One Crazy Night

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This week’s screening schedule was exactly as this week’s title suggests. We had just one evening screening, and it was pretty much insane.

Tuesday night was the Son of Rambow screening, which was held at The Theater Where Nobody Shuts Up. And that always makes for an entertaining evening.

Since the theater is way on the other side of town, we decided to carpool—so Neil showed up at our place, and we drove down from here. We were planning to leave by 6:15ish for the 7:30 screening (both because it’s quite a hike down to that part of town and because the theater has absolutely no parking, so you have to show up early to get a spot that doesn’t require a two-mile hike). But Neil stopped at Kevin’s place before the screening and ended up playing with the baby for longer than expected. Fortunately, though, we’ve got backup. So while we waited for Neil to show up, I picked up the phone and called Jason, who was already on his way. So if we weren’t there before the doors opened, we’d still have a seat. It’s cool how that all works.

So anyway, we ended up parking on the street and still making it into the theater before the doors opened. But when we got there, we were greeted by one big, happy surprise: goody bags. Jamie, the lovely Paramount Vantage rep, had put together goody bags, filled with all kinds of fun, sugary ‘80s goodies. As soon as the bags were in our hands, we regressed about 20 years, and we were all like little kids on the playground, trading my Boston Baked Beans for Neil’s Snow White Pez dispenser. It was awesome. We had already been pretty excited to see the movie—and suddenly we were both excited and wired on Air Heads. Did I mention it was awesome?

So anyway, once the doors opened, we got ourselves some seats—right in the middle, right where we usually sit. We got to sit around and get caught up, since we hadn’t seen each other in a while week. It’s pretty strange, really, not seeing everyone several times a week. I actually kinda miss them. So it was nice to get caught up again.

Eventually, the theater started filling up, and, as is usually the case with The Theater Where Nobody Shuts Up, we ended up surrounded by entertaining characters.

Behind us, for instance, there were two Pepper Pots in training. I believe they were rather young, but they were still very Pepper Pot-ish. By that, I mean that they were absolutely mortified by everything in the movie. There’s a mouse on-screen, there are two “EEW!”s behind me. The kid’s drawing is a bit violent, there are two “UUH!”s behind me. There was an “OOOH!” or an “UUUH!” or a “EEEW!” for everything. Even pinecones, apparently, mortified these women. And if they weren’t expressing some form of horror and outrage, they were chatting up a storm.

But that’s only the beginning.

Then there was the guy in front of us. Now, I know that the movie was about a couple of kids in the early ‘80s, but I didn’t think that the screening necessitated costumes. But this guy definitely had a great costume: long, scraggly brown hair, black leather vest. He looked like a cast-off roadie from an ‘80s metal band. He had clearly smoked an entire pack before entering the theater, and I’m pretty sure that isn’t all this guy’s been smoking—since, from the sound of it, something fried the guy’s brain cells years ago. Oh, and he sounded just like Sam Elliot.

Fortunately, though, Sam Elliot enjoyed every minute of the movie. He was laughing. And clapping. And talking to the screen. He was having a great time. And as we sat behind him, snickering, his girlfriend was hunched down in her seat, and his friends, who were sitting next to him, were chuckling in embarrassment and leaning the other way.

So, yeah. It was another night at The Theater Where Nobody Shuts Up. Fortunately, the movie was a whole lot of fun. Neil’s looking forward to seeing it again at the screening he’s hosting this week—mostly because it’ll be nice to see it once without Sam Elliot’s commentary.

But that was it for the week. Kevin actually made the drive to Cincinnati last night for the Prince Caspian screening, but at $4 a gallon for gas, the rest of us figured that, if we really wanted to see it, we could pay to see it here instead of driving 200 miles round trip to see it for free. We were actually planning to see it today over lunch at the Movie Tavern, but then Neil decided to take a nap instead and David realized that he had a scheduling conflict, so Jason and I scrapped that idea. Since my brother-in-law, Ed, is in town this weekend, I took him to Guitar Center instead—and we had lunch at the only Friendly’s in town, followed by a stop at the only Dunkin’ Donuts in town. And we might just head to Movie Tavern tonight instead.

So this weekend’s a busy one. On top of having Ed here—which means some shopping, some hanging out, and maybe a trip to the zoo—I’m also heading over to the WCBE yard sale tomorrow for a while. (If you’re in the area, it’s from 10-2, and there will be cool stuff. Be sure to stop in!) And Sunday is the Indiana Jones screening. And we still have to re-watch The Last Crusade sometime between now and then. So I’m sure that’ll make for one crazy weekend. After that, though, there’s nothing. Seriously. Nothing at all. There are two screenings on Tuesday night, but they’re both movies that I will have already seen. So there isn’t a single screening this week. It’s going to be a quiet, lonely week—but, on the bright side, that means that I’ll be able to catch up on DVDs and books and music and stuff. So I’m not going to complain…