My Most Indelible Movie Theater Experiences

Our lives are made up of a myriad of moments, like an emotional mosaic. Many of those moments are completely forgotten minutes after they pass. I have thousands of days from my life that I can recall literally nothing about. That doesn’t mean life is boring, it simply means that the moments that really stick out mean something.

It has been similar in my movie-going experience. Of the hundreds of times I have gone to a movie theater to view a movie, I can recall only a few of them. The ones that resonate are the ones that were foundational in my understanding of life or the movies or my feelings. To write about these stepping stones takes me on a joyful journey and I hope it can do the same for you.

Here are the most indelible movie theater trips of my entire life, in chronological order.

1988 — Crocodile Dundee II and Funny Farm

The First Theater Experience I Remember

This was at the local Long Beach, California drive-in theater. I miss the days of drive-ins with my family. There was something so quaint and interesting about hanging the special audio box in through our car window and being able to talk to each other freely while we watched movies through the front windshield of the car. It was always a double feature in those days and I remember almost nothing about watching Crocodile Dundee II. Mostly, I remember falling asleep immediately during the second movie, the Chevy Chase-starring Funny Farm. I had a vague notion for years after this that I wanted to watch the entirety of Funny Farm just because it felt like a movie for parents and grown-ups. I am fairly certain that I have never actually seen it, even all these years later. This trip to the theater means so much because it is the only visual memory I have of that wonderful drive-in in Long Beach. It makes me nostalgic for a former time. I appreciate luxury loungers and I love assigned seating, but I ache for the old-school feel of a drive-in theater.

December 1997 — Titanic

The Closest I Ever Got to a Movie “Premiere”

Full disclosure: I have still only seen James Cameron’s Titanic once. Though I enjoyed it immensely when I saw it, I quickly soured on my reaction as the movie made money hand-over-fist, eventually becoming (at the time) the highest-grossing movie of all time. I had enjoyed it, sure, but it was not worthy of being considered one of the great movies of all time.

A friend of mine, Ryan, invited me and a few others to see Titanic at Paramount Studios the day after it came out. If I recall correctly, his aunt worked for Paramount Studios and it was a special screening for employees and family and friends. This felt like such a cool opportunity: seeing the movie with cool friends at a very cool place right after it came out. The theater at Paramount Studios even piped the sound of the movie into the bathrooms, which felt luxurious. The movie was incredibly long, as everyone now knows, but that contributed to my feeling that we were doing something special. I felt like royalty or at least like a semi-famous person because of where we watched it. And the last third of the movie (or so), when the titular Titanic sinks, was bravura filmmaking that demanded to be gawked at. Though my opinion of the movie has drastically diminished in the intervening 20+ years, my opinion of this experience has not.

1998 — Can’t Hardly Wait

Art Imitating Life

All throughout my high school career, I had a crush on one of my best friends. She and I had multiple classes together, ran cross country together, and often saw movies together. We even went to prom together — as “friends.” It was the classic story of being too shy to say anything and getting so deep into the friend zone that I saw no way out. I may even have been grateful to stay inside the comfortable, risk-free friend zone, because it was easier. When she and I saw Can’t Hardly Wait together at the very end of our senior year, there was a fair amount of “art imitating life” as Ethan Embry’s character has had a crush on Jennifer Love Hewitt’s character throughout their high school career and decides he is finally going to declare it to her at the classic, movie-trope “final party of high school.” As I sat there, pondering my own relationship with the girl next to me, I felt like she actually knew about my crush. I figured she saw through me long ago, though I never did ask.

Can’t Hardly Wait is meant to be one of those movies that defines the feeling of high school for people of a certain age. I was one of those lucky enough to be graduating within days of when the movie hit theaters. And though the cinematic version of the end of high school represented in Can’t Hardly Wait bore no resemblance to the one I had just experienced, it still felt pointedly wistful. This trip to the theater marked the end of an era, one that I was simultaneously happy to leave behind and yet reluctant to move past.

1999 — Simply Irresistible and The Haunting

Movie Theater “Action” on the Smallest of Scales

Technically, these are two separate theater experiences, but they both highlight an extremely rare experience for Chad Durham: movie theater “action.” Well, “action” may be a bit of a misnomer. I rarely went on dates as a young person and I am aware that there are many people who go to the movies with their spouse or boyfriend or girlfriend or potential significant other with the express intent of making out. I myself never had that opportunity nor the inclination. The closest that shy, 18-year-old Chad got was when he went to the two aforementioned movies, each with a different girl. I had a girlfriend my freshman year in college. It was a novel experience for me and I did not quite know how to navigate it. What does a boyfriend do, really? I had no clue. Once she and I went to see Simply Irresistible (I was a big fan of Sarah Michelle Gellar because of Buffy the Vampire Slayer) and one of the first trailers before the actual film was for Idle Hands, a long-forgotten horror movie starring Devon Sawa. My girlfriend decided that she did not like the vibe of the preview, as it looked a little gory and a little raunchy; so she turned to me and said she needed a distraction . . . and then immediately started kissing me. Whoa. Though this is probably a common experience for many reading this, it is the ONLY time I have ever had real lip contact while watching a movie. I remember the jolt of excitement I felt while that stupid preview was on the screen and I remember the surprise at the forwardness of my girlfriend, who probably understood that I was NEVER going to be the one to make such a bold (reckless?) move.

