She said: On the Border

: 3 forks out of 5


Yeah, I know I'm a little behind but I just had to get in my two cents on our meal we had last trip to Midland. We ate at "On the Border" a Mexican food restaurant located on busy Loop 250. I just love mexican food. The salsa had a good bite to it and the chips were huge and fresh. I had the steak fajaita quesadillas and a good bowl of chicken tortilla soup. The soup was just the right amount of spicy for me and delicious and the quesadillas were nice, hot and gooey. Though not the best I have eaten, it ws satisfying.

I give them three forks.

He Said: Journey To The Center Of the Earth

: 3 1/2 reels out of 5


2008 - Eric Brevig, dir.
Brendan Fraser, Josh Hutcherson, Anita Briem
1 hour, 32 minutes
Rated PG for intense adventure action and some scary moments.

SPOILER ALERT

This is not the same story as the 1959 JTTCOTE movie, nor is it the same as the Jules Verne sci-fi classic. This is "What if Verne's story was real, and modern folk (A seismologist, his nephew, and their beautiful mountain guide) journey to the center of the Earth?"

Trevor Anderson (Fraser) is a typical absent-minded scientist - a seismologist - whose brother Max (Jean Michel Paré) (also a seismologist) has been missing for 10 years. Trevor and Max's boss at the university decides to convert Max's lab into extra storage, and gives Trevor a box of his stuff.

Preoccupied with his work, Anderson doesn't remember that his nephew Sean (Hutcherson) - son of the missing brother - is coming to visit, and is caught by surprise when Sean's mother drops him off. As the two go through Max's box in an attempt to bond, they discover his copy of Verne's "Journey to the Center of the Earth". Notes in the margins excite Fraser, prompting him to order a trip to the lab.

At the lab, Sean notices a new blip on Trevor's computer indicating that a sensor has detected something in Iceland, so the two are off to another country for the weekend.

There, they meet up with Hannah Ásgeirsson (Briem) daughter (granddaughter?!?) of the recently decased seismic institute's director. She agrees to guide them to the sensor so that they can collect its data.

As Trevor is collecting the data, a lightning storm pops up and the trio seek shelter in a cave. The cave entrance is struck by lightning, sealing them in. One thing leads to another, and soon they find themselves smack in the Center of the Earth. Now, the trick is to get out alive.

It's got some great, knuckle-biting action and is great family fare. The only thing I can really knock it down a few points for is a total disregard for science and the really bizarre luck that the heroes experience.

Yes, I realize and recognize that this is a movie. Not all the science has to be perfect. But in this movie, it just seems like every time something "science-y" came up, I was thinking "Nope, that's not how it works". Once or twice I can live with, but EVERY TIME?!?

I don't have a whole lot of examples left in my brain RAM because it's been a week. A couple? Sure. Um...The cave is laced with veins of magnesium. Trevor touches one of these veins with a torch, instantly setting off a decent-sized explosion which causes some trouble. Little story: In 11th grade, I took honors chemistry in a regular chemistry class. The teacher let me work on experiments in the back of the class on my own. I had a supply of magnesium, and I burned lots of it (just for fun, not on the required experiments). Now, this was pure magnesium metal. After about 10 seconds of heating in a Bunsen burner, it would catch fire and burn with an extremely hot white fire. The point of this story is to say that magnesium would not catch fire and EXPLODE after being simply brushed by a torch!

Another example. (Watch out, major spoiler) The group manages to exit the underground world by lodging a dinosaur jawbone they'd been using as a boat in a lava tube. The lava down below is rising. They figure out that water is on the other side of the tube wall, bust a hole in it (by igniting magnesium with a road flare) and riding the steam geyser out of the tube.

Ok, assuming the steam is fast and energetic enough to lift three people in a dinosaur skull, it's going to be INCREDIBLY hot - superheated. The three of them would be scalded to death before the left the tube. The dino bone is not going to protect them from that.

