Happy New Year! Well, the kids are back in school, and I got a $25 gift certificate from my Secret Santa at work. It is for a local movie theater, and today I took my wife to see “Bedtime Story.” It was pretty funny, and I think the kids will enjoy it when it comes to DVD. Plus, since we went during the day, we only paid matinee prices. When did those prices go up? I remember paying only $4 or $5 for matinee, and $9 for nighttime. Now it’s $7.50 for matinee and $12.50 for nighttime. Aaack! With the advent of Redbox (do you have this where you are? If so, I HIGHLY recommend it, very easy, and it’s only $1 a day for the movies. If you want obscure movies, join Netflix. I think the movie theaters and video stores have got some serious work to do if they are going to retain customers. Last time I went to Blockbuster, I paid $8 for two movies for two nights each. If I had gone to a Redbox (which I didn’t know about at the time) I would have been able to get four movies for the same price for two days.

Bedtime Story was a funny movie about a man who has to baby-sit his niece and nephew for a week, and each night he tells them a bedtime story (hence the title). The day after his first story, some of the things in his story start coming true. This continues throughout the movie. I recommend the movie if you want some light comedy that is safe for kids (unlike Mr. Sanders last piece of trash “You Don’t Mess With the Zohan” which had him “relating” to the elderly throughout the movie, if you know what I mean.).

While I was waiting for the movie to start, something happened that has never happened to me. They showed previews for upcoming features, and I was interested in seeing every one of them. The first preview was for “Monsters vs Aliens,” which is an animated movie (from the makers of Shrek) where earth is invaded by aliens, and a group of B-movie monsters (the 50-foot woman, the blob, etc) are thrust forward to stop the aliens. It looked funny (especially the scene when the blob is “putting the moves” on a molded jello, complete with Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get it On”).

The second movie preview was for “Inkheart” where Brendan Frasier (wait…where are you going? Get back here. I know it’s Brendan Fraiser but…hey! Stop leaving!) and his friend (?) read a book out loud and the things in the book come true in real life (sound anything like Bedtime Story?). But then they get sucked into the book’s world, and have to fight their way out through all these different characters (I saw a couple of characters from The Wizard of Oz, some Nazis, a unicorn, a minotaur, Arabs a la Ali Baba). It looked like a good adventure movie. Andy Serkis is the bad guy (he played Gollum in the LOTR movies). Also starring are Helen Mirren and Paul Bettany.

The third preview was for a silly movie, “Paul Blart, Mall Cop” starring Kevin James as a rent-a-cop guy who wants to be a police officer but can’t seem to pass the academy entrance exam or something, so he is stuck working at a local mall. This is not very fulfilling, until some bad guys show up to rob the mall (or whatever). Then it’s bad guys vs. Kevin James. It looked pretty silly, but it’s still on my list, if only because I enjoy seeing the fat guy win in the end.

Movie #4 was “Night at the Museum 2: Battle of the Smithsonian.” My family loved the first movie, and this looks to be more of the same. Nuff said.

The final preview was for “Race to Witch Mountain.” I don’t remember much about the old Disney live-action “Escape to Witch Mountain,” which I saw as a child, but this looks to be a special-effects laden updated version. Lots of action sequences and chase scenes. Pretty cool sci-fi stuff with kids doing magicky-type stuff. You know, “special powers” and all. Best line from the preview? Duane “the Rock” Johnson is the kid’s taxi driver to Witch Mountain, and they mention the spacecraft to him. “Do you even know how to fly that thing?” The girl says (basically), “Duh, who do you think flew it here.” So Duane responds with, “Well you DID crash, didn’t you?” LOL!

So my wife points out to me (after I typed all of the above) that there was also a preview for a movie called “Earth”, narrated by James Earl Jones. I think I could enjoy a movie about nature (like “March of the Penguins”) so long as they are not shoving global warming or some other environmentalist wacko nonsense at me. I think I’ll Redbox this one, that way, I’m only out a buck if it’s garbage. But getting to listen to Darth Vader talk about animals should be worth a buck.