The mandatory Brokeback Mountain post (after viewing)

Are you kidding? I’m not saying anything about this film. Everyone with fingers and an Internet connection has already said it all. However, what I want to know is, does content from Live Journal ever make it into search engines? If so, please let me use the term “Ferrari salesman” as much as possible. Here’s why.

I live in a neighborhood where everyone–except me and a Ferrari salesman–who wanted to see Brokeback Mountain has already seen it. Five times. It’s showing in our small neighborhood art house: initially eight times a day, but now it’s down to four.

I went to a 10 p.m. show by myself on a Monday night, knowing this guaranteed the smallest number of viewers possible. This way, I would not have to deal with chatter, cell phones, crunching popcorn, overturned drinks, people going to the bathroom–the usual distractions.

I was SO RIGHT. A man here, a man there. Another solitary woman. A little group of people down front. A little cluster of people in the back (two of whom were on cell phones). Two man/man couples and two man/woman couples scattered around the theater. PERFECT! I sat down in my optimal viewing location, turned off the ringer on my cell phone, and got cozy, tissues at the ready just in case I got a dust mote in my eye. Or something. There was no one anywhere near me.

Until the Ferrari salesman and his friend/girlfriend/whatever sat down RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME. Why? There were rows and rows of empty seats. But apparently, that was where they had to be. They talked. And talked. This is how I know he’s a Ferrari salesman. When the ads began, the Ferrari salesman turned to me and asked if this was Brokeback Mountain. I don’t know why. Maybe because the first ad was in Italian or some other language I don’t speak, they got anxious that it might be a foreign film. I assured him that he was in the right theater, so the Ferrari salesman turned around. Whereupon he and his f/g/w talked through the previews.

I love previews. I consider them one of the perks of seeing a movie in a theater. But I understand that this is a quirk of mine and maybe other people don’t share it. I was sure that the Ferrari salesman and his f/g/w would stop talking when the movie began.

I surrendered myself to the movie. I heard whispers whenever the movie was quiet, which was often. I think I even saw some making out. Or at least heads were close together over the crackling of candy wrappers. It was annoying, but not unbearable, or I’d have changed seats. The last section of the movie had a lot of powerful moments, and when it was over, I just wanted to sit very still and brood for a bit. Everyone else in the theater left except–you guessed it!–the Ferrari salesman and his f/g/w. Through the credits, they had a “normal voice” conversation about his ex-girlfriend. Correction: They had a LOUDER than “normal voice” conversation. It was like the only thing in the world better than having a conversation was making sure I heard every word of it.

Isn’t there another place where two people could spend sixteen dollars to sit and talk to each other without having the annoyance of a two-hour movie to interrupt their conversation? Or if they just like to chat up their companions in a large, dark room with movie speakers, couldn’t they have chosen any of the hundreds of seats in the theater that weren’t near another movie viewer?

Dear Ferrari salesman, go ahead and move back to Vegas. Y’all must watch movies in a different way there.