When our freshman year ended, we broke up and I went back home to Long Beach for the summer. There was a girl in Long Beach who I had had a crush on for years while I was growing up. She was so far out of my league that I could barely see her shadow from my league. I was in the peewee league and she was in the major league. The point: it was not even close. There was no doubt in my mind that I could never have a chance with this young woman. However, in the summer before I went on a two-year religious excursion, we started spending a lot more time together. I wanted to believe that maybe there was a mutual attraction, but I had spent so long wallowing in self-doubt that I dared not let myself. She and I decided to go see The Haunting, a PG-13 horror movie starring Catherine Zeta-Jones and Owen Wilson. She said that she did not want to see it alone. I never went to scary movies and, truth be told, was scared to go see it, especially in the presence of an attractive coed that I harbored a major crush on. But I knew I had to. And it paid off in the smallest way possible, though still wholly memorable for me. At a particularly tense point in the movie, she reached over and gripped my arm and said that she was scared. It was every moment in every high school movie where the nerdy lead finally thinks he has a chance with the glorious girl of his dreams. It was the moment in Nacho Libre when Encarnacion touches Nacho’s leg and Jack Black’s eyebrow arches impressively in response. It was like the world was just messing with me just for a minute, giving me a glimpse of the life that cool, popular, attractive people live. All that from five minutes or so of my arm being gripped by a young lady in July 1999 while I watched a low-grade horror movie.

2002 — Lilo and Stitch

The Familial Bonds of Movie-going

Movie-going has always been a family affair for me. My parents were big fans of movies when we grew up and we have continued to go together or in various groupings for our entire lives. One of my favorite times was when my 12-year-old sister and I went to see Lilo & Stitch. I was excited to be the “cool” big brother and hang out with my youngest sibling. I wanted to pass on the ritual on going to the theater as an almost sacred experience. What I did not expect was to be so enthralled and moved by one of my now-favorite animated Disney movies ever, especially because the movie has an inherently odd premise: a girl in Hawaii befriends an alien who has been manufactured to destroy. Oh, and the music is half Hawaiian and half Elvis Presley. Lilo and Stitch has no business being an effective movie. Yet, it is gorgeous and moving. (I cried the first time and almost every time since.) It ended up being a bonding experience for me and Kylee that we still talk about today. In fact, very recently, Kylee got me an indescribably cool notebook that looks exactly like a VHS case of Lilo & Stitch. It is where I wrote my notes that have now become this very article you are reading right now. Whenever I watch Lilo & Stitch, I always think of Kylee and of the familial bonds that movie-watching can bring.

2004 — Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Adaptation (Finally) Done Right

When the first two Harry Potter movies came out, I was quite disappointed. Now, when I say disappointed, I don’t mean in the way that most people are disappointed in book-to-movie adaptations. I rarely care about the changes that happen in moving a book to the big screen. I have always understood that movie versions must make significant alterations in translating a much-longer text to the cinematic medium. Surprisingly, my disappointment in the first two Harry Potter movies was how little they changed in the transition to film. Both of the first two movies, while competently and straightforwardly directed by Chris Columbus, were like “books on screen.” In my biased opinion, the movies might as well have just projected the words onto the screen while showing animated versions of events behind them. To make matters worse, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is my least favorite of all the Harry Potter books: it feels like it is The Sorcerer’s Stone a second time, with the details simply changed or swapped. So count me as someone who was not that excited for the remaining Harry Potter movies after #2 hit theaters. But that all changed when it was announced that Alfonso Cuaron would helm The Prisoner of Azkaban. Though many were worried because Cuaron was known for directing the very adult Y Tu Mama Tambien, Cuaron was tapped because he had directed one of the best family movies of all time, A Little Princess (based on the novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett). He had demonstrated his knack for adaptation and, with Great Expectations and Y Tu Mama, had also demonstrated his impeccable craft as a director.

Therefore, it was with barely-contained excitement that I sat with my wife on opening weekend of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, excited to finally see a cinematic version, a stylish version, a brilliantly-shot version (shout-out to Michael Seresin, the DP) of a Harry Potter book. And what I remember more than anything, besides the revealing and roving cinematography and more subtle and substantive acting performances, is watching Harry ride the Knight Bus in the frenetic first 20 minutes of the movie and turning to my wife — with a bright and brilliant smile — and whispering, “Now this is a MOVIE.”

