Someday Out of the Blue

I was delighted to awaken to a gorgeous, dry day after the rain we had yesterday. Celebrated with breakfast while watching more Chip n' Dale's Rescue Rangers. There's no crime being committed in "Bearing Up Baby." Humphrey the Bear of the 50's shorts appears as a bear who finds a lost toddler. His parents think the tot's been hurt by a wild animal. The Rangers have to prove that Humphrey may be wild, but he's hardly bloodthirsty.

Hurried out around 10:30 to catch the bus to Somerdale. I locked my bike at the Fire Department and picked it up in front of City Hall. There was no traffic, and the bus wasn't too bad. I got off about 15 minutes later, hurrying across the street and past Taco Bell and Super Wal Mart.

After a quick stop at Dollar Tree for water, I just went to the movie theater a little bit early. I'm glad I did. Apparently, this was Discount Day. My tickets were $5.33. The Ms. Pac Man/Galaga game is back. I wanted to play, but the token machine was broken. I finally decided to just go to the theater. Thankfully, considering what a maze that place is, it was the very first theater you came up on when you walked in.

I ended up seeing Rocketman. I love musicals and I'm a big Elton John fan, so catching this one was probably inevitable. I go into more detail on this at my Musical Dreams Movie Reviews blog. (Oh, and spoilers abound. You'll probably want to wait to read the review if you haven't seen the movie and don't know anything about Elton John's life.)

Rocketman

After a quick bathroom break, I went straight next door to Applebee's for lunch. It was almost 2, well past the lunch hour, and they only had a few movie-goers who'd just come out of the theater in the booths. My Tuscan Shrimp Salad and half of a Clubhouse Grille sandwich came quickly. The salad was filled with chopped cucumber and tomatoes with salty shrimp on a bed of lettuce; the Italian dressing was on the side. The Clubhouse Grille was ham, cheese, turkey, tomato, and lettuce on white bread. Messy, but very tasty.

Took a brief look at Game Stop, then strolled up the hill to Super Wal Mart. It was a wonderful day for a walk. The sun was out, the sky was a soft robin's egg blue, and the strong wind kept it from feeling too hot. The view on the hill from the edge of the Wal Mart parking lot was amazing! You could see almost everything at the mall and condos.

Wal Mart wasn't terribly busy, either. It was too nice of a day to be shopping! They didn't have the DVD set I was looking for anymore, but I did pick up a collection of Looney Tunes shorts and a Father's Day card. Also grabbed butter pecan cake mix (I never see it anywhere else) and Wal Mart's extra-big can of cooking spray.

By the time I got out, it was almost 4 PM. The traffic was pretty heavy on the White Horse Pike, which may be why the bus was over 20 minutes late. It was also full. I barely found a place in the back. I got off across the street from WaWa. I needed milk and to use the bathroom. Also grabbed a new summer Mountain Dew Flavor, the very blue Liberty Mix. (It was a generic berry flavor and was way too sweet. It was nice to try once, but I probably won't buy it again.) They weren't busy, either. I was in and out. Walked a few blocks to pick up my bike at City Hall, then headed home.

Wrote my Rocketman review when I got in. I broke for a quick smoothie dinner around 7:30. Since I didn't have popcorn at the movies, I made some for dessert with lots of butter and that Garden Vegetable McCormick's seasoning. Finished out "Out to Launch" while I ate. Gadget is thrilled when the Rangers head to Florida to watch the launch of a "space plane." Chip and Dale hear her say that she thinks astronauts are heroic and attempt to train to be one. They're really out of this world when they get trapped in a spacesuit that's taken aboard the plane, then accidentally left in orbit. The others blast off to rescue them, then the plane when it loses oxygen.

A shapeshifting alien has no desire to leave Earth and poses as Dale in order to stay. This results in "Dale Beside Himself" when the alien tricks him into taking his ship to his friends. The others think Dale has suddenly gotten very clean, but Dale wishes he could just go home.

Did some Lego Pirates of the Caribbean after the cartoon ended. Almost finished "The Kraken," getting True Pirate and 8 out of the 10 pieces. Didn't do quite as well in "Davy's Jones Locker." I already had True Pirate on that one, but I only got 7 pieces and forgot to try to get all of Jack's compass items.

Finished the night with Fantastic Beasts: Crimes of Grindlewauld. Grindlewauld (Johnny Depp) breaks out of the American Magical Congress, with the help of his devoted follower Abernathy (Keven Guthrie). A few months later, Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) encounters lovely Leta Lestrange (Zoe Kravitz), who is engaged to his older brother Thesus (Callum Turner). The Ministry of Magic wants him to find Grindlewauld. He refuses, letting another magician go in his place, but he does let Albus Dumbledore (Jude Law) convince him to help find missing magician Credence Barebones (Ezra Miller).  He's more than a little surprised when his friends Queenie (Alison Sudol) and Jacob (Dan Fogler) turn up, claiming they're going to get married. Queenie's sister Tina (Kathleen Waterson) is also after Credence and thinks Newt is engaged to Leta. They almost literally tear Paris apart looking for Credence and Grindelwauld...but the truth hits closer than any of them can imagine, and it'll break their little group into fragments when all's said and done.

Dark, depressing, and frankly not a lot of fun. Couldn't we have had at least a little color somewhere? The story was a confusing mis-mash of side plots I couldn't begin to keep up with, and the murky cinematography and production design didn't help. At least the performances were still good, including Depp as the eccentric villain Grindelwauld and Law as a young Dumbledore. Glad we got to see an early Hogwarts, too, tying this a bit more into the original books.

I can see why this didn't do nearly as well as the first movie. It's just too dark for a lot of people, including me. Only come here if you really love the first movie or the Harry Potter universe.