The Goblet of Fire
I liked the movie…the second time I saw it. The first time I thought it was genuinely funny, but that they rushed through the important parts of the story. The second time, I didn’t necessarily think that, because I knew what to expect and was able to see the movie for what it was instead of comparing it to the book. So my suggestion is to see it, then exit right back into the ticket line and see it again.
Jenn’s Ten Commandments for Movie Viewing.
I made the mistake of saying this weekend that I want to see the new King Kong because it looks cool. My friend said to me, “Wait, I thought you boycott all Hollywood remakes, especially of classic horror movies….and precisely GOOD classic horror movies.” And I said, “I do. When there is no loophole involved.” Well she just looked at me strangely, because clearly she did not realize that I consider my boycotts to be a science which has absolute rules and these rules must be followed except for some extremely unlikely, and perhaps paranormal, circumstances. Therefore to eliminate any confusion, I have created my Ten Commandments for Movie Viewing.
- David Lynch is the Lord thy God. You shall have no other directors before him.
- Thou shall not partake in any movie remakes as it takes the original movie’s name in vain. This is null and void if you really trust the director (aka Peter Jackson for King Kong) or Pierce Brosnan stars in it because he is very hot.
- Observe thy Sabbath, and forever keep the weekend matinee prices holy.
- Thou shall not view movies that incorporate stolen ideas, which includes any cliché action movie, drama, romantic comedy, horror, or anything with more than four pretty teenage actors or directed by Oliver Stone.
- Thou shall never bear false witness on how one has never actually viewed The Godfather until she was 28 years old, regardless how much Gene reminds you that his kids saw it before you have.
- Dishonor any movie starring someone who played a sitcom mother or father more than 5 years ago.
- Thou shall not murder Hollywood executives who believe video games will make good movies. God (and more importantly, David Lynch) frown upon this.
- Thou shall not covet thy neighbor's Halloween limited edition boxset with Michael Myers snowglobe, even though it is very, very cool.
- Or thy neighbors wife, as we generally frown upon adultery here. Unless your wife looks like Pierce Brosnan. Then it’s OK.
- This one changes depending on Jenn’s mood. Today it says, “They remade Vincent Prices’ House of Wax with….Paris Hilton??????? WHAT THE FLIPPING FUCK??????” Tune in when Jenn is not so emotional about the demise of one of her very, very favorite classic horror movies.
Speaking of Peter Jackson…
You know, 90% of people who think of Peter Jackson think of him as the director of Lord of the Rings. Despite that remarkable achievement, I can not think of him as anything else but the director of Dead Alive and Meet the Feebles. Dead Alive, and moreso it’s uncut version Brain Dead, has the reputation of being “the grossest film ever.” And Meet the Feebles is a R-Rated Muppet show spoof involving drug-abusing, murdering puppets who like porn. It’s tagline is “Hell hath no fury like a hippo with a machine gun.” So clearly, you can see my quandary.
Oh yes, and of course I’m advocating that you see it. Puppets on drugs should be required viewing for all.
“This isn’t Disney, we don’t have to be nice to you.”-- Best line heard at Universal Studios (Hollywood Make-Up Show)
So Saturday and Sunday morning, we occupied our time at Universal Studios. Nothing remarkable happened in the morning…Kathy found us without going to Tampa first (though I hear the Walgreens there is lovely), and we ended up parking in the Jaws parking lot. As we are all a fan of giant mechanical sharks, no one had a problem remembering this.
In general I like Universal Studios best of all the Orlando theme parks. There’s nothing cute with the exception of Seuss Landing (which is more mischievously cute than happy-go-lucky cute, and therefore, more tolerable), the attractions are much more technologically advanced, and they are based on movies that I’m actually a big fan of. Evidently, this only holds true for the Orlando location, as the one in Hollywood has attractions for rather odd films, including a Van Helsing ride. Clearly, they came up with the ride before realizing how bad the movie sucked.
Anyway, since I reviewed all the attractions last year, I’ll just review the three new things we saw. The first of which was the Jimmy Neutron Nick Toons Blast-Off. I was the only one who wanted to go on the ride, as I am a big fan of Spongebob Squarepants, and this was the only ride in which he was featured. The line took FOREVER to get through, and I couldn’t understand why because from what I heard, it was a giant theater. Well, that’s partially true. It is a giant theater, but filled with rocket ships that seat three people. You lock yourself in, and your rocket ship raises in the air and moves along with the movie. It doesn’t shake you up nearly as bad as Back to the Future (I‘ve concluded my facial twitch is permanent now). But it’s very fun. I quite recommend it.
