I Went to a Second Rate Movie Theater to See a Crummy Movie. It Was Everything I'd Hoped It Would Be and More!
In my memoir The Big Rewind I wrote about how during my month-long stay in a grim, soul-crushing mental hospital at fourteen I was unhealthily fixated on seeing a movie in a movie theater as soon as I possibly could.
During my thirty miserable days in a psychiatric institution that did way more lasting harm than good movie theaters were my Happy Place. They were my true home, the place where I felt safe and content, just another dreamer in the dark losing himself in a gossamer world of Hollywood make believe.
To give myself a reason to make it through every endless, dispiriting day I obsessed on every deeply satisfying element of the moviegoing experience, from the taste of salt and butter and ice cold Cherry Coca-Cola on my tongue to that thrilling moment when the lights would go out and the show would officially begin.
At that age movies weren’t just escape or entertainment: they were life. They gave my sour grey existence color and joy and meaning. I lived for those trips to the movies. Without them I was beyond miserable. It’s no exaggeration to say that the prospect of being able to skip school in favor of a trip to the multiplex was one of the many things that allowed me to survive both the mental hospital and a Dickensian childhood.
In that instance at least absence definitely made the heart grow fonder and I already loved going to the movies more than anything else in the world.
I’ve thought about that awful month of cinephile yearning a lot over the course of the last sixteen months or so.
During that time I once again found myself in the unenviable position of wanting desperately to experience one of my all-time favorite rituals—taking good drugs and then seeing bad movies in second rate movie theaters—but being maddeningly unable to scratch that particular itch.
The forty-four year old me was not quite as fixated on getting to see a movie in a theater the first chance I got as my fourteen year old self because I thankfully have more in my life than just movies. Nathan Rabin’s Happy Place challenges me creatively in a way freshman year at Mather never did.
But when I thought about what I wanted to do as soon as I was able to resume some approximation of a normal life post-pandemic, I invariably envisioned either a movie theater, a venue where “Weird Al” Yankovic, Phish or Insane Clown Posse would be performing or my former home town of Chicago, where my dad lives.
I’m not sure I’m ready for concerts or flights yet but I was double vaccinated a month or so back so last Friday I returned to the movie theater for the first time in over sixteen months, since I saw Cats on Christmas in 2019 with my wife.
The movie in question was the hard-R reboot of Mortal Kombat, a movie the thirteen year old me was very excited about and the forty-four year old me was appropriately dubious of.
I saw Mortal Kombat at Tucker’s Movie Tavern, a half-assed movie theater and a lackluster restaurant all in one. I love the Movie Tavern because it’s conveniently located but also because it’s kind of shitty, and I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for shitty, fucked up, run-down movie theaters.
For reasons I cannot begin to fathom, I ordered a Caesar side salad, a medium popcorn with butter and a large Cherry Coke.
Why did I order a Caesar side salad at a movie theater? What the hell was I thinking? There’s movie theater food and then there’s non movie theater food and “Caesar side salad” will forever fall on the “not movie theater food” side of that ledger.
Moreover, the popcorn was stale and the soda flat. And I barely picked at my Caesar side salad, which was just as regrettable as you would imagine it would be.
I had to sit too close to the screen in a poorly designed auditorium that looks and feels depressingly like a high school classroom with an unusually large screen in one corner and Mortal Kombat was pretty fucking stupid.
Here’s the thing: none of that mattered! I still had a great time. Every individual aspect of the experience was a disappointment yet the grand gestalt was wonderful. It just felt good to be watching a movie in a theater alongside other human beings, regardless of how minor or forgettable the movie might be or how sketchy the theater.
I have been looking forward to that blessed moment when I could return to moviegoing for 16 months. The actual experience did not disappoint.
I give moviegoing after a long, pandemic-related absence 10 out of 10. Imagine how transcendent the experience would have been if the movie was any goddamn good at all?!?
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