Movies in Chicago

I came home from my trip last night. This will be the first of what will probably be several blog entries about the trip, since I just can't get it all in one entry! I thought I'd talk about my movie experiences while on the trip.

I had decided to bring my portable DVD player, and a number of movies on the off chance anyone wanted to watch a movie on the bus or in the hotel room. It turns out there were TVs and a DVD player on the bus, so we watched a whole bunch of movies on the way there and back. I like to think I did a pretty decent job picking out what movies to bring. I brought: Shaun of the Dead, Serenity, The Shawshank Redemption, Anchorman, V for Vendetta, Iron Man, and Monsters, Inc. We ended up watching all of them except for V for Vendetta. If you're planning a trip and bringing DVDs, bring a variety, so there is something for everyone. For the most part, I kept it to pretty light-hearted movies. And of course, ones without subtitles, which are difficult to read on any small screen.

I'd decided to go see Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back with Jason and Kenton as well. I wanted to see it on the "big screen", since I'd only ever seen it on VHS. Actually, I think I'd only seen it twice in its entirety, when I was about ten years old. Back then, I had a huge crush on Luke Skywalker, and watched it those two times over the weekend we'd rented it. I thought it'd be a pretty neat experience to watch it in a theatre, and it was! The picture and sound were amazing.

Kenton looks giddy as can be!

I thought it was awesome to compare the thoughts I'd had as a child with my thoughts now. Back then, the Luke stuff was obviously my favourite, but now, I found the Yoda/Luke stuff to be a little dull. The stuff with Han Solo, Leia, and the rest was much more interesting. I also didn't catch a lot of the humour within the movie as a child. Kenton mentioned at one point that he thought that Han was really the hero of Episode V, and I'd never thought about it like that before. But I do agree with him: Luke is off doing his own thing for much of the movie, so Han steps it up and becomes the hero.

We saw the movie at the Field Museum. I only had about an hour to look around the museum before the movie started, so I only got to see the lobby, and the Egypt exhibit. The museum looked amazing, and I definitely want to return someday to see the rest.

I also went on a mob tour Thursday morning. One of the locations our tour guide took us to was the Biograph theatre, which was the location of John Dillinger's death. Last year, Dillinger's story was told in the film Public Enemies, starring Johnny Depp. I could only get a photo from the bus I'm afraid, but it was still pretty neat to see.

We agreed to meet at the theatre, right, Mr. Depp?

One of the tour guides looked and sounded like David Morse.

I'm not sure if I saw any movies actually being filmed, but I saw shooting locations from The Dark Knight, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Public Enemies and The Untouchables.

Keep reading for more Chicago experiences!