born 15 March 1970

Argiris Thanasoulas, Athens, Greece, actor

Chris Patton, Houston, Texas, voice talent

Curtis Rivers, Guisborough, England, stuntman

Derek Parra, San Bernardino, California, Olympic champion speed skater

J. Brennan Smith, birthplace unspecified, child actor/adult softcore production assistant

Jan Glud, Gothenburg, Sweden, writer/director

Kristen Conran, state of Michigan, art director

Noel Hocquet, birthplace unspecified, French technical director

Todd Jeffrey, Miami, Florida, production assistant

Todd Kendall, Miami, Florida, short filmmaker

The winner today is the man from Athens, just because I like Athens. And I feel bad for all the collateral damage that the debt crisis that’s currently unfolding will wreak.

In addition to all of its other groovy features – the antiquities, the food, the climate, the general vibe on the streets – Athens will always hold an extremely dear place in my heart as a moviegoer. The open-air theaters of Greece are just about the greatest thing that I have ever seen. I hope to have the chance to visit more of them on future visits. But if you’re ever there in the summertime, you absolutely have to try to go.

The ones we have been to are:

The THESEION, 7 Apostolou Pavlou Street

What Wrigley Field is to sport, this place is to cinema. One of the two or three most incredible moviegoing experiences I have ever had. This in spite of the fact that the movie that was playing was absolutely terrible. It was the execrable Spike Lee sperm donor movie, which is redeemed only marginally by a laconically unhinged cameo by John Turturro as Monica Bellucci’s mobster father. I dwell on this only to underscore that you could see absolutely anything there, and still have it be a lifetime highlight. Why? Well, you have a movie screen surrounded by lush topiary and floral arrangements. You have tables and a full bar, plenty of elbow room to stretch out and relax in. On the night we visited, frolicsome kittens walked right up to us, and pluckily tried climbing straight up Shelley’s hairdo to the top of her head, to get a better view of things. But most of all, you go for the drop-dead gorgeous view of the Acropolis at night. It can be seen from all over Athens, of course, but nowhere more breathtakingly than from here.

The CINE PARIS, Kydathineion Street in the middle of the Plaka

This one is practically right under the Acropolis, but the Parthenon is kind of back over your shoulder from the screen. Very elegant entryway leads up to the cozy condition of a rooftop theater. It’s spacious, yet a little cramped, because it’s in the densest part of the old city. Also, it was Ocean’s Thirteen that was playing on the evening we were there, which may have made it more crowded than usual. But the breezes on a warm summer night taste very good indeed up there.

The CINE PSYRRI, 44 Sarri Street

Psyrri, the neighborhood, is a dingy ghost town by day, and a thriving cokedup party wonderland by night. It was appropriate, then, that Sin City would be playing when we were here. This theater was trying for a more upscale, collegiate feeling. It seemed new; an adjacent restaurant was still under construction when we visited. Full bar, for a cocktail to accompany your movie.

There was a fourth place, too, the name of which I’ll not remember. It was at least three or four miles out from the tourist heart of the city, in an English-free zone that felt like the equivalent of maybe the Grand Concourse in the Bronx. Here they were showing the original forties Postman Always Rings Twice, for some reason. It was just this big wide open gravel-strewn cinderblock lot, with apartments backed right up on it. It was good to have an excuse to get that deep into a random neighborhood.

So please, always take time to catch a movie when you travel to a strange city. But especially so if it’s Athens in the summertime.