In observance of our 13th anniversary of wedded bliss, my love and I decided to share the gift of celluloid at the opening night of the Traverse City Film Festival. Talk about a hot date — you needed a change of clothes after waiting in line outside the State Theatre. Nothing brings you closer together than 98 degrees and sharing a box of melting Juju Fruits.
At least our touchy-feely behavior seemed in context; after all it was a romantic comedy documentary featuring Jeff Goldblum staring in a regional theater production of "The Music Man." What sounds like a premise for a horror flick, turned out to be an evening of sweet entertainment. Of course it was no "Alien Nation," but what date movie could ever compare.
After more than two decades of dates and movies, I still remember our first nine o'clock show together in 1988. I'll never forget "Alien Nation" — although I've yet to see a single second of footage. It was a make out date, we just skipped the movie theater pretense. These days, my wife and I take the minivan to the drive-in movie theater — known in arcane vernacular as the passion pit — to endure hyperactive cartoon characters just to see the delight on our four-year-old daughter's face.
At least our latest movie plot line didn't revolve around bodily function humor — unless you count Ed Begley Jr.'s reference to getting a wooden shoe up the wazoo.
Truthfully, I think my wife was just pleased that my cinema choice didn't involve a fava bean eating cannibal or Steve Buscemi being run through a wood chipper. Yes, I brought my betrothed to both "Silence of the Lambs" and "Fargo" — the later I kept insisting was a "dark comedy" despite the Coen brothers' carnage.
• She: (fierce whisper) "I thought you said this was a comedy!"
• Me: Ah .... are you going to eat that Good 'N Plenty?
However, I did wade through two hours of Barbara Streisand in the "Prince of Tides" while seated next to my in-laws. So I figure we are about even — cinematically speaking.
In regards to frightening films, my very first movie theater experience involved flying monkeys. For some reason, my parents brought me to see a showing of the "Wizard of Oz" at the one — and shortly thereafter closed — movie theater in my no stoplight hometown. I hid under my seat, which was probably a folding chair, clicking my Keds in hopes of beating Dorothy back home. Now I have a chance to carry on the childhood trauma of flying monkeys with my offspring — on a 65-foot screen at the Open Space no less.
After the last picture show place closed in Hale, going to the movies became a purposeful trip 30 miles east. It was at the single screen movie house in Tawas that I first met Luke Skywalker, the original Man of Steel and a homely little alien with the initials E.T. All these boyhood flights of fantasy made real with an honest to goodness ticket booth and a tub of buttered popcorn that didn't require a home equity loan to purchase.
When I close my eyes 30 years later, I still see those dimly lit theater walls painted with Mowgli, Baloo and the other characters from "The Jungle Book" ushering in another movie. That memory remains although one wall was torn down years ago to make room for a second screen and Shere Khan was unceremoniously drywalled over.
Of course with the advent of the VCR, Laserdisc (a 1980s wonder that went the way of Flock of Seagulls haircuts) and eventually satellite television, the movie theater excursions became infrequent road trips. At least my father's channel surfing provided exposure to the classics: black and white Humphrey Bogart noirs, Gene Kelly technicolor song and dance numbers, and plenty of Three Stooges' eye-poking gag reels. Still I was more intrigue by my father's stories about hiding in the balcony as a kid to watch a Perils of Pauline double feature at the neighborhood movie theater in Jackson Heights, New York.
As traditions go, the 13th wedding anniversary is to be celebrated with a gift of lace. Never one for the trappings of conventional thought, I prefer a silver screen behind a curtain of velvet — not lace — and the gift of celluloid. Now I just have to get a belated To My Soul Mate anniversary card and thank Michael Moore for the popcorn.
Grand Traverse Herald editor Garret Leiva can be reached at 933-1416 or email gleiva@gtherald.com