Monday, May 23, 2005

Why a Midnight Showing is Sublime

I love opening night midnight showings.

Part of it is the glory of being the first to see it. A reason my wife finds sadly pathetic.

But Friday evening I found a really pratical reason why midnight showings are simple the best possible time to see a movie.

When I saw Episode III Thursday morning around 12:01 am I was surrounded by like minded fanboys and girls. All ravenous for the final installment. The Fox fanfare rolls in and everyone cheers...and then shuts up. R2-D2 bleeps something funny and everyone laughs...and then shuts up. The fanboys slurp their soda quietly and much their popcorn with their mouths closed...why? So that they don't miss any of Lucas crap (ahem!) precious dialogue. People cheer when Grievous is done in, they cringe when Anakin is roasted.

The gestalt of the movie going experience is worth buying tickets 3 days in advance and waiting in line 2.5 hours. Why? I will only see this movie for the 1st time once. It must be perfect.

Now a buddy of mind literally missed this showing, his ticket still sitting in my wallet waiting for him to show up. How could this be you ask. A girl. That's subject for a whole other blog. But anyway we went and saw the Friday 6:50pm showing.

Great googlymoogly never again. Little kids by the scores! A 3 year old sitting in a booster seat next to us.

3 YEARS OLD!!! What father does that?

The kid only commented on the colors throughout the movie. "Daddy that man is blue"Image hosted by Photobucket.com

and "Daddy that room is all white."blockade runner


OK granted that shot is from Episode IV but you get the point.

Some dude was pulling one of those corrogated straws through it's plastic lid..you know the ones? RIIIIIIIIP!!! THRIIIIIIIPPPP! RIIIIIIPPPPP!! THRIIIPPPPP! Throughout the entire movie. I mean if he had done that at midnight his arms would have been torn off and fed to him.

It was insane. How can people tolerate such poor viewing conditions?

This has only made me more elitist. it's interesting that geeks are a segment of the population generally looked down upon and seen as subnormal. Yet the geek population sees themselves as greater than the masses.

An elite snobbery born out of cultural isolation brought upon by social misunderstanding.

3 comments:

Nathan Hackman said...

Agreed, and in my opinion, the best time for you "superior" persons to be out and about is, oddly enough, 12:01 AM. Is it true that the fair one was given a bedtime by the girlfriend?

Anonymous said...

I'm just glad that you got to see it in silence the night before....I can see your face now, grimacing in pain and frustration at straw-boy. >:-(

Anonymous said...

I think your friend that missed the movie should dump his girlfriend. I would be a bit miffed if I had to miss that showing.