On Friday night I will be telling a story at the Mark Twain House for The Mouth, a Hartford-based storytelling series.
The story will include a mention of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. In fact, the film plays a pivotal role in the story.
Coincidentally, my wife sent me this today: A modern day trailer of the film.
Not nearly as funny as the actual film, but then again, few things are.
This amazing and devastating documentary from legendary director Werner Herzog should be required viewing for anyone who drives a car and owns a cell phone.
I don’t text and drive. The closest I come to doing so is to read and respond to text messages when stopped at a traffic light, but even this I think I will stop now.
It took me a week to watch this, but only because it’s the full length movie and then some (deleted scenes, and I’m quite busy.
But if you liked the movie Jaws or you’re interested in how films are made, this is absolutely for you.
Inside Jaws, A Filmumentary by @jamieswb (2013) from Jamie Benning on Vimeo.
It’s the 80th anniversary of the drive-in movie theater. From LIFE magazine:
It’s been 80 years since a New Jersey auto-parts store manager named Richard Hollingshead Jr. hit upon the idea of a drive-in theater. The wonder of Hollingshead’s concept, of course — as with all of the world’s greatest, most inspired, most life-affirming inventions — is that, despite how obvious it seems in retrospect, no one had thought of it before. Or, if anyone did think of it before, they hadn’t bothered to get a patent on the idea, as Hollingshead did on May 16, 1933. And no one had the wherewithal to actually envision, build and then open to the public this modern marvel, as Hollingshead and three other investors did when they cut the ribbon on the world’s first drive-in movie theater in Camden, New Jersey, on June 6, 1933.
On the anniversary of that landmark night 80 years ago, LIFE.com offers a series of photos celebrating the ingenious confluence of two of America’s abiding obsessions: movies and cars.
At the height of its popularity, there were more than 4,000 drive-in movie theaters throughout the country. Today less than 400 remain in business.
There are three within 30 minutes of my home.
Pleasant Valley Drive-In Southington Drive-In Mansfield Drive-In
When I tell this to people who live in Connecticut, they are often surprised. Three drive-in movie theaters within half an hour of their homes and no one seems to know.
I don’t understand it.
I consider these drive-in movie theaters a blessing.
When I was a boy, my parents took us to the drive-in movie theater in Mendon, Massachusetts. It is one of two drive-in movie theaters in Massachusetts that remains open today. When I was a child, the theater charged by the person, so my father would stuff us into the trunk and sneak us in to save a few bucks.
Today the theater charges $25 per car.
No sneaking in anymore.
We would always arrive extremely early and eat a picnic dinner before the show. We’d toss a football around in front of the massive screen and watch the stars appear in the sky, one by one, until it was dark enough to show the first movie.
When the film began, we’d climb atop the hood of the car and lean back against the windshield, wrapped in sleeping bags. If the temperature dropped too low, my father would start the car and warm us up by the heat of the engine.
There was also a drive-in theater called The Rustic in North Smithfield, Rhode Island that showed rated X movies. The screen directed away from the street, tempting passersby to try to catch a glimpse of that film as they sped down route 146. The Rustic is also still in operation today, though apparently they have dispensed with their more racy film choices.
When Clara was an infant, Elysha and I spent our summer at the drive in, watching movie after movie while she slept soundly in the backseat. We saw more than 20 movies that year, exceeding my goal of a dozen and proving to naysayers that a child did not spell the end to our movie going past time.
Clara is four years old now and considers almost every movie, regardless of age range, too frightening to watch, so it might be a while before we bring her and Charlie back to the drive-in.
I know. It’s blasphemy to even suggest that there is a flaw in the first Star Wars film.
Still, there was. And it takes place in the first ten words:
In these ten words, George Lucas renders everything we are about to see less immediate and less pressing by the fact that the people and events in his story are ancient history. Luke Skywalker, Han Solo and Princess Leia have been dead for centuries, if not millennia. They are historical figures, more distant to us than George Washington and Charlemagne.
Though I may ultimately be drawn into their story, any dangers that they might face are mitigated by the fact that these dangers passed a long time ago.
Thankfully, Star Wars was great enough to overcome this flaw. Even as historical figures, the characters are vivid and enduring. I can still recall sitting on the edge of my seat as Luke Skywalker flew his X-wing fighter through that trench in an effort to destroy the Death Star, even though that battle took place hundreds or thousands of years ago.
The story and character were good enough for me to forget the opening scroll completely.
