Popcorn Movie Quotes

I wished I stayed at the movies, where I could have at least had some popcorn with my drama.

I rented Ghostbusters, my all-time favorite inspirational movie. I picked up some microwave, popcorn, a KitKat, a bag of bite-sized Reese's peanut butter cups, and a box of instant hot chocolate with marshmallows. Do I know how to have a good time, or what?

Don't you go to the movies?" "Mostly just to eat popcorn in the dark.

I don’t have many friends,” I said. “Not ‘come over and eat popcorn and watch a stupid movie’ friends. You and Warren are sort of it.” I don't have many girlfriends. My work isn't conducive to meeting other women. “Pretty sad,” Kyle commented. Then he said, “You and Warren are the only people I eat popcorn with, too.

We watch movies while Uncle Reyes makes cockporn.” Everyone in the immediate area stilled while Reyes and I pressed our mouths together, trying not to crack up. This was a serious situation, and cracking up now would just be wrong. “Popcorn, honey,” Amador said. Then he looked at Bianca. “Hon, she really needs to learn how to say that word.

Nothing picks me up quicker than a movie, a Coca-Cola, and a box of popcorn. I could walk in feeling like I didn't want to live anymore, and walk out on cloud nine.

I dig into my Chinese food with my fork, pretending not to listen – but if I were a GIF, I’d be the Michael Jackson eating popcorn in a movie theatre one, so engrossed am I.

Movies, they were the thing. Movies took you away. You could count on popcorn and happy endings.

We are going to watch a scary movie. I felt like watching something frightening so I could exert power over it. I want to eat popcorn while I watch it and laugh while it tries to scare me.

All of her adult life people have asked Rena why she goes to such dangerous places, and she has always wanted to ask them where the safe place is. The danger is in chemicals and airports and refugee camps and war zones and regions known for sex tourism. The danger also sometimes took their trash out for them. The danger came over for movie night and bought them a popcorn maker for Christmas. The danger hugged her mother and shook her father’s hand.

He was like one great big Sunday afternoon -- the kind where you stay in your PJs and watch movies and eat popcorn. Where life is at it's uncomplicated best.

After this, you want to watch a movie?” Dominic asks. “You can make that cheddar popcorn I love. We can crowd under that blanket that smells like…what’s that smell?” I choke on a fresh wave of fear. “Lavender,” I say as more tears stream down my cheeks. “Yeah. And I’ll let you watch a chick movie because all I really want to do is watch you watch it. Your face gets all dopey when you get love drunk.

The first time the three of us went to the movies together, he waited until you went to get popcorn, and then he said, "You don't mind, do you?" And I'd been so moved that he'd asked, that he wanted my permission.

Out into the staff quarters. Over to the entrance to the movie theater. Tohr stopped dead. “If this is another Beaches marathon, I’m going to Bette your ass until you can’t sit down.” “Aw, look at you! Trying to be finny.” “Seriously, if you have any compassion in you at all, you’ll let me go to bed—” “I have peanut M&M’s up there.” “Not my style.” “Raisinets.” “Feh.” “Sam Adams.” Tohr narrowed his eyes. “Cold?” “Downright icy.” Tohr crossed his arms over his chest and told himself he was not pouting like a five-year-old. “I want Milk Duds.” “Got ’em. And popcorn.” With a curse, Tohr yanked open the door and ascended into the dimly lit red cave.

She rejoins the crowd and watches with her friends, but she feels like an emptied glass - that crestfallen feeling of walking out from a movie theatre in the middle of the day, out from the intimate matinée darkness and the smell of popcorn, which is the smell of heightened colour and sound and story, into the borderless bright of day. Bereft.

WILL THERE BE A MOVIE, THEN? Neil likes to think that one day maybe there will, and Terry is certain that it will never happen. In either case, neither of them will believe it until they’re actually eating popcorn at the premiere. And even then, probably not.

No one willingly jumps into boiling water; we become suckers to the scheme by comfortably playing in lukewarm water while the heat slowly rises, optimally while showing the latest Hollywood movie while promising free popcorn.

If you were to take a plastic bag and place it inside a large bowl, and then, using a wooden spoon, stir the bag around and around the bowl, you could use the expression 'a mixed bag' to describe what you had in front of you, but you would not be using the expression in the same way I am about to use it now. Although 'a mixed bag' sometimes refers to a plastic bag that has been stirred in a bowl, more often it is used to describe a situation that has both good parts and bad parts. An afternoon at a movie theater, for instance, would be a mixed bag if you favourite movie were showing but if you had to eat gravel instead of popcorn. A trip to the zoo would be a very mixed bag if the weather were beautiful, but all the man- and woman-eating lions were running around loose.

Hindi ba't masarap isipin na ang dalagang kahati mo sa popcorn sa mga movie dates noong high school at ang babaeng nagpapahid ng pain killer sa nirarayuma mong tuhod, ay iisa?

there are people capable of eating popcorn at the movie of your agony

We think there's a reason for everything, as if life was supposed to make sense. It's not exactly math. People aren't numbers. Everybody knows life doesn't make any sense at all, so we just better deal with the whole mess. Have a beer. Have a cup of coffee. Have a piece of cake. Go out to a movie. Enjoy the Popcorn.

Everything feels right with her. I can’t explain it. The world just stops. Everything freezes. It’s me. It’s her. It’s just us. Everything else, every molecule, including the oxygen we breathe, is only secondary to the chemistry we create. When we watch a movie it’s more than images strung together in the form of mindless entertainment. It’s an experience. An experience we share together from making the popcorn to watching the film to talking about it for days after. Chemistry. What more can I say? You either have it or you don’t.

What would you say to a loved one if you had only a few seconds to impart a last message? What language does love speak? Some of you speak love with wine and roses. For other, "I love you," is best said by breakfast in bed, carefully set aside sport sections, or night out at the movies, complete with buttered popcorn. Children spell love T-I-M-E. So, I think, do older folks. Teenagers spell it T-R-U-S-T. Sometimes parents spell love N-O. But no matter what the letters, the emotion beneath the wording must be tangible, demonstrable, and sincere.

Operating theaters are not nearly as popular as dramatic theaters, musical theaters, and movie theaters, and it is easy to see why. A dramatic theater is a large, dark room in which actors perform a play, and if you are in the audience, you can enjoy yourself by listening to the dialog and looking at the costumes. A musical theater is a large, dark room in which musicians preform a symphony, and if you are in the audience you can enjoy yourself by listening to the melodies and watching the conductor wave his little stick around. And a movie theater is a large, dark room in which a projectionist shows a film, and if you are in the audience, you can enjoy yourself by eating popcorn and gossiping about movie stars. But an operating theater is a large, dark room in which doctors preform medical procedures, and if you are in the audience, the best thing to do is to leave at once because there is never anything on display in an operating theater but pain, suffering and discomfort, and for this reason most operating theaters have been closed down or have been turned into restaurants.

WILL THERE BE A MOVIE, THEN? Neil likes to think that one day maybe there will, and Terry is certain that it will never happen. In either case, neither of them will believe it until they’re actually eating popcorn at the premiere. And even then, probably not.

people's stupidity probably explains much of what people do and don't do, as I have conceded all along in this book.

