Dinner and a movie

David and I have a decent track record of making it out for dinner together and an equally respectable one for sneaking out to a movie sans kids. But dinner AND a movie, well, now you’re talking three, four hours of adult evening entertainment and there are few people who can withstand the force of our children for that long, even when we pay them. So the only time we are able to score dinner and a movie is when we get my parents to take the kids overnight – which is precisely what we did on Friday.

Dinner at Resto, this delicious Belgian place that had the impressive ability to please David (Belgian beer! burgers!) and me (fancy sauces for my pommes frites! Wafels with chocolate sauce!). Plus it was restaurant week which is perhaps my favorite New York holiday ever, so three course ran us $35.

Movie was Inception, in IMAX. The great thing about when I see movies nowadays is that whereas before I used to hear all the buzz and read movie reviews and know what to expect, these days I don’t know jack. Which means when we’re choosing a movie David gives me a two-sentence sum-up, mentioning names of stars or directors, and the basic premise (we do get into trouble sometimes since David often has a different read of movies than I do; take, for example, his description of American Psycho as “not scary, no, comedic in a suspenseful way!”) Now, I show up to movies ready to be surprised. This is great because I don’t ever get disappointed when a movie doesn’t live up to its hype.

Consequently, I go to Inception, and I’m like, “Whoa, cool. It’s a dream within a dream!” and then I got to have my mind blown when it was actually a dream within a ream within a dream within a dream. I didn’t love it the way I did Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind but I give it major kudos for making some pretty thought-provoking existential ideas very mainstream and accessible, I did leave thinking however that the movie might cause an overly thoughtful or sensitive person to go straight to the looney bin. The subtitle could be, “Inception: recipe for insanity.” I will, for instance, never mention the idea to Primo, who frequently wonders aloud, while eating dinner or watching TV if he is, in fact, dreaming. Of course, there is the distinct possibility that he’s right and I’m the one who’s dreaming right now. Maybe in my waking life, I’m an accountant living in the Tulsa and this dream of blogging and drinking coffee in Brooklyn, is just mind-blowingly exciting.