Morass of the Movie Theater

One of the last great munchy bastions of our modern times is the local movie house.  There in the climate-controlled comfort of the darkened theater, we sit idly by as our world is over-run by giant arachnid robots when international spies come a hair's breadth from the fiery destruction of a mushroom cloud ignited by an evil genius whose illegitimate son has inexplicably traveled through Time and Space to defend the honor of an elfin princess by attacking a troll-infested pub owned by a cartoon rabbit struggling for sobriety after having blown his fortune on prescription drugs and destroyed his relationship with his family who are now living in a Vegas back-alley behind the Hard Rock Cafe waiting for their awkward musical-savant daughter to strike it big with her original life-is-bitter country song which will enable her breath-taking performance on the Great White Way to increase awareness of a third-world nation rife with civil unrest until a mere woman makes an impossible choice which will change the future of mankind!  And through it all I am fortified with buttery popcorn, nachos, Red Vines, and a large Diet Coke (because it's only 50 cents more than the medium so I'd be a sucker NOT to buy the large).  

I have a friend who never purchases refreshments when taking her family to the movies, thus flying in the face of that age-old tune, "Let's All Go to the Lobby."  We have recently completed an underground tunnel to aid her kids when they finally defect to the other side of the concessions fence. 

But tonight’s movie was not particularly good.  The popcorn wasn’t particularly tasty, nor was the Diet Coke…well, the Diet Coke was good, but you kind of have to work to screw that up.  It’s been better than a month since I’ve gone to see a movie at the full-price theater and truthfully tonight just reminded me why I’d waited so long. 

I find there aren’t many movies these days that leave me uplifted and wanting more.  Over and over again I hear directors & actors boast about “pushing the envelope.”  I say to Hollywood leave the envelope alone!  Craft movies that uplift the human spirit rather than strangling it, burying it in refuse, and dancing on its grave in the name of art or honesty or realism or whatever other euphemism they want to use.  Call it what they may, the results are shock and voyeurism and spiritual denigration.  And the result is desensitization and indifference.

Going forward we will pursue more live theater, sporting events, symphony, ballet, game nights, and activity nights.  There will still be concessions in all their variety, but as a family, as a couple, as an individual, for our part we are looking to be uplifted.  Does this eliminate movies?  Nope.  But it does require a discerning heart and mind.  Next Friday?  Family movie night with James Cagney, Jack Lemmon & Henry Fonda in Mr. Roberts.