Minutes.
Every day I find myself a little bit happier with the location of our flat. It seems that every time I look up where such-and-such cool thing is located, I find to my delighted surprise that it’s almost always a very walk-able ten or fifteen or twenty minutes away. I’m particularly enjoying the walk to Leicester Square (15-20 minutes) where there are many movie theaters, lots of late night action and most importantly, several Ben and Jerry ice cream stands scattered around the park. The area is commonly used for movie openings-we went to see Harry Potter and the Half-Blood and the theater we saw it in could seat 1,300+ people. Such over kill for that particular showing as there were maybe twenty people in the audience, but still rather cool nonetheless.
Last night was another rather enjoyable night in Leicester Square. Many of the theaters show old movies, probably to be more competitive since every theater is carrying all the newer stuff. I read in this events magazine Time Out London that one called The Prince Charles Theatre would be showing The Princess Bride. Since Phil has never seen it, I decided to take him out on a date to see this brilliant old classic. We leave for it, walking over past Covent Gardens and into Leicester, enjoying the ever amusing sight so alike that of Dublin-scantily clad girls in tube tops, mini skirts and hooker height heals shivering while having a smoke outside (Jackets are the refuge of the weak and un-cool, no doubt), the smattering of already-drunk individuals stumbling even though it’s only eight pm and the tourists running amok with their shopping bags full of mass produced treasures.
The theater itself is rather run down in appearance but the price is right, only five pounds each. We head to the basement where the screen and the theater bar are located to grab a Magners cider and our seats. We’re super surprised as we come down the stairs-the place is absolutely packed to the brim. They’ve just starting letting people in so we grab our drinks and seats. The theater is very strange-instead of a pyramid stacking system where each row is higher, the opposite exists-each row sinks a little bit lower. The seats are angled to make up for this, so that you’re leaning back and looking up, and it works, unless you’re a midget and a tall person is sitting in front of you. Luckily my tall person switches seats with me so I’m able to see (thank you Phil!). As we wait, the theater swarms with people and a man announces we’re all to squish in and consolidate to the center if we can, as the show has sold out and no seat may remain empty. What a strange world this is, when a new movie in a beautiful theater fills only twenty seats and a twenty-two year old film fills the entirety of a mangy old theater with a very enthusiastic crowd. If I didn’t already love London, this alone would have been a Cupid’s arrow to the heart.
The film starts. It is old school film, pre-digital, complete with dust and age spots. The sound isn’t as loud as it should be, especially with such an animated audience. They laugh hysterically (one particularly loud woman behind us sounds of a dying hyena) at every joke (“No more rhymes, I mean it!” “Does anybody want a peanut?”), giggle at every sexual innuendo (“Her only joy was her daily ride”), snort at the wondrously tacky R.O.U.S., and cheer loudly when Inigo Montoya finally revenges his father and kills that six-fingered bastard whose name I cannot for the life of me remember. The whole event is distracting from the movie--from the dilapidated theater, to the barely audible movie and the antics of the audience--but I’m having so much fun I hardly care. The audience applauds as the film comes to a close and I can’t help but think that perhaps theaters in the US should get into the old movie business as well-such wonderful comfort food in these old films.
As we pour out the theater, the mood is so light to me. I turn to Phil and ask for his thoughts. I know he’s enjoyed it-I worried during the R.O.U.S. he was either having a seizure and/or wetting himself. He loved the movie he states, so funny but disliked the theater. Too quiet, he laments, with such a loud crowd and the theater was rather gross. How funny, we’ve seen the same film at the same volume and with the same audience but with such different experiences. I am thinking the Prince Charles theater experience probably not the best for one’s first viewing of a film-too distracting unless you already know the bad jokes by heart so that it is no longer necessary to actually hear the dialogue to laugh. I can completely understand his frustration-if I had actually to listen to the film to enjoy it, I would have probably been annoyed. Still, he’s happy despite all this and so I’m happy-a successful date. We walk back down the street, and after a short detour for a couple of drinks (two ales, a whiskey and Pimm’s all shared) head home through the throngs of late night partiers stumbling around (my favorite is the woman who wobbles in front of me at an intersection so that I have to sidestep around her. I glance back and she’s now half-sitting, half-lying on the sidewalk-hmm, a bit too much to drink you think?). Ten minutes out, the crowds are gone and as we round the corner only the lights of High Holborn are left guide us to home.
