TR SNIPPET MOVIES

I saw The Intern. I enjoyed it very much. It seemed a fine movie about being older, retired, and moving back into the world of work.

With the Young At Heart $4 coupon I saw just after my free breakfast “Love the Coopers,” a smaltzy Christmas show with many famous actors having parts. I loved it.

I was going to go to the dollar movie on Tropicana and see Minions just to see what that is all about until I found out it was about serving evil. Son Peter says I don't have that right. He says it is a fine movie.

I have always enjoyed movies where whole families are featured coming together for a holiday or a vacation or at wedding. I see there is a sequel to “My Big Fat Wedding” coming soon.

I was so dysfunctional the day I saw the Peanuts movie that I did everything wrong, and yet it all turned out right.

Here is how that went:

I am very fussy about movies. I don't want to be frightened or thrilled with adventurous chases or touched by social issues or bothered by gratuitous violence. I'm not wowed by people with super powers or ostentacious glamor.

I could enjoy a movie with nudity and sex, but those somehow feel wrong to America while the most terrible torturous bits apparently delight them.

All week the news has been dominated by terrorism after the French attacks. If I want to be frightened, I can do it by watching the daily news. I don't need graphic violence.

Well, there does not seem to be too many choices in the way of light hearted comedy/romance, so I choose the Peanuts movie.

There was some war there too, but somehow I am not frightened or bothered when Snoopy flies his doghouse around after the Red Baron, especially since it is a product of this imaginary character's imagination.

I come late for the showing, but I from what I read posted above the ticket sellers, I think I'd see most of it.

I buy the ticket and rush to the theater.

Here I make my first mistake. Once inside the showroom, (I am the only person there) I see that things are blurred.

It clearly is a 3D movie.

I watch a while and go out in the hallway where there is an attendant.

“Is this a 3 D movie?” I ask.

The young fellow assures me that it is.

“I did not get any glasses,” I tell him.

He literally runs off to get me a pair.

Nice fellow.

He apologizes.

No one asks me for more money. 3 D movies do not cost just $7.75.

Back in the movie I see that I've missed much more than I thought and arrived later than I'd seen on the marquee.

Oh, well.

I love the 3 D. It is so much better than anything I remember. The glasses fit well over my glasses. Everything is clear and wonderful.

There are two subplots in the movie, and I see all of the second, Snoopy saving Fifi from the Red Baron.

On my way out I stop at the young fellow who takes the tickets.

“Do they every allow reentry?” I ask. “I was later than I thought and I did not have glasses, so I missed much of the movie. I see it plays again in another half hour....”

“You can see it again. I'll let you stay in the theater, but don't tell anyone.”

“Thanks a lot.”

Now I've got time to kill.

And I'm hungry.

So I decide to get a large popcorn and then on the way out I'll be able to grab a free refill to bag for tomorrow as a plane snack.

Popcorn is $7.50.

When I get to the cashier, he asks if I have a player's card and tells me small popcorn ($5.75) is free on Thursdays with a card so I need to just pay the $1.85 difference between small and large.

So I've tripped into another bargain.

I take the popcorn and munch on it while I walk the long hall of movie options.

It is very quiet.

I check out the posters.

It is a long hallway with many theaters, and far in the back I see the Peanuts movie I had originally paid for, a conventional version that started an hour earlier than the 3D..

I had not misjudged the starting time.

I had gone to the wrong theater.

I was supposed to have gone into theater 15 and not in the 3D version in theater 17.

Now I'm to see the 3D version again, all of it this time and more. I'm there so early that I see all the previews, which were very entertaining and a short full length cartoon featuring a rat/squirrel like character who is attracted to a nut has all sorts of wild adventures chasing it on earth and out into space, always just trying to hold on to his acorn.

I also see a series of interesting advertizements that start a half hour before the previews. Normally, I hate commercials, but these are not bad.

All the previews detail all the current and coming animated movies and those are entertaining as well.

Then I watch the entire Peanuts movie again, in clear 3 D.

It is very nostalgic. Here are many of the classic Peanuts bits: The little red haired girl, Lucy as therapist, Charlie as always losing out, the kites, school, baseball.

Always Charlie is hoping to achieve, failing, dealing with the depression of the loss, hoping again.

I realize that Charlie Brown is much like a Vegas gambler, even like me at that point in the trip. My bankroll has been depleted and I'm still hoping to hit something good before I go home.