I got married last year and moved within 50 miles of the Dallas/Fort Worth area. There were all kinds of films being shown in the more artsy theaters like the Inwood. They also have movie events like midnight showings of the Rocky Horror Picture Show and other cult movies. What’s great about this kind of viewing is everyone in the theater knows the movie, loves the movie. Some even live the movie by dressing up like Dr. Frank-N-Furter or Magenta. While I never made it out for those features, I found something closer.
I’m a big movie buff from Texas and there are three movie theaters in my hometown. Carmike Cinemas, the one at the mall with broken speakers, immature staff and small screens, but hey they have digital screens. Technology doesn’t matter when everything else is tanking below mediocrity. Everyone cringes when a highly anticipated film lands at Carmike Cinemas.
Another one is a two dollar theater where films finish their theatrical run. It’s a theater that is about to be torn down so sometimes the speakers aren’t great and some of the seating has trash bags over it. It used to be one of the premiere theaters in the 80s and 90s.
“Paul Blart: Mall Cop” was there after it was already out on dvd. It’s a good deal and sometimes it’ll get movies that didn’t hit the other two theaters like “The Brothers Bloom” and “Fanboys.” Plus you can get a popcorn and coke for under five dollars. It’s an enjoyable theater that’s on its last legs with a lease about to strike midnight for this Cinderella.
None of these are my favorite but I’m such a cinephile that I’ll wade through sticky floors and bad service and sit next to trash bag seats if a movie is at one of these theaters.
This leads me to Cinemark Theaters. Oh, how I wish that all the movies could be here. The staff is nice but when asked, they will go after people messing with their cell phones during the film. It has huge screens, nice seats and is clean. The concession is a financial nightmare but you can’t have it all. They have more screens and summer movie times but they also get independent films that used to never see these parts.
What made me so happy about moving closer to Dallas were the more opportunities to interact with people really into movies. It is so hard to connect with other people about films, I wanted that kind of communal film experience.
While the Star Wars Prequels were disappointing to a perfection, I really take a shine to “Attack of the Clones”. I attribute this to seeing the midnight showing of the premiere. I was in a theater full of Star Wars fans and that collective energy led to a very exciting viewing.
I’m moving back to my hometown where Carmike and Cinemark reside. I never made it to the Inwood for smaller independent films. I never made it to the Rocky Horror Picture Show at midnight. I worked in Arlington last year, leaving me to drive four hours a day and racing 30 thousand miles on my car. I was too tired to go into Dallas, fight the traffic and try to enjoy something I would have loved.
While I didn’t get to dress up like Tim Curry or watch “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” at midnight, I found something else.
Decatur was ten miles from my apartment. It’s been a small city since forever. I knew they had a movie theater, a three screen cinema. Naturally I stuck my nose up at it. I wanted something bigger and better.
My whole life, I’ve wanted to see a new movie opening night. I remember my parents being away and staying with my grandmother when I was 11 years old, trying to convince her to take me to see “Lethal Weapon 3”.
“Please, I’ve wanted to see this for two years,” I said.
“How can you have waited two years to when it starts tomorrow?” my aunt said.
“Because I’ve been seeing previews and knew they were making it,” I said.
That Friday, my grandma and I were in the theater at four o’clock after school waiting for “Lethal Weapon 3” to start. Turns out my grandma really loved it.
That detour illustrates my intensity to see a movie on opening night, a trait I’ve seen in very few.
My wife is a fanatic for “Twilight”. She considered going to the midnight show but had teaching and coaching the next day so she elected for sleep. I was in Decatur and she called to ask if we could go see “Twilight.” I thought she’d be exhausted as she had coached basketball games after school. For the first time in my life, I tried to talk someone out of seeing something opening night. She wasn’t having it. In ways, I loved this passion for film, even if it’s only for the “Twilight” films and Harry Potter.
We ended up seeing it in Decatur at the Three Screen Cinema. I remember being in awe of how low the prices were for popcorn and drinks. It was really packed with Twilight tweens and all the other that made it a huge it that weekend.
