This year is the 25th year since the movie "War Games," and it was shown for one night only in theaters nationwide, to promote the release of the DVD and its direct-to-DVD sequel, "War Games 2: The Dead Code." Since I have loved this movie for over 2 decades (I'm old), I've been looking forward to this event since I first saw it advertised. A few friends and I decided to watch it together at the AMC in Century City on Thursday night.
I hadn't been to the Century City mall in over 10 years, and am happy to say that it is now a Westfield Shoppingtown, and has a LOT of great stores. I met up with Jenn and we went to Bloomingdale's, where I introduced her to the Jo Malone fragrance line. Mmmm....smells nice! Jo Malone is a company that combines scents to make new ones, and you can also combine your own from their line. I can't decide enough from their line anyway, so I haven't done the combination thing. I absolutely love the Blue Agava & Cacao scent that I already have, and ended up buying the Lime Basil & Mandarin scent, and Jenn bought the White Jasmine & Mint. I think I've hooked her onto the brand, and we can both thank Liz for the wondrous aromas that will be wafting around us, as she is the reason that I know about JM in the first place.
We found Glenn, picked up our tickets, met up with Linda, and headed on over to the swankiest food court I've ever seen. They've got lots of fancy food, not your usual food court fare; although they did have a Panda Express. We opted for the Lawry's Carvery, which made us all think of maybe going to Lawry's proper one of these days. I haven't been there in over 10 years, but loved it, and I'm not usually a fan of steak. I had the roast beef, with horseradish mashed potatoes and broccoli, which was all excellent. Cindy arrived and opted for a salad from the Mediterranean restaurant.
While we were eating, George Takei walked by with his husband, and a few of us stared at him while he went to the Japanese food place. I'm not a Trekkie, but I think he's done a good job on "Heroes," and I've certainly known about him from ST. I knew that my other Trekkie friends would enjoy the fact that he was in the same room as me, so I texted them to let them know that I was having dinner with him. Yes, he was outside, and I was inside, but we were eating in the same general area, so that counts, right? We refrained from approaching him, and Jenn surprisingly refrained from taking something from his table after he left.
We went to the theater, and I was surprised that they didn't have "The 20" playing before the movie started. Instead, we were advised of special events coming up, like the Drum Corps International Big, Loud and Live event in August. This got me all excited, because, hello--it's DRUM CORPS.
Instead of movie trailers, we were treated to footage which will probably be on the DVD, which was short clips of the filmmakers and actors for the movie, reminiscing about their experiences while making the film all those years ago. Barry Corbin is still a hoot. Ally Sheedy was cutely naive. Matthew Broderick ended up studying Galaga (which they had placed at his residence so that he could practice) more than the typing that he was supposed to learn. Then they showed trailers of WG2, which made us groan, and I'm glad that they're not wasting their energy by trying to market it as a new big screen film.
Thoughts about the movie, 25 years later:
- I remember seeing this with my best friend David 25 years ago. I should email him to see if he remembers that. I think that someone else may have been there. Jennie L? I don't know. I think I'll ask him.
- Greetings Professor Falken
- Computers can stalk people.
- Wow. That really was the 80's: legwarmers, TAB, the photo of Ronald Reagan, the computer paper with the alternating green and white stripes, and those huge floppy disks!
- Perhaps my love for Galaga had a little something to do with this movie. Along with the fact that there was an arcade VERY close to my house at the time, and they sometimes gave me free quarters so that I could play Galaga all the time.
- Shall we play a game?
- I love that the guy who plays Melvin seems to only play geeks. Is it typecasting?
- Do people still use those back door passwords when they design programs?
- PENCIL made me think of "The Dark Knight" (shudder)
- "What kind of an as**ole lives on an island and doesn't even have a boat?!" I haven't heard this line without stupid editing for awhile. I like the original.
- "I would piss on a spark plug if I thought it would do any good." -- a slice of Barry Corbin's actual life
- I guess I never picked up on the fact that McKittrick vs. the General is the same as Computer vs. Man. I must have been too busy worrying that we'd get blown up because a couple of crazy kids decided to hack into a game company and play their games.
- OK, I also just got the line about "beef up" and "WOPR," but only because they talked about Burger King during the preshow.
- Global Thermonuclear War -- if only David had chosen Chess, this would have been quite a different film. Hmmm...unless it was like Wizard's Chess.
- How could we still hear the computer talk when we were no longer looking at the computer screen in David's room?
- Underachievers are future MacGyvers.
- I'm such a geek about the launch code that I noticed that the first shot of the code in the silo actually started with "JPE," not "CPE." GEEK!
- THIS IS THE MOVIE WHERE THE DAD BUTTERS HIS CORN WITH A SLICE OF BREAD.
I look forward to owning the movie on DVD, so that I can see more behind-the-scenes stuff.
Thanks, everyone, for a great time!
How about a nice game of chess?
if yo go to lawry's you should try their sunday brunch. It's pricey but so worth it. :)
ReplyDeleteSo when y'all actually go to Lawry's, can I come too, or do I have to find a Mediterranean place on La Cienega to go to by myself? ;)
ReplyDeleteI had the exact same reaction when they showed that the password was "pencil". Although I think I inappropriately giggled too.
I read somewhere about the launch code being wrong in the one shot but didn't catch it myself. The husband also caught that the jets they were told to scramble weren't the actual jets that were scrambled.
I could swear I remember Marty McFly's dad doing the butter/corn/bread thing. I couldn't possibly confuse Matthew with Michael. But thank you for not hitting me during that scene. And thank Linda for sitting between us so it made it more difficult for you to hit me if you had wanted to/tried. ;)