Wife was a hero again today (Thursday), she remembered we had won free tickets to watch a movie at any Cinemark Theater, and being we live closest to Southpark Meadows, well that is where we went, I was being my crotchety self saying I didn't want to go. Man, the last time we went it was like going to a dollar theater, everyone was on their phones, people jumping from one row to another, smells of food from the outside, screaming, cell phone flashlights while the movie was going on. We had said no more, but that was a good two years ago. I didn't realize we had been missing the upgrades. They have some nice seats, even my big ass fit in nicely and the feet came up with the push of a button. It has been really chilly outside, I was thinking about taking a small blanket, I didn't, but it would have been perfect to cover my legs. All I can say is bravo Cinemark, Alamo Drafthouse has made y'all bring up your game. I hate to see places fall to the animals, like when you could tell it was a matter of time before Highland Mall closed. At least this theater has fought back and it was looking good.
The movie we saw was very good, we have been watching so many movies and I hardly watch TV that I hadn't seen any commercials for it. It was a musical right from the beginning, it starts as PT Barnum as the son of a tailor, and they go to the house of a man where he falls in love with the daughter. They are so uptight that because the kid made the daughter laugh, they send her off to boarding school. Barnum keeps up with her by letters and when they become of age, marry each other and move to the city. He is still a dreamer and upon getting fired, takes a few documents, one being that his company had twelve ships out in the South seas which he uses as collateral to take out a loan to open a warehouse which he turns into his "circus". His first attempt being full of stuffed animals, like elephants and such does not do well, his daughters tell him he needs live things that move around and he gets the idea of loading up on "freaks" and it works. Before long, he is a rich man, buying the mansion next to his In-laws as he promised his wife, but he wants more. He wants the respect of the upper crust, the rich who still see him as a peanut seller and a scam artist. He stretches his abilities past his senses when he tries to become a tastemaker by bringing in a singer from Sweden, paying her upfront, and then she quit on him by some "controversy" that isn't clear to us. In the same night she quits, troublemakers burn his warehouse down, so he is left with nothing.
He befriends a guy, Carlyle, who has connections to the elites he so wishes to impress and it works out perfectly, in the movie. When he seems to have lost everything, he reminds Barnum that he had promised him 10% and he has been taking his 10% upfront, so Barnum may have been rich, but Carlyle is doing alright too, so he is able to support them and bring them back from bankruptcy, and this is when they finally make their move to the tent, moving away from an expensive city property and renting wherever land is cheap.
I was so intrigued by this that I looked up PT Barnum and found he lived between 1810 and 1891. In the movie, he has an open call for anybody with unique gifts, come one and all. I guess the term is whitewashed, in reality, according to some of the articles, Barnum bought his first "freak", an 80 year old black lady, and created a story that she was 160 years old and had been around the time of George Washington, claiming blacks live so long because they thrive in hot climates like those in Africa. There were many other stories about other slaves and then the animals involved, which the movie doesn't even get into.
Like I said, what we saw onscreen was pretty awesome, the coming together of the circus people, the newspaper columnist who coined the term "circus" in a moment of calm and admiring of the work done by Barnum, tells him something to the effect "a different columnist upon seeing all the different people working in unison would say this is a celebration of the human spirit." Plus, our eyes are so filled with extremes in this day and age, none of the "freaks" were that wow. We accepted all the characters and have heard or understand why they are how they are.
No comments:
Post a Comment