I've been in Arizona visiting my in-laws, and my Mother-in-law also has a penchant for going to late-night movies alone, so she wanted to go to a movie and take me along. She told me about a wonderful discount theater in her area that shows B-grade horror movies on weekend nights and has regular Rocky Horror Picture Show screenings. It also shows mainstream second-run movies. I was hoping for an extraordinary experience with an old zombie movie or something, but during the week the screens are solely devoted to Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D, Iron Man, The House Bunny, and Mamma Mia! among others.
I'd already seen all the movies she was willing to see, and I knew she wouldn't want to see Tropic Thunder. She asked Alicia to come along too, and she settled on Mamma Mia! And I, out of sheer curiosity, decided to go along.
The theater is tucked in the corner of a 2nd rate shopping center that has been overtaken by a Target and parking lot that dwarfs the cars parked in it. Alicia and I have come alone, and we are meeting Alicia's mother at the theater. So we walk, joking to the entrance.
The lobby is large and open. There is a small table next to the door that is tiled with stacks of fliers for local head shops, rock shows, comic book stores, and a horror movie festival. The walls are covered with movie posters instead of wallpaper, and movie standees guard the walls and corners like monuments to recent movies that have already been forgotten.
We buy tickets at a counter under boughs of copy paper listing movie times hung by scotch tape.
Alicia finds a bathroom while we wait for her mom and I pass a glass case displaying a DVD compilation of classic X-rated movie trailers.
When Alicia's mom shows up, she is perky and excited to contribute to the "experience." She points out the idiosyncrasies of the theater joyfully, as if this is her first time in the theater, making sure I am soaking up its authenticity.
The theater is empty except for the three of us, and we nibble on popcorn and leftover Halloween candy as we watch the trailers and the movie starts. We enjoy the singing and dancing and absurdity of people breaking out in spontaneous singing and dancing when the mood strikes them.
When it's all over, we laugh and leave. We go to our cars, say goodbye, and drive home in the warm Arizona night.
Monday, November 10, 2008
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Death Race 9:50
I'm sitting at the computer. The screen is the only light in the room and it dusts my face, arms, and chest with fluorescent power. I'm here trying to remember the events that led me here.
I worked later than usual, went to my sister's and changed the oil in both cars, watched some TV, and listened to jazz on the radio as I went home to help Alicia put the kids in bed. And with six quarters in my hand I hopped in the car and drove the 5 minutes to the theater.
I'm wearing my tight jeans, the ones whose seams—if I put more than a cellphone and my wallet in the pocket—make permanent indentations in the skin of my legs. I have to hold the quarters in my hand, which makes it hard to drive, so I put them on the passenger seat, on top of my jacket.
When I pull up the the theater and park, I grab my jacket and I hear the jingle of quarters as they ricochet off the passenger door, seat belt, and dash board. I'd like to curse, but no words come. Instead I fumble through the dark car feeling for six quarters. When those have been gathered up, I spill out of the car like a drunken man with a broken leg. I have no idea why, but the quarters incident has affected my equilibrium.
After I get my ticket, I wander into the theater checking my watch to make sure I'm still on time. An usher stands a good 20 feet in front of the ticket-taking podium. He's a short Asian teen, with long stringy hair. As I pass him he walks with me, and I hand him my ticket. He tears it without looking at it and hands it back to me, and there is this strange moment when we are walking in-sync toward the velvety ropes that divide those with untorn tickets from those with torn tickets. And for a moment we look as if we could be having a friendly conversation.
The theater is mostly empty, as it is most nights, but I prefer it that way. I think about the way that we can all sit in a mostly-empty theater and watch the same movie and have the same experience without out knowing each other and not wanting to know each other, but craving that shared experience. And the lights dim, the trailers start, and we all share together, alone.
I worked later than usual, went to my sister's and changed the oil in both cars, watched some TV, and listened to jazz on the radio as I went home to help Alicia put the kids in bed. And with six quarters in my hand I hopped in the car and drove the 5 minutes to the theater.
I'm wearing my tight jeans, the ones whose seams—if I put more than a cellphone and my wallet in the pocket—make permanent indentations in the skin of my legs. I have to hold the quarters in my hand, which makes it hard to drive, so I put them on the passenger seat, on top of my jacket.
When I pull up the the theater and park, I grab my jacket and I hear the jingle of quarters as they ricochet off the passenger door, seat belt, and dash board. I'd like to curse, but no words come. Instead I fumble through the dark car feeling for six quarters. When those have been gathered up, I spill out of the car like a drunken man with a broken leg. I have no idea why, but the quarters incident has affected my equilibrium.
