So Paul and I have been married for going on 42 years. We’ve been a couple for close to 50.
After a while, even the most loving of relationships can get a little….settled. We recently talked (argued? I argued and he listened?) about the fact that we don’t go out much any more. We don’t find fun things to do together as much as we used to. Or as much as this stay-at-home-with-kids Nonni would like.
So on Friday, Paul sent me a text that said, “Hey! Let’s go to the movies on Sunday!”
I was so excited! I haven’t been to a movie since the last Hunger Games film came out.
All weekend long, as I went through my regular routines of laundry, shopping, visiting my mom, paying the bills, I kept thinking about a movie date. Paul did his usual weekend rituals too. He scooped up the dog poop, chopped the ice in the driveway, did his hours of billing paperwork. But last night, he said “We are going to the movies tomorrow!”
Well.
Sunday morning passed with dog walking, some writing for me, some more billing paperwork for him (he’s a psychologist in private practice….someday we’ll talk about Medicare for All). We had lunch, we set coffee up for tomorrow morning, and off we went for Date Night.
Into the giant multiplex theater we went, our pre-ordered tickets in hand. We got our popcorn and box of candy. We found our seats in the almost empty theater.
And we settled in with great anticipation to watch the previews.
Holy nihilistic horrors.
In between the countless ads for Coke products, credit cards, makeup, cars and fast food, we were treated to about 10 movie trailers.
By the time they ended, my mouth was open, my eyes were squinted and my hands were shaking like you wouldn’t believe.
What the absolute HELL?
If movies are a reflection of society, then we are in deep, deep, DEEP shit, my friends. As far as I can recall, we saw trailers for the following films:
- A spy shoots up historical sites in Europe while drinking too much, sleeping with as many women as he can catch and driving his car over cliffs.
- A young girl is possessed by demons into believing that she is talking to God when she’s really, um, ya know, possessed by demons. Cue the bleeding eyeballs.
- An agoraphobic young woman is seduced and then tortured by her sadistic neighbors
- Something happens that involves various space crafts, disgustingly oozy and aggressive aliens and a lot of women falling down.
- A look back at WWI in all of its horrific glory; but compounded by the terror of a young man desperate to survive long enough to prevent a catastrophic death that will kill his only brother.
I think there were more, but by the time I got to them I was starting to whimper and I turned my attention to my popcorn.
“Jeez, honey, ” I whispered, “These movies are so horrible! I wouldn’t want to watch any of them!”
He agreed as we clasped hands in the darkened theater.
Then, at long last, our movie started.
“Uncut Gems” with Adam Sandler. We love Sandler, and the plot of the movie had looked intriguing.
A charismatic New York City jeweler always on the lookout for the next big score makes a series of high-stakes bets that could lead to the windfall of a lifetime. Howard must perform a precarious high-wire act, balancing business, family, and encroaching adversaries on all sides in his relentless pursuit of the ultimate win.
Should be very cool, right?
Wrong.
Wrong, wrong and wrong-oh-ramma.
We lasted for about an hour of the film. By that point, we had no idea of why the main character was doing anything that he was doing, who was with him and who was against him, and why any of it was even happening. There was a big fat gemstone, a very very handsome and appealing Kevin Garnett (played by the very very handsome and appealing Kevin Garnett) and other than that, we have no idea what was going on.
All we could tell for sure after an hour of enduring this “movie” was that it must be incredibly easy to write a major Hollywood script.
Even I could do it. Watch.
“What the F…. are you doing, you f…ing piece of f…ing shit?” “Oh, yeah? Well f…..you, you fu…..ing jerk!” “No, f….you! Listen, you fu….er, you f…..in’ f….with me and I’ll f….in’ f….you and your whole family, you f…..er.”
I could go on, but what’s the point?
After an hour, we both had head aches, the popcorn was gone, and we still had no idea why Kevin Garnett wanted the big gemstone or where it was by the time Adam Sandler got attacked at his daughter’s school play.
