MOVIES, MOVIES, MOVIES

by Jeanni Ritchie

I found myself with a couple of unexpected free hours on Monday, February 24 and decided to check the Santikos Entertainment Grand Theatre Alexandria website for a movie showtimes.

I couldn’t believe my eyes!! Of course there was a movie I could see but we will get to that in a minute. It was the unexpected surprise, the granting of something I’d been petitioning Santikos for FOR MONTHS, that had me feeling like a kid on Christmas morning.

The Mystery Movie!

Many larger markets offer this, a new or upcoming release at a discounted price with an added surprise: you don’t know what you are watching until the lights go down and the screen comes alive!

I’d talked to many moviegoers over the last couple of years who shared the excitement of sitting in a darkened theater, the opening credits providing the big reveal, and knowing they were getting their first look at a movie no one else has seen.

I started lobbying for Santikos to bring the mystery movie to Alexandria shortly after they bought the Grand.

They finally did!

I was literally jumping up and down when I talked to Manager Anthony Rougeau that afternoon. “They did it! They did it!” I’d shouted.

Unable to come back that evening for the inaugural Mystery Movie because I had tickets to a show at Coughlin-Saunders, I promised to be there every Monday night at 7 PM when I was in town and didn’t have a previous engagement. I didn’t WANT a heads up on the movie- I was the mom who waited until birth to find out the sex of all five of my kids. Both the physician reveal then and the movie reveal now are like traipsing downstairs on Christmas morning to see what Santa has left under the tree.

The first mystery movie was Last Breath, which opened to the public the following Friday. The Woody Harrelson-Simu Liu survival thriller film tells the true story of seasoned deep-sea divers who battle the raging elements to rescue a crewmate who’s trapped hundreds of feet below the ocean’s surface.

But that day I’d gone to see The Unbreakable Boy, a biographical drama film based on the book The Unbreakable Boy: A Father’s Fear, a Son’s Courage, and a Story of Unconditional Love by Scott Michael LeRette. LeRette is the father of Austin aka AuzMan (Jacob Laval), a boy on the autism spectrum who has brittle bone disease. Not just a tale about Austin, this inspirational story is about the entire family. Mom Teresa (Meghann Fahy), dad Scott (Zachary Levi), brother Logan (Gavin Warren), and grandmother Marcia (Patricia Heaton) have their own struggles and triumphs, their faith growing as well. It was not an easy journey for any of them, especially Scott, whose only voice of reason sometimes is his best friend Joe (Drew Powell). As Austin points out at the beginning of the film, the ever-present Joe is imaginary, Scott’s way of verbally processing life.

I laughed; I cried. Some scenes hit way too close to home and left me reaching for a Kleenex. Others made me want to jump on a plane to Iowa and hug everyone! I wanted to talk movies and superheroes with Austin. I wanted to swap parenting stories with Teresa. Austin is 30 now: we were raising our babies at the same time!

As soon as the movie ended, I put the book on hold at the library. I followed AuzMan on Instagram (leretteaustin) and checked out his blog: austintistic.blogspot.com. Seems that Austin still lights up every room he is in with his unbreakable spirit.