No Spoilers

That's another good saying. 'D be a good poem title, with nothing in the poem about plot, or sporting outcomes, to make the point of other meanings there to be taken. Which, of course, having it as a title would halfway have done already.

The movie was good. It was preceded by a bit of a shocker: a commercial playing before the film. For the new CNN show with Spitzer and Somebody. This is at the art cinema, y'see. They've put slides up with ads for sponsors and made live announcements asking us to join in thanking a business, etc., etc., but, I think you probably get me here, this is a new step, and not a happy one to see.

The two young women in the row behind me in the screening room were chatting away before the film, and well over half of it was about gay things, with both, but especially one, expressing shock, disdain, and kind of a glee of the scandalousness and "mystery" of it all. The first thing was how the text message she'd just received made it clear she's just a Mary to him. Mary? asked the friend. Yeah, Mary, who was the one so close to Freddie Mercury the gay guy in Queen, and that's why even though he wanted men he never had a serious longterm thing with any man, cuz of his relationship with her. Then a bit later it was astonishment over how the man in a couple she knew of had had a sex change, and the couple'd stayed together, for, like, 12 years. They have kids. That was what was most shocking to her friend. Kids?!? Then a bit later there was wondering aloud about how something referenced in a snippet of preview would work for "those people," meaning queers. I tell ya, it's a big topic for that girl.

She also expressed clear doubt, once the movie started, that one character asking another character out would ever happen that way. Scoffing laughter. The novelty of the way it happened was, as you might guess, the point, the "ha." What are you looking for in your movie if not any of that? An authentic representation of a predictable afternoon trip to the supermarket?

The only other audience participation that wormed its way into my moviewatching was the quibbling of an older woman in a couple over my other shoulder. She remarked to her partner, as Antonio Banderas and Naomi Watts pulled in their car to a curb, "They [meaning people in movies, I guess] always find a parking place."

Anyway, the movie was good, as I said. The themes had me tickled from the git-go. I couldn't place the face of the actress who plays the fortune teller, though I knew I'd seen her before at some length, and would have a lightbulb moment when I got it eventually, but that wouldn't be during the closing credits, cuz if the players were listed there, I missed it, on account of as I was watching them, slumped happily in my seat, in something of an afterglow, somebody tapped me on the shoulder. Was it someone I knew? No. It was some guy compelled to alert me: "The movie's over!" Took me just a sec to get what he was thinking--- that I was asleep, and that's why I hadn't arisen. "I'm watching the credits!" I said.

He either didn't get that or didn't believe me, as his next line, laughing, as he and his companion left their aisle, was that it was good, and (thus) a shame I'd missed it. Haw haw!

I'm not sure what was most irritating to me about that encounter, but it wasn't just that someone took me for a sleeping old lady. It was more/also that I was thought to have slept through Woody, and that the guy is such a moron he didn't allow the possibility that someone might watch the credits.

Again, this is in the art cinema.

But then again, they do play commercials before the films there.

Which is what I discussed with the theater dude at Olga's counter as I was heading out. Had other people been complaining? He'd heard from 4 or 5 people, yeah. It's been going on about a month, but not before every film. That was a nice conversation to head out on, after idiot who thought I needed waking up. Plus by then I'd IMDb-ed to find that the actress was Pauline Collins. :)

On the way home, sitting at a light to turn onto Packard, I could see baseball on the TV in the front room of a house (student couch-on-porch district). It was a close-up of someone in a blue hat, probably the pitcher. The playoffs, I realized, remembering I'd DVRed them. Didn't look like, I thought, a good enough view that I'd be able to read any scores, should one flash before the light turned green, and anyway what were the odds I'd happen to catch anything that'd ruin the outcome for me. But then, in a medium long shot, some players suddenly looked very happy. Some players were jumping up and down and clumping together, bouncy. Backs of jerseys and numbers and blue and red, and clustery happiness.

It kinda cracked me up. What were the odds. What were the odds that a 15-second observation of the video only, from a distance and through mullions, would tip me to the outcome of a game. But, poof, that was exactly what had happened.

Grin.

Kinda Woody-coincidence-nuts, that.

The deciding game of the championship series, no less.


Topic for another day: not a cowboy.

