We were just your everyday innocent bystanders, on what we thought was an average day in Westwood California. We were passing through when we decided to stop by on of our old family favorite places to eat. There is nothing fancy about mongols, it it just a place to eat some AWESOME Mongolian beef and noodles, and it just so happens to be right next door to Lamonicas NY pizza. These two places are frequented by ucla students and Westwood regulars. It is a guilty pleasure, but one that I never regret. A few doors down is a whole foods market where you will bump into a celebrity buying some kind of green juice and tofu for sure! I ran into a member of The Breakfast Club and Winnie Cooper from The Golden Years, in one visit!
So anyways, after we ate we were walking around Westwood, and we saw one of the theaters there setting up for a movie premier. They were setting up the red carpet and placing barriers for the fans. And there were a lot of fans. I think they all came out to see Selena Gomez. I will give my full review of the movie in a bit but for now I will just tell you, me favorite part was the part we got FREE POPCORN!…Ok back to my story, so there we were watching them set up everything and watching the fans start to line up, ready to get a pic with one of the movie stars there. My husband tells me that my son wants to get in the crowd with the fans, but my daughter does not want to enter the crowd, so she and I stay across the theater near California Pizza Kitchen while my husband and son put on a brave face and enter the crowd of SCREAMING girls waiting to get a glimpse of Ethan Hawk or Selena Gomez. And as I slowly watch them disappear, I hear screeching tires burning rubber from the stunt cars speeding down Galey ave.
The cars were fast and load and the crowd was going wild and getting pumped up. Then you just hear nothing but screams as what you can only imagine is Selena Gomez walking the red carpet, and the fans start chanting her name. At this time I am still on the other side of the street and I turn around because I hear screaming girls running my way to see Selena! OMG it is getting fandimonium out here. Teenage girls from JAPAN who told me that they flew out here just to meet Justin bieber’s girlfriend, are losing it, and they have not even met het yet, but just the idea that she is somewhere in this area and it is happening now, is enough that one of them starts to cry from excitement! I must admit I was letting my nerves get the best of me when you see all those flashbulbs go off. You kinda feel like you are apart of something that you only get to see on TV!
And then I saw one of the staff holding a big stack of tickets and he was heading for the crowd! He had movie tickets! A few minutes late I see my husband appear and I tell him “hey you, they are handing out tickets!” I mean what else was I supposed to say right? I was so excited that “hey you” was about the best I could do! So he looks at me and says “you mean these tickets?” And holds up four screening passes!
WHOOO WHOOO I am going in the premier! How cool is that! Oh yeah! So as we cross the street I am able to snap one shot of the marquee:
To my left are fans behind barriers as I walk the red carpet so naturally I start waving to the crowd as if I am a movie star and I start blowing kisses and giving salutes! I felt it was the right thing to do! Even though the crowd was giving me the old ‘Who are you?’ Look. As you walk in, security checks your bag and you are ushered in the lobby where someone soon says “Folks, please enjoy complimentary snacks for the movie”
I was on cloud 9! Not only did I save about $50 on my family entering the theater, but now I am saving so much more because of free popcorn and drinks! This is great! And I got to pretend I was a movie star for about 8 seconds, how jealous are you right now?
So we enter the theater and we are ushered to our seat which was located in the balcony of course and at the very last row! As you can see in the pic below.
The movie itself started with no previews and it is about a former race car driver played by Ethan Hawk, who comes home to find his wife kidnapped by a powerful and very rich person, (played by Jon Voight) who blackmails Ethan into driving like a maniac in different circumstances, across the city of Sofia, Bulgaria with Selena Gomez riding shotgun. I personally thought the movie had way to many chase scenes and the plot line really did not make much sense, but the was one part in the film where it is a first person, one-shot car chase scene, where for what seems like a minute and twenty seconds, you are diving the car and the car is speeding through traffic and intersections as the sun is rising. It is truly an amazing shot. It is fast paced and nonstop action.
As the evening ends and everyone exits the theater, fans start to gather around the stars of the film. My family and I did not stay much longer, as the crowds started to get even larger. We just headed to our car but I will never forget the night I was a true CELEBRITY!
Have you ever met a celebrity? And who?
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