Movies as Ouija Board

Thanks for all the “Great to see you’re blogging again” comments. It’s much easier to find the time for it once you’ve been laid of. I’m sure something else will come up, and god I hated that commute anyhow. Spending 2-3 hours a day in traffic is absolute madness, it sucks all the life out of you. You quickly start doing the math in your head and realize you’re spending basically a whole extra shift a week just sitting in traffic, if you stretch it out further over a year, that’s almost an entire month out of a year I sat in traffic. Then start realizing too with that much time, all the things you could have been doing, with your family and friends, how you could have probably solved all the worlds problems, or at least written the great American novel. But no, all the while you were wasting your time watching people lip-sync to the radio in their cars. Wow, the crazy stuff we convince ourselves is necessary for our job.

One big thing people like to do in bad times, especially when they’ve been laid of is go to the movies. Now I have a nice DVD player and all, but I’ve never really joined the whole Netflix revolution. I like the full blown big screen experience. Give me a large diet Coke, bag of peanut M&Ms, and a seat where I can put my feet up on the rail just behind the place reserved for wheelchairs and I’m a happy little movie goer. It’s said that the Depression was a boom time for movies, people flocked to theaters to forget their cares for a while. These days too, Movies are bringing in the big crowds and big bucks.

We have a great little Art Cinema here in town, one that brings in all the independent films, foreign films, and documentaries. They get a lot of my business. They show all the “real” movies. I also go to a big chain theater that’s not too far up the interstate. I used to refer to these places generically as the “Hell Mall Octoplex.” At least the one I go to these days isn’t in a mall, not exactly. It’s in a big “new urbanist” development. It also has not just eight theaters, apparently eight screens just isn’t enough to be profitable anymore, this place has 24. I don’t even know the prefix for 24 so wouldn’t even know what to call this place.

They do have have this great little rewards card though, so occasionally when they print my tickets out, I get an extra little coupon. It’s usually a free soda, or popcorn, but occasionally a free movie. I apparently have reached some mythic level of movie goer status though. I’m apparently some Nth degree black belt movie goer. Now they give me this little remote thingy, with buttons for Bad Sound, Picture Quality, Audience Disruption, or Movie Piracy. I’m sure they’re most concerned about the Piracy thing at the bottom, but the power of Audience Disruption that goes to your head. On a couple of occasions now I’ve had to whip it out, stand up and wave it at inconsiderate movie goers carrying on conversations, all I have to do is point to it and say “don’t make me use this.”

So yeah, I see a lot of movies. I used to believe that the Universe sent me to the movies I needed to see. Whether there was some life lesson I needed to learn or fresh perspective I needed to be shown. It’s almost like God was talking to me through the movies. I know that sounds silly, but I’d noticed that whenever I had a big problem, I could find some advice to address it in whatever movie I went to see. That theory didn’t hold up long. Maybe I was just missing it but what was I supposed to learn from movies like “Showgirls” or more recently “Strange Wilderness” or “Meet Dave.”

I realized that what was really going on was more of a Ouija board effect. I was actually pulling out of the movie, the message I needed to hear. Movies work that way, just like a Ouija Board or Tarot Cards. We listen to what we need to hear, and focus on the things that fit and ignore everything else. We often know what we need, what the decisions must be. It just has so much more truthiness to it, when it comes from a mega-million summer block buster or the hottest new acting sensation.

So I’ll continue to go to the movies, and as I continue to do my job hunting and soul searching about my future and purpose in life. Hopefully sometime this Summer I’ll find a new job, get some more writing gigs, get that new book published. I’ll see a new movie where I’ll see myself as the main character, identify with all his trials and tribulations and eventual neat happy ending and walk out of the movie saying something like (with appropriate swelling orchestra movie theme in the back ground) “YES, I am a talented and valued member of society, and yes, this is a great world we live in!” (Crescendo, lights fade, credits).

Please God, just don’t let that character and movie be Will Ferrell in “Land of the Lost.”