Scott Thompson's Labyrinth of Lies

I just got back from a screening of 'Pan's Labyrnth by Guillermo del Toro. The movie is sort of like a fantasy for people who hate fantasy. They can't just accept it on it's own terms like Harry Potter. It has to have a Civil War with sectarian violence in it. A flying car is never enough for those people. The movie is stunning but oddly enough, for all the deaths, not particularly moving.

But forget about the movie for a second. The best part was I saw Scott Thompson there. He looked exhausted. His hair looked crispy. Obviously going through some sort of career crisis. He was with two other guys. They all looked drugged. The girl in front of them who was obviously a big fan complimented Scott at one point. She said he had a good energy and that his aura was swirly. He said 'Swirl This!' How rude and not even original. Shelly Hack said it in 'Cathy Diamond:Lawyer at Large.' I took his picture with my cellphone and he got all lemony snickety. He actually put his hand up like he's David Hasselhof or something. I thought I could sell it to Defamer. Com or TMZ but neither of them were interested.

HIs friends were far more compelling. One of them, I think he was a Brazilian because he hated the movie,he kept sighing all through the film, you know how they're never impressed by anything, anyways, right when the little girl is being chased by the ghoul with eyes in his hands the Brazillian starts blowing the giant pale one. It was lucky I was there to document it. The picture quality is bad but it was pitch black in that theatre. I had to use my superflash which almost got me kicked out. As for the film itself, it was a little bloody for my tastes.

The movie is about a little spanish girl who loses her father in the Spanish Civil War. THen her mother gets pregnant with a general type high up in Franco's regime and they move to the country where he is fighting rebels. She imagines an alternate world where a hideous faun tells her that she is a princess of the underworld and not human and that in order for her to regain her crown she has to do all these horrible tasks whee she meets grotesque CGI characters. At one point she's told a hundred times by the giant faun not to eat any food during one task and the first thing she does is eat some grapes. Then the creature wakes up and eats two fairies. This is where I thought the violence became gratuitous. Just because you can show fairies being eaten by demons, doesn't mean you should. This alternate world is how the little girl copes. I get it. I have an imaginary friend who's always ordering me to do horrible things too. If it was up to me I would be magnanimous 24/7 but he has other plans. He's more of an enabler by now really but I'm addicted.

So back to the movie. Tthe stepfather who's gorgeous of course becuase he's evil iis fond of shaving, sewing up his own wounds and shooting people at close range. Actually everybody loves that. If people weren't being shot in the head, they were being stabbed through the cheek or menstruating, I mean going into labour which I suppose is a form of menstruation. Call it extreme menstruation. "Spoiler Alert!" It ends with the little girl getting shot by her stepfather and you don't really mind. I mean the faun told her a hundred times not to eat anything. And grapes? Who risks everything for two grapes? It's not like they were olives. Then again who shoots a little girl?

Sidebar: Mexico must be awfully grim. My friend Graziella Fortunato who teaches English Literature online says Shakespeare never even killed a child. She says that no children die in Shakespeare. Sure some of them were pretty young like Romeo and Juliet but they weren't virgins which is key I think.

The ending is both sad and happy. The little girl dies but she gets to be a princess in hell. Sounds like my last relationship . Bonsoir. Buddy.