Nil by Mouth

I Want Free Movies

No, i didn’t have Bavarian creme doughnuts in honor of rabbit’s one year birthday, but i did have maybe a dozen peanut M&Ms, three or four chocolate covered almonds, and a mini Reeses Peanut Butter cup all in a brown paper bag at $2.00 per 1/4 lb at BAM. To go with, i saw a movie that left me feeling equally ripped off, Igby Goes Down. It had all the makings of a decent Tuesday night movie: good cast, pill humor (always a favorite), and Claire Danes to whom i still cling because of My So Called Life, even though she’s gone nowhere but down since. It just was not funny. Not even a little. And if that weren’t bad enough, you could tell the director, the editor and all the actors thought they were killing. I could have sworn there was a pause for laughter after every painfully unfunny one-liner. I know someone had to fight an internal battle to keep from putting a laugh track in. “My mother is a metaphysical poet” is not by itself funny. It’s not. Never. It’s Lame. Lame!

So there goes another nine dollars. And i keep getting instructed by many an unemployed friend that the first thing that should get cut out of my money diet is movies, but i just can’t do it. I just like the movies too much. More so when they’re funny of course, but it’s an unfair world and i’ve resigned myself to living in it. I saw Secretary on Sunday which was funny, and weird and good. Except for the end montage of happy-ever-after. There’s no better way to ruin an otherwise sharp movie than by tacking on a five minute acoustic guitar accompanied happy ending montage, even if it does include dead cockroaches and S&M sex. Shame shame.

And then before that a double feature of Double Indemnity and The Woman Next Door. Both were excellent. I’ve got a lot of classic movies to catch up on and the weekend double features at Symphony Space are a dream. Really they come out to $4.50 each. Ok actually $6.00 each counting train fare. (You know you’re broke when the $3 train fare gets factored into your evening.)

I should have saved my week’s movie money for Bowling For Columbine. Or better yet it should have gone towards getting the zipper replaced on my winter coat as the temperature is dipping lower by the day. But i just needed to get out of the apartment today. The thing with being a good productive home-worker all day is that i must leave the premises at night. I start to go nuts. It also has something to do with listening to NPR all day long (and i really mean all day long). By 7pm i am exhaustively aware of the world’s death toll for the day, and it’s too much to bear. After all that what’s $9 for Igby Goes Down, when even if no one’s funny at least when it’s all been said and done everyone’s alve?

• Oct 15