After I get my ticket, I wander into the theater checking my watch to make sure I'm still on time. An usher stands a good 20 feet in front of the ticket-taking podium. He's a short Asian teen, with long stringy hair. As I pass him he walks with me, and I hand him my ticket. He tears it without looking at it and hands it back to me, and there is this strange moment when we are walking in-sync toward the velvety ropes that divide those with untorn tickets from those with torn tickets. And for a moment we look as if we could be having a friendly conversation.
The theater is mostly empty, as it is most nights, but I prefer it that way. I think about the way that we can all sit in a mostly-empty theater and watch the same movie and have the same experience without out knowing each other and not wanting to know each other, but craving that shared experience. And the lights dim, the trailers start, and we all share together, alone.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Pineapple Express 10:20
Nate and I just helped Stew move and we’re over at his place eating the soup Steph made for a dinner that nobody ate. It’s thick with ingredients, like a pasta salad went to a hot tub party and drowned. There are huge chunks of sausage that bring a spiciness to it, and it fills me. We watch the season finale of Project Runway as we eat, and find myself being sucked in to a show that I’ve never really paid any attention to. I’m making comments like, “her line looks really cohesive” and “those designs show a maturity lacking in the previous contestant.” And I’m saying these things, and I’m wondering who is making such ridiculous comments. Then I shut up and eat my soup.
As the show cuts to a commercial before the final decision, I turn to Nate and tell him it’s time to leave. I say this because I want to make the movie on time, but I also do it because I don’t want to know who wins. That way I can display plausible deniability if any one ever asks me if I watch Project Runway. I’ve seen bits and pieces, here and there, but to watch the end of the season finale seems to cross a line that I don’t want to cross. To declare myself a part of the Project Runway community.
As we drive to the theater, Nate tells me about his new van, and we discuss the relative benefits of captain’s chairs versus a bench seat. I think about calling Steph and asking who won, and I hate myself for thinking about it.
As we approach the ticket booth Nate says he’s offended that I went to Hancock without him, and Hellboy II and the new Narnia movie. I give the verbal equivalent of shrugging my shoulders, and we buy our tickets. I want to promise him that I’ll always consult him whenever I go to a late-night dollar movie, but I can’t because I won’t. Sometimes the draw of the solitary movie experience is too much to ignore, and I don’t call him because the intimacy of that experience is what I crave. Like an alcoholic who craves to drink alone, away from the prying eyes of society, so is my lust for the desolate land of lonely movie-going.
But tonight, I want company. I want to share my drug.
There is no usher standing at the ticket-taking podium tonight. Instead an overweight teenage girl with badly kempt hair leans over the counter of the concession stand and calls us over, taking our tickets, and motioning around the corner to our theater.
The theater is packed and I think Nate and I are the only ones there over the age of eighteen. The other theater patrons are like nervous birds. They congregate, move seats, flirt, and hold hands in a flurry of excess hormones and Clearasil. They laugh riotously at even the most remotely funny parts of the movie.
Their spirit is exciting and infectious, and I laugh with them all as if we were one entity, all sharing the same experience—because we are.
As the show cuts to a commercial before the final decision, I turn to Nate and tell him it’s time to leave. I say this because I want to make the movie on time, but I also do it because I don’t want to know who wins. That way I can display plausible deniability if any one ever asks me if I watch Project Runway. I’ve seen bits and pieces, here and there, but to watch the end of the season finale seems to cross a line that I don’t want to cross. To declare myself a part of the Project Runway community.
As we drive to the theater, Nate tells me about his new van, and we discuss the relative benefits of captain’s chairs versus a bench seat. I think about calling Steph and asking who won, and I hate myself for thinking about it.
As we approach the ticket booth Nate says he’s offended that I went to Hancock without him, and Hellboy II and the new Narnia movie. I give the verbal equivalent of shrugging my shoulders, and we buy our tickets. I want to promise him that I’ll always consult him whenever I go to a late-night dollar movie, but I can’t because I won’t. Sometimes the draw of the solitary movie experience is too much to ignore, and I don’t call him because the intimacy of that experience is what I crave. Like an alcoholic who craves to drink alone, away from the prying eyes of society, so is my lust for the desolate land of lonely movie-going.
But tonight, I want company. I want to share my drug.
There is no usher standing at the ticket-taking podium tonight. Instead an overweight teenage girl with badly kempt hair leans over the counter of the concession stand and calls us over, taking our tickets, and motioning around the corner to our theater.
