Two Movies

Last Sunday ...

... and this afternoon. Both are excellent, don't miss either.

I love movies, as long as they are in a movie theatre. By theatre, I mean one of the five cinemas at The Lighthouse, Petone. And preferably with a glass of wine. I pay an extraordinarily high monthly bill to TelstraClear for my television 'movie' package. This includes at least five movie channels, but I never watch a single movie. I pay the money because one can only access The Living Channel and a few others by subscribing to a package of some sort. I don't watch dvds. I don't know why, but I can't get into movies at home - they ought to be an experience, and at home they are not.

When I was a child there were lots of rites of passage along the journey of childhood. They were anticipated and enjoyed all the more for the anticipation. In my family, these included a bike (secondhand) at nine, a watch at ten. The first trip to the 'pictures' to see your first 'film' was also one of these. You had to be old and responsible enough to sit through the experience without causing a disruption to others. (I note that such niceties and manners are no longer a parental expectation in today's movie theatres, as the 'I'm special, there's no-one else quite like me, centre of the universe' children tear up and down the aisles.)

Anyway, my first trip to was to see Danny Kaye in Hans Christian Andersen. It started off an appreciation for movie-going as an outing with a special sense of purpose and occasion. You just can't get that in your own living room.