Friday Night In A Suburb Of The Big Town - Pacific Rim Review

Greetings from Moore, OK.  Tidy little suburb of Oklahoma City that tornadoes try (and fail) to erase, home of one of the best public libraries in the whole universe, and home of the absolutely fabulous Moore Warren Theatre and IMAX Theatre. 
It was the IMAX theatre that got our attention this Friday Night.  (By the way, for those of you NOT from the 405, Friday Night In The Big Town is a favorite phrase of our local weather forecasting god, Gary England. )  Matt and I went to see Pacific Rim at the Warren IMAX.  It is absolutely gobsmackingly astounding.  This is one of the most fun movies I've seen in a long time.  Takes you back to the monster movies of yesteryear, when the good guys fought hard, came close to losing, but mustered the strength to go on. 
I HAD to see this movie.  Not just because I started watching Gigantor

(See picture right) when I was a little kid, but because Ron Perlman is in  it, and he is someone whose skill as an actor (and sense of humor) I admire. 
He plays a Kaiju parts dealer (on the black market, of course)  in the film.  For a girl who grew up loving giant robots, and who fell in love with Perlman's acting abilities in Beauty and the Beast, this movie is most definitely a MUST SEE. 

I loved the Jaegers.  They were such lovely tributes to the Mecha characters that had come before, while also being very new and unique.  My favorite, of course, was Gypsy Danger. A classic and beautiful design. The story was well developed enough to let you care about the characters and their world, but not overblown.  The movie was above all else, fun.  Perlman's character provides a lot of that fun, and so so do the two scientists.  Watching giant robots fight giant monsters is most of the fun, though.  The Jaegers are impressive.  The detail that Guillermo Del Toro puts in all his movies served this one best of all.  Pacific Rim is a feast for the eyes and the imagination.  There is more detail here than you will ever see in one viewing.  I wish I could afford to see it in 3-D IMAX again. 

It was a visceral experience.  Sounds you could feel, and I kept fighting the urge to duck objects flying toward me during the battle scenes.
If you want to feel like a kid again, to enjoy a movie just for the fun of it, you NEED to go see Pacific Rim. 

When we saw it this evening, so did a BUNCH more people.  There were all ages and all walks of life in there to see this movie.  And one of the most polite crowds you'll find anywhere.  (Hey, we are in Moore, OK, and  even the folks who drive up from Texas are nice when they're here.)  This town seems to do that to people.  Makes everyone feel closer and less like strangers.  Especially lately, and especially at the theater, where you can look across and see the wreckage of the hospital that the tornado ate.  The buildings are down now, it's just a big rubble pile that is being systematically sorted through and taken away, but still.  It is jarring.  There are few trees on that side of town anymore.  There are a few of what I call "Tornado trees" still standing.  They are broken off , few branches left, but still defiantly leafing out all over the ends of their truncated branches.  Still alive and daring the world to do something about it.  Kind of like the Jaegers at one point in this film.

There is a tornado tree at the right of this picture, taken 3 days ago at Veteran's Memorial Park here in Moore.  (By the way, go to parks.livepositively.com  and vote for Veteran's Memorial Park in Moore, so that we have a chance to win a $100,000.00 grant to help rebuild the park!  Voting ends July 15.)

That is about all for tonight.  It was one of the best and most entertaining Friday nights I've had for a LONG time.  It was kind of nice to see something besides weather bashing humanity around, and nice that humanity could actually fight back.  'Cause when the monsters came smashing through our town, there wasn't any way to fight.  I think this movie was very satisfying to many of us just because of that.  Thanks, Mr. Del Toro.  We needed this.

Some Observations

Can't think of a coherent topic today, so little pieces of things I have gleaned over the last few days:



Every inanimate object in this house that gets in my way, acts up, or otherwise thwarts me is of illegitimate parentage.  (At least that's what I tell the world when said objects thwart me.) 
Though, sometimes these objects and the circumstances surrounding the thwarting of my purpose are said to be fornicating. 

I hate rolly-pollys.  Pill bugs, woodlice, whatever you call them.  They came in the house somehow and died in their hundreds along the baseboards on the north wall of our bedroom.  I spent several minutes this morning removing the corpses.  I have also now sprayed the exterior and interior surfaces at the base of that wall.  I better NOT see any more rolly pollys.  (Chemical warfare is on! I have my chem gear, bugs.  Do YOU?!)

