Before a movie, in France we see a character called Jean Mineur (Jean the coal miner) with a small ice ax he’s flying over a train rail towards a theater, and finally hit a target. End of the commercial. Here, in the US, there’s no Jean Mineur, “you” are the one flying right in the middle of ads for M&M’s, Coca Cola, Minute Maid, etc. It seems that going to the movies isn’t an international experience: there are slight changes. Since we found the website and app Fandango, we’ve been to the movies several times. This is now the ‘minute Cinema’, I promise I stay totally subjective with no goal of being partial or exhaustive…
We were struck by small details…
- People laugh a lot, often and loudly, while we stayed quiet in our seats. Some may think it’s because of the language barrier, that we don’t understand everything. No, it’s not this. I mean, yes, it’s probably part of the reason, it’s true: we don’t understand subtle plays on words. And we have a serious issue at laughing out loud at of all the rough, salacious jokes (meanwhile people stay calm).However, each time something moves us, the rest of the audience is laughing. What’s happening guys? Aren’t you ashamed of being sensitive?
- You can go to the movies after 10 pm. I don’t know if it’s because the Parisian subway closes at 1am, but it’s impossible to go after midnight to to the movies in Paris (except for rare thematic nights). We went to the movies once in Boston at half past midnight. I fell asleep around 2 am.
- People sit as if they were at home, with their feet up in the seat in front of them. I don’t recommend accompanying me to the movies because I’m psychotic about finding the perfect seat, sometimes I’m to close to the door, behind somebody too tall, or somebody who’s eating or, worst, I feel there’s too many people. When I saw a lot of people putting their feet on the front seat, I wanted to cry. A friend (an American) told me to relax: “it’s comfortable”. Ok, ok, just breathe. But I still find it gross.
- Every seats have a drink holder. Ok, it exists in France, but it strikes me as strange where you can find this amenity: wheelchairs, shopping carts! And cars, of course.
- People are eating a lot, and so are we… Popcorn, nachos, candy and sodas. Classics. I have to admit: it’s hard for me to resist popcorn. It smells so good, and actually tastes really good.
I “convinced” Manu (it’s wasn’t so hard) to try the salty popcorns, with butter. A real treat. However, we made a big mistake, we bought a medium size. It was so huge… After 45 minutes of constantly eating popcorn, the bag wasn’t empty at all.We left it under the seat…I know, that’s gross.
What did we see recently?
We watched, and we didn’t care for it: Friends with Kids (about getting married, having kids… nothing very revolutionary; I prefer watching the awful Louie) ; The Hunger Games (I was really into the 3 books, but these 2 hours of film seemed so long: it was visual pain. Who did the costumes? It was pretty ugly).
We love: Jiro dreams of sushi. (of course, it’s a movie about food).
And we have to watch 2 DVD of these movies: National Lampoon’s by Chevy Chase… I never heard about them and I was told there are ‘mythical’…
