there's a theater in nyc that shall remain nameless

there's a theater in nyc that shall remain nameless, for i fear that if it is named it will then be over-run by people looking to bask in its mid-week fantastic-ness.

it's a vast megaplex theater, and on mondays and tuesdays and wednesdays it's empty. i mean, really, really empty. my friends and i go on mondays or tuesdays and wednesdays to see movies that have been out for a while, and invariably we're the only people in the theater (which holds hundreds of people).

tonight we saw 'taken', which was near flawless for a 'crazed ex cia shadowy guy goes on righteous revenge fueled "save my daughter" relatively indiscriminate killing spree in paris' genre film. i know, i have a reputation for being a peaceful lefty, but i do love a good over the top big budget movie wherein the haggard and exhausted hero brutally attacks everyone with whom he comes into contact. it's fiction, as i'm sure i'd be offended if a real life haggard and exhausted hero brutally killed real people. but liam neeson as aforementioned haggard and exhausted ex-cia hero was pretty great, especially when seen in a giganto-mega-plex utterly devoid of people.

it's like the theater of the apocalypse, kind of like the empty mall in 'dawn of the dead'(also a fairly flawless film, the original, that is). and 'taken' was great. simple and direct, no bells and whistles, not much of a sub-plot (bad people do very bad things and end up with instant karma bad demises), no excessive dialog, kind of like the movie equivalent of a nice sandwich. nothing extraneous, no saffron infused organic sri lankan olive tapanade. just a simple sandwich/movie, done well, with no frills.

liam neeson with an american accent is always just barely on the good side of believable. some non-u.s actors pull off the u.s accent flawlessly (like the british actor in '11th hour', for example). liam neeson always sounds like a guy born in colorado who just happened to spend 20 years living in cork before moving back to denver.

ok, enough about big giganto-genre pics in big (and empty) giganto-genre theaters.

thanks

moby