My wife loves yellow mustard. Loves it. She'll allow no other condiments on her sandwiches, and has passed this obsession down to our son. He can barely get through a meal without dipping peas, blueberries, and anything else within reach into a fat glob of French's.

Darlena used to be a honey-Dijon girl, exclusively. Four years ago, yellow mustard was anathema to her. In the same way she gets all scrunchy-faced now, when I jokingly ask if we're having sushi for dinner, there was a time when her favorite spread was so gross that I got dirty looks for even having it in the fridge.

So, what changed? I don't know. I'm not sure she does, either. Likely, she accidentally ate something with yellow mustard in it while at a restaurant and was simply no longer grossed out. This began a love affair that has kept us in little squeezy bottles ever since.

You'll notice I didn't write, "she accidentally ate something with yellow mustard in it while at a restaurant and promptly sent the dish back, demanding her entree be dropped from our check." She kept eating and discovered that her lifelong taste had swung dramatically, randomly, in a new direction. Sharing this level of commitment makes us an awesome couple.

My "yellow mustard" isn't actually yellow mustard--it's movies. As a film critic, I'm challenged weekly by content both inspiring and depressing, created by everyone from brand-name, millionaire directors to indie auteurs with barely two nickels to rub together. I used to think there was no place for no-budget filmmaking in hard, cinematic analysis. But Cory Udler changed my mind.

I was given a review copy of his movie Incest Death Squad a few years ago. Looking at the cover and reading the synopsis, I figured I was in for a painful, amateurish production. While the film wasn't anything resembling perfect, there were enough good ideas and great performances on screen for me to take it seriously. Cory followed up the next year with a sequel, which I loved so much that it made my list of 2010's best films.

I respect Cory as a filmmaker. He never lets a limited budget interfere with entertaining the audience. Granted, in the indie film world, "entertaining" and "audience" are dicey words: to some, the sole purpose of micro-cash trash is to watch something stupid with drinking buddies; for others, like me, there's little distinction between a twenty-minute short film someone posts to YouTube and Steven Spielberg's latest three-hour costume drama. I've long believed that any film not explicitly aimed at children or carrying a "stupid time-waster" label on its cover should be given the respect of being judged as a legit work of art.

Not everyone agrees, apparently.

Case in point: for the second time this week, people have suggested that I should not bother watching certain movies because I either A) think I'm "above" the material and therefore am inherently biased against it, or B) am not familiar enough with the director's previous work to make a fair assessment.

The first sign of trouble came when Derrick Carey, a producer on the movie Swamphead, called me a hypocrite for unfavorably comparing his film to Sexsquatch. He reminded me that, unlike the harsh blanket statements I'd used in my new review, I'd actually referred to the people behind Swamphead as talented in my old write-up.

Sure enough, I had said that, and immediately issued a non-apology: in the year-and-a-half since I posted that review, I've matured as a critic.* Rather than pull some George Lucas-style revision of my previous work, however, I decided to let the Swamphead piece stand.

You see, awhile ago, a reader wrote in to say that some review I'd written was clearly a softball piece meant to protect the feelings of filmmakers I clearly liked and/or knew. I don't recall offhand what the movie was (and am too tired to comb the archives), but the point stuck. In that moment, I realized I was hurting my readers by recommending they invest their time and money into something I didn't fully believe in. As the Internet's five billionth armchair movie reviewer, my only hope of standing out and standing strong is to make sure my opinions and words are in total sync--no matter who might be upset with them.

Sadly, I lost Derrick as a Facebook friend.** I was pretty torn up about this, but there was simply no way to save face without being untrue to myself. Since the Swamphead review went up, I've been able to support his other projects in good conscience, while simply remaining quiet on the topic of that particular movie. As I said in my last post to him, it doesn't matter how much effort a film crew puts into a picture; if the end result is bad art, and if that bad art is pushed into the marketplace (with or without a price tag on it--but especially with one), then the artists must be held accountable for their work.

Few people understand that being a movie critic is only partially about watching movies and writing about them in an entertaining fashion. We are also consumer advocates. If I say, "Go out and buy Dead Weight! It's one of the most original thrillers in years!", what I'm really saying is, "I know your disposable income is precious, but there's no better use of that twenty dollars burning a hole in your pocket than to check out this awesome indie film." You may not wind up agreeing with me, but I'll defend my recommendation 'til the cows come home.

Of course, I'm not the Sheriff of World Taste, which is why I pack my reviews with as much supporting evidence as possible. Some readers proudly and consistently head in the opposite direction of my opinions, which is why I also try to include information on where they can buy and/or see the movie in question.

The second argument is that I should avoid any movies I feel are beneath me. Derrick lobbed this one, as did Eric, a commenter on last week's Spring Breakers review. He accused me of not understanding Harmony Korine as a director and said I should probably avoid his films. While I understand this sentiment, I wholly reject it. No one has seen every movie ever made, and while a director's filmography sometimes offers interesting context for a given picture, nothing should be so inaccessible as to require an accompanying magazine article or Wikipedia cram session to enjoy it, much less understand it.

I hated Spring Breakers for its pretentiousness; its lack of morality and focus; and the unforgivable way in which Korine turned violence and nudity into something so boring that I wanted to leave the theatre.

Yesterday, before reading Eric's reaction, I listened to the new episode of Marc Maron's WTF podcast, on which Korine was a guest. When asked about his filmmaking philosophy, the writer/director said he prefers characters over stories, and has no real use for plot. From what I understand of his work, this is a selling point of the Korine mythos--which I also reject outright.

It's a cute idea, but the days of Andy Warhol's Empire are over. I'm not saying experimental filmmaking doesn't have a place, but if your goal is to wrap aggressive art-school pretension inside a glossy Hollywood production, don't be surprised when people smarter than your acolytes figure out the scam--and don't try to play off your insecurity and lack of ambition as a hippie-ish disregard for "the mainstream". To those of us who appreciate solid storytelling, the craft of acting, and the transportive abilities of passionate directors, endorsing Spring Break is akin to advertising public masturbation.

If Korine really wanted to set the world on fire with his movie, he would have grown up a little bit (or a lot) and found a way to make his vision more palatable to a broader audience. And, no, this doesn't mean selling out; it means innovating, earning that "genius" title that's handed out so easily and with more frequency than nudie-show flyers on the Vegas strip.

For the record, I don't consider myself to be above any film until after I've seen it. I never walk out of movies, or turn them off before they're over. I earn every word I publish on this site, vitriolic or celebratory. I might have assumed Swamphead or Sexsquatch were a waste of time by looking at their cover art, but when I think of how many great films I would have missed out on by skipping the ones that didn't interest me initially, I get a little queasy.

In the same week I suffered through Sexsquatch, I was thrilled by Angela, a short by a newer filmmaker with very little money. Were I to adopt Eric and Derrick's philosophy, I'd have never given it a chance--and thereby denied the filmmakers an endorsement they might one day slap on a DVD cover (or simply take as an encouraging slap on the back). In twenty minutes, Nathaniel Scott Davis showed he knows more about horror and drama than the people who made Swamphead and Sexsquatch know about comedy.

