Double Flee A

refreshment!

I went to see X-men 3 a couple of days ago. Before it began, there were advertisements for some products, and as I've said before, this is a new and bad thing but I don't expect it to change. There were also previews for other movies, and I want to tell you about one of them.

When you're at a theater to watch a movie other than an action movie, the previews they show you before your movie begins can be exhausting to watch. They show you thirty explosions and people running and screaming, and at times this can leave you feeling you've been brutalized by Tonya Harding's bodyguard and left for dead outside Liquor Lyle's. Having to watch these kinds of previews seems a bit much until I consider I'd still get there in time for a good seat even if they showed me a loop of monkeys smoking cigars. That might be better, really.

Anyway, because we were there for an action flick, the whole crowd had kind of a "bring it on" feel. We weren't going to be shocked into submission by any preview. We're a crowd who's seen the first two X-men movies and we're ready for another. You're going to have to hit us pretty hard to leave a mark. So they tried.

One of the other big blockbusters in the theater right now is called "The Omen", and they ran a preview for it. This preview was packed with more crosses and churches and holy-looking stuff than anyone (besides maybe a youth pastor) can possibly sustain any level of interest in, with this guy right here looking just like this:

Nothing against him, he's a good actor.

This man portrays a priest whose duties include explaining, while wind blows in his face, that some little kid is actually --ready for the shocker of a lifetime?-- the antichrist! Bet you didn't see that coming. The preview was all blacks and reds and graphic-art crucifixes. You know the ones, where it's like, "Is that Celtic or what?" Those ones. Finally, "The Omen" trailer drew to a close.

And then much to my surprise, my faith in humanity regained some of its footing in that unlikeliest of places, the modern American multiplex.

As the preview ended, the audience audibly yawned, sighed, and shifted impatiently. A good half of the crowd did this right together, in a way that we would have seen on a sitcom, but for real, and completely coincidentally. There were a couple of quiet chuckles at this.

It was like: we're here to see a movie about mutants with awesome super powers fighting each other and blowing shit up and you want to do this tedious religion thing? Again? Wolverine has two foot claws that can cut anything! A priest is gonna pray about a little boy and we're supposed to care? Rebecca Romijn left that lame Full House guy and is about to get buck naked! Right now!

It's nice to know the antichrist, part of the great disease called religion, is, like "Rent" and "Garfield", an idea whose cultural moment has passed, and even if it's just from an entertainment standpoint, I find that very, very refreshing.

posted by dale @ 7:43 AM