On the Town with Lonnie Sparks

MOVIE REVIEW:

Die Another Day

Die Another Day

The other day my friend Donna called me and said she was bored out of her mind. I told her I was too, and we talked about it for a while and then she said, "Hey, let's go see a movie!"

I'm not really a movie person, but we browsed the movie ads for a while. She kept coming up with titles like "Razor Cut" or "Blood Edge: Mutilation". I don't know if those are actual movie titles or not, but that's what the movies she was describing sounded like to me, and they were not appealing. I'm more of a light-hearted comedy kind of person, and I just don't really care for the blood-and-guts type of stuff most people seem to like. Finally, in desperation, we decided to go see Die Another Day. I had heard Madonna was in it, and I love her music, and Hally Berre was in it too, and I heard she got good buzz last year in Monster Mash and was even nominated for an Oscar.

Die Another Day

So off we went to the cinema, the new Loew's on K Street in Georgetown. Donna was driving my car (I am not a city driver) and I was navigating. We looked up the map on the Internet, and it looked like it was right underneath the Whitehurst Freeway off Wisconsin Avenue. No problem, except there is no K street underneath the Whitehurst Freeway, at least none that we could find. If someone could please tell me where Wisconsin and K Street meet, please let me know. I couldn't help but think maybe it was one of those "insider" things city people do to confuse suburban people like me and Donna when we drive into town so we look dumb. "We say it's K St., but we city slickers know it's really Water St." Thank God we left two hours early.


We finally parked the car where we thought the theater should be, and sure enough, there it was, like a block away. Luckily, we still had ten minutes before the show started. As we entered the cinema, we were greeted by a woman smoking a cigarette whom I initially thought was a homeless panhandler, but apparently she worked for the place greeting people. Everywhere we went, everyone who worked there seemed really happy and chipper and kept saying hello and that they hoped we had a good time at Loew's. Hmmm...

Die Another Day

I realized why everyone was so happy when I had to pay nine dollars to get in! That is NOT a typo! NINE DOLLARS! No wonder the homeless lady was so glad to greet me. She's probably making like $20 an hour standing out there smoking with those prices! A word of warning: when you take out your loan to pay for the ticket at Loew's, be sure to ask for enough to cover the price of popcorn and a soda too, because it's almost as much as the ticket itself!

As we entered the theater, I realized why I don't go to the movies: there are other people there, and people are amazingly annoying!!! Donna kept elbowing me every time something scary happened, the guy behind me kept sucking on his large drink, everyone was munching their popcorn loudly, people kept coming in and out of the theater, and the girl next to me had to pee halfway through the movie. How am I supposed to enjoy something with all this going on? It's very distracting. I kept thinking of how cool it would be to have my own private theater, like the stars in Hollywood. People are SOOOOO annoying!!!

Die Another Day

When we left, everyone kept thanking us for visiting Loew's, and I kept nodding and wishing they'd stop thanking me and just leave me alone. I just wanted to get away quickly, but of course it took forever to find the car in the garage. Donna kept insisting it was on level three. I knew it was on level four, and I was right. She made me drive home since I was such a "smarty pants", plus she has trouble navigating the turns in garages (she's always afraid she'll hit the concrete pole), but the joke was on her, since we ended up on Rhode Island Avenue in North East headed towards Maryland. After about an hour we were back in Virginia, and I dropped her off, and I was just glad that the whole ordeal was over!

Other reviews by Lonnie Sparks:

Africa
The Employee Cafeteria at Miami International Airport
Subway
Fuji Express
Traditions: The Restaurant
The Bangles In Concert