I am not f…..in’ making this up.
We looked at each other and recognized the horror on each other’s faces.
“Wanna get outta here?”, my honey asked me. I grabbed his hand and we bolted out of there.
From now on, Date Night will have to revolve around ice cream, a walk on the beach or a Disney Movie.
We are just too old for this shit.
Empty Nest, Full Life 
I know what you mean. My wife and I went to two movies last year and aren’t in a hurry to go back.
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Other than Frozen II, there is no movie I’d pay to see at this point!!
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I am so glad to hear that someone else is fed up with violence, excessive profanity and what it uses as its main metaphor. (Hint: f…ing!!) I have enough worries and violence just dealing with the daily news. I don’t need to see it for entertainment. There are a number of very good films out, however. Have you seen Yesterday or Echo in the Canyon or Sapphire? See if you can get them. xo J
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Thanks, Judy! We’ve decided that from now on we will pop our own popcorn and stick to Netflix and Amazon. I was incredibly disappointed to see how poorly crafted the film was in addition to the gratuitous, repetitive profanity (there are other curses, folks…..). The characters were so flat and overdone; there was no backstory, there was no character development. Blah!!
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Glad to have your review. I won’t bother to see this one. I just saw Little Women. Be sure to see it!!!
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See Little Women. It’s awesome 👏👏and Sandler is being touted for an Oscar for his performance..glad to have your perspective 👏👏
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I definitely plan to see Little Women, but Paul wasn’t so interested. I heard an interview with Sandler and the writers of Uncut Gems, and was really looking forward to it. As far as I was concerned, there was no story, no plot and no acting. Sandler was very one dimensional (and he only knew one word).
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You two are hilarious with the juxtaposition of those pictures! And f*** ya, you hit the nail on the head with the dialogue 😉
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Sitting in that theater was like being assaulted and paying for it… Bad enough will all the f bombs, but they were screaming over each other so even if there had been any dialogue we wouldn’t have been able to hear it.
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My husband and I were like you and Paul….hadn’t been to the movies in forever! We’ve recently found a beautiful little, super old theater on the cape, that has both current mainstream and independent films. Check out Judy with Renee Zelweger (sp?!) and The Marriage Story. We also saw an excellent documentary… The Sound of My Voice, Linda Rondstat. So good. It’s actually been picked up by CNN.
I agree…there is lots of garbage out there. Even sadder, people actually pay to see this stuff. Don’t give up. There are some superb films being made, that leave an impact.
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Thank you! I’ve been wanting to see Judy. I usually wait for things to come onto Netflix…part of what was so annoying was the onslaught of ads and the violent and horror filled previews! Oi……
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Janice, didn’t realize this was you!
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Face it. Old folks don’t hit the movies often enough for them to make many that appeal to a crowd less enamored by a string of f-bombs. It’s good to get the reviews of others, though. I still want to see the Mr. Rogers movie and Little Women, but I have to admit I will probably wait for them to hit the T.V. If you haven’t seen it, watch Two Popes on Netflix.
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Thanks! I’m getting great suggestions from this post!
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I HATE movies that have no plot, no dialogue without the F word in every sentence, and mindless violence. And also movies that use pop music throughout the movie to “advance” the plot (all that really means is they didn’t have to write any dialogue for several scenes, but I guess we should be grateful that means we get a break from the F word.) Which means that I hate almost all new movies.
The very few times I go out to the movies these days, I go to a small cinema that tends to show offbeat and foreign movies more than the “blockbusters.” They are good, the concession stand sells wine, and we have to watch a bunch of trailers, but no ads, before the movie starts.
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I live out in the boonies; as it was, we drove 45 minutes to get to the terrible movie. I did tell Paul, though, that it was interesting to see that there is one word in English that can be used for every single part of speech.
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You are a laugh momshieb 🙂
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