In Pasadena, a city I’m growing to love, but I’m sure with time will feel nothing but resentment and disdain for, there is a stretch along Colorado Blvd of about a mile that contains four movie theatres. Higginbottom and I, with the aid of her DGA card, decided we wanted to see some movies. So we went.
To five. Atonement, The Savages, Wristcutters: A Love Story, Revolver, and Hitman (also Enchanted!)
At all four of the theatres.
We are awesome.
We parked at the Paseo Mall and headed east, since that was the middle point, parking all day costs $6, and if this crazy experiment worked, we were going to end up there. We got to the first theatre, the Laemmle Playhouse 7, which was going to be our home for the next many hours, since we were catching a double feature there. We fortified ourselves with strong coffee and sat down to the first two of our artsy films.
(I will do more detailed reviews of these films over the next couple of days. Otherwise, this blog entry would just get, you know, rifuckingduckulous)
After Atonement, we sat down to The Savages, and started a fierce discussion over the quality of the film we had just seen. Higginbottom loathed it from the very core of her being, and I was so stunned at the sheer ferocity of her scorn, that I was actually stunned into silence. The Savages started. Remember how they called Little Miss Sunshine a comedy? After watching this film, Little Miss Sunshine looks like fucking Blazing Saddles. Not that it wasn’t good. It was just very bleak.
However, the strong onset of espresso mixed with illness and stomach pains, led to Higginbottom leaving the theatre early. So we kindly requested a refund from the manager. Free passes! I knew from experience the manager and his lackies were sitting around scorning us, saying look at those two pricks, fucking whiner crybabies, oh the print has something wrong with it, could we have our money back, fuck them. Of course, there we were, with two free movie passes. And you sir, are a manager of a Pasadena arthouse movie theatre. Who wins that fight, life? Who? Who, hipster glasses man? Who? That’s right, you say me. I only wish there was a snowpile that I could rub his face in.
Higginbottom felt well, so we headed yet further east to the Regency Theatres. Regency is a second-run theatre, or as I prefer to call it, the El Cheapo. $2 matinee, $3 feature. Fuck and yeah. Wristcutters was only playing at one time, and I knew, if we didn’t see it, we wouldn’t.
Aside from a phantom heart attack and a homeless guy conducting a drug deal behind us, it was a pretty enjoyable film experience. We ate $1 hot dogs and Higginbottom soothed her stomach with Peppermint Herbal Tea. What kind of movie theatre serves tea? An awesome one.
Then came our most daunting task. We had a half hour to walk a mile to the farthest theatre, the Laemmle One Colorado in Old Pasadena. It’s a cute little theatre nestled in a small alcove of shops on brick walkways. Think Peddler’s Village PAites, or The Grove LAites. So we hoofed it. Past shoppers on the holidays.
We made it with minutes to spare. Higginbottom whipped out the DGA card to purchase our tickets to 3:10 to Yuma. Which we’ve already seen! Thank you, foolish studio, for paying for our movie going experience. See, we aren’t selling out, we’re sticking it directly to the man. We then descended the many escalators to the underground theatre complex. Morlocks fought us for popcorn, but we prevailed.
Revolver was….a movie. Then we left, Higginbottom understanding, me incomprehensive. We went to Thaitalian, which is a little restaurant between the theatre and the mall theatre where we would end our adventure. Thaitalian is fusion restaurant combining thai food with italian. So we had rice paper wraps of spring roll and fontina and proscuitto, and a seafood portofino that was essentially seafood linguine with a thai curry sauce on it. Holy shit. It was outstanding.
Then we fled to the Paseo. We had a choice of what to see next. I opted for Hitman because frankly, after our movie experiences thus far, I wanted….no, I needed to see something die. Higginbottom wanted no part, so she went to see Enchanted again.
We wrapped our adventure victoriously, and headed home. We’ve still got a veritable crapload to see before the week is out, because this weekend there are a shitload of movies coming out: Sweeney Todd, There Will Be Blood, National Treasure: Fuck You Dan Brown, among others that are currently escaping me.
But we did it! Five in one blow! God bless you, Mother Pasadena, for being a walkable, charming movie haven.
