Diane Arbus - Alive in Hollywood?

OK… so no one wants to hear more ‘war on terrorism’ political diatribes, fine. Me neither. So I decided to break up my Saturday afternoon day-off and get out of the computer chair and off the couch… recovering, I call it – from the crash - still can't believe that we're OK. I make my way down to the local Cinemark Puerto Madero alone to see what Hollywood has sent us this month... there's some new film called ‘Babel’ with Brad Pitt and Gael García Bernal. Someone said I might like it and since I have no idea what its about, always better that way, might was well check it out - a wild card.

Arriving ten minutes early I grab my ticket and try to pay with a one hundred peso bill, always an issue, anywhere. She gives the standard, “nada mas chico?” line. No, I lie… I had a twenty but needed the change. So then she talks me into a soda and peanut M&M’s, right there at the ticket counter, far from the concession stands - fine. I redeem my soda coupon at the snack bar downstairs on the way to the actual entrance and then talk myself into a medium pochoclo – popcorn – salted or sugared. Salted of course, never get ‘sugared’ again! “Do you have butter?” No she says but don’t worry, there’s lots of oil on it. OK.

I get in to the theatre a a bit early but there’s already a fair amount of people, mostly grandparents with their very young grandchildren, mostly to the rear of the theatre. I grab a seat away from all them towards the front and my experience is already ruined by the presence of so many noisy children, even before the credits. I look to the cinema and a good film as a complete escape, from the entire outside world.

After a ton of previews and Coca-Cola ads, and more previews... the movie finally starts. No wait… another preview, JESUS! This one if for ‘A night at the Museum’ with what’s his face… Ben Stiller. But it’s a long preview, with credits and finally I realize that somehow I’ve entered the wrong theatre. Damn! I think briefly about giving some whacked-out mortgage-paying Hollywood blockbuster a chance, mindless entertainment perhaps. But no way… I’m gonna hate it and I came to see this other film that I know nothing else, but I like the title at least.

Finally I make my move to get up and walk the walk of shame to the back of the theatre, careful not to miss a step and biff it there in front of all now watching me, illuminated by the rays coming from the projector, my soda basically empty as is basically the case with the popcorn… and the M&M’s, all during the previews! After some discussion and apologies on both sides about the closeness and confusion with door number 4 vs. 5 which is right next to it but with a hidden sign, sort of I am redeemed. I thought both doors were for theatre 4, for sure. I get a voucher to return, anytime before Feb. 10. This whole movie afternoon was a rare, spontaneous fluke event for me – just up and going to the cinema in the middle of a Saturday afternoon – SOLO - to some random moview I know nothing about but am curious to see. I almost never to I go to the movies alone… but enough, that’s what happened.

There was a poster for some film in the hallway with Robert Downey Jr. and what’s her face… Nicole the red-head - Kidman and it looked like they were getting steamy. At the bottom of the poster it said something about Diane Arbus. (1) Gotta check that one out for sure, regardless.

Also one of the trailers I caught while waiting for the wrong film was for Robert Altman’s last film called, in Spanish “A night of magical radio,” or something like that. I think its called ‘End of the Show’ in English or maybe even just “Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keeler.” I heard from a couple of close die-hard Altman fans that they refuse to go see it. Come on… its his LAST film!!

1 - Arbus was a very important American photographer that for a long time I could never really even begin look at her photos - too intense - too personal. Finally I began to be less afraid of what she had seen and photographed, before she ended her career early by suicide in something like 1972. Time for another trip to El Hospital Borda and their world famous Radio Colifata, the only thing I've ever seen that comes close to displaying the humanity and horror of serious 'institutionalization - third world style - of something similar to what she had photographed.