One race where I get to sit still

On Saturday evening Edgar and I made the three-quarters of a mile trek down Pine Avenue to check out "2012" at the local Cinemark. Which brought up a few things, like:

1) Must stop going to movies in the evening at full price.
2) Why do people bring tiny tiny children to movies that aren't going to let out until well after 10 o'clock?
3) Why was the movie theater playing the sad Wal-Mart commercial? As if I wasn't already feeling trepidation for the people that were surely about to bite it in the movie I was about to watch?
4) Why do people clap at the end of a movie? It's a movie, not play, stupid. They can't hear you.
5) Why would you stand leaning against the sink playing with your phone in a crowded bathroom after a packed movie gets out, blocking other womens' access to a free sink to wash their hands and completely ignoring the bitter "Excuse me?" coming out of other's mouths? (Yes, tweenie, I'm looking STRAIGHT AT YOU.)


Going to the movies also brought me that little happy feeling in my gut that Oscar season is upon us. Of course that feeling might also be a little bitty baby but let's not confuse one thing with another, shall we? I've always loved to go to the movies; something about overpriced popcorn and buckets of soda six times the size of my bladder (for only 25 cents more than the medium!) make me tremble with delight and say "Sign me up, please." I revel in movie trivia. I may not have seen all of the "classics" and I can tell you very little about foreign films, but I still just like going to the movies, plain and simple. I have my standards, but they are totally inexplicable. I like what I like, and that's that.

Last year, though, I got very into the Oscar race. Edgar and I saw every movie that was nominated in the Best Picture category, and nearly every movie that had an actor/actress in the lead/supporting races. I say nearly because some of the smaller release movies that had actors in the race weren't playing at the theater near our place and I didn't feel like driving 40 miles to downtown LA to catch them. Especially since to catch a matinee showing we would have to leave much much earlier.

And take advantage of the matinee showings we did. At the AMC theater that was near our apartment in the December-February period of last year, they offered weekend matinees before noon at $6 per person. And since their security was ridiculously lax Edgar and I would make it a double feature and just movie hop. Nothing like a 10:30 am breakfast of salty buttery popcorn goodness washed down with a couple gallons of Diet Coke. There was also nothing like the slightly sick feeling that it would inevitably leave me with around 2:30 when we would be stumbling out of the theater into the blindingly bright light; turns out that your body does require more than fluffy carbs and soda in order to function.

And so it is time to begin that Saturday morning tradition once again. The only thing that is not going to last is the movie hopping part of it, I fear. Long Beach is much more ghetto (in the we-need-more-security) way than where we lived before (which was a whole 'nuther kind of ghetto). The Cinemark is much smaller and designed in a way that is not conducive to movie hopping activities. There's an AMC theater closer to our apartment, but it's even worse for the movie hopping, and *gasp* it does not have stadium seating. I guess I'm just spoiled, but we saw one movie there after we moved in and I don't really fancy seeing another.

But I love movie season! I love being able to watch the Oscars with a previous knowledge of the movies that are taking all of the top prizes. I like having my horse in the race. And I'm glad that I do this. While some of the Oscar fodder is, utlimately, fodder ("The Reader," anybody?), I also found some movies in there that I really liked as well ("Slumdog Millionaire," "Doubt") that I never would have seen if not for my goal to see all of the big Oscar movies. So let the games begin! My movie-watching ass is ready and waiting for that popcorn.