Suzy Says

Love/hate for Friday, February 7, 2003
Going to the Movies

It’s no wonder that generations of inventors have been busily coming up with ways to avoid having to go the movies, since actually going is such an annoying experience. First, television was invented. Then some genius came up with the whole idea of VCR’s, and that was further refined and improved by DVD’s and home theaters.

Now there’s really no reason to go to your local multi-plex, where you will wait in line among the masses, and experience the mystery of all public lines, whether they be in the post office, the movie theater, or the airport: those ahead of you will engage interminable amounts of the employee’s time, making your wait even longer, but when you actually get to the desk, your transaction is completed in 30 seconds or less. Why everyone else’s transactions are so much more complicated is completely beyond me (but then so are all the times tables after 5).

If you opt to use one of the ticket dispensing machines instead of one of the minimum wage employees, the line will be shorter, but the machine will perversely refuse to read your credit card, or eat it (necessitating a wait to speak with the minimum wage employee) or simply refuse to work at all, which again returns you to the MWE line.

Supposing you can endure this without raising your blood pressure or your gun, your resolve will be tested further by the endless trailers and nannyreels that precede every movie. Trailers used to be, should be, teasers – giving you an idea of what the movie is about, just enough to make you want to go. They should not show you the whole damn movie, including important plot points. The art of the trailer seems to be lost.

Then there’s the creepy animated dancing candy and snacks. Is there anything in the advertising world more disturbing than food that wants to be eaten? Suicidal, death wish, kamikaze snacks begging me to put them out of their misery at a price more inflated than Anna Nicole Smith’s primary assets. Mmmm.

Nor do I brave being marooned in a room full of coughing, noisy and annoying strangers to be told to behave myself by a nannyreel. This to me proves that our society must have pretty much hit bottom, since people are in general so impolite and badly-behaved that they have to be admonished by inanimate objects to suspend their normal behavior for the 2+ hours it takes to watch a movie.

Surely common sense (which should be renamed, since it is so clearly un) should tell you to leave your squalling baby at home and turn your damn cell phone off. No-one is that important, and if they are, they should not be at the movies, but rather waiting for that all-important call on the Bat phone and leaving the rest of us the hell out of it.

It’s much better to stay home and watch a movie, where the audience is people you have invited, showtime is when you say it is, the snacks are what you want them to be (who decided that inherently noisy popcorn is the official movie snack food? Not only does it get stuck in your teeth, it flies in the face of the nannyreel by being pretty noisy while being consumed), and you can pause the movie for any reason that seems reasonable to you. You can even watch an especially amusing moment more than once. What’s not to love?