Days In Monsterville

Understand I have nothing against the people who made, say, Soul Plane. I am sure they are all of them fine, upstanding folk.

I just don’t believe Soul Plane is, in fact, a real movie.

It’s astounding how many times I’ll be sitting in some movie theater somewhere, accosted by previews for films that simply do not, cannot exist. And whether I am alone or with friends, I am compelled to say the same thing.

That’s not a real movie.

To be sure, I don’t say it all the time. Sometimes I state my incredulity as a question. That’s not a real movie, is it? I’ll ask this even though I am positive what I am seeing cannot possibly be a real movie.

Friends have prompted me to elaborate on the notion of a trailer for a movie that simply does not exist. What happens if someone is held at gunpoint and forced to enter a theater showing Marmaduke, Cop Out, or It’s Pat? What then, Greg? they ask.  What then?

Haha! Perhaps I should contemplate what might occur if cars drove people and nothing is ever as it seems. Or maybe I should start embracing a nonsensical existence in which I wear socks on my hands and finally abide by all those cease-and-desist letters from the cereal companies! Maybe, just maybe I should also imagine a world in which Satan was not now, nor ever, simultaneously urinating on and anally assaulting Eddie Murphy by divesting him of his ability to be funny and then making him act in movies that aren’t really movies such as Pluto Nash and Meet Dave!

But I am nothing if not magnanimous. Were you ever to foolishly walk in to the theater to see one of these films that does not exist, you would be greeted by cool silence and an ever-growing sense that hey! you walked in to see a movie that wasn’t a real movie. And then, before too long, there’d be an usher. He’d look sort of apologetic, maybe a little sheepish. This usher would explain to you that he’s really, really sorry, but this isn’t a real movie. He’d try to find a soft tone in explaining how they all sort of figured no one would really believe that the picture in question was real, and that they didn’t expect any people would show. Probably to soften the blow, he might offer you a free small popcorn which you should, under no circumstances, ever take because your manliness is directly related to the size of the popcorn you get at the movies.  A small popcorn would top you out at Glass Joe. A large popcorn, pardon my vulgarity, would make you a steaming Vodka Drunkenski.

Not a real movie