Day’s Verse:
The last and final word is this:
Fear God.
Do what he tells you.
Ecclesiastes 12:13

Yesterday was Ian’s birthday. He turned, oh, approximately mid-to-late 20s. Age aside, we decided to celebrate by using our gift certificate to Gold Class Cinemas to see True Grit.

It’s difficult to describe how excellent the entire experience was. First of all, we dressed up. This made me realize that (a) I need to get a pair of nice shoes; (b) I’ve lost weight and my good dress doesn’t fit as well as I’d like; (c) I need to learn how to do long hair so it looks good. All that aside, I felt pretty sexy getting dressed up and going on a date, and that was fun. Also, Ian looks good in a suit.

Second, Gold Class Cinemas is super luxurious, despite their excessive fondness for the color orange. They had a lounge with a fireplace where we waited, looked at a menu, and ordered dinner — which we opted to eat during the movie. In the theater, we had a pair of huge, incredibly comfortable reclining seats that had a small table between them. On the table was a button to summon a server (I used it once, to get a blanket and more water). We received our appetizer shortly after the movie started. When we finished that, they brought our dinner and side (the fries were huge and delicious), and we finished with dessert a bit later. What really struck me was how quiet the theater was. Usually you hear people whispering, seats creaking, candy wrappers crinkling, etc.; conversations are totally out of the question. In that theater, we could have a low-voiced conversation without disturbing anybody else. It was so comfortable, I almost forgot I was in a movie theater. So the theater experience was superlative.

The movie itself? One of the best I’ve seen in a few years. It reminded us of Gran Torino. The acting was superb — Jeff Bridges, Hailee Steinfeld, and Matt Damon could hardly have done better — the cinematography excellent, the music spot-on, the story compelling. It had many moments of unexpected humor, which contributed significantly to the overall tone. I lost myself in the movie completely. I suspect that we’ll end up purchasing the DVD eventually. Wonderful.

As I said: Best movie experience we’ve had, possibly ever. And an excellent way to celebrate Ian’s birthday, except that this’ll be hard to beat.