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Ezen Baklattan

BOF Riffing Club: Up Next - MOVIE 43 - Tonight at 11PM EST

By Ezen Baklattan, in The Speakeasy

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BTW, I redirect everyone to this post from teh Crowd Reports thread

 

 

 

Safe Haven

February 17, 8:15 PM, 50% full (small theater)
Showplace 14, Michigan City, IN

 

I'm going to write this in a different way than usual, since it was a bizarre experience that I'll never forget.

 

 

Before yesterday, I was on great terms with this movie theater. I've seen two Best-Picture-winning movies there (The Artist and The King's Speech,) and one Best-Picture-nominee from this year (Zero Dark Thirty). However, that all changed yesterday.

 

So my friend, let's call her Mary, texts me at 6:57 PM last night, asking me if I want to see a movie. She wanted to go to the IMAX theater in Portage like we always do, but the films she wanted to see were either of no interest to me (Identity Thief and Beautiful Creatures) or not worth seeing in theaters thanks to tight cash (Side Effects). I texted her this back, and she replied that it was okay, she was just sad she had nothing to do. I looked up to see if we could make a showing of Silver Linings Playbook, a movie we had both already seen and loved. Unfortunately, there was no times at Portage, the local Cinemark, or the AMC theater, but I did see that there was a showing of Argo, a movie I have seen and liked whereas Mary hadn't seen it, at 7:50 at the AMC, that we could make if we left immediately.

 

So, we were off to see Argo. We arrived at the theater slightly late, at 8:03, but we figured the film was still in trailers since Michigan City notoriously has long trailers. We go up to the cashier to buy our tickets, but she asks if we are seventeen. We were confused, since we've never been carded before. We understood the policy but the IMAX theater and Cinemark don't enforce it all, and in the past, I've seen R-rated movies at the AMC before and they never carded me. We show that we're juniors via letterman jacket, since most juniors are at least seventeen at this point in the year. She tells us both to pull out our IDs, but since I don't have a learner's permit (or license for that matter), we asked if we could just use Mary's driving license for both of us. We had a very confusing discussion with the cashier where she seemed to be saying that we had to be eighteen to see an R-rated movie, when in actuality it's seventeen. It turned out if we bought separate tickets, then seventeen is the limit, but if we were buying together, then eighteen is the limit.

 

Anyway, so Mary went out to her car to grab her license while I just waited inside, looking at the clock, seeing it was now 8:06. Worrying now that Argo had actually begun, I was alarmed when Mary came back inside without her license. She told me that she couldn't find her license. We ran out to her car to search for the license, but after five minutes of searching, it proved impossible. We went back inside and the cashier said it was too bad, and there are some R-movies that shouldn't even be rated R. We were hoping she would cut some slack, since Argo is barely rated R, only accounting for the around forty instances of f-bombs.

 

But no, she didn't. She suggested we see Safe Haven at 8:15, a suggestion I predicted from her nametag, which proudly stated "My favorite movie is The Notebook!" I definitely wasn't interested and Mary wasn't either. The cashier then suggested we see Beautiful Creatures, which I was against, but Mary asked when it was. The cashier says the next showing is at 10:30. Let me reiterate, the cashier suggested we see a movie that would begin two and a half hours after we arrived. I couldn't believe the suggestion. We said no way, and the cashier gave a final suggestion, Escape from Planet Earth (8:10), an animated movie that looks too kiddish even for me. I'd like to point out here that there was also a Warm Bodies show at 8:20. I gave up, and let Mary pick. She decided that least of the three poisons was Safe Haven. That's right, I, a man who prides himself on not seeing a minute of the Twilight Saga, a man who only sees romantic comedies if they're over 85% on RottenTomatoes, was seeing a Nicholas Sparks movie. This was bad enough, but then, then, they charged us ten dollars. Ten. Dollars. For a Nicholas Sparks movie. I've never spent ten dollars on a movie before. If I'm seeing a movie in IMAX or 3D, I split the cost of the surcharge with my parents. For a movie I love, like Toy Story 3 or The Muppets, I only spend the typical seven dollars. I was spending ten dollars on a Nicholas Sparks movie.

 

Anyway, we go inside the theater, which is right next to Argo's theater. Did I want salt with my wound? So we sit down near the front of this incredibly small theater, which is weird for a first-run movie. The trailers start and more salt in the wound happens as the trailer for Star Trek Into Darkness, which has nothing to do with the target audience of Safe Haven. This is a movie I'd happily spend ten dollars on, but no, I was spending ten dollars on a freaking Nicholas Sparks movie. The trailers continue with Admission, Monsters University, The Heat, The Call, and The Host all of which look better than Safe Haven (although some of them I would never see).

 

So the movie starts and about ten minutes into it, I go, "Forget this, I'm not going to watch a Nicholas Sparks movie without popcorn and a drink. This visit will not be in total vain." I leave the theater to get a small combo. However, the small combo is apparently even smaller than the actual small size. My drink is the size of a Chihuahua and the popcorn barely fits in the palm of my hand. Worst of all, there's. No. Freaking. Free. Refills. And they charged me eight dollars! So, to recap, I spent a grand total of eighteen dollars on a NICHOLAS FREAKING SPARKS MOVIE. The movie ended up being better than I expected, but still not that good, and definitely not worth eighteen dollars. The experience overall was terrible, and I never want to repeat that again. Argo fuck yourself AMC, Argo fuck yourself.

 

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