I can barely remember the last time I went to see a movie in a cinema..or a cineplex as they are called these days. I do recall when my daughter was small, whenever we went over to KL, I would take her to see a movie while the mother was on a shopping frenzy. If I’m not mistaken, we watched “A Goofy Movie” at The Mall…and later, we went to see the very touching “The Tigger Movie” at Mid Valley. Melissa insisted that we went to see “Lilo & Stitch” too but that seemed to have slipped my mind completely.
Well, after all this time and after all these years, I finally went to one again. When Melissa was home, we went to watch “Madagascar 3” at a cineplex in town…
They call it a trioplex, probably because there are three halls showing three movies simultaneously…
I guess they have more in the cities like in KL…but I would think three is more than enough for a small little place like Sibu and there is another cineplex as well in another side of town.
The tickets are by no means cheap these days…
– RM9.00 each but I hear that if you wait a little longer when a movie has been showing for quite a while, you can get the tickets a little cheaper…and it seems that if there are fewer than 5 persons, they reserve the right to cancel the show…
Luckily, there were 6 altogether that day and thus, as they say, the show must go on.
They still have the tidbits stall outside…like at the cinemas in those good ol’ days…
I can remember how I hated it very much then as people would make it a point to buy kuaci (pumpkin seeds) to eat while watching the movie. It was bad enough that they would make a horrible mess of the place but the incessant cracking sounds of the kuaci would be so distracting and at times, it would even drown out the dialogue in the movie. Tsk! Tsk!
If we go back some more, there was a time when the cinemas were not air-conditioned and smoking was permitted. Imagine somebody coming out from a movie with the lingering stench of cigarettes on his clothes even though he himself did not smoke at all. It amuses me a great deal even till today to recall how everyone in the cinema at the time would break into wild applause everytime a hero came to the rescue or when the Roman soldiers would ride their horses towards the enemy castle or the cowboys would show up in pursuit of the Red Indians. Don’t ask me why they did that as I wouldn’t know myself but that was exactly what people did then.
Some of the heroes from my time are still around, obviously…like Batman…
…or Spiderman…
…but gone are the days when they would be painted by hand on canvas, all the movie posters on display outside a cinema in those long gone days.
Inside, it certainly is a lot more comfortable these days with air-conditioning and cushioned seats unlike the bedbug-infested wooden or rattan ones that we had during our time…
…and of course, the stereophonic sensurround sound today is a whole lot better than what we had before. You may see somebody kicking a can in the movie and you will hear it dropping on the ground behind you.
Like before, they have trailers before the actual movie starts…
…but I would think the best part of going to a movie would be the opportunity to go out with friends and loved ones and spend some quality time together during these modern times when many would be too busy for one another or too engrossed in watching their own movies or doing their own thing on their ipads and what-have-you.
It was definitely not a great movie – just a fun-filled and relaxing one and both my daughter and I enjoyed ourselves very much. We certainly look forward to doing this together again sometime…
FOOTNOTE:
Happy Dragon Boat Festival aka the Zhang Festival or the DuanWu (Double fifth) Jie to everyone celebrating! Enjoy your dumplings!!!
...STILL CRAZY AFTER ALL THESE YEARS! 