Just saw United 93. Extremely powerful film, and honestly, I'm not ready to review it yet. I am ready to comment that I had a great time with the seniors viewing this film- we had 27 people show up to eat at Cafe Del Rio on North Rangeline before the flick, and we had, at last count, 63 of the over 70 seniors at the 7:25 showing at the Hollywood Northstar 15 in Joplin. A special thanks to them for giving us $5.00 tickets instead of the usual $7.75. Helps in a tight budget time!

However, there were a couple of snafus. First, the manager had to come in and tell the kids to quit throwing popcorn. It was only a few doing it, but even after the manager left, they continued to do so until my wife told them to respect the manager's wishes. I take my movie watching very seriously, as I used to manage a theater and nothing is worse than dealing with complaints from angry customers about kids or people behaving rudely. So only a few idiots were being loud and obnoxious. A lot of that has to do with the environment- here they are, school kids, outside of school, where normal rules don't apply. And I have to remember that a lot of the kids in question simply have NO IDEA how to behave in public. Their parents didn't teach them, and probably have never really TAKEN them into public. Not to excuse stupidity, but maybe to enlighten a little bit.

I'm not going to spoil the end of the movie- you all know the plane crashes and everyone dies, but the ending leaves you pretty much breathless. It is extremely intense. The theater was silent, no one said a word.

That was until several morons from my group did their "slow clap" routine ripped out of NOT ANOTHER TEEN MOVIE. Real mature, losers. Several of the other seniors were rightfully embarassed by the behavior.

However, rather than chalking it up to a sheer case of just being a butthead, I think it partially has more to do with the inability of some people to show feelings or vulnerability in any way. These kids who did the "slow clap" are also the same ones who frequently bash and make fun of the kids who, in their senior presentations, lost their composure and cried. Showing feelings in front of your friends is simply unacceptable in their barren little world. It is something they will grow out of- I remember I was in the same boat. If you feel something, ANYTHING, you get emotional, and in order to hide those emotions you automatically strike out with something sarcastic or witty, all in the name of deflecting the attention from your discomfort.

So despite the actions of a few morons, it was a great success, and once the movie actually rolled everyone was very quiet.

I'll review the movie later when I've had a chance to process it. Later, peeps.