Still, it was a mistake. No need to remove the characters and events from the audience any more than necessary.
Also, and perhaps even more egregious, an ellipsis consists of three consecutive dots. Not four.
Did George Lucas fail to hire a copyeditor?
I am not exactly a Trekkie. I’ve seen all the Star Trek films and many of the television series, but I have serious problems with the show.
That said, this is one of the best commercials that I have ever seen.
The most overlooked flaw of Raiders of the Lost Ark is this:
Indiana Jones is superfluous to the story. Had he refused the mission and remained back at the college, the Nazis would’ve found the Ark on their own, brought it to the island, opened it and died the same horrible death.
Nothing changes with the introduction of Indiana Jones to the story.
The story’s protagonist is completely unnecessary.
Still, I love the movie.
If you haven’t seen the recent conspiracy video suggesting that the destruction of the first Death Star was an inside job perpetrated by the Empire, you should.
The video also got me thinking:
Luke Skywalker is one unlucky son-of-a-bitch.
In the span of just a couple years, his father tried to kill him multiple times and he fell in love with his own sister.
And I don’t care if he didn’t know that Leia was his sister. He still thought that she was hot. He still put a move on her. They still kissed.
How did he manage to dodge the stigma of that so easily?
If I were Han Solo (and I like to think I am), I would’ve never let him live it down.
The Illinois board of tourism created this video in honor of Abraham Lincoln and the attention he will be receiving at the Academy Awards this evening as a result of the Spielberg film.
It’s a bizarre film by any standards but even more so considering it comes from a governmental agency responsible for bringing tourists to their less-than-touristy state.
Government is so often devoid of humor. I love it when someone working in the bureaucratic machine manages to be creative.
When George Lucas visited Steven Spielberg on the set of Close Encounters of the Third Kind in 1976, he was so impressed by the movie's huge sets and Spielberg's vision that he bet Spielberg that the film would become a bigger hit than his own space movie that he was just completing at the time.
The bet was an exchange of 2.5 profit points on Close Encounters of the Third Kind for 2.5 profits points on Lucas's film -- titled Star Wars.
This actually turned out to be a good deal for both men. The money earned from Close Encounters of the Third Kind helped to keep Lucas’s studio afloat in a times of need, and the profits from Star Wars are still being realized by Spielberg today.
My friend and I have a similar bet. Several years ago we agreed to pay 10% to the other person if we ever made one million dollars on a single transaction. My friend is a landlord and property owner and I was school teacher with a dream of finishing his first novel.
It seemed like a great deal for me at the time.
When I told me wife about the bet a few years later as I began publishing novels, she was none too pleased.
Unfortunately, neither one of us has come close to having to fulfill our end of the bet, nor does it look like we will be doing so in the near future, but if I am ever required to hand over $100,000, it won’t hurt too much.
The other $900,000 will be comfort enough.
I enjoy the movies a lot, but I have begun to enter movie theaters with great trepidation, knowing that it takes just one moron to ruin the experience.
The idiots who text during the movie are bad enough, and the people who actually make and receive calls on their cell phones make the experience untenable.
Then there are the extreme, albeit seemingly common, cases:
On Valentines Day this year, I found myself sitting next to a couple and their infant. The baby was noisy, cried at least twice, and at one point the couple changed the baby’s diaper while still sitting in their seats.
I don’t care what anyone says. Infants do not belong in movie theaters.
Then there was the toddler sitting in the front row for Cloverfield until the parents finally decided to act responsibly and remove their terrified child from the theater.
All I ask is to watch a movie in peace and quiet, but people seem so willing and capable of screwing this up.
Unfortunately, movie theaters do little to prevent these distractions even as they watch their ticket sales decrease year after year. They have no policy against bringing a baby into a theater and they rarely monitor the behavior of their patrons as they are watching the film. And even if a person wants to complain, it means missing a significant portion of the movie to do so.
I’m happy to report that someone is finally doing something about this problem, and the solution is almost too good to be true:
Ninjas defending your right to a quiet, distraction-free theater.
The Prince Charles Cinema in Leicester Square has joined forces with Morphsuits — a manufacturer of skin-tight zentai suits — to launch an army of volunteer "cinema ninjas" who get to watch the movie for free in exchange for donning a black body suit and pouncing on misbehaving moviegoers from behind the cinema's shadows.
The "ninja taskforce" stunt has been met with critical acclaim, and was recently picked up by two other British movie theaters.
