MARK YOUR CALENDARS FOR THE 2010 CORONADO
FAMILY REUNION APRIL 2ND AND 3RD 2010
RUBEN AND JANA CORKILL'S RANCH
RITA THEATER MOVIE REVIEW OF THE MONTH
RITA THEATER CIRCA 1958 BENAVIDES,TX
2012 MOVIE REVIEW
BY : Xavier Cuellar
Resident Movie Critic of Rita Theater’s Movie Review of the Month.
MOVIE: 2012
Starring : John Cusack, Danny Glover, Woody Harrelson, Amanda Peet
Xavier’s Rating: 2 ½ Stars out of 5.
For a movie that boasted such star power and received such hype, “2012” was a major disappointment. It failed in part because it fell victim to so many of the usual disaster movie clichés and because it followed the same stale cookie cutter approach to disaster films taken by many of its predecessors. It was “Independence Day”, “The Day After Tomorrow”, and “Armageddon” all rolled into one with more grandiose special effects. Granted, there were about 20 minutes of groundbreaking special effects that were captivating, but even heavy hitters like John Cusak and Danny Glover couldn’t rescue this movie from the cheesy script writing and the preposterous plot that doomed it from the start. Other than the little bit of comic relief provided by Woody Harrelson, the movie followed the conventional disaster film formula down the line with countless narrow escapes from certain death. Come on, two or three, I can buy, but there were over a dozen, and that was just in the first 30 minutes. Gimme a break !!!.
How about a little respect for your audience’s intelligence? A good disaster flick should have you on the edge of your seat, biting your fingernails, hoping that the good guys can survive. Trust me, by the time the movie reaches its climax, you’ll find yourself rooting for the natural disaster to finish off John Cusack and the rest of the surviving cast, if only to mercifully bring the movie to an end. The tag line on the movie poster reads “WE WERE WARNED”. Well, apparently not well enough or I would have saved the $8.50 for admission.
MUSINGS FROM MY LIFE IN ANTIGUA, GUATEMALA
All the Best People Are at the Autohoteles
The first time I really noticed the proliferation of “autohoteles” in Guatemala (a cross between a motor lodge and rent-by-the-hour motel) was on road trip to visit friends in La Mesilla, on the Mexican/Guatemalan border , which is about a 6 hour drive from the city. We were about 45 minutes from Miguelina’s house, when I was on the phone trying to give her some idea of where we were.
“Georgie, mi linda, donde estas?”
I looked for a landmark. Ok, let’s see. “Estamos en el Hotel Extasis.”
“Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat???????????????”
Since then one of my favorite pass-the-time activities in the car on long drives is spotting the autohoteles. They have great names like Autohotel Luna de Miel , Autohotel Volcancitos (gotta love that!), Autohotel Amor Prohibido , Autohotel Kama Sutra.
I am thinking of doing my own commemorative calendar.
One day I am driving in Guatemala City to buy exercise equipment with Dwight who, in a burst of weight-loss despair, I have hired to be my trainer. Dwight is a twenty-something from Costa Rica, who is biding his time before he goes back to the States by doing off-road biking tours for tourists in Antigua and a bit of personal training for “crazy gringas” as someone recently told me. He knows he’s cute and talks just a little too much.
“Look!” I said pointing to the “Autohotel El Principe”. The logo is a Princely-looking guy with a crown, completely happy with a girl on each knee. I laughed and was about to share with Dwight my road game of spotting autohoteles when he said:
”Oh, yeah, this place is great! It has all different kinds of rooms. One is a space ship, one is a Arabian theme. They all have hot tubs…...”
Ok, enough. I know where this is going, having heard on a previous training session too much detail about why Dwight’s father divorced his third wife. I don’t want to know any of this, I thought, simultaneously wondering if they ever disinfect those hot tubs.
“My girlfriend and I used to come here all the time. I like the room that’s a spaceship.”
Ok – now we’ve really heard enough out of you. You’re cute but you talk too much.
With trainers, its a really fine line as to how much you want to know about their personal lives. I figure I am paying for the privilege of them listening to whatever I want to talk about. Selfish, I know, but honest.
Dwight doesn’t get this. He has his own weird demons that he likes to regularly work out of his system during our sessions. Today’s version was an extremely paranoid view of his girlfriend’s Facebook activities. Basically she answered one of those online quiz thingies: “What kind of men do you attract?” Her answer, “Guys who wear Abercrombie & Fitch” had the effect of enraging Dwight and setting off a spiraling paranoic rant.
He burst forth with “This is her way of sending subtle messages to other guys that she is available!”
“Don’t you wear Abercrombie & Fitch?” I asked. “Couldn’t she have been talking about you?”The first time I really noticed the proliferation of “autohoteles” in Guatemala (a cross between a motor lodge and rent-by-the-hour motel) was on road trip to visit friends in La Mesilla, on the Mexican/Guatemalan border , which is about a 6 hour drive from the city. We were about 45 minutes from Miguelina’s house, when I was on the phone trying to give her some idea of where we were.
