Monday, October 24, 2011

Tales from AFI

On Sunday, I watched 3 Film Noir movies: Laura, They Won't Believe Me, and High Wall.  I'll skip over Laura since it is probably one of the better known films.  They Won't Believe Me opens with the main character on trial for the murder of his wife/mistress (it isn't clear which murder he is being charged with, point is both are dead).  I have to say I enjoyed this movie because for once, it is not a bad woman leading a good man astray.  The ending was a little bit of a surprise mostly due to the change required under the Hayes Code.  The last movie from Sunday was High Wall.  The plot of the movie is the main character thinks that he strangled his wife but his a suffering from blackout due to a blood clot in his brain (which gets fixed by surgery).  Because of the black out condition, he is sent to a psychiatric hospital for evaluation by Dr. Ann Laurson.  She believes that he didn't kill his wife and tries to help him prove it.   I liked High Wall even though on the most basic level it is a less good version of Spellbound (with a less good cast). 

One other weird story from being that AFI for most of the afternoon: I went the bathroom before seeing High Wall and there was a man using one of the stalls in the women's restroom (and I only knew it was a man because he didn't close the door).  I am not 100% sure that he was drunk, but he did do a very theatrical burp that was reminiscent of Barney Gumble (from the Simpsons) (alcohol is served at the theater but you can only buy one at a time so the guy either went back multiple times or is a lightweight). 

One more thing, I am pretty sure that the AFI Silver was only theater in the DC metro area that was showing Margin Call because the line was huge for every showing (and it was showing in the biggest of the 3 theaters).

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