The Poseidon Adventure

For the past two days, Joe has been inserting our names into the Good 'N Plenty song. It's not the first time he's done this; only the most recent. You might be thinking that not every name has the right amount of syllables to fit within the structure of the song, but by God, he makes it work. I guess that's what makes him Joe.

Anyway, yesterday was movie night. Michele has been taking spinning classes at night, so she didn't go. Oh, and if you're wondering what spinning is, it's just a stationary bike. At first I thought she was doing plate spinning. It didn't make much sense that they'd offer that at a gym, but all I could think of was her balancing a plate on the end of a pole and then perching it on her chin while she juggles bowling pins. Even now, every time she mentions it, I hear that plate-spinning song, you know...

do do do do do do do do doodle-oo do do do do do do
doodle-oo do do doodle-oo do do doodle-oo do do
do do do do do do do do do wah wah do do wah wah

Anyone know what that song is called? Sometimes they play it when poodles jump through hoops, too. That's the problem with songs with no words. If you don't already know the title it's nearly impossible to find it.

Alright, back to movie night. Since we were parked at Quincy Adams, I asked if she'd just drop me off at Nick's house, which was only a few minutes away. I called Nick to let him know we'd just left the station and asked what the quickest way to get to his house is. He started to give me the directions, then thought better of it and said to give the phone to Michele. But she was at the toll window and didn't want to take the phone. So Nick repeated them to me one more time and said he wanted to leave his house by 6:30. That gave us a good ten to fifteen minutes to get there, which should have been more than enough time, considering he's just down the street.

I don't really know what happened. But we went the wrong way. Part of me knew we were going the wrong way, but I followed the directions the same as if we were going the right way, which put us even further away from where we were going. It didn't help that for a good portion of this little excursion, the woman in front of us was practicing for the World's Worst Driver Competition. I think she's got a shot. When she finally decided to turn, a bus making stops at every corner took her place.

When I finally got dropped off at Nick's house, Michele wasn't particularly happy about what had just transpired. And, given that it was nearly 7:00, Nick wasn't all that thrilled either. The movie wasn't unitl 7:40, so I didn't see what the problem was. Yet.

Nick was waiting inside with Allen. one of the guys he works with. Nick's car crapped out on him, so Allen drove with Nick giving directions. It went a lot smoother this time. We stopped to pick up Josh. I haven't been able to make it to movie night very often over the past few months, and apparently Josh was my replacement. But I was there last night, so he had to be himself.

I asked what we were going to do about dinner. See, that's where the thing about 6:30 came in.

"Well, the PLAN was to go to Papa Gino's where the hot waitresses like us because we work at Bust Buy, but it's too late now."

In all the time I've known Nick, Papa Gino's has always been reserved as a final resort when looking for pizza places. He never really liked their stuff. But now he likes going there because of the hot waitresses. And now, thanks to me, there would be no hot waitresses.

Instead of pizza and a show, we went to the Burger King near the theater. There was a big poster in the window for a new Spicy TenderCrisp Chicken Sandwich™. Heed this warning, friends, that poster is a dirty liar. The sandwich in the picture had jalapanos. Mine didn't. The poster sandwich had some kind of orange sauce, probably some kind of chipotle sauce. Mine didn't. You know what mine did have though? MAYONNAISE! I HATE MAYONNAISE!!!

Now before Michele chimes in and says that she used to work at a restaurant and the honey mustard and chipotle sauces I like so much have mayonnaise in them and blah blah blah, yes I know. I get that; no need to be cute. But pure, untampered-with mayo without anything to offset it's taste has no business anywhere near my sandwich. And they slapped it on both buns. I scraped as much of the white stuff off as I could, along with the lettuce. The hell with lettuce. But the most interesting thing about my Spicy TenderCrisp Chicken Sandwich™ was that it wasn't spicy! I'm guessing the "Spicy" in the Spicy TenderCrisp Chicken Sandwich™ came from the jalapanos and chipotle sauce, the two things noticeably absent from my sandwich.

I was able to get in a couple of bites before we had to pack up and head to the theater. Most theaters don't allow outside food or drinks, and Hanover is no different. So I put the non-spicy TenderCrisp Chicken Sandwich™ back in the bag with my fries and tucked it under my arm. My coat convincingly concealed any evidence of outside food or drink, although I think I've got third degree burns in my armpit now.

