After a week of seeing some good and bad art films, a night at the Classic IMAX Film Festival, and yesterday’s night out in downtown San Diego and Balboa Park; I was feeling a little sad that I came back to the Edwards to see a major studio release. It’s almost like partying for a whole week and then coming home to mom and dad; you don’t want to do it, but it’s eventual.
I decided on Johnson Family Vacation today because it was released on Wednesday of this week (instead of Friday). My biggest nightmare other than failing seeing a movie every day is missing a film after it’s released. You may laugh now but I have a feeling that it might happen. I worried that there wasn’t enough films to see now I’m worried that there are too many films to see!
While I was buying my ticket I noticed that there were several people buying tickets to see The Passion of the Christ. A part of my brain was telling me that it was no surprise, another part was telling me that I should be surprised that a movie that opened on Ash Wednesday is getting more ticket sales than any of the major releases today, another part of my brain was saying “Well, DUH!” after seeing what was released on Friday, and another part of my brain was saying “You need to go to the bathroom and you’re hungry….also you need to kill so-and-so.” I hate my brain sometimes.
After making the bladder gladder and buying a cup of coffee and peanut butter M&Ms I walked towards the theatre showing Johnson Family Vacation and glanced over to the theatre showing The Passion of the Christ. Sure enough there was a heavy stream of people going in, while the showing for The Girl Next Door only seemed to draw very, very few people.
At first I thought it was going to be a private screening. A private screening for me is when I’m the only person in the theatre watching the movie. This has happened a couple times in my life when I went to see Love Actually and the Godzilla remake.
To my surprise there was an abundance of people in the theatre. Luckily my preferred spot at the top row center was vacant. Contrary to popular belief this wasn’t just a “film for black people” as I saw many races throughout the audience, which was a relief for me seeing as how I was the only over 21 male in all the teen girl movie showings. Do you really think I wanted to be the only non-black in the theatre?
I try very hard to not read about the movie I’m seeing. The only thing I want to know about a film is through the trailer (and I have seen plenty on this project) and maybe TV commercials. I turn off the local film critics whenever they come on and I skip over all the movie columns in the newspapers and magazines. From the trailers and from what other people have told me, I knew what was coming: this is a black version of National Lampoon’s Vacation.