We have not had the opportunity to go see a movie for a while now. The times we have had a chance have not lined up with anything we have wanted to see for a few months.

That doesn’t really bother me that much. I have a list of things I want to catch on DVD or through Netflix at some point. I have pretty good patience in this area.

We did have the possibility of an open weekend night recently. When I considered the possibility of going to see a movie, however, I wondered if I had somehow wandered into a time machine.

I could have sworn I saw an advertisement for “Footloose.” You know, the movie with Kevin Bacon and John Lithgow and the annoying chick who ended up plaguing us with that “Sex and the City” show?

I loved that flick. The goofy, random gymnastics scene in the famous dance montage. Chris Penn’s awkward attempts at dancing. The presence of red cowboy boots as a symbol of teenage defiance. What a great movie.

Back in 1984. That’s when “Footloose” came out, not 2011.

After I shook my head and looked at the listings again, I worried I had gone even further back in time. I saw showtimes for “The Thing.” I never saw it, but I remember it flopping despite starring Kurt Russell, Wilford Brimley and Kurt Russell’s beard back in 1982.

So I could not have time traveled back to 1982 if a movie from 1984 also appeared in the listings. They must have re-released the movies into the theaters again. I heard they were doing that with “Ghostbusters” sometime soon, but “Footloose” and “The Thing” just seem weird to re-release.

Since I could see either one of them on cable any time I wanted, I decided to investigate further and find something released later in the month which we might want to watch.

That’s when I convinced myself I had truly gone back in time, likely to sometime in the fall of 1993. It all made sense now because I couldn’t have travelled back to the 1980s if I was planning to see a movie with Maria since we didn’t meet until 1992.

You see, “Three Musketeers” came out in 1993. I remember going to the movies to see Chris O’Donnell, Charlie Sheen, Kiefer Sutherland and Oliver Platt. That was a blockbuster cast.

So I must have worked some Back to the Future magic and ended up in 1993 because I saw an advertisement for “Three Muskateers.” The only way I could see advertisements for that movie, the Kevin Bacon classic and “The Thing” was if I ended up in some sort of time warp.

The only other explanation is that Hollywood decided to re-make three movies which have versions less than 30 years old, two of which have been made multiple times. The other one has a solid measure of cultural cache.

They couldn’t have greenlighted three movies that we can already see. Someone in a meeting room somewhere had to point out the stupidity in that thinking. I just wish I remembered more about my time travel other than the movie listings. What a waste.