Leave a movie early, come home with a blog entry

A few days ago, Matt Zoller Seitz asked his readers what films they've walked out of in the theatre. This is a practice I've never made a habit of*, for several reasons. First, I think I have a pretty good sense of what I'll like, so most movies I pay for are at least decent. Second, there are very few completely worthless movies out there, so now that I'm no longer getting paid to watch the really wretched KING'S RANSOM-level junk I stick to movies that contain at least one or two redeeming features. And finally, most of the time that I pay for movies I'll watch two back to back, and it almost always follows that it's the first movie that sucks, and so I'll stick around anyway in order to wait for my second movie. If all else fails, I'll take a little nap- most multiplex seats are comfy enough to use for this purpose.

Naturally, there have been exceptions. I walked out of CREMASTER 3 after an hour back when it played to a sold-out house at the Wexner Center a few years ago. Having slogged through 1 and 2 earlier that week, I figured I'd give Matthew Barney one more chance, but I found the first third of 3 pretty rough going. Add to this the fact that I was pretty dead on my feet and that the old Wex seats are pretty much un-sleepable, and I had little keeping me in the theatre.

Other than that, the only times I've walked out of movies have been due to technical difficulties. And whereas I could never bring myself to ask for a refund or a pass because I walked out for quality-related reasons, I have no problem getting reimbursed when it's the theatre's fault. And though the former projectionist in me resents slightly the idea that accidents should be blamed on the theatre, the ex-manager in me is more pragmatic. People come to movies to be entertained and to watch a movie as it's supposed to be shown- clear picture and sound, and no interruption. If the theatre doesn't deliver, whether it's from something they could have controlled or not, it's their responsibility to make it right, or at least as right as they can**.

Tonight I went to see THE SCIENCE OF SLEEP at the Drexel Gateway theatre near the OSU campus. From the beginning of the film the sound was having issues. While it sometimes sounded fine, at other times the audio was muffled as though someone had submerged the speakers. My guess is that there were problems with the Dolby Digital soundtrack on the film and certain channels were cutting in and out as a result. What I saw was certainly diverting enough, but after about twenty minutes I decided to split. I informed the projectionist on duty (I hope he was grateful that a customer who sort of knew what he was talking about was complaining for a change), got a pass from the box office cashier, and left.

The evening then took a somewhat odd turn. As I was driving toward the exit of the Gateway parking garage, a car suddenly backs out into the passenger's side of my car. I didn't even see the car pulling out of the space until it had nearly hit me, and by the time I leaned on the horn, it was too late. Fortunately for all, the other car was backing out slowly so no immediate damage occurred, and I just pulled forward about twenty feet (to let the cars behind me pull around), got out, and made a quick inspection. The only thing I could see was a few small scratches***, but when you live in the city and your car is a dozen years old a few scratches are hardly cause for alarm. So when I completed my inspection and the other cars had pulled around, I walked over to the other car to inform the driver that everything was okay.

The first thing I noticed was that the other driver was more nervous than I was. This seems to be fairly normal in my experience- whenever a minor mishap transpires, more often than not the person who is to blame tends to take it more harshly than the ostensible victim. The second thing I noticed was that the driver was female, and a pretty cute one at that. Remarkably for me (given my nervousness around attractive female strangers) I kept my cool and explained that there was no real damage, but she was still pretty shaken up by the whole thing. Finally she decided to give me her telephone number in the event that I did find anything later on. I accepted, had her write the number on the ticket stub, and then we parted ways.

I've never really subscribed to the philosophy that states that everything happens for a reason. I mean, most of the time when I see some illustration of this in a movie I'll roll my eyes (hello, SIGNS!). But I couldn't help but ponder the odd turn of events tonight- first, leaving a movie, which I almost never do, and then getting into that little mishap in the garage. There's not really any "what if?" involved- being the way I am, I would have left the movie regardless of what it was, simply because I've been spoiled by good presentation too long and too often to accept subpar. Still, most nights in my life happen exactly as I expect them to, and it's kind of refreshing to have one I couldn't have predicted.

In addition, even back in the garage I was fighting an odd compulsion to ask this girl out. She was attractive, as I've already said, and of college age, which is younger than I generally go for, but certainly not too young. And I found her anxiety over the situation more than a little endearing. Of course, I resisted asking her out then and there, seeing as how it would have been (a) pretty sleazy of me to prey on her guilt over the incident, and (b) awkward conversationally to broach the subject ("yeah, don't worry, the car's fine, wanna get a drink?"). But ever since she gave me her number I've been wondering if I shouldn't try to call her up anyway. She didn't give me her name along with the number, so it would still be awkward, but much less so than it would have been right then and there. But what would I say?****

So, as I seem to be doing more and more of late, I ask you guys- should I ask her out? Is it sleazy to do something like this, or simply an unconventional way to get my foot in the door?

* Hell, I don't even leave a movie to go to the bathroom unless I really have to go, I'm not really into the movie, or I've seen it before.

** I once had a customer who became angry with me for cancelling a movie for technical reasons. I would have considered rescheduling the show and moving prints around but it would have been nigh-impossible from a logistical standpoint, and besides it was our lowest-grossing movie- but she wouldn't accept that. Come on, be reasonable in my opinion.

*** The scratches were pretty miniscule- nothing compared to the fucked-up paintjob on that same side where I scraped it against a yellow-painted concrete pylon when taking a corner too close at the Columbus Main Library, or especially compared to the place on my hatch where some dickless piece of shit keyed it.

**** Here's a possibility- "Hello, my name is Paul, and you may remember that we had a little auto-related mishap in the Gateway garage a few days ago. I've taken a closer look at the car and I just wanted to reassure you that the damage is pretty much negligible. So in case you were feeling nervous about it, don't worry. Everything is working just fine. If you have any questions or you need to talk to me for whatever reason, my number is xxx-xxxx. Hope to hear from you. Thanks a lot, bye."