questionnaires at the movies
So, thing is that today I went to a retrospective called Venice in Rome, where you basically go to see for a week movies that were at the Venice Film Festival without cuts and in original language. I went to see The Wrestler.
The review: Mickey Rourke is worth the whole movie in the sense that if it wasn't for him it wouldn't really be anything special. I can't care less about wrestling and the movie didn't make me care (with Million Dollar Baby I did indeed care and boxing is not my thing either), but his acting was pure gold. Not the best movie I'll ever see but he was worth it, along with the amazing Springsteen song at the end which I hope gets released soon because it's just amazing. But well, we're talking Bruce here.
That said, the point was that they gave everyone a questionnaire to fill where they asked apart from age, occupation and how many times I went to the cinema in a year, whether I liked the movie, whether I thought it was worthy of the most important prize and whether I thought Rourke was worthy of a prize. Which are questions I can sort of get, but then the last question was 'Would you attend a wrestling match in person?'. And I just can't have an idea of why they'd need such information.
Thing is, it happened another couple of times and even weirder than this one. The first was always at the Venice in Rome thing; I had gone to see Brokeback Mountain and there was this questionnaire asking to suggest an Italian title for the big distribution in February and there was also some prize. Now, why the fuck do you need to translate a movie which is named after a place? Then it became The Secrets of Brokeback Mountain when it came out and I still think it sounds like a bad romance novel.
The best and last one was for Clint Eastwood's Letters From Iwo Jima. At first it asked me whether I knew it was going to be in original language with subtitles, if subtitles irked me and if I'd go to see another subtitled film after this. Like one goes and can't read the enormous plaque on the poster saying original language with subtitles only and like it's this big of an effort (and I'll never thank Clint enough for wanting it in original everywhere). Then there was the 'why have you come to see this movie?'. Reasons: 'because I like war movies', 'because I saw Flags of our Fathers', 'because someone recommended it to me', 'because Ken Watanabe is an actor I like'. I kind of wrote that I was going because it was Clint Eastwood's but whatever. Now I'm really wondering if this stuff does really help with something (guess not since the Iwo Jima dvd included a dubbed version made just for that) or whether it's just a way to waste time. Because when the questions are so plain dumb one has to wonder.
This said and completely unrelated to it, I used my bookshop points to get for free a new Chabon book (and it looks like a sort of 800ish adventure novel which makes me flail a lot), a novel from Neil Gaiman which I kinda took because I loved the Sandman comics and Stephen King's Duma Key just because it's in paperback and it's SK. I'm sure I'll like it until the half and then think that the ending sucks but I'm adjusted to that. I also know he'll kill whoever I like best, but I'm adjusted to that, too. And that'd be all I guess.
The review: Mickey Rourke is worth the whole movie in the sense that if it wasn't for him it wouldn't really be anything special. I can't care less about wrestling and the movie didn't make me care (with Million Dollar Baby I did indeed care and boxing is not my thing either), but his acting was pure gold. Not the best movie I'll ever see but he was worth it, along with the amazing Springsteen song at the end which I hope gets released soon because it's just amazing. But well, we're talking Bruce here.
That said, the point was that they gave everyone a questionnaire to fill where they asked apart from age, occupation and how many times I went to the cinema in a year, whether I liked the movie, whether I thought it was worthy of the most important prize and whether I thought Rourke was worthy of a prize. Which are questions I can sort of get, but then the last question was 'Would you attend a wrestling match in person?'. And I just can't have an idea of why they'd need such information.
Thing is, it happened another couple of times and even weirder than this one. The first was always at the Venice in Rome thing; I had gone to see Brokeback Mountain and there was this questionnaire asking to suggest an Italian title for the big distribution in February and there was also some prize. Now, why the fuck do you need to translate a movie which is named after a place? Then it became The Secrets of Brokeback Mountain when it came out and I still think it sounds like a bad romance novel.
The best and last one was for Clint Eastwood's Letters From Iwo Jima. At first it asked me whether I knew it was going to be in original language with subtitles, if subtitles irked me and if I'd go to see another subtitled film after this. Like one goes and can't read the enormous plaque on the poster saying original language with subtitles only and like it's this big of an effort (and I'll never thank Clint enough for wanting it in original everywhere). Then there was the 'why have you come to see this movie?'. Reasons: 'because I like war movies', 'because I saw Flags of our Fathers', 'because someone recommended it to me', 'because Ken Watanabe is an actor I like'. I kind of wrote that I was going because it was Clint Eastwood's but whatever. Now I'm really wondering if this stuff does really help with something (guess not since the Iwo Jima dvd included a dubbed version made just for that) or whether it's just a way to waste time. Because when the questions are so plain dumb one has to wonder.
This said and completely unrelated to it, I used my bookshop points to get for free a new Chabon book (and it looks like a sort of 800ish adventure novel which makes me flail a lot), a novel from Neil Gaiman which I kinda took because I loved the Sandman comics and Stephen King's Duma Key just because it's in paperback and it's SK. I'm sure I'll like it until the half and then think that the ending sucks but I'm adjusted to that. I also know he'll kill whoever I like best, but I'm adjusted to that, too. And that'd be all I guess.