The next was the Hollywood makeup show, which was very, very funny, mostly because it involved transvestitism. Universal Studios idea of a family show is quite different than Disney’s apparently. You don’t ever walk into a show at the Magic Kingdom and see Goofy wearing Jessica Rabbit’s push-up bra, do you?
The third new thing we caught was the Sinbad stunt show. It was entertaining enough, but completely passable, especially when (I’ve heard) compared to the Poseidon’s Fury stunt show, which has Greek gods at war with each other. Generally speaking I find summoning of a typhoon much more exciting than guys in turquoise parachute pants swinging over my head on a rope. Depending on how pathetic your love life is, you may think differently.
And then it was time for SPIDERMAN! Since the lines were pretty long, and I have absolutely zero patience as it is, I knew I’d only get to hit it once. Therefore, of course, the one we went on was broken. I thought this was very efficient of Universal to just break the ride when I was on it, especially since Disney went through all the trouble of breaking major attractions when they heard I was coming and thereby inconveniencing everyone else in the park. And the thing is, a broken car on Spiderman is NO fun, because the ride is on a track, but also uses 3-D movie screens so it seems like Spiderman/villains is really jumping on your car., you’re really going to hit buildings, etc. So when the car fails to move, the movies on the screen fail to turn on. So the last half of the ride was a trip through blank movie screens. On a positive note, this did end my lifelong battle with insomnia.
But the nice people at Universal, upon hearing that our Spidey car was broken, decided to put us right to the front of the line and let us go again. Mom was positively thrilled by this (In Spiderman, your car falls off several large buildings. As you can imagine, this is not the ride of choice for those who have motion sickness.) This time the car and the movie was in sync, and balance was restored. And I got licked by Venom. Dear Diary, today I became a woman.
So, I think that’s it. All in all, a successful trip. We got the car back to the rental place without getting too lost (emphasis on “too“). And we all made it back without our planes getting diverted to Idaho. Unfortunately, this means Monday this blog will return to it’s normal state of misinformation. Thank you for your cooperation during this unexpected glitch.
Finishing up with Magic Kingdom accountSo we started with Adventureland with the plan we’d move all the way around the park. We noticed the animatronic Enchanted Tiki Bird Roomwas updated to include Zazu (Lion King) and Iago from Aladdin who is voiced by Gilbert Godfried. That point is mostly for Reader
Andrea who has a fetish for Gilbert. I attempted to find a talking Iago for her, but I doubted Disney was fond of their products being used as aphrodisiacs.
Nothing of consequence happened in Adventureland, so we ended up in Fantasyland (with a quick stop off to shake our angry fists at the employees informing the public that Haunted Mansion was closed.) So, we ended up in Fantasyland, appropriately named if your fantasy includes driving a slow-moving vehicle through endless Disney movies. We spend a lot of time here mostly because these are the only types of rides Mom can handle without getting motion sickness. Unfortunately, as this is presumably the “kids” section of the park, many of the seating arrangements were designed for children. Therefore, I spend almost the entire boat ride of It’s a Small World with my knees blindfolding my eyes and hearing "It‘s a Small World" repeated incessantly in several different languages. I believe this is how we get prisoners of war to spill government secrets.
By far, the most impressive ride in Fantasyland is the Philharmagic, which is a 3-D adventure through famous Disney songs. And it stars Donald Duck, who is my favorite Disney character. (I generally only like Disney characters who have some sort of serious emotional problem: Donald Duck’s anger management issues, Eeyore’s depression, not to mention the villains borderline personality disorders, narcissism, and sociopathic tendencies). The 3-D was amazing, even more impressive than the 3-D in some of Universal’s attractions.
After we ate at The Crystal Palace….and I’m finally free of the “Where are we going? Where are we going?” parrots squaking incessantly in my ear…we go to Tomorrowland, which is where we discover the status of Closed Mountain. Hence, we leave Tomorrowland. We do a couple more things before the Main Street Electric Parade (it’s not called the Main Street Electric Parade anymore, but since I see no difference between what they did then and what they‘re doing now, it’s the damn Main Street Electric Parade. If you care enough to know the real name, well, you have your own search engine. Go use it.) Of course, as I’ve lost all ability to avoid the Little Mermaid, there were 978 floats devoted to her movie (OK, so I’m exaggerating. But only slightly.) I did cheer rather loudly when Ursula whizzed past. Kathy moved a couple feet to the left and pretended not to know me.
