Tag Archives: Yelmo Cines Ideal

2nd July 2025: Sabina’s Hello & Goodbye (Madrid, Spain)

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Lots of things came together on the 2nd of July. First of all, due to weird work schedules that I had no control over, I had a day off in the middle of the week. Second, I had a doctor appointment in the morning – lucky how I could fit it there. Third, Jurassic World: Rebirth, the new film in the Jurassic Park franchise came out. Finally, back in January, I had bought tickets to watch a concert in the goodbye tour by the singer who composed the soundtrack of my teenage-angst years.

So it was just a stroke a luck that work just happened to give me the day off because of unrelated reasons. It would have been luckier to have the following day off too but what can one do? Actually, I propose an unpaid leave called “I had a concert yesterday and it’s not that I’m tired or sore or anything, but I don’t want to go back to reality just yet, I deserve to bask in post concert ‘the world is okay’ bliss.” Think about it, it’s a great idea.

Since I had the doctor’s appointment, I could not plan a whole day out. Once I was done there, I changed clothes and then drove off to the train. Of course, there were delays, what else is new? Halfway, one of the doors got stuck open and we could not start until that got closed manually. But instead of blocking it, they allowed it to keep opening at subsequent stations – so it got stuck again and again.

I reached Atocha just in time to change trains and get to Sol using the same system without a wait, so in a few minutes later I was out in the heat. The original idea had been a light lunch at Yatai Market, but the air conditioning in Kawaii Café was stronger. I had been to another of their shops before, and the food was all right, so I thought why not? I ordered a strawberry frappé and a “sleepyhead bunny” Conejito Dormilón – a Red Velvet crêpe filled with strawberry compote and decorated with cheese cream and blueberries, along with a vanilla-jello bunny mascot. Adorable and delicious. Quite pink, too, due to all the strawberry…

A collage of pink café and a meal - a strawberry frappe with a cute koala face drawn on it. and a crepe which looks like a bedding with a sleeping rabbit on top

When I finished, I headed towards the nearby Yelmo Cines Ideal to watch Jurassic World: Rebirth, a monster movie with a homage to the Jurassic Park book. I guess the film is better if Scarlett Johansson is your type. The film retcons the whole “Jurassic World” premise: now the dinosaurs are dying (and nobody cares about them any more!) and only surviving on an island near the Equator. It turns out that they somehow hold the key to cure heart disease. And then the palaeontologist says that they need to collect samples from the three biggest dinosaurs: Patagotitan (okay, it’s famous now), Mosasaur and Quetzalcoatlus, both of which have already been featured in previous films and are not dinosaurs. Then there are mutated freaks and a Tyrannosaurus with the head of a xenomorph and some extra arms, because the dinosaurs can’t survive, but the “mutated experiments gone wrong” are alive and well? The best from the film was a scene taken from the book, with a Tyrannosaurus and a raft. Unfortunately, this new Tyrannosaurus was not Rexy. Furthermore, the special effects are… not good. Too much bad CGI makes the creatures less believable than those in the 90s instalments, which is… a huge faux pas.

I am glad I saw it on opening day, though – I was able to avoid most spoilers and went in with an open mind. It was not a good film but I didn’t hate it. I will just probably ignore it exists (until the next film comes out, we all know that). Points for the pro-planet message, but it falls a bit flat when you know that Michael Crichton, the original author, was pretty much anti-science…

The film was around 133 minutes long, but oh god, the previews were long. Thus, I left the cinema around 19:30. I had to take the underground, and I knew that some stops would be closed due to Pride. However, last year I had learnt that you’re still allowed to transfer even if you cannot enter or exit the station. I used that knowledge to get myself to Movistar Arena Madrid for Joaquín Sabina’s final tour Hola y Adiós (Hello and Goodbye). I am happy I bought the tickets when I first saw them, because most concerts have sold out, and I got quite a good seat considering the event and the venue.

