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 Posted: Thu May 07, 2015 3:44 pm
"I don't think they have anything newer than 1960. That's not going to be a problem, is it?" So much changed in half a century that it left Shale wondering if this theater would suffice for learning about film. He stood in front of one of the posters, hands thrust into front pockets, while he pondered the hand-painted art that informed him of the release date.
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, he thought. This is Maggie the Cat. Maggie, you don't look like much of a cat to me. I suppose there's some nuance behind this that I'm supposed to pick up. I'll let Rhys explain it, if he's so inclined.
"What do you think?" Slate backed up from the poster he inspected to look toward the other reproductions. Several spanned along the wall, from Double Indemnity to To Kill a Mockingbird to Dr. Strangelove and more beyond that. Atop the entrance to the theater, painstakingly written with the plastic letter cards, was the phrase Classic Movie Month and some subtext suggesting that all films would be shown in their original black and white versions. The theater itself looked a little run down, as most things did without careful maintenance, but aside from the cracks in stucco that was plastered over brick and the general dinginess from lacking a power wash, the theater looked sound enough. Only a couple cars sat in the small parking lot, suggesting maybe a pair of employees at most.
Having never been in a movie theater before, Shale was uncertain what to expect. The last movie he saw played on a screen no longer than his arm; was that typical for movie screens? Why call it the 'big screen' if they stood at that size? He dismissed the line of questions entirely, knowing that he would soon find answers once they walked inside.
These are all from a time before yours, Rhys. Are they still relevant? He rested his attention on his companion while he waited for an answer. Shale watched his violet gaze comb over each movie poster, and he looked for signs of that excitement that Rhys tried so hard to smother. Do they interest you? Do they draw out the passion you pretend you don't have?
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Posted: Fri May 08, 2015 1:56 pm
"Absolutely no problem at all," Rhys replied. "Most of the innovations over the past fifty years or so have been technical, or are confined to specific genres. Going to see an older movie is just as worthwhile as going to see a newer one - perhaps moreso." He considered the titles on offer - all good choices, but given that Shale seemed to have gravitated to one poster over the others, perhaps that would be the ideal choice.
"Cat on a Hot Tin Roof - a good choice, based on a Tennessee Williams stage play. The story of a very wealthy, very dysfunctional family in Mississippi. It's quite good, if that sort of thing interests you." Then, for a moment, his expression shifted to something distinctly mischievous. "You said it yourself, Big Daddy. Mendacity is the system we live in." His normal British accent was gone, briefly, replaced by a well-imitated American Southern drawl.
"I've never played in it, but I was in A Streetcar Named Desire, once. By the same author." His normal cadence was back in place immediately. He tried to make it less than obvious that he was waiting for a reaction, but, well, were he being honest, he was absolutely showing off his acting ability. "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is a particularly good choice for watching for subtext, too. Williams was writing in a time where he couldn't always be open about his subjects, and he could get away with even less on the screen than he could on the stage."
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Posted: Fri May 08, 2015 4:09 pm
"Why moreso?" Did films follow some conventions that older proved sturdier? Construction fell by the wayside over the years, as he learned from ventures with Jack. Could the same apply to the film industry? If they weathered well over the ages, then could they possibly still hold relevance in current times? The word choice intrigued him while Rhys went on to examine the poster that he stood before moments earlier.
And Rhys knew of it already. Curious, too, how he shifted his accent so easily into another heavy variant that he recognized for the South. "It might be worth the watch, if it plays on domestics." Seeing a general family household reenacted might help him better acquaint himself with mannerisms. The added bonus of learning to read film enticed him, too. And Rhys' comment, he surmised, must've come from the film itself - why else suddenly dredge up an unrelated remark in a Southern twang? Unless Rhys made a pop culture reference and Shale missed it, he couldn't think of another reason to pull a potential quote out of nowhere.
"I'm not sure which accent suits you better." The comment might've passed for a joke, were he not already serious about it.
