At the movies

My little girl went to the movies a couple of weeks ago. There is nothing remarkable about this, except that it was her very first visit to the cinema:). Perhaps her parents were a little more excited by this than she was. All expectant and nervous were we... will she be scared of the life sized television set? Will she sit through the entire film without wanting to go to the toilet? Will there be any scary bits that we will have to counsel her through? We ended up selecting something right up her alley (but perhaps not ours). The Disney cartoon, "The Princess and the Frog" was the right choice and particularly suitable for a three year old little girl who is, these days, obsessed by princesses and fairies.

Our expectations were exceeded. She sat through the entire 90 minutes quite patiently, gobbling and gulping down her popcorn and juice (thankfully cinema kiosk food in Bahrain is not exorbitantly priced) and although she did get a little antsy a third of the way through when the story-line wasn't going quite as she'd hoped - she persevered and held her attention span till the end (having said that - she did better than her parents - dad was constantly fiddling with his blackberry and mum was fighting off a bad headache which wasn't helped by all the overly-cheerful musical numbers)

There are several comfortable and modern movie theatres around Bahrain and we visited the one that has recently opened up at Bahrain newest shopping complex. Going to the movies here feels just like it does back home, except that as well as English language films there is a choice of Arabic, Hindi, Tamil and Malayalam. It's quite the hangout for teenagers looking for entertainment on the weekends, young couples (and maybe young men and women looking to become couples) and families. There's usually a variety of choice in terms of what you can watch. Lots of Saudis who visit Bahrain over the weekend like going to the movies here too... especially as there are no movie theatres in Saudi Arabia. Unfortunately, not everything gets released here. Sure, the big blockbusters all make it but not small, independent films. This can be disappointing. Sometimes you'll be hanging out to watch a movie, only to find out that it's not going to be released in Bahrain. Lots of flicks go straight to dvd. Take a look at this site to get an idea of what's on offer at the movies: http://www.bahraincinema.com/.

....By the way, we did end up having to counsel a little on this creepy looking character from the film (the Shadow man)...thankfully, there haven't been any nightmares...