Joaquín Sabina is a Spanish singer and songwriter born in 1949 in Jaén, in the south of Spain. When he finished his studies, his father offered him a present, and he asked for a guitar. Due to his leftist ideas he had to exile himself in London for a few years during Franco’s dictatorship. When he came back, he lived a life of debauchery, mostly in Madrid, and he probably was not the best role model. But between 1994 and 2000, when I was an angtsy teen, his music was important to me, though I eventually moved away from it. When I heard he was retiring (again) early in the year, I thought I wanted to see him at least once, despite the fact I have not consistently listened to his music much in a couple of decades – there are a few hits in my car playlist. And then there is ¿Quién me ha robado el mes de abril?, Who stole the month of April from me?, which hit me very hard during Covid lockdown and I’ve skipped since then, but never had the heart to delete from the playlists.

Security let me in with my tiny water bottle, thankfully, and I found my seat about 45 minutes before the show was due to start, and 15 minutes after doors – it was weird, I had expected a larger crowd, and I had been a bit stressed leaving the cinema 20 minutes later than what I had calculated. I was on the side stalls, on a ninety-nine-euro spot. There is a whole etiquette about concerts with seats, and while I am quite happy to stand up when it is appropriate, and in this case, I decided I would stand up when people in front of me stood up. Pretty easy.

Sabina Hola y Adiós Madrid: empty stage

Setlist:
 Un último vals (One last waltz; recording and MV)
  1. Yo me bajo en Atocha (I’ll alight in Atocha)
  2. Lágrimas de mármol (Marble tears)
  3. Lo niego todo (I deny everything)
  4. Mentiras piadosas (White lies)
  5. Ahora que… (Now that…)
  6. Calle Melancolía (Melancholy Street)
  7. 19 días y 500 noches (19 days and 500 nights)
  8. ¿Quién me ha robado el mes de abril? (Who stole the month of April from me?)
  9. Más de cien mentiras (Over a hundred lies; band intros)
  10. Camas vacías (Empty Beds; vocals: Mara Barros)
  11. Pacto entre caballeros (Pact amongst gentlemen; vocals: Jaime Asúa)
  12. Donde habita el olvido (Where oblivion dwells)
  13. Peces de ciudad (City fish)
  14. Una canción para la Magdalena (A song for Magdalene)
  15. Por el bulevar de los sueños rotos (Through the Broken Dreams Boulevard)
  16. Y sin embargo te quiero (And yet I love you; folk copla song; vocals: Mara Barros) + Y sin embargo (And yet)
  17. Noches de boda (Wedding nights) + Y nos dieron las diez (And the clock struck ten on us)
 Encore:
  18. La canción más hermosa del mundo (The most beautiful song in the world; vocals: Antonio García de Diego)
  19. Tan joven y tan viejo (So young and so old)
  20. Contigo (With you)
  21. Princesa (Princess)
 La canción de los buenos borrachos (The good drunkards’ song; recording)

Well, what can I say? Sabina has got old since I was a teenager. His voice has cracked – after all, he is a smoker – and he has swollen up. But his concert made me feel 30 years younger, and I enjoyed it immensely. I’ll freely admit that I bought the ticket back in January purely out of FOMO. However, I am happy I did. I did not get any of my personal favourites, and I am okay with that. Most of what he sang was part of those times.

Sabina Hola y Adiós Madrid: musican ensemble

The concert started with Yo me bajo en Atocha (I’ll alight in Atocha), a description and homage to the city of Madrid, which the singer holds particularly dear – despite the fact that he has a bad record with concerts in the city – he once had a panic attack and another time he literally fell of the stage and ended up in hospital. He started sobbing right at the end of the song. Figures.

The venue, of course, cheered and applauded, and stood up to bounce to Lágrimas de mármol (Marble tears), which has too dark lyrics for how… perky the music is, but I guess the message of “survivor, yes, damn it” is what matters. It was during Calle Melancolía (Melancholy Street) when the old guard took over, so Sabina turned the microphone towards the attendees, which did not only sing chorus but brought down the dome with their voices. He was visibly moved.

Good thing that next came 19 días y 500 noches (19 days and 500 nights) a getting-over-a-break-up song during which people can yell, and broke the spell. That made me strong enough for ¿Quién me ha robado el mes de abril? (Who stole the month of April from me?), the first time I’ve actually listened to the song since 2020 – “who stole the month of April from me? I kept it in the drawer where I keep my heart” did not sound so threatening surrounded by hundreds of other people.

