night at the movies

Yesterday was one of those day, you know.

I woke up around 10 (as in way over 10:30), lazied around a little bit, then a little bit more, then started to listen to Shakespeare audio books (more on this later on), knit a Star Wars pot holder, lazied around even more.

Then my sister texted me, around 6 in the evening: “How about we go and re-watch Star Wars tonight at 8?”

I took a brief look at myself, still clad in my Xmas pajama, the messy hair and text back: “Sure why not, which theatre?”

My nephew wasn’t coming with us, so I asked about my niece. “Of course Sara coming”. I could read my sister eyes rolling in the reply.

I sprung into action and jumped into the shower then. Well, no, I didn’t exactly jump into the shower; never been the athletic type and all this festivity dinners, luncheons, aperitifs and what not are kind of weighing me down. Still, I trudged myself into the shower and before you can say “Fuck, this water is cold, damn, the weather is cold today, jeez, couldn’t my sis leave at ground level, how many floors do I still have to climb?!?” I was at my sister place and we were all off to the cinema.

So, I had watched episode VII pf “Star Wars” in Dublin and my sis went through a quite painful experience of broken film when she went to see it for the first time. Yet we both thought we needed an encore and we were both ready for a nice, quite evening enjoining above mentioned round two, when we realized we were sitting in front of a bunch of 1st class, First Order’s Idiots. An array of supposed jokes and commentaries followed good part of the movie.

Growing up, when our family got the first VHS player, we kind of drove my mum mad with the Indiana Jones and Star Wars movies. In the summer we’d wake up and start binge watching. One movie every morning, maybe 2 and then we started again. Day after day, week after week. At the end of summer vacation not only we could quote the movies line by line (I think we could even use their scripts as the only needed day by day lexicon) but I think my mum had developed some involuntary twitches at mention of key words such as “Death Star” or “the Force”.
So, even though we’re not fanboys reading every possible article or book about it and exploring every possible theory, we do take Star Wars quite seriously. We might not have read any novel spin-off of the Star Wars universe but we do take our obsession seriously.


And so our luck wanted that last night we sat just in front of a row of complete, utter idiots.
I think some witch put an evil spell on me when I was in a crib at the hospital after I was born: “Thou you shall watched animated motion pictures, surrounded only by the foolest of the fool of the kingdom.”

I knew they were idiots by the moment we sat down. I just didn’t know they were that level of idiots. The “jokes” they made were not funny and so I tried desperately to pay attention to the movie. "Pay attention to the movie and to the movie only. You can do it, use the Force, Virgi!”
No, I couldn’t. Two minutes into the movie and I could clearly see my sister couldn’t either as I saw her turning around to take a look at them, I think the correct expression is that she "turned around to try to turn them into a pile of ash with a very painful yet silent stare". Pity neither Italian nor English contain a verb that can describe this concept.

I think a proof of how much we’re both grown up is the fact I wasn’t that surprised when she didn’t murder them in a very painful way… even though the dark side in me kind of wished she did.

During a small break they put in the middle of the movie, I considered going to buy popcorn for the all group: I noticed they were loud when chewing popcorn, but at least they weren’t speaking. And, who knows, they might choke on the popcorn and be silent a little bit longer and let me enjoy the second part of the film, right?

Coming out of the movie, Adri still managed to hear comments that I will not report here as faint hearts might be reading this post and it could be just too much.
Yet none of us acted upon the lure of the dark side. Either we’re really turning into kickass Jedi or we’re really just too tired to care. I will choke them… tomorrow.

Metropolis and meatloaf

Sunday evening, while walking towards the theatre, Eliana and I confessed one another we never managed to finish watching “Metropolis”.
Well, it wasn’t a confession really, we were mainly stating a fact.

We both tried to watch it during high school and University, usually late in the evening or early morning hours, the best way to lull yourself into sleep. “Metropolis” might as well be a German expressionism masterpiece, but let’s face it: above all it’s a “polpettone”. Now, this is tricky… “Polpettone” means “meatloaf” in Italian and it defines those kind of films (or books) that are just way too long, too involved, often “intellectual” (or pretense of it) and, at the end, very boring. I never heard of “meatloaf movies” (aside the movies starring Meat Loaf) but I couldn’t find a single word in English that I could use to translate the concept of a “film polpettone”. In case you got the word for it, just let me know.

In spite of our past “failures” with this polpettone, when I asked my friend about going to watch the movie, she immediately agreed. The trick is that this was a special showing: it was the new restoration made from the 16 mm films found in Buenos Aires with a live orchestra playing the original soundtrack by Gottfried Huppertz.



I think the orchestra saved the day. The live music made the experience more “real” and interesting, so now both Eliana and I can proudly say that “yeah, we watched Metropolis”: it’s like wearing proudly a bagde of honour (not as cool as owning a “I beat the Sword Master” t-shirt, bust still cool).

After finally managing to finish it without falling asleep, I can confirm  that“Metropolis” is a 100% polpettone. It wasn’t bad, I actually enjoyed it and part of me now wonders whether my inability to watch it in the past was yet another reaction against things that are supposed to be “masterpieces” or of “higher cultural level”.

But, no matter how much I liked it, the movie lasted at least 30 minutes too much (45 minutes less would have made it so much more bearable): there is limit to the number of highbrows coreography I can stand before growing restless.
There’s also another fact that made me painfully aware of the movie being too long. I suspect the architect that designed Teatro degli Arcimboldi (where the movie was shown) is probably the same one that designed the Ryanair seating plan. Leg-room level: imaginary. Maybe that's why those 30 minutes more felt much much longer.