Mister and I went to see “Insterstellar” a couple of weekends ago at the Chinese Theatre in Hollywood. But this post isn’t about the movie.

 

We had pre-purchased seats for the IMAX showing and all was going well. Found the seats, took a load off and pretty soon the movie began. There were no trailers before this viewing, so the action kicked right in. And just as it did, a theatre representative approached us and said he needed our seats for a disabled party of viewers and he’d be happy to re-seat us elsewhere.

 

 

Okay. We’re not seat snobs or anything, but we do have preferences as to where we like to sit at the movies (hence the pre-purchased seats). Not too close, toward the center please. And the seats we’d reserved fit the bill. But, as it turned out, those seats should never have been available to us. They should have been reserved for wheelchair viewers and their friends/family. Why these particular moviegoers waited until the very last minute to buy their seats – I don’t know. Nor do I know what they would have done if someone with a wheelchair-bound viewer was already seated there. But hey – our take on it was just move us quickly, as the danged film had begun. Um-kay?

 

So we got up and followed the theatre dude toward the back of the auditorium. Then we followed him into the lobby. Then we followed him past a secured door and up some random stairs in the very bowels of the building itself. Next thing we knew, we were being shown into a private area – the “owner’s box” – and that was that. There were only 5 seats – all empty – and we were about as far up as you can get in the historic theatre. As the movie was going on without us, we just focused and tried to catch up, having missed the first couple of minutes.

 

 

At some point, I realized how isolated we were and leaned over to Mister and whispered, “We could totally do it up here!” He nodded and we both watched the rest of the film. (For reals.)

 

Once the movie had finished and the curtain was closing over the screen, I snapped a couple of photos. We then wound our way out, to the best of our abilities (only one wrong door!) and looked for the guy who’d re-seated us. Once we found him, we suggested our original seats be earmarked for special seating and not sold to the general public. He took the advice and told us how special our second seats had been. He said those seats are hidden and used for celebs. And always have been. I said I was glad it had worked out and that I appreciated seeing the box. Because we were nice about the whole thing – I suppose – he gave us free passes for a future flick. Mister and I walked to the subway and headed home.

 

 

It has occurred to me that the Chinese Theatre’s long history means just about any legend could have been in that box before. Think about it. Clark Gable. Charlie Chaplin. Bette Davis. Joan Crawford. I could list names all day, but the truth is I just don’t know. And I never will. It was a fluke that we ended up ever seeing those seats. A beautiful, crazy fluke.

 

 

By the way, I enjoyed the movie. Truth be told, I may have enjoyed it more than I should have – all because of my historic vantage point. What a lucky, lucky gal I am.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.