On My Way to See "Much Ado About Nothing"

I have been living in California for almost three and a half years now.  In that time, I haven't gotten out much. Actually, that's not entirely fair.  I go to movies, I go out to eat, I go out to buy other random shit.  What I don't typically do is go anywhere that requires me to drive more than 30 minutes.  The problem is that I really don't like driving all that much.  The idea of spending more time in the car than doing whatever is at the destination makes me frustrated on the best days.  On the worst days it leaves me bitter and angry.  This unfortunate outlook on life often leaves me with an incredibly narrow view of what California has to offer.  With this in mind, you can imagine my irritation at the discovery that the only showing of Joss Whedon's adaptation of Shakespeare's "Much Ado About Nothing" that I could find in the area was about an hour and a half away in Hollywood.  Was a movie, even a movie by one of my favorite directors and cast full of favored actors, really worth that amount of time from my day?  In the end, I felt that that it was worth my time.  Everything that followed really helps to illustrate the pros and cons of venturing out of my little comfort zone, and into the areas that most others think of when they hear the word California.

The first order of business was to decide on a route to take to the theater.  Most navigation programs would suggest taking I-15 (my closest interstate) to the 91.  This is the point that I give these programs the middle finger, and a few choice expletives, while immediately looking for alternate routes.  This reaction probably confuses some of you, so allow me to explain.

In Dante Alighieri's Inferno, the author very vividly described 9 levels of hell and the unique tortures and horrors that called each individual level home.  None were what you might describe as "pleasant" and they kept getting progressively worse with each descending level, with the 9th level being the worst.  I maintain that had Dante Alighieri lived in the modern day, California state road 91 would have been the 10th level of hell.

I have NEVER had a good experience with this road.  This stretch of asphalt seems to exist in a state of perpetual gridlock.  Every time I have been on it, at least an extra hour has been added to my time on the road.  I am actually convinced that this road is some kind of sadistic experiment on the effects of road rage on the average driver.  I hate this road.

Lucky for me there was another route.

After a pretty uneventful drive (because I didn't take the 91 no doubt) and some mild confusion as to where to park, I finally arrived at the theater.  The name of the theater was the "ArcLight Hollywood".  I only mention this because it is seriously one of the nicest/weirdest movie theaters I've ever been in.

Let me give you some examples of what I mean starting with the location.  The theater is located on Sunset Blvd across the street from a film school. (Probably why they got the film in the first place, teachers are going to love dissecting it.) That's not really that odd, and is probably quite convenient.  What I did find odd however was what shared the same physical building as the theater; a gym and a freaking culinary cooking school.  The gym I understand.  Gyms show up everywhere.  People love their weights and spandex.  But a culinary cooking school?  That's new for me.  I have to wonder if these four businesses ever do some kind of crazy cross promotion extravaganza.  If they do I bet it's amazing.

After I got done puzzling over the bizarre juxtaposition of businesses I finally entered the theater proper and was met with a few more oddities that I never seen/associated with a movie theater.  Directly in front of me was the normal ticket counter.  Okay nothing odd there.  Looking to my left there was a coffee shop.  I have to admit, that while I've never seen a coffee shop in a theater before, the idea is fantastic.  Seriously, an cool dark theater with a warm cup of joe sounds like an amazing combination to me.  (And I hate coffee!)  So I found the coffee shop be odd but strangely welcome.  I can't exactly say the same for what was next to the coffee shop.

Directly to the right of the coffee shop was a gift shop.  At first I thought this was another stroke of genius.  After all with the sheer amount of movie tie-in related bullshit out there, what better place to buy that stuff than right where you saw the film.  Not gonna lie, if I saw some really badass scifi action film and then they had really good toys for sale as I left the theater...  Well let's just say my bank account is really glad they don't do this.  That's right, other than one James Bond related book I didn't see a single other item in the gift shop that related to film in any way, shape, or form.  Okay...  Looking around just confused me even more.  It seemed almost as if someone with rather eclectic tastes decided to max out their Barnes and Noble credit card, put it all of their spoils on display, and called it a gift shop.  Here are some examples of what I found in there.  The previously mentioned James Bond book, several art books, a photo book of Paris, a box of pin up girl themed postcards, an amazingly well drawn (French?) anatomy book, and a hardback copy of the third collected volume of the comic book Preacher.  Huh?  Am I the only one confused why all of this would be located in a movie theater?  Is this a California thing?

Compared to the gift shop everything else was rather mundane, if not a little unusual.  It seems as though the movie theater was trying to capture the aesthetic of a stage production.  For example the seats were assigned when you bought the ticket, (I was in seat L24 for those curious.) the auditorium was huge, and before the show an usher came out to lay down the house rules and introduce the film.  I kept getting weird flashbacks to my time in the theatre department at college the entire time I was there.

And then of course there was the movie.  I'll go into my thoughts on the movie in another post, but here's a hint.  It's very good and well worth your time to go see.

All and all it was an outing I was very pleased with.  Nothing really special, or amazing.  But plenty of slightly odd.  And slightly odd makes me smile ear to ear.  Shame I still had to drive home.

Which brings me back to my initial problem with going out into California proper, it took me almost 3 hours to get back to my apartment.  That was about twice as long as it took me to get out there in the first place.  That means that in total today I spent about four and a half hours on the road so I could see a less than two hour long movie.  That's a lot of time to spend it your car worried that some impatient asshole is going to rear end you because traffic keeps alternating between 15 and 0 mph on the freaking interstate.  By the time I got back home most of my good feelings from the outing had been replaced with loathing for the roadways of California.

So in the end was it worth it?  In this case?  Yes.  Yes it was.  But sadly I'm not sure what will convince me that it is worth that kind of time in the car again.