Monday, March 12, 2012

JOHN CARTER in I-MAX 3-D, PG-13 ( 2 hr & 12 min )


where:  EDWARDS FAIRFIELD STADIUM 16 & I-MAX in Fairfield, CA
when:  Friday, March 9th, 2012
show:  12:01 a.m.
costs:  $17.50 Ticket + $4.75 Zero Sprite = $22.25
auditorium:  12
seat:  5th row, 6th column


2nd time




where:  CENTURY 14 VALLEJO in Vallejo, CA
when:  Saturday, March 10, 2012
show:  11:45 a.m. ( Extra Dollar Off First Show Matinee )
costs:  $10.00 Ticket + $4.75 junior Popcorn + $4.00 small 16 oz Diet/Zero ( w/ Barq's Root Beer & Cherry flavors ) Coke = $18.75
auditorium:  2
seat:  4th row, 8ht column

synopsis/overview:  A Civil War veteran, John Carter ( Taylor Kitsch ), finds himself transported to Mars ( Barsoom ). Where he encounters a green, "double decker" torsoed race, the Tharks. And later comes across humanoids who are at war with each other. As the fate of Barsoom hangs in the balance, John Carter must decide whether or not to lend a helping hand.

noteworthy scenes:  1.) Predator city; 2.) Sandstorm; 3.) The chosen; 4.) "Sad tidings"; 5.) "Always looking for something"; 6.) "Thing opens only from the inside"; 7.) Last will and testament; 8.) Private journal; 9.) Arrest; 10.) Chase; 11.) The cave; 12.) Low gravity; 13.) "What the hell"; 14.) Introduction; 15.) Jump; 16.) "Leave nothing for the white apes"; 17.) "The 9th ray"; 18.) "It is your will"; 19.) Infiltrator; 20.) "It is called, 'Virginia'"; 21.) Hatchlings' nursery; 22.) "I understood you"; 23.) Fliers; 24.) Rescue; 25.) "I surrender. You may take me captive"; 26.) Hero; 27.) "Our ships sail the seas"; 28.) "You said, 'Planet'"; 29.) Mars; 30.) "That brought me here"; 31.) Tharks' temple; 32.) "Shake it"; 33.) "She's your daughter, isn't she"; 34.) "He betrayed us"; 35.) Watering hole; 36.) "I like this plan better"; 37.) "This is real"; 38.) "I'm already there"; 39.) "Duty to your father"; 40.) "Your feet"; 41.) Medallion; 42.) "Ninth Ray Isolates; 43.) Diagram; 44.) Copy; 45.) One man army; 46.) Rescue; 47.) Conscience; 48.) "Take me hostage"; 49.) "Hello, ladies"; 50.) Deciphered; 51.) "Yes, I am alone"; 52.) "We have plenty of time to talk"; 53.) Eliminated; 54.) "What is your cause"; 55.) Manage the death of a planet; 56.) Flight; 57.) A sign; 58.) "Your spirit annoys me"; 59.) Arena; 60.) Challenge; 61.) "They're at the wedding"; 62.) Fight; 63.) "It is good to fly"; 64.) Salute; 65.) "I'll explain later"; 66.) Proposal; 67.) Tricked; 68.) Search; 69.) Followed; 70.) Explanation; 71.) "I am the key"; 72.) NED; 73.) "I was just bait"; 74.) Reunited; and 75.) Dedication to Steve Jobs during the Ending Credits.

favorite scenes:  I liked the first two "Virginia" scenes. ( Then, it got "old" after that. )

I liked the one wherein John Carter was badly outnumbered but he held his ground anyway against a "double-decker" torsoed Thark army.

I liked the scene where they raided the wrong city and John Carter/Virginia got slapped upside the head for the mistake.

I liked the Tear-Eyed Thark scene, too.

audience reaction:  The audience liked it but didn't give it a "Hands Clapper" ending.

2nd audience reaction:  This "more wide-awake" crowd was more appreciative of the movie and one or two persons in the audience gave it a "Hands Clapper" ending.

recommendation:  I liked it.  Go see this if you're into Action/Adventure movies.