We head back to our car, because they had a desire to go to Downtown Disney, because we heard that there was a massive Disney Christmas Store there which caused both Kathy and Mom to foam at the mouth (they view Christmas decorations as crucial to life as others may view protein and Vitamin C). So, we had to go. Especially since my Dad avoided taking my mother there, as he had no desire to rent sixteen wheeler to get back home. On the way back to the car, Mom…whose directional ability is comparable to a compass in the hands of the X-Men villain, Magneto -- announces that we are parked in 313 Goofy. We find the car parked right where we left it….in 212 Pluto. At least she got the species right.
Nothing of consequence happened in Downtown Disney. More buying. More walking. Some drinking (which is probably why I don’t remember anything of consequence). I remember retreating to my hotel in a margarita haze, watching half an episode of
Law and Order SVU, before I lapsed into an over-stimulated coma. So all in all, a productive day.
Back to DisneyworldOK, this post was suppose to come yesterday, but it was looking to be a much longer post than the one I actually made yesterday. And that wouldn’t do, because
Netflix came in. Priorities, and all.
So we revert back in time to Friday, the day we were actually at Magic Kingdom
But first, let's make a pit stop at Thursday night. Because this was the point in time that we realized that we were expected to share a King bed with two perfect strangers. Normally, this is an activity I would encourage and in fact request, but Mom was sharing the room with me, and….well, that’s just creepy. Obviously, what happened was that two couples (Mom and I and a couple I’ll just refer to as Stranger 1 and Stranger 2) were put in the same room. Mom and I returned to our room after hitting a bar (priorities again) to find Stranger 1 and Stranger 2 leaving it. Apparently, they were put in that room earlier in the day (we didn’t see their luggage as it was in the closet when we put ours in there, and we left shortly after), and they returned back to our collective room quite confused that their luggage multiplied by, presumably, cellular mitosis. So we all went down to the desk to explain that, thank you very much, but we did not ask for the Orgy Room Option. They were given another room, we were kept in Orgy Land, and everything was right with the world.
Until the next night when mine’s and Mom’s keys failed to work entirely. Clearly if we couldn’t all get the Orgy Room, none of us would.
OK, Now we’re at the Magic KingdomOK, not really, because we’re downstairs waiting for Kathy. And Kathy is already ten minutes late, so I made the reasonable conclusion in thinking that she was currently circling the streets of Tampa (see “Getting Lost” from Monday’s post). But she arrived shortly after I started getting concerned. She said she was late because she stopped at Walgreens. I didn’t even know they had one of those in Tampa.
We get to the Magic KingdomAnd I realize exactly how poorly thought out the idea of trying to surprise Mom and Kathy is. My plan was to take them to The Crystal Palace to have dinner with Winnie the Pooh and friends (Kathy has some fetish for Eeyore. Mom just likes anyone in stuffed suits). The mistake came when I told them several weeks beforehand that I made reservations but wasn’t going to tell them where. So for the whole day up until our 3:30 dinner reservations, all I heard was:
“Where are we going? Where are we going? Where are we going? Where are we going? Where are we going? Where are we going? Where are we going? Where are we going? Where are we going? Where are we going? Where are we going? Where are we going? Where are we going?”
By noon I was pleading with one of the Pirates of the Caribbean to kidnap and pillage me. Unfortunately, animatronic pirates are not ones to take requests from pleading females.
Jay Leno once said “Boston is always changing, but it always remains the same.” That is also very true with the Magic Kingdom. There always seems to be new stuff, but it’s on the same technological level as the old stuff they replaced. For example, my favorite ride in Fantasyland was Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, which was a ride in a zig-zaggy car that took you through a dark, hellish location (I remember devils at the end). It was based on the old Disney film,
The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, which was taken from
The Wind and the Willows. I’m not sure why they closed this ride…..maybe the whole driving through Hell was not a proper fit for Fantasyland…..but they replaced it with a Winnie the Pooh ride. And we went on this (Kathy’s Eeyore fetish strikes again), and the technology is absolutely no improvement from Mr. Toad. Which is OK, I guess, because it gives the illusion that Winnie the Pooh has been there just as long as It’s a Small World, which might be what they were striving for.
