Did I miss a memo or something? I had no idea that there was a "bring a fucking douche bag to the theater" promotion today. These people must've gotten a buck off their ticket price for every douche bag they brought along! I knew that it was coming, so I shouldn't really have been surprised. So far we've been pretty lucky at these screenings with relatively limited complications, but today had to be the fucking worst!

Our 12:00 screening of Eternal Blood went rather smoothly. My review should be posted momentarily so after you read this rant, be sure to go check it out. We actually just took an extended lunch in order to take in our noon flick. Afterwards we went back to work and hung out until it was time to head out to our next flick later in the evening.

Come Drink With Me was our early evening screening and it was at The International House (sorry, no pancakes). The I House has got to be the most uncomfortable place to see a movie, next to sitting in a sauna for 2 hours. The seats are rough (like bleachers) and it's always hot in there. The film started about 10-minutes late, which aggravated us because we're on such a tight schedule (Michael is a bit tighter than me, but that's besides the point), we have to race from theater to theater. Also about 20-minutes into the film the room smelled like cheap salami, I don't know WHAT that was all about but I will say that Michael did have a funny look on his face at this point. In any event Michael will be working on a review for this one so I'll give you my 2-cents worth here. It's not my favorite Shaw Bros flick but it's still pretty damn good. The restoration job Celestial has done on these flicks is truly astounding. Come Drink With Me looked so good projected, it looked as if it could have been shot yesterday, simply stunning.

What wasn't so stunning was the behavior of the people in the audience. Cell phones, people dropping shit and one guy who sounded like a herd of elephants while leaving to go to the bathroom (at least I hope that's what he was doing). In any event, the behavior of the audience at this screening couldn't prepare us for what was still to come.

We headed out to the subway and made it back to the Ritz East in pretty good time, luckily we were only accosted by one homeless person as well as one lunatic who didn't want people to walk all over him, or something like that. Once we arrived at the theater, we had a few minutes to catch our breath and relax. I was so sleepy at this point, but I was also really looking forward to a new Miike flick.

Next up was the much anticipated and only Takashi Miike flick of the festival, Graveyard of Honor. I'll be working on a review of this one momentarily, so you'll have to wait for my thoughts on it until then. In any event we got tix and seats and I bought a tiny pretzel for $1.75. I hadn't eaten since 2 and it was about 10pm now. The pretzel was so delicious (or so I thought) that I went out and bought 3 more (gave 1 to Michael) so I wound up spending like 7 bucks on pretzels for dinner.

The theater was barely half full, which surprised me for a Miike flick, I was expecting lines around the block. In any event, the film is the farthest thing from a comedy, yet the audience members around us couldn't stop laughing. Maybe it's just me but I really don't see the humor in rape, or when people are getting bashed in the skull with a lead pipe. Is this a new wave of comedy, am I missing something? In addition to chuckles, we also had to contend with bottles, caps and change dropping on the floor as well as multiple cell phones ringing. Aye Carumba! Ya know, in the twenty something years that I've been going to the movies, I don't think that I have once dropped change out of my pocket while watching a movie.

At this point I'm just tired and aggravated. Graveyard of Honor is not a pleasant flick and the fact that these people were treating it like it was nothing really troubled me. I don't understand how people can get off and laugh at material that obviously isn't funny. For the record, this wasn't nervous laughter either, these were hearty guffaws from a bunch of fucking assholes. Stepping down from my soapbox and going to bed, hopefully tomorrow's screenings will be more user friendly. Michael is going to have a tough time in choosing who gets his patented Golden Douchebag Award this year.