By Chris Cosci

This December, the third movie in the Lord of the Rings trilogy will be released into theaters nationwide. There's a lot of anticipation for the film, and a lot of people are eager to see the series' conclusion. To make the opening of the film even more special, the studio releasing the film has scheduled a huge event at select theaters.

The day before the movie opens, limited theaters will be showing all three Lord of the Rings movies back to back. They will show the unedited version of the first two films, followed by the premiere of the third film. In all, we're talking about roughly ten hours of film. The good news is that there will be breaks between movies. The bad news is that there are no showers at the theater. So you better hope the person sitting next to you wears Dial.

Normally, when you go to see a movie, you stand in line, buy your ticket, and find a seat. If the movie is really popular, you stand in line, find that the movie is sold out, buy tickets for a later time, grab something to eat, go back to the theater, and sit in the last seat remaining, which is usually located at the far end of the front row.

For a movie as highly anticipated as this, you have to be willing to suffer to get tickets. People have been known to stand on line for hours, sometimes even camping out overnight in front of the theater, just to get tickets to a first showing. I guess it would be too logical to explain to these people that if they just wait another week, they could stand on line for just 12 minutes instead of 12 hours to see the exact same movie.

For these people, it's not about seeing the movie. It's about being part of something they consider a major event. It's about being able to brag and boast to their friends and family about how much they went through to be one of the first people to see the movie. Then their friends and family can marvel at this amazing feat and offer such awe-inspired reactions as "so what?" and "get a life."

Because this will be a one-time only deal, you may want to grab your camping equipment and set yourself up outside of the nearest participating theater today. Of course, you will be laughed at because the tickets are already sold out. If you want tickets now, you have to do what every parent in the world had to do during the holiday crazes of Furby and Tickle-Me Elmo: go on eBay and pay somebody a lot more than they paid.

The people selling these tickets on eBay are smart. They start the bidding at face value, as if to say, "I'm willing to give these to anybody for the price I paid for them - but if you want to pay me three times as much, I won't complain." They then make the deal sound really attractive, using phrases like "once-in-a-lifetime event" and "never get this chance again."

And sure enough, there are plenty of fans who are desperate to buy these tickets, as if attending this screening will make them part of history. Given a typical, major-city price of $10 per movie, you would expect to pay about $30 for a ticket to see all three movies. But some buyers are willing to pay over $100 per ticket. In fact, one buyer bid $800 for four tickets - that's $200 a ticket!

For that amount of money, you could buy the extended versions of the first two films on DVD, watch them at home with your three friends over and over again, buy four tickets for the third film at the theater, and still have about $700 left to spend. And if it's that high-quality surround sound you want, you can use the $700 to buy a good 5- or 6-piece speaker system.

Of course, anybody could do that. But only the truly dedicated moviegoers are willing to sacrifice their time and money for this kind of experience. So maybe you won't be able to afford groceries for the next couple of weeks. And maybe you'll have to go a month without electricity. But it will all be worth it just to say that you were one of the few to see these three movies in this one-time only format. Then, you too can experience all the wonder and thrill of having your friends and family say to you, "get a life."