I had the wackiest experience tonight (technically Friday night)!!! Earlier today I made plans to meet some friends and see a movie (Hero Among Heroes aka Fist of the Red Dragon).

Everything started off awesome with us all meeting each other on time. I recall exclaiming to one friend I'm early!! Look I'm a minute early! (I'm often late.) We had lots of time so we walked to the Royal Theatre, bought our tickets, found seats and enjoyed snacks. One friend noted that the crowd seemed different than the normal attendees at Kung Fu Fridays (more about that below).

But it wasn't until the movie was announced that we discovered WE'D GONE TO THE WRONG MOVIE THEATRE!! This brilliant move was accomplished by none of the three of us actually reading any/all of the information about the movie. And none of us knowing the title of the movie! *facepalm* (There's only one screen at the theatre so there's no need to say the movie's title when buying the ticket. Also, we all just assumed it would be at the theatre Kung Fu Friday's are normally at.)

We dashed out of the theatre, popcorn and drinks in hand, and briefly waffled about whether to take the TTC or cab it (we needed to go further west). Since it was 9:25pm and the movie started at 9:45pm, we crammed into a cab. During the ride we munched on popcorn and laughed at ourselves.

As the minutes ticked down we were delayed by the filming of a movie!! Oh the ridiculousness of trying to get to see a movie and being thwarted by the making of another movie! (I believe they were shooting at a diner my friends and I ate at a few weeks ago.)

We convinced the cabbie to take a detour and actually arrived at the correct theatre - the Revue Cinema - at 9:40pm!!! My friend explained our mix-up, so we didn't have to pay again and were able to bring out snacks in with us. Yay!

Much to our amusement we actually beat our other three friends to the theatre!! So they arrived to find us lounging with a half-eaten bag of popcorn as if we'd been there for ages. I'm so glad it all worked out!!

The movie itself was very entertaining with lots of good martial arts scenes, silliness and token white people involved in the evil opium trade. But it couldn't beat the experience of getting to the theatre!!


So the sad news: Three of Toronto's Festival Cinemas are closing, and just recently a fourth one was closed. This means that there will be 3 or 4 remaining independent theatres that show second-run, older and more obscure films (there are a few other independent or smaller theatres that show non-mainstream films but not for as cheap and never as obscure).

It's so sad every time these single-screen theatres are closed because they're one of things that make Toronto a unique city instead of some city with a bunch of big chain theatres (not that those can't be fun). All the single-screen theatres are different and many used to be the neighbourhood theatres back in the days when there were movie palaces all over cities in North America. Every year more and more of them are torn down, gone forever. Occasionally they'll leave the storefront and then build condos or put a Williams Sonoma in it. Since I've lived in Toronto (almost 10 years) I've seen at least 10 smaller theatres close, and it's just heart-breaking. I really miss the Uptown and the York theatres in particular, those are theatres I saw things like the re-released Star Wars movies, The Big Lebowski, David Cronenberg's Crash (It was a continual stream of people walking out), Pirates of the Caribbean, Shine, Bulletproof Munk (Mister Funktastic!!!), In and Out, X-Men (on opening night) and so many other movies I can't remember now.

Um, so this post has gone from silly adventures to sad ramblings about theatres closing down. opps. One more thing: The closings affect Kung Fu Fridays because there will be hardly any theatres for them to be screened at. Kung Fu Fridays are an awesome way to see old and new martial arts films that can sometimes be hard to find even on video and dvd. And you get to see them on the big screen; nothing beats watching a lightning-fast fight in a theatre!

To end on a happy note: one of my favourite Kung Fu Friday memories is watching a Jet Li movie with my BFF who fangirls him and squeeing with her at all the awesomeness on the beautiful big movie screen.