How about those movies, eh, people? Those prices! You know, the prices for the movies? Don't even get me started. And what about those snacks? The movie food? What, is that popcorn covered in butter churned from the pope's own sacrosanct Nazi boob-milk? (Fair enough. That would be expensive.) I mean, movie popcorn is pretty much as expensive as airplane food is stupid. Airplane food! Those trays! SPORK! Why is my Salisbury steak like molten volcano lava, but my dinner roll is like a glob of liquid nitrogen that got pooped out by the world's coldest yeti? Whaaat is the deeeeal with yetiiiiiiiis?!?!?!

So anyways, because the whole country/world is suddenly all economically fucked (where'd all that money go, BTW? I'd just like to float a theory here really quick—THIEVING YETIS), maybe you don't have $10 or $12 or $35 to go to watch some big-screen bullshit about a precocious dog that can smell the future. (Spoiler: You're gonna have a miscarriage! Bark bark!) Maybe that sounds like a ridiculous expense for an unemployed or borderline-unemployed person. Or maybe you are a dirty thief who just downloads movies off the internet and watches them at home in your cozy ice cave (who gave the yetis internet access?!). Either way, perhaps you would enjoy a trip to the discount movie house!

Discount movies are like the real movies, except they're way cheaper and every-one you know has already seen them. And also they're coming out on DVD approximately 12 seconds from now. For instance, for the purposes of this column, I dragged myself off the couch and trekked to the Crest (16505 Fifth Ave NE, Shoreline) during a hurricane to watch Happy-Go-Lucky, even though the DVD of Happy-Go-Lucky was literally sitting on the coffee table next to the couch from whence I had just dragged my sad sack of a self! GODDAMNIT!

But I joke with you, friends. The Crest is fun, and the experience of going to the movies is half the point of going to the movies. If you haven't been, the Crest is a grubby little building in the deep north across from a 7-Eleven (for the purposes of cheap snacks) and a sadly now-defunct bingo hall (for the purposes of spying on the ghosts of old people). All tickets are $3; the staff is pleasantly grumpy in a scrappy indie cinema kind of way; and moviegoers, drunk on their massive savings, feel free to gab, gab, gab all the way through the film, like they're at home on their own goddamn ice couches in their own goddamn ice caves. Goddamn yetis.

Other recession-appropriate movie-watching opportunities in the area include: West Seattle's Admiral Theater (all shows $5.50), Federal Way's Starplex Cinemas (all shows $2, and $1 on Tuesdays), Wallingford's Meaningful Movies (free every Friday), and Community Cinema at SIFF Cinema (free; its next film is Taking Root: The Vision of Wangari Maathai, March 28 at noon). recommended