The Last Movie I "Saw"

While in Los Angeles, Bill and I figured we ought to catch a movie, considering that we were in the "film capital of the world." Not only that, but there are movies that play in L.A. that it's reasonable to think will never make their way to a screen in Montana. The film we decided to see was The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, the new film directed by Terry Gilliam, of whom we are both big fans. But, we weren't reaaly willing to spend a couple of hours in the middle of the day (bright, warm, sunshiney day!) in a dark theater, so we decided to attend the late show (10:00 start). What we did not reckon on was how tired we would be after cramming as much activity as possible into that bright, warm, sunshiney day, the result of which is that we both ended up nodding off periodically during the movie. What I recall was great to look at, very much in the tradition of Gilliam's earlier Adventures of Baron Munchausen and Brazil. But after my first very brief nap, I was lost as far as the plot was concerned. I hope to get another opportunity to see it on the big screen because, as I say, visually, this was an exciting movie and though Gilliam's output is somewhat checkered in quality, it certainly promised to live up to his best work (I can't really comment on Heath Ledger as one of the main characters, because though I recall his introduction, the next time I saw him on-screen, he was Johnny Depp). It's funny, but it just occurred to me that the last time I went to see a Gilliam film in a theater, The Brothers Grimm, there was a power outage halfway through and the theater ended up giving us all refunds and I've subsequently never seen the rest of that movie. I hope that doesn't happen with this one.

Postscript: I just found out that Parnassus is playing this week in Helena at the Myrna Loy Theater (about the only place in the state that shows such movies anymore), but I'm heading east tomorrow and won't have the opportunity to see it there. How's that for bad timing?