Monday, July 28, 2008

A Trip to the Movies

The thought of sitting through an entire movie with no break, no pause button and no rewind capabilities is torture. Those who know me well might describe me as fidgety or antsy and I would have to just suck it up and not be offended. They are all correct. When I am dragged, kicking and screaming, I will sit on the couch in my living room in front of my high def television connected to a bad ass surround sound system that will vibrate your liver and commit to the first 15 minutes of most movies. By then I am either bored, freaked out scared (no, I do not like scary movies but that is another rant), asleep or just plain unable to sit still. I would guess my rate of actually finishing a movie, in a single sitting, to be in the low 40% range.

Going to the movies in a theatre is impossible. First you have to drive to the complex, shopping center, whatever and have a “retail” experience. Second, you have to park the car at the sixteen-plex and that is always discouraged by the other non theatre establishments near by. Then one must wait in line (please refer to paragraph one where fidgety and antsy are covered). Of course there is the trip to the restroom prior to taking your seat in the theatre. Restrooms just shouldn’t have popcorn on the floor. Did they bring their bucket o’ pop corn in there? Where did they put it while they stood at the urinal? Not to be graphic but doesn’t it take both hands to properly complete the draining sequence?

With my above described attitude we do not go to the movies very often. The last movie my wife and I attended together in a theatre was “Pulp Fiction”. Those of you who saw the movie may recall a scene where John Travolta’s character, while riding in a car with his gun waving in the face of an unnamed character in the back seat, goes over a bump and accidentally blows the gentleman’s brains all over the inside of the car. The crowd in the theatre burst into laughter. My wife and I looked at each other in horror and right then realized that we both completely missed something. We, apparently, were not of the correct demographic to catch the subtle humor that vaporized brains stuck to the rear window created. We did watch the rest of the movie and after several remedial coaching sessions with our adult children are now aware of the term “dark comedy”. I now understand that vaporized brains are a humorous component in such genre.

After all that whining, I took my lovely wife to the movies this past Sunday evening. We had a date. I drove, parked and with minimal effort found ourselves standing in the lobby of a movie theatre for the first time in eight years. A few things have changed. The floor is not as sticky. The chairs in the theatre are nice and soft, they rock (as in to and fro, not as in thump, thump). The tickets were over ten bucks…each, I later found out there is a senior discount. I am not certain what age you have to admit to but I am positive we qualify. Two hot dogs and two drinks that could keep a family of seven in vital fluids for a month were packaged together in what the perky counter attendant called the “deal number three”. That was eighteen dollars. A six dollar bag of popcorn and we are set to see the movie. We were now into this for $45, we were committed and we are off to see the latest Batman movie, “The Dark Knight”.

Holy crap Batman! At the 10 second mark we were mesmerized and completely willing to suspend disbelief. Heath Ledger’s Joker was as good as acting can get. The character was exquisitely creepy in every way, the makeup, the voice, the ticks, the eyes, the cadence, the movement, he was perfect. This was not the cartoon version of the Joker played by Jack Nicholson years ago, this guy was a completely believable, very real psycho. The entire cast had no weak spots (well, maybe the Mayor’s character, too much mascara). Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, Christian Bale, Maggie Gyllenhaal. It was impossible to distinguish where reality ended and special effects began. The sound was loud and the film is dark and violent by nature. Seedy characters abound. The plot twisted, characters changed, the fight against good and evil. This is not a children’s movie by a long shot. Batman has got unlimited toys and is faced with a real question of how evil should you be in the fight for what is ultimately good.

When the movie was over it took both of us a few minutes to get our senior citizen bodies to rise to standing, we still had enough of our drinks left to water a good sized lawn. The bag of popcorn hadn’t been touched since the opening credits except to nervously twist the top of it into an unrecognizable form. It was a great time!

We of course made the post-movie restroom stop as we left and there it was, popcorn on the restroom floor. Some things never change.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Aw man! Why do I have to be on BRAIN DETAIL?!? Pulp Fiction....Gotta love it!

Anonymous said...

Food and bathrooms are mutually exclusive. You get one big, "EW!!!", from me.

"The Dark Knight" has quickly jumped into my favorite movie category. Uh, "Pulp Fiction" is also on that exclusive list as well. Yes, I did laugh when Marvin's brains were splattered all over the car's interior.

You picked an excellent motion picture to fully enjoy the movie experience. Well done, antsy one.

Heidi Thompson said...

It takes two hands to complete the draining sequence?

Learn something new everyday.

Anonymous said...

Want EW? My son munching on bathroom popcorn while I'm wrestling with the the seat cover dispenser! EWWW! This is why I can''t have OCD.