“Here I go again, down the only road I know…”
Possibly…
The prodigal son returned, and little had changed.
After a self-imposed exile of several months from my home away from home for the past 24 years, the Oak Harbor Cinemas, I returned Tuesday and plunked my eight bucks down to see a matinee of “The Wolverine.”
Well, in typical OHC fashion, I first had to wait for the strip mall cinema palace to open, which it finally did 11 minutes late, with no lights on inside and one employee trying to sell tickets, popcorn and, eventually, run the projector.
Just like old times.
Sitting in the parking lot, with Dairy Queen reliably churning out soft serve over my shoulder, it could be 2013. Or it could be 1997. Or 1989, when I first went through those doors. Time has not changed my movie theater.
And it is MY movie theater, a three-screen oasis, which, while it will never resemble a modern wonder of architecture, has given me much. And taken much, as I have spent thousands of dollars (seriously) there since the day I first camped outside its doors to see Micheal Keaton become “Batman.”
Then went back another 11 times for the same film.
It is where I saw “A River Runs Through It” with my Montana born-and-bred father, the final film he saw in theaters.
Where I saw “Deep Impact” with my mother, a movie that produces way too many tears for its level of quality, but that is another story.
Where I saw “A Knight’s Tale” as my very young nephew swung from the seats.
“George of the Jungle.” “Unforgiven.” “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.” “Drive.” “Schindler’s List.” “Saving Private Ryan.” “The Crying Game.” “Pulp Fiction.” “Brokeback Mountain.”
“Interview with the Vampire” with a rockin’ case of food poisoning and “Thelma and Louise” as the only guy in a theater full of VERY angry women.
More Jean Claude Van Damme films than I care to remember and numerous times when I had a theater entirely to myself — not always at the same time.
I went week in and week out. I have seen more films than you can imagine in those three darkened rooms. The seats in the back row are contoured to my butt cheek outlines.
And then … I stopped going. I did the unthinkable, the truly unimaginable. I went three months into the summer movie season without darkening their doors.
It wasn’t a lack of money or the dearth of original movies coming from Hollywood. Not all remakes and sequels are created equally, and I have always scraped together ticket money, even when I had to skip paying bills.
It wasn’t the annoyance of the rise of cell phones, which has made me want to take a BB gun into the theater and plunk each and every person whose “smart” phone suddenly lights up like a glowing target.
In the end, it was a theater, my theater, that completely lost the ability to do that most basic of things — play a movie.
“Prometheus” stopped 261 times. “Red Tails” died five minutes in, never to return. “Jack Reacher” failed to even start, TWICE.
Another 18-mile round trip wasted each time. And an annoyance became something worse, and I simply walked away.
It took 24 years, but the Oak Harbor Cinemas finally killed our relationship.
Until Tuesday, when I went back.
And the film played start to finish for once. Which is a nice start.
As I looked up at the ceiling and found that one watermarked tile that has been there since 1989, I was home again.
For better or worse.
