Santa Fe was at its incompetent best yesterday as I went to see the highly acclaimed movie The Hours. Before I blast my hometown I will say that it's an excellent film that absolutely shatters your hopes that women are, well, normal creatures. The acting was great, and the makeup was the best I've ever seen (and not just Nicole Kidman, either -- although she looks so different that one wonders why they didn't just find an actress who looked like Virginia Woolf in the first place).

Anyway, back to my rant. Santa Fe's dominant movie chain, United Artists, decided to put all the good movies at one cineplex and all the other movies on the other side of town. By good movies I mean stuff like Gangs of New York and The Hours and not Kangaroo Jack. This is basically to let adults go see good movies at one place and let kids see everything else at the other place, I think. Since all the good movies are at this one cineplex, however, it always has really long lines. And, since The Hours just came out here, I thought it would be crowded and I'd avoid the crowds with Moviefone. Well, I buy the tickets ahead of time, and sure enough there's this huge line, and I go into the theater, only to find that there's no Moviefone kiosk -- you have to wait in line and give your credit card to the people at the ticket window. I almost hit the roof. Why have Moviefone if you're not even going to let people bypass lines?? I'm going to complain to the theater and to Moviefone. Grrr.