With Dee safely pawned off at her bff’s house Saturday for an overnight (I will miss that about summer. We’ve had a Dee-free weekend just about every other and at the price of hosting bff on the opposite weekends which is still a definite win-win in terms of child occupying), Rob and I spent the day pondering the “movie” side of dinner and a movie date night. 

Rob wants to see the new Tarantino flick but it doesn’t open until next weekend and so I googled the offerings and did a bit of review reading and came up fairly empty. It’s not that bad reviews put me off. I don’t pay much attention to what a critic thinks. I read reviews to get a feel for the story-line and to find links to trailers. The bottom line is always this:

Is a story interesting enough to justify the time spent elbowing with the masses?

Most of the time, the answer is “no” because unless a movie is a must see – like the recent Star Trek for example – we aren’t in any hurry. The majority of films are out on dvd within four to six months and our public library does a wonderful job of keeping current on titles. Trekking to the theatre to queue up with teenagers and young adults who have little concept of personal space or tmi conversations, which they carry on at deafening levels that make me glad when I run across groups of young people who text each other even when shoulder to shoulder, just isn’t an experience I need and I know Rob has little patience with humanity anyway, so why? 

Movies can be savored from the comfyness of the sofa, snuggled with husband, pillows and under blankets. The living room is a lot closer to the true amenities of life and what it lacks in screen size is more than made up for by a clean bathroom and a kitchen with a wider – healthier – variety of snack options.

After ruling out the theatre and taking in dinner at the local Chinese option, Rob and I decided to splurge and rent dvd’s. Our selection for last evening was the Nick Cage flick, Knowing. The trailer blaring from a tv screen in the store lured us into it. Trailers are deceptive but nothing else was really screaming out “pick me” and it had an intriguing premise.

A time capsule buried fifty years earlier is unearthed and reveals a sheet of paper covered in numbers that turns out to be the date, location and death totals for nearly every major disaster between 1959 and 2009. And there are just three dates left. Cue the spooky music.

Unfortunately many things work against such a promising start.

• Nick Cage is a one facial expression actor.
• The film can’t decide if it wants to be a horror, action or alien encounter movie.
• It veers wildly back and forth between actual science and Rapture inspired religious mumbo-jumbo.
• And did I mention that Nick Cage really sucks the air out of every scene?

Of course widowhood reared its head. Cage’s character is a widower who drinks himself to sleep every night while staring morosely at the unopened birthday gift his wife died before having the chance to give him the year before, and there is cgi galore. The end is part Michael Bay/part Spielberg AI. And there are two adorable children. Something for everyone and therein lay the problem. No focus. Story drifted and then would scream off in an almost opposite direction.

I hate it when good story ideas are treated so badly. Some people should not be allowed to make movies.