Shale started toward the door while Rhys elaborated on his experience with the author. This person had a strange taste for titles, he decided, when he pulled open the glass door for his companion. His foot wedged against the bottom of the frame while he responded. "Did you like playing with it? I imagine authors have a style, much like artists or musicians. If you hated it, I won't make you sit through one of the same author." Were film writers called authors? He thought they were directors. Or did that refer to a different job? No, that must've been different. "And what did you mean by subtext?" He knew, in abstract, what the word meant. But how did it apply to film?
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Posted: Sat May 09, 2015 1:36 am
Rhys shrugged. "Perhaps I'm being unfair to modern cinema, but I find much of it is more concerned with making a lot of money than with artistic value. Action films are well and good for special effects and nicely framed shots of butts in spandex, but for actual substantive looks at film conventions, I'd prefer something a bit older." Alright, so he could be a bit of a snob about these things. Was that really so terrible?
He looked a little surprised at the comment about his accent. "Generally, I hear that the drawl sounds unnatural," though perhaps that was because it was from people who had known him for much longer than Shale had and were more used to the natural cadence of his accent, "but I also hear that whenever I forgo glasses for a role."
He stepped through the door, careful to avoid stepping on Shale's foot. "I enjoyed it quite a lot, actually, considering I was playing a deplorable arsehole of a character. But someone has to play the villain,and I end up doing ti quite a lot." He waved it off like it was no big deal. "As for subtext, well, there's quite a bit more going on with Maggie and her husband's relationship than is stated outright on screen." He was curious as to whether Shale would pick up on it while watching - but it wouldn't necessarily be a point in his disfavor if he didn't, given how subtle the whole thing had to be. "There were certain themes more heavily and blatantly explored in the stage play, but alas, film censorship was at its height when this particular version was released."
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Posted: Sat May 09, 2015 7:27 am
"That's because people hear - and see - from memory. It's only unnatural because their memories of you are inundated with British accents." Rhys challenged their normal with a new accent, and he received a response that suited the intrusion on their memories. The entire point he made sidetracked from discussing films, but he enjoyed having something to contribute to the conversation. So much knowledge flowed one way between them; couldn't he offer something in return?
"I see. They're skirting the censorship of that era, then." Ferreting out small details offered him more to do than sit and watch the film absently. But when already trying to learn which cuts offered what intention, would he be able to detect the subtext Rhys spoke of too? Shale was uncertain.
He approached the desk (and it was literally an office desk, possibly rescued from a scrap heap) where empty drink cups and single displays of candies were propped against a rack. The clerk present hand a blue stripe through blackened hair that constantly shifted into her face. He watched with curiosity when she shifted it away, yet never tucked the bothersome length behind her ear. Behind her, written on a placard in chalk, were the movie times for each showing. Luckily they arrived on time for the aforementioned film. "Two for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof." While he wasn't intending to pay for both, ordering at once seemed more efficient than going one after the other.
"That'll be ten dollars." Acrylic-laden nails clicked across an old, dirty cash register. Some stickers adorned the front that Shale could see, likely placed there by the cashier herself.
Plucking his bifold from his back pocket, Shale fished for hardly a second before he pulled out a five and laid it on the table. His gaze darted to Rhys afterward, expecting that the man had his own money along. The cash only sign sat boldly against the top of the register, well-displayed for any customer to see.
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Posted: Sat May 16, 2015 1:25 am
Rhys nodded. Shale was probably right - experience meant that most people expected his natural accent, or that he would be wearing glasses, or what have you. But he'd known Shale a much shorter time, which meant that "natural" was far less established. It led, briefly, to a curious thought about how long it would take for there to be a normal; how long would it be before Shale, too, was surprised if his voice sounded different than normal?
Not that it was an experiment he would necessarily have time to undertake, or anything.
"Exactly that, yes," he said, "if the censors don't notice what you're doing, you can get away with quite a lot." He reached into his back pocket to pull out his wallet, already flipping for the necessary five-dollar bill. He certainly wasn't expecting Shale to pay for his ticket, and it wasn't as if he couldn't afford it. So when Shale set his payment down, Rhys followed, without even really giving it much of a thought. The cashier passed over very simple tickets - this theater obviously wasn't operating on the sort of budget a more traditional one had for things like ticket printing machines, so instead they simply had the title and showtime of the movie handwritten on the back of slightly oversized fair raffle tickets.