The theater is packed and I think Nate and I are the only ones there over the age of eighteen. The other theater patrons are like nervous birds. They congregate, move seats, flirt, and hold hands in a flurry of excess hormones and Clearasil. They laugh riotously at even the most remotely funny parts of the movie.
Their spirit is exciting and infectious, and I laugh with them all as if we were one entity, all sharing the same experience—because we are.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Iron Man 10:20
There are three teenagers standing off to the right of the ticket booth as I approach. They are in semi-serious discussion about what movie to see, but their options are disappearing as the night marches forward. I ask for a ticket for Iron Man, just at the same time that the sole male of the group suggests going to the same movie, in seems, in a repeated attempt to get the girls to make up their minds.
One of the girls looks in my direction. “But it just came out on video,” she pleads.
What this piece of information has to do with not seeing the movie at this particular theater at this particular time, I don’t understand. The allure of watching a larger-than-life movie on a larger-than-life screen is what brings me here tonight even though I’ve seen the movie already and Alicia is at home in bed asleep. And the Denny’s-at-three-a.m. feel of the late night dollar theater feels like the warmth of a childhood security blanket.
The movie runs without problems, but there is no fanfare for the projectionist, for whom this seems an extraordinary feat.
As the final credits roll, the lights come up and the handful of other movie-goers file out of the theater silently. But I’ve seen this before and I know about the treat that lies at the end of the credits for only the truly dedicated. I wait to see Samuel L. Jackson introduce himself as Nick Fury and tell Tony Stark about the Avenger Initiative.
When the screen finally goes blank, I exit the theater to the faces of the expectant late-night cleaning crew and dodge brooms, cleaning supplies, and boxes of garbage bags—all waiting for me to leave.
One of the girls looks in my direction. “But it just came out on video,” she pleads.
What this piece of information has to do with not seeing the movie at this particular theater at this particular time, I don’t understand. The allure of watching a larger-than-life movie on a larger-than-life screen is what brings me here tonight even though I’ve seen the movie already and Alicia is at home in bed asleep. And the Denny’s-at-three-a.m. feel of the late night dollar theater feels like the warmth of a childhood security blanket.
The movie runs without problems, but there is no fanfare for the projectionist, for whom this seems an extraordinary feat.
As the final credits roll, the lights come up and the handful of other movie-goers file out of the theater silently. But I’ve seen this before and I know about the treat that lies at the end of the credits for only the truly dedicated. I wait to see Samuel L. Jackson introduce himself as Nick Fury and tell Tony Stark about the Avenger Initiative.
When the screen finally goes blank, I exit the theater to the faces of the expectant late-night cleaning crew and dodge brooms, cleaning supplies, and boxes of garbage bags—all waiting for me to leave.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Hellboy II: The Golden Army 10:25
I'm tired tonight, but I've been itching to get out. Itching to sit in a half-empty dark theater and just breath it all in. I'm not even sure I want to see the movie, but the call of the theater is enough to get me out on an uncommonly cool night.
Normally, I don't feel self-conscious about going to movies alone in the middle of the week. The theater is normally pretty dead and the employees don't care. In fact, there are others like me, they come into the theater and sit down. Their faces obscured with hats or hooded sweatshirts. They don't look around, afraid to be caught by themselves in a place usually reserved for families, couples, and pairs of teenagers looking for a dark room and some semi-privacy. They don't make eye-contact, as if they can hide as long as no one recognizes them or notices their lonely state.
I don't fear the solitude or the social stigma of the man going to the movies alone when I go in the middle of the week late at night, but tonight there is a group of male college students standing around the parking lot as I drive up and get out of my car. They throw furtive glances my way, their eyes questioning the anomaly of the single movie patron.
Their glances tug at my jacket and make me question my decision to come. But the seductive pull of the theater overcomes my fears.
In the lobby, the concession stand has been taken apart. Two bored teenagers lean on the bare counter, but there is no popcorn, no soda machines, and the candy has been taken out of its display cases.
As I approach the usher I ask what happened. He recites a line, it seems, he has had to repeat several times. He doesn’t look at me. “We’re not going out of business. We’re just remodeling. You can still visit the concession stand.” He hands my torn ticket back to me, and I smile.
Surprisingly, the theater is packed. Well, packed for 10:25 on a Thursday night, which is to say there are probably 15 people in the theater already when I sit down. A hand full more amble in for the next few minutes until the lights darken and the movie starts, and I start to feel the stare of the college kids in the parking lot again. The lone movie-goer at 10:25 on a Thursday night.
