plus: a pilgrimage to chick-fil-a.
We went to the Fun Central house in the morning. Aunt Lil tried to feed me, but I don't think I ate much.
Darin, his brothers Mitch and Scott, and I headed out to see a film. We knew that we couldn't see Toy Story 2, because there were too many people in the extended family who wanted to see it. So it came down to End of Days or Sleepy Hollow and we decided on the latter.
Sleepy Hollow is loosely--extraordinarily loosely--based on the Washington Irving story "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow." Ichabod Crane (Johnny Depp) is no longer a schoolteacher but a crack member of the New York City Detectives' Squad, 1799 version. He insists on solving crimes using "facts" and "scientific evidence," which really annoys his superiors, so they send him upstate to the town of Sleepy Hollow to solve a series of bizarre beheadings. He meets all sorts of strange people doing and saying weird things, and those are just the humans. All of Crane's scientific methods don't seem to be helping much with what's going on either.
A for set design. A for atmosphere. B for acting--what is this strange affect Depp has? C for story--if you're not paying attention early on, the explanation for what's going on will make no sense; if you are paying attention early on, you won't be that much further ahead of the people who weren't. (And it's darn hard to pay attention, since the first half hour is pretty dull.) The resolution isn't particularly satisfying.
It's not a great movie by any stretch of the imagination. I thought it was worth a matinee.
After the movie we headed over to Tri-County Mall, because we had some shopping to do for the family Gift Exchange and because we knew there was a Chick-Fil-A there. If you have not experienced Chick-Fil-A--and you probably haven't, because it's not a large chain--you have missed out on the best fast food there is. Okay, the best fast food chicken there is. Totally perfect chicken nuggets. Really great chicken sandwiches. The best fast food fries there are. Yum.
Satiated, we shopped.
We went back to Fun Central and I said hi to the family, whom I hadn't seen yesterday, including meeting Darin's cousin Matthew's fiancee Amiee. There was tons of food (there always is at these Thanksgiving get-togethers) for dinner. Later in the evening was the obligatory Trivial Pursuit game (Millenium edition). We got back to the hotel really, really late.
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Copyright 1999 Diane Patterson
Send comments and questions to diane@spies.com