Well, I ended up staying on line for three hours this morning instead of just the one like I planned. All I got done was putting the clothes away (so I could put the empty clothes baskets on top of the pile of dirty laundry) and I decided that the Visa bill was so huge because I missed paying it last month.
I got hold of Drew to find out what our plans were for getting to the movie. He said Dave would meet us at M&M, a bar across form the Milwaukee Ale House. I thought, isn’t that a gay bar? No, someone told me it wasn’t. Wait - I don’t even know if that’s the one he’s talking about. So I said okay, and called Doug. I told him, and he said, "that’s a gay bar." I sensed he was a little nervous about walking into a gay bar by himself and waiting for people, so I suggested we just meet at the Ale House. I called Drew back to tell him the change in plans. He said, "That’s a gay bar?! He didn’t tell me that!" Later he said, "I don’t care who sees me in a gay bar, I’m just worried about who I’d see there." Dave, who set up that location in the first place said he forgot what kind of place it was. He goes anyplace and everyplace.
So I headed out around 4:00. I had planned on running out to the west of town. I figured if traffic was good, I’d have an hour there. If it wasn’t (which is what I expected) I’d have half. By the time I got downtown, I realized that I’d have no time out there, and probably wouldn’t make it to the meet on time at all. So I stopped off for some Pizza instead. While I was there I found in the paper that Seven Nations was playing at the Irish center. [The dashing quintet of fiercely determined fellows infuses the Irish and Scottish folk tradition into all-out jams and melodic ballads.] I thought if I had seen that earlier, I would have passed on the movie. After eating, I went over to the Comedy Cafe to get tickets for Emo Phillips on the 30th.
As I walked in the door, someone outside honked his horn at me. It was the owner, asking what I wanted. (The guy is huge and he looks Mafia.) He said to follow him. He took me in the back door, into a kitchen-looking back bar area. He said to "go down the stairs to the right. Knock on the door at the end, and they’ll help you." So I go downstairs, and it’s a store room area. There’s no door. There’s just bottles of liquor on shelves. So I say, "hello?" I hear, "hello!" "Hello?" "Hello!" So I stand there for a minute, and finally some kid came through what turned out to be a door and asks me what I want. I tell him and he goes back in, and then comes back out and says to come on in. There’s a little employee lounge area, and a couple of desks, and one of the girls helps me out. I guess they don’t have regular hours and a ticket office, because they don’t actually hand out tickets. They just put my name on the list. I’ll do it by phone next time.
Anyway, I suppose you’re all wondering how the Dungeons and Dragons movie was. I figured it would be aimed at kids, and it is. It was another one of those weakly plotted movies with high production values. The acting wasn’t great, but the worst part was the dialogue. Oh, bad. I think when I played D&D when I was fifteen, I said stuff like this in my games. But I grew out of it. The girls were cute, though. Love interest/student mage reminds me of that girl who was on sitcom about the radio station, and later went to that medical drama (I‘m great with names, ain’t I!). Only cuter. There was an elf, played by a really good looking black-but-not-very-so-I-can-appeal-to-all-demographics. She wore some very form fitting armor (actually, I doubt if her form was quite so curvaceous). Drew called it a nipple plate (instead of a breast plate. Get it? Didn’t think so - Gamer joke). The Jar-Jar character was played by one of those Wayanses. They had a couple of really cool people playing small parts. The leader of the Thieves’/Assassins’ guild was played by Richard O’Brien. He was a breath of fresh air. Tom Baker was the Doctor. Okay, he played some really old Elf, who brought the Hero back from the brink of death using magic ("You humans use magic to cast spells. We are part of magic."). I didn’t recognize him. Now I wish I had an excuse to see it again. There is some very good fiction put out under the Dungeons & Dragons name. I don’t know why they couldn’t use some of it for the big screen.
Final verdict - I’ll give it three stars - on a ten scale. If you have a budding preteen fantasy fan, take him. He will love it. Otherwise, if you’re really interested in seeing it, wait for video.
So after the movie I discovered that it was only 9:00. I could run up the street to the Irish center and catch half the Seven Nations show. When I got there, I parked right in front of the place. That’s always a bad sign. Sure enough - no show. The advertised location was wrong. It wasn’t the Irish Cultural and Heritage Center, it was the Irish something or other. Not only was it too far away, but I didn’t really know where it was. So that was disappointing.
Then I came back home and washed my dishes. The day wasn’t a total loss.
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