Cinematically Correct : These Days, You Are What You See at the Movies

“I’M BATMAN,” said my sister Laurie when she called last month from New York--or should I say Gotham City? This way lies madness, I thought nervously. And that way lies the movies.

“I don’t have a lunch box or underwear or anything with a bat on it,” my sister assured me. “But I do walk around saying, ‘I’m Batman.’ I love the way he says that in the movie. And it’s a really great icebreaker at parties.”

I’ll bet. Lately, it seems as if there’s no life outside of the movie theater. People used to talk about cheating on their diets, or who was sleeping with whom, or sports or politics. But now, every conversation seems to revolve around films and videos.

“This is the hottest year in Hollywood since television came along and ended the first great epic of movie-going,” says Times film writer Jack Mathews. “Hits are generating hits.” Somehow, I suspect that peer pressure is generating the hits. But Mathews suggests that it’s a matter of convenience. “There are now thousands of multiplexes in malls,” he says. “People go to see something that’s hot. They’re there and they can’t get in, so they go see something else.”

Anything else. Duke and I sat through “Great Balls of Fire,” “Ghostbusters II,” “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” and “Star Trek V” before we finally drove all the way to Monterey Park to hear the magic words “I’m Batman.”

“It’s tacky to admit that you’ve seen anything with a Roman numeral in the title,” my sister warned me. “Or anything with Sly Stallone. Or ‘Uncle Buck.’ ” But whatever you see, you can never see enough. There’s no keeping up with the movies these days. Just when you think you’ve seen them all, there’s a fresh crop of new releases that you must see, right away, whether you really want to or not. Because if you don’t go the first week it opens, people are on to the next film.

“You’re not hip until you’ve seen certain movies,” said Laurie, who was on her way to see “sex, lies, and videotape.” “I can’t function in an office setting without having seen it.”

I know how she feels. My friends started raving about “When Harry Met Sally . . .” weeks before it was even released. “You’ve got to go to a screening,” they insisted. I was sort of embarrassed to admit that I wasn’t on any screening lists--the ultimate humiliation in Los Angeles--but I promised to see the film as soon as it opened.

This was easier said than done. First, I had to persuade my husband to go. Whereas I have a weakness for romantic comedies, Duke prefers obscure, badly subtitled foreign films in which men and women with mustaches suffer without redemption, preferably in a bleak industrial city with no name. After a spirited negotiation, I agreed to sit through “Little Vera” and Duke agreed to sit through “When Harry Met Sally. . . .”

That left us with the problem of finding a seat. So desperate was I to see this movie and thus be able to hold my own at a dinner party, we actually went to Westwood on the weekend (which is as close as you come to going to hell). The good news: We found a parking space. The bad news: The line for the movie seemed to go from the theater to our parking space, which was six blocks away. And the movie was sold out.

In fact, the movie was sold out the next two times we tried to see it, even though we showed up an hour early. Not only did we spend twice as much time outside the theater as in, but by the time I finally saw Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan, I had already heard almost every line that came out of their mouths. Still, I’m glad I saw it. Now I know what those strange noises coming from the next booth in the deli are. And my social purse has some small change. “Having seen a movie is like a social coin,” explains Carlfred Broderick, chairman of the sociology department at USC. “The more you see, the more currency you have. In fact, I’ve rarely heard anybody say, when asked, that ‘we didn’t see that.’ They may have lied. But it’s just not the thing to admit.”

Of course you don’t admit it. People now judge you by your ticket stubs. My sister, for example, informed me that it was “politically incorrect” to see “Batman” before I saw “Do the Right Thing.” “Do you want people to think that you care more about a man in a mask than racial tension in Brooklyn?” asked Laurie.

Not only do you have to see the right movie, you’ve got to have the right opinion of the movie. “There are films like ‘Dead Poets Society,’ which you’re supposed to love,” said my friend Josh. “I didn’t. But it’s not worth it to force the issue. If someone says they adored ‘Parenthood,’ do you say, ‘piece of garbage’? They look at you like you’re not a very nice person. They wonder whether you hate kids. On the other hand, try to love ‘Weekend at Bernie’s.’ They’ll probably never let you sit in Morton’s again.”

Paradoxically, movies are supposed to be a “safe” topic of conversation. “Movies are the equivalent of ‘nice day today’ or ‘boy, is it hot,’ ” says USC psychology professor Jerald Jellison. “It’s a subject guaranteed not to offend a lot of people. And it’s something that everyone knows something about. We may not know the neighbors up the street. But movies are something that are widely shared.”

By adults and children alike. “I usually go to a movie if it’s a really good movie and my mom says I can,” says my friend Sam, who’s 8, “though we usually only go about three or four times a week.” But not to worry. Whatever Sam can’t see, his friends see for him. “We tell each other parts of movies,” he explains. “Like, there’s a part of ‘Jason Takes Manhattan’ where a really famous boxer is hitting the killer. And the boxer’s head goes flying off. That’s one my friend Megyn shared with me.”

I’m looking for a friend to share a movie with me. “You’ve got to see ‘The Adventures of Milo and Otis,’ ” said my sister. But at this point, I still hadn’t seen “The Abyss” or “Cookie” or “Casualties of War.” “It’s about a pug and a kitten,” Laurie said about “Milo and Otis.” She knows that I consider the pug to be the crown of creation.

I would do anything to see a movie with a pug star. Well, almost anything. “I’ll see the pug movie if you see ‘The Burmese Harp,’ ” said my husband. I learn that this is the story of a group of Japanese stragglers in Burma during World War II who are going slowly mad. “The cannibalism scenes aren’t that graphic,” Duke said. “What do you think?”

“I’m Batman,” I replied.