So now let's discuss the movie. We saw Poseidon, a disaster movie that seemed to fit nicely with the events of the day. What can I say about Poseidon? The first thing I noticed is everybody in this movie looks like someone else. Josh Lucas looks like Matthew McConaughey, if he got a haircut and laid off the naked bongo playing. There's a character called "Lucky Larry," played by Kevin Dillon, that looks and act's exactly like his brother's character from There's Something About Mary. The guy that Richard Dreyfuss shakes off his leg looks like Richard Grieco, circa If Looks Could Kill. (Speaking of movies that aren't this one, I remember a spy movie from around the same time starring one of the Coreys. I don't remember much about it, except chess was involved somehow and at one point, Wallace Shawn, aka Vizzini form The Princess Pride says, "You...you little shit!") Even Kurt Russell looks like a doughey, older version of Kurt Russell.

I don't think I need to explain that this is a remake of the 1972 disaster movie The Poseidon Adventure, but just in case, this is a remake of the 1972 disaster movie The Poseidon Adventure. It's New Year's Eve, and the passengers of the cruise ship Poseidon are counting down to the new year, but most of them won't live long enough to have a hangover, since a freak mega wave is headed right for them. The wave crashes into the ship, wiping out everyone unfortunate enough to be out on the decks. Except for sadsack Richard Dreyfuss, who ironically was about to take a swandive off the side when he saw the massive wave rapidly approaching and suddenly decides he wants to live. Dreyfuss' character is gay, and he'd recently been dumped by his boyfriend, sparking his urge to off himself. I've got to say, Dryfuss didn't play up the typical Hollywood gay character, the kind that prances around making fun of the way everyone's dressed. He was pretty subdued, although he was wearing a diamond earring the size of a baseball.

Anyway, the wave hits, the boat capsizes, people die, the captain insists that everyone remain in the ballroom, but Kurt Russell demands to be let out to find his daughter, who is in the disco on the floor below. Which is now above. Obviously, Kurt Russell doesn't listen to the captain, and follows Josh Lucas, who says he knows ships and can find a way out. A woman Lucas was hitting on earlier and her young son join them. As does Dreyfuss, although I'm not really sure why, as we wasn't part of the initial conversation (Lucas was going to help Russell find his daughter, and help the woman and her son escape) he just sort of tagged along, even though none of the other hundreds of people in the room did.

I'm not going to run through the whole movie, so I'll just touch on a few subjects. First off, as much as I loathe film critics (and I do, with every fiber of my being) at least one of them was spot-on in their review of this movie when they asked where all the old people were. Cruise ships are like 90% retirees. Dreyfuss' white-haired loner seemed do be in be in the minority on this cruise. I didn't even see one shuffleboard.

One thing that really bugged me was the fact that at the begining of the movie, pre-devastating tidal wave, Josh Lucas starts hitting on a woman with a young son, and after a brief introduction, she sends the kid off to go blow the ship's horn. Seriously. She said the captain said it was okay, and I'm not doubting it, but she just let him run off unattended on a giant boat full of complete strangers. She couldn't have walked him there herself, or at the very least had a crew member escort him? That's just crappy parenting right there.

Kurt Russell's daughter's boyfriend (KRDB) survived the disco flipping over, but got himself trapped under some stage lighting. She finds him, but can't lift the heavy structure off his leg by herself. So she surveys the area and grabs the skinniest, tiniest woman she can find to help her lug this hulking piece of metal off KRDB. Her helper turns out to be a stow-away who was staying in a bunk with a friend of a friend who was a cook on the ship. And the bunkmate happens to be the guy Richard Dreyfuss reluctantly shakes off his leg and sends plummeting down an elevator shaft to his death.

Another thing is the startlingly low number of electrocutions. When the ship flips over, all the lights go out, and then we see the generators kick on. So most of the electricity is still working and partially submerged when our heros are wading around in the water. How come nobody fried? There's tons of logistical nightmares in this movie.
And I don't want to ruin the ending for you, but Kurt Russell=Bruce Willis, KRD=Liv Tyler, and KRDB=Ben Affleck.

Anyway, it's got some unintentionally funny moments, and most of it requires near fatal levels of belief suspension, but it's not the worst way to spend five bucks.