Styopa wings his way back to the US...

I took Steve to the airport this morning, thus ending his seven day stay in Prague. We spent his last evening attending Live Free or Die Hard, also known here as Die Hard 4.0 (or in Czech as Smrtonosna past 4.0).

We figured we could see this movie since it was not on the "must see" list of our significant others. Bruce Willis was back in fine form as John McLean, and there were enough one liners and things blowing up to keep things interesting. This is definitely the best Die Hard since the original.

We went to a local urban mall a few metro stops from my work to see the flick. I wasn't aware that there are two big theatres in and around the mall - Novy Smichov - and of course we went to the wrong one first. We went to the window to buy tickets and said "Die Hard" and the young Czech woman didn't understand which movie we wanted to see. After trying "Bruce Willis" and a few other key words, she got a brochure with their current movies and had us point. I pointed at "Smrtonosna past 4.0" with the picture of Bruce Willis and she said, "Die Hard 4.0?". Yes, Die Hard, like I said at the beginning. Unfortunatley, their next showing was after 8:00 and we were looking for a 6:10 showing. Decided there was another theatre and set off to find it at 5:45.

Leaving the mall we saw an information desk and decided to try our luck to see if the woman spoke English. She was already helping a couple speaking English, and when it was our turn she directed out the mall and around the corner to the other mall.

There was no problem getting tickets - they are about $8 each, just like the States. The young guy offered a special of a discounted price for a small drink and small popcorn. We waved him off - we each want BIG popcorn and BIG soda. And that's what we got - $7 each, not too bad.

Since Die Hard 4.0 has been out since the 4th of July there wasn't much of a crowd. There were probably about 20 people in a theatre that held about 150. We took seats in the center of the 5th row, and only noticed later that our tickets had assigned seats. Lucky for us it wasn't crowded.

One important thing to consider is if the movie you want to see is in English. Some, but not all, moviehouse web sites tell you if the movie is dubbed into Czech or if it is in English with Czech subtitles. I made sure that the movie we went to was in English.

In the last year I have only been to three movies here in Prague, including Die Hard 4.0. The other two were kids movies Meet the Robinsons and Ice Age 2 (I think). Both were showings arranged by Noah's school. This is hard for me since I love movies and used to go on a weekly basis. Maybe we'll go to more over the winter.\

The next big movie is The Simpsons, which comes out on July 27th. I will still be in Prague alone awaiting the return of Kathy and Noah in early August, so I will try to see it. One potential problem is that most animated movies here are dubbed into Czech - as I said, the two kids movies that we saw were arranged by the school. I don't know if I will be able to find the movie in English.

Anyway, I think Steve had a good time, and he didn't need to spend much apart from gifts, food and drink. Maybe we'll do it again at some point.