(Here's a hint, fellas: when everyone in your film acts like vulgar versions of the buffoon sidekick on a tween sitcom, it's nearly impossible to hold the audience's interest--unless that audience is stoned or comprised of people who worked on the movie.)

So, yeah, if your intent is to screw around with friends and put out a movie that dares people to like it--have fun. But you probably shouldn't ask me what I think. I'll pull no punches in saying that I wouldn't show it to my grown-up, professional friends or my possibly unemployed but no-less-enthusiastic readers. If that makes me a snob or an out-of-touch troll to a community of fifteen bitter people I'll likely never meet, so be it.

While you're grousing about that (and still reading my reviews) I'll be over here in the real world, where intent and access to cheap film equipment does not magically make an endeavor worthwhile. Agree or disagree, you can rest assured that I'll always tell you honestly which movies I think are great, and which ones don't cut the mustard.

*Quit laughing.

**This all happened on the KtS page; feel free to read it. 

The Evil Dead remake's trailer officially debuted yesterday, following some clandestine shaky-cam footage that made its way out of New York Comic-Con earlier this month. One of the dumbest things a film lover can do in life is take previews seriously: crafting an effective, thrilling sizzle reel is an art form to which scores of people have fallen victim over the years. So, when I say that it looks like director Fede Alvarez has actually pulled off a fresh take on Sam Raimi's horror classic, please take my words with a shaker's worth of salt.

As with everything on the Internet, the trailer has sparked controversy. Scratch that. The controversy ignited the moment the remake was announced, and has grown more virulent with every leaked image and frame of footage. It was refreshing to see many people confess to sharing my positive reaction; too often, we get caught up in the fashionable hate for remakes and/or all things mainstream cinema. What surprised me, though, was the intensity of the negative reaction and the lack of depth in the impassioned anti-remake arguments.

Let's break those down, shall we? Cue Anonymous-Internet-Cineaste Voice:

"All Hollywood makes nowadays is sequels, remakes, comic-book movies, and remakes of comic-book movies!" This is a hard one to argue. True, there's not a lot of original content floating down the mainstream, and that's because the entertainment industry is...well, an industry. As such, it's built on money. And while film junkies share an inherent desire for quality, original content, risking forty-plus dollars on a possibly disappointing night at the movies is a dicey proposition for casual entertainment seekers--especially in this economy.

At that price, if I were to ask you to choose between a piece of bubble-gum-flavored Bazooka Joe and another one that tastes like pomegranate-turkey-mint-soufflé (with assurances that the latter was developed by an edgy, young confectioner who plans to disrupt the stagnant corporate model with outrageous, consciousness-expanding flavors), can you honestly say you wouldn't pick the one most familiar to you? For forty bucks? 

I can't prove this, but I doubt the people complaining about the lack of good choices at the cineplex even go to the cineplex. They're likely boycotters of everything new--because to them, everything new sucks.

In fairness, they're slightly better than those who complain about sequels, remakes, and comic-book movies while still financially supporting them. They might think their measly contribution to Paranormal Activity 4's box office is inconsequential, but there's no electoral college in cinema. This is a cold, calculating democracy, and every ticket edges Paramount's loading bar closer to PA5.

"This movie has too big a budget to be a remake of the original Evil Dead!" What the hell does that even mean? The new film cost and estimated $14 million, compared to Raimi's 1981 budged of roughly $375,000. By today's standards, the scales are practically even. Fourteen mill won't even land you an off-brand marquee star, let alone the raw materials with which you can cut a ninety-minute horror film with digital effects and acceptable lighting.

The Evil Dead remake is a studio picture, yes, but it's being made by a bunch of relative unknowns who've been given a fraction of Cloud Atlas's wardrobe budget to work with. Judging from the trailer, I suspect this is because the executives are worried that their graphic, disturbing, R-rated movie will either be inaccessible to teens, or will turn off a target audience who's been weaned on a decade of safe, PG-13 horror. 

Since we're talking money, let's look at a couple of highly regarded remakes from the halcyon 1980s: John Carpenter's The Thing, which came out a year after the original Evil Dead, and Chuck Russell's The Blob, from 1988. They cost $15 million and $19 million, respectively (more than forty times Raimi's budget), and they both flopped.

Had the Internet been around then, I suspect people would have been up in arms about Hollywood spitting on the graves of Howard Hawks and Steve McQueen ("How dare they do another version of The Thing from Another World--in color! They even shortened the title because audiences are too stupid to understand anything longer than two words!").

The point is, budgets are lousy indicators of quality--either way you look at them. Paranormal Activity 4 cost less than half of Alvarez's Evil Dead,** and it's absolute garbage.

"I'm never gonna see this movie! If we keep supporting these shitty, soulless remakes, Hollywood will never stop making them!" Another odd argument. It's the same crap spouted by the proudly ignorant "I don't watch TV" crowd who tuned out during the According to Jim era and completely missed the AMC revolution. More to the point, it's the attitude of religious fundamentalists who plug their ears whenever scary science talk threatens to upset their delicate, millennia-old beliefs.

I'm not suggesting that people see every new movie at the multiplex, but to outright ignore films that "look bad" because there are sooooo many "important" or "indie" films that are more worth their precious, valuable time is just ridiculous. This guarantees an imbalanced moviegoing life devoid of surprise and variety. This year alone, I was amazed at how much I enjoyed 21 Jump Street, The Three Stooges, Total Recall, Dark Shadows, and Dredd--all films with awful trailers that I approached with zero enthusiasm.

None of these are likely to stand the test of time as being classics, but they entertained me quite a bit. This doesn't make me a brain-dead sheep, nor does it dampen my ability to appreciate "good" movies--quite the opposite. Unlike ninety percent (I'm guessing) of the people who refuse to see Alvarez's Evil Dead, I can talk at length about why the Total Recall remake is, in many ways, superior to the original, and why Dredd might have an edge on Blade Runner. By contrast, many conversations I have with film snobs inevitably lead to a variation of, "There's no way I'll see [BLANK], 'cause it's stupid and won't hold a candle to [CHERISHED PRE-MILLENNIUM GENRE FILM]".

I imagine there are people who never abandoned VHS tapes, too, but do I have to take their puritanism seriously? No. No, I don't.

The last point I'd like to make is that just because something is a remake, that doesn't mean it can't also be original. Consider one of my favorite films of 2012, the independent film Dead Weight. Leaving aside the fact that if one were to apply this bizarre reverse-snobbery to that movie ("It didn't cost enough money to be worth my time"), they would be missing out on a great little film. But at its core, Dead Weight has a very similar premise to other stories that are currently popular in pop culture--namely The Walking Dead.

Filmmakers John Pata and Adam Bartlett have taken a familiar framing device (a mysterious plague that turns America into a wasteland of survivors and murderous zombies) and skewed it brilliantly. You barely see the external threat in this film, as the action and drama focus squarely on the crumbling social structures of the few remaining humans. It's a great movie, but could be completely written off as a low-rent version of The Walking Dead, or The Road, or The Stand by anyone who looks at a trailer or reads a synopsis.

