Seeing a movie in Paris

Kevin here.  Let's talk movies in Paris.

Now, I love movies.  All different kinds.  I enjoy quirky Wes Anderson-type stuff (can't wait for Moonrise Kingdom), the occasional romantic comedy (any comedy, really.  The goofier the better), serious drama (we've got Tinker Tailer Soldier Spy queued up for when we get home), and summer big-top spectacle.  I've loved summer movies since the 80's.  Nothing like walking out of the latest Spielberg movie into the hot sun, having to quickly grimace and shut your eyes.  Know what I'm talking about...?

One of the things I've missed about being away from home was the start of summer movie season.  With younger kids, it's always a challenge to see all of the ones I'd like too.  But we hadn't seen any movies since leaving home in March.

So, we had it in mind to see Martin Scorsese's Hugo when we got to Paris.  If you know Hugo, it's set largely in an old Paris train station.  The kids had all read the book, so we were all primed to see the movie... in Paris.  It was great by the way.  Definitely worth your time.

But about a week or so ago, Kelly asked the kids if there was anything else they wanted to do before we began to wrap up our time in Europe.

Anna wanted to go to the zoo.  Anna loves animals -- real and stuffed.  And there is a small zoo -- a menagerie -- not too far from us in the Le Jardin des Plantes, about a 7-8 minute walk.  (As an aside... Paris is a world-class city, of course.  They have it all here.  Except... a really good zoo.  It's really surprising that a city of such size and variety lacks a world-class zoo).

The boys had something completely different in mind:  they wanted to go see The Avengers.

Now my first thought (honestly) was: what?  No, we're not going to do that.  We're in Paris, children.  We'll see big American summer movies when we get home.  Instead... let's go see some more Monets!

But, the more I thought about it, I decided to go with it.  For a number of reasons:

1.  I like summer movies.  I miss seeing movies.  And the reviews for The Avengers were pretty good.
2.  We wanted the kids to have a sense of being in a place like Paris and doing more normal, less "touristy" things -- at least part of the time.  Seeing a movie seemed like it might fit that.

So, Kelly took Anna to the small zoo while the boys and I hopped on the Metro to make our way down to a movie theater on Boulevard Saint-Germain.  Since seeing movies in a foreign country is such an interesting experience (at least I thought so) that I thought I would share some of it with you.

First... the French love movies too.  Of course, there is a great tradition of French moving making.  Even some of the most classic movie terms are french:  avant garde, film noir, etc.  But they also love big American movies too.  So, it was no problem -- at all -- finding theaters showing The Avengers.  All American movies come to Paris.  And this year they are coming to Paris (and all Europe) at the same time they open in the US, or even earlier.  Battleship, for example, opened in the UK before it opened in the US.  Apparently, there is a rush to get all of the big summer movies out early in Europe this year before the big one-two punch of the European Championships (soccer) in May/June and the Olympics in London in July/August.

Many -- if not most -- American movies in Paris are in English with French subtitles.  But not all.  In fact, the Avengers was playing both ways.  You can find the French language version and the English language version (with French subtitles).  So, the secret is to find the ones labeled "VO" or "VOSF".  These are the version original showings (or version original subtitled francais).

So I bought a copy of Pariscope, the local magazine listing every possible thing to do in Paris for the week: movies, musicals, gallery showings, concerts, etc.  I had been told that there was an English-language section in Pariscope, but that turned out not to be true.  Nevertheless, it's not that hard to navigate the movie section to find what you are looking for.  So, that's how I found a non-3D VO showing of The Avengers at the UGC Danton theater on Boulevard Saint-Germain at 4:00pm.  We chose the non-3D version because Justin has some vision problems which make watching 3D movies difficult.  No problem for me.  I still think 3D -- as it exists today -- is a gimmick that I don't want to pay extra for.  And you pay extra for 3D here just like you do in the US.

Upon arriving, we get our tickets without too much trouble.  The woman at the box office speaks a modicum of english.  And with my 40-word French vocabulary, we're good to go for this basic transaction.  Then we look for the concession stand to get some popcorn.

