Movieing Right Along, Take 1: Setting the Scene

This here on the left is what I have dubbed a "guilt kir." I poured the framboise into my glass, then reached into the fridge, opened a bottle of wine, and didn't realize until after I'd poured, and noticed how dark my kir was, that the wine was red. Dumb mistake. Ordinarily I would have poured it out, but this turned out to have been the only bottle Nick had brought back from Beaujolais from the domaine where he worked the harvest back in September. I had made my kir; now it was time to sleep in it. Or something. And so I did. Not awful, but not generally what I would choose. Bonnie tells me, though, that what I thought was a made-up non-apéritif actually has a name--a "cardinal"--and is the intentional choice of some cocktailians. Ya learn something new.

I like going to the movies. A lot. And by "a lot," I mean that both my enjoyment of the activity and its frequency are on the high end of the spectrum. According to my tally, which is accurate unless I've forgotten one, I've seen 15 movies since arriving in Paris, an average of 2.39 movies a week, considering that, as of today, we've been here 6.29 weeks. But who's counting? I don't know when I became such a movie hound, although years of New York City therapy indicate that I should blame my parents, and in this case, it might even be justified. My folks have been going to Friday-afternoon movies for ages now (movie before dinner means you're less likely to fall asleep, a tendency that seems, to my chagrin, to be genetically dominant), and have gone to Sundance for the last bunch of Januaries (do you pluralize January with an i-e-s?). For most of the year, they've already seen the bulk of the good movies to come out in the theatres. So I come by my cinematic zeal honestly, as they say. I don't know whether it's the comfy seats, the escapism, the un-butter on the popcorn, but whatever the reason, I'm kinda hooked.

Going to the movies here in Paris is funny. Less ha-ha, more stroke-your-chin. Here are some of the reasons:

- For starters, it's pricey. A full-price seat at the nearish-by multi-plex comes in at 10,20 € (they reverse commas and decimal points for numbers here), which Google tells me is $15.22 today--expensive even by inflated Manhattan standards.

- There's no climate control in the theatres. At home, you might go see a movie on a hot summer day to cool off, whereas here, the body heat in the windowless room can reach sweatlodge levels. Who knew I'd be cheering the approach of winter?

- Before most movies, after the previews, there are a boatload of ads. Not every time, but most of the time--also odd. But I have seen some of these ads a good ten times. And by "good," I mean "annoying." Some of the regulars:

1. The Ikea ad where the lady can't believe the low prices and drives away thinking she is the lucky beneficiary of a big mistake, at the end of which a woman's voice whispers "bien plus qu'un marchand de meubles" ("much more than a furniture store"). Loud whispering is super-irritating.
   
2. The ad for some phone company where a guy picks up a stone on the beach and starts talking into it, and the message actually gets to his winsome girlfriend like this is normal.
3. Usually two ads for ice cream or some sort of ice cream novelty, often incorporating semi-erotic imagery, with the fine-print message at the bottom reminding you to eat fruits and vegetables, exercise, and avoid a diet that is too sugary, salty or fatty, pointing you toward the website mangerbouger.fr (EatMove). I checked the site out and think it's kind of dynamite (much more fun than this one), but it is all in French, and so might pose some comprehension difficulties for my non-Francophone readers. In fact, if it doesn't, that would be pretty weird, wouldn't it? But I digress.
4. A protracted colonialist-looking ad featuring a South-Asian girl following a decked-out Nicole Kidman around, goo-goo-eyed, before NK catches some dude's gaze and absconds behind closed doors, unzipping the back of her dress, to drink some Schweppes citrus soda and say to us naughty-minded viewers (in English, with a French subtitle): "Hey, what did you expect?"
5. Two ads, with one or two others in between, for the special MTV cell phone service package with provider SFR. A bunch of teenagers gallivant around on a grassy hill, and then shake up a dorky-kids' party.

- Individual screening rooms (that is, Salle 3, not the whole UGC Montparnasse) only open up just before the movie starts, which goes against my every Type-A synapse. What about the prime-seating worm for the early bird? Hrmph. And, in fact, if you arrive even at the time that the movie is advertised as beginning, you are penalized by having to sit through those alllll those ads.

"15 movies?!" you say? "Do tell!" In fact, in the time it has taken me to write this, that number has become 16. Stay tuned for Take 2 and my spoiler-free reviews.