Dear Diary: On Monday, August 30, 2021, I went into an actual movie theater to see a movie for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic virtually shut everything down (which happened in March, 2020).

We ordered tickets for my husband and I online, so we picked our seats front and center. No other seats looked to have been reserved yet. Could it be that we would get a theater to ourselves? Almost, more about that in a bit…

Once we arrived at the theater, we were greeted with a virtually empty parking lot. So we go inside, where it was only a matter of proving to the ticket taker that we actually purchased the tickets. I couldn’t get my e-mail to show up proving that I bought the ticket (WiFi wasn’t working), so I used plan B – photo of confirmation number and enlarged photo of QR code. The ticket taker typed in the confirmation number since she couldn’t scan the QR code. Grrr…technology! Can’t live with it – and can’t live without it!

We knew we’d be going to get some food/beverages after the movie, so we skipped the concession stand – neither of us are keen on eating/drinking during movie theater movies. Which must piss off the people running movie houses, since that’s how they make a majority of their money (or so I’ve heard). Oh well! Sorry about that!

The movie we saw, The Suicide Squad, had been in theaters for about three weeks, so the theater set aside for it was kind of in the “boondocks.” You know – the section of the movieplex where you have to walk the farthest and be in a smaller theater than you would if you were seeing a movie on opening weekend. That was totally fine with us, our goal was to avoid crowds by doing a matinee on a weekday. Only one other guy was in the theater when we took our seats, but that turned out to be a good thing! The trailers were definitely going – for TV shows, as it were – I recognized the voices from the series “What We Do in the Shadows,” but there was no visual. Well, the other guy in the theater went and told someone they needed to make sure we could actually see stuff on the screen. Thank you, Mister Squeaky Wheel!

By the time the projectionist figured out we couldn’t see anything on screen, we go to see…trailers of upcoming movies! That is part of the fun of going to a movie, isn’t it? Our “coming attractions” list included Jackass Forever, The King’s Man, The Batman, and Dune.

So which of those movies would I want to see? Well, pretty much everything but the Jackass movie. I’m a big fan of the Kingsman franchise, so I definitely want to see the upcoming “prequel” origin story! Even if Taron Egerton aka “Eggsy” isn’t it (he’s so adorable)! I love the stylized fights, gratuitous violence, the wardrobes, the accents and geez do I have to say it? RASPUTIN WILL BE IN IT! I wouldn’t say I’m “mad about the Mad Monk,” but I am a bit fascinated with him! The release date given for this was December 22, 2021. I’ll try to be there – but not if the movie theater will be crowded!

And of course I want to see The Batman. It looks dark and gritty – reminiscent of The Dark Knight. I’m glad they’re (appearing to) make The Riddler look scary – and not comical like Jim Carrey in a green bodysuit. Not that I totally minded seeing Jim Carrey in a green bodysuit (LOL)! My husband and I have talked about how to portray The Riddler on film quite a bit (we have lots of nerdy discussions), and we both agreed that a Zodiac Killer-esque Riddler is the way to go. And from the looks of that trailer, that might be what they’re doing!

As for Robert Pattinson as Bruce Wayne/Batman? It’s too early to say, but I think I…approve! I wasn’t sold on Ben Affleck’s take on the character, but I think this former Twilight vamp – and whomever he was in Harry Potter (Google tells me Cedric Diggory) will do quite nicely! No release date was given for The Batman, other than 2022.

What about the upcoming Dune film? Well, I joked during this trailer when I saw Jason Momoa, “Why is Aquaman on a desert planet?” Actually, it looks quite good! And (sorry David Lynch), this looks much, much better than the 1984 Dune film directed by David Lynch. As much as I adore David Lynch, this was not his movie. His best work tends to be psychological dramas that tread the balance between drama and horror. If he ever did straight-up horror, it would be terrifying!

But I digress…I may end up seeing if my folks want to see Dune with us, since my mom and dad actually read the Frank Herbert books (as did my older brother and my husband). I tried reading the first book when I was about 12 or so, and I lost interest at the part where Paul Atreides was doing some kind of mind test with the Reverend Mother (sorry my memory is fuzzy). Even if I didn’t get into the books, I still respect this as a sci-fi franchise and am willing to give it a chance. Release date? October 22, 2021.

So what did I think of the movie we’d paid to see? Loved it! I’m not going to bother with a review (there are a million other places you can go for those), but one scene in particular is kind of blowing my mind right now (beware SPOILERS…do not read on if you haven’t seen it and can’t handle spoilers). The scene where Harley is being held prisoner – and chained up – and tortured – by a couple of bad guys. Yes, that scene. Well, while pretending to be knocked out, she gets an evil look on her face, breaks a captor’s neck with her thighs, then it only gets better…once this guy is a corpse on the ground, she uses her bare foot to move his corpse her way, get a key to the lock keeping her in chains, and uses her TOE to unlock the lock – all the while being suspended with her arms chained up. And, as it turns out…MARGOT ROBBIE DID ALL OF THIS HERSELF – THIS WAS NOT STUNT WORK!

I’ll just bet Quentin Tarantino would have sold his soul to have been able to direct THAT scene – as fond of feet as he seems to be!

I’m not gonna tell you what happened next, but it was…beautiful. OK, OK – I will tell you – she breaks out of the heavily guarded building where she was being held and kills every mother f—er there.

Yes…this is one of those instances where when you read a trivial fact about a movie you just watched – and you want to watch it again!

And I think this is all I gotta say about that…

Well? What are you waiting for? Go see the movie, silly!