The Nerdery Movie Night #53: The LEGO Batman Movie and Chocolate Covered Potato Chip Popcorn

Hey, 'puter! How does Joe like a sweet popcorn recipe that Dave doesn't!?

Chocolate Covered Potato Chip Popcorn

Dave: Like the previous LEGO Movie, there was just enough snark to make the LEGO Batman Movie watchable. Sure, the plot was onomatopoetic (PLOT!), but it was fun, even if Batman reminded me a bit of the Beast from Beauty and the Beast (is prickly but gets reformed and has friends at the end, only speaks in growls, etc.). (⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2)

Maybe our taste in popcorn is getting dulled. We’re like Pavlov’s dogs, trained to salivate at any popcorn any time, eating so much popcorn that we chow down on even mediocre recipes. Case in point: we finished the bowl of chocolate covered potato chip popcorn. This popcorn had promise- who doesn’t like chocolate covered potato chips? - but the chips are too delicate to stand up to the cloying sweetness of the chocolate. The popcorn just seemed like a bizarre afterthought. Why ruin a perfectly good chocolate covered potato chip?? (⭐️⭐️)

Joe: I partly chose this movie because Jess Mullins likes to say “Hey, ‘puter!” when I run a macro while cataloging books. It makes me laugh every time. The LEGO Batman Movie is as frivolous and goofy as its predecessor. Though the film is ostensibly aimed at children, the jokes are purely for adults, especially Gen Xers and comic book nerds. So I laughed a lot. The cast is similarly great, and I particularly loved that Mariah Carey was the mayor. How left field is that?!? Anyway, I can’t say I liked this outing as much as the first LEGO film, but I can’t say I wasn’t thoroughly entertained, either. (⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2)

Where the Food Network’s sweet popcorns failed on just about every level, Swank’s sweet popcorns are knocking it out of the park. This delicious recipe marries the sweet/salty combo that’s unimpeachable. Warm, sticky chocolate with potato chips? Yes, please. I will say that the popcorn feels like an accessory to that combo, but it certainly didn’t prevent us from demolishing the entire bowl. (⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2)

Popcorn recipe from: Party Popcorn by Ashton Epps Swank. (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014)

LEGO Batman Movie on IMDB.