Disturbia

Saturday night the wife, Kirsta and I went out to the Rosedale Mall to grab a bite to eat and see a movie at the 'new' AMC theater. Being at a mall is always pretty awkward, I feel, as we're just not far enough removed from the high school crowds that regular that scene. But that's a topic for another blog...

Anyway, we had a very decent dinner at Big Bowl where each of us partook in their homemade ginger drink specialties. The ginger tea was delicious. But we had to hurry out of there because I was in charge of the movies, and, of course, I didn't remember any of the start times to the movies we wanted to see -- and my assumption that "there'll be a 9 o'clock show of any of 'em..." was completely wrong. :) The timing worked out amazingly well, however, and we sat down at maybe 7:50 for the 7:45 showing of Disturbia... still catching 10 of the 15 minutes of previews before the feature presentation.

Now, I don't know what you've heard of this film, but what I heard was that I was a rather weak adaptation of Rear Window, but with decent performances by Lebouf, Moss, and Morse... And where I can kind of see where that kind of review is coming from, I really couldn't say that any individual's performance was the reason I ended up enjoying myself in this film.

...I suppose that these actors were all good enough here not to 'screw it up,' which is - now that I think of it - more of a feat than I at first recognized. Especially in a teen-thriller type of movie...

But I did really like this movie. I certainly enjoyed myself during Disturbia more than I have at most of the movies I've seen so far this year (Hot Fuzz being a notable exception). And from what I heard, so did the rest of the people in the theater. Änna, for one, spent much of the last half of the movie so far down in her seat that only her head was touching the backrest... which doesn't sound at first like an "enjoying-oneself-posture," but she was both laughing and screaming out of the fearful pleasure that Disturbia delivered. I didn't get up to see, but I had fun imagining how many of the other people in the theater were in similarly hilarious positions when they let out their own joyous screams.

The last time that I remember that same kind of energy in a movie theater was back in high school when some friends and I went into the first Scream movie, to do just that... (We even brought in large tubs of popcorn to throw into the air at the most appropriate moments.) I don't really see any valuable comparisons between Scream and Disturbia, but I do suppose that the better cast helped out a bit. Especially in the first part of the film. Really though, it was the writing, directing and camera work that made Disturbia an effective movie. I loved the Rear Window references (and others, Blair Witch, even the Matrix) that were introduced with a reasonable mixture of subtlety and in-your-face-ness. I also appreciated the way that the film 'wrapped up' at the end. Maybe I give the director too much credit, because I've heard that some people took the ending to be rushed, out of the blue, and convenient, but I felt like the story pulled up before it delved too deeply into potentially inappropriate/harmful (to the story), or boring territory.

In conclusion: Hurry up and see this one while it's still in the theaters. And try to bring 50 of your closest (more easily startled) friends. You'll have a good time.