I should specify right away that I can only calm the beast within by GOING OUT to the movies. I have to sit in a theater, in the dark. I have to have the big screen and the slightly uncomfortable seats with the sticky cup-holder armrests. It's part of the ritual for me.
I was just at the movies this evening, to see Drive (Ryan Gosling and Carey Mulligan). As I was walking into theater number 11, my customary kid pack in hand (seen here)...
...grinning ear to ear, I realized that this might just be something I should write about.
I have been like this for as long as I can remember. When I was a kid, my parents and I used to go to the movies on Friday afternoons, after school, for the cheap twilight show. Those were the days that you could get in for $3.50 per person before 5pm. The weekend entertainment section of the Philadelphia Inquirer, with all the movie reviews, would accompany us in the car on Friday morning. Mom and I would have our plan in place by the time she dropped me off at school. Dad sometimes made requests, but usually he was up for whatever we decided. Mom and I would get home around 4pm, drop off our school stuff, and the three of us would be out the door again in a half-hour or less. My parents and I would dissect the movie afterwards, over dinner, and talk about the characters. We would argue over nebulous endings and holes in the script. Mom, ever the English teacher, would often take an opportunity to point out a dramatic device or familiar plot motif. Sometimes, (mostly during my mopey pre-teens) we would split up, and see different movies--but we still maintained our tradition of talking about what we had seen.
When it was time for me to get my first “real” job, my mother advised me to get a job around something I liked. That was a no-brainer. I was a popcorn girl at The Ritz at the Bourse in downtown Philly. I was 15 years old, and I was like a pig in slop. I got to see all the movies (and eat all the popcorn) I wanted. I never had to be there before 10am. My coworkers were all film students who knew much more about the foreign films we were showing than I did, but they tolerated me and were amused by my enthusiasm. Beyond the obvious perks of the atmosphere for a cinema-phile like me, the concessions stand itself conformed wonderfully to my need for order; my favorite shift was the Friday day shift, because I was responsible for stocking the store for the weekend rush. I would pack the Twizzlers in like nobody's business. The soda cups were stacked to the ceiling. The popcorn warmer gleamed.
When I went to college, it was a rough time for my movie addiction. The local theater in Decorah, Iowa had only three screens. The movies would languish there for weeks without changing--and often I disagreed heartily with the owner's taste in films. My friends and I would regularly drive the hour it took to get to a larger theater (across the state line in Rochester, Minnesota). It never bothered me that we spent as much time or more in the car as we did in the movie.
In Paris, when I was a young artist at the Bastille, there were 2 theaters across the street from the opera. Although that was awfully convenient, I also learned quickly that the best place to go the movies was the enormous cinema at Les Halles. There were at least 15 different movies playing at any given time. Everything was in “version orginale” with subtitles. No wonder I remember Paris with such fondness! During the first week of my contract there, contemplating what to do with one of my first nights off, I looked at a long table of fellow singers in the cafeteria at the Bastille at lunch and said unabashedly to anyone who was listening, "Who wants to come to the movies with me tonight?" A young Russian-Israeli bass cocked his head, interest piqued, and the rest was history. Yuri and I dated for two years, and it all started at the movies.
In the summer of 2009, when I was in Frankfurt by myself, feeling alone and miserable, I got online and found a theater that was showing Star Trek (the new one) in English with German subtitles. It was 4pm on a Thursday afternoon. There were two other people in the theater, way in the back. I don’t they heard me giggle happily when the lights went down, but I’m sure they heard me when I said with a sigh, my voice pregnant with contentment, “This is SO GOOD!” about 30 minutes into the movie. It was an uncontrollable reaction brought on by complete satisfaction. Those two hours in the dark watching a movie about space with a bag of popcorn in my lap made my entire week.
I am still completely undone by a good afternoon at the movies. Mom and I still go to the movies when I'm home for a visit. I drag my colleagues with me when I'm on a gig. When nobody wants to go with me, I go alone. When I am in Switzerland and it costs me $25 to go to the movies (not including snacks!), I go anyway. When I am in provincial Germany and everything is dubbed, I go and hope I can read lips. I go. And I am never disappointed.
It's good to remember that I can be so easily satisfied.
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