Sabina Hola y Adiós Madrid: playing guitar

During Más de cien mentiras (Over a hundred lies), which is a list of all the good things in life and “over a hundred lies that are worth it”, we got the band introductions. Sabina sang himself, and played the guitar for some songs – he stayed sitting down on a tall stool. Safer for him. Antonio García de Diego played guitar, bass, and harmonica; Jaime Asúa Abasolo and Borja Montenegro also played guitar; Josemi Sagaste played sax and non-drums percussions; Pedro Barceló played drums; Laura Gómez Palma played the bass; and Mara Barros did the choruses and had some solo vocals.

Sabina retired to rest for two songs, alleging that it had always been a dream of his to have a song of his sung by a beautiful woman – Camas vacías (Empty Beds), performed by Mara Barros – and by an actual “rocker man” – Pacto entre caballeros (Pact amongst gentlemen) with Jaime Asúa on vocals. Soon after Sabina’s return came a song which holds one of the song lines that has impacted me the most in my whole life: Noches de boda (Wedding nights) hopes that “the end of the world finds you dancing”. I really hope it does.

I guess part of the fun of a concert is that you feel special. Of course that the singer has a speech for every city, and holds each one close to their hearts, or are the best or whatever. But this one did hit differently. I guess my inner child enjoyed it immensely, and even if neither of the songs of the encore did much for me in terms of nostalgia, I was incredibly grateful and happy that I had been able to attend. If it is the last tour indeed, I will have said my hello and goodbye, even if it has been 30 years after the time Joaquín Sabina’s was the only music that played in my room.

Sabina Hola y Adiós Madrid: waving goodbye to the public

Also, another extremely convenient thing: though I went by train, I had a ride home, as my parents were in town and driving back around the same time. Which was great, considering that a storm was brewing, and that there were many underground and train stations still closed due to Pride…

22nd November 2024: “Wicked” (film) on opening day (Madrid, Spain)

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There was a time when you could mute words on social media to avoid spoilers. Since the algorithms have taken over and you can’t curate what you see any more, I decided that the best way to avoid Wicked spoilers was trying to see it as early as possible, preferably on opening day. Ideally, on the first screening on opening day, an English version.

For a change, “ideally” worked. At least, I found a screening at 15:45 on the day the film came out. It was a cinema with Spanish subtitles but I can live with that. I have seen the musical twice in the Apollo Victoria Theatre in London and I’ve loved it both times. Not only I’m a firm believer in the message of Defying Gravity, I also give regular thought to Dancing Through Life. Sometimes I also listen to No One Mourns the Wicked and get all philosophical…

Anyway, I headed off to Madrid with next-to-no information and no expectations, hoping to enjoy the film. I had been slightly surprised that so many tickets were already booked when I bought my own, but I gave it no more than a couple of seconds’ worth of attention, I just thought I was running late since I made the decision the previous weekend before heading out to see Ha·Ya·To . Since the film was rather early in the afternoon, I had to get to Madrid with time for a bite. One of my options was Yatai Market but in the end I decided to grab brunch at Toby’s Brunch Club, where they run an all-day brunch (here I went, cheating the system again, just like I did at the James Joyce – twice in one week, too). I tried to book online but the system only took reservations for two or more. Since the Internet said that it was usually quite busy, just thought I still had Yatai as a backup plan…

I arrived at Atocha Station and walked towards the brunch place. As I did, I had to walk past Caixa Forum, which is still running the exhibit on Patagonian dinosaurs, and the Patagotitan smiled at me. I, of course, smiled back.

Patagotitan mayorum

The very-busy brunch place was empty – weekday “crowds” I guess. I was the only customer there for the duration. Usually, not being able to book for myself on my own discourages me from a place, but I’ve been wanting a “typical” brunch for a while now. The brunch consisted of a cold drink, coffee or tea and two courses (22€). For my cold drink, I ordered orange juice, and for the hot one a coffee latte. The first course was a basket of breads with butter, jams and tomato paste, and a yoghurt with fresh fruit. As my second course, I ordered eggs Benedict with smoked salmon. Because I really wanted eggs Benedict and I can’t cook them to save my life. Everything was delicious, especially the yoghurt. The eggs were perfect. I think this would kill me before noon though, so glad I used it as lunch.