July 2010 — Inception

When a Trip to the Theater is Like an Adventure

The first time I ever went to see a movie in IMAX was when my wife, my sister, my brother, and I went to the midnight showing of Christopher Nolan’s Inception. (Remember when midnight showings were a thing?!) I had wanted to do something really cool for my 30th birthday. (I turned 30 on July 10, 2010; Inception hit theaters on July 16, 2010; by the way, Nolan’s new film Tenet is slated to be released on July 17, 2020, one week after I turn 40. If the coronavirus doesn’t alter that release, it looks like I could see another innovative and exciting movie to celebrate this milestone birthday as well.) So, we all got tickets for the midnight showing of Inception and it did not disappoint. The movie was complex, dark, and thoughtful; the company was perfect; the IMAX screen was breathtaking. But the coolest thing, the most indelible moment, was when my sister Krista set her Mary Poppins-like purse on her lap before the movie started and began to pull out huge cupcakes from our favorite cupcake place The Cocoa Bean. She had multiple boxes of delicious cupcakes, including my favorite “Orange Dream” for me. The fact that all of those massive things fit into her one bag was the Lord’s work — a true miracle. As I sat in the dark, watching that gargantuan screen, eating a delectable dessert, it occurred to me that life could not get much better than that.

2015/2016 — Spotlight and The Edge of Seventeen

In Which I Finally Had the Theater All to Myself

The end of each calendar year is such an exciting time for movie releases, as the “Oscar bait” movies come out and critics unite to hail new masterpieces. I try my best to see as many of the lauded movies as I can, so I can make my top 10 list and so I can watch the Oscars with as much knowledge as I can. That means that I have to prioritize getting to the theater because every week counts. That was true in 2016 when Spotlight was being praised for its subtle and complex portrait of the reporters who broke the Catholic priest abuse story. I was desperate to see it and so enlisted my brother-in-law Dave to meet me at the theater. When the appointed time came, the weather in Utah was absolutely terrible. It was nigh unto a blizzard. The roads were slick and icy and visibility was low. We had not yet bought our tickets, so it would have been simple to say, “Let’s go see it another time.” But that’s not how my brain works when I have been planning all day. In my mind, I had been preparing to witness Spotlight (it was the eventual Best Picture winner at the Oscars that year) and I could not change that. So when Dave asked if we should still go, I said yes. I then drove VERY slowly and VERY carefully to the Megaplex theater. Not shockingly, Dave and I were the only two people in a huge theater showing one of the best movies of the year. It felt almost spiritual. Even though Dave and I checked our phones a few times to make sure that our kids and spouses were doing okay, there was something magical about being the only ones feeling the strong emotions emanating from the big screen, especially in a movie about something so tough, so important. I have always been grateful that Dave was willing to meet me there for an unforgettable night.

And then, approximately a year later, I finally had the experience of being the ONLY one in a theater for a showing of a movie. The Edge of Seventeen, starring Hailee Steinfeld, did not end up making a ton of money. (For comparison’s sake, Spotlight made $45 million domestically while The Edge of Seventeen made $14 million domestically.) So when I went to see it late at night on a weekday, I guess it made sense that I was the only one there. It was freeing, sure. It felt weird but amazing to literally be the only one sitting in the theater. I realized that I could switch seats if I wanted. I even said a few words out loud a few times just because I could. So being there alone was extraordinary all on its own. But what really made this trip to the theater stick out was that an employee of the theater kept coming into the theater, by himself, and just looking in creepily and then retreating out of the theater again. I am not lying when I say that I started to worry that he was ascertaining whether or not he could kill me and get away with it. Why did he KEEP COMING IN?! Though I liked The Edge of Seventeen and was definitely into it as a viewer, my thoughts kept drifting to what I would do if he came over and tried to murder me. Because there was no reason for a worker to continue checking on one patron in an empty theater. Unless he and his worker friends had a bet about if anyone else would show up. Or maybe they have problems when someone attends a movie by him or herself; perhaps they had had theater vandalism before or problems with disruptions from single-person theater attendance. I honestly do not know. But it did imbue my one-of-a-kind experience with a healthy dose of fear and trepidation.

One small bonus moment: When I went with my good friend Justin to see The Revenant, a drunk dude kept laying his head on my shoulder and falling asleep. It was weird and awkward. Luckily, the group I was with had one extra seat on the far side and they all moved over one so that I could get a one-seat cushion between me and the drunk man. When I moved over, his head fell all the way down to the armrest and he just kept on sleeping. Ha!