Maybe an inappropriate time to inject some levity, but the Chronic of Narnia rap (from SNL of all places) is amusing me. [link]

They had me at "You can call us Aaron Burr from the way we're dropping Hamiltons."

They had me at the Magnolia Bakery verse.

Thanks for transcribing that, Raq. I'm amused by the video but I can't crank it at work so I'm missing most of the lyrics.

Here's a whole transcription: [link]

I'm feeling the Jesse-love.

Somehow being the only person in the theater appalled or saddened by the violence or tragedy onscreen is worse than being the only person in the theater who is laughing at the joke.

This. Individual humans = mostly loveable. Crowd behavior = frequently unnerving.

This was completely my experience of Crash in the theatre. So much so, that I left halfway through and havn't yet rented the dvd.

Sometimes people laugh because they can't bring themselves to acknowledge how tragic a situation it really is -- it's distancing, especially in a group. (I'm happy to say that the friends I was with were gasping with horror and dismay at the same scene, because at the same time that it's all Grand!Passion, the betrayal that it is also gets shown.)

And it seemed to me like such a fantastic, brutal, heart-wrenching moment -- and then practically the entire theater burst into cheerful, boisterous laughter. Not embarrassed, shocked, uncomfortable laughter, but the art-house movie equivalent of Fuck yeah! It was an utter Bizarro World moment.

This happened both in my theater and in the theater my friend saw it in. And I was laughing myself initially until I realized I wasn't supposed to be finding it funny. Something about the way the scene was played, the fact that it was an "Oops!" moment just struck that comic nerve. I think we were primed for that reaction since we also found the immediate rush to make out surprisingly funny. Everything seemed to be moving so much faster than we anticipated. It's possible it was just one of those releases of tension that you need in a movie like that, and it just happened to occur at an inappropriate time. Because the scene's clearly not meant to be funny at all.

I understand all about the tension-releasing laugh and the oh-shit-that-wasn't-funny nervous laugh, but the thing that creeped me out was that this laughter was cheerful and unapologetic. I've heard people go ha ha oops, but this wasn't that. It was creepily raucous and unembarrassed, like a wacky-marital-discord laugh at the climax of a Preston Sturges film.

By the last twenty minutes, though, practically the entire theater was snurfling and choking back sobs, so I guess I can't be too creeped out and grudge-holding. I bet the theater goes through double its usual supplies of napkins, paper towels and toilet paper during the Brokeback run.

There's an Alatriste Trailer here. . . it has no sound, but looks good.