where: AMC BAY STREET 16
when: Wednesday ( Free Small Popcorn Day ), March 24th, 2010
show: 8:50 p.m.
costs: $10.75 Ticket + $4.25 regular Diet Coke ( No Ice ) + $1.00 upgrade-to-medium Popcorn + $4.00 Bridge Toll = $20.00
auditorium: 9
seat: 5th row, 10th column
synopsis: Greg Heffley ( Zachary Gordon ) starts middle school self-consciously and desperately tries anything and everything to fit-in with the cool kids, even going so far as to take for granted his long-time friendship with Rowley ( Robert Capron ).
noteworthy scenes: 1.) First day rush; 2.) Bully brother, Rodrick ( Devon Bostick ); 3.) Breakfast table; 4. ) Summertime growth spurt; 5.) Serape ( Mexican shawl ); 6.) Fregley's ( Grayson Russell ) secret mole; 7.) Angie ( Chloe Grace Moretz ) 8.) Cheese touch; 9.) Boys' room; 10.) Cafeteria; 11.) Wanna play with me; 12.) Bicycle; 13.) Middle school yearbook; 14.) Bathroom; 15.) Patty ( Laine Macneil ); 16.) Wrestling; 17.) Bulking-up; 18.) Bulldog class; 19.) Shirt & tie; 20.) Awesome to be me; 21.) Fashion make-over; 22.) Cute butt; 23.) Halloween urban myth; 24.) Northside; 25.) In the Devil Worshipper Woods; 26.) Safety patrol; 27.) Arm cast; 28.) Sympathy sheet; 29.) Cartoon sketches; 30.) Mrs. Irvine ( Karin Konoval ); 31.) Zooey mama; 32.) Suspension; 33.) You only care about yourself; 34.) Team captain; 35.) Best friend; 36.) Fregley's house; 37.) Soprano voice; 38.) Stage play; 39.) Flyer; 40.) Magazine; 41.) Mother & Son Sweetheart Dance; 42.) Playground confrontation; 43.) All meaningless; and 44.) Way too smart for me.
audience reaction: The audience liked this.
recommendation: I enjoyed this movie. Go see it with your middle school-age kids.
spoiler alert! No cheese slice would last that long on a blacktop because it would get stepped-on, eaten by a scavenging animal, dried and turned to dust by the heat of the Sun, or diluted and washed away by the rain or the melting snow. Greg's handwriting is too perfect to be that of a sixth grader's. What parent in his or her right mind would want his/her son to ride a pink girl's bike to school and/or anywhere lots of other kids his age hang-out? All the wrestlers wore what look like court shoes to me when they should have been wearing wrestling shoes--I wrestled in high school so I know what wrestling shoes look like. And this movie gives out the bad message that it is okay to start, and have, a "disposable-type" of friendship with an "innocent by-stander" just to spite your best friend; but if and when you do make-up with your best friend your "innocent by-stander friend" gets left behind holding an "empty bag" of friendship--and this is a definite "No-No" in the Rules of Friendship Book!
fyi: "Middle School" ( Grades 6, 7 and 8 ) is a term that was first used in Bay City, Michigan, in 1950.
I had this classmate, a cataract-eyed and harelipped William C. ( who happens to be a distant relative of mine on my father's side ) in Grade 6 at Rizal Memorial College, Elementary Department, Davao City, Mindanao, Philippines, who always carried a pair of drumsticks with him, whose favorite song was The Guess Who's "American Woman" ( 1970 ), who talked about wanting to immigrate to the USSR, and who "matured" ahead of everyone else in class. Just for laughs, whenever the home-room teacher wasn't watching, he would put his booger on the partition wall and, worse, he would yank-out some of his pubic hair and put it on some other boy's desk--yuck, gross!
My point is, instead of boogers, why didn't they use pubic hair since most of the kids in this movie are right around that age of "self-discovery" ( as in: Ahh! what's that )?
Shortly after my family moved to our brand new bungalow in GSIS Heights Subdivision in Matina, Davao City, Mindanao, Philippines, I read a newspaper article which stated that salicylic acid kills the bacteria responsible for ringworms. And I knew from a previous article that underarm odor is caused by bacteria living on the hair and armpit skin of a person. So, I came upon the novel idea of liberally using salicylic acid on my armpits for odor control. And it work! I wonder why nobody came up with this idea before, I asked myself. My armpits were completely odor-free for three whole days. But after three days, my underarm odor came back with a super-strong vengeance! Oh, well ... at least I tried ....
word of advice: Don't be somebody else, be yourself.
"Our choices make us who we are." Susan Heffley ( Rachael Harris )
Don't get someone into an "innocent by-stander" type of friendship.
tidbits: I spent the day at my friend Hector's place in Oakland, CA, because I bought Corned Beef for St. Patrick's Day but couldn't eat it all by myself. So I just kept it in the freezer until I could find the time to go to Oakland so that I could cook it for everybody. I also baked a Strawberry/Raspberry/Blackberry Cobbler for dessert. I know that two of them in the family are borderline Diabetic but, hey, not my problem .... What a fine friend I turned out to be! Ha, ha, ha.
On the way home, I decided to see this movie at AMC Bay Street 16 because I haven't seen a movie at this particular theatre for so long.
P.S. I would have published this movie blog sometime yesterday were it not for the fact that I was blocked access to my blog site for over 24 hours. I had to re-write most of what you see here today, Friday, March 26th, late in the evening! I don't know what happened. I tried other blogspot.com sites but couldn't gain access on any of them. I tried using different search engines but still couldn't access any blog site. Fandango.com was inaccessible to me, too, for about half a day yesterday. My Gmail account was acting-up, too. And, now, my MagicJack and my Opera browser are also acting-up. My virus and malware protection turned-up nothing. I guess I'll just have to turn my computer off to reboot it. Whatever .... ( I don't know much about computers. )
