Let's Go Outback Tonight - NJ Style

David and I had a very eventful weekend - of movie going! We ended on an up-note (which involved Ben & Jerries AND a brownie sunday) by going on our favorite kind of date - driving across the George Washington bridge to Edgewater, New Jersey, to have dinner at Outback and a movie at a megaplex theater with 16 screens, Ben & Jerries, burgers, pizza, video games, and more. Going to Outback is exciting for us, because living in New York City, we just don't have access to bad chain restaurants in strip malls with Target right next door. And when one doesn't have access to those things anymore, one grows nostalgic (but we'll never be nostalgic for Applebees, or at least I won't). It's always kind of scary in New Jersey with those thick accents I cannot understand, but the plan was hatched because I wanted to go to Staples in NJ hoping to find lower prices there for a new plastic monthly file thing for my monthly bills, and other office supplies for a reason I will disclose soon...clue: home office.

Movies we saw (scale of 1-10)

Pan's Labyrinth (8)
Very good. A satisfactory Spanish Alice in Wonderland, but with fairies, not a cat named Dinah. A little gory, but it's fine, because by then you hate the antagonist so much. The film was sold out, so we bought tickets to Children of Men, but snuck into Labyrinth moments before all of the seats filled up. We are action-movie-goers!

Children of Men (7)
Also good, but probably would have been better if I had read the book. I suspect it's one of those book movies where lots of juicy things are left out, and only the people who read the book catch on at lightening speed, where as the rest of us are given measly clues and filling in the blanks takes away from the movie rather than add to it. I would have rented this film, but David protested, saying he could not see anything else until he saw this. So we saw it.

Notes on a Scandal (7)
What a movie to follow up David's protest with! I had no idea what the plot was, but I love Judi Dench and Cate Blanchet, so we saw this one last night before our Outback dinner. Woa! It really is a scandal. Good for grandmothers like mine who are named Nana and read the Enquirer weekly and know the complete history of the Camilla-Diana-Charles triangle. This movie has nothing to do with those people, but it's to illustrate what kind of people would like this movie.

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