Only a little to add to what was said before. Like the others, I had a great time, and there wasn't, for me, a bad film in the lineup. I was right in front of Zekestrom, so if we ever need dirt on our Admin, I have it, if I can get it out of my brain.
My nephew had a good time, though he gave me a few moments where I swore Sergei will have a better grounding in the classics than my nephew. For example, he told me he liked the original King King better than the one he was watching at the marathon. It took me a moment to realize the Peter Jackson film was what he considered the original. During the Kong trailers, he grew more and more frustrated at how unrealistic the Kong's were. The kid is 10 and thanks to ILM and their ilk apparently has little ability left to suspend disbelief.
He did like Forbidden planet and was fascinated with the concept of the monster of the Id. He was a little bored with Invisible Boy early on, but liked it as the pace picked up. He didn't like that it was in black and white, another oversight in his upbringing.
One complaint. Actually several complaints about the same group. It was a group of three folks, 2 guys and a girl. They must've gotten in line late and were trying to find three seats in the center of the theater together. They tried some seats in front of us, but someone was holding seats so they were off center a bit. After King Kong all of my group (my friend, my nephew and I) went out for soda, er, pop. So did the guy next to us. When we got back to our seats, my nephew found a sweathirt on his seat. It turns out this group of three had moved up to our row and had taken the lone guy's seat and the two empty seats next to him. When the lone guy got back they looked at him stupidly when he told them they were in his seat. I repeated what he said, saying they had taken his seat. They looked at me like I was speaking another language. They wouldn't move. Fortunately we had an empty seat next to us, so we shifted down one and the lone guy had a seat.
I got a PM from one of the memebrs of this group. First, a tip of the hat to the guy for using a PM to avoid any flaming. I am mentioning his message, hoping that things will stay nice and peacedful, but also so his side gets heard. They were trying to find seats together and noticed that the emtpy seat next to us, and the two empty seats next to the sweatshirt guy. Since we were in the lobby they took the seats assuming that we would move down one seat. I agree that using a set to hold stuff and keeping folks from sitting in it is bad form. I'm not sure why they didn't say that, he mentioned I raised my voice so maybe he was trying to avoid trouble. He said he and the guy in the sweatshirt talked and were cool about it later, which is nice. If we hadn't all went to lobby, he probably could have asked us, I'm still hung up on the fact he didn't seem to say anything at the time.
I understand wanting to sit with your group. I understand wanting a nice seat. If you want both, I suggest you find a sacrifical member of the group to grab a spot in line. I have no idea if they read this or not, but just throwing it out there. It all wroked out, and we didn't have to call the staff in. .
He points out, rightly, I think, the staff would have just had us shift down, which is why we did that.I was tempted to, but didn't want to disrupt the marathon because of this.
The next thing they did was one of them would shake the chair of the guy diagnally in front of hime whenever he fell asleep and started snoring. He never told the guy why he was shaking his chair, I guess he just assumed that the guy knew he was snoring.
According to the guy, he actually told the snorer the first time he was snoring very loudly. He didn't bother the later times. I missed him saying that to him, which is fair. Snorer's don't bother me, I am able to tune them out, somehow, though I can see where it is disruptive to other folks.
The last gripe about this group was even though they were left of center (as facing the screen, they always walked to the right aisle (across us) when they came either in or out, even though that meant they walked in front of more people. Had they not stolen the other guy's seat, and kept waking up the snorer, I probably wouldn't have cared about them stepping over us.
He said this was niotpicky on my part and he is probably right. In my defense, as I said, it was a cumulative thing. I wouldn't have noticed or cared, without the other "transgressions."
They never fell asleep as a group. Or if they did I never noticed. Probably just as well, because I likely would have been more vindicive than their transgressions warranted.
To close on more positive notes. I also loved "First on the Moon," I'm going to order it and looking forward to shwoing it to Sergei when he is old enough to get it. The modern scenes remind me of where we stayed in Russia. Kind of a sad, run down place where a lot of the folks look like they have given up.
The King Kong print, while not prisitine, looked pretty darn good. I concur that was a great print of Westworld, only Mothra last year, looked better, at least in my recent memory.
My brother-in-law brought my nephew but they didn't get there until the doors had opened, so I was already inside. They went through the line themselves, and my nephew told my mother-in-law that he had fun in line. Folks were nice to him and talked to him about Yu-Gi-Oh and Pokemon. I was pleased to see there were maybe a half dozen kids around 10 years old this year. They were well behaved as far as I could tell, and seemed to be enjoying themselves. Quite a few of them stayed well into the night, if not the whole night. I kinda lost track of them. My nephew wasn't feeling well and hung it up around 8 pm. He is looking forward to next year, especially since it will start on his birthday.
Thanks for the fun everyone.