Movie night

Tonight I went with a couple of friends to the movies, a first for me in Nairobi. We went to see “Flightplan,” with Jodie Foster, and I know you’re all rolling your eyes because it sucked so bad, but

1. only a handful of Hollywood movies play here at a time
2. “The 40-year-old Virgin” was all the way across town, and
3. ever since I saw the “Flightplan” trailer back in the States, I really wondered what happened to Jodie Foster’s kid. Lost? Kidnapped? Crazy Jodie made it all up? The mind reels.

There are some really nice theaters here but tonight’s show was at one of the older ones. Still, you get to select your seats at the ticket window and an usher guides you to them. We slogged through a half-hour of trailers that reminded us why Hollywood box-office receipts are tanking. Then we slogged through two hours of this movie, which took place on a plane where nobody behaved like a normal human being.

We had reached the climactic scene, in which Jodie Faces the Enemy, and suddenly the theater went dark. This was very effective because, just a few minutes earlier in the movie, the lights on the plane went dark. It wasn’t Hollywood wizardry – the theater had just lost power. We were up and running again within a minute. But it was the most dramatic moment of the night.