When we walked in Friday night, the Kerasotes Showplace was buzzing with people. I'm always surprised about that. I figure people will, one day, all stay home all of the time. Not yet, I guess. Even the theater for Sweeney Todd -- a movie that isn't at most Indy theaters and isn't remotely as popular as Alivin and the Chipmunks -- was pretty full.

As we waited for the previews and then the film, we watched 15 minutes of commercials digitally projected on the screen. They advertised an upcoming movie about a sadistic killer who uses the internet to torture and murder people, a show on the history channel about what the world would be like after the end of the human race and another commercial for a lame-looking new cable network called "TruTV" that will feature shows that are "more real than reality TV." The new network is replacing CourtTV, something that overstayed its welcome.

The over-repeated tagline is that nobody will be voted off the island on that channel. The commercial claims TruTV will show "actuality" not reality. That, of course, is ridiculous. Anything edited into half an hour or an hour for TV is not reality at all -- even if it is "true."

What true TV would be is a station broadcasting as series of surveillance feeds from cameras located in different homes, hotels, bars, restaurants, offices, etc. That would be good. I'd watch that. Probably way too much.

TruTV sounds like a 24-hour version of that horrible "RealTV" syndicated show that was simply "America's Least Funny Home Videos" -- stuff like cops pulled over on the side of the road getting hit by semi trucks. In the commercial for TruTV they even showed a clip like that as an example of what they'll be airing. Yikes.

After we sat there watching those huge commercials, we were subjected to several more commercials -- previews that included one for a new Jessica Alba movie, "The Eye" about her character getting an eye transplant that goes horribly wrong, sort of like what happened to Jeff Fahey in "Body Parts" when he got a criminal's arm in a transplant and it started punching him and stuff. That was a hilariously terrible idea in 1991 but not bad enough for it to not resurface in 2008.

Then it was time for the movie. I'm not going to go into it too much. You can read the AP review elsewhere on this site. What I enjoyed most was watching it with other people and enjoying their reaction after the story's unconventional and unheartwarming ending. Just as people at the same theater did at the end of "No Country for Old Men" the audience sat there seeming semi-stunned, needing a few minutes to consider their feelings for Tim Burton's dark film.

There was a lot to consider. This movie is about several things -- love and revenge, sure -- but more about real loss and our inability to ever recover from it.

trailer for "The Eye" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=No1jc7RvgCI

trailer for "Body Parts" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkV7nMNpWN4

trailer for "Sweeney Todd" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMlnrCuQYlU&feature=related

trailer for "Alvin and the Chipmunks" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGk8LwJoLIQ&feature=related

link to TruTV -- http://www.trutv.com