Humor: Pop goes the theatre cynic

Pop goes the theatre cynic

What is it with the popcorn they sell at cinemas? It is always way too salty and way, way too expensive for my tastes.

Could it be it is soooooo salty so it will make you soooooo thirsty you will return to the cinema kiosk and beg to pay even more money for a drink? Or am I just a cynic?

As happens a lot on school holidays, I took with my seven-year-old son Jack to see a movie yesterday.

The movie was Spy Kids 3D.

As kids' movies go, it was fun.

It does not have a fantastic storyline but the 3D special effects were, um, in Jack's generation's parlance, cool.

Sylvester Stallone was an interesting casting choice as the villain. Too bad for him though. First he gets typecast as Rocky, then Rambo and now a whole generation of children will grow up thinking only of him as the bad toymaker.

I guess they will also grow up wondering why the man in the back row with the poor hand-popcorn-mouth coordination kept humming the Rocky theme music every time Sylvester came on screen.

Er, um, I can explain about the popcorn.

Not only was it too salty and too expensive, as usual, I do not think it was all that appropriate for that film.

I wish someone would invent 3D popcorn because I found it terribly hard to eat mine wearing those red-green glasses they give you to use during the show.

Everything except the movie seemed lopsided.

I knew the bucket was there on my lap, somewhere in the dark, but I could not see it very well.

And when I finally got hold of a piece of popcorn, and became frustrated that I could not find my mouth with it, I felt like throwing it back at the screen in retaliation for images flying at me.

I guess this is something I should only share with an anger management professional, but I have had that feeling of rage in a picture theatre before.

When I was around Jack's age, I remember my older sisters taking me to the movies.

I had my heart set on seeing Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines at the Majestic but they outvoted me in favour of The Sound of Music at the Princess.

Yes, I know that was a classic and I should be thankful I saw it way back then but, well, the other movie seemed much more exciting to a young boy.
Besides, I think it was a fluke I landed a chocolate jaffa on the Baron Von Trapp's head. I was actually aiming for the Mother Superior.

I know they had popcorn in the world then, but I am not sure it had filtered down to us in Tasmania.

Apparently, the oldest ears of popcorn found were discovered in the Bat Cave of west central New Mexico. The oldest Bat Cave ears are about 5600 years old.

That is amazing. My guess is that the cave dwellers there were watching a movie when they accidentally spilt it. Easy to do. Especially if it was 3D.

Did anyone test for salt content?

NB: I called this site Dunno because I kept drawing a blank when I had to put a name to it