I reject your reality – and substitute my own!

I rented a movie the other day. Yeah, I still do that. I don’t download like everyone else on the planet, okay? Anyway…
I had this idea, like you sometimes get, about a specific scene in a specific movie.

Hadn’t seen it in forever, so there’s that to be taken into account. The memory is a slippery little sucker. Ah, Mnemosyne, she has nimble feet the little minx.

I found the movie while browsing and figured I wanted to see that scene again.

It’s a crap movie. Crap script, actors struggling to do their best, total cliché bingo material throughout, but for whatever reason that one scene had stuck in my head.

So I get my popcorn and I’m watching. When I get to the scene in question, it’s … really, really bad.

So I sit there going ?

And that’s when it hits me.

I’ve done that thing again that I sometimes do. I am a fairly creative person, imagination working well, thank you – and maybe a little too well, you know what I mean?

I re-wrote that scene in my head. It’s much better in my version. Damn.

I hate when that happens.

So, instead of a pleasant evenings viewing there I am groaning in pain (yes, the rest of it is that bad) and throwing popcorn at my TV, wondering where the hell I went wrong.

That’s just it. It was much better inside my head, I swear. It’s like that sometimes.

ROL

Riddle me this, Batman…

When I go to the movies I always hope for the isle seat. I bet you can guess why.

Went to the movies the other day to see the Batman spectacular. For some reason there is no law against the food that makes the noise! Crinkle crinkle goes the wrapping paper. Crunch crunch goes the popcorn. I can live with that most of the time – unless the patron next to me insists on making that horrible noise while the hero is leaning in over his lady-love pouring his heart out while the music whispers softly in the background like the susurrus of a breaking heart.

I get a bad feeling when the seat next to me get taken by a young lady not very well endowed in the height department, for which she had been amply compensated in girth. She narrowly avoids breaking my nose with her elbow as she struggles out of her jacket and then settles down, beginning a whispered conversation with her boyfriend – and it seems to be about who is supposed to hold on to the large bag of … deep fried pork rinds?

I don’t honestly know what I find more disturbing here – that Mr and Mrs Fatty McArse thought it was a good idea to spend two hours munching away at the movies, or that they thought pork rinds was the way to go, or that they brought them from home…

I’m not a big fan of the idea of eating at the movies. I think we should be able to go 1 hour and 31 minutes without grazing, but I have been informed that popcorn and movies go together like… well, popcorn and movies. I think it should be the responsibility of theatres to provide silent candy only. And there should certainly be no slurping! None what so ever. That noise goes straight to my tiger glands and makes me want to rip someone’s throat out.

Anyway – they settle the bag between them and start chewing, crunching and crinkling. I draw a breath. I am about to explain in my kindest, gentlest voice that they should please please please stop making that noise when the movie starts and a big grin spreads on my face. Picture a contented smiling Buddha, enlightened and at one with all the mellow parts of the universe. Dark Knight is … loud. In a good way. They start blowing shit up almost immediately. I can’t hear my munching neighbours. I can’t hear a damned thing except the movie. Surround sound THX explosions. Ah. Bliss.

I liked the movie for other reasons too – psychopath anarchist nihilistic bad guys are always a treat. Heath Ledger gives a great last performance as the Joker. He played the Joker like a chaos demon. The last two Batman movies have redeemed the genre somewhat from the camp performances that have gone before. And they raise some interesting questions about morality if you’re in to that kind of thing. They also blow up a lot of stuff – and that’s what you want. Good value for money.

Best of all – I didn’t have to beat anyone up with their own bag of candy.

ROL