Gone Girl and Fancy-Schmancy Movie Theaters

Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl is one of those books that people cannot stop talking about, and for good reason. Personally, I think there are two key elements that make this story a success. 1) A thrilling plot that is constantly evolving and does not get bogged down in superfluous nonsense; and 2) Flynn's ability to convey emotion and feelings through the written word is absolutely astounding. It's as if she enters the average person's head and extracts the non-sugar-coated version of what he/she thinks or feels. Even her descriptions of everyday objects and places left me speechless, as her words were literally exactly how I pictured the object in my own mind.

But would the movie be as great as the book...?

                                    

Here were a few of my thoughts before we saw the movie:

1. Ben Affleck annoys me and I'm not sure if he can pull off the like him one minute/hate him the next Nick Dunne role. I'm still irked that he is playing the new Batman because I can only picture him as the dweeby guy in Forces of Nature who hates to fly.  
2. Rosamund Pike (aka Amy Dunne) pulls off the neurotic beauty queen look quite well. 
3. How are they going to portray the powerful words of Amy's diary in a cinematic format? 
4. The movie trailers were suspenseful and creepy at the same time, and I had a feeling that this movie would leave me with an icky, "that was so messed up" feeling. 

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Ever since my first taste of fancy-schmancy movie theaters a year and a half ago, I have become a theater snob. Movies cost an arm and a leg for the bare bones anyways, so why not shell out a few extra dollars to view your movie from the comfort of an over-sized leather recliner while snacking on  gourmet goodies and sipping a cocktail. (An added bonus is that you can avoid the riff raff that hang around larger theaters on a Friday night. Quick shout out to the woman who once yelled at me during a showing of Sex and the City 2 for politely asking her to shut her trap. How rude of me to ask her to stop talking!) 

We typically go to the Phipps theater but for whatever reason they were not showing Gone Girl. So, we reserved our tickets at Cinebistro three days before our Friday showing, snagging one of the last remaining pairs of seats. 

We had actually never been to Cinebistro before, a theater where you can order food and have them bring a legit meal to your seat. Matt was running late from a presentation at school, so I wandered into our packed theater to figure out how the whole ordering of food and drinks thing went. We had not planned on eating at the theater, but there was no time for either of us to eat before the movie started. So, two beers, a BLT, a bucket of popcorn shrimp/chicken, and $43 later (not including the $30 we paid for tickets), we were ready for the show.

Here are my thoughts post-Gone Girl viewing:

1. I loved the score! The music was simple yet powerful and perfectly complimented each scene. 
2. Rosamund Pike nailed her portrayal of Amy. She was the perfect blend of beauty, grace, crazy, neurotic, psycho, etc. Oscar buzz?
3. Ben Affleck did a good job, but I felt like the movie focused more on developing Amy's character while in the book Nick's character development was just as important. 
4. We had trouble understanding some of the things the actors were saying. Was the music too loud in some scenes for anyone else? Should we go get our ears checked? Maybe Rosamund Pike was speaking softly because she was focused on covering up her English accent? 
5. Remember how I said that my biggest pet peeve is people who talk while other people are talking? Add people who talk during a movie to that list. The lovely couple next to us successfully remained silent for 5-minute intervals before the wife would lean over to explain what was happening. I don't care if you are whispering or yelling, I will throw one of my $13 popcorn chicken bites at you if you keep interrupting my movie.
6. The director beautifully portrayed the back and forth nature of the book, flipping between present day and Amy's words about the past. 
7. I could tell that people who had not read the book really felt the suspense of the movie, but I just didn't get that feeling. Don't get me wrong, the movie was great and did the book justice, but the suspense was not there for me seeing as I knew what was going to happen at every turn. 
8. I was right - the movie was totally messed up and pretty graphic (similar to The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo which had the same director), but it did not leave me feeling as icky as when Matt made us watch There Will Be Blood and No Country for Old Men back to back (shutters to herself). 
9. Aww hell no! The chairs at Cinebistro did not recline and were actually pretty stiff.  This place is not worth $75 and I will be sticking to Phipps exclusively from here on out.
10. If you liked Gone Girl, then you really need to read the author's other two books: Sharp Objects and Dark Places (which have as equally disturbing plots but might be a notch or two below Gone Girl in the suspense level). Dark Places is coming to theaters next year and stars Charlize Theron, Chloe Grace Moretz, and Nicholas Hoult (Jennifer Lawrence's ex-BF who was also the little kid in About A Boy!) so stay tuned...

Atlanta Cheese Festival

 

This past Friday, Matt and I attended the second annual Atlanta Cheese Festival, a surprise date that I gifted to him for his 28th birthday. Neighborhood chili festivals are great, but I have been dying to attend a specialized food festival with a little more flare. When I stumbled upon the Atlanta Cheese Festival's Facebook page a few weeks back, I was instantly intrigued. Cheese? We love cheese! We feasted on a cheese and meat plate the night we got engaged (famished after putting off dinner for a few hours while we called family and friends), and we went to France, a cheese-lovers Mecca, for our honeymoon. 

Parisian window shopping, G&G style

This year's ACF was held at the Atlanta Botanical Garden, which I am ashamed to admit I had never visited despite having just celebrated my three-year Atlantaversary. The festival only lasted from 6-10 pm (and one hour of that time was reserved for our VIP craft beer and cheese pairing), so I wanted to get there right at 6 to get our money's worth. When we arrived we were greeted with a cheese backdrop perfect for snapping that perfect, Instagrammable couple's pic (or in our case two solo shots because we are awkward and never ask people to take our picture). 

