Went to Del Mar for the races Monday. My first horse didn't cross the finish line, should've taken that as an omen. Never collected on a single bet. Painful. Afterwards, we went to Chevy's for happy hour.
Their happy hour drink specials were a discounted margarita, or $1 off the drink of the day, which was a tom collins on Monday. So we ordered two tom collins. The waiter acted like he was confused about what was in a tom collins, but I thought he was joking, since it was the drink of the day and probably many people were ordering it. But apparently he really had no idea what it was, and apparently everyone else were drinking margaritas, it being a tex-mex themed restaurant, so we just had faith the bartender knew. I don't really like tom collinses too much, incidentally. Not a fan of gin. Vodka collins was my drink of choice for awhile, but I've moved back to where I started from, the screwdriver. I used to throw up easily, so the acidic orange juice was a problem, but since I've improved my diet a bit, that hasn't been an issue. Though I did throw up last night around 3 AM, not sure why. But I digress.
A few minutes later, another waiter (about 5 employees would wait our table at one point in the 45 minutes or so we were there, came to tell us the specials. She left, and a few minutes later she brought us our drinks, which looked more like grande margaritas than tom collinses. We commented on this, and the waitress apparently thought we were having a joke with her, and laughed about their size with us. I'd never seen a tom collins served with salt, and sure enough, a sip quickly revealed it to be a margarita. Our original waiter came up a few seconds later, with our "correct" drinks, and proceded to serve our margaritas (which we had drunk from) to the proper table. We had a good laugh about that, and then turned to our clear drinks, a sip of which revealed them to be gin and tonics. I do not like tonic-based beverages, but figured I could manage. I didn't even want a drink, I just felt obligated to order one eating at the bar.
Our food came a bit later, and was quite good. We had flautas, with some sort of sauce, I forget what it was, but it was excellent. I didn't try the jalepeno dipping sauce, but they were fine as they were. And half-off for happy hour, so at about $3.00, a very reasonable deal. We ate them, finished our drinks, and the waiter brought our bill, where our tom collinses were listed as being $6.50 each. And were, of course, not listed as well drinks, but rather as a name I didn't recognize, but am pretty sure is the name of a top-shelf tequila. But the waiter insisted that was accurate, but with some prodding, offered to go investigate. He was gone for some time, finally returned with a bill obviously too low, so we just went with that, paid and left.
After racing and a quick dinner, we went to Seabiscuit. I had never been to the UltraStar Flower Hill Cinema in Del Mar, so it was exciting going to a new theater. The lobby had an interesting charm, to an extent, but it was a rather run-down theater, with (at least in the theater I was in) very small, narrow auditoriums. And the seats reclined in a way that was probably once comfortable, but now made you fear that collapse was imminent. Since Randy Newman's music was one of the reasons I was there, the sub-par sound, and far worse, the sound pollution from the adjacent screening of Pirates of the Carribean, was upsetting. And just to pile on the iniquity, the audience was rather rude and obnoxious, cell phones going off far too often, and just general restlessness which annoyed me.
But getting to the movie itself: a disappointment. The book is far better. For one, not everything is a metaphor in the book. And Howard is capable of speaking without explicitly talking about "the future." Chris Cooper was quite good, but the film version of Tom Smith seems to talk an awful lot, and seems more some enchanted horse whisperer than a man who put a lifetime of experience to work in his training. But the movie was entertaining, and the faults I had with it were mostly unavoidable. Had Randy Newman not been connected to the project--had I not been eager to see the scenes I had seen him work on--I probably, after reading the book, would have passed, knowing it would be a disappointment. But it held my interest, and had some great moments. Toby Maguire was excellent. As was real-life jockey Gary Stevens.
Of course, I said my interest was largely due to the music, so I should discuss that, and again I say: disappointing. I knew Newman was disappointed in it, and I can understand why. For the most part, the score blends in well to the movie, and is not particularly noteworthy. But when it does stand out, its usually not for the better. There wasn't much of this, but a scene where Red is riding during his early career was accompanied by music a bit too zany for my tastes. And the change in music in one scene (which I saw them working on during my day on the sound stage) was rather jarring. It's a perfectly good score, by-and-large. The faults are minor and few. But nothing stands out for me, and I certainly won't be buying the album. Of course, his soundtrack work is not what interests me in Randy Newman, anyway...besides disc 4 in the boxed set, I believe Ragtime is the only soundtrack album of his I own.
Speaking of Newman, tickets for Randy Newman's concert at Royce Hall, and the following day's tribute concert, went on sale to non-season ticket holders yesterday. I got mine, for both. I also got seats for the Kronos Quartet and the Tiger Lilies performing a work based on an unpublished work by Edward Gorey (on my birthday), Michael Moore, and a tribute to the Firesign Theatre with John Goodman. Fun times...
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