There are three little things that could keep me from being totally, insanely in love with Costa Rica: the book situation (lack of bookstores and/or a cheap way to get books here), good reasonably priced restaurants, and MOVIES. At this moment, lack of decent movies and/or movie rentals is at the top of my Things-Not-To-Love-About-Costa-Rica list.

Sunday was a good day for a movie, so we whipped out the La Nacion (the Spanish language daily Costa Rica newspaper which we can now peruse) and the Tico Times (the English language weekly) and searched movie listings. The choices are dismal. Rarely does Costa Rica get a first run movie. If it’s a good action/adventure or horror or kids, those would get here first. Woody Allen’s Match Point will NEVER make it, mark my words. And, although EVERY other choice at a movie theatre is a movie you can rent in a video store, somehow eating popcorn in the dark with 30 strangers is irresistible.

Not to mention the fact that when you rent movies here, approximately 50% of them are flawed… so you get halfway thru and then it stops playing. But this is old ground. I’ve moved on. And why not? I LOVE going to movie theatres. And since we don’t rent movies, they are all new to me!

We decided on Superman. It was the only offering that caused that little thrill of excitement only going to the movies provides. So we checked the times and headed out.

Unfortunately, the times in the paper were all incorrect so we had to drive to 3 different theatres, pretty much circumnavigating San Jose.

Fortunately, most movies here are in English with Spanish subtitles. We are working so hard to learn the language,
but we’re just not up to dubbed-movie-speed yet.

Besides, movies, for this expat, are as much about
enjoying a touch of the familiar, as about being entertained. I want to get
ALL the jokes, not have to work really hard just to keep up with what is going
on. I like my focus to be on getting the popcorn from my bag to my mouth, between guffaws. Or sobs. Or screams. It’s all ok with me at the movies.

Unfortunately, all 3 places offered Superman only dubbed in Spanish. I was not up for that. So Superman was out. The only other choices, besides infant and horror, were The Fast & The Furious Tokyo Drift (which the boys opted to see) and Living with My Ex (the Vince Vaugh/Jennifer Anniston movie known as The Breakup in the states). GOD, WAS THAT AWFUL. Even my favorite Law & Order guy, Vincent D’Onofrio, couldn’t save it. It was such a bad movie, it’s not even worth critiquing. The boys thought F&F3 was one of the best movies they’ve ever seen. God, I wish I’D seen it.

You can see how the topic of "Movies in Costa Rica" gets to be at the top of my hit parade.

By the way, The Netflix Solution wasn’t. The first one got here fine, we watched it, sent it back. The second one… didn’t get here. Nor did the next two. They made it to my mailbox in Miami. And somewhere between the Miami mailbox and the Costa Rica delivery service – um, that would be customs – they were lost. I guess they were lost. No tracing them. Netflix doesn’t have them. I don’t have them. I do get to pay for them. Whoopee. And it was such a GOOD idea. But that’s ok. I’m moving on.

Satellite TV, here we come! I’ve called them. Within two weeks, we should have U.S. TV and PAY-PER-VIEW and IFC and Sundance and HBO and Max and every other movie channel offered for $30/month. We can make our living room really dark and popcorn is practically free. I guess we could invite 30 strangers over… But, somehow, I don’t think that will be necessary.

OK, I’m settling down now. Yesterday, I was considering moving to Argentina just for the movies. Today, I’m good. Besides, looking out over my view really does the trick… along with this fresh cool breeze. The birds. The green. Satellite TV. Life is good.