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self-selection
2009-Mar-14, Saturday 08:21 pmAMC movie theaters provide a special kind of movie presentation once each month. They offer a current movie but with special rules for the viewing event. The house lights are kept on, the sound is not blasted as loud, and they stop enforcing rules about no talking. It's meant to be a way to offer families with autistic children a way to participate in the social event of a movie viewing but without annoying the other guests. I was glad to see this event finally come to Minneapolis a few months ago, but this was my first successful attempt to attend one of the showings.
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Once, about 15 years ago, someone asked me why I started shivering before a movie even began but as the lights went down and the sound blared on. It happens infrequently, and I guess I usually attend movies alone, so he's the only person who's ever asked me. At the time (pre-diagnosis days), I didn't have an answer for him. It wasn't that I was cold. It had something to do with the sudden change in environment. I still don't have an exact answer for it. Still, I was looking forward to experiencing a movie that kept the lights up and the sound down.
(minor spoilers) This morning in Minneapolis, the movie was a 10am showing of "Race to Witch Mountain". The movie itself was not as good as I was hoping. The movie formula these days seems to require that everything be a dire emergency in which the fate of humanity hangs in the balance. This formula detracts from the charm of the original movie, in which it was more about children who could easily live "under the radar" and just wanted to join their nice uncle in a warm family environment. I liked that version better than the new one with humanity's existence in danger and an alien assassin stalking the children.
I did notice during the movie, though, the same thing that I notice in other autistic gatherings. Some of the "quiet types" elected to leave, while the "talkative/noisy types" stayed. A few families got up and left at various points during the movie. They had the kids who maybe walked funny with their arms in odd postures, or maybe they were the ones wrapped up in coat-and-hood even inside the theater, or one family had two daughters who were both just quiet kids. The kids who made various and frequent noise bursts (not talking) or who did lots of talking (including trying to speak to strangers in another row) stayed.
Over the long term, such self-selection will change the nature of these gatherings. I wish I had a better idea of how to create a gathering that would have the opposite effect, luring the quiet types but leaving the talkative types wondering why they came. More pondering required, I think.
After that movie, I drove out to the Minnesota Zoo. I missed the first showing of "Watchmen" at the IMAX for today, so I walked around the zoo for a few hours until the 3:35pm showing. The zoo was packed with families. I noticed only one other person (man older than me) who seemed to be there on his own like me. I finally got in to see the movie, and it was as good as I was hoping for. Very nice to see all those special effects on the big IMAX screen.
(minor spoilers) I like stories that depict people as complicated creatures. Few stories do it well. I liked this one. All of the main characters were alienated in their own way. Only Dr. Manhattan, though, was in a position to do something about that particular facet of the story. He gets to care about humanity as a whole but doesn't have to care about any one human in particular. (He does... another flaw to his character that advances the story.) He gets to walk the surface of the sun and of Mars. He gets to avoid clothing for most of the movie. He gets to leave humanity happy with all its complicated lies while he walks away to find a less complicated galaxy where things just are instead of needing to be.
I'll have me some of that, please. Self-selection at its finest.
p.s. Two people (one adult in McDonald's, one child at the zoo) called me "cowboy" today. I dunno what that's about.
http://www.amctheatres.com/community/
Once, about 15 years ago, someone asked me why I started shivering before a movie even began but as the lights went down and the sound blared on. It happens infrequently, and I guess I usually attend movies alone, so he's the only person who's ever asked me. At the time (pre-diagnosis days), I didn't have an answer for him. It wasn't that I was cold. It had something to do with the sudden change in environment. I still don't have an exact answer for it. Still, I was looking forward to experiencing a movie that kept the lights up and the sound down.
(minor spoilers) This morning in Minneapolis, the movie was a 10am showing of "Race to Witch Mountain". The movie itself was not as good as I was hoping. The movie formula these days seems to require that everything be a dire emergency in which the fate of humanity hangs in the balance. This formula detracts from the charm of the original movie, in which it was more about children who could easily live "under the radar" and just wanted to join their nice uncle in a warm family environment. I liked that version better than the new one with humanity's existence in danger and an alien assassin stalking the children.
I did notice during the movie, though, the same thing that I notice in other autistic gatherings. Some of the "quiet types" elected to leave, while the "talkative/noisy types" stayed. A few families got up and left at various points during the movie. They had the kids who maybe walked funny with their arms in odd postures, or maybe they were the ones wrapped up in coat-and-hood even inside the theater, or one family had two daughters who were both just quiet kids. The kids who made various and frequent noise bursts (not talking) or who did lots of talking (including trying to speak to strangers in another row) stayed.
Over the long term, such self-selection will change the nature of these gatherings. I wish I had a better idea of how to create a gathering that would have the opposite effect, luring the quiet types but leaving the talkative types wondering why they came. More pondering required, I think.
After that movie, I drove out to the Minnesota Zoo. I missed the first showing of "Watchmen" at the IMAX for today, so I walked around the zoo for a few hours until the 3:35pm showing. The zoo was packed with families. I noticed only one other person (man older than me) who seemed to be there on his own like me. I finally got in to see the movie, and it was as good as I was hoping for. Very nice to see all those special effects on the big IMAX screen.
(minor spoilers) I like stories that depict people as complicated creatures. Few stories do it well. I liked this one. All of the main characters were alienated in their own way. Only Dr. Manhattan, though, was in a position to do something about that particular facet of the story. He gets to care about humanity as a whole but doesn't have to care about any one human in particular. (He does... another flaw to his character that advances the story.) He gets to walk the surface of the sun and of Mars. He gets to avoid clothing for most of the movie. He gets to leave humanity happy with all its complicated lies while he walks away to find a less complicated galaxy where things just are instead of needing to be.
I'll have me some of that, please. Self-selection at its finest.
p.s. Two people (one adult in McDonald's, one child at the zoo) called me "cowboy" today. I dunno what that's about.