My Singapore's First Day Rountine - Part 3

I couldn't complete my 1st day routine in Singapore anymore because some wise guys shut down Empress. Yes, Empress in Clementi. "So, which losers will go to that place to watch a movie?", I hear you ask. Ahem . . . me.

I love Empress in Clementi. It is "old school" cinema. It has none of the fancy-shmancy high tech cinematic facilities. No nice computer tickets, no PC screen for you to choose your seat and no nice sofa seats. At Empress, you get an old lady showing you a paper map of the cinema seatings, crossing out your seat in red ink, and then proceed to tear out a ticket from a grubby ticket booklet and throw it to you. Service so good that it brings a tear to my eyes. Holding your grubby ticket, you then walk up a dimly lited staircase into the cinema theatre itself bypassing the toilets. The gents actually gives you a nice view overlooking the road outside.

But the greatest thing is that you don't even need to book a seat really. Because nobody goes there. You get the usual losers with no dates (like me), some NUS students trying to watch a movie before going back to their hostel or Fong Sen for supper and the usual ah bengs and ah lians from next door arcade. The place is literally empty and I get to seat anywhere I want. I even prop my legs over the front seat and munch on popcorn chicken purchased from the KFC next door. You don't have to awkwardly walk your ass through the entire row of patrons if you feel like going to the toilet. You want to go, just go.

I have so many nice memories there. I watched tons of movies, the most enjoyable being the Matrix, Shaolin Soccer and Kungfu. I was there during the busiest night in Empress' history - during the opening night in 1999 of "A Man called Hero" starring Ekin Cheng. The cinema was packed and the queue stretched from the 2nd storey, snaked down the staircase and to KFC. Everyone looked happy and excited. Ah bengs were excitedly telling their ah lian girlfriends as to how awesome was the Hero character in the comic book. The old ladies were quite stretched trying to deal with so many patrons. The excitement and anticipation in the air was so thick you can cut it with a knife.

Of course, the movie turned out to be one of the greatest movie shitfest from Hongkong. Bizarre plot, minimal story telling, disjointed scenes and characters who came in and out of the movie as if they were confused porn stars.

Nice poster. Crap movie. Many ah bengs walked out of the cinema theatre shaking their heads and then spent the next hour at KFC trying to explain to their ah lian girlfriends that the movie sucks ass and they should have stay at the arcade and play para para dance. What an end to a historic summer night in Empress in 1999.

The same could be said of Star Wars Episode 1. I was at Empress when my friend and I sat down eagerly to watch the most anticipated movie of all time. Oooh, Anakin Skywalker before he was Darth Vader! We actually started clapping when the trademark Star Wars storytelling began, " A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away . . . . ".

And then the movie lurched from cartoon disaster to cartoon disaster until I felt like gouging my eyeballs out at this apocalyptic disaster of a movie. The kids were entertained by all of Lucas' computer characters. We men, however, were not amused. A little piece of my soul died that night. We spent the next hour at KFC discussing the utter depth of ineptitude of the movie and tried to drown our sorrows with ice lemon tea and chicken wings.

So many memories at Empress. I shouldn't dwell on the bad ones. It has been just an integral part of my life. Where would me, the ah bengs and the NUS students go now?

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