Correcting 2018 oversights, one outdoor screening at a time

One of the most unlikely movies for me not to have watched before my 2018 ranking deadline was Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald.

I don't make sure I see every big budget franchise film, but when I really liked the first movie -- as I did with Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them -- I am almost certain to give the follow-up a chance. And I did mean to with Grindelwald. In fact, I was all set to go one night in November after recording a podcast, but I chatted movies afterward with my fellow podcasters and our one audience member, one glass of wine led to another, and Grindelwald slipped through my fingers.

Knowing that the reviews were awful, I didn't regret missing the movie -- what's another disappointing title somewhere in the 120s in my rankings? However, I was slightly more intrigued about the possibility of correcting the oversight when a friend of mine contacted me with an extra ticket to an outdoor screening of it this past Sunday night. And that intrigue was enough to overcome my inertia and propel me out the door after a day that featured about four hours at the beach.

It was a week to the day after I'd done a similar thing with Aquaman, which I purposefully missed before my deadline because my wife bought me tickets to a similar outdoor screening for Christmas. While that one was at the Melbourne Botanical Gardens, this one was on the grounds of the Rippon Lea Estate, an old mansion whose grounds and insides can be visited and toured. It's part of a three-location summer series called Barefoot Cinema, this being the final of the three locations if I'm not mistaken.

More or less the same setup as the week before, only my friend and I did not partake in the VIP bean bags this time. Though I did bring my own bean bag chair and had an equally good perspective on the screen, so the couple bucks saved was probably worth it. (In fact, saving bucks did not enter into it for me -- my friend was only too happy to "shout me" (to use the Australian term) the ticket, as it would have gone to waste had I not stepped up in place of his wife, who could not go at the last minute. I did buy him a beer.)

Since I provided you a picture last week, here's another to give you a sense of the place:

If you can see those distant Christmas lights and food trucks, that's where they had a little truck devoted to BBQ. I enjoyed my pulled pork sandwich with my aforementioned IPA. I'd also brought in some caffeine and gummy worms to get me through the movie.

They weren't enough. If Aquaman was goofy and ultimately a bit ill-conceived, Fantastic Beasts was just exhausting. My three biggest complaints:

1) They just kept adding characters. Just. Kept. Adding them.

2) In the wizarding world of Harry Potter, is it basically possible for anyone to do anything whenever they want to? Why don't they just always do that?

3) I really didn't know what was going on. And I'm no dummy. Though, a day at the beach did leave me in a compromised state. Did I mention that I swam out to the buoy a hundred yards off shore?

I can pretty much guarantee you I won't be going to a third straight outdoor screening this Sunday, though I should acknowledge the possibility. After all, I haven't seen Bumblebee yet ...