There are three movie theaters within a 15 minute drive (or so) of my house. Two in Troy, one in Piqua. The movie prices are very reasonable. Piqua’s theater, which is in the mall, is $3.50 for matinee and $5.50 for evening. (Everything before 6:00pm is matinee.) Troy’s theaters, both owned by the same company, used to both be $4 for matinee and $6 for evening – but one of the two has become a $1 theater. (50 cents on Tuesdays – woohoo!) Considering that the Hollywood Video in Troy has returned its rental prices back up from 99 cents (a limited special that went on for two years) I might go to the Mayflower to see second run releases instead of renting. 🙂

So I’ve gone from 3 first-run theaters to 2, and I was shocked to discover that one of those theaters was showing Hero. (You may recall I loved the movie when I saw it Labor Day weekend.) I couldn’t pass up the chance to show the movie off to the parental units, so I invited them out tonight for dinner and a movie. We went to the 5pm showing and then I took them out for dinner at the Bamboo Grill, a nice Chinese restaurant in downtown Troy. The movie was, once again, stunning and even the folks were impressed. A bit confused, maybe, but they agreed with me that the movie was visually impressive. The meal was wonderful. We had crab rangoon then shared chicken w/ garlic sauce, General Tso’s (one of the few restaurants in the area that don’t use breaded/battered chicken for this), and Kung Pao chicken. Yeah, so we like chicken… And best of all, I’ve got about 4 more meals out of the leftovers.

The entire evening cost under $50, which is pretty good entertainment and lots of bonus daughter points (sorry Amy!)