Toby's breakfast club brunch

After my brunch / lunch I still had some time so I dropped by the art gallery Museo del Prado. I used my museum card Tarjeta de Museos Estatales and the lady at the ticket booth told me she had never seen a card like that before. She took it to the back shop, and when she came back, it turned out that the card had stuck to another card, which explained why she was confused. I finally managed to get in, and spent about an hour there. There was a small exhibit called El Taller de Rubens (Rubens’ workshop) which analysed the master’s works and that of his apprentices which was very interesting.

Afterwards, I walked towards Yelmo Cines Ideal (passing by and waving at the Patagotitan again) to watch Wicked. When I got there, the cinema was still closed, but as soon as I turned away to snoop into a shop across the street, the doors opened. I found my seat and I found myself seated between two groups of high school and university students, who were complaining that their life was very hard, and that they had barely had the time to eat lunch before getting to the cinema. And a few of them were threatening to cry. And they were telling each other not to sing along. I had not realised there was such a big following of Wicked from the younger crowd…

After a few minutes of hearing them babble excitedly, I realised that all of them had listened to the songs on the Internet, or something, but they had never had the chance to seen the musical themselves – it’s debuting in Spain in autumn 2025. It made me realise how lucky I am to be able to jump onto a red-eye flight at a random weekend and go to London, and be there for the 14:30 performance at the Apollo Victoria Theatre.

Wicked film poster

In general, I enjoyed the film. More than I believed I would, because I went with zero expectations and I had managed to avoid any kind of spoiler and previous knowledge, except that Jeff Goldblum was the Wizard. The main cast includes Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba, Ariana Grande as Glinda, Jonathan Bailey as Fiyero, Michelle Yeoh as Madame Morrible, Marissa Bode as Nessa (kudos for an actual disabled actor playing a disabled character!), Ethan Slater as Boq, Jeff Goldblum as The Wonderful Wizard of Oz; and Peter Dinklage as Dr. Dillamond (voice).

I do not believe what I am going to say – but I thought Goldblum was the weakest character. I mean, he keeps playing himself, and Jeff Goldblum is not the Wizard (I had the same feeling when I watched Jurassic World: Dominion; he played himself, not Ian Malcolm). On the contrary, Michelle Yeoh was fantastic, her sole presence in a take stole the whole screen. I enjoyed seeing the animal characters a lot, as it is the bit of the musical that always feels a bit off. The logistics of landscaping Oz was a bit awkward at points, but I guess that’s theatrics and not… geography.

I found the music decent. As for me the most important thing was for the story to be faithful to the musical – which is more up my alley than the novel – I was rather satisfied. The best song, in my opinion was What is this feeling?, the camerawork was stunning. It was also great to see the cameo of the actors who portrayed Glinda and Elphaba on Broadway for the first time, Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel – known worldwide today for Frozen’s anthem Let it go. The library scene and choreography for Dancing through life was also impressive.

What I saw of the subtitles was not a good sign though, because the message of No One Mourns the Wicked loses most of its meaning if you translate it as “she’s finally dead”. However, I am rather good at ignoring subtitles anyway. I am not sold on Glinda being all pink either. Too many Legally Blonde vibes there, I prefer ice-blue.

The film ended at the end of the first act of the musical, with the “main event” of sorts – Defying Gravity. Very showy, okay music-wise. It was more visually impacting than musically, and my mind was dubbing it with Kristin Chenoweth’s version anyway. At this point, half the theatre was sobbing, which I found slightly amusing.

All in all, I enjoyed the day and the film. I am looking forward to the second part, and having affordable Wicked merchandise I don’t have to save for special occasions. After leaving the cinema, I walked back, and since it was cold, I got there in record time – and then I had to wait 40 minutes for the train because of course I did.

5th August 2023: Prints, Sharks, Mice and Neon (Madrid, Spain)

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I won’t say that the Southern Italy trip was a bad one, but due to the planning blunder, the heatwave and the general not-so-relaxing atmosphere, I kind of needed a low-stakes day out. And what can be lower-stakes than a silly giant shark film? I got myself a ticket to watch Meg 2: The Trench at noon – I’ve found out that my non-dubbed cinema has started doing matinée shows at a reduced price – and planned my day in Madrid around that.

