The Art of Choosing a Movie

We went to see the new James Bond movie on Saturday. I was pretty skeptical going in but it was a very enjoyable movie. It had some amazing action sequences and by the end of the movie I was totally buying the new Bond. But that's not what this blog entry is about.

I get out to the movies a couple of times a month. My wife and I used to go every Friday night. It was a dinner-and-a-movie kind of ritual that we enjoyed. More recently I tend to go, when I do, mid-week to catch a movie I'd really like to see while it's on the big screen. But something weird has been happening.

The people who go places on the short bus are showing up at over 75% of the movies I've been going to. I don't mean to appear insensitive to their situation -- but they can be very disruptive during a movie. And you can't even anonymously complain in the dark and yell, "What're you, retarded?" because they are.

In the meantime, it is just weird that they are showing up at most of the movies I choose to see. And what I am saying by that is not that we have similar tastes in movies but that they are going to the exact same viewings. Sometimes I go on a Tuesday and sometimes I go on a Thursday. This week we went on a Saturday. Sometimes I like to wait a couple of weeks to see a movie (especially if it is popular) to avoid the crowds. Sometimes I can't wait, myself, so I go the first week something is on. Sometimes I wake up, look at what is on via the Internet listings, and go on the spur of the moment to see a B-movie that grabs my interest.

And there they are, talking loud, spazzing out and calling everyone "Buddy". They are pretty hard to miss. They always come into the theater late, distract everyone from the beginning of the movie until they settle down and loudly go to the bathroom at least twice during the show. Again, I feel sorry for them, they can't help it and they deserve to get out to see a movie, too. So, I'm not complaining about that per se.

I guess what's bothering me is not that they are disruptive or that they seem to be at a very high percentage of my randomly selected viewings of an eclectic grouping of movies. What bothers me is that I seem to be making the exact same choices that they are.

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