Normally, I don't feel self-conscious about going to movies alone in the middle of the week. The theater is normally pretty dead and the employees don't care. In fact, there are others like me, they come into the theater and sit down. Their faces obscured with hats or hooded sweatshirts. They don't look around, afraid to be caught by themselves in a place usually reserved for families, couples, and pairs of teenagers looking for a dark room and some semi-privacy. They don't make eye-contact, as if they can hide as long as no one recognizes them or notices their lonely state.
I don't fear the solitude or the social stigma of the man going to the movies alone when I go in the middle of the week late at night, but tonight there is a group of male college students standing around the parking lot as I drive up and get out of my car. They throw furtive glances my way, their eyes questioning the anomaly of the single movie patron.
Their glances tug at my jacket and make me question my decision to come. But the seductive pull of the theater overcomes my fears.
In the lobby, the concession stand has been taken apart. Two bored teenagers lean on the bare counter, but there is no popcorn, no soda machines, and the candy has been taken out of its display cases.
As I approach the usher I ask what happened. He recites a line, it seems, he has had to repeat several times. He doesn’t look at me. “We’re not going out of business. We’re just remodeling. You can still visit the concession stand.” He hands my torn ticket back to me, and I smile.
Surprisingly, the theater is packed. Well, packed for 10:25 on a Thursday night, which is to say there are probably 15 people in the theater already when I sit down. A hand full more amble in for the next few minutes until the lights darken and the movie starts, and I start to feel the stare of the college kids in the parking lot again. The lone movie-goer at 10:25 on a Thursday night.
Friday, September 5, 2008
Hancock 10:15
Jake goes to his car to get some quarters, but I am unaware that we’re going out. We’d looked at showtimes earlier, but hadn’t really made any plans.
I flop down on the recliner. Alicia sits on the floor watching TV as she cuts and pastes together homemade cards. “Are you guys going?” she asks.
“What?”
“Are you guys going to a movie?”
“I don’t think so,” I reply.
Jake, wearing my black hoodie, chimes in from the kitchen. “Were not?”
I’m a little surprised. “Oh, are we going? I didn’t think we were going.”
I guess this has become a bit of a ritual for Jake and I. He comes back from work late Tuesday night, or Wednesday morning, and we go to a movie Wednesday night. He already has a dollar fifty jangling around in the pocket of my hoodie.
We head for Kmart, the black hole of hope, hoping to get in before it closes. As we pull up, the lights are still on inside. We park and jump out of the car—Jake, ready to bolt through the automatic doors as if being chased by men with guns, like that scene in The Fugitive. “Hey, I think I see Biggie in there,” he says, referring to the overweight teenager who is always working the customer service desk. I’m about to lock the car when Jake turns around.
“They put carts in front of the door,” he says and reluctantly puts his hand back on handle of the car door.
As we pull out of the parking lot, I offer other suggestions: gas station, Shopko. But we pass an Albertson’s and I pull in.
The candy selection is surprisingly small compared to Kmart’s, considering that Albertson’s is a grocery store—that mainly sells food—and Kmart is not. Jake grabs a box of Milk Duds and a box of Mike and Ikes, disappointed that they don’t stock Good ‘n Fruitys.
At the theater, standing in front of the ticket counter, Jake gives me his dollar fifty in change and I push my bills through the glass: “Two for Hancock.” It always feels weird buying two tickets for myself and another guy, a feeling that is reiterated as I hand two tickets to the man standing at the ticket-taking podium.
He’s not one of the usual teenagers. He looks to be in his early- to mid-forties, with a second-hand suit and a cheap silk tie with no discernable pattern. He looks at us and mumbles in an accent I can’t quite place. All I catch is the number “nine” as he gestures down the hall to his right.
Tonight it’s hard to find two seats together that aren’t broken, but Jake and I find two seats that are bearable and settle in, chewing on the Mike and Ikes, which lose their appeal after a second mouthful.
There’s a promo for a new Knight Rider TV show playing, which looks dreadful, then Kid Rock comes on screaming a song that amounts to little more than a commercial for the Army Reserves. Flags waving, smiling soldiers, and little children smiling into the camera after being saved from one disaster or another by a smiling soldier holding a waving flag.
The movie starts as usual: blurry, out of frame, and gargling soundtrack. But it fixes itself within a minute or so and the lights dim. I pop a Milk Dud in my mouth and take in the beautiful chaos of the dollar theater, late on a Wednesday night.
