Sunday, August 26, 2007

When you're a Jet

The Vol-in-Law and I don't go to the cinema. I think he'd like to more often than we have done, but I won't do it. The Knoxville Dollar Theater spoiled it for me. Since then, I've always felt ripped off when I've seen a film. I don't particularly enjoy the cinema experience and I leave grumbling like an old codger "Arrgghh, they don't make films like they used to...."

I'm not a movie buff, I admit, but I like a good movie sometimes. In fact, we've just watched The Importance of Being Earnest - the one with Colin Firth and Reese Witherspoon and it was fun. That was just a random Sunday night showing. But sometimes we buy DVDs as well. We'll buy them when we're in the mood and if they're cheap enough. Sometimes we'll buy a whole handful. We bought some about a month before Cletus was born - and have only just got around to starting watching them.

We bought Jarhead (It was OK, a bit anti-climactic). We bought some musicals. Guys and Dolls, The Wizard of Oz. Obviously, I've seen them before. They're great.

West Side Story. We bought that. Can you believe I'd never seen it? Well, I hadn't and I'd always wanted to.

And I still haven't seen it.

Oh - we tried. We put it on not long ago. And you know - I just didn't like it. We turned it off after the "America" song. The pacing dragged. It somehow didn't look right. It seemed like a weird out-of-date world with its quaint euphemisms for everything. And weirdly, it seemed kinda gay (not that there's anything wrong with that). But just that little bit too gay for a story about hot heterosexual passions and street gangs.

So, I've never seen West Side Story, and I don't guess I ever will. I feel a little weird hating such an icon of musical theater, but there you go.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I saw The Importance of Being Earnest on the BBC too -- so rare they actually show a good film!

You should rent DVDs by post. I was a member of this service last year before I moved to France:

https://www.lovefilm.com/

It was great -- just like the British version of Netflix. Besides having thousands of films, there's documentaries, TV series, etc.

Furrow said...

I was going to ask if you had anything like Netflix, but anglofille beat me to it. We love us some Netflix. The only time we go to a movie theater is when something really special-effecty comes out, like the Harry Potters or Lord of the Rings.

Dan said...

Thanks for no liking West Side Story, too. I've felt alone, oh, so alone in my disregard for that boring, boring piece of film. Gimme some good ole Kiss Me Kate any day.