Dinhternet

Thanks to Andrew, who told me about the McDonald’s/Fandango spe­cial offer. Every Wednes­day at noon for the last two months, Fan­dango would post an item from the McDonald’s dol­lar menu on their site. If you texted the item to Fan­dango, it would send you back a pro­mo­tional code that let you get any ticket for just one dol­lar. Sadly, I think yes­ter­day was the last day of the promotion.

Gio Linh and I used that yes­ter­day to go watch National Trea­sure: Book of Secrets with Christina Ly, her lit­tle cousin, and Eddie. Eddie and I were a bit skep­ti­cal about it because we didn’t enjoy the first one too much, but Gio Linh and Christina Ly’s cousin wanted to see it.

I have to say, this one was def­i­nitely bet­ter than the orig­i­nal to me. Although when think­ing about it after­wards, there were some things that stood out as slightly incred­i­ble, my sus­pen­sion of dis­be­lief was not shaken dur­ing the movie itself. The plot flowed well, even if it was bit pre­dictable (Christina Ly’s cousin knew what was going to hap­pen next), and the end­ing didn’t scream, “We’re going to milk this fran­chise for all it’s worth,” like so many movies do these days. And I real­ize that my review amounts to “It didn’t suck.” But it was hon­estly decent. I just… can’t describe how at the moment.

Oh, and as an added bonus, there was a Goofy short before the main fea­ture. (National Trea­sure is a Dis­ney IP.) I do enjoy shorts. I remem­ber when Dis­ney movies would play every Sun­day night on ABC, and they were book-ended by shorts or encap­su­lated by a meta-story short. Those were the days! Every­thing was really well put-together.

Gio Linh and I were sup­posed to go to the mall after the movie, but due to heavy traf­fic, we went straight home, and except for a short break to have din­ner with the fam­ily and to watch Jeop­ardy with Gio Linh, I read Per­fume (also on Christina Ly’s rec­om­men­da­tion) all day and through most of the night. It’s short and def­i­nitely a page-turner. Jean-Baptiste Grenouille is like a bizarre syn­the­sis and yet antithe­sis of Jean Val­jean and and Jack the Rip­per. Maybe I read too much Hugo and Dumas grow­ing up, but I’m a sucker for French period pieces. Add to that the excite­ment of a mur­der mys­tery told from the per­spec­tive of the killer, and you’ve got a for­mula for success.