Suburbs of Our Discontent

“Date Night” is a reference to the popular Tina Fey movie. In our house, “Date Night” is also a reference to the very unpopular movie we saw on Saturday night. That’s right, I’m talking about The Clash of the Titans: 3D.

My husband lovingly recollects the 1981 film version starring Laurence Olivier (and Harry Hamlin!), so I thought it would be cool to get tickets. Plus I kept the Date Night a total surprise until our babysitter arrived!

Surprising husband with tickets to Clash of the Titans instead of the foreign art films I usually drag him to: PRICELESS.

Surprising husband with long drive to the new Super-Lux so that we can experience Clash of the Titans with dinner service and cocktails: $97.42 (not including tip or cost of babysitter).

Emotional cost on husband after spending this kind of money to see a movie in the suburbs: UNCLEAR.

For those of you unfamiliar with the Titans plot, here it is in brief: Mortals rebel against Zeus and Hades and then pay the price. (I mean, duh, did they think they were going to win?).

I was completely unprepared for the silliness of this movie. But the experience made me realize that all plots in which Greek or Roman Gods suddenly appear and speak to humans are silly. At the Super Lux, when I wasn’t texting (or groping blindly for my cocktail), I was thinking about the plot of Shakespeare’s play Cymbeline.

There’s a real “jumping the shark” moment in the final act of Cymbeline. In a dream sequence, an imprisoned character’s deceased family members beg Jupiter (a.k.a. Zeus) to save him. At which point Jupiter says something like “how dare you petty mortals offend me and the other Gods! But don’t worry: I just screw with mortals to make them appreciate me more. Your guy will be just fine!” And then they all respond "Thanks, Jupiter!” (5.4.132--yes, an exact quote). Cymbeline is originally listed as a tragedy in the first compilation of Shakespeare’s work in 1623. Modern editors later changed its classification to “Comedy.” That’s probably because of the really silly Jupiter scene.

Speaking of tragedy, can you say “Liam Neeson is playing Zeus in Clash of the Titans 3D”??!! Hello, Gods--hasn’t this man suffered enough already? Thinking about Liam, his life, this crap movie . . . it was actually kinda stressful. Plus the fact that it was impossible to eat steak tips and broccolini in the dark wearing 3D glasses.