Mom was making popcorn, as if this were a movie.

I want to end my life by eating so much Viagra that I go out like that movie and Die Hard. If you want to watch, I just made popcorn.

Movies, they were the thing. Movies took you away. You could count on popcorn and happy endings.

Throughout the movie, we moved to eat popcorn, shifted to get comfortable, only to end up uncomfortable; an awkward dance of keeping my hands and parts from familiar and unfamiliar areas of Echo’s divine body. I was capable of being a gentleman for the length of one movie, at least. The credits roled and my left hand, which I’d placed behind my head to avoid her tempting tummy, tingled with numbness. My patience finaly snapped. “This is ridiculous.” I swept her up and swung her over my shoulder, her bare feet dangling in front of me. Tinkling laughter filed the room. “What are you doing?” I tossed her onto the bed. Her fire-red hair sprawled over the pilow. My siren smiled up at me. “Getting comfortable,” I said. " -Noah's POV

Snack consumption was legal but Joe expected anyone dining on the distracting shit to synchronize chewing with car chases and shootouts regardless of the genre. The Popcorn Pig was treating the space like a pie eating contest. The buttery snack was his instrument and he was doing a sound check with the venue's acoustics.

Hey, I got an idea, let’s go to the movies. I wanna go to the movies, I want to take you all to the movies. Let’s go and experience the art of the cinema. Let’s begin with the Scream Of Fear, and we are going to haunt us for the rest of our lives. And then let’s go see The Great Escape, and spend our summer jumping our bikes, just like Steve McQueen over barb wire. And then let’s catch The Seven Samurai for some reason on PBS, and we’ll feel like we speak Japanese because we can read the subtitles and hear the language at the same time. And then let’s lose sleep the night before we see 2001: A Space Odyssey because we have this idea that it’s going to change forever the way we look at films. And then let’s go see it four times in one year. And let’s see Woodstock three times in one year and let’s see Taxi Driver twice in one week. And let’s see Close Encounters of the Third Kind just so we can freeze there in mid-popcorn. And when the kids are old enough, let’s sit them together on the sofa and screen City Lights and Stage Coach and The Best Years of Our Lives and On The Waterfront and Midnight Cowboy and Five Easy Pieces and The Last Picture Show and Raging Bull and Schindler’s List… so that they can understand how the human condition can be captured by this amalgam of light and sound and literature we call the cinema.

Right after we sat down, Don turned around and said, “Oh, by the way—I checked online. This is going to be on your IMDb for the rest of your life.” I offered Don a courtesy laugh, after which he went back to munching his popcorn.

I have this terrible fear of fractions," Christina told him. ... "Miss Schuyler thinks she can conquer it. Also a fear of running out of popcorn. Nothing could be worse than going to a movie and they don't have any popcorn, you know?

And even if it never makes it to the big screen, millions of people have watched a very impressive version of the opening in the box office hit Independence Day. So when/if Childhood’s End is finally made into a movie, the popcorn set will undoubtedly think we’ve ripped off I.D.

Didn't they understand that for some people the opera, the drama, the ballet, were only boring, and yet a peepshow on Market Street was art? They want to make everything gray and tasteful. Don't they understand how awful good taste seems to people who don't have it? Ha, what do they care about people with bad taste! Nothing. But I do. I love them. They wear cheap perfume and carry transistor radios. They buy plastic dog turds and painted turtles and pennants and signs that say, "I don't swim in your toilet, so please don't pee in my pool!" and they buy smelly popcorn and eat it on the street and go to bad movies and stand here in doorways sneaking nips of whiskey just like I'm doing, and they're all so nice.

I'm just sorry. Sorry that there won't be any more camping trips for kids or rock bands or even new books to read. No more movies or fresh bags of popcorn. It really sucks when you think about it. Of course, there is the possibility that we might be able to win this war, but not for a very long time. Probably longer than you and I will ever exist in this world." "I try not to think about it." "Sometimes it's all I ever think about.

I enjoy a torture session on the rowing machine and I also enjoy my mom’s homemade peach cobbler. I enjoy flopping like that dead fish with hips that can’t lie in dance class, and I also enjoy ordering pizza with my kid, renting a movie, and downing popcorn while we share some special time together. I enjoy seeing how much I can lift at the gym and I also enjoy stuffing a fresh chewy chocolate chip cookie into my face when I’m having a hard day.

Lizzie and I arrived in the polluted heat of a London summer. We stood frozen at street corners as a blur of pedestrians burst out of the subways and spilled like ants down the pavements. The crowed bars, the expensive shops, the fashionable clothes - to me it all seemed a population rushing about to no avail...I stared at a huge poster of a woman in her underwear staring down at her own breasts. HELLO BOYS, she said. At the movies we witnessed sickening violence, except that this time we held tubs of popcorn between our legs and the gunfire and screams were broadcast in digital Dolby. We had escaped a skull on a battlefield, only to arrive in London, where office workers led lines of such tedium and plenty that they had to entertain themselves with all the f****** and killing on the big screen. So here then was the prosperous, democratic and civilized Western world. A place of washing machines, reality TV, Armani, frequent-flier miles, mortgages. And this is what the Africans are supposed to hope for, if they're lucky.

On Saturday Ben and I drove to Johns Island to see Skyfall.” “You did?” Hi asked sharply. “Thanks for the invite, jerks.” Shelton raised his palms. “You were at temple. We’re supposed to just wait around? Plus, you’ve seen that move like five times.” “You still could’ve asked,” Hi grumbled. “I don’t—” “Guys!” I clapped my hands once. “The story, please.” “An hour in, I go for a popcorn refill.” Shelton shuddered. “When I get back, Ben’s sitting in the dark, flaring away, and he’s not even wearing his sunglasses! I almost wet myself. He said he wanted to watch the movie in HD. Man, I don’t remember a single minute from the rest of the film.” “In a theater!?” My temper exploded. “That stupid mother—” “Hiram!” Our heads whipped. Ruth Stolowitski was standing on her front stoop. “Get back in here this instant! You’re not dressed.” Ruth wore a fuzzy pink bathrobe, her free hand vising the garment closed. Her eyes darted, as if worried that cagey perverts were surveilling our remote island, waiting for just this opportunity to get an eyeful.

The law of unintended consequences rules, often with deadly silence.

There’s a reason we eat popcorn during a movie. If I want to zone out, be brainless and entertained, then I watch TV, go to a movie. If I want a good story, then I read a book.” “Ah

Date yourself. Take yourself out to eat. Don't share your popcorn at the movies with anyone. Stroll around an art museum alone. Fall in love with canvases. Fall in love with yourself.

With a final click of the door, I know she's gone. It feels like that moment when the end credits run at a movie, and you wish there were just a few more minutes left before you have to dump your popcorn in the trash. A few more moments before you return to your real life, leaving the imaginary world and characters of the movie behind, trading them in for your own reality.