One more. At the center of the Earth (assuming it's not too hot to live) they'd be floating around like they were in outer space. No LESS gravity there, but it's pulling in all directions, so it balances out to 0.

Anyway, minor quibbles. Me trying to inject logic into a movie. It's worth seeing. If you see it with your kids, I'd recommend a discussion about science and how this movie isn't a science movie, it's a fun movie.

Oh, one more thing. Apparently this movie is available in 3d in some locations. We did not see it in that format, but it might have been fun that way.

She said: Journey to the Center of the Earth

: 3 1/2 reels out of 5


Ahhhh, the memories. We stayed in Midland for a double feature and I thoroughly enjoyed "Journey to the Center of the Earth". I had seen the original years ago and really liked that one, but the modern take on this version was exciting. Watching the characters traverse the underground all the way to another world was breath-taking to say the least, from the runaway mine trains to the fight with giant man-eating venus flytraps to the escape from the magma through a volcano chute in a T-rex skull. Adventure all the way.

I give this movie 3 and 1/2 reels

She Said: Hellboy

: 3 reels out of 5


Like my husband, I awaited the excitement of Hellboy II with anticipation and I wasn't disappointed. However, like most sequels, the second is never really as good as the first. I thought it was a good movie to watch and I enjoyed watching the action, tho it seems to me there was not nearly enough. The scene where Hellboy and Abe were commiserating over love with "I can't smile without you" made me smile. There were some funny little moments and they really made the movie enjoyable for me. All in all a good movie.

I give it 3 reels

He Said: Changing my mind

This isn't a review, just a notice that I am changing my rating of Hancock to a 2 1/2. Hey, I'm new at this reviewing business and I guess I didn't have my reviewometer calibrated right for the first one. So sue me.

He Said: Hellboy II: The Golden Army

: 3 reels out of 5


2008 - Guillermo Del Toro, dir.
Ron Perlman, Selma Blair, Doug Jones
1 hour, 50 minutes
Rated PG-13 for sequences of sci-fi action and violence, and some language.

SPOILER ALERT

I went into Hellboy II wanting - and expecting - to like it. The previews all looked topnotch. I loved the first installment. Although I had not read the comics on which it was based (and still haven't), that kind of supernatural superhero tale is right up my alley.

The main characters are great! Hellboy (Perlman) - the "Right Hand of Doom" as he's described in the first movie. Big, red, loud, with an attitude to match. Abe (one of 3 characters portrayed by Jones) - the cerebral psychic fish-man. The brains of the operation. And Liz (Blair) - now a fully-integrated member of the team - the hot chick (quite literally - she has pyrokinetic abilities). Number II adds a new team member - ostensibly the leader - in Johann Krauss (voiced by Seth MacFarlane), a mysterious ghostly presence inhabiting a retro spacesuit.

Anyway, I liked Hellboy II, but I didn't love it. The reality didn't quite match up to the anticipation for me.

This time, the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense team is pitted against Nuada (Luke Goss), a rogue Elf prince, determined to unleash the fabled indestructible Golden Army of magical robots and wipe out the human race. To accomplish this feat, he must collect three pieces of a magical crown.

He grabs the first piece - and alerts the BPRD - by raiding an auction house where it is up for sale and wiping out its crowd of patrons.

In order to track him down, the BPRD infiltrate the Troll Market (the entrance is under the Brooklyn Bridge) and meet up with Nuada's twin sister Nuala (Anna Walton). Nuala doesn't share her brother's hatred for humanity and cooperates with Hellboy's team, especially with Abe, who shares her psychic ability; the two develop kind of a star-crossed love through the course of the movie.

Speaking of love, there's more development in the relationship between Hellboy and Liz. Liz is having second thoughts, Hellboy is being rather bachelor-ish (read "slobby"), and to top it off, Abe psychically detects Liz's unknown pregnancy (which she confirms with about a dozen home pregnancy tests).

