Night at the movies...

I was lucky enough to be able to attend the great American cinema last night. Ahhh…a night at the movies. Could anyone ask for anything better?

Since I was in the mood for a horror movie, I was left with two options. I could either sit around and wait for Saw to start, or I could bite the bullet and go see The Grudge, starring one of my mortal enemies, Sarah Michelle Gellar. Having a bad case of ants in the pants, I decided to forgo waiting for Saw and decided to take in a viewing of The Grudge. In hindsight, that was not the most intelligent thing to do.

The Grudge was an adequate movie, at best. In the same way that Hunts makes adequate ketchup. Sure, you still get the ketchupy taste, but it’s no Heinz. With the Grudge, you get the gist of a horror movie, but it’s no Stir of Echoes.

The Grudge was not very frightening and it left much to be desired. The film could have been spruced up had they had a hotter star, someone along the lines of Katie Holmes, to play the main role. If you love horror movies, I would not suggest going to see The Grudge. The Grudge was the Baltimore Orioles of horror flicks. Sure, it’s big budget and flashy, but when you get right down to it, it’s going to let you down. And then overspend on a washed up free agent. But this is all beside the point.

The reason I am telling you all of this is background information. The real highlight of my escapade to the cinema is that I went to a theater I had never been to before. I decided to go to the Brooklyn Center dollar theater. The place was ghetto with a capital G. Seriously. This place made 50 Cent look like Zack Morris. They were selling fried chicken at the concession stand. I wish I were making this up, but I’m not. I swear that the seats in the theater had hydraulics on them, but I couldn’t get mine to work. Must be a G thang.

But being this ghetto, it allowed me to meet a ton of interesting characters. And by interesting, I mean loud. And by loud, I mean Slipknot loud. There is a chance the theater would have gotten a noise ordinance violation if it had been driving anywhere. Luckily for everyone, I kept a little journal of some of the comings and goings throughout the theater during the movie. Enjoy…

Brent walks into the theater and takes his seat. The first seat he chooses has fried chicken grease everywhere, so he slyly moves to the next seat. A little grease is not going to bring him down. No way.

The lights dim and the picture appears on the screen.

Unidentified Child #1 screams “I wanna go home!”
Parent #1 says “Shut up and watch the movie.”

Unidentified Child #1 starts to cry and wail like he was forced to watch Rita Rudner perform stand-up comedy. Parent #1 has completely forgotten the child is there or is doing his best to ignore him. Brent has a feeling this is going to come back and haunt him.

Anonymous Black Male stands up and adjusts his hat. He slowly ambles back towards the entrance while listening to the voice mail on his cell phone. This would not be an isolated incident, I’m afraid. Anonymous Black Male spent 3 quarters of the movie standing in the aisle, and the rest of the time he was hollering at the screen like an audience member on the Jenny Jones show.

Unidentified Child #1 makes his way out into the aisle. Apparently, he decided it was time to play duck-duck-goose with the other audience members. As he is running down the rows, whacking people on the head, Parent #1 is idly trying to make time with the single mother sitting next to him.

Anonymous Black Male yells “Awww…no he didn’t. Fool got whacked in the head when he was sittin’ should have known it was coming cause I called it yo that he’d bleed . Ya saw?”

Somewhere near the front of the theater, an English teacher has a sudden heart attack as she hears the yelling. To add insult to death, Unidentified Child #1 taps her on the head while yelling “Goose”.

On the screen, a ghost type creature jumps out of the attic.

Unidentified Child #2 screams in terror!

Anonymous Black Male screams, in response to the child, “Awww…you just a little punk. Saw that coming cause she jump and you knew she run if she didn’t get killed you knew it. For real.”

Unidentified Child #2 starts to cry and wail “I wanna leave right now. Right now! Right now! RIGHT NOW!” This goes on forever.

Parent #2 looks at Unidentified Child #2 and shakes her head. But what can she do? She’s only 14 years old. Can she stand up to her son?

Brent looks around the theater. Is this what America is really like? Or was he just in some sort of parallel universe?

Finally the previews end and the movie is about to start…