Editorial
Front Page - Friday, November 6, 2009
Are We There Yet?
Hair and scare
Jay Edwards
The last two Fridays, my wife Kathy and I have had date nights, which is easy to do when your kids have moved out of the house. And sometimes, they even stay moved out. So being the exciting children of the ‘70s that we are, we spent both date nights at the movies. The first one we saw was “Good Hair,” which is a Chris Rock documentary about what lengths and expense African-American women go to for “good hair.”
We have loved Chris Rock since his SNL days and later his concert at the Apollo Theater called “Bigger and Blacker.” No we weren’t there in person, but saw it later on DVD. I’ve never laughed harder.
Supposedly the idea for “Good Hair,” came to Rock when his daughter, Lola, came up to him one day crying and asked, “Daddy, how come I don’t have good hair?” The bewildered comic then committed himself to search the ends of the earth and the depths of black culture to find out who had put that question into his little girl’s head.
While “Good Hair” was good, it was nowhere near as funny as “Bigger and Blacker.” It was however, educational. For example, I had no idea that the women in India have their own hair cut off in a sacrificial religious ceremony. That hair is then sold all over the world, but mainly in the U.S., and primarily to the hair salons of Beverly Hills. Rock takes us to India to see this up close, and of course the first thing you notice are all these bald women walking around the streets of New Delhi.
The movie is worth the price of admission, but you may have to wait and catch it on DVD, because I only counted about 10 people in the theatre.
That theatre, by the way, was Riverdale. Not a bad place to watch a movie but one thing you will notice next time you enter there are all the employees welcoming you in that “Waffle House” kind of way. They also don’t take too kindly if you don’t order something from the concession stand, which I didn’t. I guess with only ten people watching the show they need to sell a lot of that overpriced popcorn and soda.
Then last Friday, being the day before Halloween, I was in the mood for something really scary, like Dan Ackroyd and Albert Brooks both were while driving down that dark road in the opening of the old “Twilight Zone” movie. Remember, “You want to see something really scary?”
I was in luck because there is a new movie out that’s getting lots of attention. It’s called “Paranormal Activity,” and it’s about this 20-something couple who have a spirit that’s keeping them from getting any sleep.
I thought it was very good, and very creepy. Kathy would have too, if she had watched it rather than burying her face in my shoulder most of the time while asking, “What’s going on now?” every five minutes.
The movie starts out with Micah greeting Katie as she pulls into the driveway of the home they share. He is filming her with his new camera, which is the lens for the entire movie. Micah’s idea is to set the camera up on a tripod at night so they can hopefully catch on film whatever it is that’s intruding. Katie reluctantly agrees and we join them at night through the stationary camera.
In the bottom left hand corner of the camera’s screen is the time, in hours, minutes and seconds, which they often speed up to get through the “no activity” periods, so they can get you right to one of those, “Oh crap, here it comes again,” periods.
It goes from “Night One,” which is pretty uneventful, save for the bedroom door moving back and forth about eight inches, to night 20 and 21, which are very eventful, and not in a good way. I won’t spoil it for you.
What is probably the most phenomenal thing about the movie is that they made it for $11,000, and as of Halloween, it had grossed $65 million, making it, percentage-wise, the most profitable movie ever made; or so they claim.
It gets you without any blockbuster special effects, or gory gallons of blood commonly released by those Jason, Freddy, or Michael Myers-types. “Paranormal Activity,” for the most part, does it the old fashioned way, through expectation and anticipation. And they do it very well.
There have been comparisons to “The Blair Witch Project,” which I didn’t care much for, but after going back recently and reading some of the reviews from 1999, when it was released, maybe I need to revisit. It might make for a good “stay at home date night.” Get ready not to watch again,
honey.
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