Al Cinema

Sean and I never went to the movies much when we lived in California, so it’s no surprise that in our 4 months living here, we still hadn’t been out to see a film...until tonight. Sean succeeded in persuading me to change out of sweats so we could go to the small 2 room theater about a block from our apartment. Both movie options were obviously only in Italian. Madagascar 2 seemed like the best choice - since it is targeted toward 5-year olds, we figured I would at least get the gist of what was going on, even if I didn’t understand everything. There were some surprises we encountered during our first movie-going experience. First of all, we were disappointed to find out there was no concession stand at the theater selling popcorn, sodas and candies for movie-goers. We sat down in the theater empty-handed, later to realize that a cute little man about 100-years old with a red vest and red cap walks into the theater carrying a huge tray of treats, similar to the vendors at a baseball game. He had anything you could want - popcorn, water, candy, you name it. I was curious if he had peanuts and crackerjacks on his tray but I don’t think he did. The other surprise was that half way through the movie, the movie stopped for a 10-minute intermission. The guy with the snacks came back into the theater at that time, and people were able to get up to use the bathroom, stretch, or for Sean and me, recap what was going on in the movie, all without interrupting the movie or bothering anyone. Although the theater was old and kind of run-down, the movie screen was perched up on an actual stage, which was odd, I think both of these ideas are pretty genius. I am sure they are old-fashioned, but make perfect sense, and I think should be adopted by the big, fancy American theaters too.

The movie itself was adorable, and I recommend it highly, any age. This movie may already be out on DVD in the US, but if you haven’t seen it, you should. In fact, there wasn’t one child in the whole theater. The story is about a group of jungle animals from the New York zoo who end up in the wild open jungle of Africa. When see this beautiful land for the first time, one character said, “Where are we?” and the another said, “I think we are in San Diego,” as if the beautiful land were the San Diego zoo. Both Sean and I started laughing out loud. The funnier part is that we were the only ones laughing. I don’t think Italians know about the infamous San Diego zoo.