Elizabeth February 15th, 2008
Part of my 101 Things in 1001 Days challenge.
Last night I treated Tim to a movie at The Rooftop Cinema for Valentines Day. I managed to keep the whole thing a secret right up until we got to the door, which made it extra fun!
The cinema is on the roof of a 6-storey building, and the view was awesome. It was just high enough to make the passing trams look little, but small enough to give us a great view into surrounding skyscrapers. It was the perfect perspective for two people still getting to know their city.
One leg of the L-shaped venue was a small but well-stocked bar (shown in the photo immediately above), and when we arrived it was full of people having their post-work drinks. Many had sprawled into the cinema area around the corner to take advantage of the sunshine and synthetic grass, and there was awesome chilled-out music playing the whole time.
At around 8pm staff herded people away from the screen so that they could begin setting up deck chairs, and by 8:30pm anyone who hadn’t bought a ticket for the movie was sent back to the bar.
We managed to grab terrific seats, and when we sat down we saw that a menu had been clipped to the chair in front of us! The text read:
Howdy. Left your credit card with the bar? If not, go hand it over so you can run a tab during the film and simply text us the seat number, your surname, colour of your card and what you want. And then we bring it to you.
PS: If it’s a crying moment of the film, we might wait until that scene is over and we’ve wiped our eyes.
The menu contained a great selection of drinks, and four food options from the award-winning restaurant/bar Cookie downstairs. Tim had chicken yakitori skewers, and I tried the tofu burger (as part of my new resolve to “try new things”). The price was very reasonable ($8.50 each), and they warmed us up.
The movie began a little after 9pm. We saw Raising Victor Vargas, a movie that I knew absolutely nothing about but seemed to rate really well on Rotten Tomatoes. We both really enjoyed it, and I think I like it even better today than I did last night. It got some horrible reviews on imdb, but whatever. Worth seeing.
Overall, I had a great time and thoroughly recommend this place. Be warned, the cinema only operates from late November until the end of March each year - so check it out soon if you can!
Location: Level 6, 252 Swanston St
Tickets: $18 + BF
