Last night Mike, Jimmy, Colby, and I went to a free screening of The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, (there's a really excellent trailer at this site which spoofs trailers in general and just nails encapsulating the tone of the movie). Briefly, as a blip of a review, I'll just say that I enjoyed it, although I was really turned off by the "zany" music cues during the first 20 minutes, and it had a hard time keeping the humor on an even keel throughout. They got nearly everything right but it's still just a little emotionally empty as a film.
What I REALLY want to talk about is the theatre-going experience. It was, without a doubt, the oddest collection of people ever gathered together in one room to watch a movie. It was a very popular screening. The sportos, the motorheads, geeks, sluts, bloods, waste-oids, dweebies, dickheads--they were all there. Mostly nerds though. Lots and lots and lots of nerds. There was also an over-fifty and slightly overweight contingent present--apparantly the first wave of nerds, err.... FANS, back when the Douglas Adams book was published in 1978.
There was one nerd/fan in particular (directly in front of us as we queued up outside waiting to be let in) who was especially noteworthy. He was in his mid-forties and I believe he felt as though he himself was a Hitchhiker meandering his way from one planet to another. Why do I think this? Because he had a TOWEL slung over his shoulder.... to watch the movie.... a striped blue and white, 100% cotton bath towel. Now for those of you unfamiliar with the material, this would be akin to a Tolkien fan dressing up as Gandalf to wait in line for one of the Lord Of The Rings movies, or some kid wearing a Hogwart's cape and carrying a wand for the opening day of the next Harry Potter film. This guy was a SuperFan. Someone so devoted that his hoped-for water cooler banter the next day with his colleagues and coworkers might go something like this:
SuperFan: So, I went to see The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy last night!!!
Co-worker: Oh yeah, Joel? How was it?
SuperFan: It was far out, man!!!
Co-worker: Did you take your towel with you?
SuperFan: Only ALWAYS!!!
To be fair, he knew his stuff.... I noticed he had a pair of blue/red 3-D glasses in his shirt pocket and sure enough, mid-way through the movie there's about a 20 second 3-D sequence (during which, I almost envied Joel.)
There was something even more remarkable about this guy though that really got the gears turning in my head. Accompanying him to the screening was his 9-ish year-old daughter (sans towel). This means that not only did this guy find a female willing to engage in intercourse with him, but obviously she must have stuck around, and unless they're divorced, they have a nice little nerdy family unit.
It's people like Joel that give me hope.
So you're saying there is a chance for me too?! Yeah, baby!
To be perfectly honest, I'm wearing a towel for when I'm seeing it. It's a homage. Why not, you know?
I'm glad to hear it didn't suck. ^_^
Posted by: Magnus | April 29, 2005 at 11:47 AM