Week 19
WEEKEND, July 18th - 20th
It's kind of a dull weekend. I'm feeling fine, but both the little man and big man are suffering from colds, so we stay home and mope all weekend. The only outing is date night for me and George. Usually this is salsa night, but he's definitely not up for that. So this week, when Shanti comes over, George and I go to the movies!!!
You have no idea how excited I am. This is maybe the fourth time we've been to the movies since Regin was born! And I am so movie starved with rentals these days. So as we're driving to the theater (it's at Gurney Plaza mall, which is so walkable, but we leave too late, as usual) in my head I'm chanting, "movie, movie, MO-VIE! Movie, movie, MO-VIE!"
With my research on the Golden Screen Cinema's website I discover that there is only one movie showing at a time in the famed 'premier class' with the big Lazyboy-style chairs and all. So although the only movie playing that interests me is Hancock, our only real option, unless we want to watch movies with the lower classes (ha!), is Dark Knight. I know, I know. You all are so excited about this movie, but I'm just not. I didn't like Batman Begins, and I am not into adrenaline movies. I'm also not a fan of Heath Ledger, and I am aware that'll be blasphemy till sometime after he receives his courtesy posthumous Oscar. But! It is cool that I get to watch the movie ahead of you all in Colorado because it's opening night and there is a 14 hour time difference! If I'd gone this morning, I would have seen it a whole day ahead of you! I'm thinking that in the future I could start going to the movies here when they open and then quickly write a review for my movie blog, and then the review will be up before the movie hits the theaters in the States. Cool, huh?
So we go for Dark Knight so that we can have a premier experience -- it could be another year before we get to the movies again, so we better do this now. It's evening, two adults, premier class. Total is $10USD! George asks about the food, and the ticket guy says we can buy food in the little café outside the premier theater and they will take it to you. Ok, they don't automatically serve you dinner with your movie, but we still want the experience, so I order my only option -- a dry salad with egg, and I cheat a little and get some spring rolls too -- and George orders noodles and a drink. $20. That's where they get you!
We go and sit down, in our assigned seats (they're always assigned here, premier class or not), and while they aren't quite LazyBoy recliners, they do rock back a bit and they are huge, squishy, and comfy. There are side tables on either side of each pair of seats. So cool! I'm loving it when our waiter brings our food out to us. It's not fancy food by any stretch, but it's still fun to receive the service. I'm starving, so I go to dig in and... do you know? Salad, in the dark, is not the best option for a bug phobe. In fact when we eat in front of the TV at home, I always insist on having the light on so I can check every bite I take. George kindly loans me his new iPhone to light my food. So it goes like this: look at the movie, turn on the phone, light my food, check for bugs, take a bite, and repeat. Meanwhile George is also struggling. His noodles are actually a wide and shallow dish of noodle soup. And that is almost impossible without a little light. He fights with it for a while, but decides the spillage and all isn't worth the effort: it's kind of bland. Ah well. The spring rolls are great though!
A couple of scenes into the movie there is a single frame of yellow characters of some kind.
"Did you see that?"
"Yeah"
"What was that?"
"I don't know."
"Are there supposed to be subliminal messages in this movie?"
"I don't know."
Then it happens again. "There! There it is again! What is that?"
Then we notice that there are sometimes jumps in the scene when it happens, and it happens a lot. Finally we realize that it happens when there is an act of violence going on, and just when you are about to see something gruesome, there is a jump, a single frame of yellow characters scratched onto the film, and a jump back to the shot. Something is missing there. Yes, well, we are in a muslim country, and there is plenty of censorship here. I had just hoped it would be slick like how they edit for TV and airplanes. Nope. It's a herky jerky affair that shouts and screams at you, "THIS MOVIE WAS CENSORED!" I wonder if the yellow scratches are verses from the Koran.
So much for those early movie reviews. I mean, there is so much missing, I really can't be sure of what I'm reviewing, and it could be enough to truly change my impression of the film and even what it is about. Ah well. Would have been fun.
The movie was ok. I'll spare you a review, since I have a separate blog for that plus I may have to watch this movie again to review it. But the experience of just watching any movie, going out with George, trying a new theater experience all had a lot more to do with my enjoyment of the evening than the particular movie we saw.
George went to see Hancock the next afternoon with Eric. George says he's not sure he wants to go to the movies anymore here. The censorship cuts are just too frequent and too obnoxious.
By the way, we saw this at the mall after the movie got out. I see signs like this all the time.
Random photo:
The townhouses next to us getting fumigated.
Out to lunch at Breeks -- our favorite wifi spot.
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