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Aug. 14th, 2017 08:58 am Fairly busy weekend, for us anyway. We borrowed Mom's car on Friday night and did a Costco run on Saturday as well as one or two other stops then had tickets for the IMAX showing of Dunkirk in the evening. I did stuff up the booking for our seats, clearly misreading the diagram for the seating plan and booked seats three rows from the screen instead of three from the back which is what I thought i had done. We did try to sit on the end of a row further back, hoping someone hadn't booked those seats but just minutes before the show started, the actual owners of the seats showed up. We apologized and slunk back down to the lower section which was all but empty so we did sit in the row behind where we were supposed to. It was a bit better. It wasn't too bad though, after all. The IMAX was pretty amazing for a lot of the scenes, especially for the aerial flying and fighting stuff. We don't normally go for the IMAX but thought this movie would be particularly good and it was. It's also in a spot where we definitely have to have a car to access and we don't normally have one. Highly recommend the movie even if you don't go IMAX with it. It's not really got a story as such, there's no romance thrown in as a back story or anything else around the events. It shows the personnel on the beaches, lining up for the ships and the boats to evacuate, the Messerschmitts bombing the ships and the Spitfires fighting them to prevent it.
Soldiers are jumping off the ships rather than go down with them if they're hit. Others are holed up in a beached boat which the Germans start using for target practice so the bullets are banging on the sides of the hull and coming through it and then when the tide comes in, naturally water starts pouring in. Meanwhile, a load of private boats, ferries, lifeboats and the like are coming over from England's coastal areas to help evacuate the stranded. They were conscripted by the navy but often were still piloted by the private owners. I read somewhere that most of the boats in real life were not little fishing boats, but were ferries and larger boats but I there must have been some smaller private vessels, too. The only "story" part of the movie was one of these boats, piloted by the owner and his two teenage sons and what happens to them. They pick up a very shellshocked pilot (or might be a sailor that survived a sunken ship) who's been shot down and is sitting on a floating craft. He doesn't want them to go "back" to France because he's sure it's certain death but the owner of the boat, played by Mark Rylance (one of only two actors I recognized) knows it's the right thing to do.
Everything else is the soldiers, the fighting in the air, the tension of them trying to get on the ships then the ships being bombed or will the Spitfires shoot down the bombers? There's not a lot of dialogue but you don't even notice it. Kenneth Branagh plays a Rear Admiral who's overseeing the whole evacuation operation. He's good in the role, too. It was after this evacuation that Churchill made the speech about fighting on the beaches, in the air etc. "We will NEVAH SURRENDAH"!
Anyway. Yes. Good movie. I wish my Dad had been alive to see it, he'd have really loved it.
We did more errands on Sunday including dropping in at a ComicArts festival to see the lay of the land. We only just found out about it a couple of days before or it might have been something G. could have prepared for and set up a table. We wanted to see what it was all about with the possibility of him going in it next year.
We took the car back to Mom and stayed for an early supper/late lunch and came back home. Watched a documentary narrated by George Lazenby about his life, and how he came to get the part of James Bond, but though apparently was offered a contract for more, he never took them up on the offer. Most of it wasn't about Bond, since that was only part of his life.You did get the idea of what life was like in London in the swinging 60s, though. He was a model for awhile and had women and drink and drugs in his life. He's an Aussie by birth and came across very arrogant and flip which he seems to fully admit he was. Kind of interesting, anyway.
Not sure what's on this weekend coming but the next one, there's a Corrie ping so I guess we'll borrow the car again. they've changed the venue to one a bit of a distance away from where we live. My friend usually picked us up but the new place is close to where she lives so I would not ask her to come all the way to get us, go all the way back to the pub and then take us home again. It's easier to get the car. Mom always tells me she'll lend it any time and wonders why I don't ask more often but I don't like to. We generally do ask maybe once every 5 or 6 weeks. If she comes over to visit on a Sunday, we'll sometimes ask her to run us down to the grocery store and we can then get a lot more or heavier stuff. G. usually goes to the grocery store once and sometimes twice a week to get things but he can only carry so much.
Also saw that the Fan Expo in Toronto over the Labour Day weekend has some excellent guests but we can't go at this late date, with all our other vacations planned. The Comic Con in Toronto in March isn't nearly as good but we did discover there's a Fan Expo in Vancouver while we're there. They don't have more than a couple of guests announced yet but we'll wait a bit and see who they get. We decided if there's anyone really interesting we'll get a one day ticket. Don't want to spend all our time in Vancouver doing that, there's too much else to see, but one afternoon at the convention centre would be ok! Good timing. It actually looks better than the Comic con because it seems to be a wider focus than the comic one. They call it a Pop Culture festival so it covers a lot more, like Steampunk, science fiction, horror, in addition to comics and anime and manga. We will have to keep it in mind and go to the Toronto one next year. I think it must be the labour day weekend every year. Man, though, the hotel prices are astronomical over that weekend!
