My Big Date- Part Two

I had a delightful evening.

After work, Becky and I went to way too many stores, looking at and trying on all the wrong things. Naturally, we found her a lovely dress at the last store we went into. And it just happened to perfectly match the hat we'd bought during our lunch break today. This confirms what I've long known...I really am good luck. In fact, I'm magical.

When Becky and I parted ways, it was time for me to embark on My Big Date with my brain. I took myself to coffee, and amused myself with a book for half and hour or so, and then I went across the street to the movie theater. Having extremely eclectic taste in foreign films, I simply bought a ticket to the next available show, which turned out to be a Taiwanese film called 'The Missing.' Not only did I get a discount because my bank happens to be a sponsor of the 40th Chicago International Film Festival, but I only had to buy one ticket. Brains get in free. (Either that, or the ticket was for my brain, and the rest of me got in free. Not sure which way that works).

Brain and I picked out a nice comfy seat, and settled in to watch the film. Another nice perk about foreign films is the lack of loud and/or giggling teenagers. But no previews. I guess no movie-going experience can be perfect.

"The Missing" is a really interesting film. Although the plot centers around two characters who are searching for family members who have gone missing, you realize through the course of the movie that it is they themselves who are lost. It's really a film about lonliness, and a self-imposed lonliness at that. Yet it's not actually a sad film. Thought-provoking, certainly, for it emphasizes how easy it is to be alone in a city fulll of people, and how unaware we are with respect to what goes on around us. But somehow it's not sad. I enjoyed it a great deal, but I would only recommend it to aficionados of very foreign films. Not only are the film techniques, and the directing and editing styles, far different from what comes out of Hollywood, but there is also a strange recurring theme of scenes that take place in a bathroom. I still haven't quite figured out the symbolism of that. There were also references to George Bush, Saddam Hussein, and SARS (though not in the same scene), which I'm mulling over.

I wouldn't say this is a good date movie. Certainly not for a first date. But Brain and I had a wonderful time. In fact, it was the best date I've had in a very long time. (The only one in a long time, but we'll focus on the positive for now)

This blog gives its Big Date with Brain an enthusiastic two thumbs up. I had such a good time that I even took Brain home with me at the end of the night.