overheard

"I saw Spellbound the other night."
"Did you love it?"
"No, I thought it was dry."
"Dry? Martinis are dry. Deserts. How can a movie be dry?"
"You know what I mean. It was boring."
"You didn't think it was tense, seeing these kids carrying all these dreams and expectations on their shoulders and wondering how they were going to do?"
"No, I was like who cares, they're twelve, what means anything when you're twelve?"
"Oh my God, how can you say that? I can't believe you just said that."
"What?"
"You're like--you're like those people who say that babies can't feel pain."
"What?!"
"I mean, when you are twelve, these things mean everything. It's not like they're thirty and looking back and realizing that it wasn't that big a deal in the whole grand scheme of things. This is like the biggest thing in your life as yet. It's your whole life, you're on TV, and you're trying to figure out how to spell hellebore."
"Oh, please."
"I can't believe you didn't love Spellbound. You're the first person I've heard of that didn't love Spellbound."
"It was dry!"
"It's just like Strictly Ballroom. Remember when you thought Strictly Ballroom was boring. 'I want to dance my own steps, lah-dee-dah.' You're still the only person I know who didn't like Strictly Ballroom."
"I did not say 'lah-dee-dah.' I've never once said 'lah-dee-dah'."
"And you didn't like Princess Bride either. Remember that? 'You killed my father, lah-dee-dah.' 'Prepare to die, lah-dee-dah.' I mean, you are probably the only person anywhere without some congenital whimsy deficiency who didn't like The Princess Bride."
"I liked The Princess Bride. You're just making stuff up now."

Update, 1:30AM (ouch!): A reader from Lindyhop, LA e-mails in: "For the record, I think Strictly Ballroom is one of the biggest pieces of crap I've ever seen.... When someone talks about Strictly Ballroom and how great it is, I fly into a rage. That's how much I hate it. It's like your thing with Nader."

Update, Thursday night: A gold-club-premium-subscriber from Swingkids, ND e-mails to say: "i saw a copy of spellbound at the video store today...i know nothing about this movie outside of your weblog, so i picked up the box and read the back. after a couple of sentences explaining the basic idea of the movie, the next sentence reads something close to "sounds like a boring movie?," followed by a blistering refutation of such a sentiment indicating that if you decide to watch this movie that you are in for the ride of your life..."