Last night I went to see the new card shark movie 21. I hadn’t heard much about it before I sat down in the theater. I was really only there to partake in a birthday celebration with friends. You should all know I’m very critical of films, I mean I spent five years studying them, writing papers and making shorts. But in this case I was walking in blind, not even having seen the trailer before hand. And I like over the top gambling movies, with forced plot lines, smoky atmospheres and lots of expensive clothing. But this blog is not a typical movie review. I’m not going to talk about the very hot Jim Sturges, also from Across the Universe, who unfortunately is putting on an American accent in this film. Or Kevin Spacey doing his thing. Or how contrived the love angle is. Or how  Kate Bosworth again bores the hell out of me. No I’m going to talk about how all of a sudden I missed the middle of the film when the picture went black and the sound went on….

So, even before the film started my friends and I witness the preshow go haywire. During ads the DVD gets stuck and develops static noise. Then the screne went black and the previews started in the middle of a preview of the new Get Smart  film. This certainly didn’t boad well for our future viewing experience. And I didn’t need to have precognition to feel that something might happen again. 

I was sitting enjoying most of the film. Sturges was charming as a geeky awkward 21 year old MIT student. By the way, this film is based on a true story, which theoreticly makes it even better than it is. So we get to the griping middle section of the movie (I’m trying not to give away any plot lines), where the danger of counting blackjack cards is realized….and just as one of the main cocky MIT students is about to be layed to waist by a drunken Texan….*bam*. The picture goes out. I mean we’re sitting in the dark as we here a struggle on screen and grunting and fighting noises. For two sections I think, “wow, this film just did something interesting, maybe they’re trying to scare the audience”, and I was impressed just for a minute. But the blackout lasted way past the minute it should and house lights came slowly on and flickered like there was a brownout. 

 An audience member runs to tell the projectionist that they’re fired…I mean, that the light is out. And my party and I begin to speculate about what we messed on screen. We just begin to wonder if they will ever actually turn on some real lights when we hear a loud argument. Obviously the projectionist is being talked to. Then we hear “we can’t rewind it”….And imediately the picture returns in the middle of a scene we don’t recognize, with no warning. 

Now, that doesn’t sound so bad…and it wasn’t. However, I realized after this horrible viewing experience that I was kind of pissed, because the theater handled this so badly. I felt that people should know what to do in this instance. What the theater did wrong: Firstly, after the picture went out house lights should have been restored. If the houselights couldn’t come up then (now this is the key) a representitive of the theater should have come out and told us what happend and to keep us calm. They should have said, “we are working on the problem and you can stay to watch the rest of the movie, and get a refund” . But no, instead we are rudely kept in the dark, littarlly and figuartively. I just don’t understand why the managment didn’t talk to the audience. 

In the end we got our money back…so I can’t be too angry…except I still have no idea what happend to one of the main characters. And that is just stupid.