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Copyrights reserved by the author. If you are in doubt, please click on 'Copyrights' and read the details. Why the movie is never as good as our memories by J. G. Fabiano
Since I have never been a fan of any type of "reality" show on television, and the reality of the war is much more disturbing than any show, my wife and I decided to buy a 'pay-for-view' movie from our cable company. We chose a light comedy, pushed the appropriate buttons on our remote and waited for some idiotic entertainment that was as far away from our present reality as possible. After a few seconds a notice appeared saying there was some technical difficulty and that we would have to wait for the movie. Needless to say we weren't impressed. But, rather than give up and miss the movie, the two of us sat there on the couch, staring at the screen, hoping the notice would go away and the movie would begin at any moment. As I stared into the glowing letters on the screen my mind drifted back to a time, long, long ago, in a galaxy far, far away, when I had to wait in line at my local movie theatre to see the big movie of the week. When I was young and living on Long Island in New York movie houses were nothing like they are today. They were grand old buildings that also used to present live theatre shows instead of canned entertainment. The big marquee out front was always brightly lit with clear light bulbs that were replaced as soon as one of them burned out. These lights blinked around a giant white sign with black and red letters that advertised whatever movie spectacular currently was being shown. From reading these marquees I learned to spell words like 'cinemascope,' 'panorama,' and the ever popular, '3-D.' The line that formed in front of the tiny booth that sheltered the man or woman who sold the tickets was always long and wound down the side of the theater. The line was nearly always single file and back then nobody ever thought of cutting in or creating any kind of a scene that would attract the attention of the manager because he might refuse them admission to the theatre. There was a window on the side of my hometown movie theatre, The Westbury that I would always remember. The window was dark and had iron bars in front of it. The bars on the window were bent as if someone had tried to break through them and when I was real small my sisters told me that Superman had bent them when he passed through our small town. After that, every time I passed that window, I dreamed of the day when I would be tall enough to touch the bars that Superman had bent. The movie theatre lobby wasn't very big and jutted out onto the sidewalk and standing in the middle was the manager, who wore the kind of glamorous black clothes with white shirt and black tie that told me he was very rich. After buying a ticket I would follow the crowd down a hallway that showed posters of the movies that would be playing there in the coming weeks. I always liked looking at these because they were so big and colorful and the actors and actresses in them looked so perfect. I even liked the horror movie posters even though they usually brought on nightmares. In my dreams the monster was chasing me instead of the actor in the poster. I loved being scared by them. My father used to tell me the posters were generally scarier than the movies they advertised. My father was always right. Reaching the snack bar was like entering another world. There was a labyrinth of shiny silver bars and red velvet cords you had to negotiate to reach the popcorn and candy. My favorite candy was Raisinettes but every now and then I would buy a box of pink and white Good 'n Plenty because even though I hated the taste of licorice I loved the way my mouth would be glued together and my teeth and my tongue would turn black. This childhood habit probably started me out on my lifetime of grinding my teeth. I remember a thick sheet of glass always protected the floor and the area of the snack bar was filled with the aroma of hot buttered popcorn and hot dogs. My sister once told me that the silver bars and velvet ropes had to be set up because a few years earlier there had been such a rush to get to snack counter that the little kids in front were trampled to death. I didn't think those velvet ropes could do much to hold back a stampeding crowd of ravenous movie lovers but I believed everything my sister said and I would never go to the snack bar by myself during intermission in case I got trampled to death. When I finally reached the auditorium I remember I would look around in awe at the red and gold surroundings, the plush scarlet drapes and the gold cupids and cherubim holding swords and laurel branches. I hadn't a clue what those cupids and cherubim were supposed to be doing with those swords and laurel branches but they sure looked classy. I always sat as close to the middle of the theatre as I could, facing those vast red curtains knowing they would open soon to reveal huge people doing glamorous and exciting things on a huge screen. I remember looking around at the balconies, some of which were so close to the screen it seemed the occupants could reach out and touch it. Except there never were any occupants. All through my childhood I never once saw any people sitting in those balconies. I assumed they must have been reserved for visiting celebrities. I wondered if Superman ever sat in one of those balconies. Over our heads was a large balcony that my parents said I was not allowed to visit until I was at least 12 years old? Some of my friends snuck up there once during the movie to see what was going on and when they came back they said most of the people weren't watching the movie at all but seemed more interested in each other and I thought what a waste of money. Before the movie could begin the lights would go out. They didn't dim slowly because dimmers hadn't been invented yet, they just went out and for a few seconds you sat there in pitch blackness while people around you shuffled and giggled in the dark. Then the screen would light up and bathe the auditorium with an eerie luminescence that lit up all the silent, upturned faces around me. First would be the coming attractions and I soon learned that these were always more exciting than the move when you saw it. After the trailers there would be my favorite commercials; a hot dog flipping into a bun followed by a parade of baton twirling ice cream bars. The music, whatever it was, was deafening and of a type I only ever heard in move theatres, most of it from obscure marches I think. I remember the screen was always lined and pitted with funny marks and splotches that made these commercials look very old and made me feel very young and new by comparison. The movie, whatever it was, would keep me interested for the first 10 minutes but then I would invariably drift off into the world of my own imagination as the plot or the actors on the big screen failed to hold my attention. Often the movies I made in my head were far more exciting and sometimes I just fell asleep and would be nudged awake by a sharp elbow from my sister. Then, groggily, I would pick my way through the mountains of discarded popcorn boxes, candy wrappers and soda cups that clogged the aisles. I would always carry my popcorn box outside and put it in the near empty trash can because that was what I was taught to do. My wife's sharp elbow prodded me back to the present and the unchanging words on the TV screen and the two of us exchanged the same look. Whatever the movie was we were waiting for probably wasn't going to be worth the wait so we shut off the TV, turned off the lights and did the smart thing. We went to bed and had a good night's sleep! The End
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