Thursday, July 01, 2004

A Night At The Theatre

Spidey saved the day, folks. We can all rest easy.

Generally speaking, I'm not much of a movie-goer. I like movies, but I like being at my home watching them better than going to the cinema. It's a great chance to people-watch, which I enjoy way better than going to the movies.

Some observations:

I had a recurring case of "nearing middle age man" last night as the theatre we attended was an anchor tenant of a major area mall. I kept wondering where all the parents were of the sea of teens and pre-teens that were there.

What's the deal with the knit cap on college kids? It's still Texas and it's still summer.

Why would people pay a fortune for movie theatre food, especially when this theatre allows you to bring in your own snacks? But, the line was incredibly long.

Unless you're a doctor on-call or your wife is pregnant, why can't you turn off your cell phone for two hours? They even have a silly promotional trailer telling everyone to turn them off before the feature starts and no one does it. Cell phones are the leading cause of selfish, rude & boorish behavior in our society.

The entire audience groaned at the end of the sado-masochistic trailer for Catwoman (starring Halle Berry) coming out soon. In the momentary silence after the preview, a guy yelled out, "Yeah, more like CRAP-woman." The audience laughed and applauded in agreement.

I had to remind two of my new 9th grade guys, that when you are on a Guys' Night Out with 25 other people, you don't invite girls you trolled for in the mall to sit with you. 9th grade guys are also a major cause of selfish, rude & boorish behavior in our society, but not as much as cell phones.

Our theatre was enthusiastic, clapping and cheering and groaning and such when Spidey was experiencing his highs and lows. I wondered if the people in other theatres were having the same experience or if their crowd was boring.

When your primary audience is teenagers, innocuous statements made by the actors can be taken as double-entendres.

I went with a pastor from Haiti who is visiting our church and his interpreter said he had a great time even if he couldn't understand the language. The translator gave him basic background on the story beforehand and basic plot lines as it was happening but left the pastor on his own for the majority of details. When I asked the translator what the pastor would tell his wife about his cinema experience, he responded with, "Probably something like, 'Crazy white Americans. Getting in line and hour early, paying $8.50 per person (which could feed a Haitian for a week), eating food that's bad for them, watching a show about men with characteristics of spiders and octopii fighting each other. Crazy.'"

After hearing that, why did I think he observed people better than I did?

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