randazzofamily

The Grey Review

Rarely do GQ and I go to the theater anymore to see a movie.

Now I’ll sit here a smidge while you decide which way you feel about this . . .
Here, let me help you out.

For those of you who are gasping in disbelief that I go see movies?  Yes, I know.  And for those of you who are gasping in disbelief that there is something wrong with going to see movies?  Yes, I know.

It’s like you’re bad if you do OR you’re odd if you don’t.  There is just no good answer here.  However, one time many years ago GQ and I went to see a movie he just HAD to see.  It wasn’t my cup of tea (undercover police take down bad guys, blah blah blah) but it had Robert De Niro in it and if you know anything about Italians who love the Godfather, then you know GQ.

So after forty-five minutes of the most gut-wrenching vulgarity out of the mouth I have ever heard, I just wanted to throw up.  I stood up, didn’t say a word to GQ, walked out and never went back in.  As I stood out there waiting for it to occur to my dear husband that I wasn’t coming back (all of fifteen minutes), I thought a lot about, “What if?”

“What if the Blessed Mother was sitting there next to me having to endure what I just heard?”
“What if my Guardian Angel was visible to me and I could see his reaction?”
“What if my mother was seated right next to me?  God forbid!”
“What if on Judgement Day, God asked me what the heck I was doing listening to that?” 

It was these thoughts that kept coming back to me as I stared out the theater window that day, waiting for GQ to realize I wasn’t coming back.  And it was these thoughts that I shared with him when he finally realized I was nowhere to be seen and came venturing out to find me.

After discussing it at length right there in the theater lobby, he understood where I was coming from and we agreed to leave.  But as penny-pinching as I am, I couldn’t decide if I was more upset about the language or the money I wasted.  So typical of me.

And for the record, GQ’s dear Robert, wasn’t the one using the foul language.

Regardless of all that, here’s my story.  After many months of GQ asking me out to see a movie and many months of us not going to see a movie, I finally agreed.  I watched the trailer to the movie GQ wanted to see and figured it looked suspenseful, nothing risqué, not much dialogue and lots of action.  My kind of movie.

Boy, I was I wrong.  About the only thing I did get right was the suspense.

If you have never seen “The Grey,” this is where you will want to leave the room because I’m about to give you a two-second synopsis and spoil it for you.

Man’s wife dies, man contemplates suicide, man almost pulls trigger but remembers a poem written by his father, man gets on plane, plane crashes, eight survive, one dies within minutes after crashing, second is mulled and killed by wolf, third is mulled and killed by three wolves, fourth dies from “high-altitude disease,” (huh?) in his sleep, fifth dies from falling . . . and THEN mulled by wolves (of course), sixth decides he’s done trying and waits for the wolves, seventh dies by drowning and last but not least, the eighth miraculously at the last minute figures out how to tape broken alcohol bottles to his left hand and a knife to his right hand to fight the “Alpha,” aka the leader of the wolves.  It doesn’t matter though because the screen goes black right before they fight so no one really knows what happens and it’s just assumed number eight dies too.

SO uplifting!  No?

Through it all the “F” word was thrown around like water in a waterfall and then, and THEN!  Liam Neeson’s character (the eighth man) blasphemes Our Lord!!!  I am not exaggerating.  He looks up into the sky and says thee MOST worse things to God I have ever heard in my entire life.  Yes, yes, it’s just a movie but no amount of money would convince me to repeat the words that came out of his mouth.

I would have walked out right there but that was the ending.

So as GQ and I walked out, I turned to him and said, “I am NEVER going to the theater again.”  And he responded with, “Yeah, I know.”

By the way, have I mentioned that the Seamstress told me she liked the look of my old kitchen better?  I think she’s been behind the sewing machine too long.

02-13-12   •   Family   •   2 comments