I took the train and arrived in Madrid on time for my ideal connection. Unfortunately the local public transport is chaotic this summer, with both the train system and the underground going through construction, outages and closed stations. As fortunately the city was between heat waves, I decided to walk for 20 minutes instead of waiting for 17 for a train that might or might not come to take me to where I wanted to go.

My first stop was Imprenta Municipal – Artes del Libro, a local free museum dedicated to the history of book printing and binding. The exhibition is hosted in a dedicated building with two levels. The ground floor focuses on the invention and development of the print, both for text and images, and the art of binding and decorating books. There are printing “machines” from the 16th century on, for copying books and texts, and the whole thing gives off a retro feeling – a video actually shows how the machines work even today.

Collage Imprenta Municipal Artes del Libro

The second floor held an exhibition about “Asian Writings” Trazos de Oriente: imágenes, objetos y caligrafías de Asia. It hosts Arabic documents, Mongolian drawings, Chinese writing instruments and Myanma and Hindu praying books, along with items like ex libris and schoolbooks. All very cool.

Exhibition about writing in Asia

I had a little bit of time before the film, so I got a snack, then headed to the nearby Yelmo Cines Ideal to watch my film. Something I’ve learnt is that matinées attract a weird crowd – when I went to watch Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, I sat next to someone who narrated the whole film, and this time there was a lady who would tut whenever any of the sharks was on screen. I read the Meg: a novel of deep terror by Steve Alten a lifetime ago, and I enjoyed its albeit-very-liberal adaptation to film, especially because it did have a self-parody tone. It was fun because it was implausible, and it knew it was so. The second and current film, Meg 2: The Trench, has tried to become more of an action-like blockbuster and it takes itself way too seriously in my opinion. But there are three giant prehistoric sharks on screen at times, and I’m simple in that regard. Bigger and more teeth, I’m all for that.

The film finished around 14:00. I was not hungry, so I just grabbed myself a drink at Starbucks. I had a ticket at 15:00 at the Nomad Museo Inmersivo (and it was bad timing I guess, because just a couple of days later they opened a new exhibit). When I first read about it, the idea reminded me of Mori TeamLab Museum, since the art is all digital. The museum is staged in two floors. The lower one hosts the immersive projection ward and the shop. The upper one hosts the entrance and the “activities”. I thought that I’d ask if I could come in early, and they had absolutely no problem with that, so I entered around 14:35.

As you climb down the stairs, you have a very cool corridor with mirrors and lights that lead to the projection area. I had a ticket with entrance and “iris picture”, so an employee took me to get that one (I guess because the photographer was about to go on a break). We had to try a couple of times as it was hard to force my eyelid open under the bright light of the flash. The photographer was very patient with me and we were done in a few minutes.

Interactive Museum Nomad access corridor

I found my way back to the beginning – the museum is surprisingly small. The immersive projection is shown on the four walls and the floor. The projection I watched was called Utopia 1.0, where millions of digital blocks work as a tridimensional Lego set that sort of “build” a surreal world with dragons, deer, sculptures, whales, high rises, dinosaurs… The whole thing takes around 20 minutes and you can watch sprawled on the floor, or sitting up on a pouf – I chose this last option as it allowed me to turn around.

Interative Museum Nomad: Utopia projection

Following the projection, I went upstairs to do the activities. There’s a virtual reality experience where you get to travel the cosmos and see a lot of “space cetaceans”. I wonder why digital artists are so keen on whales… Another of the activities consists on “painting” planets with a giant brush as they float on a wall, and when you colour them all, you get to see penguins on a rocket or something… I did not catch it well because a bunch of kids burst in and took over. On another wall, there is a bunch of neons that you can play with using an app that you download on your phone, and blast music so they pulsate with that. Finally, the nice attendant is at the ready to take your picture at some stairs photo call (I think it is the glorified emergency exit), and you can go back down using a spiral slide.

There is finally a last corridor with lights and you end up at the shop, where you can start all over again, as there is no limit about how long you can stay in the museum. I really liked the first corridor, so I went back there for a while. Then I walked into the projection area again just in time to watch the dinosaurs roam once more. A fun detail is that even the toilets are “in character” with neon and messages.

