MOVIE BUDDIES - GOT ONE?

Finding a good movie buddy is vital to maximizing the enjoyment of a movie.  You want someone sitting next to you who is scared with you, or sad with you, or, best of all, laughing with you.  It just makes the movie experience much more fun.

My first movie buddy was my friend Bonnie.  I learned quickly that Bonnie would watch just about any movie with me, but there was a price to pay.  Bonnie would grip my arm if there was any suspense at all, and, as the tension built, so did the pressure on my arm.  Her nails would dig in if there were any shocking and/or surprising scenes.  While she was tearing up my arm she would cover her eyes and peek out between her fingers if something really scary or gruesome was going on.

She was also my first X-rated movie buddy.   We were 17 years old and extremely sheltered Catholic school girls and we wanted to use our 17-year-old status to see a "dirty" movie.  So we contrived this big cover story about seeing some movie in South Miami; it had to be a movie that wasn't playing in our local movie theater so we could account for the extra drive time.  Then we drove up to South Miami to see Clockwork Orange.  CLOCKWORK ORANGE?  Neither of us had a clue what was going on between the thick Cockney accents and the invented language and the manic pace of the movie.  What a waste of an X-rating and a good cover story; we were both disgusted.  We did manage to see The Last Picture Show sometime that year and got our first real dose of NUDITY in film.

Other than temporary paralysis or a few scratches, Bonnie remains a wonderful movie buddy to this day.  Unfortunately she lives in St. Pete on the west coast of Florida and I live on the east coast of FL - 4 hours apart.  The last movie I saw at the theater with Bonnie was either Blue Crush or American Pie:  The Wedding.  For both movies we were the oldest people in the theater.  The most memorable movie seen with Bonnie was a B-movie about witch-hunters (Mark of the Devil) that ran at our cinema for many weeks while we were in high school.  The theater was supposed to give out free vomit bags with all the tickets.  It remains one of the bloodiest and most gruesome movies I have ever seen.  My arm was useless for weeks.

I wanted my ex-husband to be my movie buddy, but his taste ran to cheerleader movies and (stupid) adventure movies.  So that's when I became my own movie buddy.  The first movie I saw by myself?  Ordinary People.  Man, it is weird to cry that hard all by yourself in a movie theater on a Saturday night.  I guess my worst experience at going to the movies by myself was seeing Terms of Endearment.  I knew NOTHING about the movie beyond the trailers and I honestly thought it was a comedy.  I managed to drag my tear-stained face to the car after the movie and I sat in the parking lot crying my heart out for 15 minutes.

My sister was my movie buddy for awhile in Atlanta.  I will always associate Thelma and Louise with her.  We were both so pumped up after seeing that movie the first time!  She had to restrain me from robbing the nearest convenience store.  (Maybe it was just me that was all pumped up?)  We saw that movie together 3 or 4 times. 

Susan became my movie buddy after my divorce.  We started going to a movie every Friday evening after work at a theater near our office.  We lived on opposite sides of the city so this was the most practical way of seeing each other without driving for hours.  Susan has a very high tolerance for violence and a great sense of humor so our tastes matched on most movies.  There were times when we disagreed on our movie choices.  She gave me HELL about seeing The Hours; she seemed to think it was depressing.  Was it my fault Virginia Woolf drowned herself?  I think not.  I wanted to see Frieda and when she wanted to see something more....pedestrian...I gave HER hell.  Then there was the time I let her pick the movie and it was supposed to be about some couple who were attacked in their home in France....but this movie was set in California and there was no couple.  Ten minutes into it I realized we were in Memento.  Now Memento is a FABULOUS movie but, because it takes place in reverse time (hard to explain), being confused from the start is not HELPFUL. 

Susan was there for me when I sobbed so hard through The Patriot that she thought I was going to have a complete nervous breakdown.  She was really, truly worried during the movie, and even when I explained that it had to do with my dad's recent death and my childhood pastime of playing Swamp Fox with my cousin, she was still really, truly worried about me.  Since then she has used this personal knowledge to make fun of me and heckle me with "Remember The Patriot?" .  Brat. We'll always have Memento, won't we, Susan?!

Here in St. Augustine I sought a movie buddy, but my girlfriends twitched and moaned whenever something even mildly violent happened.  One friend got upset in Slumdog Millionaire (she thought it was a musical), and another friend thought The DaVinci Code was too violent.  So I told myself that's OK; I'll see "girl" movies with my girlfriends, and other more "exciting" movies by myself.  So I watched Sex and the City, Mamma Mia, and Julie and Julia with my girlfriends, and took myself to see Star Trek.

Then District 9 came out.  Wonderful reviews and produced by Peter Jackson.  I took a chance and asked my brother Dan if he wanted to see it.  Sure!  We both hung in there through the long introductory documentary part.  We hung in there through the hard-to-understand (at times) South African and Nigerian accents.  We both flinched, then giggled at the zip gun (as my brother nicknamed it) and its massive...zapping power.  We both appreciated the incongruity of the Nigerian gangbangers in the midst of the alien ghetto.  We both "got it".

How about Inglorious Basterds?  Quentin Tarantino?  Brad Pitt with a Southern accent?  Nazis?  Sure!  "We're in the Nazi-killin' bidness; and bidness is a-boomin!"  Next it was Zombieland.  This time Dan's stepdaughter Jeannette and my brother-in-law Pete showed up, too.  There were giggles galore as zombie after zombie bit the dust.  And much sharing later of tag lines such as "It's time to nut up or shut up." and "Double tap."

Today we saw The Men Who Stare at Goats, George Clooney, Ewan McGregor and Jeff Bridges in a satire about the army training psychics to become "Jedi warriors" or "supersoldiers". As we agreed afterward, it was no Zombieland, but it was still pretty good.  Bob:  "Gees,  you had the whole desert to drive in, Lyn."