During summers and over Christmas while in college, I used to go see every single movie that came to the local AMC. I'm pretty sure the ticket girl thought I was stalking her because there I was, like 4 nights per week. And, as is my wont, I began addressing her by name.
But it wasn't just me lurking around the AMC at Richey Road. Back in those days, The Bros. Steans were very much a package deal (ask Jamie about a pre-Amy Jason), and so there we'd be, standing at the window, asking for two tickets to Man's Best Friend or whatever. And, one Christmas, we got down to the dregs of the holiday-time offerings.
With no Oscar bait on the table (this is just before they learned to dump all those movies in December, which would happen maybe the next Christmas), we chose American Cyborg: Steel Warrior.
The movie was absolutely terrible. To add to the experience, either the projector or film itself kept breaking. So every twenty minutes or so, the movie would stop, the lights would come up and a half-full very small auditorium of people would have to look at each other, acknowledging "yes, I also chose to watch something called American Cyborg: Steel Warrior". And, every time it broke, it was adding a few minutes onto the duration of how long any of us planned to be there, and we'd all shown up for a 10:00 PM show.
As it crept to about 11:15 and the movie broke yet again, I heard some real grumbling this time. And so, I stood, faced the crowd and said to people I had never seen before:
Oh, no. I know you're all thinking this movie is terrible, and, it is. But no one leaves. We started this together, and we're finishing this together. We can do this! Let's finish this awful movie!
People, I got applause.
Not a soul left that theater.
In retrospect, that may have been a terrible mistake.
And, Friday night, I share that mistake with you.
Starring people you don't know, one of the final films put out by Cannon while in its death throes, we're watching people run around an abandoned factory.
Day: 04/22/2022
Time: 8:30 PM
Service: Amazon Streaming
Price: $2
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