Sometimes, when I get especially bored, I will leaf through my ticket collection to see how long ago I went to a movie at the same time as my most recent trip to the theater. Sometimes it takes a while. Matching 12:05 when I went to see “Up in the Air” a few weeks ago was especially tricky.
Random Factoid #175
19 01 2010Comments : Leave a Comment »
Tags: Collection, Movie Ticket, Random Factoid, Up in the Air
Categories : Random Factoids
Random Factoid #174
18 01 2010They teach you a lot of things in driver’s ed, but they don’t teach you how to work a parking garage. More than a month after receiving my license, my mom taught me parking garage decorum in the Edwards Greenway Palace 24 garage.
Why pay $3 to do it? Because I was learning an hour before I was slated to attend a movie there.
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Tags: Driver's Ed, Edwards Greenway Grand Palace 24, Parking Garage, Random Factoid
Categories : Random Factoids
Random Factoid #173
17 01 2010I complain a lot about AMC Studio 30 and all the frenzied moviegoing experiences I have there. But, I have yet to tell you why it is that I continue to go there.
AMC Studio 30 offers a parking lot, not a parking garage. I can park for free. The cheapskate in me usually wins now when it comes to picking movies because my favorite and much more convenient theater, Edwards Greenway Palace 24, charges an exorbitant $3 to park.
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Tags: AMC Studio 30, Edwards Greenway Grand Palace 24, Parking, Random Factoid
Categories : Random Factoids
Random Factoid #172
16 01 2010Because I am so enamored by movies, my house obviously has a lot of them. This also means that we are constantly lending them out to friends. I have already written a memorial to all of the lost DVDs that have resulted from this sharing, but I have never shared how I combated this senseless loss.
I created a monster Word document called “Our DVD Library.” I catalogued all of our DVD inventory, and I wrote the name of the movie and the number of disks on the document. I even threw in the release date just for kicks. Next to all of this was a place where we could write where the movie went.
Did it work? I don’t know. If we have lost a DVD recently, I stopped doing inventory about 5 years ago, so the Word document wouldn’t help.
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Tags: DVD, DVD Library, Random Factoid
Categories : Random Factoids
Random Factoid #171
15 01 2010I swear to you that I do not have OCD, but you will probably think that I do after I reveal this pet peeve to you.
You know how sometimes when you peel the plastic off the case of a DVD and it clings to the spine a little bit? It really bothers me when the plastic sticks to the case and you have to scratch to get it off. I found myself quite preoccupied doing it with both “Food, Inc.” and “(500) Days of Summer” the other day.
I don’t know why it gets to me. The only logical cause I can come up with is that perhaps I think that unless all the plastic is off, the DVD hasn’t fully been opened. But that sounds a little silly even to me.
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Tags: (500) Days of Summer, DVD, Food Inc., Plastic, Random Factoid
Categories : Random Factoids
Random Factoid #170
14 01 2010Thanks to blogging buddy Branden over at Foolish Blatherings, I have received my first award (of sorts). He wrote:
Marshall at Marshall at the Movies – Marshall’s blog is fascinating that he could have film reviews, random factoids and could have room for Oscar talk. Anybody talking about Oscar is high on my list of must see.
Thanks, Branden! If I ever do anything big with my blogging career, we can say you were the first person to see the future and put it in writing (althought that would make you sound kind of like James Cameron).
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Tags: Foolish Blatherings, James Cameron, Random Factoid
Categories : Random Factoids
Random Factoid #169
13 01 2010Am I really that obsessed with “Up in the Air?”
I mean, I’m pretty vocal about my love. But literally everyone I know that has gone to see it makes sure to tell me that they did.
Jason Reitman, Paramount Pictures, take note as to who is delivering plenty of money into your hands this winter.
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Tags: Jason Reitman, Paramount Pictures, Random Factoid, Up in the Air
Categories : Random Factoids
Random Factoid #168
12 01 2010
Squeamish, stand back. Today’s factoid will be sharing a particularly nasty moviegoing experience.
It was the night of June 12, 2009. My friend and I were running into the theater (AMC Studio 30), hoping that we could still get good seats to the 7:20 showing “The Taking of Pelham 123” because it was, after all, opening night. We sprinted in at about 7:15 only to find a line outside our theater that was looped several times.