I have no idea whether or not Alvarez and company even attempted to blow up the story of The Evil Dead with their remake. Either way, they're screwed in the eyes of genre purists: change the core elements of Raimi's original and they're desecrating holy ground;*** make a cabin-in-the-woods story without the recognizable title, and they're "just ripping off The Evil Dead".

Hell, one of the year's biggest bombs was the superb Dredd, which is precisely the kind of smart, gritty, inventive throwback so many people claim to miss in this new, dumb era. One of the reasons Hollywood is so adverse to putting out truly edgy material is because there's no guarantee people will show up for it--hence a penchant for branded product that at least stands a chance of being seen. I'm hopeful that the stuff in the Evil Dead trailer is, as it appears to be, indicative of old-fashioned, balls-to-the-wall, supernatural violence. I'm skeptical, sure, but I'll at least give it a shot.

If the movie's a let-down, I'll probably spend a thousand words ranting about it. If it's great, I'll sing its praises. Regardless, my leg up on the people bitching about the new trailer will be a solid one, by virtue of my having taken the time to understand just what the hell I'm talking about.

*Which was announced before the close of opening weekend. Congratulations, America! For the record, I pay for nearly every movie I see, and complain about the quality of a lot of them--especially genre films. However, I consider a thirteen-hundred-word analysis to be sufficient penance, as opposed to, say, twelve words posted to an Internet forum.

**$5 million is the Hollywood equivalent of shooting a movie on a Fisher-Price camera at the kitchen table.

***For proof, look no further than 2004's Punisher, a film many comics fanboys wrote off the moment they heard it was set in Florida instead of New York. Four years later, when the New York-set Punisher: War Zone was released, no one saw it because it was too cartoonishly violent--the opposite of another complaint about the previous film. Sigh.

An Overdue Tirade Against Cineplex Slobs

Are you the kind of person I'd have to slap, were we to ever see a movie together? To find out, please answer the following question as honestly as possible:

When exiting a movie theatre auditorium, which behavior is acceptable for anyone over the age of five?

A. Collect all candy wrappers, drink cups, and/or snack containers (including popcorn tubs, nacho boxes, and wax gourmet pretzel sheets); deposit them neatly in the nearest trash can. In the event of an overflowing trash can, carry refuse to the second- or third-nearest and deposit them neatly inside.

B. Leave all candy wrappers, drink cups, and/or snack containers (including popcorn tubs, nacho boxes, and wax gourmet pretzel sheets) exactly where you last placed them/spilled them/knocked them over. Exit the theatre with your shame-free head held curiously high.

I hope to God you're in the "A" camp, but the more I go to the movies, the more I'm convinced that everyone on the planet has forgotten about manners. Just as vehicle turn signals will, I suspect, face obsolescence in the next five years due to lack of use, the idea of picking up after oneself seems to have long gone out of fashion; when the lights came up after Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance the other night, I could count the number of seats not sprinkled with popcorn and Raisinettes much more quickly than those that were.

You might ask, "What do you expect from people who flock to Ghost Rider 2 on opening night?" Fair point (especially considering the prolonged tantrum by a six-year-old whose parent refused to silence him, and whose fellow patrons couldn't be bothered to find a manager). But I saw the same gross behavior two months ago at The Artist, in what was once a classy, respectable art theatre. There's something else at play here.

Could it be the down economy? Are these slobs, these fat, grease-fingered cretins* actually trying to boost the demand for more workers to clean up after them? I doubt it. That degree of thought and empathy is typically reserved for people who understand why picking up trash is an issue of both health and dignity.

Yeah, that's right: health and dignity. Ever hear about rats and bugs invading movie theatres? What do these creatures love most? Darkness and food. I'm not saying that all cineplexes are subject to being overrun by vermin (though you wouldn't know it from looking at the box office lines), but leaving massive amounts of aromatic trash lying around in rooms that are, by definition, not well-lit, is all but an invitation for things to scurry past your feet.

And don't give me that, "Well, they clean the theatres between every screening, so what're you complaining about?" nonsense.

First, the number of times I've walked into a theatre--especially the large auditoriums showing blockbusters--and seen drink cups still in their armrest holders or quarter-full bags of popcorn peeking out from under a seat would probably astonish you.

But I'm not shocked. These venues are huge. Especially during whiz/bang season, when you've got twenty showtimes for the latest Vin Diesel monstrosity crammed into days that don't quite last fourteen hours, the pressure to make seats and aisles "clean enough" that the bulging hordes on-line in the hallway won't take a gripe-worthy level of notice has to be equally huge.

Given the viscosity of multi-colored, sickly floor tiles; damp seat cushions; and the irritating crunch of something attaching itself to your shoe while walking indoors, I assume it would take a financially prohibitive deep-cleanse to make every auditorium habitable after each screening. Until we end terrorism, resolve the financial crisis, and put a chicken in every pot, that's not going to happen.

So, it's up to us--more to the point, to you--to get your act together. One of the biggest complaints I hear from people regarding movie theatres is that the animals in attendance treat the place like it's their living room. I disagree. The numbers of actual hoarders in America is relatively small, and I can't believe anyone else would leave their TV room in the same disarray as they do cineplexes. Do you have to wade through crumbs, candies, and half-eaten hot dogs after you're done watching movies at home? If your garbage can is bursting at the seams, do you toss empty wrappers at it, hoping for some as-yet-undiscovered trash tractor beam to keep the chocolate-smeared paper from falling to the floor?

If the answer is "yes", you probably stopped reading after the second paragraph. If the answer is "no", feel free to spread the word. Hell, feel free to take action against these subhumans. Maybe start by shouting, "Hey! You forgot your popcorn!"

Actually launching three-quarters-full sodas into the air after offending patrons might be a bridge too far--but maybe not. Just make sure you can hold your own in a fight, and that you stick around afterwards to help mop up your mess.

Note: Special thanks to my friend, Bill, whose favorite phrase was the inspiration for this post's title. I think he appropriated it from somewhere else, but it'll always be his saying to me.

*I don't mean to imply that everyone who engages in this behavior is fat. I've seen every kind of person act like a rude pig. "Fat", though, implies a lack of will-power and concern that best captures what I'm trying to say. I hope you'll spare me the "but, but, buts" about glandular disorders and the like and take my greater point to heart. If not, that's okay, too.

Internet Piracy: You're Whining, They're Winning

People who comment in Internet "Comments" sections drive me crazy. Rotten Tomatoes is the worst. Look up the "Rotten" reviews on any given film and you'll see dozens of snarky, uninformed mouth-breathers taking cheap shots at any critic they disagree with. It'd be one thing if they'd set out to open a spirited exchange of ideas, but more often than not, these misspelled, emoticon-and-abbreviation-infested mini-missives are the equivalent of yelling, "You suck!" in a lecture hall.