Though I still think Mr. Toad was a much cooler ride, and not just because there were devils and you crashed through walls. You also got to ram into Disney characters. After 12 hours of walking through a happy cartoon character theme park, I really don’t need to explain how welcoming this is. Of course, on the ride your car also almost got hit by a high-speed train. But, feh. Pulmonary implosion makes you stronger, right?
“I don’t have pet peeves….I have major pathological hatreds.” -- George CarlinMy friend Kathy does not understand something about me. Namely, how far I will go with boycotting Hollywood crap.
Let me explain. When we went to Universal Studios last year, I rode virtually every ride with her except The Revenge of the Mummy. Now the ride is presumably a roller coaster in the dark which takes you through a mummy’s tomb where you meet scarab beetles, fire, and giant mummies. Now, this might seem to you that it would be something I would enjoy given that I am a fan of both mummies and roller coasters. And it could possibly be the coolest ride in the park. Yet, I didn’t go on. Why? Because the ride is based on that horrible Brendan Fraiser version of
The Mummy (you know, the one with lots of bad acting, a storyline they raped from the far-superior Karloff version, and horrible HORRIBLE CGI effects? Yeah, that one.). And therefore since I loathe the movie, I boycott the ride. Of course that’s not the only reason, there is the fear component. Mostly, I’m afraid it would be better than the Spiderman ride (which is currently the best ride in the whole wide world). Therefore, if I don’t go on The Revenge of the Mummy ever, I never have to admit that the crappy, crappy Mummy is better than the very, very cool Spiderman. I really don’t see why she doesn’t understand the importance of this.
Of course, I almost faltered this year and went on the damn thing, because the little voice in my head was screaming “Mummies! Roller coaster! Woo hoo!” (though it screams that anyway when walking 4645 miles in circles for three days straight). Then I went on
Back to the Future. After there days of non-stop rides, and failing to remember how much damage Back to the Future does to my cranium (it shakes you up A LOT. And the walls of the car are not padded either. I may never get rid of this facial twitch.), I reached the point of complete over-stimulation, and the only ride I wanted to take was the monorail to the nearest place that sold tequila and loose women (not for myself, of course. It’s just that in the state I was in, the only people looking worse than me would be prostitutes). So, I ended up boycotting The Mummy yet again. I’m happy….Kathy is still confused…balance was restored.
And just for the record….The cool-looking Six Flags roller-coaster Superman’s Ride of Steel? That boycott of mine hasn’t faltered in four years. All because I think the concept behind Superman is kinda dumb.
Back from the Now-Annual Trip to OrlandoLast year, myself, Friend Kathy, and Mom went to Universal Studios in December to see their Holiday extravaganza. After the trip, we decided to make Orlando an annual event. So, we went this weekend. And since I’m just very, very happy to have some shit to tell you about, I’m going to dedicate this week’s blogs to our Orlando experience.
Getting Lost: hey, it’s how Columbus discovered America, right?
Originally, it was only going to be Mom and I on this vacation because there was a possibility that Dad was going to go, and we thought a double dose of estrogen was all Dad could handle. However, Dad had an audit at work, so Kathy came with us, which is how we all ended up flying completely different airlines and arriving at radically different times. Kathy ended up landing in Orlando at 11:00 a.m. Thursday. I came in at about 5:30 p.m. Mom came in about 11:00 p.m. I believe this was the same time table the aliens from
Independence Day used when blowing up the major cities of the world.
Problem Number Uno occurred when it was discovered that Kathy was not at the same Fairfield Inn as Mom and I. When she was making reservations, I told Kathy our Fairfield Inn was on Vineyard. And so was hers. The problem is, ours was on Vineyard Rd. and hers was on Vineyard Ave, which are inconveniently not the same street. Since we were planning on relying solely on taxis/buses to get us where we had to go – and this was a bit more complicated when all the members of your party are not in the same hotel – I came up with the idea that Kathy should go rent a car, I will call her after I take a taxi to my hotel, and she can come pick me up for dinner.