Occasionally, in the stillness of a taxi or an airplane, she would catalog the pleasures she had lost. Cigarettes. Chewing gum. Strong mint toothpaste. Any food with hard edges or sharp corners that could pierce or abrade the inside of her mouth: potato chips, croutons, crunchy peanut butter. Any food that was more than infinitesimally, protozoically, spicy or tangy or salty or acidic: pesto or Worcestershire sauce, wasabi or anchovies, tomato juice or movie-theater popcorn. Certain pamphlets and magazines whose paper carried a caustic wafting chemical scent she could taste as she turned the pages. Perfume. Incense. Library books. Long hours of easy conversation. The ability to lick an envelope without worrying that the glue had irritated her mouth. The knowledge that if she heard a song she liked, she could sing along to it in all her dreadful jubilant tunelessness. The faith that if she bit her tongue, she would soon feel better rather than worse.

Cutting myself felt so good. It was the sweet way the razor opened up the skin and this red line appeared, like I was pulling a piece of thread out of my wrist. The blood came really slowly, not in some spastic blast like I thought it would. It didn't even really feel like my arm. It was like I was watching someone else's arm in a movie. I kept thinking how great the camera angle was and wishing I had some popcorn.

Movie Theaters.  There’s something so freeing about finishing a movie in a theater . . . and just walking away. You enter the room heavy-laden, a tub of popcorn in one arm and a tub of Dr Pepper in the other, and leave burden-free. If you think about it, you’re actually helping out the employees by giving them something to do in addition to interrupting the movie with the red light saber to count the number of people in the theater.

Still, the car started, so we drove off to the movies. Popcorn happened. Previews, ads, and an annoying kid all went down like clockwork. The picture started and then ended a while later, the world unchanged by its passing.

Peace and beauty? You think Indians are so worried about peace and beauty? ... If Wovoka came back to life, he'd be so pissed off. If the real Pocahontas came back, you think she'd be happy about being a cartoon? If Crazy Horse, or Geronimo, or Sitting Bull came back, they'd see what you white people have done to Indians, and they'd start a war. They'd see the homeless Indians staggering around downtown. They'd see fetal-alcohol-syndrome babies. They'd see the sorry-ass reservations. They'd learn about Indian suicides and infant mortality rates. They'd listen to some dumb-ass Disney song and feel like hurting somebody. They'd read books by assholes like Wilson, and they would start killing themselves some white people, and then kill some asshole Indians too. Dr. Mather, if the Ghost Dance worked, there would be no exceptions. All you white people would disappear. All of you. If those dead Indians came back to life ,they wouldn't crawl into a sweathouse with you. They wouldn't smoke the pipe with you. They wouldn't go to the movies and munch popcorn with you. They'd kill you. They'd gut you and eat your heart.

Sometimes I wish I could tell my younger self that. That it didn't matter. That the body I had then carried me up hills at Cross Country meets and through the water during the painful last lap at a swim meet, and that it should be celebrated instead of being picked away at and filled with hunger pangs. I should have gotten both the popcorn and the box of candy at the movies that night, instead of slipping away at a Diet Coke from the concession stand.

Make me breakfast in the morning?" "So long as you don't leave my sight until then." He grinned. I laughed. Sure, I was crazy about him, but spending the night with him? "Oh really?" "We'll rent a bunch of movies and fill up on popcorn. Maybe snuggle. If you're lucky." "I'm feeling very lucky right now.

The sad truth is that, within the public sphere, within the collective consciousness of the general populace, most of the history of Indians in North America has been forgotten, and what we are left with is a series of historical artifacts and, more importantly, a series of entertainments. As a series of artifacts, Native history is somewhat akin to a fossil hunt in which we find a skull in Almo, Idaho, a thigh bone on the Montana plains, a tooth near the site of Powhatan’s village in Virginia, and then, assuming that all the parts are from the same animal, we guess at the size and shape of the beast. As a series of entertainments, Native history is an imaginative cobbling together of fears and loathings, romances and reverences, facts and fantasies into a cycle of creative performances, in Technicolor and 3-D, with accompanying soft drinks, candy, and popcorn. In the end, who really needs the whole of Native history when we can watch the movie?

The opera was stylish and the movie a thriller, But, I had to buy a new dress and the popcorn was stale, After the show, all I had left was my empty pocket. For me, I have decided simple pleasures will do, A walk in the park, a cup of coffee and a good book too, My friends, you may find these to be a sound investment too.

What isn’t scary can do you in. Snacking doesn’t intimidate anybody. Neither does watching TV. Or sitting in a movie with a large drink and so much popcorn that it comes in a tub. Driving to work and parking in the garage doesn’t upset any applecarts, but riding your bike and asking for a place to lock it up just might. Suggesting to your boyfriend that you’d like to go to the soup-and-salad place instead of the he-man chuck-wagon could be awkward…[but] you are committed to living fully. You are going to take care of you, no matter who suggests that you’re selfish or full of yourself. Living well will give you the emotional energy you need to fulfill your destiny.

From the moment Leo comes on screen in that navy blue suit, I have chest palpitations. He’s like an angel, a beautiful, damaged angel. “What’s he so stressed out about?” Peter asks, reaching down and stealing a handful of Kitty’s popcorn. “Isn’t he a prince or something?” “He’s not a prince,” I say. “He’s just rich. And his family is very powerful in this town.” “He’s my dream guy,” Kitty says in a proprietary tone. “Well, he’s all grown up now,” I say, not taking my eyes off the screen. “He’s practically Daddy’s age.” Still… “Wait, I thought I was your dream guy,” Peter says. Not to me, to Kitty. He knows he’s not my dream guy. My dream guy is Gilbert Blythe from Anne of Green Gables. Handsome, loyal, smart in school. “Ew,” Kitty says. “You’re like my brother.” Peter looks genuinely wounded, so I pat him on the shoulder. “Don’t you think he’s a little scrawny?” Peter presses. I shush him. He crosses his arms. “I don’t get why you guys get to talk during movies and I get shushed. It’s pretty bullshit.” “It’s our house,” Kitty says. “Your sister shushes me at my house too!” We ignore him in unison.

The way I feel about you, Jacinda...I know you feel it, too." He stares at me so starkly, so hungrily that I can only nod. Agree. Of course, I feel it. "I do," I admit. But I don't understand him. Don't get why he should feel this way about me. Why should he want me so much? What do I offer him? Why did he save me that day in the mountains? And why does he pursue me now? When no girl spiked his interest before? "Good," he says. "Then how about a date?" "A date?" I repeat, like I've never heard the word. "Yeah. A real date. Something official. You. Me. Tonight. We're long overdue." His smile deepens, revealing the deep grooves on the sides of his cheeks. "Dinner. Movie. Popcorn." "Yes." The word slips past. For a moment I forget. Forget that I'm not an ordinary girl. That he's not an ordinary boy. For the first time, I understand Tamra. And the appeal of normal. "Yes." It feels good to say it. To pretend. To drink in the sight of him and forget there's an ulterior reason I need to go out with him. A reason that's going to tear us apart forever. Stupid. Did you think you might have a future with him? Mom's right. Time to grow up. He smiles. Then he's gone. Out the door. For a second, I'm confused. Then he's at my door, opening it, helping me out. Together we walk through the parking lot. Side by side. We move only a few feet before he slips his hand around mine. As we near the front of the building, I see several kids hanging out around the flagpole. Tamra with her usual crowd. Brooklyn at the head. I try to tug my hand free. His fingers tighten on mine. I glance at him, see the resolve in his eyes. His hazel eyes glint brightly in the already too hot morning. "Coward." "Oh." The single sound escapes me. Outrage. Indignation. I stop. Turn and face him. Feel something slip, give way, and crumble loose inside me. Set free, it propels me. Standing on my tiptoes, I circle my hand around his neck and pull his face down to mine. Kiss him. Right there in front of the school. Reckless. Stupid. I stake a claim on him like I've got something to prove, like a drake standing before the pride in a bonding ceremony. But then I forget our audience. Forget everything but the dry heat of our lips. My lungs tighten, contract. I feel my skin shimmer, warm as my lungs catch. Crackling heat works its way up my chest. Not the smartest move I've ever made.

