Bad Guys

I went to see “The Dark Knight Rises” yes­ter­day. Great movie, but cer­tainly a very long one. Awe­some bad guys in the movie. I don’t want to spoil any­thing for you, but I’ll share this with you. There’s a good chance that you may miss part of it if you get a large soda and have to go pee. That’s because movie the­aters seem to put the restrooms as far as phys­i­cally pos­si­ble from the the­ater. I can’t tell you what I missed because…well, I missed it. That’s why I usu­ally don’t watch movies in the­aters. That, and I don’t like crowds. It’s nice to know I can pause the movie and not have to stand next to a stranger in the restroom just because I drank a lot of soda.

On the other hand, I don’t have an IMAX sized screen in my house. We only have one true IMAX in Orlando. Those things they call IMAX-​Lite, I’m told by my IMAX-​snob friend, are not true IMAX. This was my first time in the true IMAX and now I under­stand what he means. If only he’d told me that the restrooms were so far away.

What does this have to do with bad guys or pho­tog­ra­phy? I’m get­ting to the for­mer and there’s none of the lat­ter, or at least very lit­tle. The issue has more to do with the state of para­noia peo­ple feel since the tragic shoot­ing spree in Col­orado at the pre­mier night of this movie. I found myself on the wrong end of a secu­rity guard’s gaze. All because I had to pee and I have a mes­sen­ger bag.

The bag holds a few things for me: my iPad, my small cam­era, and some beef jerky I decided to sneak into the the­ater because I didn’t want to buy over­priced pop­corn or candy. Didn’t work — I still bought some Dibs ice cream bites.

About two hours into the movie, cross­ing my legs was no longer a viable strat­egy. I picked up my mes­sen­ger bag and made my way down the flights of stairs to reach the restroom placed much too far away from the movie the­ater. When I exited, I made eye con­tact with the guard and turned to go back up the stairs — which is right by the exit. He looked at me, his eyes widened, and then he RAN into the Mens Room to see if I’d planted some­thing in there. After all, I had a mes­sen­ger bag and it’s olive drab. Must be some guy plant­ing a bomb or something!

Once he pan­icked at the sight of me and my mes­sen­ger bag, every other employee sud­denly looked at me as though I were some threat. Some even looked afraid of me. All because I had to go pee and then trot­ted out because I didn’t want to miss any more of the movie than nec­es­sary. I won­der if he was relieved or dis­ap­pointed that I didn’t leave any­thing behind for him to dis­cover? I noticed a story on the evening news that a fist­fight broke out today at an IMAX the­ater show­ing of this movie in Pitts­burgh and peo­ple were flee­ing for their lives.

Is this any way to live? Should peo­ple be in con­stant fear of each other after a tragedy? I cer­tainly hope not. I pre­fer to see my bad guys in movies, not all around me.

Darth Maul

Darth Maul — © Copy­right 2012 by William Beem