Movies

Aral

You watch two movies a day and you’re gonna see a lot of gun fights. You’re gonna see a lot of passionate kisses, tearful goodbyes, weddings and funerals. You get ups and downs, vaudeville and heroine. You get great soundtracks. You get the increasingly realistic sound of bullet vs. flesh. Punches and laughs. Drinks thrown, shots taken. The diamond shimmer of glamorous evening gowns. The milk-chocolate flow of black and white blood.

Two movies a day, that’s four hours.

Two movies a day, that’s 730 a year.

You watch two movies a day and you’re gonna see some real flops. Some awful movies. Plots with holes as empty as the main characters. With dialogue as fake as the painted landscape background.

You watch two movies a day, and you’ve got issues with time management.

You watch two movies a day and life itself starts measuring itself in movie-sized increments. You work for three movies. A meal is a half. You try to keep conversations to a quarter or less. You watch two movies a day and eventually people stop calling. You watch two movies a day and the real world seems awful boring. Two movies a day means envy. What do they got that you don’t got? Direction. Two movies is a day is just shy of 17 of your entire life.

You watch two movies a day, and where does that get you? You’ve got an armchair permanently shaped to the contours of your body. You’ve got a knack for movie trivia. That’s a lot of hours of movie trivia. Two movies a day and you get all the jokes, you catch all the references, and you occasionally do great on Jeopardy.

Two movies a day, what do you even see?

You can watch them heal the sick, that won’t make you a doctor.

You can see them overcome, but that won’t do it for you.

You’ve got comedic timing, but you don’t know any jokes.

Two movies a day. That is so many movies.

Because two movies a day doesn’t make the offscreen world any more linear.

Because two movies a day and you still don’t know how to cheer her up.

Because two movies a day can’t cure leukemia.

And two movies a day won’t change the fact that your daughter has it.

Two movies a day is like a hard drink, or two. Two movies a day was great while it lasted. Two movies a day, and the credits don’t roll when you want them to. Two movies isn’t a guide. They aren’t wisdom. They don’t say anything. Two movies is a phonebook full of fake people. Two movies is an infinite brochure about Living written by people who haven’t. Two movies a day is a twenty foot window with a terrible view.

Love…

Doesn’t make any more sense after two movies a day.

I’ve already seen that one. It wasn’t bad. I just didn’t get it.

No, I’m not in the mood.

Something else?

I heard that got bad reviews.

But hell, you can’t get rejected by two movies a day.