How about the first time I've seen a movie for the first time on video and the second time in the theater?
At least, on its original run?
There are times where I saw a movie first on video and later, much later, caught it in a repertory performance in the theater. Strange Days and Donnie Darko are both examples of that.
But in the same, original theatrical run? Well the circumstances for that would have to be pretty unusual.
As they were on Tuesday night.
It was my wife's birthday eve, and my younger son was also away at camp. She wanted to take advantage of the time the 11-year-old was away to do things that were not appropriate for an 11-year-old, but were at least marginally appropriate for a 14-year-old. (We'll test the limits of the term "marginally" as this piece goes on.)
So she asked me on Monday if I had already seen Presence. I responded in the affirmative, and I think in a totally neutral tone, though my mind was more like "Please. What do you take me for."
(My first viewing, I should remind you, was in a screener that we got from a publicist in order for one of my writers to review it. I of course snuck in a viewing myself. So when I describe the first viewing as "video," that's not entirely accurate, in the sense of it being available for rental. But these days I use the term "video" to describe any small-screen viewing experience.)
"Damn you!" she responded, in a way that was both purposefully theatrical but also indicative of real annoyance. See, she doesn't like that I see every movie worth seeing as soon as it comes out. Of course, neither does she arrange to go with me to these movies in a timely enough manner for me to review them.
So I told her I would go again, but again compromised my own position of compromise when she asked me if I had liked the movie. I told her I didn't love it.
I wasn't sure all day Tuesday whether it was still on the table or off, and some of it would likely depend on the 14-year-old, who had acquiesced to the outing the night before, but then was nowhere to be found when I got home from work. I thought by just not mentioning it, and him continuing to not return home, I could slow-walk the idea out of existence. I mean, I didn't really want to see this movie again -- definitely not so soon (only 19 days after my first viewing), but possibly not ever.
But she did ask about it again, and he did come home in time, so I confirmed the plan.
This wasn't an entirely disappointing outcome for me. As you would know if you read my two (!) other posts on Presence -- and I promise this will be the last one I write, at least during the month of February -- I have gone through stages of interpreting and reassessing the movie. Without that exercise, in and of itself, making me appreciate the movie significantly more. However, I did think it was possible that knowing how the movie ends would create an active watching experience in me on this second viewing, to see how well Steven Soderbergh and David Koepp laid clues and obeyed the rules they had put in place.
Plus, I really enjoy the pizza they make at this movie theater, which you can eat at a little table that comes out of the armrest, while you're almost fully reclined. So what if they don't take my critics card and I have to actually pay for myself and two other family members?
I thought I was being a good guy, a "go-along guy." Little did I realize, I was supposed to use my knowledge of the film to exercise good parental judgement.
Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
First off, they didn't like the movie. My son said it may have been the worst he's ever seen, which is obviously not the sort of assessment that should send Steven Soderbergh weeping in a corner. Kids are prone to exaggeration, perhaps even more so in their teenage years than when they were younger. Still, point is, it did nothing for him.
I guess I was unable to really read my wife's body language, because she didn't like it either, though what she said most was that she "didn't hate the movie," which is kind of a way saying you sort of liked it. I had thought she might have been into it, at least judging by one involuntary audible reaction she made near the end of the movie. I did definitely see her squirming a bit when the movie gets into the specifics of the skeevy behavior of one character. And in order to go into more detail, I have to give a spoiler warning for Presence, for the second time this month.
The crux of the issue -- the thing I could have avoided if I'd been sensible enough to give her a content warning -- was that the movie not only has a sex scene (a very short one that isn't graphic at all), but that the main antagonist ends up being a teenage boy who drugs and rapes girls.
It probably wasn't my finest moment when I split that hair. "He doesn't rape them," I said. "He only murders them."
I find this to be a bit of a no-win situation. I had already stepped wrong by a) seeing Presence before it came out because I had an advanced screener and b) showing evident hesitation in seeing it again because I hadn't loved it. Even had it occurred to me that the content might make him or her uncomfortable -- and it did not, since I consider my son pretty aspirational in his movie tastes -- if I had tried to use that as a reason not to go to the movie, it would have sounded like bullshit, and that I was using every piece of ammunition in my arsenal to get out of going. On the night before my wife's birthday, no less.
So instead I became a go-along guy ... and paid the price for it.
I didn't get it with both barrels or anything. I think my wife realized it wasn't a given I'd consider the content objectionable enough to be triggering, and she knows she had to twist my arm a bit to go in the first place. I know my son has seen the most recent Scream movie and Barbarian and perhaps the bloodiest of all of them, The Suicide Squad, so compared to those movies, Presence is nothing. But I guess those movies don't have a realistic teenage psychopath who uses what is normally consider a rape drug, even if he "only" uses it to kill other teenage girls, not to rape them.
Anyway, I've now had the experience of seeing a movie on a small screen first and for the second time on the big screen, in the same short period of time.
And, you know, might just as soon not had it.
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