RECENTLY RATED MOVIES #16

Finally, Jen and I are getting out to films again. And I am just giddy about it. Despite my hatred of crowds, and hesitancy to engage myself with the public in general, there is no place better to watch films than in a movie theatre. It is not merely the chance to see a film up on a big screen (sometimes even a showing a bad print on a pull-up screen with an old projector is enough to warrant my attention), but it is the whole experience. Nothing brings me greater joy than attending the films. And none of that feeling has to do with the overrated popcorn...

We've gotten out to three films in the past week, and both of us were astonished when this fact popped up while we were driving to the last one. Jen's weekends are not my weekends, and we actually get very little time together, and it is only on her weekends that we have late afternoon/evening time to go out (she works mostly through the afternoon and evenings). So, if you ever wondered how I happen to have so much time to write these days, that is your answer in a nutshell.

I would like to briefly mention that the screening of The Notorious Bettie Page, which surpassed all conceivable expectations on my part, was graced with the prescence of a young man who was caught wholly unprepared at the sight of Gretchen Mol's disrobing in the title role. There is a scene where a naive photographer, who is just fine and happy taking modest, cutesy bikini shots in the woods with Ms. Page, when she playfully offers to remove her top for the novice shutterbug. (Nudity had been avoided to that point, not just in the nerdish lad's life, obviously, but to the audience watching the film, as well.) To see not just the tasty and physically perfect Ms. Mol, who clearly relishes the actually deep role, disrobe in the altogether in the scene, but to hear the breathy, astonished and slightly understated "Holy crap..." emit from the audience member's lips was enough to warrant the visit to the theatre. This was outside of the fact that the film itself was very good; it is honest moments like this that make a trip to the theatre memorable and worthwhile.

A moment like this can all be unbalanced in the next film by a rude asshole talking while ceaselessly crinkling a candy wrapper in the row directly behind you, but... well, that is part of the game. You can't win. If you can't handle it, you might as well stay home in your living room.

What's that? Oh, that's right...

Movie theatres are the new living rooms. Better get used to that talking...

The List:
Bubble (DVD) (2005) - 6; The Squid and the Whale (DVD) (2005) - 7; American Dreamz (2006) - 6; Friends with Money (2005) - 5; The Notorious Bettie Page (2006) - 7; The Station Agent (IFC) (2003) - 7.