"Theater six, on the left," she said. Rhys gave the cashier a smile and a polite "thank you," and then turned to the left, in the direction of the theater number she had indicated.
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Posted: Mon May 18, 2015 6:42 am
'If the censors don't notice what you're doing, you can get away with quite a lot.' I wonder if the White Moon and their Knights stand as the Negaverse's censors. It's been coming into my mind more, lately. The balance is shifting. I wonder... How much time must pass before I, too, learn the traits of self-effacing guilt that populate this area. How long before I feel guilty for seeing a movie with someone I recently met, or having lunch with someone to lay down connections. How long before I start looking at people and sizing up the amount of energy they have - before I start considering draining Jack for all she's worth.
I suppose, when that time comes, it won't matter much to me anymore. It won't hold much sway to me if Rhys is the first victim I knowingly drain, or if I pluck quiet Marinus' starseed for an edge in battle. Does it bother me? He looked to Rhys while they walked, studying his face for a short clip before moving down the cords in his neck, the swell of his shoulder, the taper to his arm before it swelled again to forearm, and finally ended in the great splay of fingers that hovered loosely at his sides. His fingertips sported few callouses - a healthy indication that he hadn't seen much work with his hands.
It does. I value their company, all of them. Would that, too, fall away?
Only if I allow it to.
His gaze darted from Rhys' hand to the ticket in his own. ADMIT ONE. Admit one what.
Shale wrenched his thoughts back from their meander, though it demanded great effort. The pair had nearly reached the theater, and no converse transpired between them. Most people of the city loathed silence - or they feared it, for they didn't recognize it. Was Rhys the same? This man, born outside of the country and carried here on a choice to escape his parents - how different was he from the rest of Destiny City?
The quiet blue glow of the number 6 embedded itself in his peripheral, and Shale shifted course for its door. The pull handle was swung open easily, its arc wide for Rhys (a habit which he, proudly, picked up from observation alone).
The theater sat dark, without commercials playing across its screen. The room itself housed half the seats of a typical viewing room, though Shale knew nothing of this difference. The seats themselves were of older varieties, sporting narrower seats and lightly musty upholstery that never received anything more dedicated than a spot clean. Despite that, the floors looked impressively well-kept, without a single kernel of popcorn to step on through the entire room. Shale found this a little unsettling, as any flat and smooth surface unsettled him; he loathed the thought of acclimating to their ease and forgetting the unsteady give and pull from the forest floor.
Rhys probably didn't consider it at all anymore. "Do you have a preference for seating?"
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Posted: Fri May 22, 2015 6:41 pm
Rhys did his best to studiously pretend that he hadn't noticed Shale doing what amounted - or would amount, if it was someone whose intentions he could be more sure of; he had yet to be entirely certain of anything in that regard with Shale, which was fun and fascinating - to checking him out, a little. Not that it didn't sort of secretly please him, but drawing attention to it was as likely to get him somewhere as it was to make things awkward.
So instead, he walked to the theater in what he considered reasonably companionable silence - he would probably be chatty enough throughout the movie, a few moments of not talking wasn't going to kill him. Hew did, however, give Shale a slightly flirtatious smile when he stepped through the door, to accompany his "thank you."
As perhaps expected, the theater was almost entirely empty, but that was for the best - no one to complain if they talked over the movie.
"Generally, seats around the middle are ideal," Rhys said, smoothly moving towards what he suspected the best seats would be, "too far back and you can't see as well, too close and you're craning your neck just to see the screen. I'd say the same, generally, about stage shows as well."
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Posted: Sat May 23, 2015 6:22 am
"So it's all just common sense based on the visual - there's no need to consider for sound? A television has its speakers built into the screen-..." Shale trailed off when he spotted the myriad dark boxes mounted to the walls, each of them sporting the telltale mesh of speakers. "Nevermind."
