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10 Cloverfield Lane

BudLiteGood morning, y’all. It’s been such beautiful weather that I am reminiscing about the old days when we couldn’t wait for Spring so that the Drive In movie theaters would reopen. Most of the Drive Ins would close in this area for the Winter, and with the advent of Spring, they would reopen with a flourish.

Sometimes the Drive Ins would reopen with a quad feature to get folks interested in coming back in. The Drive Ins wanted everyone to reestablish the habit of coming to the Drive In at least once a weekend. Some folks, I’ve heard, would go to the Drive In twice in a weekend. I presumed at least once was to watch the movie.

There is a rumor that the reason Drive In movies were not up to the par of the “mainstream” movies was that “no one was watching the movie anyway”. I don’t doubt that that was true for some folks. All I can say to rebut that theory is that a lot of folks got real famous making “Drive In” movies. Roger Corman comes to mind, and he is famous for launching the careers of main stream directors Francis Ford Coppola, Ron Howard, Martin Scorsese and James Cameron. To rebut the quality of the films shown, I watched “Star Wars” on a Drive In screen. The local movie theater didn’t feel like it would attract a big enough crowd to warrant a showing, so everyone in our neck of the woods camped out at the Drive In to watch the blockbuster.

Well, long story short, I wanted to get out for Date Night, but I didn’t feel like driving over to Blue Ridge to experience the thrill of a Drive In. Maybe when it gets warmer. Mulva and I don’t generate as much body heat as we used to. I blame global warming.

Anyway, we headed into town to watch what appeared to be the only quality show on at the Bijou, “10 Cloverfield Lane“. I used its rating of PG13 to get Mulva past the posters promising a “tense thriller”. As I’ve explained before, Mulva does not like violence of any kind, and absolutely no blood should be spilled while Mulva is in attendance. I think I can only recall one time when Mulva didn’t hide her eyes when violence was being telegraphed in a movie, and that was the “swing away Merrill” sequence in the “Signs” movie. Maybe because the scene was setup a hundred miles or so before it happened, Mulva took it as a foregone conclusion. Believe me, I’ve seen her turn her head at far less violent scenes.

Before we get into the movie, let me point out how good theater popcorn tastes to a man released from house arrest. I know that it was popped a couple of days ago, but it still tasted of something special. Something special that the bags of Pops Rite done in our microwave didn’t have. Could it have been the taste of freedom? Maybe. Even at $4.50 for a “medium” bag, I felt it was a bargain. We’ll see if I still feel that way in the weeks to come.

Well, bust my suspenders, the Bijou has redecorated. It’s got new Barcalounger type seats in the auditorium that have adequate room for my expansive girth. There is even a foot rest so I can lean back. Holy cow, how can this experience get any better? With an excellent movie of course. I didn’t know what to expect from the movie because I had not read any reviews, so the whole plot was unveiling fresh in front of me. I like John Goodman, and I figured he’d be worth the price of admission even if the movie was a stinker. It wasn’t.

10 Cloverfield Lane” melds a couple types of horror/suspense genres together which was novel for me. The movie keeps the audience on the edge of the seat guessing as to what is true, and what is a red herring. I could give the movie away by saying it’s all true, or it’s all false, but I won’t. You must go see it for yourself. All performances are excellent, and John Goodman is superb.

Mulva hid her eyes a lot. I expect I’ll pay the price of her bad dreams for a few days. If it gets too bad, I’ll go sleep on the sofa. “10 Cloverfield Lane” was worth it, for me, anyway.