These cretins' bogus sense of authority and entitlement is truly unsettling, and it reminds me of the well-worn adage: "The best thing about The Internet is that it gives everyone a voice. The worst thing about the Internet is that it gives everybody a voice."

I'm sorry, but calling out Christy Lemire, Peter Travers, or even Armond White as being hacks, idiots, or worse is just silly--especially coming from people whose inability to articulate disagreements without resorting to the tired, "did we watch the same movie?" only reinforces the assumptions one might develop based on a commenter's photo avatar (the fuzzy web-cam portrait of a scrawny, basement-dwelling college drop-out, the vacant smile of a fat soccer mom whose opinion of most foreign films could likely be summed up by "Hunh?", etc.).

While these critics, and a hundred others, might not agree with you, they've often done the heavy lifting of watching movies and writing substantively about them. Many are career professionals with, if not degrees, then decades of experience. So when one of them suggests that, just maybe, Captain America is a big, dumb waste of time, a proper response might be to write your own essay and link to it--rather than offer up, "This guy prolly dosnt like action anyways hed rather watch some artsy shit. Cap rules!"

What does all of this have to do with Wolverine and Internet Piracy? That's a great question. In truth, this post is only tangentially about commenters. I'm really here to discuss the recently announced sentencing of Gilberto Sanchez, a New York man who received a year in federal prison for uploading the workprint of 2009's X-Men Origins: Wolverine. I hadn't intended to write about it, but the comments on IMDb's version of the story drove me absolutely crazy.

The long and short of the issue is that  the Justice Department has made an example of Sanchez. They want to send a loud, clear message to anyone who's thinking about uploading or downloading illegal content that, yes, the worst could happen to them. To me, it's an open-and-shut case. Since at least the 1980s, with the advent of VHS tapes, the feds have placed impossible-to-miss anti-piracy warnings on movies, CDs, and most other forms of purchasable media. They're the annoying, can't-miss-'em, badge-looking things that you frequently try to fast-forward or next-chapter through--the "bullshit legalese" that no one's ever read, 'cause it's 'stupid".

Well, it's not stupid. It's the law. And one's opinion of the law has no bearing on its validity as an enforceable policy--meaning there's no reason to complain if one gets caught breaking it. In Sanchez's case, there's really no getting around the fact that he knew that what he was doing was wrong. At 49 years of age, unless he beamed to the Big Apple from the rain forest, he must have known about copyright laws, or at least that pirating material is illegal. Additionally, given his history of drug convictions, Sanchez should have been even more savvy to the fact that people really do get busted for breaking the law.

Worse yet, after uploading Wolverine to the Web, he boasted about his achievement and was totally shocked to find the FBI on his doorstep two weeks later.

On the IMDb message board--as well as other sites, I imagine--commenters rail against the injustice of Sanchez's imprisonment. Many of the so-called arguments boil down to the following:

• A year in federal prison is too harsh a sentence for a "crime" that didn't hurt anyone.
• The feds spent a lot of time and money prosecuting a movie pirate instead of Wall Street crooks, drug dealers, and pedophiles.
• "No one" can prove that Fox lost money due to the piracy; besides, Wolverine was a terrible movie, so who cares?
• Even if an amount of lost revenue could be calculated, Fox and star Hugh Jackman are rich enough that they won't miss the money.
• Going out to the movies is too expensive, especially for families.

Aside from the first point, I agree with all of the above. But none of these things has anything to do with Sanchez's conviction. The law states that people who are caught pirating movies are subject to large fines and/or prison time. Sanchez wasn't even caught; he pretty much scrawled his confession on a virtual sandwich board and stood outside FBI headquarters to see what would happen. Oh, he also has kids.

Fuck this guy.

Sorry for the language,* but Sanchez and his defenders need to understand just what kind of a world we live in. If there's a common belief that the government is in league with corporations to protect moneyed interests and squash easy targets, why on Earth would anyone tempt fate by becoming an easy target?

If you think a year in prison is too harsh a term for piracy, either run for office and work on changing the sentence, or support someone who will. Become a scholar or an advocate. Don't just complain about consequences that should surprise absolutely no one.

I think this all goes back to the commenter mentality; there's a perceived notion of both anonymity and invincibility when it comes to all matters digital. People write things on blogs and in feedback sections that they most likely would never say to someone's face, and they believe that Big Brother isn't interested in their modest corner of cyberspace, where downloading songs and music for free is the ultimate middle finger to iTunes or whatever corporate devils foolishly believe that artists and artists' agencies should be paid for their wares.

But I feel like I'm tiptoeing into a different argument here. Let me just step back and reiterate that I don't care about issues tangential to Sanchez's sentencing. I'm only interested in the misdirected anger towards a system that people think is corrupt for all the wrong reasons. Movie studios and record labels may be monolithic, spirit-crushing, greedy entities that are afforded unfair protections by a back-scratching federal government. But they at least give everyone the courtesy of a plain-English warning: "If you steal from us, we will take your money and put you away."

And if you think things are unfair now, just wait until SOPA becomes law. We may be entering an era where even posting a picture from the Internet in good faith (such as the one accompanying this piece) becomes a sticky legal issue.

To all the prospective Gilberto Sanchezes of the world, I offer nothing but the best of luck in your endeavors. I sincerely hope you're skilled enough and smart enough to get away with whatever it is you're doing. But when you hear that over-loud knock at your door, I hope your first thought isn't, "Woe is me", or "Damn the Man", but instead, "I'm happy to go up the river knowing that I gave the world a fuzzy, partially complete version of Wrath of the Titans!"

*Not sorry enough to delete it.

Chicago's Patio Theater Reminds Us that Silence is Golden

While watching Cowboys & Aliens the other morning, I was reminded of just how much the moviegoing experience has changed in the last twenty years--and how the experience has changed moviegoers. It used to be that arriving a half-hour before showtime meant plenty of quiet, dimly lit time to either read a book or catch up quietly with friends.

Somewhere in the mid-90s, as I recall, theatres everywhere started showing movie trivia and advertisements as slide shows before movies; weird, but still unobtrusive. The turn of the century saw the advent of the Fake Radio Station, which played just loudly enough over the slide show to make whispering not quite adequate enough to talk to the person next to you (as much as I appreciated being made aware of Smash Mouth's contribution to the latest spring high school comedy, I certainly didn't need DJ Danny Douche screaming at me to buy the soundtrack album now).

Today, we have full-blown commercials, movie trailers and behind-the-scenes featurettes playing on-screen at least thirty minutes before most major motion pictures. The cranked sound ensures that even if I don't want a Coke, I'll be unable to shake the sound of bottles popping open for at least half a day; and if I want to say something to a friend sitting two inches away, I practically have to make a public announcement.

I can't be sure, but I think this is a big part of the "Theatre as Living Room" problem that has led to increased customer dissatisfaction in recent years. The default Loud Mode of the average patron was born out of necessity but has mutated into a lack of consideration and, possibly, a lack of self-awareness (or at least awareness of one's surroundings).

