L.A. Post, #2: Back in Nashville

Well, I didn't get to update as much as I'd have liked, but I am back in Nashville and I will review what I did.

First off, I was driven around almost everywhere in L.A. and the surrounding areas such as Burbank, where all the studios are, to Hollywood, which is mostly a tourist trap. I also got driven around Mulholland Dr., which offers an incredibly scenic view of the San Fernando Valley in which L.A. sits--extremely picturesque. I didn't see much of the downtown area at all, but that didn't appear to have as much activity as the other places.

Friday-the big bust of the trip. The idea was that we would see the Angels/Twins opener in Anaheim. The traffic must be experienced to be believed. L.A.-to-Anaheim is like 30 miles, but it took us nearly 3 hours to make that trip. Around the time we finally got to Anaheim, we got a little lost, but we were near Disneyland and the stadium was supposedly off of nearby Orangewood Ave., in which we took a wrong turn. Zac stops his car at a gas station so we can get directions. His car had been having trouble starting for the past couple of days, and here's where it picked the time to never start again. At one point, with surely the first couple of innings in the books, we tried to walk it, but it was much, much too far. So, I was stuck in Anaheim waiting for a tow truck, and by the time it was all over, it was too late to do anything.

Saturday-rental car now. This is where I got to see Malibu and the Pacific Ocean, and a beach where many scenes including the famous climax of Planet of the Apes, the good one, was filmed. Then saw two movies after that: Donnie Darko: The Director's Cut, and Ju-On, a creepy Japanese horror film at the Laemmle Fairfax on Beverly Blvd.

Sunday-Anaheim, part II. Get parking right around the stadium, buy overpriced scalped tickets (I was willing to pay due to the fact that the entire series had been sellouts, and it would have sucked to have walked all the way to the stadium and told, "Nope."). Watch the rubber match of the Angels/Twins series, a sort of boring game. I am more a fan of the NL than AL, and these two teams have a lot of no-name guys despite being in playoff contention. I saw a homer by Justin Morneau of the Twins, which ranks right up there with seeing Clay Bellinger hitting one for the Yankees. It was 2-2 going into the bottom of the ninth. I've never seen an extra-inning game before, and then Adam Kennedy hit a 2-run homer to win it and thus crush those plans. It's exciting, a walk-off homer. I'd seen it before nearly 15 years ago when Ted Simmons hit one for the Braves against the Cubs, also the bottom of the ninth. The Kennedy HR was fun, I guess, and the return of Troy Glaus who hadn't played since May was nice, but possibly the best thing to happen was Mike Scioscia getting tossed from the game when he came to argue with 2nd base umpire Phil Cuzzi on a play where an Angel runner got called out for getting hit by a ball in play during what was a big twin-killing, and what would have likely been a huge inning. Also, seeing the "rally monkey" jumping all over the place on the video scoreboard was kind of fun-as was the film scenes of Toy Story and Close Encounters of the Third Kind involving the rally monkey.

Saw two movies on Sunday, Mean Creek at Laemmle's Sunset 5 on Sunset Blvd. and The Brown Bunny at the NuArt on Santa Monica Blvd. I had one celebrity sighting when I was buying a ticket for Mean Creek and that was Adam Brody, who plays Seth Cohen on the hit Fox series, "The O.C.," a guilty pleasure of mine.

Other observations: Obviously, I watched films that either had no chance of making it to Nashville or wouldn't be here anytime soon, so my opinion of L.A. theatres can only be based on their arthouses. It does seem like they have clueless people working in their theatres (quite a surprise). I never came out to complain, because I knew it would be hard to fix (for them), but there were focus issues on both films I saw at the Fairfax that wouldn't have been solved by the mere flick of the focus knob--so I suffered through it because it "wasn't that bad." As a projectionist, you are cursed by noticing flaws with everything.

Also, trailers are different in a way. I would almost wager no one in Nashville would dare show the trailer for Testosterone, a gay-themed film that has some very outrageous love scenes that even if they were hetero-themed, would make one blush or run out and complain, or both. I would almost wager no one in Nashville would dare show that film, either. Maybe the Belcourt. You never know.

But now I'm back. And glad. Movie reviews forthcoming.