A Trip To The Movies...

Since it was a rainy, nasty day yesterday, we decided to catch an early showing of Spiderman, which was of course entertaining but didn't show enough shots of Tobey Maguire's cute little, nevermind. Anyway, like most movie experiences on E 86th St., someone managed to royally piss off the audience. (And if you don't know what I'm talking about, try going to that theater to watch the new Blade flick on opening night.)

Now, I'm not about to make any assumptions about the intelligence level of your average theater attendant, but you really don't need to be all that aggressive a thinker to know that letting a five-year-old into a movie theater with a helium balloon is not the greatest idea in the world. You see, as we (and others) were waiting patiently for our $10.25 movie to begin, said child (who managed to get passed the razor-sharp security) lost his grip on said balloon. Now this resulting in two distinct, yet related situations, namely a) a balloon bobbing up and down in front of the movie screen and b) an upset child who had lost said balloon and was making it known to the rest of the theater, loudly, and without much in the way of actual vocabulary.

But our tale of helium woes has just begun. About every ten minutes the balloon, which thankfully prefered to remain close to the ceiling, would make a cameo appearance on-screen. But lo! during a stirring speech by Dr. Octopus the balloon floated closer and closer to the ground, eliciting cries of "grab it! grab it!" from the crowd. A virtuous young lady, heeding those calls, leapt up from her front row seat and snatched the offending balloon and destroying it. She was greeted by much applause. Applause which, unfortunately, had it's own nasty side effects, namely setting off an applause chain reaction, not unlike Doc Ock's self-sustaining fusion reaction which used the unrealistically solid substance of tritium. This audience started clapping at everything! Aw, they kissed. Clap clap clap. Wow, Spiderman did something cool! Clap clap clap. Hey, great use of a classic Hollywood musical score! Clap clap clap.

Needless to say, it was an enjoyably campy romp through summer blockbuster spendor as seen in the Big City. Go see the movie; it's well worth it. And try to figure out how and why they appear to have taken a quick jaunt to Chi-Town...