0
0
Today was a day full of unexpected twists—and I don’t mean the kind that show up at the end of a movie.
The day started out just as yesterday did. Michael and I met up at 10:30 for the daily Dunkin Donuts run. We already knew that we’d have to wing it today—since, really, there wasn’t a whole lot that we were excited to see. We did, however, have our first three movies planned out. Or so we thought.
As we made our way down the hall for our 11:50 movie, Michael caught a note on the schedule board. Our first movie was showing—but it was in French without subtitles. Since I took Spanish in school—and, even if I’d taken French instead, there was no way I’d consider watching the movie without the subtitles—we had to rethink our plans. There was one movie that was starting right away, but we weren’t interested in seeing it. Another movie was starting a few minutes later, but Michael had already seen it. So that left Nana. It was one that I’d found somewhat interesting—and it was nice and short—so we decided to give it a shot.
Nana, it turns out, was not the best way to start the morning. It opens with the realistic—yet not exactly pleasant—slaughtering of a pig. From there, it simply aimlessly wanders around behind a four-year-old girl as she plays in the yard and wanders around the woods. She’s a cute kid—and the movie had its moments—but it really wasn’t all that interesting. As Michael said when we walked out, “It’s pretty bad when the most interesting part of the movie is when someone asks the person across the aisle to put away her phone.”
After that, we were both feeling more than slightly comatose. We make a quick lap of the mall, just to get our blood flowing a bit, and headed back inside for Movie #2.
Fortunately, Movie #2 was a much-needed comedy. A Sense of Humor is a dark and twisted film from Quebec about a rural serial killer who decides to make a pair of touring comics his latest victims. It definitely helped to wake us up a bit—and lighten the mood.
We had very little time between movies once again—and not enough time to wait in line for a real lunch—so we decided to race up to the hospitality suite for a snack. Unfortunately, there was a whole lot of stuff that’s forbidden in the pregnancy diet—like tasty wrap sandwiches with sandwich meat. Or other various meats. So I ended up eating some cheese, a couple of carrot sticks, and a couple of cookies. Then we had to race back to the theater to try to get a seat for the next movie.
Unfortunately, A Sense of Humor was our only must-see movie of the day. The films overlapped pretty badly, leaving us with very few choices. So we decided to check out the Dreileben trilogy—a set of three films by three different German filmmakers, all taking place in a small town during the hunt for an escaped killer. The first film was Beats Being Dead. The film was introduced by Bill, the resident programming guru, who said that it was his favorite of the trilogy. Sadly, that didn’t bode well. Michael and I recalled one other time when Bill gushed about a movie during his introduction—Michael’s first CIFF movie ever, in fact—and we both ended up passionately detesting it. But, well, it was too late to walk out.
Beats Being Dead may take place at the same time as the escape of a killer, but it’s mostly just a maddening romance between a young girl who’s clearly unstable and a guy who turns out to be a total idiot. Like Nana, it had its moments, but the relationship was often infuriating—and the characters irritating.
On the way out, I was amused to overhear several of my fellow moviegoers’ comments. Like, “Well, I think I can skip the rest of the trilogy now.” Or, my personal favorite, “From now on, maybe we can ask Bill for a list of his favorite movies, so we’ll know which ones to avoid.”
Michael and I agreed that we didn’t have the energy to sit through more of the trilogy. The problem, however, was that the rest of the options weren’t all that appealing, either. I was interested in Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel, though Michael had no interest in it whatsoever. He was considering Drive-In Movie Memories, but I told him that he was more than welcome to skip it and hang out for a bit while I went to see Diana. It was, after all, a short movie, so I wouldn’t be gone long. But he decided to tag along instead.
Diana Vreeland turned out to be a quirky and captivating little doc about an eccentric fashion icon. Michael may have been ready to check out, but at least I enjoyed it.
After the movie was over, though, we were pretty much ready to call it a day. We had considered sticking around for one more, but there wasn’t anything that we were dying to see. Not only that, but I hadn’t really eaten anything of substance, and I was about at the end of my rope. As it turns out, it looks like my pregnancy limit is four movies a day.
Our next goal, then, was to find food. We quickly decided to hit the Winking Lizard by our hotels, where Michael could sample their various beers, and I could get water and lots of food. And we did get lots of food. After living on munchies all day, we probably could have ordered one of everything on the menu. Instead, we had a basket of fried pickles (yum!), a plate of boneless wings, a chicken sandwich and fries for me and a riblet platter for Michael. During dinner, we alternated between recapping our weekend and slipping into comfortable food comas.
By around 10, we decided that it was time to call it a night. Michael gathered his goodies from the car—and, since he’s planning to hit the road first thing in the morning for his five-hour drive back to Michigan, we had to say our goodbyes for another year.
I, meanwhile, have part of a day left to go. But, first, after a day like today, I could really use some sleep.
