Wait…Didn’t I just have a movie gift card giveaway? Yes, I did. Now I’m having another one. This time around, it’s for the Regal theaters chain.
You might need to get away from it all after a little too much holiday family togetherness. And if times are tight right now, you could either sell the gift card (it’s a physical one) or give it as a holiday present.
DF wanted to see the Metropolitan Opera’s HD broadcast of “Lohengrin,” but also second-guessed that wish. The $25 ticket wasn’t so bad when you consider the opera lasted a little over five* hours, but still…And then there was the popcorn and cold drink that he’d surely need to handle five-plus hours of Wagner. He was on the fence until I suggested a few frugal hacks.
Here are the (many) elements of today’s frugal win:
Senior discount. He got $2 off for being old.
Movie Club. This subscription deal at Cinemark gives me one free movie a month plus a concessions discount. I asked the cashier to apply one of my free movie credits to the Met Opera ticket, which lowered the price from $23 to $10.75.
Ibotta gift card. I redeemed a $20 Cinemark card from my Ibotta account. (For more on Ibotta and other frugal hackery, see “Rewards programs FTW!”)
Cinemark coupon. I got a $1-off concessions coupon by cashing in 25 of my Cinemark rewards points (which you get each time you buy tickets and food).
Movie Club discount. I get 20 percent off concessions purchases with membership.
Once all the discounts and the gift card had been applied, the tab had shrunk to just $1.45. Now you can see why he decided to go.
I do love finding personal finance lessons in popular culture. Today I’ll take out after “Jurassic World: Dominion.”
Was it a good movie? Hard to say. Asking this is like asking, “Was your McDonald’s meal a good dining experience?” Answer: It filled me up okay but it was neither memorable nor remember-able. “Jurassic World: Dominion” is the same sort of cinematic non-feast: I remember enjoying certain parts of it, but on the whole it was just…long. If I’d been wearing a watch, I’d have been checking it after about the 90-minute mark – and the film lasts for 147 minutes.
The first film in the series, “Jurassic Park,” was a wildly entertaining film with plenty of action and terrific (for the time) special effects. But it also asked the hard questions. You know, stuff about humankind’s ongoing attempts to control Nature and our inability to look at something wondrous without wondering how much money it could bring us.
I didn’t expect “Ghostbusters: Afterlife” to be a cinematic classic. It was clear from the first preview that this would be a popcorn movie. What I did expect is that Paul Rudd and Carrie Coon would take the lead in supernatural heroism.
So I was pleasantly surprised when the middle-school nerd, Phoebe (Mckenna Grace, of “The Handmaid’s Tale,” among others) and her new (and only) friend, Podcast (Logan Kim) pretty much walked away with the movie. They – and especially Phoebe – are the film’s heart and mind.
And the scene where Podcast asks if she would be….
…wait for it…
his lab partner? That was one of the shyer, sweeter movie scenes I’ve encountered in ages.
The protagonists are the daughter and grandkids of one of the original Ghostbuster gang, and they’ve inherited his dilapidated house in Middle-of-Nowhere, Oklahoma. The mom, Callie, tells the kids they’re just going out there to sell the place, but we know before they do that they’re going to stay; after all, an early scene shows Callie begging the landlord not to evict them.
What could go wrong? Especially when teenaged son Trevor (Finn Wolfhard, of “Stranger Things”) and his new buddies start hanging around an abandoned mine? Or when Phoebe starts noticing some strange things of her own around their new home?
“Ghostbusters: Afterlife” drags a bit here and there, and I could have done without the Hallmark-y denouement, but overall I had a pretty good time. Didn’t hurt a bit that I paid only $6 because it was cheap Tuesday, or that I had a $3-off coupon for the concessions stand. (Like I said: Popcorn movie.)
And, of course, I found money lessons therein. Don’t I always?
A few weeks back I checked out “Black Widow” with my great-nephew, a superhero nerd. Appropriately enough for a Marvel Comics Universe film, I wore my mask, at least until we sat down. Social distancing is in effect in terms of how many tickets the theater will sell, so I felt safe enough removing my mask to enjoy some kettle corn* and a soft drink.
We’d been waiting a long time for this pandemic-postponed female action movie to open, and I went in planning to love the film so much that I wanted to bear its children.
This was not to be. Although I liked a lot of things about it, it ultimately didn’t hang together as a super-epic. One thing I did love was Florence Pugh’s portrayal of Yelena Belova, a sardonic young badass and sister to Scarlett Johansson’s Natasha Romanov.
While I think Johansson’s a fine actress, and that the two of them played marvelously well against each other, Pugh walked off with the whole film tucked into one of her many pockets.** She lit up the screen and owned every scene in which she appeared.
So in-like, not in-love. Still a good day out – and I paid only $6 because it was cheap(ish) day. Even more luckily, I can call it a business expense if I write about it. So here we go.
Some people look for life lessons in movies. I look for financial ones, whether it’s in Metropolitan Opera HD Broadcast Series productions such as “Parsifal” and “Gotterdammerung,” or slam-bang action films like “Wrath of Man” and “Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle.”
Did I find them in “Black Widow”?
Do you really have to ask?
