Reel News

Sorry this post is late. I ran out of time on Friday and never got a chance to publish. But I present it to you now in random glory.

Did you know Kevin Costner is in a rock band? Why? Oh yeah, his movie career currently sucks.

Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby opens today. I'm predicting a big opening because of my What's Eating Gilbert Grape theory. The three male leads in Gilbert Grape were Leonardo DiCaprio, Johnny Depp, and John C. Reilly. Leo starred in the biggest movie of all-time, Titanic. Johnny Depp stars in the current box office champ Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man's Chest. So John C. Reilly is due.

Or you could go see The Descent. The highly probable tale of six beautiful women who like to get wet and explore a deep, dark cave and find something spooky. Uh yeah. I'll save this spelunking fable for my Netflix queue. But the web site is cool.


For all you Buffy and Angel fans(and that should be all of you), James Marsters is in a new movie called Shadow Puppets. It also stars Jolene Blaylock from Enterprise.

It is the 50th anniversary of the Mission Tiki Drive-In. I went to this drive-in once when I was in high school. My friends and I went to see Ghostbusters (who you gonna call?). It was 1984 and drive-ins were losing ground to the multi-plex and it was more of a nostalgia visit for all of us. As well as a place to consume Schaefer beer for 2 hours ($2.19 a six pack and it tasted just like it). But as a child, drive-ins were the only way my family went to the movies. I used to treasure those nights. We never went often. Until I was 9, my Dad would only take us to Disney films, so we would see maybe 3 or 4 movies a year. Whenever our Dad announced that we would be seeing a movie, my brothers and I would go to our room and get into a rapturous tizzy of excitement which consisted of celebratory jumping while chanting "we're going to a movie!" and laughing convulsively on the floor. If it was a particularly anticipated film, my little brother's eyes would roll back into his head and he would starting speaking in tongues. On the day of the movie, we would scan the heavens fervently to make sure there were no ominous storm clouds to breakup the evening. If the weather complied, our cinematic journey would begin by my brothers and I getting into our pajamas. My Mom would bring dinner. She never believed in the concession stand. A practice that has not stopped to this day. My father would then load us into the family Buick for the 15 minute ride to the drive-in.
After we paid admission and snaked our way into the main pavilion which housed all the vehicles, my brothers and I would plead with our father to pick a spot near the front center. He never did. He always made a beeline to the spot closest to the exit in the back corner so we wouldn't have to wait in line to leave. We always got to the drive-in early just so my father could get that spot. He would always get a smug look on his face once we pulled in and make comments at other cars as they were finding spots.

"Look at that idiot parking in the 4th row near the center. They won't be home before midnight!"

No, but at least they could watch the movie without binoculars.

"Yessiree, this is the best spot in the entire drive-in."

Apparently, my father was the only person who believed in this conviction as most of the time we had a buffer zone of 4 or 5 empty spaces around our car. Yep, leave it to my father to set up his own private leper colony in the neighborhood drive-in. Since my father always insisted on getting there early, we usually had at least 30 minutes before the movie began. My Mom would usually try to keep us occupied during this time by feeding us. However, my brothers and I, still giddy with anticipation, would wolf down our dinners in under 10 minutes. Listening to the music coming over the grey sound box was boring and sounded bad, so we always bugged our parents to let us roam the drive-in. Most of the time they would turn us down, but sometimes if we sang in unison off key, they would relent and let us go. So my brothers and I would venture forth from our leper colony and try and have an adventure before the movie began. Usually we would re-enact scenes from our favorite movies and since we were in our pajamas, most of the time we would pretend we were the children from Peter Pan flying across the London skyline. I can imagine how we looked running through the drive-in with our arms extended pretending to be flying wearing our threadbare Bugs Bunny pjs. Mind you, my brothers and I always thought that pajamas were the proper attire for children when attending a movie. I remember flying past a station wagon and noticing the kids inside were wearing t-shirts and their Tuffskins jeans. I pityed them and thought how embarassing it must be to have parents who didn't know the movie dress code. The first time I went to a matinee in a theater, a momentous occassion, my brothers and I got into our finest pajamas(which meant the tops matched the bottoms), despite the fact the movie started at 1 in the afternoon. We didn't believe our father when he told us we could wear pants and a t-shirt. We thought it was another one of his jokes to make us look ignorant. We would show up in the theater and all the other kids in their nicely pressed, footed pjs would laugh at me and my brothers in our corduroys and Hush Puppies. We almost refused to go. You can imagine the shock and surprise on our faces when we saw all the kids in regular clothes. It was then that we learned a valuable lesson. With my parents, social acceptance often times lost to convenience.
After our excursion through the drive-in, we would return to the car and eagerly await for the movie to start. My heart would race as the lights would dim and the first crackle and pop would emanate from the speaker box and the movie began. Despite the eyestrain and tinny sound, I would be transfixed as the images flickered across the screen. The world enlarged from my tiny spot in the backseat of the family car, to enchanted forests, pirate ships, and foreboding castles. I was no longer an 8 year old boy in his pjs, but a brave prince doing battle with an evil dragon. All too soon the movie would end and I was brought back to our rust speckled Buick and my father cursing the car that jumped in front of him on the way out.