Foiled Again... and again... and then again

I wanted to go to the movies last night.

There's a documentary on William Eggelston playing at the theater around the corner. It opened last night, and the director was going to be there for discussion after the first two showings. I went to the theater the night before to buy tickets because purchasing them online cost at extra $1 per ticket which seemed assinine given I could save $2 by walking for one minute, and was told that the 6:20 showing was already sold out but that there were still tickets to the 8:20 available. I said "Can I buy them now?" to which they responded with "Day of show only."

D was sick that night, so we talked briefly about the possibility of going. He said "Well, I think I'll probably feel better tomorrow so I'll probably want to ride. But maybe not."

Cool.

I emailed him yesterday morning and said "Are you going to ride? Should I get you a ticket?" I checked online to verify that the 8:20 hadn't sold out, and it had not.

I hadn't heard from him by 1:30. I checked again to make sure there were still tickets. There were. As I walked by the theater at lunch, I thought "I should just get two tickets. Worst case scenario I have an extra ticket and I can sell it because there will probably be people standing by."

I didn't get the tickets. I don't know why. I think it's the nerdiness I feel about planning ahead, being cautious, worrying about such things.

At 3:00 he wrote back and said he'd like to go. I went online and, of course, sold out.

Fuck.

No director present when I will see this movie, if I see this movie because its playing for a little over a week and I have plans most nights.

I decided that, instead, I'd go to see The Baxter. Originally I'd intended to see both The Baxter and the Eggleston documentary. I'd mentioned to D that I might see The Baxter and just meet him at the Eggleston documentary when I'd thought there were tickets.

There was more "Maybe I'll ride" or "Maybe I'll paint" or "Maybe I'll go for a run" or "Maybe we will go on a date!"

At around 4:30 I realized that I'd finished my work for the day, so I totally had time to see The Baxter. I called D to see if he wanted to join me and if he didn't, if he wanted to do something after his ride/run/painting.

He said "Are you done? Why don't we go see Century of the Self at 5:45 instead?"

"YES! BRILLIANT!" I said, because I've been wanting to see Century of the Self for a really long time and its been oh-so-challenging. It's a four-part documentary on Freud. Parts 1 and 2 show at 5:25 and 10:05, whereas parts 3 and 4 show at 7:45, which is manageable. But - you can't see 3 and 4 without having seen 1 and 2, but seeing 1 and 2 is nearly impossible.

I was psyched, because this was like the first time ever I'd gotten out of work in enough time to see it! YAY!

We left work at about 5:15 and started walking to the theater. D was like "Do you mind if I stop home and freshen up?" He changed and meandered and ate some chewy Chips Ahoy while I watched people walking by, hoping that they'd steal the company-logo-bag I'd left on the street. Fascinating. As we walked to the theater, I began to panic because it was 5:45 and we still had about another 5 minutes' walk remaining.

We got to the window and I was like "Motherfuckerfuckitwasatfucking5:25!!!"

Now. I knew this. I knew it was earlier than 5:45, because 5:45 seems manageable. I can, in theory, get out of work by 5:00. Going to a 5:25 movie requires getting
out before 5:00, which is difficult.

I was like "I can't believe I didn't see the Eggleston documentary OR The Baxter OR Century of the Self."

D is not to blame. Not at all. I can only blame myself for not sticking to my original plan, which was to see both the Eggleston documentary and The Baxter by myself. By involving someone else, I effectively didn't get to do any of the things I wanted to do. I also knew the movie was at 5:25. I knew it, because I am anal and know things like that. But I doubted myself, and I shouldn't have.

D was like "Let's see something else!" and suggested just walking around the city to various theaters to see what was playing. It was 100 degrees last night and I didn't want to walk around anymore and I had raging PMS and didn't want to not see any other movies I really wanted to see. I was like "Can't we just call? Please!?!?" I finally convinced him to look in the paper.

He said "Let's see Pretty Persuasion!" This is last on my list (top of his), but it was on the list so I was like "Cool, yeah!"

We saw the movie.

My review:

Pretty Persuasion = Least Subtle Movie of All Time

D said "I feel dirty."

"Me too!" I said, but apparently we said this for different reasons.

I have this history of viscerally loathing movies that other people love. I hate them so very much and it is therefore completely out of the realm of possibility that other people could like them. It's not possible. It is obvious that the movie is bad and there is no way anyone could ever find something redeeming about it.

This is how I felt about 25th Hour. After the movie, PD was like "What did you think?" and I was like "I think it goes without saying." "Yeah." "Like I had no idea a movie could be that bad." "What? Oh. Um. I really liked it."

Awkward.

This was how it went last night as well. D said "Do you want to find someone with a ticket stub?" (Long story - I save ticket stubs for movies for some yet-to-be-determined movie-ticket-stub future project; I don't like going to the Sunshine because D insists on buying tickets from the machine which gives receipts instead of tickets and also charges you like 4 times for one transaction).

I said "No way, man, I just want to forget that this ever happened."

"Me too."

"Man. I think that could be on the list of the top 10 worst films I've ever seen!"

"What? You didn't like it?"

Awkward.

He tried to convince me that it had some redeeming qualities but the only good thing about it was a certain scene with Ron Livingston.

I can't be convinced to like something that I hated. With 25th Hour, I didn't completely hate it. When PD, MS and I talked about it, I came around a bit and didn't hate it as much by the time we'd finished talking.

But man. Pretty Persuasion. I felt a little bad because I was nothing but raging negativity and D really liked it, so we just stopped talking about it.

I won't write a review of it because I might be wrong about this one. Hard to tell. You should just see it for yourself if you have any interest because there must be good things that I, for whatever reason, cannot see.

I think it's because I've seen it all before, but better.

OK. Must work a bit. More later.