Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (Gore Verbinski, 2006) 2
on 35mm at some movie theater outside of Pleasanton, with Lucía, Lorin, Heidi, Phil, and Yasuko. 6 August, 2006, 12:25.
Stupid movie. I actually enjoyed it better than the first one, I think. But I don’t actually remember the first one; I just remember not liking it. Anyways, it reminded me of playing The Secret of Monkey Island, which is about as good a thing as I can say about it.
The Devil Wears Prada (David Franklin, 2006)
on 35mm at the AMC 1000 Van Ness, with Lucía. 30 July, 2006, at 20:20.
Well, this is what happens when you go to a multiplex without looking at the schedule first. It was this or waiting for over an hour to see Miami Vice (which, being a 2.5 hour film, was out of the question) or something far worse. In any case, the opening sequence was fantastic, and the film was pretty much downhill from there. Among other things, Anne Hathaway looked like a movie star the moment she came onto the screen, and therefore made for a very implausible frumpy recent college grad with no knowledge of the fashion industry. What’s more, her character seemed like a pretty blank slate coming into the film, with no personality whatsoever, so it only seems natural for her to absorb the traits of the industry (only to finally realize that her dull old awkward nothing self is better than her new, superficial, glamorous, awkward self, wink-wink, nudge-nudge). Meryl Streep makes a good villainess, and Anne Hathaway has big, moist-looking eyes.
Probably the best thing about the film was that it was mercifully short. The moralizing fell quite flat for me, the story came to an inevitably eye-rolling ending, and I probably should have left around the time Anne Hathaway threw her cell phone into the fountain.