But when Nuada mortally wounds Hellboy, the team comes together to cure him and whip Nuada's megalomaniacal butt.

Yeah, it's good stuff.

But not great stuff. Some things that bugged me:

1) In several scenes, Hellboy looked incredibly out of shape. It was weird - instead of the huge bulky guy from the first movie, he had a huge head and a skinny body. But only in some scenes! I don't know what was up with that, but it was really disconcerting to me.

2) The normal human BPRD agents were nothing but redshirts. They all died in the first fight. Yeah, I know the emphasis is on the superheroes, but this was ridiculous. It was like these highly-trained government agents were only there to show how terrible these tiny piranha-like creatures (TOOTH FAIRIES! I kid you not) were. I think we might have gotten the idea by the state of the auction house: where once there was a bustling crowd, now there was just a floor coated three inches deep in sticky pink goo.

3) The way they defeat the Golden Army seems a bit inconsistent to me. Like I said, I haven't read the comics, but (watch out, major spoiler!) for Red to play on his identity as a demon prince, to claim "royal" blood for the right to challenge for control of the Army, just seems out of character. To me it was pretty clear at the end of Hellboy (1) that he had decided not to be that hellspawn anymore. He broke off his horns and surrendered his fiery crown! He regularly files his horns to trademark round stumps. I just don't think he would have come up with the cunning plan to say "Hey, by the way, I'm a demon prince and I challenge you for control of this Golden Army thing"!

Those might seem like minor quibbles, and to some extent they are. Overall, I'd say Hellboy was a little too whiny in this episode, Abe was a little too lovelorn (the scene where he's listening to love songs in the library is pure cheese), and Liz was a little too frantically neurotic.

It was a good, solid flick, but it didn't have the magic, for me, that the first did.

She said: Hancock

: 3 reels out of 5



I looked forward to this movie ever since I first saw the poster at the theatre. Usually any movie with Will Smith is going to be enjoyable and I wasn't disappointed.
I'm not going to go into the "plot" and "story line" of the movie like my husband (he couldn't have said it better) so I just wanted to say it was good. Not great but good.

He Said: Hancock

: 2 1/2 reels out of 5

2008 - Peter Berg, dir.
Will Smith, Charlize Theron, Jason Bateman
1 hour, 32 min.
Rated PG-13 for some intense sequences of sci-fi action and violence, and language.

SPOILER ALERT

Hey, it's a superhero movie, and it's got Will Smith and Charlize Theron...what's not to like, right?

Yeah, it's pretty good. Will Smith plays John Hancock, a drunk and disorderly superhero suffering from amnesia (the ER nurse asked him for his "John Hancock" and he thought that was actually his name). Hancock can fly and exhibits super strength and invulnerability, and a penchant for property damage and shoving things up peoples' backsides.

When Hancock saves his life, Ray Embrey (Bateman), a down-on-his-luck PR guy offers to give Hancock an image makeover. In addition to charm lessons and a new uniform, part of the prescription involves spending a little time in the hoosegow for his destructive heroics. While Hancock is playing nice with the other prisoners, crime begins to skyrocket. After a few weeks, the hero is released to thwart a bank robbery/hostage situation.

After Hancock saves the day with a minimum of carnage, he begins falling for Ray's pretty wife Mary (Theron). And here's the twist - Mary has super powers just like Hancock! A near kiss prompts her to throw his butt through the house into the street.

Turns out, they're inexorably drawn to each other because they are a "pair" of immortals, but if they spend too much time together, they lose their powers and become mortal again.

Yeah, it's a bit of a flaky twist. I would have been happier if they had played it straight - the basic premise is fine as is. A messed up superhero gets a makeover from the PR guy, has a few problems, but shows up to save the day when it really counts. That would have been a good movie all by itself, without the "twist".

Then there's the whole love triangle - Ray, Hancock, Mary (with a kid caught in the middle - Ray and Mary's son Aaron [Jae Head]) - that just grinds in some places.

