Sunday, June 26, 2011

Movie Tavern at West 7th

I made my first Movie Tavern on West 7th visitation yesterday.

X-Men.

I probably would not have gone except that I was accompanying two of my sons, one of whom is home for the summer, and the other leaving soon to work in Azirona. And I like comic book themed movies.

The following are the pluses and minuses of the afternoon.

Movie Tavern, plus:
1. Great seats with mini-tables for your food.
2. Great service. Lots of wait staff, quick and unassuming service. Our waiter was more uncaring than unassuming, but more on that later.
3. Great location.
4. Good matinee price and serve-yourself, no line tickets. I like that.
5. Reasonable food prices compared to other movie theaters.

Movie Tavern, minus
1. Small screen. After the Rave theater's huge screen, it's not so much disappointing, as underwhelming for this kind of movie.
2. The food. I can't speak to all the food but the chips and queso are god-awful. I'm not sure if the yellow liquid they serve should be called queso. It's really bad. I have heard reports that the other menu items are bad as well.

X-Men, plus.
1. The Wolverine cameo where he tells Magneto and Dr X, "to go xxxx yourselves," when an attempt was made to recruit him into mutant service. That was his only line, the only memorable line of the movie, and the only scene worth seeing.

X-Men, minus.
1. Who cares about the antics of spare teenage mutants? I sure don't. A girl with mini-wings who can fly and shoot fire spitballs? Most of the movie was spent developing the characters of mutants no one cares about. And the dialogue? "Mutant and proud?" Magneto getting all tongue-tied and teary-eyed after moving a metal satellite tower?

2. This is the worst comic book movie since Daredevil, my favorite comic book hero, by the way. There was not one funny line in the whole movie except for Wolverine's, and there was no drama until the last fifteen minutes. The first hour and a half is spent watching weirdo teenage ninja mutants and b-roll of Kennedy-era, Spy vs. Spy war games with Soviet characters that were approaching campy. At one point I though I was watching a satire of Austin Powers satirizing James Bond. Seriously. It was that bad.

X-Men, plus.
I was with two of my sons at a movie theater laughing, making fun of each other, and cutting-up, which included my promise to order the queso and chips by saying kwee-so and cheeps in stead kay-so and chips. I did and the waiter didn't blink, smirk, or even look disdainfully at me; something we all found very amusing, until son-one said that he, the bored waiter, was going to spit in my drink, which worried me until I discovered that the food deliverers are different than the food-order takers.

The word, "winnnninnng" was used several times in the course of the afternoon, with some good laugh effect. We did make it through the day without any bathroom humor (John), but over-large breast humor was invoked at the appropriate moments. All of this said to prove my sister's dictum that most males never get past age fifteen in the maturation process.

Meg, we proved you right once again. I had a great afternoon.

Movie Tavern at West 7th

Agree or disagree on X-Men or the Movie Tavern?

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6 comments:

John said...

So many reactions to so few references. Being called out by name is quite an honor. Being pegged as the poo-poo guy, not so much. Even if I do have bookmark folders in Firefox named "poo" and "naughty." Which may be why I'll differ with you on when male maturity plateaus - you say 15, I say 13. Coincidentally, earlier this evening someone I hadn't seen in about 15 years remarked that I hadn't aged at all. To which someone interjected, "and he hasn't matured either."

Francis Shivone said...

Well said, John. Thanks.

Stephanie said...

okay -- my 2 cents about the movie tavern. its clean. its quieter than other movie theaters. and i haven't noticed the "rif-raf" element that i typically see at movie theaters on a weekend evening.

when i went i had the cranberry pita and a mojito. both were excellent. in fact, surprisingly so. so good that i don't want to order anything else when i go... so i always get the same thing. works for me :)

their iced tea is wretched, though. i thought it could have been a one time deal, but no. bad on multiple visits. like, i won't drink more than one sip.

the size of the screen is smaller... but hey, much larger than my screen at home :)

Francis Shivone said...

Actually Stephanie, I think you are on to something that I hadn't thought of. It is a little quieter and less frenetic. That's a draw for me as well. My only difficulty with it is that it's no more expensive to make good iced tea as it is to make bad iced tea, and it's not that much more expensive to have good queso as it is to have bad queso -- and on it goes.

Thanks for commenting.

Sunni R. said...

We enjoy the movie tavern- I've never ordered anything other than the spinach artichoke dip and popcorn so I can't really comment on the food. I'm sure the dip was previously frozen and it was edible in a snacky way. I usually have a Blue Moon or a glass of wine so I have no idea about mixed drinks. I have not visited any location but the West 7th, and I've seen around 5 movies there (not X Men). The seats are really comfortable and I kind of like that it's small. Re: X Men- you are about to lose all respect for me, but save January Jones' terrible performance, we enjoyed it. I guess I'm just easy to please in that category. But seriously, JJ must not be acting at all as Betty Draper on Mad Men. She can't even sit there realistically, but I guess she filled out the costumes satisfactorily to the director/producers. I thought Kevin Bacon was good, I loved the Magneto backstory, I thought James McEvoy was so great as a young pre injury Prof X. I also liked the portrayal of Mystique/Prof X relationship. I agree with you in that I didn't care about the motely crew of secondary mutants (and if Zoe Kravitz is the new "it" girl based on her acting and not her exotic good looks and industry pedigree than I just don't know). I am with also you, the Wolverine cameo was a major highlight (although the mother in me cringed that a 5ish year old {not mine, of course} was sitting right down the row from me.

Francis Shivone said...

Sunni --
1. Many, many years ago when your dad and I were working together I had way too much gin to drink at a Christmas party and was eating spinach dip with it. Let's just say the thought of it today makes me queasy.

2. I liked the same relations that you did, I would have expanded that part, created more tension between them all, and 86'd spitball girl, et al.

3. 5 years old is way too young to be in that movie.

Thanks, Fran