He followed Rhys to seating and sank into one of the upholstered chairs. Immediately he stretched his legs and rested them between the two seats in front of them, where an arm rest allowed enough space for his heels. He then rested both elbows against the arms and latticed his hands above his lap. Commercials started to kick on, suggesting their awareness that people now sat in the room. Initially the picture jerked around somewhat, but soon steadied. He heard someone cough. That same someone strayed into his peripherals, with her brilliant red wand at her side.
This place felt like a poor rendition of a cave.
"The worst part about a movie is that I have to sit still for two hours." He spared a glance toward Rhys. "I suppose that's not a problem if no one else shows up." And if others do, then hopefully they sat in front of the pair.
"What should I be looking for? In terms of the movie, I mean."
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Posted: Tue May 26, 2015 11:30 pm
Rhys was going to answer, but it appeared Shale had caught on for himself, and so there was no need. So instead he just took a seat next to Shale, settling until he was comfortable. The seats weren't terrible - he'd certainly dealt with worse, and there was plenty of room, with almost no one else in the theater. It also meant that he wouldn't have to be overly concerned with talking through the movie, because there was no one to complain.
"It's not really rude if there's no one to be interrupted by it," Rhys acknowledged. He considered it an additional interesting tidbit that Shale had trouble sitting still - he likely led a fairly active lifestyle, if he had that much pent up energy. Rather different than Rhys's own, if he were being honest. He'd only started considering any kind of athletic activity outside mandatory gym classes seriously when he'd become Ploutonion, and that was mostly because he was rather fond of his head being attached to his shoulders and his soul being inside his body. Being able to run and maybe punch a thing seemed helpful in that goal.
But he wasn't here to worry about his continued survival, he was here to enjoy a movie with a friend. "For general framing, paying attention to how characters are positioned in the shot and actors' body language - how they interact with each other will tell you things that might not be immediately noticeable in the dialogue itself. And when there's a cut between scenes, pay attention to how abrupt it is, or if it's more smoothly shifted."
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Posted: Fri May 29, 2015 10:58 am
"That's a lot to consider at once." People placement, wardrobe, frame of the shot, directionality, transitions, and probably other factors like the filming tone each demanded conscious attention. Had Rhys learned to look for all these facets in a film already? "I imagine that, even if you look for all these choices in a film, you'll discover new ones each time you watch." He noted something similar in books, so he shouldn't be surprised if the same followed into movies, but considering it felt unusual.
Seeing a movie at all felt unusual.
The lights dimmed, and commercials soon gave way to movie trailers, featuring newfangled productions coming to this theater in the next month. June productions segued from May's classic movies to foreign films month, where each week featured a new set from a different decade. The last seven days of the month offered films from one country each, from Italy to Spain to France and more. Subtitles and dubs issued, often running in tandem with one another. Shale considered making a habit of movie watching via dragging Rhys along to some of these films, but that decision needed tempering by his pending experience with it.
The start of the movie rolled, featuring the telltale ancient grit that suggested its original version. No one else filtered into the theatre - the barely illuminated, gaping maw leading back to the lobby remained absent shadows. And that was fine, for Shale wondered if he would mistake those shadows for youma initially. The wand girl left, and the pair was in complete isolation for the coming production.
It worked out fairly well that way, he figured.Noir Songbird i cannot find a 1958 version of the movie to rewatch, and my recollection of it is fairly spotty
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Posted: Sun Jun 14, 2015 11:38 pm
"Absolutely," Rhys agreed. "You can't observe everything at once, and some things only pop out on a second viewing - particularly clever foreshadowing, for instance, is going to pass you by unless you know what it's leading up to."
He watched the trailers with some interest; it was good to know what would be showing, particularly when they presented upcoming themes. His exposure to non-English films was lower than he liked it to be, but he'd found what he had seen - generally horror movies - to be enjoyable, so giving a further try, particularly with a themed festival at a theater he found, so far to be rather comfortable and cozy, seemed like an excellent idea.
Ideally, Shale would enjoy this experience, and he would be able to convince the other man to come along. Having a moviegoing partner who was engaged and interested sounded like exactly the sort of thing that would make the experience far more enjoyable.
The opening credits rolled, and he shifted a bit in his seat, slinging his braid in front of him rather than having to worry about sitting on it.
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