Interactive Museum Nomad exhibits

On my way out, I bought myself a shark glass at the shop. There was also a very fun pufferfish cocktail glass, but I thought it would be awful to clean after use – not that the shark one is going to be much easier though… I left and headed off to a place I’ve always tangentially felt curious about, even if I’m not really the target public for it – it’s called Casita-Museo del Ratón Pérez.

Ratón Pérez or Mouse Pérez (also called Ratoncito Pérez, Little Mouse Pérez) is the equivalent of the Tooth Fairy in Spanish-speaking tradition. In 1894, writer Luis Coloma was commissioned with writing a tale for the future King Alfonso XIII, who had lost his first tooth. This tale penned the folklore mouse into print. According to the story, Mouse Pérez lived in central Madrid, in a biscuit box in the patisserie Prast, situated in number 8 of Madrid’s Calle Arenal. The town hall installed a plaque to commemorate the place and when the shopping centre in that building became almost empty, someone came up with the idea of building a “museum-house” dedicated to the mouse.

Museum-House of Mouse Pérez

The kids had a blast for sure, the visit is a forty-minute activity 100% dedicated to them . The guide has them running round looking for stuff and going into small doors. I snooped around and found it an interesting business model – though it falters when you pay a bit of attention to detail: books like 1984 or anatomy guides may very well be interesting, but a bit out of place in a children’s museum. At the end of the visit, the guided asked me what I was doing there and I told him I… wanted to see what the fuss was about, what kind of things they did in such “alternative” museums. We chatted away for a bit before I left.

To end the day, I did some shopping and I headed back home – the trains were delayed, but I eventually made it home and had a pizza dinner, because I suck at staying fed on day trips. Truth be told, I wanted to step by a famous bar to eat a calamari sandwich, but it… was complicated, with lots of signage on where to stand and wait to be seated, but there was nobody around, so in the end I decided I did not care enough for the calamari. Some other day – I’ve been saying that for months now though…

27th May 2023: Mammoths and Knights in Madrid (Spain)

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I headed off to Madrid to watch the Knights of the Zodiac film, the Hollywood remake of the 80s anime Saint Seiya – I’m not making any excuses (I mean, I still went to the Symphonic Adventure after it got cancelled trice), I just wanted to see it, even if I did not have much faith in it. I wanted to combine it with another activity, and I thought I lucked out when I found that Caixa Forum Madrid was running an exhibition on mammoths – Mamut, el Gigante de la Edad del Hielo (Mammoth, the Ice-Age Giant). I allocated about an hour and a half for the exhibition, which hosted an almost-complete fossilised skeleton and a hyperrealist sculpture “among other pieces”. Truth be told, there was not much else to see.

The exhibit has some molars from different species, some fur, a tusk and a few pieces of prehistoric art. There was also an evolutionary timeline and little models comparing the sizes of different mammoth species to the average human size. The pièce de résistance is indeed the complete mammoth skeleton that was the literal centre of the exhibit – hugely-tusked specimen of wholly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius). It was a truly magnificent piece, but I was a little disappointed by how few pieces were actually on display. It’s not like there is not any material around – there used to be a Mammoth Museum in Barcelona that had actual tusks for sale. I had also seen another one in Muséum des sciences naturelles de Belgique in Belgium a couple of months back, which diminished the awe factor a little.

Mammoth - The Ice Age Giant exhibit featuring the giant skeleton with huge curved tusks, the smaller sculpture, a lone tusk, some hair and a piece of Paleolithic art engraved on the ivory of a tusk.

I was done in a bit over 30 minutes, so I had time to walk to the cinema – there was another exhibition in the same floor, but I had already seen it in Barcelona, and the Museum shop did not have anything interesting. I had planned to walk to the cinema, as public transit was only slightly shorter. The weather was not so nice, and there was a small storm. I did duck into a couple of shops but to be honest I ended up at the cinema 40 minutes before the session started while it poured outside. I found myself a seat to wait – I had got my ticket online the day the release was announced. This was my first time in a cinema since Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom in 2018, and it was a weird feeling, being so close to strangers again. It was also extremely cold, and the previews were felt eternal.

