Aaron passed through DC again this weekend for work, and was able to come and visit. We made our usual visits to Poblano and the Dairy Godmother. Flavor of the Day: S'mores. One of my favorites, so the timing could not have been better.
Before he had to go on Sunday, we thought we might go see a movie. There were movies he had seen that I wanted to, and we're trying to get tickets to the Imax showings of The Dark Knight in a few weeks when he is in town again. So we ended up getting tickets for the new X-Files movie. If only it were so simple.
We were early, so we just kind of camped out and waited. Eventually, more people started showing up. Aaron noticed that the scheduled start time had come and gone. The audience started to grumble. Soon, folks were leaving their seats to go out and complain. Still, nothing happened. Then, the pre-movie local ads and trivia cut out, and we were left sitting there, puzzled.
A low-level employee then came in and made an announcement. After they had sold us our tickets, and sent us to this theater, they had switched the showing to another theater in the multiplex. And it had started on time. So we had missed a significant amount of the movie. Complaints all around as we exchanged our tickets for the next showing. We left the theater to run some minor errands before returning for the show.
We took our tickets and headed for the 3rd theater of the day. However, the digital marquee at the door tells us that Mamma Mia!, the same show that took over the 1st theater, was playing here as well. It seems the staff was not having their past day, logistically. We ask any member of the staff we can find, mostly stereotypically surly teenagers. They tell us to go upstairs to a fourth theater.
That theater is labeled as playing Mamma Mia!. The groups of women headed inside humming "Fernando" was also a good clue. We head to the service desk, and are told to return to the 3rd theater, though it is still listed as showing the ABBA musical. At this point, the "answer" comes in the form of shrugs, "I dunno where it's playing" and a resigned handwave towards one theater or another. We settle into our seats, and begin to observe our fellow audience members. They do not look like stereotypical X-Files fans. They do look like they know all the words to "Dancing Queen." Someone was in for a disappointment.
Eventually, a very nice woman, a customer, comes in and asks if anyone is here to see Mamma Mia!, because she has spoken to the manager and that is being shown at a fifth theater. About half of the audience gets up and leaves. One woman laughs as she left, "I did think there were an awful lot of men here for Mamma Mia!"
The movie itself was all right. Basically a decent episode of the old show stretched to feature length. The story to get to the movie was probably more entertaining, though.
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