I didn’t return to the theater for months when I went to see “Watchmen” a second time on a Sunday. I love Sunday afternoons and having a relaxing day but just couldn’t get it going since I’d been married. “Watchmen” gave me that opportunity. The Twilight phenomenon wasn’t happening so I was in a quiet theater with short lines for popcorn and Coke. I got all this for under ten dollars.
It’s only a three screen cinema. They are going to have mainstream movies. Some I wanted to see, others I wasn’t so crazy to see but I ended up going because of the great experience at this theater. I saw “Knowing”; not great but I enjoyed it with popcorn on the side. At $7.00-$9.50 for a matinee, I wouldn’t have gone to see “Knowing” but for 9.50 for a ticket, popcorn and Coke, I did. I saw the fourth “Fast and the Furious” installment on a Sunday afternoon and was able to ignore plot holes and character development and revel in fast cars and Vin Diesel acting tough. When the price isn’t so jacked up, your investment and expectations don’t have as high a bar.
This last year, I have seen very few movies on Friday night. Exhibit A is me trying to get out of seeing “Twilight.” One Friday night in May, I had planned to go.
The theater was packed, not Twilight packed but packed. Some woman across the aisle was texting at the beginning of the movie. I didn’t want to get the theater staff and I didn’t want to worry about it the whole movie cause you know if someone is messing with their phone at the start of the movie, odds are they won’t leave it alone. I just walked up to her. This was a woman with two kids and gym shorts, not the Star Trek demographic. If she wasn’t going to be into the film, she wasn’t going to ruin it for me.
“Could you not text during the movie?” I said. “It’s distracting.” I sat down and she put her phone up.
I loved “Star Trek” so much that I went the next afternoon. It had been really hard for me to relax and enjoy myself for the last year and I had finally found my outlet.
I saw “Terminator: Salvation” on a school night. I saw Pixar’s “Up”. My wife started going with me to some movies. We saw “Ghosts of Girlfirends Past”, a film that wasn’t a first choice of mine but was easier to swallow than I thought.
We saw “Night at the Museum 2”. I really disliked the first film but really liked the second one. Even “The Proposal”, the Sandra Bullock/Ryan Reynolds concept romantic comedy was a lot of fun.
The toughest viewing had to be Will Ferrell’s “Land of the Lost”. It was a mess of a movie but I loved watching it on a Tuesday afternoon. It was like my summers as a kid, dropped off at an afternoon matinee and then hitting the arcade.
This theater had some sort of magic that allowed every movie to be at least good or at worst watchable. This theater had small screens, but I didn’t have to watch twenty minutes of commercials before the movie. I never had to go tell the staff the projection wasn’t working. This small theater was more efficient than the IMAXes and AMCs of the world. It’s not the size of your screen. It’s how you use it.
No screen size could save the mess that was “Transformers: Revenege of the Fallen.” While nowhere near the quality of the first film, it was okay in some areas. I had to give it the Fast and the Furious treatment. Ignore plot holes and character development.
The day before we moved was a Sunday on Fourth of July weekend. I had seen all of the movies at the theater. Even with all its flaws, I saw Revenge of the Fallen again. In ways, it was better the second time. For one, I knew when to get popcorn. They were so busy that day that they ran out of popcorn. I went back to Transformers and waited twenty minutes for hot popcorn. I knew which scenes would be strong like ones featuring Optimus Prime and ones that weren’t, ones with no robots.
I thought this would be my goodbye to the theater. A few weeks later, my wife and I were finishing up the move out of our old apartment, turning in keys and what not. We left just in time to see “Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.” It was more fun than other theaters because the kids were into it and cell phones were kept to a minimum.
This theater had been so therapeutic for me. It was an escape from the stress of work and life. This theater meant more to me than midnight showings of cult classics and costumes. I had gone to most movies in my life by myself. A lot of my friends didn’t have parents that let them see a lot of movies or they didn’t want to spend their money that way. I ended up seeing a lot on my own which I’m comfortable with because you don’t have to worry if that person likes it. You can just see it for yourself. It only makes sense one of my favorite theaters wasn’t a community experience but a one on one experience. Me and the movie.
