by Clayton Tramel
What makes a theater experience great? A quality picture is a good start. Although its not completely necessary. Just missing my top 10 was the original Fast and the Furious. The movie itself was okay but it came out when I was in high school and was immediately followed by every idiot teenager hopped up on testosterone behind the wheel. No joke, I think there were three different accidents in the parking lot leaving the theater.
Alot of the times its the company that makes the experience. Remembering who you were with and what you were doing when you saw the picture. Having a good audience ready to watch helps tremendously as well. Of course neither is essential as some of my best experiences I was by myself.
I think its just the right combo of movie, nostalgia, and the right variables that can sometimes add up and make something more special than a typical night out should be. I've had some good ones.
10. Pinneapple Express. Summer 2008 Warren Theater: I finally got a date with a girl named Kelsey and we were on the way to watch a matinee when my Uncle Kerry called and said I had to go by his house because Aunt Vy saw a snake and I had to kill it. I said "you dont understand, we're gonna be late for a movie." He said "You dont understand, if she loses sight of that Snake, the house goes up for sale tomorrow." We speed over to Uncles house, just in time to see Great Grizzly Grams disposing of the snake. She took a garden hoe and said Goodnight Moon to the Serpent.
We rush to the Warren Theater, had the whole place to ourselves. The movie I like, but it's on the list because it's the hardest I've ever laughed at a movie. When Red (Danny McBride) goes on a rant about baking a cake for his deceased cat's birthday, I lost it. My date had to go get me a water. I still laugh every time I watch that part today.
9. The Master, 2012, Village East Cinema. Paul Thomas Anderson movies only open in what's called Limited Release, which means NY and LA. Remarkably, I was working in The Big Apple in 2012 and got to knock off work a little early and catch "The Master" the day it came out. Went by myself. Just a stunning experience of a Masterpiece. Joaquin Phoenix is incredible. Saw the movie a total of 6 times (including two days later). That six joins Mystic River and The Departed for the second most times I saw the same picture in the theater. The most for any one movie is 8 times, and that movie is no. 1 on this list.
“The Master” opens at Village East Cinema in NYC, Sept 15 2002
8. Broke Back Mountain, 2005 Harkins Theater. I went by myself to the most landmark gay film of all time. Couldn't get a soul to go with me. I was 21 and in film school, and could care less about the hype around the movie for its subject matter. I knew Ang Lee was a special filmmaker and I wanted to see how he told the story. So me and the biggest bunch of queers you ever saw all sat in the theater and watched the movie and cried our eyes out. Theatrics of the crowd aside, it was a great picture. I stole some elements from it for my student Capstone "Love Letters" the next year.
7. Gran Torino, Dec 2008, Warren Theater. I for some reason saw this movie with my Uncle Kerry Tramel and high school pal Jeff Cox which is an unusual pair but a great trio none the less. The crowd was so into it which for that movie is crucial. Eastwood says every offensive racist remark in the book, only to show he's really not racist but has a heart of Gold. One of the few movies I can remember the audience actually clapping at various points through.
6. Drive, Dec 2011, Warren. AnotherJeff Cox outing. One of the great experiences where I could tell twenty minutes into the movie that I was going to love it forever. 11 years later its still no. 1 on my list for the previous decades best.
5. The Passion, Feb 2004, Hollywood Spotlight. The Passion is a movie that today is remembered for the crazy swirl of press that surrounded the movie, and not the movie itself, which is a shame, because it's an incredibly made film. It's on my list because it's the first movie I ever saw with Mom and Dad. A feat only repeated three times since, all from Faith Based movies.
4. Superbad, fall of 2007, Yukon. My generations Animal House. Saw it with pretty much the perfect cast of my high school friends. What better way to see the perfect high school movie. The audience was ready to laugh and man, did that movie deliver. Still just as funny today btw.
3. Home Alone 2, 1992, Stoneville NC. You have to understand, I was not allowed to go to theaters growing up. That ban didn't get lifted until we were in about 8th grade. But we visited our old town in North Carolina a few months after moving back to Oklahoma and I got to spend the night with my 1st and 2nd grade pal Downtown Nathan Brown. I got dropped off and his Mom said "We thought we'd go see a movie. Clayton, you guys go to movies right?" I didnt say yes...but I didnt nod no either.
a scene from “Home Alone 2” where a young Kevin McAlester asks a future President for directions.
I still remember the experience. Home viewing just cant compete. The Popcorn tasted better than ever. The soda was as big as my 8 year old arm. I was watching a movie where a kid my age was riding around New York City in a limousine with his own large cheese pizza. Those things tend to mold a child. Nathan threw up in the bathroom.
2. Borat, fall 2006, Harkins Theater. Again, many times the greatness of the experience is what kind of a crowd do you see the movie with, and I saw Borat with a packed Harkins theater crowd in the fall of 2006 that was ready to laugh. I was with my film school buddy Brian and from literally, two seconds into the movie we were all bent over laughing and didnt stop. The scene of Borat and his manager chasing each other in the hotel and into the elevator in particular, was one of the few times I remember having to regulate my breathing because I thought I could pass out from laughing so hard.
1. There Will Be Blood, Jan 2008, Angelika, Dallas: you have to understand something, my all time very favorite have to pick only one filmmaker is Martin Scorsese/Paul Thomas Anderson (sorry I cant pick between them). PTA hadn't released a movie in 5 years. I'm 24 years old, not far removed from film school, and TWBB is receiving praise and comparisons to Citizen Kane. I'm tracking it with new google searches every hour for weeks. Smaller films like this dont open on every screen at once. TWBB opened in Limited Release in NY/LA for the first several weeks, but then trickled out to several bigger markets. I kept my eye on Dallas.
Finally, one Thursday at the end of January 2008, it was opening with an 8PM screening. I got off work at the golf club at 5. I was going. I actually booked a Motel 6 nearby because I was sure I was going to be so blown away I would want to see it again on Friday. My phone rings at 4. It was my old trusted sidekick Matt Struble. I almost didnt take the call (big sigh) but I did. Matt asked me what I was doing and I told him about to get off work to head to Dallas to catch a movie. Without skipping a beat Struble invited himself and told me to pick him up on my way through Norman. Again, I want to stop and stress that this is what's called something of an "art house" film and when it comes to art, Matt thinks Picasso is a type of cheese.
He almost made me late to the screening by demanding we stop in Marietta at Arby's but somehow we make it in time and got great seats. The picture absolutely stuns me. It's so good I'm just shook and dont know how to process it. Struble can sense I've just heard the Beatles for the first time. Finally, I had to break the silence and you work with what you have and what I had was Struble. I asked him what he thought of the movie and he said "I thought it was the perfect depiction of Good vs Evil." There's a lot thats been written about the movie, and much of various opinion and interpretation, but his summation was so bad, and so far removed from any thing possible (there is no good!) that I absolutely blew my top. I told him to shut his mouth and not say one more word...which he didnt. I left the Motel 6 reservation. I had to go home, I was so mad. We drove in complete silence until I finally stopped at Ihop in Ardmore at about 2AM.
Typing this now 15 years later two things are amazing: One, that I could be such a snobby jerk to a friend, and two, and much more impressive, that Struble of all people, could actually sense how much I was about to blow my top and not make a peep for an hour and a half. That right there shows how powerful of a movie TWBB is. It shut Matt Struble up.