Cutting myself felt so good. It was the sweet way the razor opened up the skin and this red line appeared, like I was pulling a piece of thread out of my wrist. The blood came really slowly, not in some spastic blast like I thought it would. It didn't even really feel like my arm. It was like I was watching someone else's arm in a movie. I kept thinking how great the camera angle was and wishing I had some popcorn.

something? Sometimes she’d go to a movie with Honor, though she clucked about the unsanitary nature of theaters, theater staff and humans in general. Hmm. Mrs. Johnson was probably her best bet. They could bring Spike, who loved movies as well as popcorn. At that moment, her phone rang, startling her so much that she sloshed her coffee. Spike barked from her little doggy bed and began leaping up against Honor’s leg, tearing

So Fifty Shades of Grey is about Chri- auh the name... Christian Grey. Uhh, this was a, porn - almost a porno in my book. It was a sexy thriller, full of uhh nudity, and sex of all kinds. Dirty sex and - uhh pornographic sex... and it was uhh... hard to keep... uhh my - hard to keep calm during the movie, because it was so raunchy. And I loved it. And I give it five bags of popcorn... and five cold glasses of soda, to put between my legs. Um.. to cool down.

You take my hand and I'm suddenly in a bad movie, it goes on and on and why am I fascinated We waltz in slow motion through an air stale with aphorisms we meet behind endless potted palms you climb through the wrong windows Other people are leaving but I always stay till the end I paid my money, I want to see what happens. In chance bathtubs I have to peel you off me in the form of smoke and melted celluloid Have to face it I'm finally an addict, the smell of popcorn and worn plush lingers for weeks

As I reflect back on all of the years of our family’s life together, what I remember best is not the mountains of dirty dishes and pots and pans and socks left on the floor and piles of laundry. I reflect instead on precious times shared with Clay, the kids, and those we welcomed into our home—snuggling on the couch together, nursing babies and rocking them to sleep, sharing movies and huge bowls of popcorn, comforting children after a nightmare, and all those heartfelt kisses and cards that said “I love you!

I was ready to get this show on the road, creating a new generation with an updated set of rules and regulations. Not that there was anything wrong with the way either one of us was brought up, but still, the world is changing, so the way you bring up kids had to change, too. Part of my plan was to never one time mention picking cotton. My parents always talked about either real cotton or the idea of it. White people say, 'It beats digging a ditch'; black people say, 'It beats picking cotton.' I'm not going to remind my kids that somebody died in order for me to do everyday things. I don't want Roy III sitting up in the movie theater trying to watch Star Wars or what have you and be thinking about the fact that sitting down eating some popcorn is a right that cost somebody his life. None of that. Or maybe not much of that. We'll have to get the recipe right. Now Celestial promises that she will never say that they have to be twice as good to get half as much. 'Even if it's true,' she said, 'what kind of thing is that to say to a five-year-old?

Does this popcorn taste burnt to you?" Miles asked, chewing loudly. "Don't eat that," Roland said, plucking the popcorn from Miles's palm. "Arriane got it out of the trash after Luce set the dorm room kitchen on fire." Miles began spitting frantically, leaning over the edge of Roland's wings. "It was my way of connecting with Luce." Arriane shrugged. "But here, if you must, have some Milk Duds." "Is it weird that we're watching the two of them like a movie?" Shelby asked. "We should imagine them like a novel, or a poem, or a song. Sometimes I feel oppressed by how reductive the filmic medium is." "Hey. Roland didn't have to fly you out here, Nephilim. So don't act smart, just watch. Look." Arriane clapped. "He's totally staring at her hair. I bet he goes home and sketches it tonight. How cuuute!" "Arriane, you got way too good at being a teenager," Roland said. "How long are we going to watch for? I mean, don't you think they've earned a little privacy?" "He's right," Arriane said. "We have other things on our celestial plates. Like..." Her smirk faded when she couldn't seem to think of anything.

Step 7. Alter Your Coping Mechanisms Instead of gorging on chocolate pie when you’re hungry, angry, lonely, or tired, fill up on leftover Mexican Potato Salad or “Fried” Rice. Better yet, go for a walk; play your favorite sport; start working on an enjoyable project or hobby; visit a friend or go to a movie (and eat popcorn without butter). The best responses are those that involve physical activity, since they do double duty by reducing intake of fat calories and increasing calorie expenditure. If you must alleviate your frustration by eating, eat the right foods.

So you get fancily dressed and sometimes professionally made up. A driver in a town car picks you up, which makes you feel weird and apologetic. An upbeat public relations person you don’t know leads you onto a red carpet where you’re shouted at to “look here!” and “here” at a hundred strangers with flashbulbs for faces. And then, after those brief moments of manufactured glamour, you find yourself in a regular old creaky movie theater seat, sipping Diet Coke from a sweaty plastic cup and salting your fingers with warm popcorn. Lights dim. Mandated enthusiasm begins.

Cheat (sometimes) Eating healthily is a part of my lifestyle, but I’m no superhuman. My Kryptonite is at the movie theater. I can’t go to the movies unless I have popcorn (with butter and salt, of course), and I’ll also get nachos with extra cheese and jalapeños, then some M&Ms, water, and a root beer if I really want to get crazy. It’s okay to cheat…provided you do it only occasionally. If you never allow yourself to cheat, you put too much pressure on yourself and doom yourself to failure. Work hard and practice hard, but it’s okay to cut yourself a break now and then.

What do I want? I stared at him stupidly. What I wanted was to be with Andy forever, for us to be together, openly, in front of the world. I wanted to come home to him after work every day and hold him every night. I wanted to throw popcorn at each other while watching movies and join a soccer league on the weekends. I wanted to be there when he graduated from law school. I wanted not to have my heart shattered into a million pieces. I wanted not to be broken for however many years it was going to take me to get over this. I couldn’t have those things, though. And it wasn’t fair.

