WALL-E (and other movie-going things)

We went to see WALL-E last week, not long after returning from a trip to my parent's house. Before I got a chance to post about it, a thunderstorm knocked out our power and left us in the virtual dark ages sans lights, air conditioning and, most importantly, internet access.

I could tell you all about the movie and whether I liked it or not (I did), but let's face it: You can find a review of WALL-E anywhere and if you haven't seen it and don't plan to see it nothing I say will really make a difference.* What I can give you that no one else can is the remarkable story of some of the people with whom we shared a theater.

We had hurried to make sure we made it to the 11:00 showing, and by the time I bought our tickets (for the 11:30 show because I'm no dummy) and got in line at the concession stand it was around 10 after. Since we went to the movie early in the day and WALL-E was showing on three separate screens, the crowd was pretty sparse even though it was summer. There may have been 15 to 20 people in the entire theater, but that didn't bother me, I'd much rather have the place to myself than sit next to a stranger.** Most of the people were there with small children***, but our story will focus specifically on a woman who was there with (what I assume to be) her granddaughter.

They sat uneventfully through the movie, and were directly in front of us as we filed out. They tossed their trash into the waiting can rolled out by the employee who was waiting to clean the theater, and, following close behind, we did the same.

"Oh hang on," the grandmother said, digging through the trash, "I want to show them this."

She pulled out the cup for their Pepsi Freeze (a sort of slushy, partially frozen thing...kind of like a Squishee one might get at the Kwik E Mart) and proceeded over to concession stand. Needless to say, I was intrigued and fortunately since we had nothing to do but stand around while waiting for the third member of our party to extricate herself from her seat and actually leave the theater, we got to find out what was going on. It turned out that the frozen beverage had a piece of popcorn in it. "Wait," you might say, "a piece of popcorn? Inside the open cup? Like what might happen if one is eating popcorn in a dark room while holding a cup with a large opening?" And of course, that isn't at all what happened, since the people filling the cup clearly filled it about halfway, took it to the popcorn machine and dropped a piece in and then continued filling it. Fortunately, the people at the concession stand weren't nearly as judgemental as the rest of you, so they happily gave her a refill in her freshly recovered from the trash cup. As we stood, still waiting, the granddaughter came trotting back to the trash can and came away with their popcorn bucket, emptying it of the few remaining kernels.

"Did she just..."

"Oh yeah. She sent her back for the bucket."

"Are you sure she didn't just bring the bucket and dump it out.?"

"No she got it out of the trash."

"But it was in the trash."

"Yes, it was."

By the time we were finally ready to go, they were strolling out of the lobby and into the parking lot carrying a freshly refilled Freeze cup and bucket of popcorn. Which brings me to my question for all of you:

At what point does something officially become trash and become unsalvagable? Me, I think I share Jerry Seinfeld's opinion that adjacent to refuse is refuse and that eating it means you've crossed the line between man and bum, but I guess not everyone feels the same way. Obviously they didn't.



*To make it short: It was very good, just as one might expect from a Pixar movie. I wasn't sure how they'd pull off the sizable chunks of time in which it was all robots who really don't have much dialogue, but it worked quite well. It doesn't come close to being as wonderful as Ratatouille, but considering my feelings for that one, I think it's probably unfair for me to try to make that comparison. Also the short before WALL-E is probably my favorite one shown in front of any of the Pixar movies. Anyway, just go see it, you'll be glad.

**Or behind a stranger. Or in front of a stranger. Really, pretty much anywhere within a 5 seat zone of a stranger.

***Since there were actually three of us, one could argue that we also there to take a child to see it, but that would be rather impolite even if metaphorically accurate.