“Georgie, mi linda, donde estas?”
I looked for a landmark. Ok, let’s see. “Estamos en el Hotel Extasis.”
“Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat???????????????”
Since then one of my favorite pass-the-time activities in the car on long drives is spotting the autohoteles. They have great names like Autohotel Luna de Miel , Autohotel Volcancitos (gotta love that!), Autohotel Amor Prohibido , Autohotel Kama Sutra.
I am thinking of doing my own commemorative calendar.
One day I am driving in Guatemala City to buy exercise equipment with Dwight who, in a burst of weight-loss despair, I have hired to be my trainer. Dwight is a twenty-something from Costa Rica, who is biding his time before he goes back to the States by doing off-road biking tours for tourists in Antigua and a bit of personal training for “crazy gringas” as someone recently told me. He knows he’s cute and talks just a little too much.
“Look!” I said pointing to the “Autohotel El Principe”. The logo is a Princely-looking guy with a crown, completely happy with a girl on each knee. I laughed and was about to share with Dwight my road game of spotting autohoteles when he said:
”Oh, yeah, this place is great! It has all different kinds of rooms. One is a space ship, one is a Arabian theme. They all have hot tubs…...”
Ok, enough. I know where this is going, having heard on a previous training session too much detail about why Dwight’s father divorced his third wife. I don’t want to know any of this, I thought, simultaneously wondering if they ever disinfect those hot tubs.
“My girlfriend and I used to come here all the time. I like the room that’s a spaceship.”
Ok – now we’ve really heard enough out of you. You’re cute but you talk too much.
With trainers, its a really fine line as to how much you want to know about their personal lives. I figure I am paying for the privilege of them listening to whatever I want to talk about. Selfish, I know, but honest.
Dwight doesn’t get this. He has his own weird demons that he likes to regularly work out of his system during our sessions. Today’s version was an extremely paranoid view of his girlfriend’s Facebook activities. Basically she answered one of those online quiz thingies: “What kind of men do you attract?” Her answer, “Guys who wear Abercrombie & Fitch” had the effect of enraging Dwight and setting off a spiraling paranoic rant.
He burst forth with “This is her way of sending subtle messages to other guys that she is available!”
“Yes of course, chica, but that is not the point!” he said, suddenly angry and jabbing his finger in the air. There are guys out there who are seeing her online, and they want her and how does that make me look?”
“Ella me ofendio y me insulto!”
Wow. Who knew that answering a simple Facebook question was breaking the Latino macho code of decent female behavior?
“Dwight, this is like taking the Cosmo quiz, I laughed. “Everybody takes the Cosmo quiz!”
It was no use -- he had been irrevocably insulted. She would be punished and “knocked off her pedestal” by being dumped as a Facebook friend. He had to do this to teach her a lesson and prove his love for her. He was going to say just that -- To prove his love, to prove he trusted her he was going to ban her from his Facebook page.
Ah, young demented love! I didn’t think this was the right time to ask if this was the same girl who had gone to the Autohotel El Principe. My mind is now wandering. I wondered, was the spaceship room his idea or hers? And what about the check-in process? Do they bring out an album with pictures and you choose? Or is it just potluck? “Hey, guess what!? You’re in luck! We have the Princess Leia;Luke Skywalker Suite coming available in the next half hour. There just finishing up right now, if you want to wait at the bar.” Again, more thoughts about disinfectant.
Dwight is in full-blown obsession mode. “I was A PLAYER,BABY! I know what is going on in these guys’ heads. There could be ex-boyfriends who maybe still want her. You know how you can look up people? Well, they are FINDING HER ON FACEBOOK and are LOOKING AT HER ANSWER and IT’S A MESSAGE TO THEM!”
I was going to continue arguing the point that his girlfriend could not possibly be held personally responsible for any lustful ex-boyfriends lurking on Facebook, when it occurred to me that Dwight may have had a little drug problem in the past that fried away some of his rational cells along with the filter that keeps what is flying around his brain from coming out of his mouth.
“Did I ever tell you that my last two girlfriends were models?”
Whatever.
Could be too much sun and too many drugs. Could be there is a Facebook dating code of quiz behavior I am too old to understand. Or maybe its just the inevitable in this country. Maybe if you live with your parents until you’re 35, you wind up being regulars in the space ship room at the drive-in coin-operated hotel.
Note: 2010 Guatemalan Autohotel Commemorative Calendar available in late November 2009.
ANSWER TO LAST WEEKS MYSTERY COWBOY PICTURE: IF YOU GUESSED THAT IT WAS THE LONE RANGER, YOU'D BE WRONG. CORRECT ANSWER: JOHN EDWARD CORKILL
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