Before the Cowboys & Aliens were scheduled to begin, a giant, red screen full of bubbles and dancing AMC logos played along with generic techno music. I'd tuned it out, as I've trained myself to do, by reading a great book of essays by the actor Wallace Shawn ("Inconceivable" Guy from The Princess Bride). The audience applauded two minutes later, when the music stopped; understandable, I guess, because if you're going to be trapped in a seat without the ability to enjoy a good conversation, whatever's playing on the big screen had better be entertaining; in other words, not just a screen saver advertising the theatre you've already paid to sit in.

A funny thing happened next: There must have been a technical problem in the projection booth, because the theatre was quiet for at least five more minutes; no images on the screen, no music or advertisements pumping though the speakers. It was quiet enough to think, read, or have a nice chat.

Instead of doing any of those things, the people around me--not teenagers, mind you, but middle-aged adults--began to complain. Loudly:

"Um...hello?"

"Is anybody up there?"

"Start the movie!"

The best one came from the guy two seats to my right, who said, "Does anybody have the number for the theatre?"

As I sat there, unable to concentrate on my book, I considered how quickly it took a group of strangers, sitting in silence, to grow simultaneously restless and incapable of doing anything to improve their situation. Not to sidestep too far into armchair politics, but it made me wonder what would really happen if America faced economic collapse; my guess: the Midwest would look like The Walking Dead in about six days.

Finally, the previews started.

Instead of applause, I heard variations on, "Jesus, it's about time!"

Fast-forward to last night.

I went to Chicago's newly restored Patio Theater for a screening of Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris with my friend, Bill. After being closed for a decade, the 84-year-old theatre re-opened in June, offering second-run movies, bargain concessions, and five-buck admission, seven days a week. Of course, the real attraction is the theatre itself, which has been resurrected by the Kouvalis family, who owns and operates the Patio. The high ceilings with twinkling-star lights and projected, animated clouds; the gold, sculpted walls and ornate light fixtures; and simple, recessed movie screen at the front of the auditorium (complete with stage and organ) recall both the Music Box and Pickwick theatres, but in their splendor manage to out-do them both.

Bill and I arrived a half-our before showtime. We had the place to ourselves for twenty minutes of that, and spent it walking the aisles, inspecting the yet-to-be-completed balcony, and talking about how going to the movies has changed so much over time. The pre-screening Patio is a church, a gorgeous, 1500-seat house of worship whose every ornamentation guides the eyes and the mind to the front of the house. Even as other people filed in and we took our seats, we couldn't hear a single cell phone or annoying conversation; we didn't stumble over any half-full buckets of popcorn. There was just us, the theatre, and jazz from other Woody Allen films playing softly over the sound system.

In short, it was the perfect setting for watching a movie--especially Midnight in Paris, a lyrical, big-screen experience that romanticizes the 1920s. I don't know what it will be like for people going to see Captain America and Transformers: Dark of the Moon in the next couple of weeks (for one thing, there'll likely be more than a few surprised gasps during the Intermission--or should that be "Intermissions", for these two-plus-hours movies?). I imagine watching big, dumb summer blockbusters at The Patio is akin to attending an iPad demo at the Vatican. But I understand that the Kouvalises need to recoup their investment, and that means drawing in as many people as possible. I'll definitely return to this amazing theatre, but likely during Oscar season.

I'm grateful that The Patio and the few remaining theatres of its kind still exist. They're boastful reminders of a time when people respected the weekly trip to the movies; when venues didn't look like big-box stores, and people understood that they were part of an audience rather than a member of the cast. If you live in or are planning to visit Chicago, I can't recommend The Patio enough. It will sour you on multiplexes inside of a minute and may just re-awaken the joy of seeing a movie on the big screen for the first time.

The Patio is located at 6008 W. Irving Park Rd, Chicago Illinois 60634

Photo by William Zbaren

Kicking the Seat Salutes a Fine, Fine Human Being

"He's an idiot. He's dead. Gooood. You mean there's one less doorknob in the world?"

Bill Hicks, Dangerous

About fifteen years ago, my dad and I were watching TV and making dinner. A special report interrupted the broadcast to announce a horrible plane crash in which everyone on board was killed. Almost immediately, my father started cracking jokes.

Horrified, I asked him how he could laugh so easily and so quickly at that kind of tragedy. His answer changed my perspective on death.

He simply asked, "Did I know anybody on that plane?"

Answering himself, he said, "No. So it's okay to laugh. Fuck 'em."

You see, the old adage that tragedy plus time equals comedy is true. There's something inherently funny about the human condition and the innumerable, interesting ways in which we die. And I don't think there's anything wrong with telling a joke about someone who's just passed away, if you're honestly compelled to tell one. For some people, it's as natural and as legitimate a way of dealing with bad news as breaking down in tears.

Which brings us to Ryan Dunn. Two days ago, the star of the Jackass movies killed himself and a friend in a car wreck. According to reports released this afternoon, including results of a toxicology exam, Dunn sped off a Pennsylvania highway at upwards of a 130 miles per hour, slamming his Porsche into a tree. The impact ignited a fire, and investigators couldn't determine which of the two actually killed the intoxicated driver and his intoxicated passenger.

There was that little left of them.

Many have referred to this as a tragedy, the first element of our golden humor formula. But this is not a tragedy.

Let me repeat that: Ryan Dunn's death is not a tragedy.

It's a logical outcome for a guy who lived the way Dunn lived. His record reads like a cautionary tale, littered as it is with multiple guilty pleas to charges of reckless driving, DUI and speeding. April Margera, mother of Jackass co-star Bam Margera, says she warned Dunn repeatedly for years to slow the hell down.

Throw in a day job whose only prerequisite is the ability to perform outrageous, dangerous stunts in front of cameras, and you have a story that could only have ended one of two ways--with Dunn wrapping his brains around either adulthood or a tree.

Why am I writing about this? Honestly, I have no idea. Probably because I'm really annoyed with the mouth-breathers I've had to endure on radio, television, and the blogosphere today.

As you may know, Roger Ebert tweeted about Dunn's death almost immediately after the story broke. It was a brilliant use of 140 characters, but because most of Dunn's fans apparently dropped out of school before the English Lit section on "irony", the Internet went bonkers and called for the venerable film critic's head.

Ebert followed up, explaining himself and offering great sympathy for Dunn's family. I offer no sympathy for his friends or loved ones, only condemnation. Seriously, where the fuck were all of you for the decade-plus that Dunn was tearing up the road? Were you planning interventions, or laughing off his antics in the back seat?

Yeah, I know, we're ultimately only responsible for our own behavior and no one else's, but I find it hard to believe that anyone close to Dunn is surprised by what happened this week. I'll allow sadness, sure, but shock? Disbelief? Let's not kid ourselves.

According to one of Margera's salvos in the Twitter war against Ebert, "millions of people are crying right now." If you are one of these millions, I invite you to contact this site and share what it is about The Other Fat Guy on Jackass dying that messed up your day. I promise to listen carefully, and to not transcribe my giggles for all to see.

