I recently finished reading a biography of Elvis. When I put the book down, I felt really sad about what happened to him, and not only did I not understand how all of his so-called friends stayed silent while he slowly killed himself with toxic amounts of barbiturates, but I also did not understand why a man who could afford to rent out an entire theater every night and watch anything he wanted on the big screen from any seat in the house would need anything stronger than a Coca-Cola. Elvis used to do this all the time in Memphis when he got bored; he would reserve the local movie emporium, and he and the Memphis Mafia would drive down from Graceland and check out the latest from Hollywood. Elvis never had to dial Moviefone, and he still needed all those drugs?

If I didn’t dig movies so much, I would literally never go – either to the cinema or to the video store – because of the innumerable hassles involved. In order to so much as clap an eyeball on a motion picture in New York City, we mere mortals who cannot afford to rent the Film Forum for the evening have to run a ridiculous obstacle course of planning. It all begins on Friday night. My friends and I have wedged ourselves into a pub for a few pints, and someone floats the idea of seeing a movie the next day, and everyone at the table nods and says they wouldn’t mind checking out a flick, and one person suggests Such And So, but another person already saw that and says it sucked, and that person wonders what about Whatever II: Electric Bugaloo, only to get shouted down by the film snob at the table who refuses on principle to see sequels. The film snob’s girlfriend then reminds him that he has seen The Empire Strikes Back about a hundred times in the last year alone, and Empire is a sequel, and Film Snob snottily replies that, as part of a trilogy, Empire does not technically constitute a sequel. Film Snob and Film Snob’s Girlfriend then proceed to get into an argument, which everyone else at the table ignores because we have seen the Star Wars-trilogy bone of contention get picked many times before. One of the other women proposes Hanky Fest, and the men all yell out “CHICK FLICK! CHICK FLICK!” and the woman slumps down in her chair and grumbles, “Oh, so I suppose you’d rather see Jackie Chan’s Foot In Your Ass instead,” and the men all say, “Yeah! Jackie Chan fuckin’ rules!” and make karate-chop gestures with their hands, and a full pint of McSorley’s gets knocked over. Film Snob’s friend from work suggests Indie: A Love Story With Alternative Music. This idea gets negged by the guy at the end of the table, because his ex-girlfriend used to think that the guy starring in it was cute, and Chick Flick Chick observes that the star is in fact pretty cute, and the man all yell out “YOU THINK THAT GUY IS HOT WHAT ARE YOU NUTS HE’S A SCRAWNY-ASS LITTLE RUNT,” and finally everyone agrees on Une Filme Bizarre, at least until the guy who went to the bathroom twenty minutes ago comes back to the table and says he doesn’t want to see that because he has dyslexia and can’t deal with subtitles. This goes on and on and on until we all finally vote to see either Lowest Common Denominator or Another SNL Skit Dragged Out Way Too Long, or maybe The Oscar Nominee That We Feel We Should See Even Though It Looks More Boring Than A Tax-Law Seminar.

The next day, we all make about forty phone calls to one another. One person calls Moviefone and gets all the times for all the movies at all the theaters, while another person attempts in vain to round everyone up. The Rounder-Upper has to call in to the Moviefone Victim with periodic bulletins: “Okay, the Couch Baron has karate until three, he’ll just meet us there. Ernie bailed because she needs to get work done. I left Big A a message but he doesn’t have his cell phone turned on. We have to call Mack Mama back if we decide to see Lowest Common Denominator because she doesn’t want to see Another SNL Skit, and Mr. Kite already bought a ticket for the earlier show because he spaced the time, so just buy four tickets and we’ll figure it out when we get there.” People keep calling back and forth – which theater again? Do we meet at the box office? Can someone leave my ticket at the front? I told Scrapper since she didn’t come out last night – did someone buy her a ticket? Meanwhile, The Moviefone Victim still hasn’t gotten off the phone yet, since gleaning even the simplest bit of information from 777-IDONTHAVEALLDAY takes at least an hour (“To pour honey on Mr. Moviefone’s naked body and release a brigade of fire ants on his genitals, press 22! Enter now!”).

We go to the theater. Those of us who cannot abide missing so much as one frame of the previews got there ages ago; we have stood there watching people file past us into the theater for the better part of twenty minutes, muttering, “Oh, sure, fine. Gloat about playing the word-jumble trivia game, why don’t you?” I always try to convince the others that one of us should go get refreshments for everybody while someone else saves the group seats together, but nobody ever listens to me. “Chill out,” they say, and “we have plenty of time.” The Perennial Latecomer hasn’t arrived yet, and naturally we have her ticket, so we can’t go in yet either. I wiggle in impatience. At long last The Perennial Latecomer straggles in about thirty seconds before show-time and we all bolt for the line at the popcorn counter, and the Couch Baron wants to know if he gets complimentary water wings with his large Coke; meanwhile, Mr. Kite explains to the woman behind the counter that when he asked for butter on his popcorn, he meant SOME butter rather ALL THE BUTTER, and the Biscuit wonders aloud how Mr. Kite “can eat that crap” while loading his box of Sour-Patch Kids onto a hand truck. Finally, we can – oh, no, we can’t, because The Perennial Latecomer ordered nachos, and she has to wait for the microwave to finish melting the cheese, and she can’t find her ticket stub, and did someone get her a straw, and – which theater again? At this point I usually explode, “Listen up, party people – if we walk in there and the little dancing hot dog has already jumped into the little dancing bun, I am going to kick me some butt!” Then Big A notices that Scrapper hasn’t even shown up yet and I shout, “Who cares? LET’S GO!” and we all file into the theater, which by now has darkened.