While I would prefer that the ninjas be professionals, capable of actually removing unwanted patrons from the theater (and inflicting a modicum of pain in the process), this is at least a step in the right direction.
It’s also the only step I’ve ever seen any movie theater to ensure that their customers enjoy a disturbance-free experience.
I have a few suggestions as well:
I think these three suggestions are reasonable in scope and would be fairly simple to enact and would be greeted with near-universal appreciation.
Most important, these three steps (in addition to heavily armed ninjas) would go a long way in providing movie theater patrons the kind of experience that the high cost of a movie ticket should guarantee.
TIME reports that “Last summer’s blockbuster movie season was considered a bust, with the fewest movie tickets sold at theaters since 1997. Despite recent hits such as “The Avengers” and “The Dark Knight Rises,” by the time Labor Day rolls around, the summer of 2012 will fare even worse.”
TIME attributes this loss to the rising cost of tickets. While ticket prices may play a role, the average ticket price in the US in 2012 is $8.12. In 1995 it was $4.35.
Has $4 really created a barrier to keep audiences out of the theaters?
Maybe.
I haven’t seen as many movies this year as in previous years, but there is one primary reason why my attendance is down:
A decline in the quality of the movie-going experience
Patrons using cell phones during the film and bringing babies into the theater have created an untenable movie experience for me. While I am still willing to risk these two potential distractors in order to see a movie that I am excited about, I am far less likely to risk two hours of my life on on a less appealing movie if I’m concerned about being confronted by a person texting or talking in the middle of the movie or a baby sitting next to me.
It’s that simple. These inconsiderate idiots have ruined the movie-going experience for me.
I’ll also add that the lack of television viewing, combined with the fact that everything I watch is time-shifted, has also resulted in my complete lack of awareness over what is playing at the movie theater. There was a day when I would see a movie trailer on television and potentially become excited about the film. Today I only see movie trailers while watching sports, which is the only television program I watch that is not time shifted.
For me, the issue has less to do with cost and much more with the inconsiderate morons who I find myself sitting beside at an alarming rate. When movie theaters are ready to get serious about the actual movie-going experience by eliminating infants from the theater and finding ways to reduce cell phone use (I would not be opposed to the use of a cell phone jammer inside every movie theater), then I will return to the movies with the frequency that I once enjoyed.
After 28 years at the AMC Harvard Square theater, the Rocky Horror Picture Show will move its weekly midnight screenings of to the AMC Loews Boston Common 19 theater, with shows starting Saturday, Aug. 4.
Though I am sad to see the show move from Harvard Square, where I have seen it many times, I am happy that it lives on in New England. As a card-carrying member of The Rocky Horror Picture Show Fan Club, a two-time performer in the show and someone who saw the Broadway version of the show twice, I am desperately hoping that the show lives on long enough for me to take my children someday.
When they are much, much older.
If you are not familiar, a midnight performance of the Rocky Horror Picture Show is much more than just a showing of the 1975 science fiction/horror musical starring Susan Sarandon and Tim Curry. It is a live performance that demands audience participation that includes such things as dancing the Time Warp along with the film and throwing toast, water, toilet paper, hot dogs, and rice at the appropriate points in the movie.
Fans often attend shows in costume, while an onstage "shadowcast" act out the movie. Audience members also use newspapers to cover their heads and squirt guns for rain during the "Over at the Frankenstein Place" musical sequence, and use noise makers during the scene in which Rocky is unveiled.
Most prevalent, however, are the call-backs: lines that audience members shout back at the film at appropriately timed intervals. They are often hilarious, occasionally vulgar, and an ever-present element of any midnight showing. Many of these call-backs have been canonized over the years and can be as tightly scripted as any play, though new lines involving recent pop culture references often find their way into the script as well. You can actually buy audio versions of the film that include recordings of the audience call-backs in order to learn them before attending the show.
In truth, none of this accurately describes The Rocky Horror Picture Show. It’s the kind of thing that must be experienced firsthand to be fully understood.
I attended my first Rocky Horror Picture Show in the early 1990’s after arriving in Connecticut, but that show quickly shut down. Soon after, I discovered the midnight show in Harvard Square and began making the trek a few times a year for several years, though it’s been a while since I have returned.
The problem with the show, or more accurately, the problem with potential audience members, is that the show begins at midnight, meaning that audiences don’t exit the theater until well after 2:00 AM. For someone like me, who lives in Connecticut, this means that I am probably crawling into bed just as the sun is peeking over the horizon (or not sleeping at all), making it exceedingly difficult for me to find friends who are willing to attend a performance.
