Lights, camera, action
Mara was the last person we expected, with an "I told you so" look in her face. She couldn't get over the fact that the professor asked us to watch (and write) a paper from a short list of films, which would include "By the Sea." It was a poor imitation of Michelangelo Antonioni's existentialist pictures about the deteriorating moral values in Rome during the 1960s, and Angelina Jolie tried too hard to imitate Audrey Hepburn. After all, she had "Two for the Road" on the mind. "By the Sea" not only confirmed Jolie's lack of expertise behind the camera, but Mara suspected that she was looking at a big-screen autobiography of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt. It was the beginning of an end of their union.
Our coursemate could end like Pauline Kael, but we hardly thought about it during that day. Tim invited us to a movie marathon, as he raved about "20 Million Miles to Earth". He wanted to watch it again, and he thought a second viewing would be memorable with people who shared his passion in cinema. He turned out to be wrong.
A group of astronauts brought an egg from Venus, which ended up off the shores of Sicily. A fisherman witnessed a reptilian creature coming out of the egg's cracks, which grew at a prodigious rate. It turned out that the oxygen acted as a catalyst (during his growth). This was the perfect B film, where I figured out what would happen after watching the film's first ten minutes. Moreover, there were clues for the viewers. It wasn't hard to make a guess, as the signs would point to the second fall of the Roman Empire. Tim was chuckling at the mayhem, while we looked at him uneasily. He seemed to have a strange way of showing his sense of humor, but he was generous with his time (when we needed his help on the coursework).
How HG Wells stirred up the dregs
Tim wanted to continue the conversation at the lecture room the other day, where the professor asked us how HG Wells stirred up the dregs of English society. Silence followed. I thought Brangelina would be a better topic during the weekend. Wells may have illustrated the demolition of Victorian imperialism while describing the Martians' invasion of Earth, but the turn of the 20th century seemed like a bygone area. And how would I categorize the Middle Age? As for his antisemitic writings, some things would be more shocking than his piercing revelations about the class system back then.
If Wells were around, he would be enraged at how his novels were adapted to the big screen. It was a matter of life and death. It was out of the ordinary. It would pave to the rise of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). I was serious about the last one, as some Marvel films would be reminiscent of the political thrillers of the 1970s. It was hard to take a film (like "All the President's Men") seriously, as stranger things happened behind the camera. And I wasn't referring to the production of the film. I would suspect of imperialism, though. The superheroes occupy the White House.
It was time for another film. Tim asked us about �13 Ghosts�. We needed a laugh, and this might be the one. It turned out to be a cheesy experience, but it was a blast.
