Cinema Verite

There I was, standing in the kitchen of a friend, talking to my son's preschool teacher. To be clear, she was my son's preschool teacher about a decade ago, but we are fortunate enough to stay in touch with his educational past and present. It was a holiday party, and while the food was being prepared and dispersed, conversation was being pursued. I was asked, for what seemed to be the fiftieth time in the past couple days what my plans were for the long winter break.
"Are you taking off? Going anywhere?"
"Well, I expect that we'll see a lot of movies," I replied. Feeling this was somehow an inadequate response, I began to pad it with a discussion of all the coming attractions that had caught my family's collective attention. There were family movies, romances, action films and family films. When I was done, I had listed more than a half dozen titles.
"Wow," came the reaction, "your family really loves movies."
At first I tried to shrug it off, imagining I was simply relating the plans and goals of most of middle America. Wasn't everyone expecting to take in a movie every other day over a two week period? Add in the couch time for perennial favorites like "It's A Wonderful Life" and "A Christmas Story," ans suddenly the vacation was a non-stop screening room. With all the hype and promotion going into Hollywood's best and brightest, it would seem silly to miss out on all that entertainment.
Then again, all those tickets and concessions aren't free, either. We can try to get into those bargain matinees, and sneak in a can of pop or some snacks to take the edge off, but even then we could expect to lay down thirty to forty dollars for each blockbuster we lined up to see. All that cash would make a pretty good down payment on a pony or an air hockey table. A more realistic expectation would be that we might see three of those six movies that we set out to experience. The rest we'll have to wait around to see on Netflix. Or HBO. You know, for "free."