As you may know, I am a constant advocate of putting yourself out there, but I am also a frequent complainer about the lack of friends who are willing to drive into the city on a weeknight for a Moth show, arrive home in the wee hours of the morning after a Monday Night football game and are otherwise hampered by an incessant need to be home at a reasonable hour.
For these people, The Rocky Horror Picture Show is an impossibility, even though it runs on a Saturday night. Admittedly, this is partly the result of an aging base of friends who simply cannot stay awake all night as they once could, but it also take a certain type of person who is willing to drive into Boston for a midnight showing of a movie where you will be asked to dance in the aisles, dodge toast and toilet paper, absorb a shower of water and rice and possibly be dragged on stage to perform.
My greatest hope is that my children will be this kind of people.
Life is a hell of a lot more fun when you are willing to try the ridiculous and sacrifice sleep for the sake of possibility.
Has you seen Lena Dunham’s film Tiny Furniture?
I heard great things about this movie, and over the weekend, my wife and I finally had a chance to sit down and watch it.
It’s an excellent movie. The writing is very good, the cinematography, while not visually stunning, is interesting and different, and the acting is excellent. I like Lena Dunham. She’s brave and honest and funny.
My issue with the film is its ending. In fact, it has no ending. It’s one of these movies that make you wonder if the director simply ran out of film or lost the last few pages of the script and decided to yell, “That’s a wrap!” in hopes that the last pithy line of dialogue will be suggestive enough of an ending to allow art house critics and hipsters conjure meaning in their minds while arrogantly assuming that only they are capable of understanding said meaning.
The movie just stops. There is no respect for story arc or even the sense that a story should have some kind of beginning, middle and end.
I can’t tell you how much that annoys me.
Would I recommend that you see Tiny Furniture?
Yes, actually I would. It’s an excellent film.
But do me a favor. Since you will be watching it at home, stop the movie wherever you think it should end. Choose any pithy, suggestive line of dialogue that feels right to you. Or stop it when you need to pee and shout, “That’s a wrap!”
Make your own ending to the movie rather than being surprised like me when the credits begin rolling and you are left wondering what the hell just happened.
There are many decisions to make when it comes to your children and the Star Wars franchise. When should a child first watch Star Wars?
In what order should a child view the movies?
Should existence of the three prequels be concealed as long as humanly possible?
Which versions of the movies should be shown? The digitally re-mastered versions or the original?
In other words, who do you want your child to think shot first? Geedo or Han Solo?
Okay, that might be an easy one.
Still, so many decisions to make as my daughter gets older.
But this is one I can get firmly behind.
Most of the elliptical machines that I use at the gym are equipped with televisions. I often spend my 30-45 minutes of cardio listening to podcasts, audiobooks and music, but occasionally, AMC, Spike, FX, or even ABC Family will run just the right movie to watch while working out. And sometimes that movie will be in just the right spot when I start working out.
Today the movie was Coach Carter, the true story of coach Ken Carter (played by Samuel Jackson) and his decision to bench his undefeated high school basketball team for academic reasons.
I’d never seen the film, but I’ve seen enough sports movies to understand the formula.
Sports movies make for an excellent workout.
Even better, I began working out during the last 45 minutes of the film, which features the Dead Poet’s Society moment when the team stands up for their coach, followed by the final game of the team’s season.
Well choreographed, well scored, nail-biting hoops with more dunks, alley-oops and three pointers than in a week of NBA games.
It could not have been a better moment to step on that elliptical.
In regards to my crusade to ban infants from all movie theaters comes this small update: It would appear that AMC Loews closest to my home (Plainville, CT) has policy that bans children under six from R-rated movies shown after 6:00 PM.
I am checking to see if this policy is company wide or theater specific.
While I am not completely satisfied with this policy, it’s a start. And this theater will most definitely receive my business over all Rave Motion Pictures theaters, which have no policy regarding infants.
Ideally, I would like to see all children under two years of age banned from all non-G rated movies except those theaters that show movies specifically designed for mothers and infants.
National Amusements, for example, has a program called Baby Pictures. During these specific movie times, the theater offers “dim lighting to allow for easy child care in the auditorium; lowered movie volume for babies' sensitive hearing; baby changing stations and stroller area.”
In my humble opinion, this should be the only time that an infant should be permitted into a non G-rated film.
