ArcLight rocks.

Remember how yesterday I said that I'd be a hypocrite cos I'd be going to ArcLight Hollywood with Jo after saying that it sucks, and how I'd probably like it? Well... I ended up liking it. But I still stand at my original statement that they should split up the theaters, half the screens reserved and the other half for late-comers. You see, I've been planning to see There Will Be Blood for more than a year - I even bought Upton Sinclair's Oil! to read up before watching - which I never got around to though, haha. So in this case, reserved seating is an excellent idea; Blood's a film I was planning to see and it's a film I want to have good seats during. It proved to be great. Easy parking, easy entry, didn't have to deal with employees, cheap food, luxurious seats, ushers, huge stadium, great black singers after the movie - great experience.

Jo got stuck sitting next to a fat guy who kept sitting on his drink and the people next to me decided not to show, it was great. So there's another benefit, reserved seating gives you the ability to see how many people bought tickets and if you'll be sitting next to anyone. There were probably 200+ people, and for a Saturday afternoon flick, that is great. Blood's making a crap load of money by the way, $124,000 in its first two days when showing at only two theatres - about 10 screenings a day. If you calculate that out, it's making almost $30,000 at each theatre... even Spider-Man 3, which holds the Opening Weekend record, only got $12,000 average per theatre in its opening weekend. Sure, because Blood is showing at only two theaters that number goes up, but that's a lot of damn money! Only shows how dedicated us PTA fans are!

ArcLight wasn't holding that, once the film starts we won't let you in, thing because a couple people came in after the film started. And what if you had to go to the bathroom or get more popcorn? They wouldn't let you back in? Some people left and came back... although I don't why they would - I would never leave during a film, even if you could pause it. The seats would keep me sitting as well. They were so nice. It felt as if there was more hip room... but no iPhones in the cup-holders. That fat guy next to Jo had an iPhone... so did someone else in the row in front of us - it was a sophisticated crowd, they ate their popcorn with forks. But the seats were kind of difficult to find - at first. The seats have numbers on 'em, but the letter for each row are on the step. It took us a bit to realize that, K19 and K20 were our seats, I was K20 in theatre 10 I think. Some nice people in row N helped us though, we said thanks to them twice. We never bought tickets either - I printed out this thing from the website that let us skip all the lines and go straight to the "ticket-taker"; but in the time it took us to figure out what a "ticket-taker" was, we could've received the tickets from a machine. And the "ticket-taker" hardly looked at the print-out, I felt like such a VIP. Their food was cheap... but they didn't have pretzels. What theatre doesn't have pretzels?! That's the fifth straight movie I've seen without eating a pretzel. I hate it.

As you can probably tell, I'm purposely not talking about the film. I'm kind of at a loss of words. I can't decide whether it is because it was the most amazing film I've ever seen, or for another reason. But it definitely wasn't the first reason for sure, so I don't know why I said that. I just have nothing to say. What I will say is that Daniel Day-Lewis was really great, and so was Paul Dano. PTA was great, once again, giving us a great looking movie with a really entertaining script. It's just... I don't know. I keep comparing it to No Country. I don't know why. They weren't exactly the same at all, except for the fact both were made by really great people and both were really great films. Blood is a period drama about how destructive the oil industry, or any job, can be while No Country is a story about the feud between good and evil and how good may not always win. No Country had some very, very exciting parts and some very, very intensely lovable characters, but also had some major letdowns. Blood had some huge shockers and seat squirmers with only one really good character, but had no major letdowns. The Coens have their long history of great films, but so does PTA, though a granted shorter history. But all the same, the two shouldn't be compared, so I really have to stop.

I guess I just feel like I didn't get enough out of the film. I had enough time to as it was rather long, but the time went by rather quickly, so I just couldn't get enough of the characters. I just didn't get enough from it. I wanted more. PTA's usually delivered it to me, but I don't think so this time. It was a totally different film though; nothing like the other PTA films. While all of his stuff stands out, this one is definitely extremely different. Which may have been why. There were a lot of Kubrick things going on though - especially in the music, the music was sooo 2001. so was the intro silence. Totally 2001. Even one of the trailers were Kubrickian, instead relating to Clockwork (Jo agreed there). But maybe my mind was on Kubrick because I was wearing my Kubrick shirt. The film is great, Daniel Plainveiw is a great character, and he shows us some great stuff... but it doesn't stand out in my head as much as No Country's guys. See, there I go again. If I didn't see No Country, I would've been raving about Blood, no question, because it really is a great, great film. An epic history even, it really is great. I guess it deserves a second watch, as does No Country, because even it didn't give me all I wanted, haha. I guess I'm a hard guy to please. Kubrick did though, each and every time. Too bad he's gone... ah well. Alright, I'm done then - this was a horrible post, I know. So go watch the movie yourself and come to your own conclusion. But don't watch Juno, it's a waste of damn time, haha. Tomorrow's a big sports day, Ima's coming over for the Celtics/Lakers. The Saints' season is on the line as well, and the Pats went 16 - 0 earlier tonight, so congrats to them. No matter how much I was rooting against them, you guys played well this year. But I hope you don't get too attached to the idea of having a 0 in the loss column, you ain't goin' to the Super Bowl, haha. I'll Insha Allah post more NFL stuff in the morning before the games; Time Warner says Fox will show the Saints game as its first game in LA. Let's hope it sticks. Cowboys are after it too, and then Lakers at 7 - tomorrow's going to be a difficult and trying day for me, no doubt. And it's hard to think that 2007 is coming to and end. I'm not ready for '08. It sounds too futuristic, haha. Take care everyone. see u.