Yesterday Dianne & I had the day off so we took the opportunity to finally go see a matinee performance of Return of the King. The beauty of waiting so long to see it, apart from the joy of anticipation I get, is the fact that the theatre was virtually empty. We had our pick of seats and were able to enjoy the movie in almost perfect solitude. I say almost because even though there was hardly any one else there, the experience was marred to some degree when a couple brought their five or six year old kid in to see the film. Every two minutes he was asking "Who is that? What's he doing?" in a voice loud enough to compete with the soundtrack. Nonetheless, the movie, to quote a rather silly cliche, blew our socks off. Once we had collected our footwear, we left the theatre emotionally exhausted and wanting to come back to see it again. I can only imagine how great it will be next Christmas when the extended version comes out. At least then I can sit end enjoy all three parts, by myself, with no annoying play by play commentary coming from the back row.
And now that I have seen all three Lord of the Rings movies on the big, big screen, I would be happy if I never set foot in a theatre again. I find it totally annoying that after paying $9 to $14 to get in, then being robbed blind for some oily, over salted popcorn and some sugary flavoured water, we have to sit through all those trailers and then...actual commercials! Then, as if that is not irritating enough, they have to lay on the guilt trip by dragging out some guy who claims to be a set painter or a stuntman who whines away for five minutes about how people who download illegal movies takes food off his table. First off, he's probably an actor anyway and second, whether he's an actor or not, he's getting paid union scale to make those pictures and will continue to get paid whether the picture flops or not. The only ones hurt are the fat cat studio executives who don't get as large a slice of the pie. Those bootleg movies aren't all that great anyhow, or so I've heard. They are usually such poor quality, have Japanese subtitles on them and you have to listen to the guy holding the video camera yakking away to his girlfriend. In Japanese..

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