I flop down on the recliner. Alicia sits on the floor watching TV as she cuts and pastes together homemade cards. “Are you guys going?” she asks.
“What?”
“Are you guys going to a movie?”
“I don’t think so,” I reply.
Jake, wearing my black hoodie, chimes in from the kitchen. “Were not?”
I’m a little surprised. “Oh, are we going? I didn’t think we were going.”
I guess this has become a bit of a ritual for Jake and I. He comes back from work late Tuesday night, or Wednesday morning, and we go to a movie Wednesday night. He already has a dollar fifty jangling around in the pocket of my hoodie.
We head for Kmart, the black hole of hope, hoping to get in before it closes. As we pull up, the lights are still on inside. We park and jump out of the car—Jake, ready to bolt through the automatic doors as if being chased by men with guns, like that scene in The Fugitive. “Hey, I think I see Biggie in there,” he says, referring to the overweight teenager who is always working the customer service desk. I’m about to lock the car when Jake turns around.
“They put carts in front of the door,” he says and reluctantly puts his hand back on handle of the car door.
As we pull out of the parking lot, I offer other suggestions: gas station, Shopko. But we pass an Albertson’s and I pull in.
The candy selection is surprisingly small compared to Kmart’s, considering that Albertson’s is a grocery store—that mainly sells food—and Kmart is not. Jake grabs a box of Milk Duds and a box of Mike and Ikes, disappointed that they don’t stock Good ‘n Fruitys.
At the theater, standing in front of the ticket counter, Jake gives me his dollar fifty in change and I push my bills through the glass: “Two for Hancock.” It always feels weird buying two tickets for myself and another guy, a feeling that is reiterated as I hand two tickets to the man standing at the ticket-taking podium.
He’s not one of the usual teenagers. He looks to be in his early- to mid-forties, with a second-hand suit and a cheap silk tie with no discernable pattern. He looks at us and mumbles in an accent I can’t quite place. All I catch is the number “nine” as he gestures down the hall to his right.
Tonight it’s hard to find two seats together that aren’t broken, but Jake and I find two seats that are bearable and settle in, chewing on the Mike and Ikes, which lose their appeal after a second mouthful.
There’s a promo for a new Knight Rider TV show playing, which looks dreadful, then Kid Rock comes on screaming a song that amounts to little more than a commercial for the Army Reserves. Flags waving, smiling soldiers, and little children smiling into the camera after being saved from one disaster or another by a smiling soldier holding a waving flag.
The movie starts as usual: blurry, out of frame, and gargling soundtrack. But it fixes itself within a minute or so and the lights dim. I pop a Milk Dud in my mouth and take in the beautiful chaos of the dollar theater, late on a Wednesday night.
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian 10:20
The air is getting cooler in the evenings now, and I shove the ticket into my sweatshirt pocket as I reach for the theater doors.
The lobby is mostly empty this late. There are a couple of employees behind the concession counter looking bored. It’s slow enough that there are two ushers posted at the ticket-taking podium. One leans on the podium with both elbows. His stringy black hair covers his cheeks in an attempt to hide his acne.
The other takes my ticket and smiles. “Theater seven, down the hall to your left.”
The pre-movie ads aren’t working tonight and I am the only one in the theater. It’s silent and I close my eyes, taking in the smell of old popcorn, the sticky residue of spilled sodas, and the musty odor of over-used theater seats.
The lights go down and the previews start. Sound staggers from the screen, like someone is garbling the soundtrack.
Two trailers in, a couple walks in and takes a seat just behind me and to the left. Then a handful of others stumble in, trying to find seats in the dark.
When it’s over, the pop music resonates through the theater, and we all file out into the cool, dark night.
The lobby is mostly empty this late. There are a couple of employees behind the concession counter looking bored. It’s slow enough that there are two ushers posted at the ticket-taking podium. One leans on the podium with both elbows. His stringy black hair covers his cheeks in an attempt to hide his acne.
The other takes my ticket and smiles. “Theater seven, down the hall to your left.”
The pre-movie ads aren’t working tonight and I am the only one in the theater. It’s silent and I close my eyes, taking in the smell of old popcorn, the sticky residue of spilled sodas, and the musty odor of over-used theater seats.
The lights go down and the previews start. Sound staggers from the screen, like someone is garbling the soundtrack.
Two trailers in, a couple walks in and takes a seat just behind me and to the left. Then a handful of others stumble in, trying to find seats in the dark.
When it’s over, the pop music resonates through the theater, and we all file out into the cool, dark night.
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