We Nearly Drowned Watching The ‘Poseidon’ Movie

Watching this Movie is Dangerous

You’re going to think this is ridiculous, but we both were in serious danger of drowning as we watched the movie ‘Poseidon’ last Friday night.

We hadn’t planned on watching Poseidon, in fact it was supposed to be Woody Allen’s ‘Vicky Cristina Barcelona’, but the 100s of copies on display in Al Campo the previous week had mysteriously disappeared. I don’t think they were sold out. For a start they were in the ‘cheap section’ (€4.99) because, if Spanish TV is anything to go by, the general Spanish public seem to prefer a diet of Steven Seagal, Jacky Chan and, for some bizarre reason, Ashley Judd films. You can almost bet that there’ll be one of their movies on every week on the main Spanish channels. So ironically, good movies end up in the cheap section, whilst the trash stay at full price (works for me).

Anyway, ‘Vicky Cristina Barcelona’ was a bust, so I settled on Poseidon. Okay, it was a complete change of genre, but Empire movie mag (which I trust completely) had awarded it 4 stars out of a maximum 5. Sure it wasn’t going stick in the mind long after the final credits had rolled, but a thrilling piece of escapism every now and again is part of what movies are all about.

As Empire had promised it was an exciting, fast moving film with more than its fair share of tense moments as characters (a still square-jawed Kurt Russell and a gay Richard Dreyfuss amongst them) battled against overwhelming odds and an ever-rising ocean inside an upturned cruise liner coffin.
Part of their attempts to escape a watery grave involved swimming for long stretches under water to find ways to move onwards and upwards. These nerve-jangling scenes prompted a discussion between Andy and I about how we’d fare if we were unfortunate enough to find ourselves in a similar predicament.
One thing led to another and before we knew it we were both holding our breath with the characters as they blindly swam through a murky underwater corridor and into dead end after dead end.

I’m sorry to announce, we were those guys who didn’t make it. Tragically we drowned a few feet before our heroes finally discovered a hole leading to life giving fresh air.

Clearly we didn’t really drown, but I can tell you it felt as though it had been a close thing as we sat on our sofas red faced and gulping in huge breaths of air.

The thought really tickled me though. What would investigators have made of finding two drowned corpses in their own living room with Poseidon playing on the DVD – freakily realistic special effects or what?

The End of My Career as a Projectionist

After writing the post about the haunted hotel on Bute, I stumbled across a great blog by a writer currently experiencing life on the island who described the hotel’s commanding location overlooking Rothesay perfectly.

“…it looks down over the harbor like a Grand Dame, watchful and enticing and dangerously tilted and slightly reproachful.”

It was great to see a picture of the ‘Grand Dame’ again and it jaunted my memory about my last ever day working at the Glenburn. I’m not sure I should share it as it makes the list of ‘embarrassing moments in my life’ (not a short list I have to say) but what the hell, it’s also an example of how conscientious a worker I am.

I’d moved from being a night porter to the less scary position of day porter and one of my more entertaining duties was as ‘projectionist’. Rothesay was ‘in between’ cinemas at that time and the only way to see movies on anything like a big screen was in the ballroom of the Glenburn Hotel on a Sunday night.

My training involved five minutes with the projector and a couple of bits of information that I’d remembered from an episode of Columbo (who says TV isn’t educational). Basically all I had to do was start the movie and wait until a white circle appeared on screen warning me that a reel was about to end then immediately switch to the second reel when it flashed for a second time. There were usually three reels per movie, so that meant I had to concentrate only twice during any screening…easy job.

Unfortunately I was on a split shift on my last day; something like 12-3pm and 6-11pm. I say unfortunately because this meant that I was able to start my leaving party in between shifts and spent the afternoon downing pints in the Paddleboat disco below the hotel. Whilst I wasn’t exactly falling about by the time I came back on shift, neither was I stone cold sober.

Of course it was film night. I remember the movie well; it was ‘The Player’ with Ali McGraw. It’s an awful movie; if the word boring hadn’t already been invented that movie would have been its inspiration. Despite this, in movie-starved Rothesay we had a full house.

I managed to pull myself together to set up the projector and started the movie running from behind the two screens which separated me from the punters and acted as my projectionist booth. Even in my slightly inebriated state I was able to change from the first to the second reel seamlessly.

The problems began as the second reel headed towards its conclusion and the volume of lager in my system decided it wanted to escape and NOW.  I knew I was minutes away from changeover, but the liquid pressed and bullied my internal dam, reluctant to wait even a few seconds.

I weighed up the options. The toilets were yards away, just outside the ballroom doors. I could be there and back again within a couple of minutes. Only trouble was from the amount of film left on the reel, the changeover could have been in 30 seconds, or four minutes. The idea of returning from the loo to a blank screen and grumbling movie goers didn’t appeal, so I decide to hold on as best I could.

Behind the screens as the seconds stretched into minutes I danced a silent routine which made the Ministry of Silly Walks seem sensible in my bid to repel the rising tide, but that damned white circle refused to appear. Time slowed to an interminable crawl and I realised I’d completely misjudged the timings, but now I’d left it too late. If I made a dash for the toilets, the reel was definitely going to change so I took the only option left…I peed my pants.

