Last night Ouwen and his friend Boshi went to see Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull at the Bay Street Cinema in Emeryville while Lingling and I went to Sex and the City. LL, OZ, and I had already seen Indy last weekend, but Boshi, who is staying with us for three days while his mother attends a conference in Monterey, hadn't. Last week there was a line for Indy (and several sold-out showings), this week as we anticipated it was Sex's turn.
At 7:10 we got tickets for the 7:45 Indy and the 8:00 Sex through the kiosk and packed the kidlets into the theater while we waited in a line that stretched all the way across the outdoor "lobby" leading into the theater. We almost always go to the Bay Street Cinema for movies because it's only about 10 minutes from our apartment in Albany, there's a big parking ramp right in the complex (but hidden) that only costs a buck, next door there's a GameStop for Ouwen to play Playstation 3 NBA and a Barnes and Noble open till 11 p.m. for us to browse in, and a stone's throw down the block is the Elephant Bar Restaurant for dinner and perhaps some ice cream mud pie after the show.
The shopping center is on two levels with the theater tickets on the second level and an escalator up to the actual theaters. It's a hub of activity every weekend with throngs until midnight.
We really liked both movies. We're now on an Indiana Jones binge (Netflix, books at B&N and Amazon). Crystal Skull is a return to the style and fun of Raiders of the Lost Ark, complete with Karen Allen, who looks damned good at 50 and was dazzling in 1981 in her 20s. It's nice to see her and Harrison together again. It's hard to believe Harrison Ford is 65 - he looks a tad grizzled (but then he always does) but still handsome, agile, robust, and funny with that little smirk at the corner of his mouth. The story is typical Lucas/Spielberg, which is to say not very literary, cohesive, or profound, but it's something to hang all the excellent special effects and humor on. Cate Blanchett is amazing as the sinister Russkie and not wasted at all as some of the reviews would have it.
Now for Sex. Lingling went into the movie thinking it wouldn't add anything to the original series but was pleasantly surprised. The whole exploration about whether it is better to get married or not was interesting, the goils all looked good even as they get longer in the tooth, I personally bought the relationship between Carrie and Big for the first time (Lingling was less sure about that), Charlotte was as touching as ever, the Miranda's situation with Steve provided a good counterpoint to Carrie and Big, and Samantha was in particularly good mettle. Her sushi scene was satisfactorily over the top, her ogling of her next-door neighbor Dante was right in character, and she resolved her personal issues in a true-to-her-life fashion. Jennifer Hudson (Dream Girls) was surprisingly affecting - I had expected her to be mostly window dressing, but she played a key role in Carrie's story. There were just enough naughty bits to justify the premise of the movie.
I had to text-message Ouwen at the beginning of our movie to tell them to go to the bookstore when theirs was finished since ours was going to last an extra half hour. I felt pretty hip doing this as I had sent a total of about five text messages in my life before.
After some pix of promos for the upcoming Wall-E and Kung Fu Panda, we found the boys in B&N about 10:30, browsed books related to the two movies, bought a couple, and headed over to our favorite ice cream parlor. Fenton's Creamery on Piedmont Avenue in Oakland, near where Lingling had her studio apartment when we met, goes back a long way. It was founded as a creamery in Oakland in 1894, later began making ice cream, in 1922 added the restaurant and soda fountain, and in 1961 moved to its present location.
Lingling and I have been going there since we met and always have the same thing: a create-your-own sundae with two (sometimes three...) scoops in a boat. Our fave is mocha royale with blueberry cheesecake, but this time we strayed to black walnut and strawberry cheesecake. It was delicious as usual, and Ouwen and Boshi seemed to enjoy it as well.
That was last night - today we had some more adventures, including dim sum and an excursion over to Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. But that's another story...
