DL watches The Crying Game **spoiler**

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

(spoiler…yeah, like there’s anyone out there as ignorant as I was)

Okay, so Ruffian was downstairs watching The Crying Game and for the first hour or so I was upstairs on the phone with my folks. Then I came downstairs and started watching.
I watched, kind of puzzled for a bit. Then the girl and the guy were looking like they were considering getting it on and Ruffian asks me if I think the girl’s attractive. I tell her the girl’s sort of attractive, though a little man-ish, but I’d like to see her naked.
Not five seconds later the following thoughts were going through my head: "Oh, cool, they’re gonna show her naked…dang, she’s got some small boobs…wow, they’re showing pubic hair-OHHHHHH! OH! OH! OOOH! OH! YEEEEECHHH! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
Yeah, I just wasn’t expecting her to have a penis. Oh my word. I know it’s referenced all the time in pop culture, but I’d just missed all those references and never paid much attention.
Ick.
Not that I have anything against guys who like penises, it’s just not at all what I was expecting or really wanting right then. Yeah, they sucked me in. I bought it. I fell for it. (And I’ve got to admit, she still looked kind of attractive in the full female attire, but then there’s that image of her penis in my head. Er…the image is in my head, that is.)

Wow. Interesting movie. Had to share.

2

So for the last nine years, you’ve been under which rock?

3

I have to say, I was stunned he didn’t know. The only thing I knew about this movie is that “the chick is a guy,” and that that “chick” was also Ra in Stargate. (The whole IRA thing threw me–I thought for a while I was watching the wrong film. Like I said, all I knew was the spoiler.)

When DL sat next to me, I was going to strike up a conversation about the chick-guy, but when DL said he knew nothing about this movie, nothing, I had to admit I grinned rather wickedly and sat back and enjoyed the reaction.

Heh heh heh!

4

When this movie was first released, my friend Damon took me to see it. All I knew about it was the title. I was so ignorant about this movie that when I saw the amusement park at the beginning, I thought it might be Coney Island.

It was the perfect state of mind for seeing that movie.

And it’s given me a wonderful joke, which I trot out whenever the subject comes up:

“That was a great movie! I missed a few minutes in the middle when I had to go to the bathroom. But that chick was HOT!”

5

I remember when I first saw that movie. I was flipping through channels and thought, “Ugh. That chick looks like a man. I bet this is ‘The Crying Game’.” I was right.

6

Up front, I’ll never know if I would have guessed that “Dil” (Jaye Davidson) was a man. You see, John SImon gave away the “surprise” in his column in National Review, so I already knew the… secret, before I ever saw the movie.

Being the moderately homophobic guy I am, I figured I’d give the film a miss… but as fate would have it, the woman I was dating at the time really wanted to see it! She was a single mom, and the only movies she ever got to see were cartoons and Disney stuff, so she was dying to see a movie for grown-ups. “The Crying Game” was the movie she really wanted to see, and I couldn’t refuse without telling her why (which would have completely ruined the movie for her, even if she eventually saw it without me)… so I figured, “What the heck? It won’t be the first penis I’ve ever seen. I’ll live.”

So, we went to see it, and I admit, for the first half hour, it was a very gripping movie. That is, the part that dealt with the IRA (and a relationship that builds between kidnapper and victim) was extremely well done, and very moving. But… the moment Jaye Davidson appeared on screen, my date nudged me and said, “That’s a guy, isn’t it?”

So, I guess it was pretty obvious… or SHOULD have been.

On the other hand, two years later, my stepfather rented it on tape, and was watching it in the living room. My stepfather is the quintessential Archie Bunkerish Ne Yorker, and would NEVER knowingly watch a movie with gay themes. I asked him coyly, “Do you know what this movie is about?” He grunted, “No.” Trying to keep a straight face, I left the room.

A little while later, I passed by the living room, and saw that the moment of truth (when Dil walked into the bedroom nude) was at hand. I walked into the kitchen and told my brother, "Listen to this… 5, 4, 3, 2, 1…:

From the living room, we heard “AWWWWW SHIT!!!”

Absolutely priceless!

7

I caught this Friday on cable. First time I’d seen it, thought I’ve slammed it repeatedly on these hallowed Boards for being a one-trick pony of a movie. I will confess two things: First, there was some good dialogue. Not great, not good enough to save a bad movie, but good. The best lines are, IMHO:

and

The bad news is, those lines come more than half-way through the movie and about two minutes apart if memory serves.

Second, I was surprised that there really was more to it than The Secret. That get revealed about half-way through. There really is more to the movie than that. Not much more, but the characters really do have to deal with things. I had been led to believe that The Secret was more of a last-minute-revelation, a twist ending. It’s not.

But this movie still isn’t worth seeing twice. :slight_smile:

8

The one labeled, “Attention: do not discuss movies when in the vicinity of this rock.”

9

I’d just like to add that DL’s reaction to the pic of thinksnow’s ass (Straight Dope Message Board - I have DTF photos! On-line. NOW!) was not too dissimilar to the one he had to Dil’s dick last night.

hee hee hee!

10

Damn, and here I was thinking we hit it off at DTF.

Oh, well. :frowning:

11

I had only been dating my wife for about 2 months when “The Crying Game” came out. The first time I met her parents we all went to dinner and then to see a movie afterwards. Nothing much was playing and so, at my suggestion, we went to see “The Crying Game.”

Let me preface this by describing my In-Laws. Max, my father-in-law, is a contractor who installs industrial size boilers in cooking oil refineries. My Mother-In-Law was raised in rural Arkansas by a very religious grandmother. Both good-old country folks, neither of them was prepared for what was about to happen.

Needless to say, I was unaware of the ‘surprise’ in the movie. It had just come out that weekend and the word had not hit the streets yet.

I was trying to make such a good first impression by suggesting an intellectual, artsy kind of movie, but by the time that scene rolled around, I knew something was up.

I think my mother-in-law actually shrieked…

Max just looked at me and said “What THE HELL kinda movie is this??!?”

Anyway, I’ll never forget (and neither will they) the first impression I made on my wife’s parents!

12

Ya know, that’s a funny thing you say there… When this movie came out, a friend of mine was talking to this guy she knew. He must have sneezed, or dropped his soda, or been in the bathroom for that brief (and it was very brief) moment in time. He was convinced that Dil was a girl. My friend’s conversation went like this:

Anne: But Dil was a guy!
Guy: noooo… that was a girl.
Anne: He was played by Jaye Davidson! A guy!
Guy: I don’t think so!

Apparently missing out on that little bit completely changes the rest of the movie. The guy was very, very confused as to why the hero made Dil cut off her hair and wear her ex-boyfriend’s cricket clothes, but he was okay with it because she was, you know, hot.

13

Huh?

Hitting it off as well as we did, DL was not exactly prepared for a hairy-ass-inder-the-kilt picture.

This is where I can’t tell if there’s sarcasm behind that post or not. But rest assured, we like you, we really like you.