I took my boys to see Men In Black 3 last night. The cinema we went to was the cinema I first went to when I was a child. Admittedly, it's had a modern transformation since it was at the back of a paddock in the main shopping strip when I went to see World Safari 2 with Alby Mangels! However, the Dendy cinema in Brighton has some eclectic reminders of its past, including the original Wurlitzer Organ taking pride of place in the front left hand side of the cinema from the times of the silent film, news reels and when a cinema used to be a theatre for plays, recitals and community information.
As the boys and I waited for the cinema to be cleaned, I introduced to my boys the history of the caramel centred chewy chocolate called the 'Fantale.' Fantales are iconic lollies to have at the cinema in Australia as their wrappers are filled with trivia about movies and movie stars. I ate my first Fantale, and to pass the time, I decided to do a 'Fantale wrapper tear' to make a long string out of one wrapper. If you don't know what I mean, it's basically, tearing a small strip of the wrapper from one corner, and continuing the same thickness of the tear around the edge of the wrapper, until you break it, or you spiral around the wrapper and have one long string of wrapper. My oldest son said he did one at a school camp with a Mintie wrapper (which is also an iconic lolly to have at the cinemas - both lollies made from Australia's famous Allens Confectioners).
Anyway, I managed to tear the Fantale wrapper all the way to the end. I asked the boys to stretch it out to see how long it was, but it was hard to get a real understanding how long it actually was. So my youngest stood on the edge of it, and we stretched it to see if it was as tall as he was... it was and beyond! So we got my oldest son to stand on it, and it was about his height... around 140cm. So a 5cm square wrapper turned out to be 140cm long... not a bad effort if I may say so myself!
Anyway, that was the end of the nostalgia, as the movie was in 3D with plenty of visual effects, no romantic love scenes, and after about two-thirds of the bag of Fantales in my tummy while waiting for this movie to start, the alien life forms in the movie really made my stomach squirm and my body want to leave.. but I stayed for the sake of the boys and watched the ho-hum movie. A great movie for special effects, and if you don't mind jumping back and forth from different decades, but it lacked in any pivotal plot making excitement. For me, there was a sleep factor (yes, I dozed off), but for my boys, they left a little lack lustre.
Sometimes you do wonder about these film makers, if they are more interested in the costly visual effects or finding a mind-blowing script to accentuate the film with visual effects. Because there have been a series of films I've seen recently which really don't even know what a plot really is, or comedic value. As Men in Black lacked in both. Sorry Barry Sonnenfeld.
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