Saturday, February 9, 2008

Stuff and Nonsense

The problem with Saturday is that by the time it arrives, I'm usually so worn out by the rest of the week that all I want to do is hang out in my pajamas, drink coffee, and read until three in the afternoon, at which point I grudgingly get ready and spend the rest of my day...hanging out in my jeans, drinking coffee, and reading.

I live such an exciting life.

The Portland International Film Festival swung into gear this week. Last night was In Bruges, which I loved. LOVED. Tracy Jordan-style "take it behind the middle school and get it pregnant" love (please for to be watching "30 Rock", people). I'm going to try to be more on the ball about posting reviews (I have a folder of half-finished ones on my desktop -- way to be on task, self), but suffice to say, the movie really isn't what the previews imply. It's not an action-fest, and it's not really a black comedy -- it's a dark, sad movie with some wickedly funny sections, and it definitely brings something new to the "British gangster" genre. So much love for In Bruges.

Tonight I'm going to see Jar City, which I've gathered is an Icelandic murder mystery. Iceland! I love Iceland! Iceland has brought us Sigur Ros and Bjork and The Juniper Tree, although the latter was dark and disturbing and possibly scarred me for life. Then again, the fairy tale it's based on is dark and disturbing and definitely scarred me for life, so. Anyway. I'm excited to see it, and plan to check out some of the other festival films throughout the next week or so, athough I can only hope my film-going experience won't be quite as insane or obnoxious as last night's was. Yeesh.

See, they oversold on seats. I'm not sure how they managed to do this, since we all bought tickets in advance, and they kept insisting at the door that they didn't oversell, but that was very clearly what happened. I arrived early, but almost didn't make it in -- they let the people in front of me in, and then stopped the rest of us so they could get things inside the theater figured out. Which was fine and all, because I was there by myself and knew that if a single seat opened up -- almost a guarantee, once they get everyone to scootch in towards the middle -- I would be able to get it since I was next in line.

Then this stupid hipster couple pushed in front of me, ignored my protests, and did their very best to be horrible, conniving little seat-stealers. However. One of the volunteers asked for single folks, I flailed like the dickens ("me! me! PICK ME!") and was promptly led to a seat. The line-cutting hipsters? Got split up. She got a seat, he didn't, and she ended up leaving in disgust when no one was willing to give up their hard-earned seat so they could sit together.

HA! That's what you get for being rude and cutting in line! And being a hipster!

After that, everything went more smoothly, except for the two older women next to me who felt compelled to discuss every fucking aspect of the movie while it was onscreen. Why do people do this? Seriously, WHY? "Oh, he's going into the cathedral now." For crying out loud, WE KNOW! IT'S ONSCREEN RIGHT NOW! And every time something violent happened -- and this is a movie about gangsters, mind, so no matter how genre-bendy it gets, you know violent things are going to happen at some point -- they commented on it.

Every. Fucking. Time.

Ladies: "Oh, how horrible." "Well, I don't see why he had to do that." "Oh my, this is just awful."

Me: *quiet, seething rage*

I...don't understand this. I mean, I really don't. You deliberately go to a movie with gangsters in it...and then complain about the violence? The hell? I don't know. My best guess is that they didn't read anything about it ahead of time, and thought it was about, I don't know, sightseeing. In Bruges. Or something.

To conclude: Ralph Fiennes is hot, Colin Farrell is a surprisingly good actor, Brendan Gleeson just needs to be given a leading role already, because...damn, and line cutters will always get what's coming to them.

2 comments:

So@24 said...

Hipster couples are the absolute worst.

I wonder who would win in an all out Wayside Story-esque fight?

LA Hipsters or Portland Hipsters?

Or would there be a giant black hole-ish vortex appear if that many douchebags got together in one spot?

janegodzilla said...

My money's on the Portland hipsters. You know those little fuckers are going to try harder, just to prove how much better they are at being hipsters than the LA crowd.

I prefer the black hole vortex option, but I don't think we're that lucky.