Good Evening!
I ended up heading over to Andy's where I fixed some stuff on his computer, and then we drove over to Reston Towne Center to catch a movie. We decided to see the not-so-new-anymore "Star Wars" movie. I liked it, did not love it by any means. However, there were some pretty good sequences, my favorite being the end where all the groundwork was laid for "Star Wars: A New Hope". -And as DR elmore had mentioned, hearing the "Luke and Leia" theme was a very nice touch.
The acting - or lack thereof - in the movie bugged me to no end. Only the villains seemed to be in the same movie, so to speak. Everyone else just seemed to be playing themselves and speaking their lines. And then there was all that CGI "acting". Although it's been years since I've seen the "first" one, I distinctly remember a mock-yet-sincere Shakespearean approach to the acting. Yes, they were having fun up there in this big adventure, but it always came back to the big picture, the battle between good and evil. Yes, I know many years have passed since the "first" Star Wars came out, but a lot of the acting just seemed too contemporary, too relaxed to me. Even some of the bit parts were painfully miscast, amazingly over- and under-acted to me.
Oh, and I miss Yoda being a puppet. Talk about being CGI-ed to death! I felt he looked less real in this movie than in the previous ones.
And I did find myself wishing for more real people, real sets, real lights, etc. as the movie went along. Computers have definitely helped the craft of movies, I just wish they didn't make the movies so much nowadays. Seems like more science than art.
...Just my two cents.
But it was nice to see a movie again in a theatre - the first time I had seen anything since "Team America" in Houston last fall.
After the movie, we walked over to the Rio Grande Cafe for a late dinner. Very good Tex-Mex food, and a very cute if somewhat absent-minded waiter.
