Intolerable Cruelty

On Saturday, I finally went and saw, "Brokeback Mountain." J and I opted to see it at the The Arclight.

Let me start by saying, I LOVE the Arclight. Its assigned seating but patrons can choose their spots. GREAT people watching in ticket lines. The sound is great, all of the theaters have stadium seating, comfy seats, good munchie selections AND ushers who try to accommodate you while viewing your flick. (AND…there's an actual bar with actual drinkie-drinks.)

We arrived just a few minutes before the movie was starting, so our seat selection was down to the last few. There were a few on the very bottom and few on the very top. We went to the top.

As we nestled comfortably into our chairs, there was a woman on one side of me and then an empty chair next to her. That was fine. What happened next was NOT fine…

A woman comes barreling up the stairs with the LARGEST popcorn available to man, nachos, well-sized drink and loudly barks to her friend, "_____, can you move over to the next seat??"

Oh no. So Lady-with-the-concessions plops down right next to me. At first, everything seemed okay, except as the movie started, the crunching had begun. Now, I know. People crunch popcorn. This was different as she was putting so much effort in that she was taking obsessive LARGE breaths in between. She was "out of breath" from eating her vat of popcorn.

As that slowly started my descent into anger-at-movies-hell, the two of them started to have little discussions.

"Isn't that Heath Ledger?"

"Oh yes, that's him."

"What was he in again, Braveheart?"

"No, NOT Braveheart, The Patriot."

"Oh yea. He looks different in this movie…."

"He sure does."

These little dialogues happened about every 12 minutes. Yes. I was checking the time to see how long it would take for the next one to start.

"Isn't that guy Jake Gyllenhaal?"

"From Spider-man?"

"No, that's Tobey something."

"Oh, right."

And my personal favorite:

"I know her! That girl (woman is pointing to the extra in a scene and loudly saying this) …she's my doctor'sbestfriendsdaughter-in-law. He told me to watch for her! She's finally getting a break in the movies."

"Wonderful."

J, of course, had no one on the other side of him and of course, I was the only person to his right so after the movie, when I started my tirade about these vicious interruptions, he was like, "What? I didn't hear a thing."

The movie was good. Heath was amazing.

And then there was yesterday morning. I honestly thought the voice from the original Amityville Horror was alive and thriving in my living room ("GET OUT…")

I planned on making chili yesterday. At around 8 a.m., I squintally got out of bed, put on a pot of coffee and start the chili process.

As I blearily put together the coffee stuff, I heard this loud noise, like an airplane or a surge of warped speed light saber sounds. I walked to my window thinking a plane was about to smash into my building when it occurred to me, the people across the way must have gotten a surround sound system…it works. Especially at 8 a.m. on a Sunday. Yay for me.

My "only in L.A." for the day?
As I was pulling out of my apartment, a 60+ year old man was jogging, barefoot in his Speedos around the neighborhood!