Night Watch

I was very glad I had a half day today. It was a big relief to get the heck out of that damn office at midday today, I tell you. Why was that? Well, what else could it be but something to do with my insane Boss? Nothing else. Yes, it was something to do with my insane Boss. This is a new stunt she pulled today, never pulled that one before. She is full of horrible surprises. What happened was, when she got in she was coughing and spluttering. Me and Colleague both expressed genuine concern yet she snapped at us, informing us that it was nothing but a cold. It was only a cold, nothing more, she barked. Well! Colleague and I looked at each other, rolling our eyeballs dramatically, around and around. But all morning Boss was coughing and hacking away. What a racket she was making! Yes, it could even have shaken our concentration on the task at hand, which was opening letters and stamping them, but we are professionals and our concentration is unshakeable. Still, we could hear Boss coughing away all morning all the while screaming that it was nothing more than a goddam cold.
Midday approached at long last, and I said to myself, Boss can go to hell! I will go to the movie house! So off I went. Free of coughing madwoman! Free at last!
The movie I chose to see was called Nightwatch, a movie I was really looking forward to. I may have revved myself up too much because I'll be damned if it wasn't a big disappointment.
This was a Russian movie based on a series of books, a trilogy I think, and this is the first movie of that trilogy.
The story is that a thousand years ago there was a big battle between two groups of superhuman type characters called Others. One side was the Dark side, the other the Light. The battle was so savage that everybody was sure to be killed so one of the generals quickly called a halt to the battle and he made a truce with the other general.
Now in present day, there are still Others around but they keep a low profile. Both sides are vampires so they need blood to survive, but the Dark Others kill people for it while the Light Others get it from a butcher shop or blood bank or something. It was pretty confusing. I may have this upside down.
There is also a legend that a child will be born, one of these Others, and when it grows up a bit it will have to choose between Dark and Light, then there will be a big final battle between the Dark and the Light Others.
I don't know if there is any point going on with this review, I really think I missed something. It was very confusing. Since it is based on a trilogy of books, it may be a case of having to read the books before you watch the movie(s). Nevertheless, halfway through the movie I regretted not being in one of the other theatres seeing The Devil's Rejects or The 40 Year Old Virgin - two other movies I want to see. But really what I am looking forward to seeing is The Exorcism of Emily Rose. God Almighty I am almost exploding with mad anticipation for that one!
The most interesting part of the experience was before the movie began. The lights were still on, the previews had not started, but there were two young Ninjas up at the back with a PSP, or some kind of electronic device anyway, playing something, it sounded like a movie or something, but the sound was loud and tinny, like from a tiny tinny transistor radio. Everybody was annoyed and angry about it, but nobody said or did anything. There was a big Russian-looking dude in front of me and he looked around a couple of times, with a real mean killer look, but even he neither said nor did anything. How depressing. Even the big killer-looking dudes don't have anything for these horrible young gadget robots in this modern world. It is terribly depressing.
But one cool thing was that about half the audience were reading books. I was reading my Turgenev book ['Spring Torrents'] and I imagined that those other people were all reading Russian novels too. It made me happy to think that could be the case, and gave me a good feeling about the anticipated Russian movie. Yet, it was a disappointment! Yet could it be that it went over my head? A depressing thought!
Oh life!
[Thanks to Kapreles for the Nightwatch image - they are hard to find!]