Qt3 Movie Podcast: Dark Tower

It’s from a Stephen King book. What could possible go wrong?
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at http://www.quartertothree.com/fp/2017/08/14/qt3-movie-podcast-dark-tower/

I am very excited about the movie for next week.

Dingus, I agree wholeheartedly that this movie should have been a TV series.

tl:dr alert

How many times have you seen it, Chris? Not to give anything away, but I’m going to try to see it again this week before the next show.

People ask me all the time what movies they should go to see. Why they ask me is anyone’s guess. Two recent experiences:

  1. My former mother-in-law asked me what I’ve seen lately that I really liked. I told her about Dunkirk and how I think it should be seen in a theater. She was reluctant. Her husband, who served in Vietnam as a US Army Ranger, died a few years ago in a freak accident, so going to see a war movie is too hard for her.

We talked a bit about the movies he liked. He was one of my favorite people, and she said he only liked one war movie: Saving Private Ryan. I reminded her of another movie, more of a combat movie than a war movie (if you’ll accept the distinction), that he really liked. It was Black Hawk Down. We saw that together in a theater in Arizona, and then stayed up late in the night drinking scotch and smoking a couple of cigars because he thought it really captured some of what he remembered about combat, and wanted to talk about that with me. After everybody else went to bed. It was the kind of experience you only get after seeing a movie in a theater.

My former mother-in-law had forgotten that he liked that movie, but I will forever remember it. I really miss talking to him, and am grateful that I saw the movie in a theater because of that experience.

All that said, I don’t think she will be able to see Dunkirk in a theater because it will be too painful for her. He was an expert in military history and writing, so going to that would just be too much. I was at a loss to tell her what else to see in a theater right now. I should have said Atomic Blonde I think, since she is the person who recommended In Bruges to me, a recommendation that will forever please me in memory.

  1. I met a guy from Canberra at a party recently. We talked about a bunch of things while at the party before we finally meandered over to the subject of movies. In point of fact, we went through The Talisman to get there. He was so excited to meet someone who had also read that book. At any rate, we got to the subject of movies and he lamented that he was such a stickler about the technical aspects of seeing a movie that he rarely went to the theater. “If there’s a buzz in some speaker over in the corner,” he said, “it ruins it for me.”

So I told him about a small chain of theaters out here in Southern California called Arclight and suggested he go and see a movie there. They are pretty tech conscious, having one of their people introduce each movie to the folks seated in the auditorium, assuring the audience they will stick around for the first few minutes to make sure all is well with the screening.

This is how my new friend from Australia went to see Atomic Blonde in Pasadena, California and then posted about his experience on Facebook.

I wish I would have included more of what you had to say on the topic, since I think you and I are pretty much on the same…er…page. Here’s what you wrote in your email:

I forgot that about the fourth book. And it was only upon re-reading your email this morning and seeing the name Cuthbert again that gears started to mesh. I had forgotten the Robert Browning connection, and so many other things. I had designs to try to actually read the first book, or some of it, before doing the podcast. Which was ridiculous, because I’m a slow reader and am working on something else that demands my creative time. But I wanted to. Which is why I stumble so badly when talking about my favorite part of the books with Tom and Kelly during this podcast.

At any rate, I really loved your email, as I said to you personally, and think a deeper treatment of the story in a miniseries would have been welcome. Even if they’d changed a great deal and had less desert walking, at least the sense of mythology might have been created.

-xtien

“They’re just dreams, Jake. They’re not real.”

“They’re real and they’re spectacular”

That’s a cool memory.

Twice so far. I might have set some time aside late Thursday to see it a third time. Some of those scenes need a big screen.

Your instance was much better than mine.

I’m really looking forward to next week’s Atomic Blonde podcast as well, in the cross-my-arms-explain-yourself-mister sense.

(Baby Driver would be a much better pick than Atomic Blonde in the currently playing category.)

I have just as much to say about Baby Driver as I do about Atomic Blonde. :)

-Tom

Sorry, I wasn’t very clear there - the Baby Driver comment was about a recommendation for @ChristienMurawski’s former mother in law.

I’m genuinely interested in hearing you talk about it, and why you like it. More so than Baby Driver, even though it’s a better movie - an hour plus of “funny” Ansel Elgort puns would be a bit much.

Having now finished the podcast, I wish I’d gotten a clearer idea of whether Tom liked Stephen King’s writing.