Sorry for the late post today, I was watching the results of the Iowa caucus coming in. My other passion besides movies is campaigning and politicking. Speaking from a campaign manager’s perspective (having been one for several political campaigns) I was shocked at the results of Iowa. I was expecting a better showing from Dean and never expected Edwards to be in second place. But enough about politics, onto movies!
After seven blissful days of not experiencing any excruciating back pain, it came back with a vengeance. I felt that the pain had to make up for lost time of not crippling me from seeing a movie.
The film I decided on seeing today is Along Came Polly starring Ben Stiller and Jennifer Aniston because I have always felt that laughter is a cure for any ailment (except death). Now some of you out there probably assume that I am a guy who goes for high brow comedy. Yes it’s true that I like Woody Allen films and British comedy shows like The Office and Are You Being Served? but I do like to see gross out films like Tommy Boy and There’s Something About Mary. But the thing about any comedy I see is that it has to make me laugh.
I saw the trailer for Along Came Polly during a screening of Kill Bill: Vol. 1 and laughed at parts of the trailer. So can a Ben Stiller/Jennifer Aniston comedy cure Zeb’s back ache? We’ll find out.
When I was a kid, my family and I would sneak in the weirdest things into movie theatres. We’d sneak in bags of popcorn, beer, heat packs, Icy-Hot, hot dogs, and even a full bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken. But hands down the most outrageous thing I have seen in person snuck into a movie theatre was marijuana. It was at a showing of Private Parts at the now condemned SoCal Oceanside Cinemas 4, a man brought it out and smoked it! Oh we could smell it alright and sure enough the cops arrived and hauled the guy off. So today I am going to sneak a small pillow into the MovieMax Plaza Camino Real Carlsbad 4 for my back. It was useful when I was watching TV in the morning and it applied pressure to my back relieving me of pain.
So with a bottle of my trusty Bayer and my pillow I went to the MovieMax because I was tired of the Regal and the Edwards. Not to mention that the MovieMax in Carlsbad use to be the SoCal Carlsbad Cinemas 4, a movie theatre I’d frequent when I was a kid. Also, they don’t have the Twenty playing beforehand.
The seats at the MovieMax are very comfortable and recline back like an EZ-Boy recliner. So with my little pillow and a couple of Bayer pills I am set.
Ben Stiller plays Reuben, a risk assessment analyst at an insurance company (headed up by Alec Baldwin). He knows the safe options to take in life and avoids all risks. He has found a perfect no-risk match in Lisa (played by Debra Messing) and they both get married. On the first day of their honeymoon, his wife has an affair with a scuba instructor (Hank Azaria). Brokenhearted, Rueben returns to his work. When former child star and friend Sandy (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) invites Rueben to a party where they meet Polly (Jennifer Aniston), a former childhood friend. Polly and Rueben fall in love and begin to date; even though Polly is a spontaneous free spirited woman and Rueben a neurotic OCD-like Milquetoast.