I have never gone to the movies alone.
I can barely walk down my little private road to the mailbox by myself, no less go to the movies.
I would prefer to always have someone with me on every outing. That’s why I put Netflix up there with contact lenses and the birth control pill. I don’t have to go to the theater any more to watch a movie.
For over thirty years, I had Adrian to go to the movies with. We liked the same flicks, and we usually lived near an art movie house, so we could easily find foreign films, indie picks, and Woody Allen’s annual output.
Over the years, Adrian’s hearing gradually failed. He was fitted with hearing aids but it wasn’t the same. Foreign movies became a better choice for a while because he could simply read the subtitles. But then his eyesight deteriorated.
Even before Adrian’s hearing and vision problems, we started renting movies from video stores. When we lived in Morehead, Kentucky for five years, we had to drive an hour to Lexington to find a decent movie theatre, so we were frequent customers at the lone video store in Morehead.
When we moved to Ithaca in the spring of 2000, we joined the Hollywood Video store, though we still went out to Ithaca’s popular art movie theatres regularly. Going to the movies was also a great activity for a rainy afternoon when we’d meet Adrian’s sons in some little town off a highway exit in Pennsylvania for the weekend.
I’d research a place as close to halfway as possible between us in Ithaca, and the sons in Baltimore and DC. The ideal place had a Comfort Inn, a state park for hiking and biking, and at least one good restaurant. If we were lucky, there was a movie theater as well.
On these weekends, it was harder to find a movie we would all like. I remember watching The Men Who Stare at Goats starring George Clooney. Two of us loved it. Two of us hated it. But at least we were together.
When videos went digital and Netflix was born, it changed everything. We no longer had to drive back and forth to Hollywood Video, and we had total flexibility in how long we kept the movie. If it took us three nights to get through a DVD, that was fine.
Even if a movie was in English, I’d put on the subtitles. Then we wouldn’t miss one word. And I could stop, go back, and restart as many times as necessary, explaining to Adrian what was happening if he missed something.
Our after-dinner ritual was to sit side by side in the living room, three feet from the wide-screen TV, watching a video and eating dessert.
When Adrian’s eyesight got really bad, I’d read the subtitles to him as we watched the movie. He was getting less and less out of his video-watching experience, especially as his dementia got worse, but he still liked to make the attempt. It was one of the few times of the day when we were both relaxed, sharing an experience together.
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I got so used to having subtitles in English language movies that I still use them even though it’s just me watching now.
