Popcorn, A Coke, and a Dried Squid, Please: A Rant

I haven't been to a church in years. Even if you count the weddings. And the funerals.

I have recently discovered, however, that I am an incredibly religious man.

Surprised the hell out of me.

I am now, and always have been, a prominent member of the First Church of the Cinematic Experience.

I didn't even know such a church existed, or even that I was a member, until I came over here and experienced Korean movie-going first hand.

You never really know how strongly-held and deeply-felt your beliefs are until someone comes along and dumps on your altar.

They assign your seats here.

This, in a word, sucks.

The ticket you hold in your hand, along with the maps on the wall in the lobby, show you where you are to sit. The fact that both are in Korean doesn't help matters much.

It took me over 10 minutes to finally find my seat the first time I went, only to have someone else inform me (ever so politely) that I was actually in her seat. My seat was on the 2nd level of the theater.

Did I mention this sucks? Okay.

I am a firm believer in the idea of "First one in the theater gets the best seat," which, for me, is 4th or 5th row from the front, smack dab in the center.

In America, we're used to having more freedoms than we know what to do with; we take most of them for granted. I never in my entire life thought that the first freedom that would be personally taken away from me would be the freedom to choose where to sit in a movie theater.

It's...well, un-American. Obviously.

The second commandment of the First Church of the Cinematic Experience has to do with the credits. Namely: "Thou Shalt Watch The End Credits All The Way Through Until The Very End When The Film Runs Out Of The Gate And The Projector Emits An Ear-Splitting Rumble And The Screen Is Bathed In Glorious White Light." Amen.

I have never seen the end credits in Korea because the projector is turned off and the house lights turned on as soon as the credits start.

The End. (Cue Music)

Fade Out.

Begin Credi--

CLICK!

LIGHTS.

Mass Exodus.

Sheesh. You know, it probably doesn't matter with movies like "Die Hard" or "Blind Date," but you'd miss the final Howard Jarvis joke in "Airplane" (along with the goofy credits in all their movies), and, in "Cinema Paradiso," well, I'm not going to tell you what you'd miss, but it's pretty cool. And kind of twists the rest of the film around.

Of course, those of you who left before the credits were over are now saying, "What tthe hell is he talking about?" Ha, ha, my little secret, because I stayed.

There's also this nasty habit of peeking in and watching the ending of the movie's previous showing while waiting for your own to start. The very idea of watching the ending of a movie first is so foreign (a joke!) to me, it literally makes my head swim. Why would anybody do this? Would you actually want to know who gets the kid in "Kramer vs. Kramer" before you actually sat through the first 95% of the flick? "Apollo 13's" climax wasn't a huge surprise, but "Dead Again" and "The Crying Game" still had some tricks up their respective...uh...sleeves.

And, finally, there's the snack bar.

Nachos and hot dogs just ain't that popular, kids. Instead, we got packaged chips and candies, tiny cans of soda, and flattened dried squid.

Squid jerky.

It is, hands down, the most popular snack around. Everybody buys it. Everybody eats it.

An entire movie theater, filled with the aroma of dried squid.

Can I get an "Amen?"