February 19

As I had mentioned yesterday… it was finally movie time today. Oh how I have missed that. It’s way more than 3 weeks that we haven’t been, which is very unusual. But due to being on tour and my sickness, it wasn’t possible.

We have to catch up on some recent movies and started tonight with Quentin Tarrantino’s The Hateful Eight at the CinemaxX in Essen.

We’re both fans of Tarrantino’s movies and had been looking forward to this one very much. The trailers looked promising. Unfortunately though (no spoilers!) the movie didn’t live up to our high expectations. In the end it was still too high quality in terms of acting and the great cinematography (yes we saw the 70mm version) to say it was bad. But it wasn’t Tarrantino’s best work for sure. Not even the length of almost 3 hours was really a problem. It never really dragged nor was it boring. But still there was something missing.

After the first 1.5 hours we got this

The dreaded 15 minute break in which we viewers will have a chance to go to the loo and stock up on Coke and popcorn :-/. I hate that. Just keep it rolling. (Oh and yes, there were only 3 people in that big theater… but to be fair, the movie is out for 3 weeks already and we were in the late afternoon showing).

After the break, the 2nd half of the movie fell flat, compared to the first part. The flashback scene was kind of weird at times, the “big twist” didn’t have a big effect on me and for most of the characters – with the exception of maybe 2 – I didn’t really care that much. But as I said… it was too well made to say it was a bad movie. It just could have been better and there are surely higher expectations when you see a movie by the great Quentin Tarrantino.

Went for a beer and a burger afterwards and it finally felt again like my life was back to normal.

More movies tomorrow.

PS: during the break, a guy came in, looked at the screen, then at the almost empty auditorium, came up a few steps and asked us: “is the movie over already?”. “No, it’s just a break.” “Oh… ok”, he said and left again. He seemed a bit weird. I mean… there was “Pause” (break) written all over the screen. And why would anyone still sit in their chairs if a movie was over and the lights already back on.

A few minutes after the 2nd part had started, that guy returned. He came up and sat down in row in front of us, just a couple or so seats away. Looked at us. We kept concentrating on the movie. Then he started sighing loudly when scenes got a tad bit bloody (it’s a Tarrantino movie!). Then he turned around and said something that none of us understood. We didn’t react. I got a bit of an uneasy feeling. I’ve had my experience with a creepy guy in a movie theater and did not need any repeat. For a while then he seemed to follow the movie, sighing every now and then. Some minutes later he turned around again and said something to us but again, at least I didn’t understand. All I thought was “fuck off, asshole”. I’m sorry but I can’t with people like that.

Thank God, after maybe 15 or so minutes he got up and left.

WEIRDO!

PS PS: I posted an entry on the actual day. No delay! Aren’t you proud of me?

PS PS PS: I’ve just received a message from Word Press saying that this is my 50th post. Well… congrats to me! 🙂