Seeing Scary Things

When I headed for the drive-in on Saturday night I was wishing instead for more haunted attractions to visit, but no other local ones opened this weekend. Fortunately two horror movies were playing at Ye Ole Dependable.
Friends Sharon and MaryAnne joined me for the double feature.
The first was the new one from M. Night Shamalamadingdong, Devil. We didn't know it was one of his until the opening credits came up.
Sharon and I groaned. We had suffered through Lady in the Water and The Village and thought this one would be as bad as those, even though the trailer for Devil was quite good.
One of the first scenes featured M. Night himself, in his Hitchcocky way of putting himself in his films as the AA sponsor of a detective who turned to the bottle after his wife and son were killed in a hit and run accident six months prior.
The movie is narrated sparsely by a Latin American security employee in the building were most of the action takes place.
Our narrator tells us of the childhood stories he heard about the devil coming to earth and taking on human form to kill some of the damned and take them with him early.
In this movie the devil is hanging out in a trapped elevator car with five folks inside, trying to turn them against each other and, ultimately, kill them all and snatch up their souls.
There is a twist at the end that I accidentally figured out and shouted out halfway through, thus making my friends mad!
Devil redeemed M. Night, ironically. It is worth seeing for sure. But if you figure out the twist, don't shout it out, lest you be ostracized by your buddies like I was!
Next up was The Last Exorcism, which Sharon and I had seen a few weeks before with The Other Guys. Neither of us minded seeing this again, because, like the rest of the world, we were pretty confused by the ending!
TLE is the story of an evangelical preacher, Cotton Marcus (presumably named after Cotton Mather) who has lost his faith but not his ability to preach up a storm.
He is embarrassed by all his years of preaching something he never believed in and seeks to put things right by making a documentary about the fraud of exorcism. He allows a camera crew to go with him on his last exorcism
I won't go into a whole recap but I will say that I enjoyed the film. It brings up a lot of talking points about faith even though there are a lot of errors in it. For example, an evangelical Protestant preacher like Cotton wouldn't have a crucifix, nor would he have any interest in Latin. Glaring missteps like that were really annoying.
If you can force yourself to ignore that, I recommend this very well-acted, but not too scary film.

A Yawner and a Shameful Experience

Another pair of romantic comedies are playing at the drive in this weekend. Don't ask why I put myself through this because I don't know. The first one, The Back-Up Plan, staring Jennifer Lopez really isn't so bad yet. J-Lo is a woman who decides to get artificially inseminated because she believes she'll never find Mr. Right. Of course, as soon as she gets pregnant, she thinks she's found him. So far it is kinda cute even though the supporting characters are the typical cardboard characters a J-Lo is acting as the same character she has been in the past one million movies. One great thing about the movie is that Linda Lavin is J-Lo's grandmother! How cool is that! Okay so J-Lo just told the guy she's pregnant. He was so mean! I heard the guy in the next car say, "What an a--hole!" Whoever is with that guy in the next car should think about hanging on to him! That was a pretty cool reaction! Well now he just burped really loud so I'm guessing they are pretty serious or even married! Okay so now the couple is breaking up. Hmm...I wonder if they will get back together in the end, once they realize they really do love each other. Just once I'd like to see a realistic ending, like maybe they will realize they really aren't meant for each other- like 50% of couples do. I guess it would be good for me to put SPOILERS on this review, but come on, does anyone really expect a romantic comedy to NOT have a happy ending? Oh well yeah, so much for a spoiler. Yes, they got back together. Danger. Shark jumping zone.

Up next is Dear John. I know nothing about it but a couple is falling in love already and the guy is in the Army. Oh my gosh. After a quit Google search I have discovered that this is a Nicholas Sparks movie. I feel ill. There is nothing more I can say. This review is officially over.

At least it was only 6 bucks for both!

Don't you hate it when you see a movie preview then see the movie and realize that all of the funny stuff was given away in the preview? That is what happened in Date Night. I knew it was a romantic comedy but I went anyway. It was a pretty original, but it really wasn't that funny. Sure it had enough funny moments in it to fill the preview but that was about it. Everyone knows what 's about because the previews are on all the time, everywhere and they give the whole thing away. Skip the movie and youtube the preview. Then you've seen the best of it.
Watching Bounty Hunter now. It looks like Midnight Run redone. The bounty hunter guy, Milo, had this other guy after him in the first scene who looked just like Marvin Dorfler from Run. Okay so this might be a Run rip off, but it is a truly terrible one. I'm sorry I even mentioned Run in the same review. This movie isn't worthy of having it there. The only good thing about this movie is the music. Who doesn't love Sinatra's This Town? And Jerry Reed's She Got the Gold Mine, I Got the Shaft, well that song has always had special meaning for me. Again, like Date Night, it seems like the best parts were in the trailer. And also, It's Tricky! Wow!
Oh man this is bad. There are so many sharks in the water that have been jumped. I think this is some kind of record or something. I need to check on this.

Movies?

Yeah, why not? I wrote these while I was watching them at the Drive In.

So I figure since I am reviewing stuff, I might as well review movies as well. Right now I'm watching Hot Tub Time Machine at the drive-in. It's the story of three guys in their 40s who head back to the ski resort they visited when they were teens in the 80s. It is pretty funny so far, especially for someone who grew up in the 80s like me. It's definately not a family movie. There's a lot of sex and nudity and drug use. There's no romance at all so far, so that is great! The big problem the three friends face is that one of the guys, John Cusack, has brought his 20 year old nephew with him on the trip. He's gone back in time, too. If the guys don't do everything just as they did back in 1986, the nephew won't even be born! The guy so far are having a hard time recreating their past as it happened. Uh oh. Leave it to the John Cusack character to start up a romance. Ugh. Well it's not too bad yet. The movie almost over and so far, though it comes dangerously close with this weird theme of the 80s ski preps thinking that the time travelers are Soviet spies, it hasn't jumped the shark. And there it is! A good ending and not one shark was jumped! Now on to the second feature, the name of which I cannot recall!
Okay I have no idea what this movie is but its set in Pittsburgh! They are in the Warhol now!
Now they are talking about the Penguins!
There's the Mellon Arena! Okay I looked it up, it's called She's Out of My League and it is a romantic comedy but so far it is good! It's about this dopey sort of guy who is starting to date this really amazing girl. None of his friends think it will work out because she seems to be, well, out of his league. So far no shark jumping, although the lovely couple will probably break up and yes, probably get back together. Okay the movie jumped the shark with one of those 'catch the plane! We're really in love!' Moments, but still, all in all, good, funny and sweet movie and it was really nice to see Pittsburgh featured!