FRIDAY

After finding out that my father—her ex-husband—was buying me a fancy suit for Christmas, my mother, desperate to prove that she’s the more loving parent, anchored down her AmEx bill with a monstrous stereo system featuring a DVD player and a 300-CD mega-storage unit. Spoiled rotten and totally unwilling to share, I rarely leave my apartment these days, simply staring at the monolithic entertainment center and wondering what in the hell “X-Fade” means. Last night, I rented the widescreen DVD version of Wild Wild West, and, despite the foundation-shaking performance of my glorious surround-sound rumble-speakers, the movie managed to suck even more than I expected. But my night got even more blissfully pathetic: I then watched the entire movie again—that’s right, back to back—but this time with director Barry Sonnenfeld’s droll commentary. (You can’t get that with a VCR!) Then, fighting off the urge to read a book, I dipped into the other DVD-exclusive “bonus features”—Will Smith music videos, Kenneth Branagh’s filmography, Salma Hayek’s bare buttocks—putting my total time spent with worthless cinematic caca at approximately five hours. (I think I have a girlfriend, although for the life of me I can’t remember her name.) Sonnenfeld’s biggest hit, Men in Black, has yet to be released on DVD, but I’m losing sleep just thinking about the extra crap that might be on that one. For now, you can catch this guilty pleasure from 1997 at 8 p.m. Friday, Jan. 21, at the National Air and Space Museum’s Langley IMAX Theater, 6th and Independence Avenue SW. $3. (800) 529-2440. (Sean Daly)