Bay Area Moviegoing: CKL's Laws for Moviegoing

updated Monday, 01-Mar-2004 22:24:53 PST by sparCKL@snout.org

In the tradition of Niven's Laws and The 10 Rules of the Homicide Lexicon, I present, for your consideration, some of my personal guidelines for enjoying a night out at the movies. YMMV.

  1. Avoid Century Theatres like the plague they are.

     CENTURY THEATRES SUCK. I am absolutely, unequivocally BOYCOTTING Century Theatres (and their parent company, Syufy Enterprises). They don't employ competent staff, they treat the audience with no respect, and most of all, they don't care about movies. They're not getting any more of my money. For more information, see CAVEAT EMPTOR.

  2. Visit the bathroom before the show starts.

    While I agree that "[t]he length of a film should be directly related to the endurance of the human bladder" (Alfred Hitchcock), your bladder may not always be so cooperative.

  3. It's good to be early; it's better to be first.

    Getting into an auditorium after the show has started is trouble. It's annoying to everyone if I have to search for seats in the dark, and unpleasant for me to be stuck in the corner under the ventilation duct. Plus, I love trailers, so I don't like to miss them.

    COROLLARY: At most theatres, the first show on any day is a matinee, which means it will be a few bucks cheaper and usually less crowded (unless it's a Saturday and you're seeing something G-rated).

  4. Never read the book before you see the "major motion picture."

    NOTE: Comic books, children's books, and Shakespeare and other "classics" are excluded from this rule.

    You should feel free to ignore this rule if you're only going to the movies so you can have a semi-private place to make out.

    COROLLARY: If, through unavoidable circumstances, you have already read the book-- e.g., CONTACT or LORD OF THE RINGS-- never expect the movie to be a "faithful" (read: exact) reproduction of the book. Different media, different priorities, different capabilities.

  5. Never expect historical or scientific accuracy.

    As Bruce Newman says of Disney's Dinosaur: "[T]his is no place to start quibbling about historical accuracy, or soon you will find yourself attempting to resolve the murky issue of why this film has all the dinosaurs speaking English, when everybody knows they spoke French." (NOTE: Bruce Newman's review contains at least one factual error. Dinosaur was scored by James Newton Howard. Titanic was scored by James Horner. Clearly, you should also never expect accurate reporting from movie critics.)

  6. No good movie is ever too long.

    And, by the same token, no bad movie is ever short enough. Pearl Harbor was about two hours and fifty-seven minutes too long. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring was a lifetime too short.

 

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