It’s getting harder to spend on leisure, because I’m getting so much better at talking myself out of it. There are just so many other good alternatives.

For example: Iron Man 3 has started showing in Canada. I’ve skipped watching most movies in the theatres, but I do like superhero movies, and theatres are great for superhero movies because they make the movies larger than life. I like the outsized situations that the writers put the superheroes in and how they have to get them out. I like the way the movies push visual effects forward without taking themselves too seriously. So I’m going to watch it at some point. I just have to decide…

• Do I watch it in the movie theatre during opening weekend, as a vote for more movies like that, maybe with W-?

• $26 for two tickets
• Can lead to rich in-joke material
• Good sound and perfect playback (no worries about scratches)
• Larger than life / immersive
• Immediate gratification
• Focused attention

• $25-35, depending on dinner
• Bonding time with friends – find out what’s going on in their lives
• Buying tickets and organizing seating can be difficult
• Good sound and perfect playback (no worries about scratches)
• Larger than life / immersive
• Short-term gratification
• Focused attention

• $13 by myself, or possibly with other friends who also have flexible schedules
• Better seats
• Good sound and perfect playback (no worries about scratches)
• Larger than life / immersive
• Short-term gratification
• Focused attention

• Free
• Can lead to rich in-joke material
• Writing time or cat time
• Can watch with subtitles
• Can pause and rewind
• Can watch extended material, commentary
• Can talk to W- while hanging out (extra in-jokes and movie references!)
• Comfy seats, clean floor (no spilled popcorn or drinks)
• I can read IMDB trivia and tvtropes entries or research interesting ideas

And you know, that library option is looking pretty darn tempting. The biggest downsides are a less immersive experience and a longer wait. I don’t need big sound or big images to get into a story (I can imagine things from books). Watching musicals from closer to the stage was much better in terms of being able to see facial expressions, so there’s something for that.

It takes a while for movies to be released on DVD, and some more time for the library to obtain copies. The DVDs are available on a catch-as-catch-can basis at various branches, and then they’re available for general holds after a year. New items are released on the 15th of every month. W- and I check the new listings on the 15th or 16th, by which time there are sometimes hundreds of holds for popular movies. For example, The Avengers (2012) has 992 holds for 107 copies. Movies can be checked out or renewed a week at a time, and transit between branches takes another day or two. That means that requesting a popular movie like the Avengers would mean a wait of maybe a year and a half from when the movie was released, which is actually not that big a deal because we’ve got a ton of other things to watch. Besides, sometimes we luck out. In this particular case, the Annette Street branch is the home branch for one of the Avengers DVD copies, so we spotted it during our regular library walk and we checked it out even before it was available for general holds. =)

Popular movies tend to be well-stocked, and I have three branches in easy reach: Annette, Runnymede, and Jane. The Hobbit was another movie that I decided to wait for as a library release, and writing this blog post reminded me that I should go look for it. It’s not available for general release yet, but one copy is due at Runnymede tomorrow and another is due at Annette on Monday. I might bump into it one of these days. If not, I can wait for it to become available for holds on October 15. (Hmm, time to set a reminder…)

Besides, there’s so much else to do, and so many other movies, shows, books, and games out there. We can keep ourselves endlessly entertained if we want to with just the things we have. So it really comes down to the question: what do I want?

• I want to be delighted by and learn from storytelling.
• I like the way that shared movies turn into great in-jokes between W- and me, layers of references building on other references.
• It would be nice to spend time with friends, but there are other things I can do to spend time with friends.

So probably library, then, for this and most other movies. W- says, “That’s a lot of thinking about $26.” But it’s this gradual shaping of wants and desires that creates the space for even more possibilities later.

The less I want, the more I can enjoy.