Yesterday was quite the day for me. I had finally convinced my girlfriend that something at the cinema was worth seeing and we were all ready to see
Brian De Palma's latest flick
The Black Dahlia (i refuse to go to the cinema on my own, so unfortunatly some movies I want to see I don't get chance too). So we travelled for thirty minutes by car to the nearest cinema to us, paid for our tickets and sat there waiting for the movie to start. Now folks, this cinema I was in yesterday is probably the worst cinema I have ever been to in my life. Usually we don't go to this cinema and travel to the next closet one (about 60 mins away) but yesterday we went to this one for a change. Honestly this cinema was terrible. The seats were something like out of the 1940's, really really uncomfortable, the screen was tiny and there was this terrible buzzing sound that you could hear constantly whilst the movie was playing. The popcorn was SOOOO over priced and folks it tasted like it had been in the machine for weeks. It was like trying to eat cardboard or something. Not good. But anyhow we could put up with all that because we came to see the movie. Ten minutes into it however, something happens in the movie which makes my girlfriend start to cringe. After a couple of seconds of her looking away from the screen, she seemed fine. About a minute later she told me she was getting some water and would be back in a second, which stupid me, I thought was because of the crappy tasting popcorn. So after around a minute of me watching De Palma's flick on my own, a member of the cinema staff came over to me and told me that my girlfriend had collapsed in the main foyer of the cinema. So off I ran to check she was ok and found her sitting on the floor with another member of staff having fainted. She had nasty bruises on her knees and a small bump just above her eye. So I was worried as hell. She told me that she had been knocked unconcious for a couple of seconds but now seemed ok but was clearly a little shocked. So we left the cinema and I took her to the hospital and yeah it turned out she hadn't done any damage to herself apart from a few bruises and once she got over the shock of fainting she was fine. So what in the movie made her faint then I guess your wondering? SMALL SPOILERS I GUESS...... early in the movie there is a boxing fight between two of the main characters and one of the guys gets his front teeth knocked out in quite a violent manner. My girlfriend has this phobia about damaging people's mouths, especially their teeth so this set her off compeltly and started making her feel sick which led her to faint. What she would later tell me was "overly violent and unnesscary to the picture", I would call "good directing" but that's neither here nor there. What did I think of the ten minutes I saw of The Black Dahlia then? Well after a very shaky opening few minutes with extremly fast, confusing and blandly acted dialogue the movie started to pick up. The boxing match is great and the you can feel every blow that the fighters are giving. Aaron Eckhart looked superb in the opening and Scarlett Johansson was so fine in this movie. The first shot of her is an outrageous wide shot which turns into an extreme Sergio Leone style close up which just left me thinking WOW! That's how you shoot a movie with Scarlett and that's how you introduce her! So i didn't really get to see much else unfortuantly but it was just starting to get good. I don't think there will be much chance of me seeing the flick in the cinemas now as I very much doubt my girlfriend will go and see it again. I will probably have to wait for the DVD release or actually brave it and go on my own. I was going to show her the awesome movie
Oldboy in the future but I don't think I will be now somehow. There is one scene ten times worse than The Black Dahlia which would set her off for sure!