Cinéma-vérité
Morelli, Mark
Cin\'ema-v\'erit\'e MARK MORELLI I liked it when the movie theater was the place to see movies. I went enthusiastically, even if the movie was mediocre. It was good to get out. In Annie...
...He made it...
...Loud car salesmen in big bow ties couldn't deter me from fighting sleep to see Boris Karloff, Lionel Barrymore, Clark Gable, and Abbott & Costello...
...The longer we stayed, reading box blurbs to each other, the more of a chore it became...
...These films often aired in the middle of the night, and where I now set my VCR, then I set my alarm...
...He says it isn't the same if you don't "make the effort" of going out to the theater...
...A burly man in an overcoat turned up his collar and forged through the falling snow toward his car, the lonely Impala at the far end of the lot...
...Think he's hurt...
...He slipped and slid, looking silly but at least keeping his balance until only ten feet separated him and his car...
...Now we have VCRs...
...but later told people I saw it, which is like claiming to be well-read after reading only the headlines...
...I'm looking at the Marx Brothers, but she sniffs...
...We usually settle for a Hitchcock...
...I hope he makes it," I said...
...While my wife tried to watch it, I wouldn't shut up with my dime-store criticism...
...He's slipping," my wife said...
...Mark Morelli is a free-lance writer from River Edge, New Jersey...
...For a few years running I'd bump into a mysterious guy in a trenchcoat in the lobby after viewing foreign films...
...He revved his engine...
...I'm in the mood for a comedy when she's in the mood for a warm drama...
...Worse, if I find the movie phenomenal, I'm still indifferent, scratching my belly at the fridge...
...I wouldn't have been so full of myself...
...In Annie Hall, Diane Keaton thinks it's great to watch movies in a home screening room (the mansion of the producer, played by Paul Simon...
...Wow," I said...
...Beautiful," said my wife...
...I hated Heathers because I thought it was too much of everything: horror story, after-school special, black comedy, romance...
...Watching movies at home has become like the fifth Apollo moonwalk—blasd...
...Yawning, rubbing my eyes, I watched the movies...
...Coffee...
...I suggested...
...The headlights, like great spotlights, illuminated the thick, ornate snowflakes, which scattered in the cold wind like chorus girls in a Busby Berkeley spectacular...
...As a teen movie buff in the early seventies, I scoured TV Guide for old films...
...Not because I "rented" them at my convenience, but because our paths crossed...
...But he fell, spinning on his bottom like Donald O'Connor...
...I met Laurel & Hardy, Wheeler & Woolsey, the Marx Brothers, Red Skelton, and a sharper, hilarious Bob Hope I'd not seen on his TV specials...
...We spent an hour trying to decide how to spend the next two hours...
...Almost...," I said...
...For a measly dollar, I can see a movie in my house without combing my hair or putting on shoes...
...But Hitchcocks, like the sands of time, are running out...
...You can't miss with Hitchcock...
...I only listened to What About Bob...
...I never knew his name...
...I was thrilled that I happened to be there to see them...
...It took us three days to watch JFK, because we paused to finish laundry, answer the phone, feed the baby, throw in some more laundry, hacking at the film's continuity...
...I'm always, she's never, in the mood for a documentary...
...We'd launch into discussion about the film...
...Ow...
...I made the effort...
...You should see us at our local video store: I want to sec an old Jerry Lewis, but my wife is in front of Beaches...
...Then I looked out the window into the plaza parking lot...
...Sure...
...One time we ambled indecisively from rack to rack...
...I'd also rise at 6:30 on Saturday mornings to watch a film series of classic comedies that were edited to one hour...
...In the theater, I wouldn't have said a word...
...46 THE LAST WORD...
...we cheered...
...With the dogged determination of Oliver Hardy, he shook the snow from his coat, tugged his hat, and with salvaged dignity strode the rest of the way to his car...
...But Woody Allen disagrees...
...Who knew then, highlighting the TV Guide or waiting for a film to arrive at our local theater, that I'd have the choice of thousands of films, and hate it...
...She's in the mood for a comedy when I'm in the mood for a foreign film...
...We left empty-handed...
...The snow could've melted off his hot neck...
...asked my wife...
...I don't exit onto a sidewalk...
...The choppy editing didn't bother me...
...There are no bright lights or drinks afterward, or the chance of running into an old friend in the lobby...
...Guy stuff...
...There's no thrill of "making the effort" and meeting the artist halfway...
...Thousands is too much, like a mile-long buffet line when all I want is a club sandwich...
...Look," I said...
...If the movie falls short of phenomenal, I walk out of the room indifferently...
Vol. 121 • November 1994 • No. 19