This seemed a little suspect to me because lines are usually admitted 30 minutes or so before the movie starts, and we were waiting with less than five. But from the looks of the line, we would be able to get pretty good seats, so I didn’t question it too much.
Minutes started to go by, and soon it was 7:20 and we were still waiting outside. Some woman much bolder than I approached the manager and asked what the deal was. The word spread quickly through the line.
Someone had urinated and defecated on the floor of the theater.
We were waiting outside because the custodial crew was still hard at work cleaning the excrement and purging the smell. They let us in just in time to watch the last preview – which was for “Armored” – and get settled as the movie was starting. No stench remained in the theater, but the perpetrator made sure that I remembered the night I saw “The Taking of Pelham 123.”
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Tags: AMC Studio 30, Random Factoid, The Taking of Pelham 123
Categories : Random Factoids
Random Factoid #167
11 01 2010
People talk about life-changing movies all the time, but a movie that truly inspired me to go out and alter my life was “Casino Royale.”
No, I didn’t leave the theater, go buy an Aston Martin, pick up gorgeous European women, and start firing my large arsenal of weapons.
Per se, it wasn’t actually the movie itself that inspired the change; rather, it was something that happened while I watched the movie.
I had gone with a friend, and my parents had so generously lent me their credit card to pay for the movie because I was plum broke and out of cash. Even in November, I was wearing mesh shorts (that’s Houston for you). These shorts did not have pockets, so I stuffed the card into the elastic waistline.
At some point during the movie, I felt my shorts and noticed that the card was gone. I began to panic but remained calm and focused on the movie, knowing that I didn’t stand a chance of finding it in the dimly lit theater.
When the lights came on, I scoured the floors for the card. The search became fruitful after about a minute or so when I began looking in the row below us.
The next day, my mom and I got in the car and headed to the Sports Authority where we bought five pairs of mesh shorts with pockets so nothing like this would ever happen again.
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Tags: Aston-Martin, Casino Royale, Credit Card, Houston, James Bond, Mesh Shorts, Pockets, Random Factoid
Categories : Random Factoids
Random Factoid #166
10 01 2010At my humble abode, my favorite room to watch movies is connected to the kitchen. Often times, while I am kicking back in the comfortable recliners, someone in my family will feel the need to get some ice from the freezer.
This causes quite a rumble, and the sound disrupts my focus (if I sound like a huge diva, I really don’t try to be).
Now, my family has lovingly adapted their ways in order for me to achieve maximum satisfaction while watching movies. They will say, “Marshall, heads up, I’m going to get some ice,” or something along those lines. I then pause the movie, allow them to get some ice, and everyone moves along happily.
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Tags: Ice, Kitchen, Random Factoid, Refrigerator
Categories : Random Factoids
Random Factoid #165
9 01 2010I think we all take sound quality for granted. It is something that we expect to be a non-issue when we go to the movie theater, yet when it is lacking, the experience is tainted.
I was reminded of the importance of sound quality over the holidays when I went to see “Sherlock Holmes.” For the first 30 minutes, all the voices sounded muffled and as if I was hearing them from a great distance away. It impacted my ability to focus on the movie and made my ear work too hard.
Oh, and it was at the same theater that all my problems seem to occur. AMC Studio 30. Love the place, but it’s time to get the act together.
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Tags: AMC Studio 30, Random Factoid, Sherlock Holmes, Sound
Categories : Random Factoids
Random Factoid #164
8 01 2010Since I just talked about Box Office Mojo in my factoids, I thought I might share with you some interesting response I gave to polls on the site.
Q: What is your most anticipated movie of 2009?
A: “Watchmen”
Q: What will be the top-grossing December [2009] release?
A: “Sherlock Holmes”
Q: What will be the highest-grossing September [2009] release?
A: “Jennifer’s Body”
Just a sampling of my bad prognostication. Somewhere on the site In Contention, I commented that I thought “Avatar” would not make more than $250 million domestically.
