Two for Tuesday: Movies

Two ducks in Los Angeles 

Last Friday my friend and I saw Coyote vs Acme at the Bella Terra theater in Huntington Beach. (Dinner first at the Cheesecake Factory, which is always delicious, even if you don’t have dessert.) We really liked it! Just good nostalgic fun with no profound messages, except maybe a reinforcement of the thrill of the chase being superior to the catch. (Sometimes.) If you aren’t that familiar with the old cartoons however, you might not find the movie super enjoyable. Apparently, the film was inspired by a 1990 article in the NYT, which you aren’t even allowed to read as a gift article if you don’t have a subscription. Whatever. They suck.

Saturday I went up to Los Angeles in a carpool to see Project Hail Mary with other friends. These peeps have a super big TV screen, so we had the pleasure of that along with the comfort of being in a private home. I’m glad I read Andy Weir’s book first because otherwise I might have been confused at some points, especially during the backstory scenes. I really enjoyed seeing how the alien was depicted onscreen after imagining him via Andy’s words on the page. It was an excellent movie, and we all loved it. I highly recommend the book and the film. 

Unfortunately, my alien-themed cupcakes, while cute, tasted awful. Pillsbury is usually great, but the pistachio cake mix, along with the frosting, was just plain yuck. I don’t understand how they messed up so dramatically, but I had a bad feeling as soon as I opened the box and took a sniff. Since sometimes my sense of smell is off, I made them anyway (baked late Friday night and frosted Saturday morning). I definitely do not recommend this product.

I also saw The Phantom of the Opera musical at the Segerstrom Center in Costa Mesa on Sunday (told you I’ve been busy, not to mention working some OT for month-end). The tickets were a birthday gift from my daughter and son-in-law. We were all unfamiliar with the story, but the singing and costumes were gorgeous, so it was a lot of fun even if we didn’t follow 100% of what was going on. One of my close friends was at the same showing, but her seat was nowhere near us, so we couldn’t chat.

A musical version of The Great Gatsby is scheduled for next May at Segerstrom, and I hope to see that too. I am familiar with this story! I only read the book like five times and watched two versions of the movie.