Why I Won't Go To A Movie

I'm talking about getting in a car, driving to the cinemaplex (as I believe they are called these days) pay a lot of money for a ticket and go sit down in the theatre showing the film of your choice.

From that point on, you are a prisoner of the projectionist.  Who cheerily bombards your vision and hearing with promos for new films that quite often contain car chases (and subsequent crashes) big guns booming away or not-so-riveting sex scenes.  All of this is presented at peak volume.  

Back in the day when Richie and I were dating, he used to get off work around 2:30 p.m. and we would occasionally go to a Tuesday afternoon movie because Tuesday was Cheap Ticket Day.  As soon as we were married, I called a halt to the movies for all of the above reasons.  I wanted to go into old age with some hearing left intact.  

Plus, the cinemaplex often had a film I'd rather see than what Richie wanted us to see.  I could never convince him that I was big enough to go into a darkened theatre and see a movie all by myself.

As time passed, television's capacity for showing you extremely dull movies in the privacy of your own living room got better and better.  And then came getting a DVD of almost every movie ever made from your local public library to watch at home.

This is heaven to me.  You can't drink alcohol or smoke in a cinemaplex, but I sure as hell can in my own living room.  And if I don't like the movie, all I have to do is pick up my book and resume reading.

I mention all of this because last night a film about Liberace and a companion debuted and I wanted to see it having (as usual) read the book.  I was curious to see if the script would follow the book which is my experience hasn't happened since "Gone With The Wind" which certainly followed the book, but was four hours long.

Happily "Behind the Candelabra" ran for only two hours.  Michael Douglas didn't look much like Liberace and he didn't sound like him at all.  Liberace purred; he didn't "talk."  Matt Damon did look - vaguely - like Scott Thorsen.  The fat suits they wore during a segment of the plot looked exactly like - fat suits.

But the movie followed the book as faithfully as could be.  And it didn't cost us a dime to see it!  Thank you, HBO!