OK. Saturday night. Arclight theater in Los Angeles. (A 15 dollar seat in a trendy pay-to-park theater with ginormous screens and beer for sale at the in-house cafe.)
Anyway, there’s Tom Hanks and his wife and two kids in front of us. F*****g Tom Hanks. Rita Wilson. A couple of young kids. Cute. Hey, I’m a new dad, I appreciate the chitlins. We oogled them and somewhere back in my mind, I imagined the day I took my little son to the movies secretly thinking about my two Oscars at home…
My wife and I had just left the parking lot minutes before where I cursed at a family of four for letting their kids watch DVD players installed in the back headrests of their GMC Yukon.
“I’ll never let my kids veg-out in the car like that… Bad parenting,” I comment a little too loudly. The angry mom looked at us, scowled and we turned away towards the cineplex.
We step up to get tickets. I’m still the guy who buys electronically from the ticket machine by the front because you can buy senior citizen tickets and slip by the uninterested teenage ushers. BAMN. Saved eight bucks. Hanks doesn’t need that kinda frugal activity. He’s got bank. S**t, he’s paying adult tickets for his kids just to boost the box office.
The conversation begins.
“What do you wanna see, guys?” Tom Terrific asks his young kids.
“Jackass!” They both chime in. (The film I’m going to see… of course.)
“Well, uhh, I dont know if that’s appropriate for you guys. How about something else?” Tom says, disappointing me a little bit. (S**t, my kid will be first in line for Jackass 3 when it comes out).
“How about “Open Season” or “The Guardian?” Mom asks. “Honey, you think Ashton Kutcher is cute…”
The girl blushes. Tom cringes. I get in line for popcorn and wait for them to enter the theater with tickets.
Five minutes later, Hanks and family are behind me. I overhear their discussion. Tom is taking the girl to see “Open Season,” and mom and son are going to see “The Magician…………”
My wife and I sigh and look at each other. This is it, we realize. There will be no more Jackass screenings when we take our little guy to the movies. No more South Park films for awhile. It’s all Pixar and magic, big summer fluff bullshit and Will Smith movies. King Kong s**t. The f*****g Hulk. I am not happy. We think it over. Should we see Jackass and enjoy one of our last nights together in a filthy, fun movie? Or should we prepare ourselves for the future by seeing a cartoon?
Realizing that we’ll probably never get another night together alone again in the near future, we scrap the movie idea and do something else. We go to the next door bar and drink our fears away, vowing to watch Jackass together as soon as it comes out on DVD… S**t, our son can watch it in the back of the headrests in our car…