We decided to attend to our community instead of asking our community to attend the church.” His staff started showing up at local community events such as sports contests and town hall meetings. They entered a float in the local Christmas parade. They rented a football field and inaugurated a Free Movie Night on summer Fridays, complete with popcorn machines and a giant screen. They opened a burger joint, which soon became a hangout for local youth; it gives free meals to those who can’t afford to pay. When they found out how difficult it was for immigrants to get a driver’s license, they formed a drivers school and set their fees at half the going rate. My own church in Colorado started a ministry called Hands of the Carpenter, recruiting volunteers to do painting, carpentry, and house repairs for widows and single mothers. Soon they learned of another need and opened Hands Automotive to offer free oil changes, inspections, and car washes to the same constituency. They fund the work by charging normal rates to those who can afford it. I heard from a church in Minneapolis that monitors parking meters. Volunteers patrol the streets, add money to the meters with expired time, and put cards on the windshields that read, “Your meter looked hungry so we fed it. If we can help you in any other way, please give us a call.” In Cincinnati, college students sign up every Christmas to wrap presents at a local mall — ​no charge. “People just could not understand why I would want to wrap their presents,” one wrote me. “I tell them, ‘We just want to show God’s love in a practical way.’ ” In one of the boldest ventures in creative grace, a pastor started a community called Miracle Village in which half the residents are registered sex offenders. Florida’s state laws require sex offenders to live more than a thousand feet from a school, day care center, park, or playground, and some municipalities have lengthened the distance to half a mile and added swimming pools, bus stops, and libraries to the list. As a result, sex offenders, one of the most despised categories of criminals, are pushed out of cities and have few places to live. A pastor named Dick Witherow opened Miracle Village as part of his Matthew 25 Ministries. Staff members closely supervise the residents, many of them on parole, and conduct services in the church at the heart of Miracle Village. The ministry also provides anger-management and Bible study classes.

It is difficult to grasp the appeal of watching humans that don’t exist struggle with problems that aren’t real.” He watched the on-screen couple regard each other warily from across a crowded room. “I have observed many real humans with real problems. I don’t see the need to invent new ones for entertainment.” “Maybe it’s so we can dissociate from our own for a while.” Eva grabbed a handful of popcorn and consumed it with relish. “Their issues could be solved in one conversation. Why are they incapable of basic communication?” She laughed, though it ended with another wince. “You just summarized half the romance genre in two sentences. Though to be fair, this movie is especially bad.

To discover why canned laughter is so effective, we first need to understand the nature of yet another potent weapon of influence: the principle of social proof. It states that one means we use to determine what is correct is to find out what other people think is correct. The principle applies especially to the way we decide what constitutes correct behavior. We view a behavior as more correct in a given situation to the degree that we see others performing it. Whether the question is what to do with an empty popcorn box in a movie theater, how fast to drive on a certain stretch of highway, or how to eat the chicken at a dinner party, the actions of those around us will be important in defining the answer.

1. "Ahem. I know you hate Mondays, madam, but you picked the absolutely wrong one to play hooky. Or be sick. Yes, I suppose it's vaguely possible that you are actually sick. Anyway, here we are at lunch, Sadie and I, witnessing total social disorder. Your friend Alexander Bainbridge is sitting at the usual table, but facing the room. Amanda Alstead is sitting at Table One. Or, should I say,sitting more or less on a Phillite senior boy, whose name is unimportant, at Table One. A very nice young lady at the next table over-you know, the one who writes about Mr. Darcy-has just informeed us that Amanda dumpled Alex over the break. On Thanksgiving Day,no less. By e-mail. No telling how much truth is there, but a lot more than a kernal, I would say. We have a large, seven-dollar bag o' movie popcorn here. Thought you'd like to know. Call me.

Peter and I are standing in line for popcorn at the movies. Even just this mundane thing feels like the best mundane thing that’s ever happened to me. I check my pocket to make sure I’ve still got my ticket stub. This I’ll want to save. Gazing up at Peter, I whisper, “This is my first date.” I feel like the nerdy girl in the movie who lands the coolest guy in school, and I don’t mind one bit. Not one bit. “How can this be your first date when we’ve gone out plenty of times?” “It’s my first real date. Those other times were just pretend; this is the real thing.” He frowns. “Oh, wait, is this real? I didn’t realize that.” I move to slug him in the shoulder, and he laughs and grabs my hand and links my fingers with his. It feels like my heart is beating right through my hand. It’s the first time we’ve held hands for real, and it feels different from those fake times. Like electric currents, in a good way. The best way.

Music centers you,” I whispered to an empty car, staring at his front door. “You listened to your iPod between classes and while you sat on the bleachers before school every morning.” I smiled, letting more tears run down my cheeks and thinking back to him and his black hoodies, looking so dark. “You love popcorn. Almost every kind and flavor but especially with Tabasco sauce,” I said, remembering the times he would come into the theater where I worked. “You hold the door open for women—students, teachers, and even old ladies coming out of Baskin-Robbins. You love movies about natural disasters, but they have to have some comedy in them. Your favorite one is Armageddon.” I swallowed and thought about how little I’d ever seen Jax truly smile. “And while you love computers, it’s not your passion,” I concluded. “You love being outdoors. You love having space.” My whole face hurt, the last words barely audible. “And you deserve someone who makes you happy. I’m just not that person.

I took up a conversation with a gorgeous country girl wearing a low-cut cotton blouse that displayed the beautiful sun-tan on her breast tops. She was dull. She spoke of evenings in the country making popcorn on the porch. Once this would have gladdened my heart but because her heart was not glad when she said it I knew there was nothing in it but the idea of what one should do. “And what else do you do for fun?” I tried to bring up boy friends and sex. Her great dark eyes surveyed me with emptiness and a kind of chagrin that reached back generations and generations in her blood from not having done what was crying to be done—whatever it was, and everybody knows what it was. “What do you want out of life?” I wanted to take her and wring it out of her. She didn’t have the slightest idea what she wanted. She mumbled of jobs, movies, going to her grandmother’s for the summer, wishing she could go to New York and visit the Roxy, what kind of outfit she would wear—something like the one she wore last Easter, white bonnet, roses, rose pumps, and lavender gabardine coat.