Last night was another rather enjoyable night in Leicester Square. Many of the theaters show old movies, probably to be more competitive since every theater is carrying all the newer stuff. I read in this events magazine Time Out London that one called The Prince Charles Theatre would be showing The Princess Bride. Since Phil has never seen it, I decided to take him out on a date to see this brilliant old classic. We leave for it, walking over past Covent Gardens and into Leicester, enjoying the ever amusing sight so alike that of Dublin-scantily clad girls in tube tops, mini skirts and hooker height heals shivering while having a smoke outside (Jackets are the refuge of the weak and un-cool, no doubt), the smattering of already-drunk individuals stumbling even though it’s only eight pm and the tourists running amok with their shopping bags full of mass produced treasures.
The theater itself is rather run down in appearance but the price is right, only five pounds each. We head to the basement where the screen and the theater bar are located to grab a Magners cider and our seats. We’re super surprised as we come down the stairs-the place is absolutely packed to the brim. They’ve just starting letting people in so we grab our drinks and seats. The theater is very strange-instead of a pyramid stacking system where each row is higher, the opposite exists-each row sinks a little bit lower. The seats are angled to make up for this, so that you’re leaning back and looking up, and it works, unless you’re a midget and a tall person is sitting in front of you. Luckily my tall person switches seats with me so I’m able to see (thank you Phil!). As we wait, the theater swarms with people and a man announces we’re all to squish in and consolidate to the center if we can, as the show has sold out and no seat may remain empty. What a strange world this is, when a new movie in a beautiful theater fills only twenty seats and a twenty-two year old film fills the entirety of a mangy old theater with a very enthusiastic crowd. If I didn’t already love London, this alone would have been a Cupid’s arrow to the heart.
The film starts. It is old school film, pre-digital, complete with dust and age spots. The sound isn’t as loud as it should be, especially with such an animated audience. They laugh hysterically (one particularly loud woman behind us sounds of a dying hyena) at every joke (“No more rhymes, I mean it!” “Does anybody want a peanut?”), giggle at every sexual innuendo (“Her only joy was her daily ride”), snort at the wondrously tacky R.O.U.S., and cheer loudly when Inigo Montoya finally revenges his father and kills that six-fingered bastard whose name I cannot for the life of me remember. The whole event is distracting from the movie--from the dilapidated theater, to the barely audible movie and the antics of the audience--but I’m having so much fun I hardly care. The audience applauds as the film comes to a close and I can’t help but think that perhaps theaters in the US should get into the old movie business as well-such wonderful comfort food in these old films.
As we pour out the theater, the mood is so light to me. I turn to Phil and ask for his thoughts. I know he’s enjoyed it-I worried during the R.O.U.S. he was either having a seizure and/or wetting himself. He loved the movie he states, so funny but disliked the theater. Too quiet, he laments, with such a loud crowd and the theater was rather gross. How funny, we’ve seen the same film at the same volume and with the same audience but with such different experiences. I am thinking the Prince Charles theater experience probably not the best for one’s first viewing of a film-too distracting unless you already know the bad jokes by heart so that it is no longer necessary to actually hear the dialogue to laugh. I can completely understand his frustration-if I had actually to listen to the film to enjoy it, I would have probably been annoyed. Still, he’s happy despite all this and so I’m happy-a successful date. We walk back down the street, and after a short detour for a couple of drinks (two ales, a whiskey and Pimm’s all shared) head home through the throngs of late night partiers stumbling around (my favorite is the woman who wobbles in front of me at an intersection so that I have to sidestep around her. I glance back and she’s now half-sitting, half-lying on the sidewalk-hmm, a bit too much to drink you think?). Ten minutes out, the crowds are gone and as we round the corner only the lights of High Holborn are left guide us to home.