A Later Stand: X-MEN 3 at Kip's Bay.
No review revues just yet... I have M:I:III, The Proposition, Friends with Money and X-Men 3 reviews on the way.
Here is an appetizer for my remaining reader(s).
I'm somewhere in between slight disappointment and slight indifference with X3, but then again I never thought X2 could be followed up without Brian Singer at the helm. However, without reviewing the film, I will say my theater-going experience superceeded the film in every way. For the NYers past and present, the UA14, Loews 34th St and essentially every other big house was sold out for their 7-10pm showings -- with the exception of Kip's Bay. I've always been a fan of the theater; it's large, I've never seen too crowded or insane like the 42nd St theaters. I should back pedal a bit and state I have never been there on opening night nor for a big summer movie like X3. Any who... my friends and I get there around 10pm for a 10:30 show and there was confusion as to a meeting point. Let's just move the story along and say we eventually found each other upstairs after about 10 minutes of wondering where my roommate John Freewell went. We enter the theater and it's pretty crowded but not packed yet; there were five of us, so finding seating proved to be tough. We noticed that the last row of the "orchestra" level (farthest from the screen) was empty. We sit down. I turn around to examine the near-capacity theater now. Right behind me is Elizabeth Berkley. Yes, Jesse Spano of Saved By The Bell fame... and Showgirls infamy... and Roger Dodger obscurity. While my friends debated whether or not it was actually her, we could overhear here talking on her cell phone where she spoke of Conan O'Brien's show and all of her friends who were either on it or going to be on it. Then, the movie starts... (Sidebar: Applause for Superman, Pirates, My Super Ex, and Ghost Rider trailers...crickets during the uber-awful Clerks 2 trailer) Throughout the film these rowdy teenagers in thr front row shout out shit at the screen -- and not like "oooh shiiiit!" stuff but like "He's a soldier!" Every now and again, they'd get up and walk around the theater (visible bottle of alcohol in hand), one time in front of the projection. Employees of the theater came in and did nothing. Then, at the very end of the film when Magneto gets hit with "the cure" (no Robert Smith was harmed in the making of this film) one of the kids shouts "HE'S A LIAR!!!" But not to the screen -- to someone else. People near them started losing it as the movie's moving along towards its conclusion. It looked like one of the guys in the group jumped into the row behind them and started shit, but I'm pretty sure it was the group of friends fucking around. Elizabeth Berkley high tails it out of the movie before the end credits hit. Everyone exits the theater at movie's end. Standing in the upstairs lobby, talking about the whole bizzare experience, all of the sudden we notice Kips Bay employees run towards our theater. Three of the kids are walking out, very visibly angry and one completely shirtless. The word "fuck" and many variations of it were shouted very loudly as well as the phrase "Don't touch me!" As the rowdy teens are being escorted down the stairs out of the theater, one swings on the other and a fight breaks loose on the stairs. This continues in the lobby, mind you a full movie theater is exiting while this is going on. Eventually, the movie theater employees got the teens out. The fight never stopped. It just moved outside...and grew. About three separate little fights broke out in front of the crowd and movie theater, eventually turning into one large fight that the police eventually came and broke up.
Go ahead. Ask me about X-Men 3: The Last Stand. I'll remember this story better than the movie.
Here is an appetizer for my remaining reader(s).
I'm somewhere in between slight disappointment and slight indifference with X3, but then again I never thought X2 could be followed up without Brian Singer at the helm. However, without reviewing the film, I will say my theater-going experience superceeded the film in every way. For the NYers past and present, the UA14, Loews 34th St and essentially every other big house was sold out for their 7-10pm showings -- with the exception of Kip's Bay. I've always been a fan of the theater; it's large, I've never seen too crowded or insane like the 42nd St theaters. I should back pedal a bit and state I have never been there on opening night nor for a big summer movie like X3. Any who... my friends and I get there around 10pm for a 10:30 show and there was confusion as to a meeting point. Let's just move the story along and say we eventually found each other upstairs after about 10 minutes of wondering where my roommate John Freewell went. We enter the theater and it's pretty crowded but not packed yet; there were five of us, so finding seating proved to be tough. We noticed that the last row of the "orchestra" level (farthest from the screen) was empty. We sit down. I turn around to examine the near-capacity theater now. Right behind me is Elizabeth Berkley. Yes, Jesse Spano of Saved By The Bell fame... and Showgirls infamy... and Roger Dodger obscurity. While my friends debated whether or not it was actually her, we could overhear here talking on her cell phone where she spoke of Conan O'Brien's show and all of her friends who were either on it or going to be on it. Then, the movie starts... (Sidebar: Applause for Superman, Pirates, My Super Ex, and Ghost Rider trailers...crickets during the uber-awful Clerks 2 trailer) Throughout the film these rowdy teenagers in thr front row shout out shit at the screen -- and not like "oooh shiiiit!" stuff but like "He's a soldier!" Every now and again, they'd get up and walk around the theater (visible bottle of alcohol in hand), one time in front of the projection. Employees of the theater came in and did nothing. Then, at the very end of the film when Magneto gets hit with "the cure" (no Robert Smith was harmed in the making of this film) one of the kids shouts "HE'S A LIAR!!!" But not to the screen -- to someone else. People near them started losing it as the movie's moving along towards its conclusion. It looked like one of the guys in the group jumped into the row behind them and started shit, but I'm pretty sure it was the group of friends fucking around. Elizabeth Berkley high tails it out of the movie before the end credits hit. Everyone exits the theater at movie's end. Standing in the upstairs lobby, talking about the whole bizzare experience, all of the sudden we notice Kips Bay employees run towards our theater. Three of the kids are walking out, very visibly angry and one completely shirtless. The word "fuck" and many variations of it were shouted very loudly as well as the phrase "Don't touch me!" As the rowdy teens are being escorted down the stairs out of the theater, one swings on the other and a fight breaks loose on the stairs. This continues in the lobby, mind you a full movie theater is exiting while this is going on. Eventually, the movie theater employees got the teens out. The fight never stopped. It just moved outside...and grew. About three separate little fights broke out in front of the crowd and movie theater, eventually turning into one large fight that the police eventually came and broke up.
Go ahead. Ask me about X-Men 3: The Last Stand. I'll remember this story better than the movie.
posted by jason.jackowski | Saturday, June 10, 2006
2 Comments:
SPOILER ALERT!
Well, I've seen it already. What do I care?
I am old. There was gunplay in the theater where I saw Boyz in tha Hood during its theatrical run. Me & my girlfriend at the time were in the front row (at the always dangerous Cinema 1,2,3 on Manhattan's notorious Upper East Side) and just sat on the floor for a few minutes, until the guy with the weapon ran from the theater after brandishing it at another patron who had asked him to please shut the fuck up.
Then, up on 86th & Lex, when there was a movie theater there, me and a friend were on our way in, and saw a frightened (and stupid) courier draw his weapon on a small group of unruly teens who were hassling him. Undaunted, one of them got down on his knees in front of the man, and practically begged him to shoot him. The police arrived and after convincing the courier to put down his weapon, (despite his protestations and brandishing of his little courier badge) wrestled him to the ground while the kids ran off. I don't remember what movie I saw that night.
Just saw Taylor Nichols playing some small business CEO in some dumb commercial. More fodder for your future Whit Stillman "Where are they now?" feature.
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