The tornadic bundle of legs and arms and feet and hands push farther into the kitchen until only the occasional flailing limb is visible from the living room, where I can’t believe I’m still standing. A spectator in my own life, I watch the supernova of my two worlds colliding: Mom and Galen. Human and Syrena. Poseidon and Triton. But what can I do? Who should I help? Mom, who lied to me for eighteen years, then tried to shank my boyfriend? Galen, who forgot this little thing called “tact” when he accused my mom of being a runaway fish-princess? Toraf, who…what the heck is Toraf doing, anyway? And did he really just sack my mom like an opposing quarterback? The urgency level for a quick decision elevates to right-freaking-now. I decide that screaming is still best for everyone-it’s nonviolent, distracting, and one of the things I’m very, very good at. I open my mouth, but Rayna beats me to it-only, her scream is much more valuable than mine would have been, because she includes words with it. “Stop it right now, or I’ll kill you all!” She pushed past me with a decrepit, rusty harpoon from God-knows-what century, probably pillaged from one of her shipwreck excursions. She waves it at the three of them like a crazed fisherman in a Jaws movie. I hope they don’t notice she’s got it pointed backward and that if she fires it, she’ll skewer our couch and Grandma’s first attempt at quilting. It works. The bare feet and tennis shoes stop scuffling-out of fear or shock, I’m not sure-and Toraf’s head appears at the top of the counter. “Princess,” he says, breathless. “I told you to stay outside.” “Emma, run!” Mom yells. Toraf disappears again, followed by a symphony of scraping and knocking and thumping and cussing. Rayna rolls her eyes at me, grumbling to herself as she stomps into the kitchen. She adjusts the harpoon to a more deadly position, scraping the popcorn ceiling and sending rust and Sheetrock and tetanus flaking onto the floor like dirty snow. Aiming it at the mound of struggling limbs, she says, “One of you is about to die, and right now I don’t really care who it is.” Thank God for Rayna. People like Rayna get things done. People like me watch people like Rayna get things done. Then people like me round the corner of the counter as if they helped, as if they didn’t stand there and let everyone they love beat the shizzle out of one another. I peer down at the three of them all tangled up. Crossing my arms, I try to mimic Rayna’s impressive rage, but I’m pretty sure my face is only capable of what-the-crap-was-that. Mom looks up at me, nostrils flaring like moth wings. “Emma, I told you to run,” she grinds out before elbowing Toraf in the mouth so hard I think he might swallow a tooth. Then she kicks Galen in the ribs. He groans, but catches her foot before she can re-up. Toraf spits blood on the linoleum beside him and grabs Mom’s arms. She writhes and wriggles, bristling like a trapped badger and cussing like sailor on crack. Mom has never been girlie. Finally she stops, her arms and legs slumping to the floor in defeat. Tears puddle in her eyes. “Let her go,” she sobs. “She’s got nothing to do with this. She doesn’t even know about us. Take me and leave her out of this. I’ll do anything.” Which reinforces, right here and now, that my mom is Nalia. Nalia is my mom. Also, holy crap.

We’re moving up in the line, and I realize I’m nervous, which is strange, because this is Peter. But he’s also a different Peter, and I’m a different Lara Jean, because this is a date, an actual date. Just to make conversation, I ask, “So, when you go to the movies are you more of a chocolate kind of candy or a gummy kind of candy?” “Neither. All I want is popcorn.” “Then we’re doomed! You’re neither, and I’m either or all of the above.” We get to the cashier and I start fishing around for my wallet. Peter laughs. “You think I’m going to make a girl pay on her first date?” He puffs out his chest and says to the cashier, “Can we have one medium popcorn with butter, and can you later the butter? And a Sour Patch Kids and a box of Milk Duds. And one small Cherry Coke.” “How did you know that was what I wanted?” “I pay a lot better attention than you think, Covey.” Peter slings his arm around my shoulders with a self-satisfied smirk, and he accidentally hits my right boob. “Ow!” He laughs an embarrassed laugh. “Whoops. Sorry. Are you okay?” I give him a hard elbow to the side, and he’s still laughing as we walk into the theater.

New Rule: Conservatives have to stop complaining about Hollywood values. It's Oscar time again, which means two things: (1) I've got to get waxed, and (2) talk-radio hosts and conservative columnists will trot out their annual complaints about Hollywood: We're too liberal; we're out of touch with the Heartland; our facial muscles have been deadened with chicken botulism; and we make them feel fat. To these people, I say: Shut up and eat your popcorn. And stop bitching about one of the few American products--movies---that people all over the world still want to buy. Last year, Hollywood set a new box-office record: $16 billion worldwide. Not bad for a bunch of socialists. You never see Hollywood begging Washington for a handout, like corn farmers, or the auto industry, or the entire state of Alaska. What makes it even more inappropriate for conservatives to slam Hollywood is that they more than anybody lose their shit over any D-lister who leans right to the point that they actually run them for office. Sony Bono? Fred Thompson? And let'snot forget that the modern conservative messiah is a guy who costarred with a chimp. That's right, Dick Cheney. I'm not trying to say that when celebrities are conservative they're almost always lame, but if Stephen Baldwin killed himself and Bo Derrick with a car bomb, the headline the next day would be "Two Die in Car Bombing." The truth is that the vast majority of Hollywood talent is liberal, because most stars adhere to an ideology that jibes with their core principles of taking drugs and getting laid. The liebral stars that the right is always demonizing--Sean Penn and Michael Moore, Barbra Streisand and Alec Baldwin and Tim Robbins, and all the other members of my biweekly cocaine orgy--they're just people with opinions. None of them hold elective office, and liberals aren't begging them to run. Because we live in the real world, where actors do acting, and politicians do...nothing. We progressives love our stars, but we know better than to elect them. We make the movies here, so we know a well-kept trade secret: The people on that screen are only pretending to be geniuses, astronauts, and cowboys. So please don't hat eon us. And please don't ruin the Oscars. Because honestly, we're just like you: We work hard all year long, and the Oscars are really just our prom night. The tuxedos are scratchy, the limousines are rented, and we go home with eighteen-year-old girls.

Hey, I got an idea, let’s go to the movies. I wanna go to the movies, I want to take you all to the movies. Let’s go and experience the art of the cinema. Let’s begin with the Scream Of Fear, and we're gonna have it haunt us for the rest of our lives. And then let’s go see The Great Escape, and spend our summer jumping our bikes, just like Steve McQueen over barb wire. And then let’s catch The Seven Samurai for some reason on PBS, and we’ll feel like we speak Japanese because we can read the subtitles and hear the language at the same time. And then let’s lose sleep the night before we see 2001: A Space Odyssey because we have this idea that it’s going to change forever the way we look at films. And then let’s go see it four times in one year. And let’s see Woodstock three times in one year and let’s see Taxi Driver twice in one week. And let’s see Close Encounters of the Third Kind just so we can freeze there in mid-popcorn. And when the kids are old enough, let’s sit them together on the sofa and screen City Lights and Stage Coach and The Best Years of Our Lives and On The Waterfront and Midnight Cowboy and Five Easy Pieces and The Last Picture Show and Raging Bull and Schindler’s List… so that they can understand how the human condition can be captured by this amalgam of light and sound and literature we call the cinema.

This is why people are so disappointed with the present. We talk so much about how wonderful tomorrow's going to be that even if it's great, it can't help but be a letdown. Tomorrow is like a summer blockbuster for which the studio starts showing trailers the previous November. By the time it comes to your complex, you feel like you've already seen it. All the best lines and biggest explosions. The most provocative coming-out-of-the-water bikini shot. You will already have seen the making-of-the-feature and heard the actors on the press junket talking about what a privilege it was to work with so-and-so and how they all did their own stunts. So because you feel like you've already seen it, by the time it comes, you have no desire to fork over $15 and actually sit through it in a theater. What's happened is that you've already experienced something which hasn't happened yet. In fact, when you think of it, the only reason to go to the movies isn't to see the feature but to get a taste of the future, to see the trailer for the NEXT big blockbuster and to experience THAT before it happens. And this phenomenon isn't limited to the movies, it is the we live today. And it is why I encourage you to ignore the hype of what's to come, and to get some popcorn and gummy bears during the previews, and to thoroughly enjoy the feature. In real time. Not in the black hole of expectation.