Okay, it’s disgusting I know, especially as I was wearing white jeans on which the spreading dark stain might as well have been a neon sign, but in my defence I only had the satisfaction of the audience at heart. How could I save myself and sacrifice their enjoyment of the movie? (that might be a bit more believable if it had been anything other than The Player)

Of course almost as soon as my defences gave way, the white circle flashed mockingly on screen and I was finally able to switch over to the last reel and discreetly leave the ballroom and squelch my way to the toilets.

Luckily there was an electric hand dryer in the loos;  I splashed water on my jeans then put both hands on the dryer and tried as best as I could to get my crotch as close to its warm stream of air as possible. I hung from the machine, praying that no one would enter and find me in what looked like a perverse sexual act with a hand dryer…luckily they didn’t and five minutes later I was able to return to my position behind the projector with spotlessly dry trousers as if the whole shameful incident had never happened. I was even able to resume my partying in the Paddleboat afterwards with all my friends amongst the chefs, waiters, waitresses and receptionists oblivious to my ‘unclean’ state.

If there’s anyone out there who happened to be in the Glenburn watching The Player that night, I can assure you that there was a hell of a lot more drama going on at the back of the room than on the movie screen at the front.

You’ve got to admire my commitment to duty though, haven’t you…haven’t you?

Friday Night Movie

Recently our new neighbour, Jesús has joined us for our Friday visit to Al Campo supermarket for the weekly shop. He wanders around getting his stuff; we wander around the aisles getting ours. Then we meet up again at the other side of the tills.
Afterwards I wander into the second hand DVD shop to see if there’s a decent film to pick up for Friday night viewing whilst Andy and Jesús chat outside.
The last time though, Jesús came inside with me.
I know what movies I’m looking for; I’ve got a mental list in my head, compiled from years of reading the Empire movie magazine. The genre doesn’t really matter; if a movie’s been given a 4 star review by Empire, then it’ll usually be worthwhile watching. Jesús had a different, more random approach. As I rifled through the DVD cases, he held one in front of me.
“What about this one?”
“Hmmm,” I looked at the cover; it had a cheap, cartoony martial arts scene on it. “No, I don’t think so.”
I carried on looking. A few moments later Jesús appeared with another DVD.
“How about this one?”
I saw the name Jackie Chan on the front.
“Hmmm…No.”
A few moments more and there was another DVD held in front of me; this one had a gargoyle on the cover.
“Errr, not really what I’m after.”
Jesús must have decided that I was being overly fussy (probably a fair assumption) and wandered back outside talk to Andy.
A few moments later, a DVD which was on my mental list caught my eye. It was ‘The Fountain’ with Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz. I paid for it and rejoined Andy and Jesús.
“Jesús has got all our Friday night viewing sorted out,” Andy told me.
“Really,” I smiled. “What’s that then?”
“Baraka, there’s no dialogue, just a series of images,” Jesús’ eyes were animated as he described it – he does have some neo-hippy characteristics. “It’s really intense.”
I raised my eyebrows and looked at Andy. I could see she was amused and wondering how I would respond.

Jesús is a really lovely guy and I’d never want to offend him and, although I’m open to watching anything if it’s well made, I didn’t really feel in the mood for spending my Friday night watching a series of images. Call me mister conventional if you will.
“Doesn’t really sound like a Friday night movie to me,” I finally replied. “Sounds more like a Tuesday, or a Wednesday night movie.”
“Oh, okay,” I could hear disappointed in his voice and I felt guilty. “Maybe we’ll watch it on a Tuesday, or Wednesday then.”

We strolled back to the car with me blathering on about how interesting Jesús’ movie sounded in an attempt to compensate for my rebuff.

I suppose I should have been more honest with him about the true reason for not wanting to watch his movie. Look at a load of images – or watch the delectable Rachel Weisz…get real.

Hey Gringo – where’s my performance?

Thank god for DVDs. They mean I can actually enjoy movies in their original language, a reprieve from having to watch movies dubbed into Spanish on terrestrial TV. The Spanish do dubbing appallingly. When I watch a foreign language film, I watch it in its original language with subtitles. I want to hear the actors’ voices and appreciate the nuances of their performances, but I do appreciate that as the majority of movies are filmed in English, it’s unreasonable to expect people in non-English speaking countries to sit down to a diet of subtitled ‘foreign language’ films. Could you imagine the outrage there’d be in Britain if the main TV channels aired subtitled movies during primetime?
So, I suppose the Spanish have no choice but to dub movies, but they could at least make a decent attempt at it instead of using the same couple, a fat bloke and his wife from Burgos, to provide the voices for every movie and every character in it.

The result is that Dakota Fanning sounds as though she’s a sixty year old midget with a forty a day habit and Will Smith sounds as though he’s a Mexican bandit holding up a stage coach. In fact every female sounds the same, as does every male. Irrespective of age, sex, nationality, ethnic background, the voices are always the same.
It raises the question, how on earth do the Spanish (I say Spanish, cos I’ve seen dubbed German films and they seem to use actors who actually sound a bit like the person they’re dubbing) know who’s a good actor and who isn’t? What’s an award winning performance and what’s a bag of shite? Jack Nicholson, Al Pacino, Brad Pitt, Denzel Washington, Gérard Depardieu– all sound exactly the same, Mexican bandits the lot. Charlize Theron, Julia Roberts, Halle Berry, Keira Knightley likewise; all washed up hookers who’ve been on the booze and ciggies for far too long. It’s enough to drive you to hold up the Wells Fargo coach. Actually, I’m being unfair, there is one exception to the rule; good old Sean Connery. They can do him pretty well, but then can’t everyone?