At the Movies

Bargain Matinees for Cold Days

I've been to the movies twice this week.  The cinemas not too far from here offer bargain prices on Tuesdays and a Senior discount on Wednesday, so for just under $10, I got to see two films. 

What were they?  Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and Tangled.  I'm not much of a movie goer, but I've seen all the other Harry Potter films, and the other just looked like fun. 

Reviews are in. Harry Potter was OK, but I had to admit I wanted to look at my watch to see just how much longer it was going to go on.  "Lugubrious" is a word I'd use to sum up the pace of the film.  Tons of dialogue mixed in with endless chase scenes and magic battles, bouncing around from place to place just to accomplish very little storytelling to move the plot along. The story just lumbered along, adding side characters, and little plot bits here and there to apparently set up for the final installment in the series. While perhaps faithful to the plotline of the book, this does not necessarily make for good film.  I can't say it was exactly a "bad" film, but it could have been much better if it had been tighter in both action and plot development.  Fortunately, I like the characters and their quest, so I wasn't totally disappointed.  I just think there wasn't enough to carry this film along.  

Tangled was, on the other hand,  pretty darn entertaining.  It has a rather simplistic, typical Disney plot, based on the story of Rapunzel.  Ironically, the best character in the whole film was a horse!  Maximus, the mount of one of the castle guards, proved to have more personality than most of the human characters.  His dogged determination to capture the hero/bad guy, and later on join him in a prickly alliance is a gem of creative genius.  He's not a talking horse either, but expresses himself quite clearly with his face, ears, and body throughout the story.  He was, to my mind, the best part of the whole film and deserves an Oscar for an outstanding performance. The film was fun, frothy, and just what you'd expect from a Disney version of a fairy tale.  

While the temperatures have warmed up a bit, today was pretty windy, making it not the nicest day to be outside. My arena is still snow covered, but if the wind dies down I may try a little riding tomorrow.  I did something to one of my already bad knees on the ice last week so that hurts, and I'm still not feeling 100% from whatever virus has been bothering me.  

I'm pretty sure Chance would be fine in the footing, but I'm not sure about Tucker as he has shoes and his feet pack with snow.  I'll just have to see how I feel tomorrow and how the winds are behaving. 

The one big plus was that when I went out to feed the Boys their dinner, I hooked up the hose and, to my delight, the water ran through just fine so I could fill the water trough without carrying buckets!! I do have a coil hose on the back porch that I take out there now and then, but buckets actually take less time.  On the other hand, the regular hose is far more efficient and takes no time at all to fill the trough.  I love it when it works!  

Here's hoping we stay in "thaw" mode for a while longer.  The snow is gradually melting as I noted yesterday, and so far, the mud hasn't been bad.  Maybe we will luck out this time.