We are all people on the go. Every morning on the subway I see people juggling coffee, newspapers, scrolling their iPhones- all the while careful not to make eye contact with the homeless man wandering down the aisle asking for spare change. There is only so much time in our lives. For work. Home. Children. Gym. Self-abuse. Fights with friends over the phone. Alcohol consumption. Homicide. Where does the time go?
So how do we fit movies in? If we don’t pick out one night every week to head off to a theater, how to we keep up with the flurry of new films, DVDs or streaming options and still seem somehow relevant around the water cooler? I did a survey recently and discovered that, actually, many people are able to do a multitude of tasks, while keeping up with the latest films. Here are some of my findings.
Remarkably, noted surgeon Phillip S. says he was able to perform a C-section while watching Martin Scorsese’s The Departed on the flat screen TV he mounted in his operating room. “Christ that was a good movie. That Leonard DiCaprio was great.” Unfortunately, the patient suffered abdominal pains afterwards and it was revealed that the doctor had accidentally sewed the remote control inside her.
Mary G. has a small portable DVD player attached to her vacuum cleaner, with noise-cancelling headphones to cut down any outside racket. “I watched Fifty Shades Darker while cleaning my apartment, doing my taxes and baking a tuna casserole and a pineapple upside-down cake for my family.”
“It’s a little hard following plots when you’re running from the law,” confesses George L. who robbed a liquor store in Queens while watching Mission: Impossible- Rogue Nation on his iPad. “But it does keep you jacked.”
Watching movies while having sex seems quite common among a handful of wives. “I saw most of Million Dollar Baby over my husband’s shoulder while he was pounding me,” admits Betty D. “That dope thought I was crying because he was giving me some good lovin’.”
“I saw Bridesmaids while flying through a major thunderstorm and laughed my ass off the whole time,” says a commercial pilot, who runs a portable DVD player in the cockpit of his 747.
Most people seem capable of doing more than one thing while keeping an eye on a monitor. Francine W. wormed her cats while watching Call Me By Your Name. “It was good distraction. Although I had to eat a peach afterwards. So did the cats.”
Many people I interviewed simultaneously troll the internet while movie watching. Joe T. searches eBay for rare candy dishes and autographed pictures of Ernest Borgnine. “I watched the entire Stanley Kubrick collection while bidding on line.”
Harry N. loves to watch light romantic comedies while searching Grindr. “Jesus,” he says clicking on endless pictures of erect penises. “It’s hard to keep my eye on Sandra Bullock or Kate Hudson looking at those gigantic boners.”
Several authors said they play movies while working. A renowned playwright (who wishes to remain anonymous) admits a passion for keeping an endless stream of Doris Day films on in the background, which he says helps fuel his edgy work. “I wrote one of the angriest, most controversial play of my career while watching The Glass Bottom Boat.”
Bathrooms and movies seem to be a winning combination, gaining fast in popularity. “I like to take a long luxurious bath in the late afternoon and watch movies,” says Tanya L. “The other day I shaved my legs, conditioned my hair, and pleasured myself in a bubble bath while watching Syriana.”
Others, and this seems a natural choice, set up flat screens directly across from the toilet. “I like to watch foreign films when I sit on the john,” declared Frank C. “There’s nothing like Antonioni for a good bowel movement.”
Even a few loons were willing to admit that they watch movies and drive at the same time. “I strapped my computer to the dashboard and drove into the city while watching the DVD of Dunkirk,” says Jeffrey H. “And ate three cheese Danishes while steering the wheel with my knees.”
Probably the strangest multitasking story I heard was from Larry R. now serving a life sentence for murder. “My kids kept making so much noise while I was trying to watch Transformers: The Last Knight that I grabbed my shotgun and blew them away, wrapped them in hefty trash bags, and cleaned up the blood with a mop never taking my eyes off the screen for longer than a few seconds.” When I asked if he felt any remorse for his act the only thing Larry asked was: “When is the next Transformers movie coming out? I wonder if you could sneak it to me in prison? Now that would be sweet.”