Can I see in the dark? Funny you should ask. No, I cannot. I can, however, tell that the theater has filled up completely – exactly what I had hoped to avoid. Our group bumbles around, crashing into each other and expressing whispered preferences for the aisle (Big A – six foot seven), not too close (me – left my glasses in another bag), not too far away (the Biscuit – needs glasses but hasn’t gotten around to visiting the eye doctor), in the middle, in the back, on the balcony, let’s split up, let’s stick together, blah blah blah fishcakes. Nobody shows any evidence of knowing how to walk and eat at the same time. We settle on the second row, where we find a large bank of unoccupied seats, but we have to climb over a few people to get there, and we hiss oops, sorry, ëscuse us, sorry, watch your feet, well maybe if you stood up we could get through, sorry, pardon us, sorry, and people seated nearby crane their necks around and shift their weight and hiss shhh, down in front, do you mind, shhhhh, any day now, SHHHHHHH! We all sit down and struggle out of our outerwear, flailing our arms around to get our coat-sleeves off, and – “OW!” – Mr. Kite accidentally pokes the Biscuit in the eye with a straw. “SHHHHHHH!” “Sorry.” Big A pats my knee and points to the screen: “Look, the hot dog.” The Perennial Latecomer says in a normal tone of voice, “Can I get my straw now?” “SHHHHHHH!” “Sorry.” Mr. Kite gives her the straw he just poked the Biscuit in the eye with. “You don’t have a, like, clean one?” “SHHHHHHH!” “Sorry.” We arrange our food on the floor around us. Silence reigns briefly as we snuggle down into our seats, and then a long shadow falls across the entire row. One seat remains, precisely in the center, and that fat guy and his backpack at the end of the row want in. We all gather up our things and stand up as he charges through the underbrush, and the Couch Baron mutters that if that guy needs to pee in the middle of the movie he had better go out the other way.

The movie begins. It seems like a lovely little film, but we can’t hear a word of the dialogue, because the group in front of ours follows up a bravura chewing-popcorn-with-mouth-open and last-drops-of-soda- slurping performance with an encore that consists of summing up the plot out loud as it unfolds. “Ohhhhhhhh my god, so she knows about the letter now!” “Dude, he’s gonna get killed!” These people, blissfully unaware of the presence of other moviegoers, greet on-screen comeuppances of any sort with either “you go with your bad self” or “yeeeeeeeeeees Johnny!” At the critical moment in said plot, in which we have lost interest in favor of surreptitiously flicking food particles into the hair of Team Blather, The Perennial Latecomer clambers over all of us to go to the bathroom because she has eighty-nine Milk Duds stuck in her teeth at once and she thinks she might have dislocated her jaw. The credits roll. The Biscuit has to stay for all of them in case he worked with anyone on the crew; the rest of us take up positions in the bathroom line, except for The Perennial Latecomer, who has gone outside for a smoke, and Big A, who has to wait for the blood to return to his legs because he very nicely saved the aisle seat for Scrapper and she never showed up. After a head count, we all go for a pint and argue about the movie, except for The Perennial Latecomer, who goes to the dentist.

Okay, okay, so I have a few very minor anal-retentive tendencies. Renting a movie doesn’t throw up quite as many roadblocks in Princess Sarah’s path, but it does carry a fairly high difficulty rating. My local Blockbuster has very narrow aisles, so I have to diet just to get into the New Releases section. It also has a rather liberal interpretation of certain genres; a brief perusal of the Special Interest aisle turns up everything from Bruce Lee pictures to Errol Morris features to Slim Goodbody Presents: Drugs Are Rilly Bad! But the real problems start when the Biscuit and I go into Blockbuster – or any other rental shop, for that matter – together. We can never reach a concensus.

Biscuit: How about this one?

Sarah: No.

Biscuit: How about this one?

Sarah: No.

Biscuit: How about this one?

Sarah: No.

Sarah: Have you seen this?

Biscuit: Yeah. It sucked.

Sarah: Have you seen this?

Biscuit: Yeah. It sucked.

Sarah: Have you seen this?

Biscuit: Yeah. It sucked.

Not that it matters, since even if we agreed on what to rent, we wouldn’t find anything in except seventeen thousand copies of A Night At The Roxbury. I envy Elvis his moviegoing ease. Big E could just stroll in, get as many snacks as he wanted right away, find a seat with no problem, and know that the projectionist wouldn’t dream of rolling the previews until Mr. Presley gave the high sign. I wish I could do that. I wouldn’t even need Advil if I could do that. The whole shooting-the-TV thing I can almost understand, since I nearly bought a pistol for that purpose myself when I heard on the news last week that theater owners had hiked ticket prices AGAIN. But if I could have the whole theater to myself any time I wanted, what would I need drugs for?

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