The largest inflatable screen in the southern hemisphere

So I did finally see Aquaman on Sunday night, and the conditions were pretty much perfect. The
temperature was lovely in the Melbourne Botanical Gardens, where they had cordoned off an area as they do nearly nightly between December and March as part of the Twilight Series. This photo should give you some idea of the beautiful backdrop and general environment.

Plus there was the little matter of the largest inflatable screen in the southern hemisphere.

But I'll get to that in a minute.

First, I'll paint a little more of a picture. My wife and I were in the second most prestigious bean bag section, the first being called "Gold Grass" (a nice play on "Gold Class," the high-end range of screening rooms in the Crown cinema chain). This meant we had great proximity to the screen and our own bean bag chairs, just not direct food service to our chairs. Which was really fine, because they close the food trucks about 15 minutes before film time anyway, so it's not like anyone's serving you in your bean bag during the movie. (In part because that would be a huge distraction.)

This setup was fine-tuned to avoid distractions to your viewing experience. It may not be such a surprise to say this in an outdoor environment, but the sightlines were flawless, a benefit of the hill's gradual slope downward. The real nice touch, though, was that anyone who brought their own chair was relegated to a section to the right of everybody else. Still a plenty good view, no worry about that, but not in the way of anyone who didn't have a chair. And if they were in each others' way, well, that was their own problem I guess.

My wife and I had brought a canteen full of margaritas, which were on the strong side, and a couple other light snacks, but we'd intend to patronize the food trucks, and did so. Actually, there was really only one truck serving hot food, but the selection was decent enough. The pizzas were passable but a bit undercooked. The real find was the chicken you see below, which had a gourmet-sounding name that I've already forgotten. We wished we'd just ordered three of these.

As we settled into our spots and let the margaritas soak into us, we also soaked in the top ten songs in the Hottest 100 from Australian radio station Triple-J. It's a big deal countdown of the year's best songs that always plays during Australia Day weekend, and as I have just gotten out of my own countdown period, I feel a kinship to this countdown even if I can't get behind the voters' selections. For example, #1 this year was a song called "Confidence" by a band I'd never heard of called Ocean Alley. They're Australian, but that's not a prerequisite -- the #4 song was a much more respectable choice from a non-Australian artist, Childish Gambino, whose "This is America" seems a lot more of a defining 2018 song. (That could be my American bias coming through.) Anyway, this drag of a song quickly became nicknamed by my wife and me "Cabinet Baby," because that's what it sounds like they're saying when the band talks about "confidence, baby."

Once that was done and people were queueing up for their last food before the movie began -- which for us included ice creams and gummy snakes from the treat truck, though not the yummy looking coffee cocktails -- they started blowing up what they promptly introduced to us as "the largest inflatable screen in the southern hemisphere."

That's likely true -- why would they lie -- but it made me laugh because Australia seems to have a thing about size. The IMAX screen at the Melbourne Museum is supposed to the world's third largest, which is maybe why I liked Gravity so much. The largest? It's supposed to be in Sydney. I guess this might also be true except that I have to imagine some sultan in Dubai would put up the money to make a larger one, just because.

Anyway, the thing was big. And decidedly imperfect. The white screen was pretty dirty and even included some spots where you could see the fading daylight out of the other side. It's true that this was not noticeable and mattered not one bit once the movie started, but we did make a couple comments between us that maybe it was time to replace it. Then again, who knows how much money the largest inflatable screen in the southern hemisphere actually costs?

After this nice setup, it's too bad it wasn't a better movie. And that actually kind of surprised me. I guess I hadn't sufficiently canvassed my friends for their opinions on Aquaman, because I was going on its dynamite box office performance and the 8/10 given by my fellow critic/editor at ReelGood. When it was completely silly, that didn't surprise me, but when it was completely silly in a way I didn't particularly enjoy, that did.

I will say that the opening scene in which Nicole Kidman fends of the guards from Atlantis was fantastic. I don't remember if it was all one take, designed to look that way, or none of the above, but I do remember that the camera went up into the ceiling of the house at one point, to look down on the whizz-bang action scene taking place below. I felt incredibly jazzed by the film's potential at that point. Alas, it set a standard the rest of Aquaman could not live up to.

Or maybe the strong margaritas just made me too sleepy for its relentlessly repeating narrative structure.

In any case, I look forward to my next evening under the stars in front of TLISITSH.