My Oyster

UPDATED with new video: Chinatown DC...For A Movie...

Back to Chinatown tonight for another movie.  I think the Gallery Place Cinema is my favorite mainstream movie theater in DC.  I can easily metro there and the neighborhood is fun again.  By Contrast, last night I went to the Georgetown Cinema (Death at a Funeral - eh, good but I was expecting more) and nearly ran over about 15 crazy teen/college pedestrians trying to get out of the parking garage.  Escaping the neighborhood by car was not much more fun.  Never again. 

Tonight it was a new film - Super Bad.  It was very good.  I laughed out loud.  A lot.  I was bent over laughing half of the time and slapping Daryl's arm with glee the other half.  I am a sucker for slapstick and bawdy humor.  This had it all but smartly done.  Oh, to be a teen again!  The theater was packed - a good sign as it is opening weekend.

Daryl and I metro-ed down to see the show and get some dinner.  We were in a rush to get to the show and so we ate at some bad tex/mex fast food chain.  California Burrito or something like that.  Not so pleasant.  Lots of tourists.  Lots of loud kids.

Here is a video capturing some of dinner.

More snaps from our night downtown...

U Street Metro Station with the Duke Ellington mural

Daryl goofing off in the station.  For the camera.  At my request.

On the train.

I don't ride the subway often at all anymore.  I really prefer the bus - and these pics pretty much show why.  First, there is nothing to see out the window but darkness.  Very boring.  And second, look at the riders.  Very sedate.  No interaction.  Kinda snoozy compared to the always exciting Metrobus!  I think there is a fight every day on my bus-ride to work.  You don't get that on the subway. 

Give me the bus anyday!

YUM...

Bourne 3, originally uploaded by Gotham Journal NYC.

Tonight I metro-ed down to China Block to see the Bourne Ultimatum.  Very fun.

I think Matt Damon is incredibly good as an adventure hero.  I read someone's blog - maybe the Flickr guy whose pic above I lifted - said these Bourne movies and Matt are better than Bond.  I know I like them better.  At least better than the last few generations of Bond.

I saw Matt on the Jon Stewart show this week.  They were talking about the pacing of the action.  It is very fast.  Very choppy.  I felt like I was almost getting a wee bit dizzy from it all.  I think that was the intent. 

Almost as much fun as the movie, maybe even more so actually, is being in China "town" these days.  It is overwhelming the change.  Just a few years ago there was nothing down there but crime.  Now the streets are bustling late into evening and some of the best restaurants and entertainment are down there.  Amazing.  All thanks to Abe Pollin caring enough to spend his own money to build a new basketball arena there when no one else would invest a penny.   I really enjoy it there now.

How Often Do You Find The Right Person?

That is the tag line and title of a movie that opened this weekend at E Street Cinema downtown.

It was FANTASTIC.  Amazing music.  Beautiful story.  Great actors - though I know none of them.  Great scenery in Dublin and Ireland - and shot in a very realistic way - not gauzy Hollywood.

The movie is about people coming together at exactly the right time.  I am a big believer that people cross paths at a point in time and at a place on the planet for a reason.  Not coincidence.  This movie tells that story.  Shows that story.  Sings that story.

I agree that you find the right person - for a particular time, place, purpose - just once.  But I think you keep finding new "right" people, just once, over and over at different points in time, during different stages of life, for different purposes, and in different places - if you are open to it.

This is one of the best movies I have seen (and heard) in a very long time.  It's the kind of movie that sticks with you after you leave the theater. 

More interesting info about the movie here.