This was a presentation of Ed Wood's infamous film Plan 9 from Outer Space, featuring riffing by the RiffTrax guys. In short, the movie was bad and the riffing was hilarious. I made the mistake of trying to eat Junior Mints while watching this which resulted in me nearly choking on a 'mint, causing me to go into a coughing fit and get dangerously close to vomiting. Good times! I had never seen Plan 9 before this, so it was definitely educational, in the sense that I now know how bad a movie can get... Michael Bay, you still have a long way to fall...The rating I am presenting here goes mostly to the quality of the riffing, not Plan 9.
When I saw the trailer for this movie my initial thoughts were "Now there is a good romantic movie sure to twist and manipulate my heartstrings. I can't wait!" I hate being disappointed by something that seems so easy (seriously, commercials make me cry). I think I actually did get choked up once, but I don't remember what it was about and it definitely wasn't anything central to the story. Anyway, the basic premise is, guy travels back and forth within his own lifetime (yes, just like Quantum Leap and Journeyman). That's pretty much it. This traveling means he knows who he's going to marry and how he's going to die and what his daughter's name will be, etc. The key idea here is what it means to know one's destiny. That should introduce all sorts of interesting questions and ponderings, but TTTW just doesn't care. They'd rather whine about how much it sucks that he travels and that he can't control it, which really emphasizes how stupid it is to whine about. 
The movie opens as a sort of quasi-documentary following a bureaucrat as he tries to evict 1.8 million insect-like aliens stranded in Johannesburg, South Africa for the last 20 years, and move them to a different, worse slum further away from the city population who are now tired of the alien refugees. This first section of the movie serves as a dark satire on man's inhumanity to man (that's right, I'm taking it back to grade school). We get many of those awkward chuckle moments where we see something genuinely funny, and then realize if this were real (and it definitely could be real) and we were treating other people this way, it would be sickening. Without warning, the movie takes a hard right turn into more serious science fiction involving transformations and amazing alien weaponry and space ships and battlemechs and the whole way through I am thrilled and sickened and loving every minute of it. Note that the movie is extremely violent and graphically gory, all heightened by the documentary film style. 
I still hate Sondheim.
Tom Hansen believes he will never truly be happy until he finds "the one." And so we are launched into an amazing story of love and relationships between two very dynamic characters.
I heard an interview on NPR earlier in the week with two of the three leads of Paper Heart, Charlyne Yi and Jake Johnson, which included several clips from the movie and commentary from these two on what the interviews meant to them and, well, let me explain what's going on... Paper Heart is a faux documentary in which Charlyne is searching for love. Both what love is and maybe to find love herself or at least discover whether she is capable of love. The scenes between Charlyne, Jake (as Nick) and Michael Cera are all scripted. Seriously. These real actors are playing characters similar to themselves, but still not themselves. Everything else, all of the interviews with celebrities and "real" people across America are completely real.
I knew a lot about this movie going in. A person is stationed on the moon for a three year contract to gather and send Helium 3 back to earth. Then things get complicated. Moon's only failing is that it's a fairly slow-moving film, largely because there's no significant action and there are only two characters, Sam Rockwell's Sam Bell, and Kevin Spacey as the on-station AI, Gerty. As the plot unfolds the philosophical elements take on a lot more depth than I was expecting, which for me, really made up for the slow segments. Sure, there wasn't action on screen, but that gave me a chance to consider the moral and psychological implications of what is being perpetrated on Sam Bell. I'm not sure if this was the point of the film, but it also explored the nature of human loneliness. The things we cling to to avoid loneliness and what happens when all those hooks are ripped out and we get to see for the first time how completely alone we can be.
Oh look, another Judd Apatow movie. This time, instead of foul-mouthed teenagers we have foul-mouthed comedians (who are kind of like teenagers, I guess). The movie is set up to be a fairly straightforward "seize the day" idea wherein Adam Sandler's character is pushed close to death by a rare disease. But, in a miraculous turn, the experimental Canadian drugs work and he's gunna live! No mystery there, it's all in the trailer. Also in the trailer is Sandler's growing relationship with an old ex, 
At first I thought this movie was really excellent. Some great set-pieces, art direction, writing, effects, much darker, some emotional moments and I was feeling quite satisfied... And then I actually thought about it. There was a lot missing from this movie that was so much fun in other movies, such as Hagrid (who had maybe 17 seconds of screen time), other professors and scenes from the classrooms, that whole Order of the Phoenix thing, Voldemort... This movie felt pretty much like Harry/Dumbledore slashfic since they were it for what seemed like most of the movie. Oh sure, there was a little with Hermione, Ron, and Ginny, but other than promoting the romantic storylines, they had no function whatsoever. I think that's what bothers me most, really, that the trio really doesn't function like a trio when it really matters. That worked really great in Order of the Phoenix, but apparently, that entire book has been forgotten outside of the magic newspapers.
Ah, another beautiful outdoor concert at Wolf Trap... only it wasn't beautiful. I stood waiting at the gate for about 45 minutes in 90F heat. Once I had found a decent spot in the park the frequent promises of no rain in the forecast began to evaporate as dark thunderclouds rolled in. Worse yet, Jon was bringing the umbrellas (you know, just in case). About an hour before the show was scheduled to start, the rain started. Jon got to me within moments and we popped the umbrellas and tried to think happy thoughts like "oh don't worry, it's supposed to blow over real quick..." It was a nice thought. There was a brief lull in which we quickly ate some dinner, and then the rain picked up again around the time the show was starting and continued a little past the intermission.