The Grand Budapest Hotel: no spoilers!

Someone invited me to see The Grand Budapest Hotel today, their treat, so I suggested the budget matinee. I don't think I have paid full evening price for a movie more than a handful of times since they started budget matinees. There weren't always budget matinees.

I am thinking of how my dad used to talk a lot about how movies cost five cents and for two cents you got huge candy bars and unbelievably big bags of popcorn. Gosh, when I first paid full price to see films as a kid, it cost a quarter, adults were thirty five cents. When budget matinees started, to fill up theaters that had, until then, sat empty until the dinner hour and evening, cost a buck, then two, then three. Today, in Berkeley, $8.50 for the budget.  Pay full price. Even when someone else is paying, I prefer not to. The principle. I will do it if it works out for the party I am with but it aint easy.

Anyway. The movie. It is one of those movies with an endless series of cameo appearances of well known, even famous movie stars. Ray Fiennes has the lead, Willem Dafoe is at his sinister best (I heart me Willem!), Bill Murray, Ed Norton, Tilda Swinton. Much of the fun is recognizing all these movie stars you've seen before and seeing them in unfamiliar, even preposterous roles.

In the credits, they say Wes Anderson, the director was influenced by an actual writer who died long ago. Who knows if that is true?

The story is supposedly the story in a book by an unnamed writing, the book called The Grand Budapest Hotel. The story really isn't the point. The characters, the stars, absurdity with a backdrop of exquisite, mostly winter natural beauty.

It's fun.  Not 100% my cup of tea. I would have happily waited to rent it on iTunes for half of what my ticket cost.

Oh, the audience applauded at the end, for a long time. Do people do that now at the movies?  I don't remember hearing applause before at a movie.  It was prolonged clapping, even a little cheering.

The best part was having a date with a friend who took me out because = I have been sick, needing to spend time.

See?  I haven't ruined the plot.   I had fun but getting it from the library next year would have been fine. There are many other movies running now I would have rather seen.  Go with the flow.

We Type 2's in the Enneagram hide our own wishes and try to please others a bit too much.