Last weekend I got a wild hair, packed up Parker and my crutches and headed to New Orleans for the weekend to visit my friend Penny. We had a great time hanging out at a couple of our favorite places and basically being bums and watching tv every night. Its nice to have this double knee surgery thing to use as an excuse for when I'm tired and don't want to do anything!
But the best part of the weekend, hands down, was when we went to Canal Place to watch a movie in their fancy smancy theater.
A blurry picture of what could be any movie theater in the world, but in fact, is the Theater at Canal Place, the topic of this blog. I promise. Trust me, people.
Canal Place is one very familiar place to me (and my wallet) in NOLA. Penny works in the adjacent office buildings and we often use the parking pass to park there and walk somewhere else. But I've never been to a movie there before.
We decided to go see Silver Linings Playbook with Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence. Being a Hunger Games fan, I love Jennifer Lawrence and she can do no wrong in my eyes. And Bradley Cooper can do no wrong by being seen by my eyes, so it seemed like a good fit. I'd actually wanted to see the Hobbit but Penny nixed that idea, and I wasn't into seeing Les Miserables, for reasons too complicated and unimportant to go into here. So Silver Linings Playbook it was.
I'd seen lots of press for SLP and, of course, its getting a lot of Oscar talk, but I didn't really know what it was about other than Bradley Cooper's character just got out of a mental hospital and Jennifer Lawrence is the woman he meets and she's got her own issues. I wasn't sure if it was a indie-type dark movie, a romantic comedy, or just a sad movie. I don't really care to see romantic comedies-- its been a long time since I've enjoyed one and I generally avoid them like the plague. And, as I've gotten older, I am much more selective about movies that I see in the theater since its never very comfortable anymore.
But that was because I've never gone to see a movie at Canal Place! These are awesome! The theaters are much smaller than normal, and have large, recliner-like seats. Each chair has a cupholder on each side and between two chairs is a small swivel table. There was plenty of room between each aisle for even crippled old me and my crutch to walk.
Best of all, the menu ROCKED! It was awesome! They have a full menu, and a full bar, so there isn't anything you can possibly want that you couldn't get. The waiters lead you to your seat and take your order. If, during the movie, you need something, you can push a button and they will come sneaking in to get you anything you need!
I ordered a big Diet Coke and Penny and I split an appetizer plate of olives, pita bread, hummus, dips, crackers, etc. We also got some truffle oil popcorn (one of their speciality flavored popcorns) which was DELICIOUS. I nearly made myself sick on that stuff. I'm not sure Penny even got to each much of it, but I kept warning her if she didn't eat it, I was going to eat it all!
In addition to the theater being super fun and awesome, the movie was GREAT. I mean, really great. Probably the best movie I've seen this year. I loved it. Its kind of a darm comedy and there is romance and its sad and the characters are crazy and nutty and everything but I loved it. I laughed the entire movie and then, at the end, when I was crying, I was considering pushing the red button to get someone to bring me a clean napkin since the only napkin I had was covered in truffle oil popcorn crumbs and they kept getting into my face when I wiped my tears. Yeah, I have weird problems sometimes.
I'd totally recommend this movie to just about anyone. Its basic premise is that Bradley Cooper's character Pat, gets out of a mental hospital after seeing his wife cheat on him and beating the guy half to death. He thinks his life is about to go back to normal, if he can just get everything together. Obviously, everyone else realizes that his wife, Nikki, isn't quite as excited to see him as he is to see her. His parents (his dad is placed by Robert DeNiro) are really good about trying to protect their son and trying to get him to see that maybe he's not really living in reality. He meets Jennifer Lawrence's character, Tiffany, a young widow with her own social problems. I'm not going to spoil how it ends for you, but its a quirky enough movie to not follow typical rom-com rules, so you never really know whats going to happen. I thought Robert DeNiro was awesome, and Pat's mother did a great job of a sweet woman with an OCD husband and a nutty son who's just trying to love them as much as she can.
As someone who has often felt broken and confused and half nutty, I thought this movie was fantastic. It showed that even broken people try to get their lives back together (sometimes this works out, sometimes it doesn't!). The picture above is great to me because it shows Tiffany's sister's (played by Julia Stiles) family in their dorky white turtlenecks. This is the reason I love this movie. I know people who take these type of pictures and put them up all over their houses. And I feel like a total reject weirdo, sometimes, around these type people. I've tried to get Parker to take pictures with me but she thinks turtlenecks make her face look puffy. I loved seeing these two self-proclaimed "broken people" interacting with people who seemed a lot more perfect than they were. Its a hilarious movie. I could be all deep and intellectual and try to write a really smart sounding review, but I'm not. Its a funny movie and it made me laugh, made me cry, and made me have a really big smile on my face when I was walking out. The truffle oil popcorn didn't hurt either.
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