All,
So why this quote for my title? I am hoping it describes my weekend or maybe now even my week. I need to see "Dawn". It also happens to be a quote from the Dark Knight movie that Reagan and I went to in order to celebrate our anniversary. Yes, the same movie with the late Heath Ledger and the 2nd highest reviews of any movie this year. Yes, the movie that set Midnight showing records, opening day records, and opening weekend records...All-Time records. But this email/blog isn't a review of that movie, because Reagan and I can't do that. Why? Well, let me start at the beginning...
Saturday started at Midnight for me as I continued to share stories, beer, and my money with 6 other poker buddies on our deck. What a beautiful night/morning. Reagan even let me sleep in on our big day due to me getting to bed just short of 3 a.m. I made up for it by getting her 25 roses because I am a good guy. Okay, I got them because they were 50 cents a piece, but it was in honor of our anniversary the next day. The kids got a good nap in and then we were off to the Bowling for Apes event. They were impressed with the amount of money we raised....so thank you to all that donated!!! I started my quest for a 200 with Strike, Strike, Spare, Strike. A score of 100 after just 4 frames...hello 200! Oh, and I won the first door prize of the night, always the best one to win. It would take me the rest of the night just to find out all the goodies I won. But the munchy on 7 slices of free pizza and having 9 glasses of free pop caught up with me and by the 10th frame, I even let Jack bowl as I was nowhere near 200. Bowling and family fun for a good cause continued until we braved the 92 degree heat/84% humidity again in order to get our kids to their next stop: Brian and Kelly's house of fun! With the kids off and playing, it was time for Reagan and I to go to the main event: The Dark Knight!
We arrived at the theater 30 minutes early to make sure we got good seats. We bought our tickets online at Fandango (shameless plug), so getting our tickets was not a problem. Neither was forking over $12 for concessions. Normally, we see a matinee, try to use coupons, sneak in our food, but not tonight, baby, tonight was special! Fifteen minutes of lobby waiting and then fifteen minutes of waiting for the commericials and previews. At 9:10, the theater darkened in advance of the 31 minutes of commericials and trailers. And at 9:41, the movie began. Now would be a good time to tell you about the conversation Reagan and I had on our way to the movie and another reason for the title of my email/blog this week. Just to the North of the theater, the sky was a shade of black that has previously been unseen by life here on earth. The only thing giving it coloer was large bolts of lightning that could turn a herd of cattle into a BBQ convention in an instant. But brother/babysitter Brian said that although tornados have been spotted, the storm should stay to the North (foreshadowing?). So just before I ran into the theater using the 40 MPH wind at my back, I told Reagan "You know what will happen? We will be watching the movie and the weather will shut it down and we won't get to see it!" (Okay, if you can't use foreshadowing well, I'm practically spoiling the ending!)
So the movie began at 9:41 and ended at 9:44 during the widely talked about first bank heist scene. In fact we thought the theater sirens and flashing lights were actually part of the movie since the movie was still playing. But then we were told to leave the theater. Then to go back in and sit down. Then told to wait for the fire dept. to arrive to give the all clear and the movie to start back up. We waited as our eyes turned bloodshot with the flashing lights and ears aged years with the loud siren. And then finally, it got quiet and what must have been the worst "Rock/Paper/Scissors" player out of the 18 theater employees stood before us with a message. He couldn't have been older than 15, no facial hair, and puberty was just a wish for him at this point, but he had a message and he was going to be brave and tell us Bat-nuts something we did not want to hear. In a stern voice he did what doctors and counserlors are taught to do:State the truth and don't sugarcoat it. So he stated "The movie will not start back up. You all need to leave the theater. The movie will not be shown this evening. Do not try to go to a later showing, they are sold out. Just leave the theater now and pick up refunded tickets." And then he ran....fast. I saw couples madly in love swear loudly; I saw a guy dressed as Batman strip to his undies (Iron Man undies) and shout at the Gods, I saw teenagers text their friends right beside them to tell them what just happened. It was mass chaos, but I did not move. I wasn't holding out for a full refund of babysitting costs (I know...it was free), gas money, concessions, or more gifts for having to live this tragedy, I was simply in what many call "shock". I was one of the last one's to move. And from out of nowhere, I just started laughing. It was not at the brave employee who noticeably peed his pants, but the fact that I knew this would happen all along! I was calling this the big weekend event despite a charity event and my 6-year anniversary. I had worshipped this movie for 2 years by digging for online facts/updates, probably making me less of a father/husband. Or it might be simply because actually seeing the movie and having a normal weekend would make for a boring Emu. But for whatever reason, I knew it was going to happen, but despite not seeing the movie, I remembered the quote in my title.....and I knew this was as dark as it could get...tomorrow would be a new dawn and a better day.
So is this the darkest it gets? Will it get darker? Is Dawn near? Well, after the movie ended much too early, we returned home to a sump pump doing its best at keeping our basement dry (just barely) after another 2 inches of rain in 40 minutes, left church early as Reagan was incorrectly called into work, then fixed that issue only to rush home and clean the house for 2 hours straight to prep for an open house that saw a total of zero visitors in 3 hours, and then laid awake until 4:15 a.m. monitoring the 3rd round of monster storms, this one bringing a 68 MPH wind to our house that lifted our deck furniture off the deck and placed it none too softly on the ground 12 feet below, but our basement stayed dry yet again after more rain in small amounts of time. I woke up 2 hours later to report to my 7 a.m. dental appointment that lasted 140 minutes (same as Dark Knight movie) and began with liquid shots of pain and continued with more drills than a Hardware Superstore and yet still no official new tooth? So will dawn be coming soon?? Let's hope so. Oh, and this is my 3rd attempt at this email/blog as the first 2 were mysteriously deleted. Have a good week, or least better than mine so far!
Love&Prayers,
Ben
Things to ponder:
1. A few weeks back, I told you that I gave some thought to who would play me in the possible story of my life, but I never told you who. Sorry! Here you go: McCauley Culkin until mid-teens. Looked like I did and my family would agree acted similar too. Matt Damon from here to age 30. Basically, Reagan would like this and I simply like how he has stuck to his roots despite being a bigtime actor. Age 30-50 would be Matthew Broderick. More people have compared me to him than any other actor, apparently I look something like him and sound like him. Would have never guessed. And finally, Phillip Seymour Hoffman gets me from age 50 'til death. One of the greatest character actors of our time. If you don't know him, search him on http://www.imdb.com/ and you will learn that you have seen him many times. Alright, feel free to play this game at home/work now, just use yourself.
2. What is a blog/email about a movie without my top 375 movies of All Time list? When I started this list 5 years ago, I never imagined that I watched this movie. The scary part was learning that I was able to rate almost 1000 movies. That is 40 movies a year for 25 years (assuming I was movie-free until age 5). Pretty good since I am probably averaging 10-20 movies since kids arrived in our house in 2005. Click here and enjoy my movie list: http://emuemail.blogspot.com/2008/07/bens-top-375-movies-of-all-time.html
3. So what is your favorite movie? Your top ten? Or what are your thoughts on my movie list? Go to that same link above and post a comment on what your favorites are or simply critique mine. You know you want to!
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