Archive for February 9th, 2009
I go to the cinema quite a lot. I had a student job as a projectionist, so I’ve always had a fascination with the Big Screen. But we are in a recession, so every penny counts, and I am not as flush as I used to be. So, when my friend Amy mentioned she had borrowed a moody copy of the newly-released film, The Curious Case Benjamin Button, I suggested a few of us get together to watch it on my newly installed cinema system. Though technically illegal, I was pretty confident that I could do a deal with the senior officer to grass her up to save myself having to do any serious hard time.
We were joined by the Fat Jim’s and settled in to watch a movie that has been nominated for numerous awards.
I knew full well that Amy had only selected this film because Brad Pitt was in it. I am not stupid. She once said that the only reason she would kick him out of bed would be to shag him on the floor. This led to a little game for Fat Jim and I to play during the film, a film in which Brad Pitt starts really old, and gets younger.
We called it, “Would you fuck him yet, Amy?”
She seemed to think that this game was sick, for merely suggesting that she might shag a bald, ninety year-old, arthritic Brad Pitt.
It was still a sick game when he was eighty-five. “You wouldn’t kick him out of bed, you might break a hip.” I helpfully pointed out.
It turned out however, that SHE was the sick one, as she would “probably” have sex with a seventy year-old Brad Pitt. The fucking septuagenarophile pervert!
We had reached the point where Brad Pitt had got down to about sixty, and Amy was all agog, when the sound went off. The picture was fine, but the sound disappeared. I tried cleaning the disc, playing it in my Xbox 360 instead, fast forwarding it to a different chapter. Everything.
It was simply a shit forgery.
I suppose I should be grateful for this stark reminder that counterfeit films are not as good as the real thing, and that they put cash directly into the hands of the drugs trade (though I think it’s fair to say a large number of actors and film execs put their cash in exactly the same place, so my watching moody films merely cuts out the middle man).
In hindsight I am pleased the sound failed when it did, as I have no idea what sort of frenzy Amy would have been in had Brad ever got to twenty-five.
