Saturday, March 04, 2006

Le Bigliete della Cinema Sola

I don't know about you, but I always watch a movie with someone. At the theater, I mean; watching a movie on TV is different. I haven't been to a movie by myself in years. Actually, I think it was six or seven years ago, when I was in university, and I made a day and half of it of it: I watched The Matrix, La Vita E Bella, and Shrek. (I think it was Shrek, though maybe it was another kids' movie. I'll have to check my ticket stubs.) (Yes, I keep my ticket stubs. I have for the last 12 years. Doesn't everybody?)

I always seem to feel more...empty, I guess, when I go to the theatre alone. I like to be absorbed by the movie, but I also like to hear and watch the reactions of the people around me. Is it an anthropological desire to study human behaviour? Is it more an issue of behavioural acceptance, where I watch other people so that I know how to react myself? I don't know.

I see previews for so many movies (which I painstakingly write on the back of each ticket stub). More often than not, they are not movies I would really like to see. I abhor horror (no Saw II or House of Wax for me, thank you very much), and mysteries are not usually my cup of tea. I like science fiction (like Serenity or Star Trek), I like romance (like The
Notebook or The Princess Bride), I like intelligent comedies (The Aristocrats comes to mind). I also like some alternative/indie movies, like Run Lola Run (aka Lola Rennt), and Strictly Ballroom.

Below is a shortlist of movies I would really like to see, but that have a low probability rate of being seen by me, either because the people I know don't want to watch them, or because they've already seen them and don't feel like watching them again. Does this make me sound like a pussy?

- Brokeback Mountain (Heath Ledger being a fabulous(ly gorgeous) actor is the main reason I want to see this movie - plus Jake Gyllenhal doesn't really do it for me)
- Aeon Flux (Charlize Theron, but all the guys I know are horrified at the warping of the classic comic, even though Theron is a goddess)
- Casanova (again, Heath Ledger being devastatingly romantic, but less tragic this time)
- Eve and the Fire Horse (I like movies where religion is challenged, like Stigmata and Dogma)
- Nanny McPhee (I also like movies where kids are made to realize what terrors they are and smarten up)

Then there are the movies that I have watched on my own, like...

- The Notebook (good thing I didn't watch it in the theater because I sobbed throughout the whole last half of the movie, which would have scared everyone)
- I, Robot (my fiancé hates seeing any movie with Will Smith in it, because at some point, the phrase, "Aw, hell no!" will come out of Will's mouth)

Last and definitely least, The Chronicles of Narnia. This is a movie I will not watch, simply on principle. I read the entire story only a few years ago, while working in a library; I checked out this beautiful hardcover edition with all six (seven?) stories in it, color illustrations, glossy paper. And then I read the end. "The Last Battle". Lewis used a classic literary cop-out (which I will not elaborate on just in case someone wants to read the story eventually) which pissed me off royally. You might argue that hey, it was written fifty years ago, so maybe he was the one who made that type of "ending" classic, but it still pisses me off. I know it's probably a beautiful movie, but I can't bring myself to watch it, knowing how the story ends.

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