But again, I’m willing to compromise. Slightly.
If you attend a movie in the near future and would be kind enough to inquire about their policies regarding infants, I would appreciate any information you could provide me. I have inquiries pending at the corporate offices of four major theater chains and will update you when and if I receive a response.
One more note on my Valentines Day movie experience:
The trailer for the new 3-D release of Titanic preceded our film. Halfway through the trailer, I heard a sudden weeping to my right.
It was Elysha. Weeping. Crying hysterically. Balling her eyes out. Doing that odd flutter-her-hands-in-front-of-her-face gesture that she does when she cries, as if she is attempting to brush away the paralyzing emotions with her hands.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, thinking she was feeling ill. Thinking there might be something wrong with the baby. After all, how could anyone weep over the trailer to a movie that she has already seen more than once?
But no, it was the trailer.
“Is it pregnancy hormones?” I asked. “Is that the problem?”
“No,” she repeated. “It’s the movie. It’s just so sad.”
I could barely understand what she was saying between the gut-wrenching sobs.
“I don’t think I can ever watch that movie again,” she said, tears streaming down her cheeks.
I can’t imagine what it must have been like the first time she saw the movie.
I contacted the manager of the theater where my wife and I saw The Descendants on Valentines Day. I explained our experience in detail and spoke for quite a while about it.
In summary:
1. Rave, the company that owns the theater, does not have a policy prohibiting infants in any movies, regardless of time or subject matter.
2. Children under three do not pay for seats in the theater.
3. If a patron reports that a baby is disturbing the film, a manager will request that the parent remove the baby from the theater until he or she has quieted down. When I explained to the manager that all babies make some noise, even if it’s a cooing or a babbling, he said that some noises are more disturbing to patrons than others.
4. He also admitted that requesting that a baby be removed from the theater is a potentially volatile encounter. Just in the past week, he had been accused of racism and sexism in two separate incidents when asking a customer to remove a baby.
5. He rejected the idea of a policy against babies in the theater under any circumstances, claiming that the theater would receive too many complaints to make the policy sustainable. When I suggested that the fifty people who shared a theater with me on Tuesday night also had a complaint about the policy of allowing babies in the theater, he said, “But no one actually complained.”
Yes, I admitted, but only because people who leave their babies at home with babysitters are more civilized and rationale than those who bring their babies into movies. We sit in our seats, not wanting to miss a second of the film, hoping that a fellow audience member will compromise their viewing experience in order to complain. We pray that the baby will remain silent throughout the film. We rationalize our inaction by assuming that this is a once-in-a-lifetime event, thereby making any complaint after the fact irrelevant. We rush out of the theater with no time to seek out a manager because we have a babysitter at home and the clock is ticking.
We do not complain, but when we find out that this happens with regularity (as it apparently does based upon the manager’s comments), we don’t come back.
6. The manager offered me free passes, popcorn and soda to our next film. I asked if he would also reimburse the cost of babysitting. He declined.
In general, the manager handled the phone call well. The only time I became irate was when he rejected the notion that a no-baby policy would make his job easier.
Paraphrasing, he said that I am fortunate because I have the means to hire a babysitter and know people responsible enough to watch my child. But not everyone has the means to hire a babysitter or knows a capable babysitter who they trust, but they still have the right to attend a movie.
“Yes,” I said. “I have the means and access to a babysitter, but attending a movie is not a Constitutional right. If you cannot afford a babysitter or cannot find a babysitter, then you rent a movie at home. You don’t make fifty people suffer so that you can see The Descendants on the big screen.”
After hanging up the phone, I told my wife that this is not the end.
It’s only the beginning of my new crusade to expunge infants from movie theaters.
My first step is to contact the other movie theaters in the area and determine if they have policies regarding babies in the theater.
Next, I plan to contact the corporate headquarters of these companies and speak to someone in a position to change policy. I will argue my case and attempt to affect change.
I will also transform this blog post and the previous blog post into a piece that I will attempt to get published in print.
Yes, I have enough to do already, but this is a cause that is just and right. Excluding infants from movie theaters, even if the ban is predicated on the show time or rating of the film, will not only benefit moviegoers but will also help these infants, who do not need to be bouncing on parents laps at 9:00 PM, watching and listening to a rated R film.
The movie lover in me wants this policy changed.
The parent in me wants this policy changed.
The teacher in me wants this policy changed.
And I suspect that a great majority of moviegoers want this policy changed, too.
