Finals are over. The days are getting longer and the weather is getting warmer. Everyone is eating water ice and shopping for bathing suits.
Summertime is here.
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One popular activity during the summertime in the US is to watch movies. (At least among people in the middle to upper class.)
My father grew up in a small town in Southern Mississippi, and he told me that the only place that had air conditioning was the movie theatre. If you wanted to escape the sweltering heat and humidity without risking bugbites at the local creek, the movie theatre was the place to go.
Several decades later, this is still a popular reason to go to the movies: air conditioning.
Going to the movies wasn’t as simple for me as it was for my dad, though.
Growing up, I’ve frequently come across a choice: watch an uncaptioned movie with my friends and derive pleasure from eating popcorn and drinking soda with my friends despite the fact that I can’t understand a word onscreen, or hibernate all summer and wait for the overhyped blockbusters to be forgotten.
I don’t like this choice. It’s painful.
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Several times, I have been told, “It won’t matter if you can’t understand what they are saying in [latest blockbuster] because…”
- “…nobody says anything important anyway.”
- “…the visuals are interesting enough.”
- “…it’s such a great experience to be able to see it in the theatre.”
- “…the story is easy to follow.”
- “…you have read the books / seen the mini-series / played with the toy franchise it’s based on, so you’ll understand what’s going on.”
- “…it’s all just explosions / battles anyway.”
etc, ad infinitum.
None of these are true. I have two examples that illustrate why.
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During the summer of 2007, I am living in Salt Lake City with a good friend from high school.
One day in mid-July, it is about 110 degrees Fahrenheit outside. Since we are both broke, we do not have the air conditioning turned on.
My housemate turns to me and says, “Hey, let’s go watch Transformers!”
I say, “Hell yes!”
We hop into my housemate’s car and drive to the movie theatre.
Other than us, the theatre is deserted – there’s a mother and her seven-year-old boy, but that’s it.
My housemate and I split a large buttered popcorn and we each get a cup of soda. We put our feet up on the back of the chairs in front of us and lounge in the plush seats in that blissfully cool and dark theatre.
But I can’t understand one word – so I leave the theatre feeling extremely miffed.
Since then, people have joked about how terrible Transformers was – but I don’t feel like I can make a judgement about it even though I sat in the theatre for two hours and watched the whole thing.
Sure, it may have been a throw-away Michael Bay movie, but watching explosions isn’t very interesting if you can’t hear the dialogue that provides a context for the explosions.
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Spring 2006. It is my senior year in high school, and everybody in my class has been talking about Brokeback Mountain for months on end. (Especially since it has been banned from the local mall’s theatre.)
One day, the gay-straight alliance organizes a field trip to the movie theatre to watch it. Since I’m the co-president and I’m interested in seeing the movie, I decide to go.
On the way, everyone reassures me for the millionth time that I will be fine. I’m told no less than three times that “It’s about macho cowboys. They say, like, five words throughout the whole movie.” Several people also tell me that the visuals are very good – all the pretty mountains are worth looking at for two hours.
As it turns out, this is not true at all.
Sure, the mountains were pretty. But the movie isn’t about mountains – it’s about the men who live in the mountains. (Besides – I grew up in Utah. I could see these pretty mountains any old time I wanted to.)
And, sure, the two cowboys may not have been the most talkative people in the world – but what they said is important.
To this date, I still have not seen Brokeback Mountain with captions, even though it has been on DVD for a while and I have since read the book. It’s on my “to-do” list but I keep putting it off.
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Blockbusters aren’t only popular during the summertime, of course. Avatar came out in the dead of the winter, for example. (I’m proud of myself for holding out until the DVD came out so that I can truly enjoy it with captions despite the fact that at least ten people told me that the 3-D was really cool.)
But with more free time, more people go to the movies. So movies are as much of a part of most of my friends’ summers as water ice is and all of the free weeklies have cover stories about the latest summer blockbuster.
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Even putting aside the fact that I can’t participate in a major cultural activity that defines summertime in the US, I don’t enjoy the summertime – I am a winter person. Give me 10 feet of snow in my backyard and the opportunity to wear long underwear and flannel shirts and I’m the happiest boy on earth.
This year, though, I plan to catch up on my movie viewing to distract myself from the blockbusters that everyone is talking about. For example, I haven’t seen anything by Hitchock except for Vertigo – a fact that I must remedy.
For those of you that enjoy it, though: Have a happy summer!