And here we bump up against the first real difference between US and French film-going.  The French don't really do movie concessions.  When we went to go see Hugo, there was no concession stand at all.  We saw a vending machine in one of the hallways with your typical selection of candy bars, etc.  But that's it.  No drinks, no popcorn.

And me... well, I pretty much have to have popcorn at a movie.  I've been doing that for 30+ years.  It's not a movie without popcorn.  Or, well, it didn't used to be.  At Hugo we went without.  I have to say that it's a very odd thing for me to watch a movie in a movie theater completely empty-handed.  It just is.

At Avengers... well, what do you know!?  I saw a tiny little popcorn machine on wheels like you might find in a park or something.  And a small refrigerator behind it with cans and bottles of coke.  Awesome!  So, I go up and order some popcorn.  I don't know what the french word is for "popcorn." But, apparently, it's "popcorn".  So, they give us a medium bag of the stuff.

"Uh... butter?  beurre?" I ask.  She replies in English with a shrug: "ah, no, we do not have zee but-tehrr.  This is France.  Sorry."  She said it with a smile so she wasn't being rude.  But she knows that Americans look for popcorn with butter when they go to the movies.  In France... well we're lucky they just have the popcorn.  In fact you begin to realize that the small fridge and the little popcorn machine are really just a way of acquiescing to the American movie-goer in Paris.

So we head into the movie theater with our plain popcorn and a bottle of coke -- all to share.  We sit in a relative small movie theater -- about the size of the smaller theaters in the US -- when I realize:  I'm in a theater that can only be described as having reverse stadium seating.  That is, the rows in front of me are higher than I am. And I'm tilted back a little looking a bit upwards.  I feel like I'm in an airplane taking off.  Very odd.  No one was sitting in front of us, thankfully.  I guess if they had it would have been ok since the movie screen is up high at the back of the theater.  But, still, it's an odd sensation.  I don't know if all french movie theaters are like that or just this one. Probably just our luck of the draw.

Then the previews started.  And the commercials.  If you think it's bad in the US with commercials at the movies, it's worse in France.  They're all mixed in together.  A trailer here, followed by a couple of commercials, another trailer, etc.  Quite a few of them.  And some of the commercials are wildly inappropriate for the movie you're about to see.  When we went to go see Hugo, we and our children were also entertained by a risque commercial staring Uma Thurman wherein she is discussing how great Schweppes is when everyone else in the commercial is thinking about how much she loves sex.  Not an easy one to explain to your 8 year old.  Then there was a dark, disturbing preview of some Foust movie before Hugo as well.  I think we saw a decapitation.  There are no rules around this kind of stuff like there are in the US.

And some of the trailers are not in French or in English.  So it can be pretty wild to watch a preview of a Dutch film with only French subtitles.  Confused in two separate ways.  And then there was one for -- I think -- Swiss tourism that was absolutely baffling.  Who knows what it was really about.

Once all of that was done, we're ready for the movie.  But first... a pause of about 20-30 seconds.  Apparently they have to manually take the preview/commercial reel off the projector and put on the reel for the movie.  Old school.  Again, I'm not sure if this is common practice or just where we happened to see this movie.

Regardless... the Avengers was loads of fun.  The boys loved it.  I liked it too.  It's still a mindless summer superhero movie, but it's better than most.  I was at least entertained.  But, one thing that is a bit distracting is the French subtitles.  When you know the language being spoken on the screen, the subtitles do pull you out of the movie.  I guess I did learn a few new French words that way, though.

And one odd moment during the movie is when Scarlett Johansson's character -- a Russian -- is being interrogated by other members of the Russian mob.  At least I think that's what was happening.  They are speaking Russian and the only subtitles are the ones in French.  So, I don't know what really happened in that scene.  But... hey... it's The Avengers, not Shakespeare.  Whatever it was was neither (a) an important plot point that, once missed, would ruin this superhero movie, or (b) a great moment of film exposition to be recalled in time imemorial.  Sorry, ScarJo!

Anyway...  a fun time with me and my boys seeing a movie.  In Paris!