Regal Cinemas L.A. Live 14 Men in Black 3 Saturday, 6/1/12, 4:10 pm
Price: $13.50 Concessions: None. Audience: 50 people, in a theater that seats 292. Trailers/advertising: Deep breath… An ad for “Pretty Little Liars.” A strange hybrid trailer for “That’s My Boy” in which the stars half-heartedly proclaim how funny the movie is. Ads for “Longmire,” Nissan, Coke, Powerade, silencing your cell phone, the Cumberbatch/Miller “Frankenstein” via Fathom Events, the Dr. Harvey Karp “Parents’ Night Out” Fathom screening, a missing person ad, and another lengthy Regal PSA about silencing your phone. And finally, a Regal-branded anti-TV, pro-movie theater ad titled “Go big or go home.” Then, the trailers: End of Watch, Brave, Prometheus, Rock of Ages, Total Recall, Skyfall, and The Amazing Spider-Man, which was the first I’d seen of it, and looked terrible. That one’s going to bomb. Projection: Digital
Aimee and I saw Waiting for Superman here as part of the L.A. Film Festival a few years ago, but that’s the only time I’d been here before today. It’s a massive place, with screens on the first and third floors and a mezzanine in between. The theater I was in held nearly 300, and was sparsely populated. It’s always a crapshoot when I choose to do these movie weeks, so you’re bound to be stuck catching a movie that wouldn’t necessarily be your first choice. But, I figured since I’d just had my fifteen-year Amherst reunion, I might as well see Men in Black 3, another dubiously necessary revisitation of something that happened in 1997… Actually, it was more because after graduation, George and I drove across the country and, stopping to repair a blown water hose, we saw the original Men in Black in a quonset hut movie theater in Whitehorse. Memories…
I saw the sequel in 2002, and seem to remember not thinking much of it, after the pleasant surprise of the original. I thought this one, while feel in unnecessary and not something I think a lot of people were clamoring for, was actually pretty entertaining. A great, if occasionally wasted, supporting cast – Jemaine Clement, Emma Thompson, Bill Hader, Michael Stuhlbarg, Alice Eve, Will Arnett – and the familiar, and still enjoyable, interaction between the men in black and the aliens who live somewhat discreetly on earth.
The theater was fine; there’s not much to talk about these days, as everyone’s got digital projection and they all sort of look the same, which is, I suppose, the point. I could do without the barrage of ads at the beginning, and the needlessly premium price – this wasn’t 3D, after all – but it’s a big multiplex in an entertainment complex, so the price is to be expected.
