Seeing movies alone

My good friend James sometimes likes to see movies by himself. We talked about it once before, but I never gave it much more thought because it just wasn't my thing. And after all, I could always find someone who would want to see whatever it was I wanted to see...

Well, those days are gone. At least for now. I don't really know too many people here yet. And while I like the folks I work with, none of them thus far seem like hang out together outside work types. Time will tell. So, no movies for me until I find a movie buddy. Lynnea won't be here until the end of August. And even if she were, she isn't going to have any interest in any of the big movies of the summer, save Farenheit. Spiderman? No. I, Robot? Doubt it. Thunderbirds? Not likely. No point even mentioning Anchorman. (Doh! I mentioned it.) The point is that if I want to see a movie this summer, I'm going to have to do it alone.

So, I did. I went to see Spidey at the local megaplex. After getting over the sticker shock that the matinee was $7.50 (!) I settled in to my stadium style seat for the 20 minutes before the previews. They have something called the Twenty out here. Maybe they have it back east as well, but I didn't see it the last time I was at the movies at the beginning of June. The Twenty is a canned twenty minutes series of advertisements produced, in this case, by NBC. There was product placement, show advertisement, and lord knows what else. I found it intensely dissatisfying to be a captive audience and have nobody to talk to as an alternative.

Once the movie came on, everything was fine. So, perhaps I just need some tips on pre-movie entertainment to get myself through. Perhaps my readers have some suggestions. Prior to the movie, I occupied myself with some people watching. Unfortunately, most of them were sitting and watching the commercials. The ones that weren't were eating and doing some low key socializing. Here I am, stuck watching twenty minutes of commercials, and none of my fellow patrons has the decency to be interesting.

Next time I go to the movies, I'm bringing a book.