Drunken MasterIf you can't believe a little in what you see on the screen, it's not worth wasting your time on cinema. Friday, October 27, 2000 I spent Thursday evening getting ready for the weekend -- catching up here, putting a costume together for a party Saturday night, and packing my clothes. I was able to leave straight from work today. The trip went smoothly, so I got to Jack's place around five thirty or so. He gave me a big hug! And suggested that we do dinner and a movie. Ok by me -- we could also do some shopping for stuff we needed for the Halloween party tomorrow.
I ended up driving to the Sunset shopping center. Jack thought I should have parked closer to the Taco Bell, but I chose a central spot in between the food, the fabric store, and the movie theater. That's why it's a shopping center, isn't it? But I felt bad when he told me that his knee is still bugging him. This is a bad thing! I never know what to get at Taco Bell -- I don't eat there often (Taco Time is so much better), and the random combinations of five ingredients don't make any sense to me. So Jack ended up with a combo meal, and we shared the Nachos muchos grandes stupendo, or whatever it was called. It was tasty enough, and we had enough food but not too much. We talked, filling each other in on what's been going on this week. Jack only said, "Yes, you already told me about that" a few times, when I was talking about some recent journal happenings. We had time to go to the fabric store. I was looking for fall-colored artificial flowers and fruit for my costume hat; I'd partially undecorated this hat after the last time I wore it, thinking I'd do other things with it. So now I needed to re-do it. The fall flowers were already on sale, which was a good thing. I also grabbed a cheap glue gun (Jack said he had one, "somewhere in the garage"), and some glue sticks. Jack was very pleased with a bag of inexpensive "chocolate" candy eyeballs! The bag included some other Halloween chocolates, but the eyeballs were the most impressive. We'll take it to the party tomorrow!
We even had time for Jack to play Hydro Thunder before the movie. Jack loves racing games, and this is a fun one. (The hydroplane boat races seem to have a Seattle connection, although there isn't a Seattle track in the game.) I kibitzed for a few minutes, then went in to grab our seats. The movie was the re-release of Jackie Chan's Legend of the Drunken Master. (It's listed at IMDB under Jui kuen II, the Chinese title.) I've seen this before, one time when Edd Vick brought some martial arts movies to a movie night at my house. This rerelease is good, well worth seeing. The plot wanders a bit, and there are some characters that seem unnecessary, but the comedy is consistently funny and the action scenes are grand. The finale is stupendous, with chin fu and nose fu included. Highly recommended! I'm glad they are bringing out Jackie Chan's earlier stuff; I just wish it weren't dubbed. (James Berardinelli's review)
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