This morning on NPR I heard a segment about Ashton...I've already forgotten his surname...who is The Voice for movie previews. This reminded me of a few things. Last week when I entered the theatre for "Pirates of the Caribbean," I did so just before the previews began, late enough that I couldn't sit in my spot. My spot is in the middle of the first row of stadium seating so I can put my feet on the railing in front of me. Ahead of the railing is floor space for wheelchairs and a few seats for companions of the chairy. I sat at the end (the left end, sorry, Haitch) of the second row, with a seat, not a railing, for my feet, but no railing is less important than farther back. Next to me was a little boy, maybe five, short and light enough that his legs weren't enough weight to keep the seat down. He sat folded in his seat, knees over the edge, and his father told him to sit up. I smiled, remembering how much more comfortable furniture used to be when it was bigger, and grinned at him. He told me he was too short and the seat didn't work. I said that sitting that way might come in handy if the movie was scary, and he wasn't short, he was five. I also told him I missed being that short. "You do?" he was flummoxed. "Why?" I told him that I miss riding on the back of my mother's bike.
(And I do. I was so sad when, as a new school year started, my mother told me I was too big to go to preschool in our accustomed manner. Now there are those follow-along half-bikes so that kids too big for the tow-behinds (none of those either!) but too small for solo can still come along. Not 30 years ago.)
He told me his father's bike had been stolen, and his car seat. I commiserated and hoped they could get better ones, and so we were friends by the time the previews started. I had wondered whether sitting next to a little kid was going to make me crazy, but he shut up as soon as the previews started.
During the previews it was a she-grown-up behind me who complained about each subsequent trailer, about their quantity. Wouldn't the ticket-taker tell you exactly when the feature itself started, if you asked? I'm sure you could avoid trailers if you really wanted. During the movie itself, a couple of times the kid leaned to me to tell me something, but when I put a finger to my lips and with the other hand pointed at the screen, he subsided. So there's a well-behaved movie kid for you. I meant to ask him afterward about one time he wanted to tell me something--actually I wanted to compliment the father on a well-behaved kid, but the father started reprimanding the kid immediately the lights came up for offenses I couldn't imagine and didn't stay to hear. I wanted to ask the kid about one of the times he sought my ear: it was when Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom defy the laws of physics to use an upturned boat as an air bubble, and I like to think that the kid and I had the same thought there: "Just like in 'Toy Story II!'"
Way back when we saw "The Pianist" at Chez Artiste, we saw a trailer for "Russian Ark." I've kept an eye out for it since and Friday I noticed it had arrived. We arrived hours beforehand because, of course, this time I was with Mr. Exaggerates the Time It Takes to Get Anywhere in Town. Wee example: we left the house just before 7. We stopped at Wild Oats for illegal concessions and I paused between the bulk foods aisle (chocolate-covered almonds and chocolate-covered ginger) and the check-out saying we should get a card for Sooby, whose daughter arrived Thursday. "We don't have time," said RDC. It was 7:05. Wild Oats is about 1500 South Colorado, Chez Artiste is 4100 South Colorado. I selected a card, we paid for our food, we drove down, we bought drinks, we sat down. It was 7:20. The movie started at seven forty-five. In addition to smuggled goodies, I had Oscar and Lucinda. RDC had his Palm. So we read. After 7:30, three young women sat directly behind us, though the auditorium was not nearly crowded enough to warrant that. Though they were (clearly, from their conversation) about to start college, they had not lost their high school ways: the vituperative attacks, the round-about self-aggrandizement through vicarious flattery, the inability to gauge their volume (okay, like I have that skill either) when they dropped their voices to comment on how much RDC and I must hate each other, not to talk before a movie.
Mrs. Miniver was right: "It seemed to her sometimes that the most important thing about marriage was not a home or children or a remedy against sin, but simply there being always an eye to catch."
I expected, as I had with the five-year-old, disturbances from the peanut gallery during the movie. They were absolutely quiet. In fact I made more noise during it than they did, because as soon as the lights dimmed, the movie began, so I couldn't open my slick plastic bag during previews as is my wont but had to during the credits. There were no trailers. How very, very odd.
"Russian Ark" was great. Technically spectacular, because of the cast and the costuming and the orchestration and the dancing and the 96-minute single shot. Also bizarre, because possibly deep within the recesses of my brain more Russian remains than the words for tea, but, please and thank you, and goodbye. ("Yes" and "no" I knew before making my attempt.) I want to see it again, because I doubt I will ever get such another guided tour of the Hermitage in real life.