Ave Maria BY FRANK O'HARA Mothers of America let your kids go to the movies! get them out of the house so they won’t know what you’re up to it’s true that fresh air is good for the body but what about the soul that grows in darkness, embossed by silvery images and when you grow old as grow old you must they won’t hate you they won’t criticize you they won’t know they’ll be in some glamorous country they first saw on a Saturday afternoon or playing hookey they may even be grateful to you for their first sexual experience which only cost you a quarter and didn’t upset the peaceful home they will know where candy bars come from and gratuitous bags of popcorn as gratuitous as leaving the movie before it’s over with a pleasant stranger whose apartment is in the Heaven on Earth Bldg near the Williamsburg Bridge oh mothers you will have made the little tykes so happy because if nobody does pick them up in the movies they won’t know the difference and if somebody does it’ll be sheer gravy and they’ll have been truly entertained either way instead of hanging around the yard or up in their room hating you prematurely since you won’t have done anything horribly mean yet except keeping them from the darker joys it’s unforgivable the latter so don’t blame me if you won’t take this advice and the family breaks up and your children grow old and blind in front of a TV set seeing movies you wouldn’t let them see when they were young

Twenty years? No kidding: twenty years? It’s hard to believe. Twenty years ago, I was—well, I was much younger. My parents were still alive. Two of my grandchildren had not yet been born, and another one, now in college, was an infant. Twenty years ago I didn’t own a cell phone. I didn’t know what quinoa was and I doubt if I had ever tasted kale. There had recently been a war. Now we refer to that one as the First Gulf War, but back then, mercifully, we didn’t know there would be another. Maybe a lot of us weren’t even thinking about the future then. But I was. And I’m a writer. I wrote The Giver on a big machine that had recently taken the place of my much-loved typewriter, and after I printed the pages, very noisily, I had to tear them apart, one by one, at the perforated edges. (When I referred to it as my computer, someone more knowledgeable pointed out that my machine was not a computer. It was a dedicated word processor. “Oh, okay then,” I said, as if I understood the difference.) As I carefully separated those two hundred or so pages, I glanced again at the words on them. I could see that I had written a complete book. It had all the elements of the seventeen or so books I had written before, the same things students of writing list on school quizzes: characters, plot, setting, tension, climax. (Though I didn’t reply as he had hoped to a student who emailed me some years later with the request “Please list all the similes and metaphors in The Giver,” I’m sure it contained those as well.) I had typed THE END after the intentionally ambiguous final paragraphs. But I was aware that this book was different from the many I had already written. My editor, when I gave him the manuscript, realized the same thing. If I had drawn a cartoon of him reading those pages, it would have had a text balloon over his head. The text would have said, simply: Gulp. But that was twenty years ago. If I had written The Giver this year, there would have been no gulp. Maybe a yawn, at most. Ho-hum. In so many recent dystopian novels (and there are exactly that: so many), societies battle and characters die hideously and whole civilizations crumble. None of that in The Giver. It was introspective. Quiet. Short on action. “Introspective, quiet, and short on action” translates to “tough to film.” Katniss Everdeen gets to kill off countless adolescent competitors in various ways during The Hunger Games; that’s exciting movie fare. It sells popcorn. Jonas, riding a bike and musing about his future? Not so much. Although the film rights to The Giver were snapped up early on, it moved forward in spurts and stops for years, as screenplay after screenplay—none of them by me—was

Instead of playing little league baseball on weekends, I usually was sitting in my neighborhood movie theatre, munching on popcorn.

The thing about Zofia and libraries is that she’s always losing library books. She says that she hasn’t lost them, and in fact that they aren’t even overdue, really. It’s just that even one week inside the faery handbag is a lot longer in library-world time. So what is she supposed to do about it? The librarians all hate Zofia. She’s banned from using any of the branches in our area. When I was eight, she got me to go to the library for her and check out a bunch of biographies and science books and some Georgette Heyer novels. My mother was livid when she found out, but it was too late. Zofia had already misplaced most of them.   It’s really hard to write about somebody as if they’re really dead. I still think Zofia must be sitting in her living room, in her house, watching some old horror movie, dropping popcorn into her handbag. She’s waiting for me to come over and play Scrabble.   Nobody is ever going to return those library books now.

Tune into good memories Knowing this, you have to be proactive. When negative memories come back to the movie screen of the mind, many people pull up a chair, get some popcorn, and watch it all again. They’ll say: “I can’t believe they hurt me, that was so wrong.” Instead, remember this: That’s not the only movie playing. There’s another channel that is not playing back your defeats, your failures, or your disappointments. This channel features your victories, your accomplishments, and the things you did right. The good-memory channel plays back the times you were promoted, you met the right person, you bought a great house, and your children were healthy and happy. Instead of staying on that negative channel, switch over to your victory channel. You will not move forward into better days if you’re always replaying the negative things that have happened. We’ve all been through loss, disappointments, and bad breaks. So those memories will come to mind most often. The good news is you have the remote control. Just because the memory comes up doesn’t mean you have to dwell on it. Learn to change the channel.

Kewauna traced a lot of her current academic difficulties to sixth grade, when, because of her poor grades and bad behavior, she was placed in a remedial class called WINGS. Officially, WINGS stood for Working Innovatively Now for Graduation Success, but Kewauna told me that at Plymouth, the joke was that it was called WINGS because the kids used to sit in class all day just eating chicken wings. That was an exaggeration, she said—but not much of one. “We never did anything in that class,” she said. “It was for kids who needed help, but they didn’t give us any help. We didn’t read. We didn’t study. We just played video games and watched movies and ate popcorn. It was fun, but that’s why I’m struggling with the ACT now. That’s why I’m getting denied from scholarships. Those two years were when we were supposed to be learning punctuation, commas, metaphors, all that stuff. When they bring it up today, they say, ‘Remember when we learned this?’ And I’m like, ‘No, I don’t! I never learned any of that.

Every year at the Academy Awards the most notable prize is for “Best Picture.” The media speculate on it for weeks prior to the broadcast, and most viewers stay up well past their bedtimes to see it awarded. There is a far less hyped award on the night: the one for film editing. Let’s face it: most viewers flip the channel or go into the kitchen to refill their popcorn bowl when the winner of “Best Film Editing” is announced. Yet what most people don’t know is that the two awards are highly correlated: since 1981 not a single film has won Best Picture without at least being nominated for Film Editing. In fact, in about two-thirds of the cases the movie nominated for Film Editing has gone on to win Best Picture.

After this, want to watch a movie?” Ignoring any outside noise beyond our exchange, I tell her of the memory that kept me going in France. Whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh. Of a time I felt complete and whole. “You can make that cheddar popcorn I love, and we can crowd under that blanket that smells like . . . what’s that smell?” “Lavender,” she releases in a shaky rush.

The kids were all together at Jen and Sam’s house, watching a movie and eating microwave popcorn, unaware that their parents’ marriages were both on the verge of imploding.

After this, you want to watch a movie? You can make that cheddar popcorn I love. We can crowd under that blanket that smells like.... what's that smell?" I choke on a fresh wave of fear. " Lavender," I say as more tears stream down my cheeks. "Yeah. And I'll let you watch a chick movie because all I really want to do is watch you watch it. Your face gets all dopey when you get love drunk.

