Killer standees, locked bathrooms, and assigned seating

My husband and I went to see Ocean’s Thirteen last night. We went to a multiplex in a mall here in the city centre, and I think it has been almost five years since we saw a movie at this particular venue (the last one was the second Lord of the Rings, if that tells you anything). It has been a long time since we have been to a movie that wasn’t part of a film festival of some kind, in fact, the last movie we went to see, if I remember right, was Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Yea, we really get around. At any rate, it seems that it now costs eight euros to go see a movie here (fifty cents less if you are willing to sit in the back row). So if a high school or college kid wants to take his girl to a movie he will fork out a minimum of fifteen euros for the date, probably closer to thirty if you include refreshments other than bottled water. I don’t know how much it now costs to see a non-matinee movie in America, but I’m pretty sure it should be cheaper in Greece since the average wage here is no where near what it is in the U.S. Eight euros borders on making it completely unaffordable for the average person.

To add insult to injury, there is now apparently assigned seating in this particular multiplex, which my husband finds dignified and civilized, but I just find it annoying. There is nothing like paying for a seat which forces you to climb over twenty people already sitting down instead of being able to sit in another row. I’d like a side order of fascism with my overpriced Pepsi, please. Yea, yea, I’m overreacting. But it hardly seems necessary. I’ve been finding my own seat in movie theaters since I was a wee one. It isn’t that difficult, and I’ve never once borne witness to a scuffle.

Before we could even get into the theater we had to swim our way through a maze of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix standees. Yes, I realize it is a big movie, and I am really looking forward to it, but people are going to go see it whether or not there is a ten-foot wide standee blocking the way to the bathrooms, which were closed, by the way, because some idiot working on the Metro hit a water main with a drill. Yea, I should have discovered that before I drank a bottle of water and an eight ounce slushy. One wonders why my husband and I don’t go to movies that often.

The movie itself was thoroughly enjoyable, perhaps a bit better than the last one, although I’ve enjoyed all of the Ocean’s franchise, even the original one with good ol’ Frank as Danny Ocean. I regret that I never got to shake his hand. By the way, when did Brad Pitt start to look old? It terrifies me. It means I’m getting old, too. Anyway, if you’ve liked the other Ocean’s movies, especially the first one, I think you’ll like this one too. If you didn’t, well, I can’t help ya.

Will this be our last movie outing for awhile? Who knows. We’d like to see Zodiac, Sicko, and of course Harry Potter. But I don’t know if the first two will find their way to Thessaloniki cinemas, and we won’t get Order of the Phoenix until a month and a half after it has hit theaters in America. That is the lot of the movie-going public in Greece.