Tonight, we went to the opening of the movie “Shutter Island”. My review? As James Vanderbeek said last night; “I give it a solid ‘B’ ”

Ever since “The Sixth Sense”, every single Hollywood thriller has to have a ‘shocking twist’.

The problem therein, is twofold.

First, it’s now become a cheap ploy to lure in audiences, who have to find out what the little evil orphan’s secret is. Once they do, they never have to watch the film again. They can’t. The bubble has burst. The movie has spoiled, like old yogurt or vegetables purchased at Trader Joes.

Second, once you find the secret out, you almost disregard the last hour of movie you’ve just watched. None of it was real, not as you knew it. I don’t care for movies where you find out nothing you just watched really happened. It’s an old, tired trick. And I’m an old, tired man.

What I DO like to do in movies is try to catch the actors playing dead people, breathing! It’s so fun. Especially when they’re chest is rising so obviously even when there’s a bloody knife protruding from it!

Before Shutter Island, we needed to grab a quick bite at the Grove. The Grove is known for it’s semi-upscale chain restaurants.

I don’t normally blog about those. I live in LA, we have millions of independently own eateries, I don’t need to spend my money in places that “When you’re here, you’re family”.

But chain restaurants know how to get you in and out quickly. Your enormous entrees arrive in milliseconds by the waitress with the stock, ugly uniform while you stare at the cheesy faux finish on the walls.

We started with the AMAZING tuna tar tar (pictured at top). It was the best thing we ate that night.

Captain and I ordered two salads to split.

The Chopped Italian

and the BBQ Chicken.

Our chipper waitress was a bit psychotic and cluelessly kept begging us to order stuff we clearly didn’t want.

Suggesting “Hmm, you guys all want different wines…so…why don’t you just get a bottle of something?” or “You guys should really get the peanut butter cake, it’s SOO good” after we had just said “We’re gonna pass on dessert tonight”.

I’m not gonna print the restaurant contact info like I normally do. You can just look up the corporate website they spent millions on developing.