Crapshoot Cinema: That Time I Went To A Secret Movie
Ever gone to a secret movie? I never had until Monday, but now I think I’m hooked. Pay five dollars, see a movie way ahead of time, and just take what comes. Pretty sweet deal, right? If anyone’s not familiar with these, Cinemark calls secret movie showings their Secret Movie Series, while AMC calls theirs Screen Unseen, and the only other clue they each give is the movie’s rating.
Popcorn is always a must, when the money is there, that is, but on Monday night I needed it as a bracer. If the secret movie was anything on the line of, say, Joy Ride, it was going to be a long evening. All I could think was, “I hope this movie doesn’t stink.”
I got to my usual end seat in a reasonably packed theater with pretty much every age group represented, and this crowd was out for a good time. A couple of brave souls even occupied two seats in the front row. I just munched my popcorn, wrote a couple of preliminary scribbles in my notebook, and took everything in. We happily rolled through the previews and then the entire room seemed to hold its breath when the studio logo finally popped up.
Embarrassingly enough, I had to clap my hand over my mouth at the sight of the opening credits because I wanted to let out a “Woo hoo!” but since that’s not good cinema etiquette I settled for writing YES in my notebook in big letters. I was planning on reviewing this movie anyway, and now I was gonna see it early for five bucks.
So which movie was it? Fly Me To the Moon. Yeah. Score. I’m not going to say what I thought yet because there seems to be an embargo until the release date, if MetaCritic and Rotten Tomatoes are any indicators. Not that I had to sign an NDA, but I got the feeling there’s a lot of hush-hush going on when I saw that no one has posted any reviews yet. Mine will be up on July tenth.
I’ll just say this, though: There were a lot of happy people in that screening room. I’ll also say this: When August’s Secret Movie comes around, I’m totally there.