A dinner sandwich with movie bread

Of all the post-work double features I've conducted over the years, I don't remember exactly this one:

1) Go to a movie.
2) Meet a friend for dinner.
3) Go to another movie.

It's not actually all that revolutionary of an idea, but I don't ever remember it happening.

The first slice of the dinner sandwich was Mafia Mamma, for which I snuck out of work just a few minutes early in order to catch its 4:20 start time downstairs from my office. Actually, I thought it was going to be downstairs, but it turns out Cinema Kino has opened another screening auditorium -- the largest that it has -- away from all the others, across the food court courtyard and up a couple levels. In fact, I was worried I was going to miss the start of the movie due to the extra time it took to cross the courtyard and catch a lift up to the second floor. (Elevator, I know.)

(Side note: I keep wanting to write the title of this movie as Mafia Mamma! because it reminds me of Mamma Mia!)

The movie was not very good. I started out liking it, and who wouldn't, since Toni Collette is the star. But the movie made me a bit suspicious in the guy it cast as her husband -- a sort of Dean Winters type, yet scruffier and trashier -- and the decisions just got worse from there. In the end, it was what you could have guessed from the trailer: A broad comedy with one too many stereotypes and one too few laughs.

That got me out about 6:15, which should have left the perfect amount of time to walk up to North Melbourne to meet my friend David at a pub for dinner by 7. I either walked slow or miscalculated because I ended up needing to catch a tram for the last bit in order not to arrive late.

David and I parted ways after a very nice get-together at about 8:45, so I hopped that same tram back down to the Yarra River where I could check out my second movie starting in the 9:45 range at the Village Cinemas at Crown Casino. I wasn't sure whether that was going to be Hypnotic or Evil Dead Rises, but I ended up going with the former.

And probably shouldn't have. The Ben Affleck vehicle, which crashed out at the U.S. box office last weekend, starts out like a bad 1990s detective thriller, and then when the high concept kicks in, it's convoluted as hell. Plus, I didn't like anyone in the movie.

It's no wonder after these two slices of movie bread that I was feeling a little bloated on my way home. (Actual explanation: a yummy bag of chocolate peanut clusters I ate between the two movies, which was too much when combined with dinner and the ice cream David bought me afterward.)