Sunday, August 22, 2010

I am not Jackie Chan

So I went this evening to see the new Karate Kid.  Instead, I ended up seeing this:




Incase you weren't sure, this is not Jackie Chan. It did however have Jet Li. So I got some martial arts action.

How did this happen? We got the movie times wrong. On the small military installation where I live there is a one screen theater that shows 2 movies a day Wednesday through Sunday only. Karate Kid was at 3 and we got stuck with The Expendables at 6. It was a good movie and I don't feel like I wasted the $5.00 to see a first run movie.

That's right. It's only $5.00 over here to see a first run movie. A first run movie is a movie that comes out here the same time it does in the States. You see, the movie industry is nice enough to donate a few reals of movies to the military theaters overseas. We only get a certain number, though, so they have to rotate Europe military installations on a schedule so everyone gets a chance to see them. We're lucky enough to be a first run movie theater so we get a new release almost every weekend. I think they feel sorry for us because our guys deploy every other year so they give us new releases.

Did you know that in movie theaters on military bases they play the national anthem before every movie? They do. Everyone in the theater stands while a reel of footage from all the armed forces is played. There's one part that shows a man in uniform crying a single tear. It tugs at my heart every time. But then they play a preview or two to get you back in the mood for the movie. These theaters over here are professionals.

1 comment:

  1. Hello! The army bases we've been to don't seem to have movie theaters but my husband was in the USMC and it always tugged at my heart when they did the national anthem ESPECIALLY after the war started.

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You are a lovely person.