Oblivion!...the movie.

The big plan for today was to met Chris in American Fork and watch the new Tom Cruise movie, Oblivion.  But first, I had to take some photos.  There was nothing but opportunity as soon as I walked out the door.

                                                                   

The photo taking was fun but I took so much time doing it and almost made myself late for the movie. I was planning on buying a unique pastry at the bakery but I had ran out of time for that.  I was going to have to settle for whatever 7-11 had to offer.  I opted for one of Mr's Freshlies creme fill raspberry cakes. 

This snack cake was, in fact, an original experience for me.  I've never eaten one before so it does qualify, though I have eaten other things that are pretty close.  The cake is obviously a rip off of the Dolly Madison raspberry Zinger crossed with a Hostess Twinkie.  Mr's Freshely's isn't even trying to hide it.

Dolly Madison was owned by Hostess and was liquidated along with it.  Mrs. Freshley's is one of those opportunistic companies that is basking in increased cake sales as a results of the bankruptcy.  Hostess has now been bought up by the humongous Apollo Global Management and we should be seeing Twinkies back on the shelf in a few months.  It'll be interesting to see how things go.  Will the customers all come back or will these pretenders to the thrown become established as the new kings of snack cake?  I thought this snack cake was pretty good and even though I will be glad to see Hostess back on the shelf, I don't think things will ever be the same again for snack cakes..

Setting out for American Fork, it looked like I was driving into a rain cloud.

Point of the mountain shot.  This could have been a much better shot but there were too many large vehicles blocking the view. 

The parking lot of the American Fork Megaplex.  Mount Timp is almost completely hidden from view.

                                              And now for my review of Oblivion.

Oblivion is one of those movies that has suffered from far too much hype.  Even Chris and I had an inflated expectation about the movie.  My viewing experience was significantly improved thanks to Richard Roeper.   He did me a tremendous favor by lowering my expectations to a reasonable level.  He listed all the previous Scifi movies that Oblivion ripped off and there was no small number of them.  He still liked it and described Oblivion as a very effective cover band for great Sci Fi movies of the past.  With that perspective, I was able to sit and enjoy the movie.

The following article lists all the Scifi movies of the past that were ripped off by Oblivion.  I haven't even seen all of them.

GET THEE TO THE GEEK: 12 MOVIES 'OBLIVION' BLATANTLY RIPS OFF