One of the nicer things since moving out here to mostly rural/sometimes kinda urban Maine is access to a real, live drive-in theater. For those of you in New York City and such who didn’t think such things existing outside of being seen in 50s or 60s movies, sometimes as a place for some giant monster to eat a bunch of teenagers, they still do exist. Ours is one of the oldest in the nation, and has but one screen.
Last night, we went to see “Despicable Me 2″ but my wife didn’t have the stamina for the second feature (“Monsters University”) since it was a work night. Also, the wee goddess needed some sleep, since she had to leave out with mommy to spend time at mommy’s neighborhood center and distract mommy from serving the needs of at-risk youth. We tried to see the double feature over the weekend, but it turned out that for the first time in the drive-in‘s more than 70-year history, they sold out with 500 cars in the lot.
That’s a lot of preamble to get to the point of the headline “Drive-In Me Crazy,” of course.
Because, you see, our daughter takes full advantage of being in the car and not being able to annoy theater patrons (as at our multiplex) to make constant comments about the movie like how amazing something is or how funny something is or how cute it is, or…”Mommy, Daddy, what’s going on?”
It’s cute and endearing, but also, as my headline notes, drives me nuts. I like being with my family and enjoying the nostalgia (and cheaper admission price) of the drive-in, but it’s kind of hard to enjoy a movie sometimes when there’s constant chatter, and I feel like I’m tuning out my family at times to focus on what’s happening and not miss out on a good film.
I mean, it’s understandable with “Man of Steel,” since my wife isn’t a comic book fan and needed some explanation of Krypton and all that, and the wee goddess even more so. “Star Trek: Into Darkness” was easier because my father-in-law is a huge Star Trek fan, and so my wife had grounding in that already and enjoyed the film despite not being a sci-fi kind of person typically. So, I only had to answer my daughter’s questions.
But, really, “Despicable Me 2″…you need to make running commentary, little girl? She didn’t really have questions, except wondering early on why Gru was being hauled away, but then we got repetition of dialogue, commentary on how wonderful something was or how she could tell so-and-so was in love with so-and-so because of how the eyes widened and glazed over.
Cute? Yes. Annoying? Also, yes.
But I wouldn’t give it up for anything, and I hope the drive-in can raise the funds it needs to get digital projection equipment and stay in business for next summer and maybe another 70+ years.
Because, really, it is kind of nice to be able to talk without getting shushed by several angry people in a multiplex.