The Mother Of All Double Features!

It’s the early 2000s, and I’ve moved into my first apartment in a town in Surrey. It’s a great place, and I love it, but my mother’s a little worried about me. I have a spare bedroom, so I invite her to come visit for a week or so; I’ll show her the town, and she can see for herself that I’m still alive and doing fine for myself.

Mother arrives, and I’m a little stumped. Although we have a great relationship, we actually have very few interests in common; she’s a country girl who’s happiest when gardening or hiking, and I’m a couch potato and gaming addict. 

One thing we do have in common is our taste in movies. The town has a six-screen cinema, so I figure we’ll go see a movie. Although Mother likes movies, she never took me to the cinema when I was a kid (we lived on a small farm in the middle of nowhere; things like days at amusement parks or cinemas were left very firmly to my grandparents). If there was something she wanted to see, she’d buy it on video (this is important for context). 

We arrive at the cinema, I buy the tickets and give Mother hers, and we go into the cinema area to buy some snacks and ice cream. So far, so good. We go into the cinema and take our seats.

As we’re sitting there waiting for the lights to go down, Mother leans over to me.

Mother: “So how many movies do we get?”

Me: “Uh… what?”

For a minute, I think that she wants to buy tickets for another movie after this one. I have no problem with this, but it is very out of character for her.

Mother: *Nodding at the grey screen.* “You know. How many movies?”

Me: “What do you mean? We’re seeing [Movie].”

We go back and forth like this in mutual confusion for a few minutes before finally making ourselves understood.

And that’s how I learned the REAL meaning of the term “B-movie” (a supposed lower-quality movie shown back-to-back with the main feature) and Mother learned that double features aren’t a thing anymore.