June 18, 1992
Dear Everyone:
A real short letter this week.
I've been invited to do some
"networking" at lunch today; and tomorrow, I'll be spending my lunch
break getting to “Livermore” for a previously-unplanned afternoon
meeting of my Destruction Review QI Team (I'm the Team Leader).
More about that later.
Last weekend, “Jeannie” and I decided to break with
tradition and, instead of going to a movie, we went to
two movies.
We went down to San Ramon (it's
so nice living within 30 min. of half a dozen movie complexes) for the
one o'clock "cheap" showing of
Far
and Away. There were about 20
people in the whole theater, making jokes to each other about being able
to find seats. It doesn't look
like this one is going to be a big box office smash.
Set near the turn of the century, this "epic"
follows a pair of Irish immigrants, one
shanty, one
lace-curtain, who,
fed up with the Old Country, make their way to America, expecting free
land and streets paved with gold. What
they find, of course, is grinding poverty and bare-knuckles boxing
(which allows Tom Cruise to take his shirt off as much as possible) and
a nice man who helps them, saying, "We’ll find you a place to stay (a
brothel), a job (plucking chickens) and, when the time comes, we'll tell
you who to vote for."
In time (about 2 hours’ worth), our plucky hero and
heroine make their way to the West, where director
Ron Howard employs
many people (and horses, and
multi--wheeled vehicles) to re-create the
Oklahoma Land Rush and proves
that, as long as Ron makes movies, his dad,
Rance and brother,
Clint,
will always be able to find work. If
you want to see 70-mm sweeping cinematography of the Great Plains,
better hurry. I don't think this
one will stay in the theaters long and the scope will be lost on video.
The movie let out at 3:30.
We moseyed on over to McDonald's
for a late lunch, then sauntered back to the theater for the "cheap"
showing of
Patriot Games.
As a thriller, this one doesn't
have much. Predictable, most of
the "plot" is given away in the trailers.
On a scale of 1 to 10, it's not as good as
The Hunt for Red October, but
it's definitely better than
the remake of
Cape Fear.
Other movies…
Passed Away,
which has already passed away from movie houses, was not the comedy that
it was advertised as. Rather,
it's a gentle look at a middle-class family coping with the sudden death
of, and necessary funeral arrangements for, the father who keels over at
work. It has all the elements of
a family in morning; the wake, for you meet cousins you haven't seen in
a decade; the helpful neighbors and relatives who descend on you,
casseroles in hand; the hordes of small children who have no idea why
they had to dress up, come to a "party", and then get told to keep
quiet. Of course, most
middle-class family wakes aren't crashed by the Immigration Service.
A good one to pick up at the
video store to watch on a rainy afternoon.
Lethal Weapon
3. Regret to say, this one
does not have the "depth" of the first two.
No "character development".
According to one
behind-the-scenes source, they didn't even have a script for the first
few weeks, just stuck Mel Gibson and Danny Glover in front of the camera
and told them to add Lib. If you
do decide to go see it, just for the popcorn, of course, be sure to stay
through all of the closing
credits or you'll miss the final punch line.
Aliens3.
Dark, not very exciting.
Not to give away the ending, but
Arnold Schwarzenegger may have started a fad with his end to
Terminator 2.
Gotta run.
Love, as always,
Pete
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