Only in Hollywood can “seeing a movie on a Tuesday night” turn into so much more. To think that I almost didn’t go out because it was “late”. Who am I? This whole career thing lurks behind the scenes seizing every opportunity to force feed me crazy things like responsibility and other old people stuff. Luckily for me I have launched an offensive to “reclaim” my weeknights by Jimmy tapping responsibility square in the nuts and bolting out of my apartment before it recovers. This strategy does backfire some nights, resulting in me spending a day swimming through a pool of sweat and shame, but not this night. This night was not just a night, it was THE night.
The Arclight is not just any theater. This is not the sort of “pay the pimply faced kid $7 to walk through an infestation of outdated video games only to end up around more pimply faced kids trying to sell you overpriced food and drinks that are drowned in sugar, butter, and fat.” No this is theater is more the, “pay $12 to the polite, well-dressed gentlemen who then shows you a map of the theater so you can pick your own seats and then walk up a staircase fit for the Oscar’s.” Well not that nice… maybe the Woody’s.
This was my first movie at the Arclight and was so excited that I pretty much walked straight past lead singer number one. It took Hunter’s spastic “I’m having a seizure” sort of head bobbing and finger pointing for me to realize that we had just walked past Ezra Koenig, the lead singer for Vampire Weekend, the band that claimed the #1 spot of both the Rock and Indie charts earlier this year! If I had any wits about me I would have asked him which holiday is the best one of the year.
Middle-right
Being way into music, Hunter was stoked to say the least, which made me and Jerrod super stoked as well. Feeling all high and mighty we walked into the theater and stood in line, smiling at each other like teletubbies. As I went to pay for my ticket I felt a tap on my left shoulder. I turn around to see Hunter making either the “I’m about to shitmyself because I have to poop” or “I’m about to shitmyself because of the excitement” face. I looked behind him as Hunter said, “dude, that’s the lead singer for Boys Like Girls!” Sure enough it was Martin Johnson, so we listened and watched as he kept rolling his eyes back in his head while talking about cocaine. What a rockstar.
The one in the front
I know most of you are still unimpressed because, let’s face it, if it wasn’t for Hunter even I would be sitting in line waiting to buy a ticket thinking it was just like any other movie night. For those of you who are pumped on the lead-singer-sightings, electronic high five! For the rest who are not, it gets better.
After walking up the wrong set of stairs, and down said stairs (we may or may not have been not completely not sober… possibly) we found the RIGHT set of stairs to walk down only to be greeted by none other than Michael Cera wearing clothes that he probably stole from the set of Superbad. This is about the time Jerrod lost the lower half of his jaw.
That kid is just as goofy in real life
About then I was thinking “Whaaat?! Two lead singers and a celebrity all in one night? Baaaaaaalllller, oh shit who is he talking too? Henry Winkler! WTF?!” Apparently we witnessed the two actors meeting for a movie (noooo I wan’t eavesdropping at all) so I decided that walking up inbetween the two and shouting “Heyyyyyyyyyyyyyy” while giving them the thumbs up was probably a bad idea. Plus I was having too much fun watching Jerrod who, due to the shock and excitement of the night, was trying his best to keep his head from exploding by letting all of the excess pressure out of the hole in his face through what sounded like laughter mixed with a slight hint of disbelief. What can I say? Kid can act.
I think he was wearing the same blazer...
Michael Cera and Henry Winkler talked for a bit with the three of us staring RIGHT at them as awkwardly as possible until they decided that they should probably move away from the three sketch looking kids eying them like a tazmanian devil eyes a bugs bunny. As Henry Winkler walked away I figured Michael Cera would soon follow but instead he stood at the bottom of the stairs talking to someone who was just out of sight. Though I couldn’t see who it was I assumed it was either A) a group of hot girls he was trying to pick up (very awkwardly I might add) B) one of his random friends that came with him to see a movie or C) he was just completely insane and talking to the stairs (which, in his defense, did look fine that night, all velvety and whatnot). For those of you keeping score it ended up being answer B but I’ll only let you count it if you correctly guess who his friend was. In a moment that culminated the epic night that it was we watched as Jonah Hill came leaping down the velvety stairs to join his friend.
"Do these pants make me look fat?" No dude it's just the camera.
Ok and now my brain’s like, “WHAAAAAAAAAT!?!? Two lead singers, Henry Winkler, Michael Sera AND Jonah Hill?!? Shoot me I must be dreaming.” I half expected McLovin’ to walk out of the men’s room and go “wassup guys” in which case I was planning on mimicking Hunter’s earlier facial expression and shitting myself in the middle of the room if only to get them to look at me. I would have also settled for Emma Stone.
Em"mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm"a Stone
I also want to add that, in my limited experience, the old wivestale about the camera adding ten pounds is true. Jonah descended those stairs as nimbly as a mountain goat descends a cliff and looked as fit as a horse as he did it, ok maybe a donkey, ok maybe a chubby donkey. Unfortunately (I say it like the night was a let down) a minute after the two rejoined they exited our lives forever… or at least until their next movie.
All in all we ended up sitting in our seats and doling out rounds of real life high fives (sorry computer readers no more e-fives this post) which seemed deserved after what we had just witnessed. Jerrod launched into what seemed like a never ending spree of laughter interrupted only by high-school-crush-like giggles. I think it was at that point when I turned to Hunter and said, “That shit just doesn’t happen in Colorado.”
All of that excitement was followed by an awesome opening ten minutes of Battle L.A., which was subsequently (but not surprisingly) followed by a cheesy remaining hour and forty minutes. Still, nothing could bring us down at that point. For some reason we just felt better, like we were more important just by being around everyone we saw. Can you imagine people reacting that way after seeing you?