A Strange Night at the Movies

Or two, actually.

I had a bunch of movie tickets that expire this week, so I dragged treated my husband to two movies last weekend.

But I chose . . . poorly.

Very poorly.

On Saturday we saw In the Shadow of Women, an artsy French film about infidelity. (Yeah, most French films are.) I chose it just so we could practice our French, and I guess that particular mission was accomplished, but boy was the movie depressing. Black-and-white, it opened with a dude eating a baguette. For like five minutes. Then he walked around for the rest of the movie looking like he had swallowed a lemon. Then everybody cheated on everybody, depressing stuff. It would have been cheaper just to stay home and listen to the next door neighbours have one of their relationship discussions. Lots of yelling. Lots of loud chewing. An annoying voice-over. There was nothing new, nothing insightful, about this film whatsoever. Yes, I kind of hated it. So did hubby.

So, on to movie number two, Tale of Tales, a fantasy movie about Italian fairy tales. Our expectations were very low, but it couldn't be as bad as the first one, right? Right?

Wrong.

Oh, boy. How to even describe this one? The movie had three different fairy tales that had absolutely no connection to each other, not even thematically. There was no message that I could see. And they were disgusting. I don't know which one grossed me out more, the king who loved fleas too much or the woman who had herself flayed to become young again and somehow still managed to hike up a hill from the forest to the king's mansion. Or the princess who slayed a poor ogre for no apparent reason other that that he had won her as his bride, fair and square. Don't get me wrong, the movie had some effective scenes, but it just didn't come together. It all just felt so random.

I'm never getting my husband to the movies again. Or at least I owe him four hours of opera-watching for this . . . It's going to be painful. And German.

The weird thing was that both of these movies got good reviews. I don't know, am I crazy? Do I have bad taste? Or is this a case of the emperor's new clothes, where no one dares to tell the truth?

Well, there was a bright spot. We got to see the trailer for Crimson Peak. That was the highlight of our moviegoing experience, which tells you something about how bad it all was.

Here's the trailer for Crimson Peak. I have a feeling I'm going to love this movie. Tom Hiddleston, Victoriana, creepy ghosts, and Guillermo Del Toro. It has to be amazing.

Trailer from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oquZifON8Eg