Sean and I saw Unstoppable last week. As you might have already gathered, it's an out of control train movie. It follows this formula: (cliche + cliche + cliche + cliche)Denzel Washington = Bad but somehow watchable film. Denzel just makes people enjoy things. He has an easy laugh and a big head and people just trust him. I suppose that's why, as of this posting, Unstoppable has an 85 percent tomato rating.
Anyway, I won't bore you with any details from the movie, my favorite parts had nothing to do with any of the characters or the plot and only one of them happened on screen. The latter being, I'm assuming, a chance shot of a beaver scampering across the train tracks as the renegade train barrels toward the audience. He is just there, sort of cavorting across the screen. I'm hoping it was kismet. If Ridley Scott added him (or her) with CGI or something he's a total prick. It is a really coincidental Freudian pair of images. The beaver hurrying to get out of the way of the massive oncoming train. I mean he might as well have inserted a cartoon of a giant penis chasing a little vagina across the screen. I'm probably the only one who noticed it though.
My other favorite thing that happened was during the previews. Sean and I almost always try to sit in the front row on either hand side of the theater. It's just a good seat, no one sits in front of you and you can put your feet up on the rail. This time there was an older woman in a wheel chair sitting directly below us in the handicap seats with a friend. Seemed normal enough. After the first trailer, which was the bad ass new trailer for True Grit, she turned to her companion and loudly stated, "I don't think so." As if her husband of forty years had just asked her for anal sex. I'm serious, it was dripping with vitriol. Sean and I both convulsed in a fit of the silent laughter reserved for the special occasions of someone else's public shortcoming. I can't remember what the next trailer was but was also something I was anticipating seeing and it was met with the same supreme distaste, "I don't think so." Two more trailers were shown though and neither meet such a harsh response. After each one Sean and I looked at each other and wondered silently what her criteria might be for enjoying film. After the movie I heard her say to her companion, "That was great." I was left puzzled by a person who thinks the new True Grit looks like something she couldn't scrape off her shoe fast enough and subsequently thinks Unstoppable was "great." But that's one of the reasons I love going to the movies.
No comments:
Post a Comment