At the Drive-In

Ever since Uncle David mentioned going to the drive-in a couple of weeks ago I've been dying to go. So when Chris had a rare Saturday off, we caught up on a week of house-cleaning and rewarded ourselves with a double-feature. Of course, there wasn't a great movie combo anywhere in the tri-state area, so we couldn't get anyone to go with us. We settled on Mission Impossible III and Silent Hill (which we'd already seen, so I felt safe watching it outdoors in the dark). The other screen of the drive-in was playing RV and American Haunting. This may not bother people who didn't have as many marketing classes as I did in college, but who the hell is their target audience? I mean, I can see maybe showing a scary movie, then a funny one to lighten the mood before you go home, which I still think would have a schizophrenic effect on the audience, but that pairing made no kind of sense to me.

On to what we did watch.

M:I-III-$%! : Do-Over

I found this MI installment to be more stressful than the other two (by the way, does anybody remember what happened in the second one?). But also, Tom was more crazy-looking, and crazy-acting, so that was fun. And his girlfriend did kinda look like Katie Holmes, although in certain scenes she looked exactly like Liv Tyler. Who she actually was, I don't know.

Silent Hill : Creep and Circumstance (May contain spoilers)

I liked SH the first time, and I'm glad we watched it again because this time we could discuss. I found it very discussable, which I like in a movie, especially a creepy one. It's funny because, at the theater the first time, these guys (I think they worked there?) asked us if we "got" the ending, and we were all, "Well yeah, we're not retarded." But then we stood outside afterward and talked about it and discovered that no one really got the ending. It's not that we lied to the guys. It's just that we all had our own ideas and when we laid them out, they all seemed equally plausible.

So the second time...I still didn't get the ending. But I reached new heights of not getting the ending and asked much more intelligent unanswered questions than I did the first time. Chris and I talked on the way home about the spiritual symbolism in the film (which you will probably point out originated with the game but I wouldn't know because I never played it).

Liz: You suppose they intentionally named the mom Rose and the daughter Sharon? They must've, right?

Chris: I wondered about that. Had to be. And then the dad's name is Christopher.

L: Yeah, because Christ is going after the Rose of Sharon and blah blah. But he can't get to them because they're in limbo? And of course the eternal fire thing underneath, well, I won't dignify that one.

C: And then there's the false prophetess, Christabella.

L: Everybody wants to be the Son of God. I don't get that. I sure wouldn't. At the risk of sounding anti-feminist, it's probably important that she's a woman.

C: Betty Friedan just rolled over.

L: Is she dead?

C: Yeah, here just a while back.

L: Huh. Well anyway, it's just symbolically important that she's a woman, because, be it arbitrary or no, the whole Trinity has always been described in masculine terms. So a female Christ is a usurper, an obvious imposter, and the others are responsible for not seeing it.

C: Hm.

Our drive continued like this until it inevitably degraded into silliness.

Liz: What about the name of the town? Silent Hill? How is that significant?

Chris: Well, it's creepy.

L: Yeah, you couldn't just name it anything I guess. Not many towns would make good ghost towns.

C: Yeah, I mean, we know that Attalla is creepy, but who would be afraid to go to "Attalla"?

L: Hee. Piedmont. Nobody goes to Piedmont.

C: The roads don't go through Ohatchee anymore.

L: We'll deal with Foley. You just let it rest in peace.

Maybe you had to be there.