seats are nice and comfortable and you select your seats ahead of time. So you don’t have to rush inside to make sure you get a good seat or get to sit with your friend.

They also have a bar inside the theater area and for certain screenings, you can even bring your drink in with you (our movie did not have that option).

So we met in the bar for a quick dinner. I had a sandwich and glass of Cava.

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We spent some time catching up and chatting about our new jobs. And before we knew it, it was 5 minutes before our movie was going to start.

We headed into the theater and put on our oh-so-flattering 3-D glasses.

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One thing that was nice was all the trailers were in 3-D as well (first time I got to see the trailer for “The Great Gatsby” in 3-D and it looked pretty cool).

My review of “Oz the Great and Powerful”: not bad. It was a cute story idea, and there were some nods to “The Wizard of Oz”. I liked most of the new characters, although there wasn’t as much suspense for me since I realized that certain characters were not going to be killed as they were supposed to be alive in “The Wizard of Oz”.

As far as if you should see it in 3-D or not, I don’t know how it would look in 2-D, but a lot of it seemed to be made for 3-D. And it wasn’t a gimmicky 3-D like some movies, it was more like “Avatar” where it just gave some extra depth to the movie.

Overall, I had a wonderful night getting to see a fun movie and reconnecting with a friend whom I hadn’t seen in far too long.

Awards Season (or I Have No Idea How I Can Watch All The Movies)

This is my first awards season as a SAG-AFTRA actor. This means I get to vote for the SAG Awards this year.

And since I get to vote, I have to see all the movies in order to make an educated vote. SAG-AFTRA actors are invited to screenings (like I went to for “Lincoln”), get free iTunes movie rentals, have free movies passes, and my favorite is getting DVD screeners.

This year, I got these three movies as DVDs:IMG_1257 IMG_1262 IMG_1249

Since I had seen “Les Miserables” in theaters, I don’t have to watch it again, but I definitely want to. I watched my “Silver Linings Playbook” DVD when I was babysitting over the weekend. And I went to a SAG Foundation screening of “Argo” on Sunday morning which had a Q&A with Ben Affleck, Alan Arkin, and Bryan Cranston before the screening.

But I still have a bunch of other movies to watch, mainly my iTunes rentals. I have at least 5 that I feel I need to watch in order to be able to vote fairly.

But with only 1 day off a week (which is now Monday, but that’s a blog post for another day), I don’t know when I’ll have time to watch them. I’m planning on trying to watch at least 2 movies tomorrow.

I know that this is a total first world problem and I sound like a spoiled kid (too many free movies to watch, poor me), but it just bring back my issues with creating a work/life balance.

It is a reminder to me that I need to figure out a new way to get through this time in my life where my work is not my career yet.

But when I was watching the Golden Globes last night, I was reminded that it can be possible to make acting my work and career. I need to stick it out and not give up yet.

Who knows, this struggling time could be the perfect thing to say in my award acceptance speech one day?

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“Lincoln” and “Les Miserables” (or Time For Some Movie Reviews)

In the past two days, I’ve seen two movies. They were both amazing, and I wanted to share my movie going experiences with you all.

Please note: this blog post contains spoilers for “Les Miserables” if you’ve never seen the musical or aren’t familiar with the story. There are really any spoilers for “Lincoln” (if you don’t know that slavery was abolished or that Lincoln was assassinated you should be reading a history book and not my blog). If you aren’t familiar at all with “Les Miserables” and don’t want to know about the plot, stop reading right now! This is your final spoiler warning!

On Christmas, I went with my friend Robert to a screening of “Lincoln” at the DGA (or Director’s Guild of America for those of you not in the entertainment industry). It would normally take me between 30 minutes and an hour to get to the DGA from my house, but I didn’t account for the lack of traffic on Christmas, so I was pretty much the first one there. The lobby was empty!

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As you can see, nobody was lined up for the screening. Robert and I got some pretty nice seats in the center of the little theater. Everyone in the theater was super respectful and watched all the credits to see everyone who participated in it (my 4th cousin wrote the screenplay).

It was so nice to be in a theater where nobody was talking, texting, eating loudly, or doing any other rude theater behaviors.

I had a different experience when I went to see “Les Miserables”. I went to the Landmark Theater near my house because they have reserved seating. I like to sit in the row behind the handicap seating because there is a rail that you can rest your feet on.

I went alone, and was seating between two groups. And they were weird theater goers. Not rude necessarily, but weird.

The guy on my left came prepared to cry, and boy did he cry! The crying started when the Universal Pictures logo came up and never ended! He even brought a box of tissues in the theater with him! The only annoying thing was that he kept having to blow his nose, but that’s not bad.

The woman on my right must have never seen “Les Miserables” or knew anything about it. Every death shocked her. When Fantine died, she whispered (loudly) to her friend “Anne Hathaway can’t die!”. When Gavroche was shot, she said something about not believing that they decided to kill an innocent kid in the movie.

Between the crying man on my left, the shocked woman on my right, and hearing people eating popcorn and snacks throughout the movie, I almost missed the calmness at the DGA.

But I have to say that both movies should be seen by everyone! “Lincoln” isn’t the sort of movie I’d normally go to, but it’s amazing. All the actors are wonderful and even though it’s a historical story we all know, you get to experience it in a new way. And “Les Miserables” was just wonderful. I thought that I’d cry more, but there were only two moments where I cried. One was Anne Hathaway singing “I Dreamed A Dream”. That was a showstopper in the theater. There were people who did a standing ovation after that number. I also cried at the end because it was just so beautiful.

Now it’s back to my 6 days a week work schedule. I do have New Year’s Day off, but I’m working New Year’s Eve. But I’m glad I got to have a couple of days off to enjoy life a bit more than I normally get to!

Merry Christmas! (or Happy Movies and Chinese Food Day!)

Just a quick post to say that I hope you are spending today with those you love and doing whatever happens to be your tradition.

I’m not spending time with my family today, but that’s the norm for me. My brother is with his fiancé, my parents are driving home from Tahoe, and I’ll be hanging out with friends.

I’m planning on having a day filled with going to movies (including a free screening of “Lincoln”) and ordering Chinese food from my favorite place. That’s exactly how I want to spend my day!