But before you begin your screed about how heartless I am, let me pose this question:

What would you have thought of Ryan Dunn had his Porsche flown into a school bus full of kids?

And what if he'd been the only survivor?

My guess is you'd see him as a reckless, criminal scumbag--I've just cut out the hypothetical middleman.

It's significant that Twitter and Tumblr have removed the photo Dunn posted two hours before the crash, the one in which he and his co-corpse, newlywed Iraq War vet Zachary Hartwell, are seen drinking with an unidentified third reveler. I think Dunn's fans should write in to these bastions of social media and demand that the last, living image of their bloated, red-faced, scruffy idol be scooped out of the Memory Hole and restored.

Okay, now I'm just being cute. What's the point of all this? Like I said before, I don't really know. The lesson here, kids, is that it's okay to not feel anything at all for someone who was very clearly a selfish asshole. He may have been the life of the party and a loving presence to those he left behind.

But I hope to God that if I die in a spectacularly boneheaded and humiliating fashion that my loved ones will have the good sense to call me out in public and defile my memory; because I will have deserved it.

In the end, Ryan Dunn was a danger to himself and everyone else on the road--off the road, too.

Hell, if you're feeling mournful, weep for the tree.

A Throwing the Remote Special Comment

My wife and I are huge fans of Modern Family, but we didn’t get into it until about midway through last year’s debut season.  ABC ran promos before a good number of the films we saw in theatres, all of which made the show look like another generic family comedy that focused on three couples and their wacky, intertwined lives.  The only thing that stood out was the fact that one of the couples was comprised of two men—I rolled my eyes the first time I saw them on-screen; immediately pegging one of them as the straight-laced guy and the other as the flamboyant queen.

One evening, Darlena and I were having dinner with our friends, Brad and Hannah, when one of them asked if we watched Modern Family.  We both shook our heads, and I recall having given a derisive sneer (it happens).

“Is it any good?” I asked.

“Oh, my God!” said Hannah.  “It is sooo good!”

“Really?” I asked, shocked.

Five minutes later, the four of us were watching one of the several episodes they had on their DVR.

Five minutes after that, I was positively giggly.

Fifteen minutes after that, I was just about fighting back tears.

Modern Family is so perceptive and honest in its writing and in the performances of its characters that every episode brims with laughs and ends in earned heartfelt moments.  It somehow takes tired sitcom tropes (clueless dad, grumpy father-in-law, smart teen, horny teen, awkward pre-teen) and makes them compelling, funny and relatable.  The fact that the show drew record numbers of viewers last year and garnered an Emmy for actor Eric Stonestreet is proof that something in Modern Family’s DNA has captured the cynical hearts of sitcom viewers—and made regulars out of people who don’t watch television.

As some of you may know, the show made headlines this week for its big, prime-time gay kiss.  Columnists and talking heads speculated about what this bold move would do to the ratings giant; would people be turned off and tune out?  Would more people flock to the show out of curiosity and then stick around?  After all the hype, I’d expected the episode to feature a slobbery, flaming make-out session.

Alas, the kiss happened so quickly and out of the main focus of the scene’s composition that I had to rewind it so that Darlena could see that it had, in fact, happened.

Which brings me to the point of this piece.  I went back to the article that first alerted me to the controversy, and perused the reader comments.  I expected a lot of “What was the big deal” remarks—and there may have been—but I made the mistake of starting at the top, where people chimed in before the episode had even aired.  I never made it to the bottom.

A few folks were supportive of the kiss, which, incidentally, was a loving quick peck on the lips between husbands Cameron (Stonestreet) and Mitchell (Jesse Tyler Ferguson)—and it came at the end of an episode that was all about family members learning to overcome their insecurities about showing affection in public (yes, even the straight couples learned lessons and smooched).  Mostly, I read dark, hateful diatribes by self-described “Christians” that turned my stomach and smashed my heart.

I find it hard to believe that in 2010 there are still people who think that homosexuality is a sin, a choice, a test from and/or an affront to God, or unnatural.  If you’ll indulge me (and why wouldn’t you, if you’ve come this far?), I’d like to break these theories down and explain to anyone who might not get it why the anti-gay argument is both total bullshit and the work of the Devil (for my atheist friends, substitute “religious nut-jobs” for “Devil” and we’ll be on the same page).

1.  “Homosexuality isn’t natural.”  That’s the big one, and it almost doesn’t involve religion or God.  It’s also patently ridiculous.  If you’re doubtful, please consider this list of other unnatural things: airplane travel, wearing clothes, the Internet, and books (even Good ones).  The corollary to this argument is that God meant penises to only go into vaginas.  If that’s true, why didn’t the very first act of sodomy end with the guy on top getting his dick zapped off by a bolt of lightning?

2.  “Homosexuality is a choice.”  For a more eloquent and humorous debunking of this myth, give a listen to David Cross’s album “Shut Up, You Fucking Baby”.  The gist is that being gay today—even with the pervasive media indoctrination everyone complains about—is an existence marked by suspicion, hatred, and a lack of equal rights in the “freest” country on the planet.  Even if an openly gay person finds refuge in a big-city community, there are numerous social obstacles that they must deal with every single day.  In other words, it’s not the kind of lifestyle one would choose, unless they had a persecution fetish.

3.  “Gays are an affront to God.”  Is being gay such a horrible, unforgivable sin as to be insulting to the very being who…um…created gay people (allegedly)?  If that’s the case, you’d think He’d have made wiping out the scourge of homosexuality a priority on mankind’s Things To Do list—it didn’t even make the top ten.  I’ve been told that being gay isn’t a sin; it’s acting on the gay impulses and desires that leads to damnation.  Can you fathom living your entire life not being about to outwardly express your love to someone because a several-thousand-years-old book told you not to?

4.  “Being gay is a test from God”.  A rare argument, sure, but a troubling one that ties in with the point above.  There’s an idea that homosexuality is an evil urge that must be resisted by those afflicted with it, that if one can simply live their life without giving in they’ll be rewarded in heaven.  This is the humans-as-ants-under-a-microscope Lord, and if He’s the one in charge I don’t want to spend eternity anywhere near Him.  He can go fuck Himself (would that make him gay, though?).

5.  “Being gay is a sin”.  Again, it’s more the acting out part that some people have a problem with; but going back to the Bible, there are far greater and more common sins than “laying with another man.”  Overeaters, for example, are subject to death by plague (Numbers 11:32-33); children born out of wedlock go straight to Hell (I have a feeling they used to wind up in Purgatory, but a few years ago the Pope decided it no longer exists) (Deuteronomy 23:2); kids who make fun of unattractive people get mauled by bears (2 Kings 2:23-24).

So, yeah, maybe you should suck in that gut, keep your junk in your pants and teach your kids some manners before you consider witch-hunting the queers.

Those are just five of the vile talking-points I’ve heard.  I won’t even get into the alleged link between homosexuality and pedophilia; anyone who would dare raise that as a valid excuse for discrimination is ignorant of both statistics and real-life gay people.

