Amazing Adventures Of Molemen, Zombie Children, And Howler Monkeys!

Ah, spring time. At least I think it's spring time. Growing up in the Berkshires, where spring lasts for about five seconds, just going from cold and snowy to cold and muddy, I'm not exactly sure what spring looks like. I think there are flowers involved. I'm not positive. I still don't know what we're having here in Chicago... it's cold, but crisp, sunny and windy. The only way I know it's winter and that I know we're coming out of it (other than the infallible meteorological practice of groundhog watching) is that we're moving away from the current crop of blindingly bad movies that are clogging up the theaters towards the kind of smaller interesting movies that have been coming out this time of year for the last few years. I saw Munich on Monday, which, was a moving experience. I'm not talking about the movie exactly (though it was pretty good), but, the actual experience of seeing the movie. People always claim that one of the reason that theater receipts are down and people enjoy watching movies at home is because they hate putting up with the crowds at the theaters. They've tired of putting up with people who come on dates where they guy apparently just wanted a nice darkened place to say obliviously annoying things to the girl, kids who like to pay 9.50 to sit in a dark loud room and play the fun game of 'Who can shout the stupidest possible thing at the screen in order to impress the rest of the kids here?', and old people who bitch through a movie they're in only because they read a good review in the New York Times but apparently still have no idea what the movie was supposed to be about. And I'm someone who still likes going to the theater. Sometimes you just need to see a movie with other people - like as much as I love 'Serenity', the few times I've watched it since it has come out on video just haven't given me the same experience as the two times I saw it with an audience. I feel like much more of a nerd cheering as spaceships fly across my screen at home, but when a hundred people are doing it with you, you don't care that you're a big dork wearing a 'Blue Sun' T-Shirt that I ordered over the internet. I mean, the hypothetical 'you' doesn't.

Anyway, I figured that with a more personal movie like Munich, a little silence and respect would be a better environment to see it in. So, what better time than a Monday afternoon? But instead of silence, I found that the entire movie theater was engulfed in a deafening shriek. My first thought was of course, "HOWLER MONKEYS!", and I took the appropriate measures of dropping to the floor in a swift barrel roll, and then crawling to the escalator, much to the wonder of the elderly woman validating her parking. I paid her no heed, knowing full well she would soon be monkey fodder. But as I made my way up the escalator, I realized that the howling was in fact children, streams and streams of them, coming down from the theaters. I feared for my life at this point, knowing that no amount of my super maneuvers would help me escape a hundred, brain eating children. I knew I was really in trouble when I looked back at the two men behind me, as one of them was hit square on the head with a bag of popcorn, and his friend laughed at him (because, what are friends for really?), so not only was I dealing with ravenous children, but apparently, they had super aim.

I'm positive that the only reason I'm alive to tell my tale is due to the teachers who were on the scene, who were as good at screaming as the children, declaring that girls bus was on the left, boys bus on the right. They cleared out behind me as I bought the my ticket, but I didn't really have a chance to watch them, since me and the usher both had to lean down and scream what we were saying through the small hole at the bottom of the booth. I remember when I was younger that there was a woman in the area who paid for high school classes to go see Schindler's List when it came out, but this was a class of second graders, so I doubt they would be going back to school to discuss the consequences of our middle eastern policies after a rousing screening of 'Syriana'. The only movie I can imagine they would be seeing is 'Curious George', and even though I've been out of public schools a few years now, I thought they were still pushing reading, or at least still pretending like they were. Hell, the kids themselves didn't have to read it, it could be read to them. But to be fair, it just wouldn't be the same without a calm and relaxing Jack Johnson score. Ah, taste the Hawaiian breeze.

After all the furious noise I had to go through to see the movie, I was looking forward to a nice peaceful screening. And I had it for a while, being the only person in the theater up until the beginning of the movie. And even though smaller crowds are a nice plus, one down side of seeing a movie on a Monday is that they apparently don't bother picking up after Sunday's shows - finding a seat was a minefield of napkins, bottles, and what I pray to God was an ice cream stain. But I found a nice little seat in the middle row, and I was ready for the show to begin, excited I would be alone. A man walked in just as the film started unspooling, and, through the first half hour of the movie, about 10 more Johnny Come Latelys showed up. And then left in the middle. Do they kill everyone on their list? Does it compromise their values? They'll never know. They'll never even know why it was called Munich. I imagined them just wandering from theater to theater, catching a few minutes here and there, watching movies like people look at pictures in a museum. What an odd and ambiguous world they must live in, where a stranger calls Harrison Ford to inform him that he's kidnapped his family, and Sam Jackson dons a fatsuit to get them back, only to end up at a wacky family reunion. They live in a world where movies don't make sense, where they have no resolution, where they all blend together and just go on and on forever. The movies are no different to them than actual life, which, is, against the entire point of movies. So as I left the theater dealing with the questions the movie posed (not to mention that sobering final shot), I was also dealing with the idea of this sad race of mole people coming into existence. Like, do they stay for the night shows, blending in with the normal crowd? Where do they go at nights? Is this what they do instead of making friends? Is this what I do instead of making friends? Am I really a moleman, only my school schedule doesn't allow it? That was ice cream on the seat next to me, right?

If you too wish encounter your local molemen, feel free to visit your local megaplex during the hours of 11 to 5 on any weekday. Maybe you can do it while taking in some of these fine films that will be coming out over the next few months: 'The Hills Have Eyes','Duck Season', 'V For Vendetta' (also, Natalie Portman hosts SNL this week. I don't know whether or not molemen will be involved), 'Brick', 'Thank You For Smoking', 'The Inside Man', 'A Scanner Darkly', and 'Slither". Ah, spring is just around the corner. Of course the molemen don't know that. I'm pretty sure they're blind. Which makes the fact they go to the movies even weirder.