Byzantium's Shores: chronicling the misadventures of an overalls-clad hippie

On the movie-going experience: I still love sitting in a darkened theater, munching incredibly fattening popcorn and washing it down with at least 56 ounces of sugary soda (my favorite theater chain in Buffalo has switched from Pepsi products to Coke, which means I have to drink regular Coke because I think Diet Coke is gross, while Diet Pepsi is my favorite carbonated beverage of all time). I love seeing movies an that huge screen, which is the way they're intended to be seen, after all.

But theaters seem to be actively trying to encourage people to wait for the video.

First of all, theaters are never warm enough anymore. I know, it's expensive to heat a bunch of cavernous rooms, especially on a Monday when there just aren't enough bodies present to help bring the temperature up, but sheesh. When I step out into 55-degree air after the show, I should not feel like I'm warming up.

Second: this crap before the movie has got to go. Previews used to be fun, but now there are too damned many of them. Four is about my limit before I start getting impatient; the other day when I saw X2 I counted twice that many. And previews are all the same now: a shot or two of "normal life", followed by a shot or two of what happens to disrupt "normal life", than a lot of frenetic crap with the volume rising through it all. Then, just as the trailer becomes deafening, the sound cuts out long enough to show the advertised film's lead actor uttering some kind of clever line, and then there's one final burst of deafening stuff before the tagline, title and release date are flashed on the screen. If you're going to make me sit through eight previews, at least make them somewhat different.

And ads before movies are getting annoying. I can deal with the one for Fandango.com, because that's actually a movie-related service that's relevant to the product at hand. But as much as I find smoking a disgusting habit, and as supportive I am of the efforts to make smoking illegal everywhere except Kalispell, Montana, I really don't want to endure an anti-smoking propaganda ad before a movie in a cold-ass theater.

Oh, to return to previews for just a minute: just show the previews for movies that are coming out in the next year or so, thank you very much. Don't show me previews for what's actually playing just down the hall at the same multiplex. Believe me, I know what's out now. And for the love of GOD, don't show me previews for movies that were out six months ago, and are now coming out on DVD. BlockBuster can handle that. I can get through the movie-going experience just fine without being told when Die Another Day is coming to DVD.

All this pre-movie stuff has the effect of requiring me to set aside at least three hours to see a two-hour movie, and that's not including drive time. The other day I left the house at noon to do the following: Stop at Office-Max to make one hundred copies of a sales letter; Stop at the post office to mail out three short stories; See X2. All three stops, and my home, are within five miles of one another. I got back to the house just before 5:00, and I didn't stand on line more than five minutes at the post office or at Office Max.

The other effect of all this extra crap before the movie is even worse: it means that invariably, my bladder is reaching capacity just as the film is moving into its third act. I don't think I need to say anything more than that.

As for the theaters themselves: I love Regal Cinemas, with the huge seats and the stadium seating. That rules. And it's nice that the door to the auditorium is located down this little hall and around a corner, so when someone enters or leaves during the show the light from the hallway doesn't spill into the theater. But the presence of knobs and tension-bars, and the requisite loud clanking noise that goes along with them whenever the door is opened or closed, has got to go. And for God's sake, drop that white-shirt, black bow tie and burgundy vest outfit for the employees. Yeah, a perky high-school or college-aged girl looks cute as hell in that uniform, but nobody else does. Especially the guys. You could put Brad Pitt in one of those uniforms, and he's going to look vaguely like Ralph Wiggum.

But hey, the floors aren't quite as sticky and nasty as they used to be.