We quickly scanned our tickets, slapped on our wristbands, and headed inside. I was ecstatic when I realized that the ACF's set up would allow us to tour all of the gardens throughout the night. The timing of the event was perfect too, as the gardens were decked out for Fall with mums, pumpkins, scarecrows, the works. 

                                       

                                        

                                       

                       

#Twinning

                                     

                                      

We only had a few minutes to look around before the craft beer and cheese pairing began at 6:30, so we bee-lined it for the nearest table of cheese vendors and woofed down samples like it was our last meal. We quickly realized that pacing ourselves would be key, and that having a drink to sip on in between samples was crucial to cleansing the palette. 

After our ten-minute cheese binging session, we headed off to one of the ABG's side houses where the beer and cheese pairing was being held. Each participant had the following placemat at his/her seat: 

                                    

Each of the 5 cheese samples was paired with a beer from Rogue Ales, and one of the lead moderators was Rogue's head brewmaster, John Maier. The head of each farm also served on the panel in order to speak to the individual cheese selections.

                  

As this was a tasting and the beers were large, we were grouped into threes with one person designated as the pourer. Based on where we sat down, Matt and I were unfortunately split into different beer pouring groups, and as luck would have it I was paired with the two most obnoxious tasting group members. Group member #1: Hipster male in his mid-thirties and a self-professed homebrewer who, when not constantly offering his own side commentary, was texting his wife pictures from the event. I came to find out that the wife of group member #1 was at the wine and cheese pairing taking place next door, and that she did not like cheese. Um, excuse me? That makes absolutely no sense Mr. Hipster, and I hope you are the DD tonight because your wife is subsisting on wine alone at the CHEESE festival that you bought tickets to attend. Group member #2: Extremely annoying woman who was chosen as the group pourer and shouted out questions/commentary to the panel without being called upon throughout the entire presentation. She also called me "young lady" throughout the night like I was a misbehaving six-year-old. Ugh. #1 and #2, naturally, did not mind each other's rudeness and chatted and clinked glasses the entire night, while I kept close to Matt and tried not to make eye contact.

My favorite cheese of the night.

Overall, Matt and I thoroughly enjoyed the beer and cheese pairing and learned some interesting facts about the brewery and creameries that were featured, but we would not pay to do it again in the future and here's why: 1) The moderators were extremely long-winded and each member of the panel commented on each pairing, which was definitely an overkill; 2) It turned out that a lot of audience members were homebrewers and they were constantly asking brewing questions. I am all for asking questions, but some of the audience members needed to dial it back a bit and let the panel finish their stories (I'm looking at you, group member #2); and 3) Most of the audience committed my absolute biggest pet peeve, which is talking while other people are talking/presenting. This action makes my skin crawl and literally causes me to tense up and get angry. I think it is so incredibly rude to hold a side conversation while someone is taking the time to speak, not to mention the fact that we paid extra to attend this event and that money partially goes down the drain if I cannot hear a word of what the panel is saying. The head moderator tried to rein in the unruly ADULTS, but it was of no use. 

The pairing ended about 15 minutes late, so we chugged our remaining beers, grabbed our swag bags, and booked it out of there as soon as the last comment from the panel was spoken. 

The event was set up throughout the gardens in a farmer's market style, with over 100 vendors selling everything from cheese (duh) to crackers to spreads. The vendors came from all over the US, and each one was very hospitable and eager to tell us about their products. Unlike other food festivals where you are allotted a set number of tasting tickets, festival goers at the ACF are allowed to try as many vendor samples as they can possibly stomach before going into a lactose coma. We wandered around to all of the vendor areas and ended up purchasing three different goat cheeses, pimento cheese, rosemary crackers, and a dipping sauce. We would have bought more but we ran out of cash and not every vendor had the ability to run cards. 

The VIP package provided us with 4 drink tickets each (the general admission tickets provides 2 tickets), which after consuming beer samples at the tasting and a lot of cheese samples, was more than enough. People were definitely getting testy with the long lines for alcohol, but after getting the lay of the land we realized that the line was only long at the drink booth right in the center of the festival, and that there were a ton of other drink stations hidden away with much shorter lines. 

The ACF's main attraction is The Meltdown, a grilled cheese cook off between some of the best restaurants in Atlanta. This year's competitors included Miller Union, Cooks and Soldiers, Restaurant Eugene, Muss and Turners, and Highland Bakery, just to name a few. At the peak of the festival, the lines to get samples from these amazing restaurants were incredibly long, leaving many people disgruntled. Muss and Turners was even out of samples and had closed up shop by 8 pm, but that was the only restaurant that we saw that had a supply issue. We waited for the lines to die down a bit and eventually were able to try all of the samples that we wanted, so I won't let that experience deter me from coming next year. A lot of the grilled cheese entries contained pimento cheese, which is not my favorite seeing as I loathe mayonnaise (I am my mother's daughter), so that crossed a lot of potential tastings off of my list. Everyone is allowed to vote once for their favorite entry, and at the end of the night I cast my vote for Restaurant Eugene's grilled cheese (cheddar, sliced apples, caramelized onions), while Matt dropped his vote into Highland Bakery's jar (pimento cheese with fried chicken). Neither of these restaurants won, however, and the trophy was awarded to Homegrown for the second year in a row.  

The victorious grilled cheese from Homegrown

With our bellies uncomfortably full of delicious cheese, we sauntered out of the gardens as the bluegrass band played its final tune to close out the night. We had a great time at this unique event and enjoyed stepping outside of our date night comfort zone. We look forward to going back next year and will hopefully persuade some friends/fellow cheese lovers to go with us!