Just for a second, though, let’s take the whole “kids should be raised by a man and a woman” argument to its logical conclusion.  I’ll jump right on-board with gays being denied the right to adopt children, so long as the kids from every marriage that ends in divorce become immediate wards of the state.

For those of you who aren’t on board with the gay lifestyle, can you at least see how ugly and hurtful these slurs are?  Can you hear the echoes of slavery, woman’s suffrage, and the Civil Rights movement ringing in your ears?  Do you really look forward to the day, fifty years from now, when your grandkids or great-grandkids laugh at you for being on the wrong side of history?

Hey, wasn’t I writing about a sitcom earlier?

Let’s get back to Modern Family.  Mitchell and Cameron kissed on TV, and the earth didn’t split open. America’s husbands didn’t magically start sucking each other off in front of the kids, either.  All that happened was a group of very talented writers and performers reminded everyone watching that it’s okay—wonderful, in fact—to openly express love for another person.  To repress love—to deny it—they argued, is to turn passion into frustration and resentment; and, ultimately, into regret.

I don’t know what God thinks of Modern Family—or any other topic for that matter (his autobiography is contradictory, unevenly paced, and I still don’t get the ending).  But I know people, gay and straight, who just want to love and to be loved.  Any twisted, bizarre rube who has a problem with that can kiss off.

It's Time for the Grown-ups to Grow Up

She doesn't need children. That's a judgment call and I'm makin' it. But it also happens to be true and that gives it the force, that extra “oomph”.

--Bill Hicks

I saw Resident Evil: Afterlife on Friday and, judging by the people in the theatre, you’d think it was the family film of the year.  More families than genre geeks packed the auditorium, and I was shocked to see this little troll woman bouncing a one-year-old with a bottle in the top back corner.

Yes, this kind of thing still shocks me.  Maybe it’s the optimist in me (who, incidentally, is constantly getting his teeth kicked in by his heavier, cynical brother), but every time I go to an R-rated horror movie, I think, “This is the one.  This is the movie in which there won’t be some little kid having nightmares planted in their head by blood-curdling THX screaming and 3D body parts flying past their heads.”  But I’m always—always—wrong.

During this particular movie, I had a flashback brought on by the guy sitting directly in front of me.  I recognized him from the lobby, where his belligerent cow of a wife berated him for not being able to pick out the combo she wanted from the way-too-busy concessions menu; all the while half-paying attention to her two boys—ages, I’d guess, five and eight.  The punch-line to this sad joke of a scene was the guy’s t-shirt, which read, “I [Heart] Hot Moms.”

He sat in front of me, alone.  I heard some whining and turned to my left.  His wife and kids were seated three rows further down, all the way to the left.

Sitting next to Mr. Beleaguered was a frat douche who asked, “Gotta get away from the wife and kids, huh?”

“You know it,” came the answer.

Believe it or not, I lived out a more horrific version of this scene last fall, when I went to see Halloween 2.  The difference is that the children were much younger, at probably eight months and four years.  The infant carried on for quite a bit, and the mother refused to do anything; fortunately, the father stepped up and improved the situation by moving several seats away from his screaming daughter.

The capper to this flashback is the touching moment in the film where an ambulance driver—freshly mutilated by a head-on collision with a cow, and gradually going into shock—tries speaking through his broken jaw.

All he can get out is the word “Fuck”, which he says about thirty times in varying ways.  It’s almost like a phonics exercise, really.

The four-year-old girl in the audience certainly thought so, as evidenced by her excited cries of, “Fah!”

I’m a new dad, so what I’m about to say may not carry a lot of weight with those of you who’ve been at it a lot longer; but this needs to be said:

If you bring your kids to horror movies, you’re a bad parent.

I mean, Jesus, have you not seen the boundary-pushing, ratings-bending terrors of modern slashers and sci-fi movies?  Why would you subject a toddler to the sights and sounds of a dog’s head splitting down the center to reveal rows of angry, drooling teeth?  What could you possibly say to junior that would convince him that the gang rape and torture in The Last House on the Left is only make-believe?  Are you so dense that you think Saw VI is just as good for your kids as Bob the Builder because they’re both shows about tools?

Even setting aside the trauma that may manifest later on in school fights and pulling the wings off flies, have you considered that other moviegoers might be uncomfortable having to share the theatre with a bunch of pre-schoolers?  I guess the answer to that is a proudly ignorant “no”.  I’ve seen countless families plop into their seats at horror movies (and sex comedies, too) with all the rowdy glee and anticipation one would expect from the latest Pixar film.

It’s pathetic.

I can’t believe that it’s cheaper to bring the whole brood out to the movies and stuff their faces full of candy, soda and popcorn than to hire a babysitter for two hours.  And if the family wants a movie night, there are plenty of age-appropriate options at every multiplex in America.  It’s not like you’re going to show up at the box office next week to find everything sold out except Devil (even if that does happen, there are plenty of fun bonding activities you can do at home—some of which involve interacting with your young’uns; which, I know, can be really uncool).

I was relieved to find that a local theatre has posted a sign in the lobby stating that after 7pm, no kids will be allowed into R-rated movies, even if the parents give consent. 

What a novel idea, right?

I just wish there were more teeth to this stance, and I hope something like it becomes widely adopted.

In my darkest moments, when I’m in a theatre, trying to concentrate on a naked teenager being filleted by a masked killer, I think about the little boy sitting next to me, asking his ever-shushing father why the bad man is doing that with the big knife.  My mind wanders into a utopian fantasy where a S.W.A.T. unit rappels through the roof and whisks the boy away to therapy—simultaneously forcing dad to ingest some egg-fart-smelling carcinogen that will render him sterile.

If you think I’m blowing this out of proportion, just think back a couple months to the news story about how some theatres were forced to pull the teaser trailer for Paranormal Activity 2.  Why did they have to do this?  Because mothers complained that their pre-teen girls were being traumatized by scary images at the midnight screenings of Twilight: Eclipse.

Let’s break that sentence down to its key elements:  Pre-teen girls.  Midnight movie.  Oh, and Twilight: Eclipse—you know, that flick in which one of the main characters is gang-raped and beaten nearly to death before being resurrected as a blood-sucking creature of the night.  The one that’s part of a PG-13 franchise.

The bottom line is that parents need to do their research to determine what is and is not appropriate for their children to watch.  And when they discover that something isn’t appropriate, they need to do the appropriate thing and keep their kids away from it—as much as they can.

Yes, I was raised on horror movies, but certain lines weren’t crossed before certain ages, and I always had a parent around to discuss what I was watching; incidentally, these discussions always happened at home because my folks were not the kind of people who enjoyed making fools of their family in public.

There are some movies that just aren’t meant for little kids.  I mean, you wouldn’t let a five-year-old watch Debbie Does Dallas, would you?

Wait.  Don’t answer that.

I’m trying the diet-and-exercise thing again.

Yesterday, Day One, was almost awesome.  I had several small meals consisting of fiber bars, lightly spread peanut butter on whole-grain toast, and several pint glasses of ice water.  I even did relatively well at the mall Quiznos, opting out of the “combo” when ordering a beef sandwich (on wheat, of course).

