I originally mailed this letter off to the corporate headquarters of Marcus Theatres on February 14, 2014. I included my home address with the letter but never received a response (probably for good reason). It was in response to an advertisement they played before every movie, one they have since removed and replaced.

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Dear Marcus Theatres,

 

There was something about your advertisement, nestled after the previews and before the feature film, that seized hold of my attention. My head was locked into place; my eyes were pried open, directed solely at the screen as that wondrous spot of theatre shimmied its way into the deep recesses of my brain…

 

…and my heart.

 

I’ve seen it at least once a week, and like clockwork, the same performance grapples me snugly, like a plummeting Gotham-ite clutched tightly by the Batman amidst a free-fall from Gotham’s tallest clock tower. Like Hooper, submerged in that cage in Jaws, my world was rocked. Shattered. Split in ‘twain from Sir Robin of Locksley’s arrow. Nestled in those comfy theater seats, it was as if I were a fair maiden on Ryan Gosling’s couch.

 

But I’m not. I’m a man. Rugged. Testosterone-fueled. I eat my fried chicken with my fingers, and I’m heavily Reptilian-brained, like any filmgoer raised during the height of 80’s action cinema. And even I, this hardened, steroid-raging meathead, was sold on a Magical Movie Rewards Card.

As your actors reached an operatic crescendo in their discussion of this rewards card, a jolt ran through my system. My fingers trembled. A shortness of breath coiled around my lungs. I slowly turned toward my girlfriend, and she looked at me with those eyes, those glimmering eyes that let you know that this moment, this moment shared between lovers – it means something. Like a mountain of mashed potatoes clumsily spooned onto Richard Dreyfuss’ dinner plate, there was something to be had here.

 

“It’s kismet,” my girlfriend whispered. “It’s kismet.”

 

And so I signed up for the Magical Movie Rewards Card, hoping this would satiate that karmic inkling tingling at far reaches of my cranium. It held my hunger at bay. For a while. But each time I saw that slice of info-tainment before every movie, there was a gnawing sensation still lingering. All was not well with the world. My stomach, as it does every time I dine on Asian cuisine, still rumbled.

 

What more could I ask for? I had secured the card in question. What then?

 

I write to you, dear Marcus Theatres, not as a king reverberating commands down from the turret of his castle. No, my dear Marcus, I write to you as a beggar, a man of tattered rags and leftover sandwiches plundered from dumpsters, pleading that you grant me one request. It’d be my sincerest wish if you could print a still from this Magical Movie Rewards advertisement and track down that dapper actor in the black shirt for his signature upon this print. I need not know his name. Nay, he need merely to sign it as “Magical Movie Rewards Guy”, and I shall be as full of jubilation as a teenage girl at a Twilight marathon.

 

Thank you kindly for your time, Marcus Theatres. You are simply amazing. I shall happily await your reply.

 

With regard,

 

Scott Waldyn