The Arclight is a five footer’s dream theater. I get to see the entire movie comfortably. I love it there. (Save for that one time when it first opened and I arrived late to a movie and was denied access to the theater and wound up driving to The Grove to catch it there. But that d-bag who wouldn’t let us in has long since been fired, I’m sure.) So when some of my girlfriends and I decided to go see Eat Pray Love, I voted for the Hollywood Arclight. I thought I would wisely stash a bottle of red and some solo cups in my purse and instantly be the hero (thank you Australia and your glorious screw tops), but for some reason I didn’t calculate correctly (ah, the pressures of being a math major…). One bottle for four girls barely got us into India. By Bali I was stewing my shame of being ill equipped/prepared. Lesson learned for next time. One is sometimes not enough.

I did like the movie. The Italy scenes took me back to my summer abroad in 1995. I almost forgot how much I loved it there. India was as colorful as I remembered, though it still doesn’t make me want to meditate (P.S. I SUCK at meditating). And Bali has now jumped to my top 5 for places I want to hit next. Especially if they have more Javier Bardems there, (yes, I just slapped myself for being a cliche). A lot of the depth of emotion from the book was absent, but that also meant that a lot of whining from the book was gone too. I didn’t check my fantasy baseball stats once during the entire 2.5 hrs running time, so I’ll take that to indicate I gave the movie a thumbs up.

I also give the wine a thumbs up. The only thing wrong with it was there wasn’t a second bottle. It was a 2005 Henry’s Drive Dead Letter Office (Australia), a bottle I had picked up at my beloved Berkeley Bowl. It’s mostly Shiraz with a little Cab in there. And it’s JAMMY (which is how Mama likes it)! Fruit forward, deep purple in color, with a slight hint of mineral. Not an obnoxiously huge finish, but certainly big enough. Which, unfortunately, I can’t say about the bottle…
Wine Rating: Please Sir, I’ll have some more!

Girls Night Leaves Its Mark