No Spoilers

That's another good saying. 'D be a good poem title, with nothing in the poem about plot, or sporting outcomes, to make the point of other meanings there to be taken. Which, of course, having it as a title would halfway have done already.

The movie was good. It was preceded by a bit of a shocker: a commercial playing before the film. For the new CNN show with Spitzer and Somebody. This is at the art cinema, y'see. They've put slides up with ads for sponsors and made live announcements asking us to join in thanking a business, etc., etc., but, I think you probably get me here, this is a new step, and not a happy one to see.

The two young women in the row behind me in the screening room were chatting away before the film, and well over half of it was about gay things, with both, but especially one, expressing shock, disdain, and kind of a glee of the scandalousness and "mystery" of it all. The first thing was how the text message she'd just received made it clear she's just a Mary to him. Mary? asked the friend. Yeah, Mary, who was the one so close to Freddie Mercury the gay guy in Queen, and that's why even though he wanted men he never had a serious longterm thing with any man, cuz of his relationship with her. Then a bit later it was astonishment over how the man in a couple she knew of had had a sex change, and the couple'd stayed together, for, like, 12 years. They have kids. That was what was most shocking to her friend. Kids?!? Then a bit later there was wondering aloud about how something referenced in a snippet of preview would work for "those people," meaning queers. I tell ya, it's a big topic for that girl.

She also expressed clear doubt, once the movie started, that one character asking another character out would ever happen that way. Scoffing laughter. The novelty of the way it happened was, as you might guess, the point, the "ha." What are you looking for in your movie if not any of that? An authentic representation of a predictable afternoon trip to the supermarket?

The only other audience participation that wormed its way into my moviewatching was the quibbling of an older woman in a couple over my other shoulder. She remarked to her partner, as Antonio Banderas and Naomi Watts pulled in their car to a curb, "They [meaning people in movies, I guess] always find a parking place."

Anyway, the movie was good, as I said. The themes had me tickled from the git-go. I couldn't place the face of the actress who plays the fortune teller, though I knew I'd seen her before at some length, and would have a lightbulb moment when I got it eventually, but that wouldn't be during the closing credits, cuz if the players were listed there, I missed it, on account of as I was watching them, slumped happily in my seat, in something of an afterglow, somebody tapped me on the shoulder. Was it someone I knew? No. It was some guy compelled to alert me: "The movie's over!" Took me just a sec to get what he was thinking--- that I was asleep, and that's why I hadn't arisen. "I'm watching the credits!" I said.

He either didn't get that or didn't believe me, as his next line, laughing, as he and his companion left their aisle, was that it was good, and (thus) a shame I'd missed it. Haw haw!

I'm not sure what was most irritating to me about that encounter, but it wasn't just that someone took me for a sleeping old lady. It was more/also that I was thought to have slept through Woody, and that the guy is such a moron he didn't allow the possibility that someone might watch the credits.

Again, this is in the art cinema.

But then again, they do play commercials before the films there.

Which is what I discussed with the theater dude at Olga's counter as I was heading out. Had other people been complaining? He'd heard from 4 or 5 people, yeah. It's been going on about a month, but not before every film. That was a nice conversation to head out on, after idiot who thought I needed waking up. Plus by then I'd IMDb-ed to find that the actress was Pauline Collins. :)

On the way home, sitting at a light to turn onto Packard, I could see baseball on the TV in the front room of a house (student couch-on-porch district). It was a close-up of someone in a blue hat, probably the pitcher. The playoffs, I realized, remembering I'd DVRed them. Didn't look like, I thought, a good enough view that I'd be able to read any scores, should one flash before the light turned green, and anyway what were the odds I'd happen to catch anything that'd ruin the outcome for me. But then, in a medium long shot, some players suddenly looked very happy. Some players were jumping up and down and clumping together, bouncy. Backs of jerseys and numbers and blue and red, and clustery happiness.

It kinda cracked me up. What were the odds. What were the odds that a 15-second observation of the video only, from a distance and through mullions, would tip me to the outcome of a game. But, poof, that was exactly what had happened.

Grin.

Kinda Woody-coincidence-nuts, that.

The deciding game of the championship series, no less.


Topic for another day: not a cowboy.