Suburban Movie Theatre
January 8, 2007
Regular Saturday thing, Justine and I at leisure, shooting the shit and talking movies. Not just any movies, but good flicks. The ones that have us talking and thinking for weeks afterwards. There don’t seem to be too many of those these days. We talk about violence in film and argue over Scorsese’s hammer-style film making. No Scorsese tonight. I just want a bag of popcorn. Seein’ as how city theatres have become damn near intolerable on the weekend, we head out to The Park for a slightly gentler movie-going experience. We pick the late show. Before we grab our seats, we hit the arcade and watch a group of younguns play Dance Dance Revolution. It’s an asinine game, but watching the kids hop around on it brings a weird sense of good to us. They could be out sucking on a pipe or causing shit, but they’re here. Dancing in front of a video screen. Money down, popcorn in hand, in the theatre. The guys behind us are trouble. Won’t shut the hell up through the trailers. They yak throughout the flick. As do the pre-pubescent shitheads in front of us. Just once this decade, I’d like to go to a film and not have someone talk through the whole thing. The film is mediocre. To me, mediocre is worse than terrible. Terrible can be memorable. A so-so flick just feels like a waste of time; like I should have had a game of checkers instead. I hate that shit. Life is too short to see so-so flicks. When we come out, the kids are still at it. Again we watch them, jumping around on command on a silly platform. Some kind of lesson there.
Vignette #150
3 reader comments (closed)
2
Children of Men. Not a BAD flick, but it just didn’t hold up for me.
3
trofs
Cindy-Lou and I saw “The Good Shepherd” on the weekend. Slow, Slow movie but also a fascinating character study. And to watch the birth of the CIA and we “don’t” know it. But we didn’t need the big screen for this one.
Apartment Window, Dec 06
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About
StreetRag is an urban weblog and podcast about the city of Edmonton, which is located in the province of Alberta, Canada. It is authored by Edmonton-based writer, web advocate, and poet Michael Gravel and is updated frequently with written urban vignettes, amateurish photographs, deuteronomous audio material, barely coherent musings and rambling ecumenical treatises. StreetRag is a love letter to a lonely prairie burg struggling with its big city ambitions and small-town feel.
Recent Vignettes
- About StreetRag • #260
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April 2, 2008 • - Overheard on the 4 Westbound • #258
March 31, 2008 • - Cigarettes and Aspirin • #257
March 28, 2008 • - Subscribe Archive
Podcast Episodes
- North Station • Ep. #13
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The City
The city is Edmonton. It's a subject, not a passion. E-Town is almost universally derided by outsiders as an unlivable tundra wasteland populated by oil-hungry redneck conservatives who despise the arts. All of that is true. But it's not the whole story. There is beauty here. Dusty snowfalls. Brilliant summers. A stunning river valley. A diverse arts community that flourishes. It's a place that inspires a gray relationship - not all good, not all shitty. For that reason alone it is lovable, for what is life but a grayscale?
1
Anon
What movie was it?
Jan 08, 2007 • 15:04