I was reminded heavily that I was in Japan when I went to the movies for Begins. First I had to find my assigned seat. In Japan you don’t just go and sit down, you have an exact seat. After consulting the seating chart stationed outside of the theater, I felt confident I could find M-17 without a hitch. So, I got an orange juice at the concession stand. Now it is pretty well documented that I do not imbibe alcohol, but there are times that I am tempted. The green tea liquor served at Afro-man is some of the tastiest substances I have sampled. That stuff is tempting because of taste, which is rare because I have an aversion to the taste of alcohol in general. Then there was the cinema. I was tempted to drink there for my other reason I am sometimes tempted to drink; strange cultural relevance. At movie concession stands in Japan you can order beer. Now back at Oberlin, people would often bring alcohol into the Apollo, so the concept of alcohol in a theater is not totally alien to your humble narrator. What is alien is the idea that it is sanctioned. You can buy beer right there at the concession stand! I hate beer, but man it was tempting to just sit in my assigned seat watching Batman chillin’ with a beer I bought AT the concession stand. If you don’t see the appeal, perhaps you just had to be there to truly know the impulse that I speak of.
The first thing that came on the screen was a green tea commercial, further confirmation of my location in the world.
I got to see a preview for The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe. Like the American preview it flashed between live action and text. The text, though, was in Japanese. There was a great part where it flashed on the screen “Lion vs. Witch” in Japanese Kanji. Yeah! Lion vs. Witch!
Speaking of funny stuff, the upcoming movie “The Island” looks like a complete and total rip off/remake of “Parts: Clonus the Horror.” Which I only know about because of Mystery Science Theater 3000 (season 8 episode 12). Not surprisingly, “Parts” was probably better than this new version. And the MiSTed version will be unquestionably the best of them all. I just hope someone decides to completely jack all the ideas from “Prince of Space,” and calls the new movie, “The Chronicles of Cranckor.” Now that would be awesome!