And it seemed fitting both for Andrei, and hypothetically the creators of the film, that when he got up to leave in the middle of it, he did so as an ode to the film. A statement of departure that said: 'If you made the movie for the reason I think you did, perhaps you wouldn’t be offended that I left the damn place and decided to chase after life. Inspiration is unlimited, but time is not. Thank you. Goodbye!' He left the poet’s book in the seat beside him, took his popcorn and soda, and exited the cinema the way the writers would have wanted.

This was inevitable, and another unmistakable inkling tells me that I knew it well before now. Whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh. It’s Cecelia’s call that stops me from embracing the dark snaking its way into me. Focusing on her, I allow myself the chance to tell her that briefly, she gave me a glimpse of a happiness I hadn’t thought I was capable of. “Cecelia,” I address firmly, my heart lurching into the rhythm she created. Whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh. Tobias attempts to cut in, calling my name, but I refuse him. “I’m talking to Cecelia.” “Yes?” she replies, voice shaking with fear. “After this, want to watch a movie?” Ignoring any outside noise beyond our exchange, I tell her of the memory that kept me going in France. Whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh. Of a time I felt complete and whole. “You can make that cheddar popcorn I love, and we can crowd under that blanket that smells like . . . what’s that smell?” “Lavender,” she releases in a shaky rush. Whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh. Of a life we might have had . . . if I didn’t have so many fucking monsters to slay. “Yeah, and I’ll watch a chick movie because all I really want to do is watch you watch it. Your face gets all dopey when you get love drunk.” Whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh. “We love rainy days, don’t we, baby?” “We do,” she croaks, voice breaking. Tilting my head at Matteo in challenge, I make my declaration clear to Tobias to ready himself. “We don’t fucking negotiate with terrorists.” Taking another step toward Matteo, Cecelia’s voice reaches me in elevated panic. “Dominic.” “What is it, baby?” “S’il te plaît, ne fais rien de stupide. Je t’aime.” Please don’t do anything stupid. I love you. “Je sais.” I know. Her declaration fuels me as I stand between her and the monster I swore to protect her from while her love sets me free. For a brief time, she was my solace—my reprieve. The only dream of a future I allowed myself to have, but she can’t be. Not anymore. Too many monsters. “Dominic,” Tobias orders gruffly. “Stand down, right fucking now. We’re still talking.” I feel the desperation in his order, in him, as he rattles behind me to stop and think it through. But I have, for far too long, and I’m finally ten steps ahead. Sorry brother.

My mom? When I was little, she used to do this thing at the movie theater where she would ask for an extra cup for water, but then she would fill it with butter from that li’l pump thing instead. And then when we got to the middle of the popcorn bag, we’d pour it in, and it was like a li’l butter refresher midway through.

When it was time to decide the official food of movie-watching, human beings did not go for Fig Newtons or caramel, foods that are silent, but popcorn, the loudest sound on Earth.

Popcorn [10w] Do robots enjoy eating Styrofoam popcorn while watching a movie?

Well, good,” he told her. “Because I think you're a spoiled little brat with delusions of being some kind of suburban princess,” he bit out. “And I think you need to realize there's more to life than pink frilly outfits and the perfect shade of lip gloss. If you didn't look like you do, you'd have no friends at all.”               She was still on her knees, head down, determined not to cry. She didn't have friends. His words cut like a knife, but they were all true. It was bad enough her mom wasn't here to watch her movie with her. She didn't need Dylan to make her feel like nothing. After finally getting all of the ruined popcorn back into the bowl, she stood and turned around quickly, avoiding his gaze. She dumped the contents of the bowl in the garbage and marched straight past him and into the living room. Over her shoulder she mustered the ability to shout without a hint of a crack in her voice. “Yeah, well I think you're a pretentious prick who thinks he's too good for everyone since he went to that dumb-ass college!”               Katie flopped down onto the couch, bundled herself up in blankets, and flipped through her DVR to find Legally Blonde. It could at least make her feel better even if her mother wasn't around. A single, solitary tear rolled down her right cheek as she heard Dylan walk behind her, headed for the stairs. She tried as hard as she could to block out the cry-fest she knew was coming until he got to his room where he couldn't hear her, but just when she heard his foot hit the first creaky step, she let out a sniffle and wiped a tear from her face. Katie heard Dylan stop. There were no more creaks on the stairs. Shit, she thought to herself. He heard her.                              

I barely even know how I didn't feel. I didn't feel like reading a newspaper, or having a coffee, or going for a jog, or watching television. Nor did I feel like crying behind the boiler in the basement. Or like trying out for something. I did't even feel like I had lost someone I deeply loved; this was different from that. I didn't feel like going to another movie and asking for extra butter on my popcorn. I didn't feel like talking to someone who would understand.

I suddenly realise that in the last four years I forgot what it feels like to go to the movies. I forgot about the seats with their velour and plastic arms, the smell of popcorn and the way the blackness takes away normal life and replaces it with a whole new world for an hour and a half. I forgot about the emotion and the excitement and the tension and the relief at the end when everything works out alright.

I’m underwater on my mortgage, and I have a flooded movie theater for rent. Scuba tank and popcorn not included.

We’d just settled on the couch to watch a horror movie--with a bowl of buttery popcorn between us--when Josh’s cell phone rang. He looked at it. “My dad.” He answered. “Hey, Dad…no, I’m fine. After you called last night, I, uh, I actually came over to Ashleigh’s to make sure she was okay and the weather was so bad that I ended up staying.” He grimaced. “Yes, sir, I know. I behaved.” He rolled his eyes. “When will you be back?” He mouthed, “Tomorrow” and then said, “That’s what I figured. Snow has us packed in, so I’ll dig us out tomorrow.” He winked at me.

There you are.  Want some popcorn?” I didn’t wait for an answer but went to the kitchen to get him his own bowl and split the popcorn between the two. In the living room, I set his bowl on the floor within his reach.  Then, I curled into my end of the couch and tucked my feet under him.  With my bowl balanced at my side, I reached for the remote. I’d barely started the movie when he sighed gustily, repositioned himself, and laid his head on my curled legs.  The heat of him relaxed me, and I settled in comfortably, content not to move him.  I ate a piece of popcorn as I watched the intro.  His head shifted on my leg, following the piece of popcorn.  I absently took another piece and offered it to him.  He gently ate it from my fingers.  I offered him a few more pieces, not fully paying attention when he licked the back of my hand. The second movie was more an action-suspense than comedy.  Halfway through the movie, I’d abandoned my bowl of popcorn to the floor.  One of my hands burrowed in the thick fur at Clay’s neck, and the other lightly worried his fuzzy ear.  He didn’t seem to mind my grip as I stared at the screen.  At a particularly suspenseful part, the front door opened.  It scared me so badly that a strangled scream tore through the air.  My scream.  My heart pounded as both Rachel and Clay stared at me. “And that’s why I don’t watch suspense movies,” I said to both of them once I could breathe again.  Clay didn’t stop laughing for two minutes.  Rachel laughed just as hard and thankfully didn’t notice Clay’s reaction. Clay licked my exposed midriff then, finally, settled down. I gently tugged on his ear.  “Cut it out,” I scolded softly. “So