Which 'C' word? Closer?

Oh, bugger talking about the food. Been there, digested that.
This next anecdote has a NAUGHTY LANGUAGE ALERT. Just in case you decide to walk out on me in disgust, don't say I didn't warn you.

My first night in Mackay happened to be a Tuesday night. By a stroke of last-minute luck, I got to travel by myself, and had a whole two days before my boss arrived in her usual flurry. I decided to catch some air-conditioning, and where better than Cheap Tuesday at the movies?

I got to the cinema, and had two choices for that particular moment in time: Sideways, and Closer. I'd seen all the shorts for Sideways, knew that everyone thought it was great, etc., etc. But I didn't know much about Closer apart from the poster in front of me, which showed Julia Roberts, Jude Law, Natalie Portman and Clive Owen. It could have been anything from a romantic comedy to a thriller. So I did the obvious thing. I asked the prepubescent girl working behind the ticket desk what she knew of it. Now this is the same girl I asked if there was a supermarket nearby, to which she said, 'ohhh, dunno, there could be one at Canelands' (a huge mall on the other side of town, obviously the only place a girl that age would go), and the next day I found out there was a Coles straight across the road, slightly hidden by a sign.

Anyway, Miss Mackay looked at me and said, leaning in confidentially, 'well, it's an adult sort of movie. They do use the 'C' word a fair bit...', raised her eyebrow and leaned back again. This lack of anything substantial intrigued me into buying a ticket, and since it was only $5, who cared if it was a crap movie?

The short story is that I really liked Closer. It is a great tale of lies, deception, facades, willpower and trust. I'm not really sure which 'C' word Miss Mackay was referring to; 'cunt' and 'cum' were used constantly within the first half hour.

Now, being Cheap Tuesday, the cinema had a fairly mixed audience, none of whom I think had a clue what they were in for. There were middle-aged women in pairs, who tittered throughout; there were a few quite young women, also in pairs and gasping with every rude word, and there were two clumps of elderly pensioners, obviously seduced into the whole 'Julia Roberts does nice movies' thing. And there was me, a habitually-solo movie viewer who sits up the back to watch the audience as much as the movie. The pensioners coped quite well until about halfway, when Julia is discussing the taste of her lover's cum with her husband ('it's sweeter'). One clump of oldies stood up and walked out. Noice, I thought. That's rocked their universe. Then a bit later, Natalie Portman does a pretty ok strip for Clive Owen, who says 'you have the face of an angel -- what does your cunt taste like?' 'Heaven', she replies.

Well, that was it. All the remaining oldies got up and left, no doubt to accost the girl behind the counter who obviously didn't warn them about the 'adult' content.

And that was when I knew I was really in Mackay, bless their hollywood-lovin' little souls.
I really do recommend Closer. I get a bit freaked out by deception and how easily it can become part of a normal life. I think that's why I married a man who couldn't tell a fib to save his life (well, so far...). I walked away from the movie, through the dark hot streets of Mackay with a load of thoughts to think between air-conditioners. Definitely not a feel-good movie, but highly entertaining, especially with added audience participation.