The first time I saw The Royal Tenenbaums, I saw it with Frank, an affable guy from New Jersey who commuted 50 minutes every day from Thanksgiving through Christmas Eve Day to hock Douglas Firs, Canadian balsams, and Warner Brothers Christmas stockings with me on the east side of 3rd Ave. between 38h and 39th. I’d last seen Frank Christmas Eve night, about two weeks prior to seeing the movie. We’d torn apart the two-by-four lean-to’s that had held the stock of trees, thrown the unsold wreaths over the fence that separated the handball court from our block-long stand, and headed to SoHo, where we joined all the other employees of Manhattan’s second-largest Christmas tree chain in drinking fifty dollars apiece. I thought the film was very good, but Frank thought it simply “okay.”

I saw The Royal Tenenbaums in the theater a total of five times—paying full price one time, using vouchers my parents had given me for Christmas on three occasions, and sneaking in once after paying to see How High at the AMC 25. The Royal Tenenbaums is better than How High, though that movie is not without appeal. The acting in Tenenbaums is superb, the art direction wonderful, and the story interesting. The transfer on the Criterion Collection DVD, which I own, is excellent.