Last night was 70s bowling night and I won. In the fifth round, my zipper split, and in the seventh the seam burst down the middle of my pants. I untucked my shirt to hide the color of my underwear and played to a score of 156. Before bowling was quite the different experience. My best girl and I went to the theater to see Spider-Man 3. We were excited about it, but not nearly as excited as the forty or so fans ahead of us in line, who might have been waiting there for a few hours. It was a sight that reaffirmed the validity of the comic-book-nerd stereotype: mostly males, from a broad range of age and experience, unkempt hair, hand-held video games in hand, hunched over, and blowing cash on oversalted popcorn and syrupy sodas. There was a family ahead of us, a father, an older son, and three daughters. Two of the daughters were teenaged; one was younger than ten. They discussed buying soft drinks and other overpriced goods until they ran out of things to say. Then the two teenaged daughters walked off so they wouldn’t have to stand in line for a long time—let the men do that. But the youngest girl wanted to stay with her dad. I saw a close bond between the oldest son and the youngest daughter. He held her and then set her down and started playing a game of slapping hands (gently) with her, trying to get her riled up for the movie by putting some sort of Spider-Man theme on the game. While this was all going on, a wild herd of long-haired, loud-mouthed boys of ten or younger ravaged the miniature video arcade to out right. They did what they wanted. I asked, “Where are their parents?” and was reminded of my own age. No one came to rebuke them or at least make them set the arcade machines back in their original positions. They finally got tired of the place and migrated away. Inside the theater, thirty minutes before the movie started, it seemed like there were already a hundred people sitting in the seats. Two theatric high school Spider-Man fanboys game an impromptu pep rally before the advertisements started playing on the screen. The speech had no substance, but had plenty of gusto. It ended with one of the boys just saying, “So, Spider-Man 3,” and everyone cheering. The movie eventually started, and there was much rejoicing. I had heard snippets of good reviews of the movie, and the first two Spider-Man movies were surprisingly good for blockbusters, so I was expecting at least a good show. I got a good show, but that was all. The special effects were spectacular, but the regular effects, like the ones good stories are based on, were weaker than mediocre. Aristotle would have slapped the writers. It was more interesting listening to the crowd’s responses to the actions on the silver screen. They cheered as if Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst were their high school comrades and they were watching a high-production school play. There was a point where Spider-Man became bad (with a meaningful but paper-thin reason) and began acting like a biker punk, disrespectful and harsh, and that is when the crowd cheered the most. I said to Sarah: “This audience is cheering for the wrong things.” I was reminded of someone telling me that a popular fast food restaurant had been using cardboard in their food as filler, and though I don’t know how reliable that statement was, it is still a good image for how the crowd received this movie. The filler, what was supposed to be the most meaningful and nutritious, was empty. The plot of this movie (it doesn’t deserve to be called a film) had a purpose: to provide a means to get from one display of computer-graphics prowess to the next dull, cliché comic effort. The crowd loved it. Sarah and I walked out after the credits started showing us names no one ever pays attention to. We both had a leery look on our faces. I called it “Okay at best.” She just said she didn’t like it. Am I grateful that my girlfriend is a good student of rhetoric! I’m not happy that she was displeased along with me, but I am happy that she is not just one of the crowd. I heard a lot of people saying they were just happy that so-and-so character was actually put into the movie. I chose not to write a review of the movie because I am not a qualified film critic. What I am qualified to do is to write my observations and gatherings. I am always looking, watching, and taking notes, especially in public. Sarah and I then drove to the bowling alley, and as I bowled and as my pants split, I thought it a good metaphor for what I did to the movie in my mind by rising above the “I’ll take what I get” attitude. I ripped it open.