It was okay. It was a short movie at an hour and a half, and I was left wanting more action and a more straightforward plot.

He Said: IHOP - Interstate 20, Midland, TX

: 1 1/2 plates out of 5


301 E. Interstate 20
Midland, TX, 79701
(432) 686-0537
ihop.com

Hours: 24

Let me preface this review by saying that it in no way applies to all IHOP restaurants; my experiences with good old IHOP have, for the most part, been excellent.

As with most chain restaurants, the food quality is standard, so there's not a lot of variation. The food quality at IHOP is generally very good, and this Midland IHOP (one of 2 - the one on Loop 250 is not reviewed here) is no exception in that regard.

What points I give this particular IHOP are for the food. I ordered a Smokehouse Combo - two eggs (over medium), hash browns, 2 pancakes, and two smoked sausage links (the big ones, not the normal little breakfast sausages). The food was fairly uniformly delicious, though I will say this is not an easy meal to screw up.

The one food-related quibble I had (and this applies to most breakfast chains) is that when the waitress puts the dollop of butter on the pancakes, she almost always mashes it INTO the pancake on top. This creates a big hole in that top pancake. I know why waitresses do this - so the butter won't slide off the pancake while she is bringing the food to the table. It would be so much better to get a little side cup with butter so that I can butter it myself.

So why is my score so low? Great food = great review, right? Nope. Because the service at this particular eatery is horrendous.

My wife and I have been there twice. The first time (more than a year ago; we were so mad at the service that time it drove us away for more than a year!) we didn't get to place our order for about half an hour, and after that, our food didn't arrive at our table! We waited an hour before getting up to leave. The manager caught us and convinced us to wait 5 more minutes while they packed the food to go and gave it to us free. A good call, but it still doesn't make up for the horrible service.

Well, we figured (after a year of being angry) that it might have been an isolated incident. After all, the place was brand-spanking-new the first time. Surely they have the kinks worked out by now, right? Wrong.

It wasn't quite as bad this time. We did eventually get our food. But we waited about 10 minutes to give our drink and food order, and then another 30 minutes to get our food. As we waited hungrily, we noticed our waitress standing and chatting with another waitress for about 10 minutes. Not working. Not checking on customers. Not looking to see if our food was ready. Just jawing away. For 10 minutes straight.

Bad form, IHOP. We won't be back to this location.

She said: IHOP (I-20 in Midland)

: 1 plate out of 5


Well, we thought we'd give it a try again. The IHOP on I20 in Midland, Texas is probably not a place I would return to. The food was okay but the service wasn't.
We had to wait 10 minutes before the waitress came to get our drink order, then 10 more minutes to place our food order. The first time we tried this place it had just opened and I admit they were busy, but we waited on our order for an hour before we gave up and walked out. This time was a little better, we only waited 30 minutes for our food.
I ordered the "Migas", a concoction of scrambled eggs, pico de gallo, cheese, jalapenos and tortilla strips served with a side of flour tortillas. The jalapenos were huge and had no bite. They weren't spicy at all. The tortilla strips could have been left off and more salsa served with the dish.

She said: Mi Ranchito

: 4 plates out of 5


Being a Colorado City native, I was impressed at the menu choices available. It was interesting that a lot of the dishes had names of local Colorado City personalities that I recognized. lol.

The atmosphere of the restaurant was friendly and the service was good. We didn't have to wait very long for our drinks and I thought the tea was just right.

The dish I ordered was the "Jana", a stuffed hambuger meat burrito smothered with queso sauce, just the way I like it. I tend to disagree with my husband about the chips we received as our appetizer, I thought they were pretty crunchy. I loved the salsa, like he said not too chunky and with just the right amount of bite.

I did note that they had a patio with seating for those folks who like to dine "al fresco". It was in a beautiful garden setting and nicely shaded with big plants.