Dinner, though, was what the kids call an Epic Fail.  Earlier in the day, Darlena had prepped the mountain of healthy dinner fixin’s and snacks for the week; after we’d planned out all the meals, she chopped and bagged baby carrots and green peppers, baked low-calorie blueberry oat bars, and made some delicious seasoned pita chips—all healthy alternatives to, say, a “Big Grab” bag of Doritos.  Unfortunately, our meal plan was set to begin on Monday, leaving Sunday night open to a trip to the local sandwich place; I devoured a cheeseburger and—in a moment of true “Fuck it” weakness—French fries.

This morning, I woke up to find that I’d lost 0.6 pounds; not bad for a dodgy first day of eating and only an hour-long, stroller-pushing mall walk for exercise.  But at age thirty-three, at my height, weighing in at two-twelve is nothing to be proud of unless you’re a body builder or auditioning to be the Fat Best Friend in a Kate Hudson movie.

Speaking of which, the movies represent what will likely be my biggest hurdle in the quest to get fit (or at least healthy).  Every week, I go to the same theatre, and every week, the smell of fresh popcorn assaults my olfactory nerve the moment I open the door.

There have been numerous studies and news stories in recent years about the astounding number of calories found in movie theatre concessions; I’ve read most of them, and understand how terrible that salty, processed garbage is for my body—but I’m still waiting on the report that discusses how best to combat the sensory-control nano-bots that surely live within the very air wafting through Skokie’s AMC Crown Village lobby.

I’d happily pay a Will Power Surcharge on my matinee ticket if it meant I could make a bee-line from ticket stand to auditorium without stopping for a small popcorn, a box of watermelon Sour Patch Kids, and a small Coke Zero (I consider the last item to be a bit of pre-diet progress, an upgrade from the lime Icees and Pibb Extras of days past).  But until that day comes, I’m just going to have to remind myself of how much those “treats” cost, week after week.

During the last month-and-a-half (at least) of moviegoing, I’ve had that same combination of snacks.  Each time, it has cost exactly $13.  Keep in mind that if I were to buy these very items at the Walgreens across the parking lot, the grand total would be something like $6.  Multiply that seven bucks of wasted money by six weeks’ worth of before-noon ticket prices, and I could have easily seen two months’ worth of movies for free (or, you know, saved for my son’s college education or something equally lame)!

The obvious solution is to just smuggle my own snacks into the theatre, but that goes against a deep-seeded code of ethics instilled in me by Batman comics and the D.A.R.E. program.  Besides, I’m pretty sure the reason there are six sliding-door fridges packed with untouched, $3 bottles of Dasani water in the lobby is because people keep bringing their own.  My armchair analyst’s understanding of supply and demand suggests that if people keep sneaking in food and not buying the products that the theatres have already paid to have stocked, the prices of all of the goods will keep going up (there are probably a few logical or moral fallacies in that argument, but in the immortal words of Dave Lister, “I just went to art college”.).

Besides the ethical dilemma, I’m just plain afraid I’d get caught.  Sure, in the past I hid the occasional box of Dots in my winter coat.  But I felt really bad about it—until I sat down in my seat and mixed the candy with some overly buttered and salted popcorn to create the ultimate movie snack (which, for inquiring minds, tastes like Trix cereal, with the texture of a Halloween popcorn ball).

When Machete let out on Friday, I saw a kid exit the auditorium with a black backpack.  I don’t know if he was a student or a smuggler, but I immediately praised his bravado.  I wouldn’t have the audacity to just bring a big bag of food into the theatre.  I’m too afraid that the clip-on-bowtie mafia would escort me from the premises and club me to death with their orange midget-rave glow sticks.

But that’s the second strangest thing I saw at the movies that day.  The first was the pair of coupons the girl at the concession stand handed me with my receipt.  They were good for any size popcorn and soda during the rest of the Labor Day weekend—for $1 each!  Finally, an honest-to-goodness bargain at the movies, I thought.  Until I realized that I wasn’t coming back to the movies this weekend.

Shit.

Which brings me to my last “point”:  Free refills on large popcorn and soda; my AMC offers this, but I’ve never taken them up on it. I always wonder how many patrons actually go back for re-fills of large-size popcorn.  I mean, Jesus, unless you’re feeding a family out of this trough, there’s no reason an adult should leave a movie and say “Fill ‘er up” to the kid behind the counter.

Part of me thinks it’s just a ploy to get people to pay more for a service that promises a “bargain” they’ll never need to use.  On the other hand, if people are taking advantage of these kinds of offers, doesn’t that further de-value popcorn and syrup water?  Why not just cut the bullshit and sell us these things for a buck every day?

I’m glad this doesn’t happen, actually, because my diet would never survive such a policy.  It’s bad enough that my coping mechanism for sitting through awful films has often been to bury my face in popcorn.  Fact: the amount of popcorn I consume at the movies is directly related to my enjoyment of whatever film I’m watching.  After good movies let out, I’ve been known to throw as much as three-quarters of a bag of popcorn in the trash; after bad movies, I’m usually just getting rid of a handful of un-popped kernels swimming in sugar-butter.

Is it possible to pin my weight gain on this summer’s awful films?  Maybe, but come next weekend, I’ll have only the label on a Dasani bottle to keep me interested and satisfied—unless the movie’s any good.

Maybe you’ve seen it.

Maybe you’ve taken part.

Two guys walk into an auditorium and sit down, leaving one empty seat between them.  They don’t fill it with jackets, popcorn or candy; it’s not a placeholder for a girlfriend or a late friend.  The seat just sits there, unoccupied, for the duration of the show.

It could be psychic residue from the unwritten Guy Code that prevents men from standing next to each other at urinals (which begs the question, why don’t they just space the urinals further apart?).  In that instance, though, I can kind of understand: I mean, if you’re not a look-up-and-stare-at-the-wall-like-you’re-deliberately-trying-to-not-notice-the-penises-on-either-side-of-you kind of person, this must be a traumatizing couple of minutes.

But in a movie theatre, everyone—for the most part—has their pants pulled up, and the crowds are full of strangers.  So what’s with the over-extended personal space, guys?  Are you really so afraid of bumping elbows with your bro, or having some random, immature douchebag assume you’re part of a gay couple that you have to put up an invisible barrier/beacon of heterosexuality?

It used to make me laugh, but now I just find it sad.  I never see women sit apart from each other. I’ve only seen a married couple do it once (which is part of a whole ‘nother column).  It’s exclusively a dude behavior; and not just a scared frat guy thing: for years, I’ve seen all kinds of men and boys sitting in these bizarre plush punctuations, and wondered to myself, “Did I not get a memo?”

I have no idea why this bothers me, and I should probably let it go.  But there’s something so fundamentally closed-minded and wrong about the gap seat—particularly in a movie theatre, where the whole point is the shared experience—that I don’t think I’ll ever get over it.

I can only pity these proximity-phobes, and hope they keep their distance.