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Tags: Avatar, Box Office Mojo, In Contention, Jennifer's Body, Random Factoid, Sherlock Holmes, Watchmen
Categories : Random Factoids
Random Factoid #163
7 01 2010I get inspiration from strange places. This factoid hails from Box Office Mojo’s chart of the highest grossing overall weekends in movie history (or at least since 1982).
As a hyperactive moviegoer, you can imagine that I dropped my change in Hollywood’s bowl on some of these weekends. Just how much? Look below.
Top Grossing Overall Weekends at the Box Office
- December 25-27, 2009
- #1 movie: “Avatar” with $75.6 million
- Total gross of weekend: $260 million
- Marshall’s participation: $30 ($7.50 to “The Princess and the Frog,” “Nine,” “Up in the Air,” and “Sherlock Holmes”)
- July 18-20, 2008
- #1 movie: “The Dark Knight” with $158.4 million
- Total gross of weekend: $253 million
- Marshall’s participation: $25.50 ($9.25 to “Wanted” and “Hancock,” $7.00 to “The Dark Knight”
- November 20-22, 2009
- #1 movie: “New Moon” with $142.8 million
- Total gross of weekend: $250 million
- Marshall’s participation: $15 ($7.50 to “Couples Retreat” and “2012”)
- July 7-9, 2006
- #1 movie: “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest” with $135.6 million
- Total gross of weekend: $209.9 million
- Marshall’s participation: $12.25 ($6.50 to “Pirates,” $5.75 to “Nacho Libre”)
- May 25-27, 2007
- #1 movie: “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End” with $114.7 million
- Total gross of weekend: $199.2 million
- Marshall’s participation: $8 to “Pirates”
- June 26-28, 2009
- #1 movie: “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” with $109 million
- Total gross of weekend: $192.9 million
- Marshall’s participation: Technically – nothing. I saw “Transformers” on Thursday and I went to a free screening of “Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs” on Saturday morning.
- May 26-28, 2006
- #1 movie: “X-Men: The Last Stand” with $102.8 million
- Total gross of weekend: $188.4 million
- Marshall’s participation: $5.50 to “The DaVinci Code”
- May 28-30, 2004
- #1 movie: “Shrek 2” with $72.1 million
- Total gross of weekend: $185.6 million
- Marshall’s participation: nothing. I saw “Shrek 2” for the second time that Wednesday.
- June 4-6, 2004
- #1 movie: “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban” with $93.7 million
- Total gross of weekend: $182.7 million
- Marshall’s participation: $5.50 to “Potter”
- May 4-6, 2007
- #1 movie: “Spider-Man 3” with $151.1 million
- Total gross of weekend: $181.3 million
- Marshall’s participation: $6 to “Spider-Man 3”
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Tags: Box Office Mojo, Random Factoid
Categories : Random Factoids
Random Factoid #162
6 01 2010
I meant to inform you of this groundbreaking decision last week, but how sense escapes me!
Well, I made a big decision…
I BOUGHT MY FIRST SCREENPLAY!
I chose on Christmas Day and was expecting for almost a week, when on New Year’s Eve, my bundle of joy arrived!
The screenplay was Nick Hornby’s “An Education,” a beautifully written drama with plenty of wit. I don’t know what made me choose it (especially because I can download the screenplay from the Sony Pictures Classics FYC site).
Just call it Christmas spirit.
Comments : 3 Comments »
Tags: An Education, Christmas, Nick Hornby, Random Factoid, Screenplay
Categories : Random Factoids
Random Factoid #161
5 01 2010
Building off yesterday’s factoid about in-room movies in hotels, do I have a story for you!
On a college trip to Southern California this last September with my dad, I did as my instinct told me when we checked into the Marriott. Check the in-room movies. See what is available.
My dad had given the OK for me to rent a movie, and I had selected “The Hangover.” But as I hit the very large yellow “PURCHASE” button on the remote, nothing happened. I hit it again. Still nothing. A hundred angry clicks later, “The Hangover” still hadn’t been rented.
We called the hotel’s service to come and investigate, and they concluded that the TV was malfunctioning. They moved us to a room where the in-room movies worked and gave us two free rentals.
Curiosity may have killed the cat, but it got me “The Hangover” and “(500) Days of Summer.”
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Tags: In-Room Movies, Marriott, Random Factoid, The Hangover
Categories : Random Factoids
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