I Went to a Second Rate Movie Theater to See a Crummy Movie. It Was Everything I'd Hoped It Would Be and More!

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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. 

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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. 

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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. 

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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. 

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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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