Dark Shadows Movie Review

Have you seen "Death Becomes Her"? "The Haunted Mansion"?  Any vampire movie ever?  Any Johnny Depp movie ever?

Then no need to see "Dark Shadows."  Just mix all of those movies together in your head and you can pretty much imagine exactly what the movie was like.

I'm not a huge movie goer.  I prefer to watch movies in the comfort of my own home surrounded by my fur family and with access to all kinds of delicious snacks.  But this movie we were in the mood for a movie and "Dark Shadows" had the most desirable starting time and movie location.

Johnny Depp has a particular character he likes to play and he plays it well.  So I don't think anyone will be surprised to see him as a dark character hailing from 1700 England.  I like Depp, I think most of his movies are fun and I also tend to have a slightly darker sense of humor.  But I even found his character a little confusing as we are supposed to accept his very proper manner of pursuing women even while randomly 'hooking up' with several others.  I assume it was supposed to be assumed that the women who had his hearts affection was of his class, while the others weren't, but since she was actually the family's nanny, even this falls apart.  More likely, Hollywood didn't think there was enough sex in the movie so threw it in for ratings/viewership/whatever.  Another reason I don't like watching movies in theaters, you may be cool with your 7 year old daughters watching those scenes, but it makes me really uncomfortable.

I'd say skip this one especially in the theater.  If your a huge Depp fan, rent it from red box.

Movie Date 3 of 6.

So you may or may not notice that today is in April.  I owed Gavin a movie date once a month until June, but sadly, March just got away from us.  I couldn't find a time machine, so the best I could do was today. 

Gavin and I won a Regal gift card at the charity auction we attended in San Juan last month, so we decided to use it.  Our favorite Peruvian Restaurant, Inka Mama's,(okay, it's the only Peruvian restaurant I've ever been too) is located right next to a Regal theater, so we decided to go eat some lettuce Salsa.  I'm sure it has another name, but they have this fantastic sauce there that is made using lettuce, so I call it lettuce Salsa.  It's terribly addicting.  Once when we went with Sara, we used an entire bottle for three people.

Then we went and saw Sucker Punch.  Sucker Punch is a movie about a girl who is in a mental hospital.  I think.  On second thought, it's a movie about hot girls wearing not very much clothing and fighting.... something.  Not entirely sure what.  The movie was terrible.  Really terrible.  I can't count the number of times I looked around the theater for something more entertaining to look at.  At one point, I was actually trying to time a (unnecessary) trip to the bathroom around one of the "action" scenes.  Really, the movie was that bad.

So I'm even forgoing the picture of the movie poster (no need to draw more attention than necessary to this fiasco of a film.  At least my date was good looking. :)

Movie Date 2 of 6.

Read about date 1 here.

Gavin aptly chose Saint Valentine's Day for Date 2.  And appropriately chose Gnomeo & Juliet.

Our date night started with my gift for Gavin ,'Champagne', and his gift for me, flowers.

I say 'champagne' because it wasn't.  It was Sam Adam's Infinium, a champagne like beer.  I successfully took up beer drinking in Australia, so thought this would be an awesome gift for Gavin.  I disagree with their opinion that this beer is champagne like.  It was darker than most of the beers I've tried so far and thicker, but it was pretty good. 

For dinner, we had a Winter Chicory Salad with Roquefort Cheese Dressing and Potato and Leek Soup.

It was amazing.  The cheese was incredible!  The dressing was super easy, just heavy cream, vinegar and the cheese tossed with the greens and apples.  The leak and potato soup was similar to the soup we made for Christmas Eve and pretty quick and simple.

I thought the movie would be packed.  I was wrong.  It's not really surprising I guess that a kids movie would be mostly empty on a holiday designed for couples.

The movie was adorable.  We choose to skip on 3D this time and I'm not sure what would have been gained watching this particular movie in 3D (except a headache in my case).  I probably wouldn't watch it again, but it was a perfect date night movie!

Can't wait to plan next month's date!

Movie Date 1 of 6.

I don't like going to the movies.  I like watching movies, sort of.  But I prefer to do it in my Pajamas, on my sofa, with my puppy in my lap, and my head on my husband's shoulder.

Said husband prefers the giant screens and too loudness of movie theaters.  So as a Christmas gift I gave him 6 movie dates.  One each month through June.  Tonight was date 1 of 6.  Since we are in Australia, the movies available here are a bit behind the states.  But Gavin was quite excited to see The Green Hornet 3D.

We ate a huge lunch, so our date 'dinner' was wine and cheese.

But we did have it on the 24th floor of an apartment overlooking Melbourne (albeit with less than ideal furniture!)

Did I mention we saw it in 3d and with snacks?

The theater was quite nice and very large.

As for the movie itself, I actually liked it.  I only had to leave once (right before they go into the cement yard for those who have seen the movie) and it was funny as well as being all action-y.  Overall, not a complete fail which is more than I can say for most movies.

I also made a somewhat interesting discovery that movies, as well as books and alcohol, are great at distracting you from the present moment when that's a good idea for your sanity.  I've asked Gavin to compile a list of good(and safe) movies for me to watch.  Perhaps I'll document my immersion into American Cinema on my blog.

Sometime next month look for Movie Date 2 of 6.