Now, you are probably thinking “Why didn’t you just have her pick you up at the airport?” Well, the fact of the matter is I was not completely convinced Kathy could pick me up at the airport prior to my departing flight on Sunday. Kathy has a bit of a problem with navigating herself without getting severely lost. Perhaps she watched
Labyrinth too much as a child. So I thought it would just be easier if I took a cab to my hotel, dump off my bag, and she could meet me there as her hotel was only a mile or so away from mine. I figured we'd be back to the hotel at about 8:00 p.m., and I can chill out for a couple hours until Mom arrives.
I called Kathy from my hotel at 6:15 p.m.
She said, "I'll be there in ten minutes."
I saw Kathy pull up at about 8:00 p.m.
She claimed a faulty map made her drive in circles for two hours. I immediately recognized this scenario as a scene from one of the Freddy Kruegar sequels.
A little overview of Day 1Even though we already had passes to Universal Studios that were paid for, and despite the fact that I would be quite happy returning to Universal Studios/Islands of Adventure and perhaps living there so I can spend the remainder of my days on earth riding The Amazing Adventures of Spiderman, Kathy has never been to Disneyworld. So I made the executive decision sometime this spring to spend a day at the Magic Kingdom. Mom and Kathy agreed. So that’s three theme parks (Universal is two parks), on a holiday weekend, in two and a half days, in case you were keeping score at home.
I’ll get into our Magic Kingdom adventures more tomorrow, but I’ll just give you some overarching observations to titillate your palate.
The Magic Kingdom is very, very cool….until you see Universal Studios. I remember when I first saw the Magic Kingdom, I thought it was soooooo cool (and I wasn’t a little kid either when everything was soooooooooo cool, I was in my teens). I thought this because I never been on rides that were “experiences” before. And I still held this notion about Magic Kingdom when I went to Universal last year. But now that I went to Universal -- which is much more modern and the effects on their rides are very, very real….the Magic Kingdom seems to be one long boat ride of singing puppets. Not that this ISN’T entertaining, it is, but I was expecting the same level of “WOW.” I hear though that Disney MGM, which was just opening the first time I went and therefore only had a couple rides, has really built itself up to this level of "WOW", so I’m really excited to see that next year for our Epcot/MGM/Animal Kingdom weekend we’re planning. Well, Mom and I will see it anyway. Kathy will probably be driving in circles around Embassy Suites in Orlando.
Animatronics look fake, except when they don't. The puppets on the Pirates of the Caribbean, you can tell are puppets. However, I am not completely sure if the Presidents in The Hall of Presidents are puppets, or Disney kidnapped random presidential look-alikes and force them to put on a stage show every 30 minutes. Their motions are almost too smooth to not be real.
I will never, ever go on Space Mountain. I have never, ever been on Space Mountain. It’s not that I don’t want to, in fact I would very much like to. However, in the grand tradition of Jenn Going to Disneyworld, Space Mountain was closed. Presumably it’s never closed for the whole day, just every time I want to go on it. Therefore, in all vacation reports this week, I will be referring to it as Closed Mountain.
And speaking of major closed attractions… this year Disney must have heard I was coming in advance, because The Haunted Mansion was also closed. Which isn’t a big deal, except it’s my favorite ride in Magic Kingdom (I’m sure this is shocking to all of you). This made me stamp, curse, and shout a lot of non-Disney-like phrases.
I can never escape from Arielle. I will go on record by saying I absolutely hate
The Little Mermaid. This is because
The Little Mermaid, which came out when I was in high school (or thereabouts), made Disney “cool” again among high school girls. I went to an all girls school so The Little Mermaid was EVERYWHERE….pictures in lockers, pictures taped on binders, tee shirts, the soundtrack blaring in the hallways, etc., etc., etc. I’d probably have more tolerance for it now, however back then I wore exclusively black and watched horror movies 24/7. (yes, I don’t see much improvement in my thought processes either). So I had little or no tolerance for "cute" things, especially pretty little singing mermaids. So my Mom and Kathy, knowing how
The Little Mermaid is my equivalent of Kryptonite, made sure to point out every Little Mermaid piece of merchandise in every store we went into. By the end of the day, I was reduced to weak whimpers of dismay.
With that being said, my favorite villain is Ursula. Because she hates
The Little Mermaid as much as I do. And she was based on Divine, the drag queen from John Waters flicks (that is actually true. It certainly makes her more appealing, doesn’t it?).
I have more points, but I’ve reached the end of my blogging time. Therefore, I’ll continue our adventures tomorrow….