While losing weight is very good, and important for my health; when my favorite pants are TOO BIG, it isn't so much fun.  These were nice trouser jeans that I got on sale, and I really liked them.  Now I can't wear them, and I can't find replacements. Also, replacing clothing that no longer fits is getting expensive.  Matt has lost enough to be back in his smaller set of slacks, but if he loses as much as he intends to, we're going to go broke buying clothes.  A lot of my stuff will still fit all right, but his slacks most definitely will not. (I don't even want to think about how much it will cost to get new brassieres.  I will have to custom order because of band size vs cup size.  Been there before.  Not cheap or easy.)

The cords on vacuum cleaners, extension cords, and garden hoses will tie themselves in knots the minute you unwind them, no matter how carefully and correctly they were wound up after the last use.  It's some kind of law that you must stop and unsnarl them from themselves every time you go to use them.  The same is true of ear bud cords.  I am looking forward to the day I can get Blue Tooth headphones.

Now that I'm older, I notice it more when I don't eat.  Used to be able to eat a couple of lettuce leaves for lunch when dieting and not have it really bother me.  Not so anymore.  The stomach rebels, and I get light headed.  So I keep fruit and low fat cheese and crackers in the house.  I also feel the effects of alcohol much more strongly on an almost empty stomach.  (No surprise there!) 

When one of your friends has a great experience, it can make you really happy, too.  Glad to share vicariously in a friend's OzComiCon adventure, mostly because she is so over the moon about it.  It is great to know that someone I really like and care about is having such a great experience.  Great to see other fellow fans being supportive and happy for her, too.  No griping and jealousy.  Renews my faith in human nature.  (And my faith in my own judgement about people. Especially regarding a certain actor.)

Though I have been kind of superstitious in the past, I haven't seriously had "lucky" clothes or items.  Not until now.  I now have a lucky shirt.  (2 actually).  Both have the same artwork on them.  One of Michael Ornstein's paintings called "Blue Sweater."  I really like the art, and every time I wear one of those shirts, good things happen.  So when I need a little boost, or I want to maybe send a friend a little good luck, I wear one of the shirts.  Has worked every time so far! :-)  I am going to have to order a third one soon.  I'm going to need a smaller size! 

Two adults can generate more laundry than you would believe.  There are only two of us here,  yet I end up doing seven or eight loads of laundry every week.  (Well, I do have to separate things that need special care, and we do have towels at least every other week.)

My throat will be perfectly clear all day until I start to do voice practice.  Then every little bit of phlegm in the universe comes to visit.  Very glad I only sing for fun.  Would hate to depend upon this capricious voice for my livelihood.   Singing is done for the love of it.  For the soaring, ringing beauty of great music.  To share with others when appropriate, but not for money.  For money, I do something I also love and believe in passionately.  I help keep our public library open and running smoothly.  Getting people access to the information they need to make decisions, or just finding a good book to read for fun, or a DVD to watch is important.  Freedom for ALL to access ANY information they need is important.  Helps keep a democracy going.  Helps people keep learning and growing their whole lives long.

Things are still shocking me as regards the tornado damage.  Intellectually I know they are tearing down what was left of the hospital.  Still knocks me for a loop every time I drive down there.  My landmarks in that part of town are just GONE.  Still grateful that our large retail areas are intact.  City could not have taken that big of a sales tax hit.
 Extremely grateful to Bill Warren for building his theater so well.  It is a beacon across the darkened parking lot and the highway from the book drop when I have to go empty it some Thursday nights.  Always cheers me up to see the Warren over there with its old school movie palace design.  So glad I am going to get to go see Pacific Rim on Friday evening in the IMAX theater at the Warren. 

Got to see Pacific Rim.  Not JUST because Ron Perlman is in it,  and I happen to love his acting,(Okay, I love HIM, too) but because it is about giant robots.  I LOVED Gigantor as a young child.  Always wanted my own giant robot.  In this movie, humans control giant robots to fight giant monsters.  All that excitement AND Ron Perlman!  You can't ask for better than that for a great summer movie. 

That is about all the random observations that I can come up with for now.  I happen to know there is a load of laundry waiting to be folded and put away, so I'll be on my way.
Thanks for reading. 
As Ever,
Katie