Sometimes I want to watch art films, international cinema or documentaries. And sometimes I just want to see a whole lotta stuff get blowed up real good. “Wrath of Man,” a heist film starring Jason Statham, did not disappoint even though at times it was hard to follow.
Mostly that was due to the flashbacks. Lots of flashbacks. A couple of other scenes were absolutely mystifying until later, when they finally begin to make sense. Patience is needed, along with a tolerance for gunfire and roaring engines.
Now and then the story is a bit mystifying, as when H (Statham) gives a sub-par performance at a shooting range and isn’t the best at parking a truck. Another character basically confesses to being a bad guy, at which point I whispered to my great-nephew, “Why in the world would he tell him that?”
“Because he doesn’t want him to die,” great-nephew whispered back.
Again, it all made sense eventually. And the whispering was okay: We were two of only five people in the theater, and the only ones in our section. Besides, there was all that gunfire and roaring engines to provide cover.
How did I find personal finance lessons in all this? The way I always do: by looking for them. Here’s what I found.
From my first glimpse of the “Nomadland” trailer, I knew that pandemic or not, I would eventually see this movie. For starters, I’ll see anything Frances McDormand is in. The actor is a marvel of nuance. I have loved her work since “Blood Simple.”
Besides, the topic – people imperiled by the Great Recession – is one that I’d written about over and over for MSN Money. I was curious as to whether a director could truly capture that, rather than paper it over with a requisite Hollywood resolution.
Thankfully, director Chloe Zhao didn’t slap on a typical amor vincit omnia verdict – or even a happy ending as such. “Nomadland” represents everyday life for a lot of people, whether they live on the road or not.
Working as many hours as they can get at whatever job will have them. Wondering whether the money will hold out. Hoping no one gets sick. Banding together with others who are living the same kinds of lives, and supporting one another insofar as it’s possible.
The film moves at a measured, almost mournful pace. In a sense, “Nomadland” is an elegy: not for the American Dream as such, but for the notion that any working person can ever truly be safe.
The fact that some real-life nomads play themselves in the movie is a case in point. It’s doubtful any of them ever thought, “Say, you know what would be cool? Losing everything and having to shovel sugar beets for minimum wage while living in a van in my 60s!”
Sometim
es I go to the movies to be intrigued, uplifted and educated. And sometimes I go just to watch a whole lot of stuff get blowed up real good.
You can guess into which category “Terminator: Dark Fate” falls.
This entry in the “Terminator” franchise picks up right after “Terminator: Judgment Day,” and posits that Sarah Connor (a deliciously well-aged Linda Hamilton) and her son were able to prevent Skynet from taking over the world.
However, things still go very badly indeed for a young Mexican auto factory worker named Dani Ramos (Natalie Reyes), who’s targeted for seemingly no reason by a sinister new brand of Terminator called a Rev-9 (Gabriel Luna).
But there’s always a reason, right? And there’s always a protector. In this film it’s Grace (Mackenzie Davis), a seriously buff and butt-kicking warrior from the future. Eventually Arnold Schwarzenegger shows up again, too, and he’s given a couple of funny bits along with the flash-bang stuff. (His deadpan descriptions of why he’s a perfect mate and the difference that the right blinds can make to décor are extremely amusing.)
“Terminator: Dark Fate” isn’t perfect. In particular, I wish that director Tim Miller (“Deadpool”) had trimmed some of the fight scenes. We get it: The Rev-9 can be sliced and diced and shredded but he always comes back for more. Stahp with the CGI, already!
Still, I was absolutely entertained – and it’s nice to have a film in which three of the four badasses are women.
Now let’s talk about money.
Hello again, and sorry to have maintained radio silence for so long. Some day I’ll let you know what kept me elsewhere.
Today is not that day, though. Today is the day for promoting Chad and Darin Carpenter’s second film, “Sudsy Slim Rides Again.” Specifically, it’s a day for giving away a copy of the DVD.
Their first film, “Moose: The Movie,” was shot entirely in Alaska, with a tight budget and a loose grip on reality. That one made me laugh like a loon, filled as it was with the type of goofy humor familiar to fans of Chad Carpenter’s “Tundra” comics.
Their sophomore effort is, frankly, less sophomoric than the first. Don’t get me wrong: It’s rife with humor, but is definitely more of a semi-serious attempt at movie-making.
Want to win a copy of this “spaghetti Northwestern”? Of course you do.
Linda B. and I went to see “A Quiet Place” recently and it was as frightening as I’d expected it would be – even though I already knew a couple of major plot points, due to having read a couple of spoiler-filled articles. (Will I ever learn?)
Even when I knew what was going to happen, “A Quiet Place” genuinely scared me. That’s because these weren’t jump-scare moments or, worse, the torture porn that passes for suspense/horror these days. The underlying emotion was fear.
Fear that we can’t protect our children, or teach them enough to survive in the world. Fear that we won’t have enough to eat. Fear that we’ll lose the ones we love.
Those are some grade-A terrors, all right – and given all the recent bluster about nuclear weapons, they’re not exactly unfounded.
I, of course, also found personal finance lessons in the movie. That’s how I roll.