Going to the Movies

These last two weekends I have gone to see movies with a friend of mine. The first one was a Japanese movie called ‘KIDS’, and the second was ‘The Golden Compass’, which just came out in Japan. Movie theatres here are a little different than in the states. The first thing I noticed was that when we bought tickets we chose what seats we wanted. The prices were the same, we just had assigned places to sit. For the first movie it didn’t much matter, as the place was pretty empty, but the second time it really did since it was ‘Golden Compass’s first weekend in Japan. Another difference is that you can buy programs and movie merchandise in the theatre itself. I’d never really thought about it, but I guess that there’s no real reason why there *shouldn’t* be programs for movies like there are for plays and concerts, there just aren’t in the US. During one of these excursions we stopped by this parfait restaurant in the area before our movie. This place had models of some of their parfaits in the front of the café, and over 100 different types of parfait on the menu. We decided to split a berry and chocolate one, but the selection was rather daunting. I might have to go there again and try one of their green-tea ice cream ones, though I think that I’ll do without the tomato one.
-American movies here can be seen either dubbed in Japanese or subtitled in Japanese, I natural chose the later.
-The ending song for ‘The Golden Compass’ movie is terrible. In my personal opinion the end song for a movie should not outline the premise of the movie just viewed in softly reverent tones with an overly simplistic rhyme scheme. But then that’s just me.
-The refreshments available at Japanese movie theatres are, I suppose necessarily, different from those in American ones. They had: red bean bread (anpan), caramel corn, oolong tea, and green tea ice cream, among other things. But no diet coke.
-There is something really disorienting about walking on an escalator that isn’t moving. One of the escalators at the theatre was off for some reason, and stepping on and off of it felt really weird.