Get Real

Chris, Ashley, Fred and I left the lake just after sunset and went to the movies at the theater in Cleburne. Now I don't have anything against the Cleburne Theater-it's cheap -but there's a reason a matinee is only $2 and an evening show is only $4. When we got in line to buy our tickets, the first thing we noticed was the burning popcorn. Mmmm...I love the smell of burnt popcorn. Luckily, we got into our theater before the smell really spread too much. The theater was packed...packed full of kids...kids with no parents. Most of the audience was around 14 or 15 years old, although some of the 14 year olds were accompanied by a slew of younger kids, younger siblings I assume. In retrospect, the audience demographics explain why the parking lot was so empty. As we left the theater after the movie (I'll get to the actual movie in a minute) I made a comment that we were the only ones that didn't have to go outside and call our parents to come pick us up. Anyways, some of these kids must not get much "alone time," i.e. freedom from parental supervision, because they decided to not even watch the movie. Instead they just made out the whole time. That may be cool in an empty theater...but in a theater where a stranger is sitting right next to you? All I can say is poor Fred. On second thought though, making out would have been better than watching the movie. What did we see.? On what great piece of cinematic magic did we spend our hard-earned dollars? Why none other than the acclaimed film "Fog." Okay, well I doubt it has any acclamations, other than those yelled out by our audience members. Yes, that's right, one group of under-aged audience members had a running dialogue with the movie. Impossible you say? Oh no, it can be done. Let me give you just one an example. There is one incredibly not-scary scene where a lady is fried to death. As the camera pans to her smoking skeleton lying on the kitchen floor, one boy yelled out something like "oh chicken, fried chicken." The movie itself was really bad, although it got a lot better after Chris went to tell the theater staff that the film was out of focus and there was a constant buzzing noise. There was one scene in the movie where a guy wrongly-suspected of causing the mysterious deaths is in the hospital. There are police men guarding his door so he can't get out. But of course the large, unlocked window was not guarded. As the scene opens it shows the window wide open and the suspect's hospital bed empty. The police officer, using his remarkable investigational skills, deduces that the window was used as an escape route. Duh!!! Pretty funny actually. That it was more funny than scary is pretty bad, seeing as it was supposed to be scary. Although, maybe I was too old to be scared. The majority of our audience seemed to be scared...as evidenced by their loud, frequent screams. Either that or else the minority that was scared was really loud. Either way, I have never been to a movie where people screamed like that. It was pretty comical. Their screams were not loud enough however to bother Fred as he slept slumped over in his seat. In the end, we were soldiers. We stayed for the whole movie. We bobbed our heads around the antsy group of kids in front of us who had to play musical seats every 15 minutes. We saw all the scary scenes and even learned the motivation behind the fog's murderous acts. The plot amounted to nothing more than some angry ghosts afflicted with leprosy. As we left the theater we couldn't help but laugh as we dodged the trash and popcorn that littered the floor. Most of all, we were thankful that we were past the age where this was a typical Saturday night.

Bottom line: Don't watch "Fog" unless you have the right audience to keep you entertained, because the movie certainly won't.