Scene: Starkville Hollywood Premiere Cinema

Time: Two minutes before lights dim

And Action: I rise up out of my seat, clear my throat and address the theater patrons. Excuse me. Thank you for choosing SHPC for your entertainment this evening. I am the associate manager of the theater though I’m off tonight. I’d like to take this moment of your time before the feature presentation begins to go over new theater regulations.

Cell phones are great tools. They allow us to stay in contact with those we love and can help out in a tight spot. Just about everyone has one these days. In fact, let’s see, if you have a cell phone, hold it up. (I fish mine out of my pocket and raise it up. Dozens of others do the same.)

You know, nothing is more frustrating and annoying than to pay good money to see a movie only to have it interrupted by someone’s ringing cell phone and ensuing conversation. Right now I ask all of you to put your phone into silent mode. If you don’t know how, then just turn it off. (I put mine on silent.) Thank you. Your fellow movie-goers thank you.

Now, a word of warning. If your cell phone rings during the feature, you will be taken out back by Burl, our policy enforcer, and beaten with one of those swimming pool noodle things. We don’t want to hurt you, just let you know that we disapprove of your lack of consideration for others. This is our no tolerance cell phone policy.

Thank you and enjoy the show.

I’m pretty much the perfect movie watcher. I can totally get into the suspension of disbelief, drool rolling down my chin mode and be all Ooooo cool effects. I generally gauge how good a movie is by my overall mood afterwards. If I’m kinda hopping around and Let’s go by Walmart and buy stuff! it was probably a pretty good movie. On the other hand, if I’m more somber and Let’s go home, then it might not have been a good movie.

I’ve decided to be more aware during movies.

So I saw Fantastic Four tonight. Overall, pretty good. I meant to go to Walmart and buy stuff, but I got sidetracked by food and then forgot to go. I tried to pay more attention to the story telling and whatnot so here’s a few comments.

I thought the beginning was edited too heavily. It felt like it took all of five minutes for them to be hit by the space storm and be back on earth discovering their powers. I, personally, needed more exposition. See, I’m not really familiar with the comic so I don’t know the characters or the back story. Why were they in space again? What was this storm thing? How was it going to save humanity? How do these people know each other?

It wasn’t hard to pick up on the these-people-probably-had-a-previous-relationship-that-did-not-end-well vibe between Sue Storm and Reed Whatshisname. The director kept beating me over the head with it. I got it, thanks. I mean, he could’ve spent the time on some other exposition details.

The Thing’s turn against the group was a bit thin. I understand his motivation and his emotional state was well laid out. But Mr. Fantastico Rubber Man was obviously working his little rubber fingers to their rubber bones. The part where he fell asleep at his desk and his face was all mushed when he woke up was great. All it took to push Thing over the edge was Victor Doom, who has dubious motivations anyway, to say The reason you ain’t fixed is Reed is trying to get with the girl from Dark Angel. The Thing is all Dude, you’re right. Then Thing finds nobody is at the office working because Reed is out with the girl from that movie Honey. Bad timing. Didn’t Thing see all the cool gadgets and equipment Reed had up and running and testing on in the previous half hour of the movie? Dang, how fast does a man have to work?

I don’t know, it’s not that bad but like I said, I felt it was a bit thin.

And what’s with Jessica Alba? She’s got the Michael Jackson disease I think. She’s gone from being portrayed as kinda black to kinda latina to now kinda whitebread. Anyway. Not that I keep up with her.

I actually like the Dr. Doom character best. Not his qualities as a person so much but I thought his character’s story was told the best. There wasn’t too much time spent on it but I didn’t feel like something got left out either. I totally got him. Human-party-torch-boy wasn’t hard to get either but he wasn’t as interesting.

I dug the scene where Thing and Doom fall out the window, break through the skylight and end up in the pool. Great. The guy trying to get in the elevator and escape the water was funny.

One of the funniest things was when Thing fell on a car with this white lady and black lady in it. The look on the black lady’s face deserves an Oscar. Really. I’m gonna call in a few favors and see what I can do.

If I sit here long enough, I could think of more to say but I don’t want to.

I saw Destre at the theater again. I have got to get me a picture with him. Add that to my picture of the Reverend and me and I’ve got a nice collection of Starkville Characters going.