On the edge of my patience. (Watching movies with ones spouse.)

Watching movies with my husband can be the most frustrating thing out.
We have different tastes for a start…
I love tense, on the edge of your seat psychological thriller movies.
My favourite movie of all time, I think, is “The edge” with Anthony Hopkins.
That bear in the movie just had me riveted, terrified….the thought of it…Plus I enjoyed Hopkins character and the psychological aspect of the plot.

The movies I watch, for the most part are quiet affairs, subliminal messages… little allusions to facts.
Subtle “get you thinking” clues….
Movies that shake your mind.
Yeah, sometimes disturbingly so, but there’s that dark side to me again.

While I enjoy a good comedy every once in a while I’m definitely not into “chick flicks”. Hate feel good lovey dovey movies (for the most part) and I really don’t enjoy sad movies because I don’t just get a tear in my eye, I bawl the ugly cry.
Hachi -tale about a dog, did that to me. I had to watch it alone. Oh misery…I cried like a baby.

Which reminds me….”Misery” was another favourite film of mine.

My husband likes to watch what I call “testosterone movies.”
You know, the ones with Sylvester Stallone and Claude Van Damme – those sorts.
If a building hasn’t exploded, or someone hasn’t been blown up in the first ten seconds of the movie my husband begins fidgeting.
“It’s a bit slow….” he says.
Sometimes the opening credits are still rolling…
“It’s a bit slow….”

The movies he watches are full of macho posturing.
Guns, fighting, full speed car chases with vehicles doing IMPOSSIBLE things and these macho men surviving IMPOSSIBLE scenarios.
They are loud, frantic with very little dialogue and they make me feel anxious and aggressive.
(Don’t tell me violence in movies can’t influence peoples mental states!)

The best way to confuse my husband is to throw in a dream scene.
He just doesn’t understand the concept of when a scene flips to an imaginary scene.
“What’s going on?” he says, all fluffed up and frazzled.
“I don’t get it. I’m lost….are you following this?”
Yes…..trying to! Shut up and watch.
He doesn’t seem to understand that sometimes subtle clues need to unfold, slowly and gently for the big picture to make sense.
He panics at the first sign of guesswork.

He also doesn’t like it when in the beginning of the movie characters have to be formed.
The background stuff….The getting to understand the gist of who this character is going to be and what the story is going to be based on.
What? Five seconds in and nobody’s head has exploded yet?
Mercy me…
“It’s a bit slow….”

He’ll even doze off in a movie…if not enough people are being slaughtered, not enough explosions or cars flying off bridges…
Then he’ll wake up…
“What’s happening…I don’t get it…I’m not following this!”

Sigh…

But I have to say, THE worst part of watching a movie with my husband is when the movie ends.
I dread it.
It happens every time, without fail….
Here it comes….the closing scene.
It’s at this moment my husband gets really UPSET! Angry even.
I mean, like he’s just received the biggest personal insult ever.

“You’ve GOT to be kidding me!” he exclaims.
“What a STUPID ending! Oh I can’t believe I just wasted two hours of my life…..for it to end like THAT!”
“Biggest load of shite!”
He really gets infuriated ,and this is always followed by….
“Well, they have to make part TWO now. They just HAVE to!”

He doesn’t seem to comprehend that a movie script can only go for an hour and a half, two hours max…
Therefore, no….we don’t get to find out who she eventually marries, how well he healed after being shot, how many kids they both had together. Don’t get to see the whole happily ever after thing….or the funeral, or the next generation grow up.
No!
The movie ends….the budget ended, and for the most part we just have to keep guessing!
Use our imaginations.
Make up the rest in our own heads.
Duh!

Last night we watched a movie called “The grey”.
A little like “The edge” but with wolves, and without a clever psychological plot.
Seven men survive a plane crash in Alaska only to be stalked by wolves…
It was ok…edge of your seat moments. The wolves looked totally fake, but still, it was the IDEA of the scenario. Survival.

So, we got to the final scene…
It’s just one man left….The main character of course.
The whole movie is about him, his emotional struggles. His dance with death –
Subtly the movie depicts him as a man who feels dead while he is alive…
Throughout the movie we hear him talking of a poem his father wrote.

“Once more into the fray…
Into the last good fight I’ll ever know
Live and die on this day
Live and die on this day”

Finally he gets prepared to fight the Alpha wolf…
It’s a big moment.
Tense….you see his eyes, as piercing as the wolfs….
You see the wolfs eyes….
They leap at each other and then the screen goes blank.

“Oh my God! ” my husband exclaimed.
“How could you make me watch this shite, with such a STUPID STUPID ending!”
Wait for it…..
“They need to make a second part now!”

I’m laying on the bed laughing….
How do *I* know how the movie is going to end?

‘How would YOU have ended the movie?” I asked, amused.

“I don’t know….either the wolf wins, or the man wins….Not this nothing, where we just don’t KNOW!”

You see, he didn’t GET it.
It wasn’t about who won the fight.

The point was …. (what I perceived)
At that moment….in his final stance with the wolf, he at last felt truly ALIVE.
“LIVE and die on this day.”

When do we TRULY feel alive?
So many of us don’t.
So many of us walk around like robots, dead and we don’t even know it.

Anyway…
So I’m open to suggestions.
I’m in the mood for a really good edge of your seat, get your mind ticking over, psychological thriller.
I don’t care how it ends.
I’ll cope.
My husband won’t.

Any really GOOD movies you’ve watched lately?