The reason I sometimes choose Yelmo Cines Ideal is that some of their films are shown in their original language, and I tend to enjoy subs more than the dubbed versions. The Knights of the Zodiac film was… a choice, I guess. It is based on the newest remake – which I have not seen because I’m not a streaming-service person – and it changed a lot of the lore. Except for the main character (Seiya in the original material), all the names had been changed, but I noticed that the subs stuck to the original ones.

Knights of The Zodiac movie poster

It was not a bad film, all things considered. Entertaining, wannabe Marvel-like, tapping a little into mixing the cosmic magic and newer technology that was unimaginable in the 80s when the manga was made. It lacked on the music department though – considering how powerful the anime music is, that was disappointing, though here and there there are a few chords of the original song Pegasus Fantasy. That was cool.

But then again, I was half-expecting a disaster, so anything was an improvement, and the film made itself watchable. Sean Bean’s character died, but considering that in the original material his character is already dead at the end, I guess it could be considered some kind of record…

1st February 2015: Space Pirate Captain Harlock. Madrid (Spain)

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You can say that this was a bit of a spur-of-the-moment improvisation – I literally woke up and decided that I wanted to go and see the Space Pirate Captain Harlock. I found a cinema in Madrid that showed the film and I hopped on a train to get there. I arrived in time for an early lunch before I headed off for the film, as the only version in Japanese was at half past three.

This was one of the first times I ate and went to the cinema alone in Madrid, and it was a strange experience. My relatives always say that a person eating alone is sad, and as I’ve been hearing that for a long time, and sometimes it resonates, specially when I’m in Spain. I originally wanted to eat sushi, but in the end I decided against it and went to UDON instead, where I ended getting the membership card. I decided to try the Chicken Yaki Udon – much better than the ramen, in my opinion, as they were real udon noodles, unlike the ramen which uses tallarini – and a koroke (croquette), and I had cheesecake mochi for dessert.

After lunch I headed off to the Yelmo Cines Ideal to watch the film. I had no seat number and I did not need one as we were literally… five people in the cinema. It was a small cinema theatre, and when I arrived there were three or four people, I figured that more would come, but when the previews started we were just five, and five we stayed. When the film finally started, I was really impressed by the quality of the CGI – I already knew that the voice-over was going to be great, what with Oguri Shun and Miura Haruma.

The plot of the film reminded me a little of Space Battleship Yamato, but that might just be me being biased. Even if I vaguely remember watching the anime from the times I was a child, the film felt at the same time nostalgic and new, so I could really enjoy it. Although it is a bit on the predictable side, it wraps up really well.

After the film, I backtracked and it turns out I was home before anyone even noticed I was gone. I should get away more often (≧▽≦).

27th December 2013: The Terracotta Army in Madrid (Spain)

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This was a bit of an unplanned event. I had been in Madrid the previous day with a friend and we had seen that the exhibition was going on. Unfortunately, there was a huge queue to go in, so we could not stay. Instead we got tickets on the internet and chose a standard “lunchtime” hour so we were almost alone watching the exhibit. That was awesome. The exhibition was held in the Fernán Gómez Centro Cultural de la Villa underneath Plaza de Colón (Colombus Square) in Madrid.

The Terracotta Army is called the Eighth Wonder of the Ancient World. It was discovered in 1974 close to the city of Xi’an (Shaanxi Province). It is comprised by hundreds of larger-than-life soldier statues built out of terracotta. They are part of the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor, the first emperor of China. There are over 8,000 soldiers, 130 chariots with 520 horses, aside from 150 cavalry horses. There are different types of soldiers and they have different ranks. Their function would have been to protect the Emperor from the spirits in the afterlife. Forty thousand bronze weapons have been found among the soldiers. For reference, they were buried with the Emperor around the year 210 BCE!

The Exhibition “Terracotta Army – Guerreros De Xi’an” displays about 150 replicas of the best-preserved soldiers, weapons and chariots, along with different decorative elements and a reproduction of the Pit 1, where the bulk of the warriors were found. It was a very interesting exhibition that made me actually want to travel to China to see the actual Mausoleum for real!

Afterwards we had tickets for the cinema, because “47 Ronin” was running, and the Cines Ideal show non-dubbed films, and basically… there was Akanishi Jin in it. The films has its… merits… somewhere… I mean I loved it but it was pretty bad – I’m not precisely known for liking deep, intellectual films anyway (≧▽≦).