We can get a good deal on the flights because I've got a companion voucher for $99 through Westjet which cuts the price of the flights down. Good thing, we'll need the cash for the hotels! Still, a long weekend away in Toronto will be ok. We also think we will try to go back to the UK next year. Ohh.... maybe we can fly to the UK from Toronto and continue our vacation from there. Something to think about. Will have to do some organizing. I don't think we can organize a 3 day layover in Toronto on a ticket to the UK, flying here to TO to London. I think the airline would make us book two separate flights. It would be cheaper obviously if there was a way to book the Halifax/Toronto/London flight as one flight. Anyway, never mind, there's ways and means. Incorporating the Fan Expo in with the rest of the vacation is a good idea, though.
Soldiers are jumping off the ships rather than go down with them if they're hit. Others are holed up in a beached boat which the Germans start using for target practice so the bullets are banging on the sides of the hull and coming through it and then when the tide comes in, naturally water starts pouring in. Meanwhile, a load of private boats, ferries, lifeboats and the like are coming over from England's coastal areas to help evacuate the stranded. They were conscripted by the navy but often were still piloted by the private owners. I read somewhere that most of the boats in real life were not little fishing boats, but were ferries and larger boats but I there must have been some smaller private vessels, too. The only "story" part of the movie was one of these boats, piloted by the owner and his two teenage sons and what happens to them. They pick up a very shellshocked pilot (or might be a sailor that survived a sunken ship) who's been shot down and is sitting on a floating craft. He doesn't want them to go "back" to France because he's sure it's certain death but the owner of the boat, played by Mark Rylance (one of only two actors I recognized) knows it's the right thing to do.
Everything else is the soldiers, the fighting in the air, the tension of them trying to get on the ships then the ships being bombed or will the Spitfires shoot down the bombers? There's not a lot of dialogue but you don't even notice it. Kenneth Branagh plays a Rear Admiral who's overseeing the whole evacuation operation. He's good in the role, too. It was after this evacuation that Churchill made the speech about fighting on the beaches, in the air etc. "We will NEVAH SURRENDAH"!
Anyway. Yes. Good movie. I wish my Dad had been alive to see it, he'd have really loved it.
We did more errands on Sunday including dropping in at a ComicArts festival to see the lay of the land. We only just found out about it a couple of days before or it might have been something G. could have prepared for and set up a table. We wanted to see what it was all about with the possibility of him going in it next year.
We took the car back to Mom and stayed for an early supper/late lunch and came back home. Watched a documentary narrated by George Lazenby about his life, and how he came to get the part of James Bond, but though apparently was offered a contract for more, he never took them up on the offer. Most of it wasn't about Bond, since that was only part of his life.You did get the idea of what life was like in London in the swinging 60s, though. He was a model for awhile and had women and drink and drugs in his life. He's an Aussie by birth and came across very arrogant and flip which he seems to fully admit he was. Kind of interesting, anyway.
Not sure what's on this weekend coming but the next one, there's a Corrie ping so I guess we'll borrow the car again. they've changed the venue to one a bit of a distance away from where we live. My friend usually picked us up but the new place is close to where she lives so I would not ask her to come all the way to get us, go all the way back to the pub and then take us home again. It's easier to get the car. Mom always tells me she'll lend it any time and wonders why I don't ask more often but I don't like to. We generally do ask maybe once every 5 or 6 weeks. If she comes over to visit on a Sunday, we'll sometimes ask her to run us down to the grocery store and we can then get a lot more or heavier stuff. G. usually goes to the grocery store once and sometimes twice a week to get things but he can only carry so much.
Also saw that the Fan Expo in Toronto over the Labour Day weekend has some excellent guests but we can't go at this late date, with all our other vacations planned. The Comic Con in Toronto in March isn't nearly as good but we did discover there's a Fan Expo in Vancouver while we're there. They don't have more than a couple of guests announced yet but we'll wait a bit and see who they get. We decided if there's anyone really interesting we'll get a one day ticket. Don't want to spend all our time in Vancouver doing that, there's too much else to see, but one afternoon at the convention centre would be ok! Good timing. It actually looks better than the Comic con because it seems to be a wider focus than the comic one. They call it a Pop Culture festival so it covers a lot more, like Steampunk, science fiction, horror, in addition to comics and anime and manga. We will have to keep it in mind and go to the Toronto one next year. I think it must be the labour day weekend every year. Man, though, the hotel prices are astronomical over that weekend!
We can get a good deal on the flights because I've got a companion voucher for $99 through Westjet which cuts the price of the flights down. Good thing, we'll need the cash for the hotels! Still, a long weekend away in Toronto will be ok. We also think we will try to go back to the UK next year. Ohh.... maybe we can fly to the UK from Toronto and continue our vacation from there. Something to think about. Will have to do some organizing. I don't think we can organize a 3 day layover in Toronto on a ticket to the UK, flying here to TO to London. I think the airline would make us book two separate flights. It would be cheaper obviously if there was a way to book the Halifax/Toronto/London flight as one flight. Anyway, never mind, there's ways and means. Incorporating the Fan Expo in with the rest of the vacation is a good idea, though.
