Going out to a nice romantic dinner may sound nice, but come on – who wants to get all dressed up just to go to a snobby French restaurant and eat food they can’t pronounce?

This weekend, my husband and I went out for dinner and got to have a lot of fun talking, watching people and later watching a movie. We did not, however, throw on the evening gowns and tuxedos, and we didn’t eat at some quiet little restaurant where we had to worry about everything we said because the people across the whole place can hear your conversation.

We found ourselves at Texas Roadhouse eating very well cooked steaks while we enjoyed the rather adventurous environment we were sitting in. It is always more fun when you can watch a line of hostess start line dancing to their favorite song or when you can hear people laughing and enjoying being together.

After dinner we visited a movie theater where we ventured in to see the new Batman movie “The Dark Knight.” Being a comic book fan I am normally pretty leery of seeing movies such as this because I feel I will be let down by the production.

I will have to say that although the movie was extremely long it was one of the best movies that I have seen in a while.

I really don’t have anything against stupid movies, but for a while, I didn’t even want to visit a theater because the movies being produced were going past the point of funny and entertaining to not even having a plot and being that stupid funny that you can hardly stand to listen to from the other room.

The new Batman movie brought back a little bit of faith in the moviemakers, however.

I now find my watching for new trailers just to see if the stupid streak has run out and real movies are being made again.

I know that I may seem to be really stuck up in my movie watching preference, but if you think about it, you’re paying money to drive to the theater, you’re buying a ticket, you may or may not be buying popcorn and a drink.

When you add it all up, that is a lot of money to be putting into a movie that frankly isn’t that good.

For anyone out there who likes to see real movies with a plot, action, love, hate and unique weapons, “The Dark Knight” should definitely be on your list to go and watch.

Note: Ashley McCartney is a news writer for The Clanton Advertiser. Her lifestyle column appears on Sundays.