Friday Night At The Movies

Friday Night At The Movies

On Friday night, Mike and I had a late dinner at the Indian food joint we always hit up. Incidentally, if you eat a cardamom pod it is a fairly disgusting experience. Imagine eating a cockroach that has been marinated in Jagermeister and hot sauce then stuffed into a sweaty ass for a week. We decided to catch a late flick and Mike didn't trust his car anywhere except the multiplex in Edgewater. So I called up Moviefone to see what was playing there, wasn't familiar with any of the choices, and handed the phone to Mike.

Mike (listening): I uhhh... don't want to see the uh, first one.

Brokeback Mountain. Hee. At first I thought maybe Mike was still feeling the effects of our night at Gym, but then realized his circumspection was for the two guys having a romantic dinner a foot away from us. I wouldn't mind seeing Brokeback Mountain but not for all the usual reasons. Who cares about blah blah gay rights this (sorry Ray) and blah blah Academy Awards that (sorry pretentious movie critics). I'm just interested in watching Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal make out. Hey, if there's nothing wrong with men being turned on by watching two women make out there's nothing wrong with me being turned on by watching two men make out. What's good for the gander... It's not a newfound interest. I remember watching The Wedding Banquet in the theatre over ten years ago and getting a bit warm.

But I'm losing focus. So getting back to our night, on the way out the door we saw this in the window:

"All you people who can't wash a dish back the fuck up!!"

Good help is apparently REALLY hard to find these days.

Once at the theatre, we wandered around hoping to find movie posters for all the available features but couldn't. So we spent 5 minutes grilling the manager on each available film, then selected Casanova because it started in 20 minutes. I'm not one for romantic comedies really, but I will watch anything set in 18th Century Venice. Not that anyone else was enthused. Here was the line for "Quentin Tarantino's" Hostel, our line for Casanova is on the right:

Always a sight to affirm one's movie selection.

We weren't even aware the movie existed and thus had no preconceived notions about it, so we both enjoyed the movie. But, (mild spoiler for the three of you who may watch it) I'm a happy movie kind of person. Oliver Platt is always a treat, he's that random actor you like to see in the credits, like Michael Rappaport. And Heath Ledger is growing on me. I wasn't surprised that the critics trashed it, no one threw themself off a cliff in despair. You know how critics only bother with movies that make you want to cut your own throat after. I was surprised however, that some of them thought it was as ribald as the American Pie series. What Puritanical world of movies do they live in. I didn't see a single boob. Not even a gratuitous ass shot. A JC Penney catalog is racier.

By the way, Mike refuses to watch that inspired-by-a-true-story movie about snow dogs lost in Antartica, unless it's "in the privacy of my own home where no one can see me cry." What is it about men and dogs. I mean I'll probably get teary during the movie also, but I also get teary at the end of The Little Mermaid when Ariel hugs her dad goodbye and Prince Eric bows to him and then all the merpeople are waving the ship off. So I don't count.

1:00 a.m. edit - Dude I just sobbed through the last ten minutes of Best of the Best.