Pan's Labyrinth, Postscript

Saturday dawned rather sunny, for a pleasant change, & felt like it was in the mid-40s temperature-wise, so I decided to trek the 3.5 miles to the NW side of town to see Pan's Labyrinth. Even though I arrived at Cinema 21 forty minutes before the screening, there were already 20 or 30 people in line. Within ten minutes, when the box office actually opened, there were many, many more. It was so great to see so many people that excited. & - bonus - I still got "my seat" in the theater, behind the broken chair, with nobody in front of me! Heh. Sweet.

& the movie? I'm not gonna say much. But I will say, it's fantastic. A real, true fairytale. If Hans Christian Andersen had made a movie, it'd probably have been a lot like this. Highly recommended. Also, if any of y'all see it & happen to desperately love it, lemme know - I grabbed a few promotional one-sheets from the lobby. I guess they are mini-poster size. Look like this:
Pretty cool. I like it. Despite the terrible tagline. "Innocence has a power evil cannot imagine". Ummm. Ew.

But damn, just a great friggin' movie.

EDIT: Six Oscar nominations, including Foreign Language Film, Cinematography (ohgodpleaseyes - the picture's Goya-esque beauty is absolutely stunning & I think Guillermo Navarro is a remarkable DP), Screenplay & Score! Full list of noms here. Inasmuch as I deride the Academy Awards, largely because they seem to be awarded not based on merit, but on marketing (read Peter Biskind's Down & Dirty Pictures if you want to be sickened by how crapfests like Shakespeare In Love & Life Is Beautiful stole Oscars), I am still pretty excited. Del Toro shoulda got a Director nod, though. C'mon - he shares the nest with Peter Jackson, both rare birds whose visions are completely, utterly, purely cinematic & simply made for movies.