spoiler alert!  He had a good head start on his pursuers as he escaped from jail. Yet, somehow, the Union soldiers gained ground on him. That matchstick was sure slow to burn up. Mars's gravity is just over one-third compared to that of Earth's. Therefore, John Carter of Virginia ( ha, ha, ha ) should only have been able to jump a little over three times higher than how high he could jump on Earth. I still will not believe that you can cut a thick chain with a sword! That Sola ( Samantha Morton ) either had a kinky fetish involving the use of a branding iron or she was just too dumb to learn from her mistakes! Since the Martian humanoids had blue blood, Deja Thoris ( Lynn Collins ) should have believed in John Carter right away as soon as she noticed that he had red blood! In the Tharks's temple, John Carter put his right armpit close to Deja Thoris's face yet, somehow, she didn't notice the armpit smell of someone who just worked-up a great sweat in the heat of battle! The "humans" on Mars have nostrils but the "double-decker" torsoed creatures, the Tharks, don't; so, how do such creatures breathe? And since the Tharks don't have nostrils, their voices shouldn't sound "normal" at all. The Tharks's voices should sound like the way you'd sound like if you pinched your nostrils shut then talked. The Tharks's three-toed feet were anatomically incorrect. Their feet were structured in such a way that the Big Toe was in the middle. For ambulation to take place properly, the toes on either side of the Big Toe should have been set farther away from the center for stability. The two "moons" of Mars were always shown in approximately the same orientation to each other, with the small one to the left of the big one.  But ... the bigger "moon", Phobos, actually orbits around Mars more than three times per Martian day while the smaller "moon", Deimos ( which is farther away from the surface of Mars), takes about 30 hours to orbit around the Red Planet. Therefore, the two "moons" should not have been shown repeatedly in the same approximate orientation in the Martian sky! Duh ....  By the way, a Martian day is almost exactly the same length as an Earth day. About those big, fiery explosions ... not happenin' in real life!  Ditto for the other flames shown. Why? Because there is practically no oxygen in the Martian atmosphere for such explosions/flames to occur. Which begs another question: How was John Carter able to breathe the predominantly Carbon Dioxide "air" on Mars? That piece of rock was probably three times--or more--John Carter's body weight; so, he shouldn't have been able to swing it around like that. After a Martian sandstorm, dust particles would stay in atmospheric suspension for a considerably longer time owing to the fact that Mars's gravitational field is not strong enough to have the dust settle sooner. Why were all the Martians scantily-clad even though Mars is much colder than Earth? Why were there no guards posted at the wedding? In the wedding fight scene, Deja's evil double had her sword at her neck with the sharp edge pointed away but, in the next shot, the sharp edge of the sword was pressed against her neck. What's the point in being "Eternal" if you can get shot to death? What happened to the body of the Thern who was killed in the cave? If your objective is the total annihilation of your enemy, why would you offer the losing side a "marriage truce"? The Heliumites and the Tharks won the war. But for what? It was a dying planet after all. Why was their own Goddess Hell-bent on their own destruction? Why didn't the Therns just wait for John Carter to fall asleep so that they could attack him?  I mean, I'm pretty sure that John Carter had many occasions to fall asleep during his relentless search for the medallion!

If only Disney hired my services as Cine-Man, Technical/Science Consultant, this movie would make more sense and would be more appealing to all the Smart People out there!

fyi:  For those of you who don't know it yet, the Edgar Rice Burroughs character in this movie is a fictional representation of the Edgar Rice Burroughs who was more well-known for his stories on Tarzan of the Apes.

Let's see if I got this straight:

Earth = Blue planet; red-blooded creatures--check!
Mars = Red planet; blue-blooded creatures--check!

So, when John Carter and the Princess have kids, they'll all have purple blood ...?

Is this Purple Prince one of their kids?

word of advice:  Take up a worthy cause.

tidbits:  When the midnight show started ... IT WAS THE WRONG MOVIE!  What came on was an I-Max 3-D version of  DOCTOR SEUSS'S THE LORAX.  Some people in the audience went and notified the theatre staff; I was about to, also.  The JOHN CARTER movie finally started at 12:24 a.m.

This creature can only be none other than The Pitbull Frog-dog.

As a few of us sat through the Ending Credits, somebody rudely turned-off the movie projector at 2:30 a.m. because the janitor was scheduled to start vacuuming the auditorium at that time.

2nd tidbits:  I bought a pair of old-style 3-D glasses a few days ago at the Target Shopping Center's Dollar Tree Store here in Vallejo, CA.  It's the kind with a blue lens and a red lens.  I thought I'd try it for this John Carter 3-D movie.  It didn't work at all.  I guess that there are four kinds--at least--of 3-D technology glasses that are exclusively proprietary and are not interchangeable with each other because they are not compatible in their Optics utilization.

I have a spare modem.  Actually, it was the original modem sent to me by my ISP. The one which I had been using all this time and which I accidentally "fried" was the modem that Hector's son, Isma, gave to me when I had trouble connecting to the Internet with my original modem.  I called my ISP tonight because I wanted them to send me a replacement.  But, on a hunch, I decided to try my original modem.  I connected it to my computer then I called my ISP for technical help.  I was put on hold for about 15 minutes but it was on their dime, so I didn't mind waiting. The tech support guy, I forget his name ( it's in Hindu ), was very patient with me and walked me through the steps to have my modem connect me to the Internet.  My original modem worked just fine!  It's 11:40 p.m. as of this moment--O Lord, it's gonna be Daylight Savings Time in a couple of hours, so I'll be losing one hour's worth of sleep! Maybe, I should go to bed now .... Nah!

F-ck sleep--Yeah!  I'll just show-up for work an hour late. LOL

Anyway ....

I'm just glad that I can get on the Internet once again without having to resort to using Wi-Fi.  I don't want to have to go to a MacDonald's Restaurant every day just to blog about movies because I might end-up like the SUPER SIZE ME ( 2004 ) documentary filmmaker, Morgan Spurlock!




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