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My kids, and all modern kids, are spoiled when it comes to the movies. They will never know the pathetic majesty that was the drive-in. These went the way of the dodo when I was in my twenties. The harbinger of doom for these American institutions was when they started having swap meets on the grounds during the daylight hours. Frankly, I’m surprised they hung on as long as they did. It’s a crazy business model. You need acres and acres of real estate, tons of concrete, lots of equipment — all for a business that can only operate after sundown. But there was something beautiful about a night at the drive-in. It was always a thrill going from the car to the snack shack, weaving through the cars in the dark, waving at friends. When you’re in a movie theater now, going from your seat to the snack bar is a pain in the ass, stepping into someone’s spilled soda and pretty much giving the person in the seat next to you a lap dance as you attempt to exit the row. You get in that argument with your wife, “Come on. You go get the Goobers, I got them last time.” “Why do I have to do everything?” Yet the drive-in snack shack was about four miles away, but you had no complaints at all about making that trip. Maybe because there was stuff to see, especially people making out in the back of cars.

I think if we’re realistic, we can just admit the whole business model was based on backseat boning. Did people not have places to have sex in the ’60s and ’70s? I guess kids still had the decorum to lie to their parents back then and pretend they weren’t having sex. Teenagers had to steal away to the drive-in to finger-blast their best gal while Rebel Without a Cause played a hundred yards away, especially if they didn’t have a basement. I’m sure when So

When I was growing up, our family went to the drive-in once or twice but it was typically a disaster. We were always caught off guard, “Who’s got a blanket? The car’s parked sideways, Dad. We can’t see.” But I distinctly remember seeing the cagey veterans of the drive-in, the folks super-committed to this family night out. They had folding chairs, hammocks, quilts and their own popcorn machine. It was like the parking lot at a Jimmy Buffett concert.

Nowadays, taking the kids to a film is a festival of a

I’m not one of those guys who complain about the price of movies. Having made two of them, I know how much effort they are to produce and I think the idea of sinking thirteen bucks into something an army of people put a hundred million into isn’t that tall an order. But the price of the snacks is a different story. That I can complain about. I’d be fine with the inflated cost of theater popcorn if it were satisfying. But I resent paying thirteen-fifty for a small popcorn. That dollar to calorie ratio is horrible. Weight wise, it’s more expensive than cocaine.

More importantly, you never know what you’re going to get. Movie popcorn has too much range. It goes from so super salty I can’t eat it, to so right that I can’t stop myself, to so dry that I’m going to bring it home and use it as blown insulation.

Plus, I don’t like when you pay as much for the popcorn as the movie ticket and the girl at the snack counter already has it set aside. I want a fresh scoop of popcorn from the bottom where it’s still warm, salty and soaking in coagulated butter. I want to see you digging for gold, baby.

By the way, do yourself a favor and skip the fake butter. Here’s how you know the shit is cancerous and horrible for you — it’s self-serve. You can top yourself off. If it was real, actual food it would be expensive and they’d dispense it themselves. Plus, anything self-serve is a very ugly American thing. Imagine telling someone in the Third World that all of us have access to unlimited fake butter, as much as we can consume. We could sit under that tap and just squirt it forever like a golden butter bukakke and no one could stop us.

And that fake greasy butter really ruins the movie experience if you’re seeing something in 3-D. Every other movie that comes out now is in 3-D, so those silly goggles are ubiquitous. When the kids put them on they smear them with greasy popcorn fingers, so what they’re seeing looks like the White Diamonds commercial circa 1987. Everything is in soft focus, like a Barbara Walters interview.