BEFORE: Before I forget, let me talk about what went down on New Year's Eve - I booked a gig working check-in at a prominent chain restaurant in Manhattan, for reference sake let's just call it "PinaColadaBurg". I'm an events guy now, I have five years experience in that position (plus 25 years before that doing random events here and there) so I figured I could make some fast money while the movie theater is still on winter break. And New Year's is the biggest event night of all, I figured there had to be work somewhere, so I found it. I even qualified for a leadership role, mostly because I showed up early for the interview (I've got them all fooled, I tell ya - I clean up good and play the part of "responsible person" very well).
Then I found out that although the restaurant is a few blocks south of Times Square, it's within the zone that the police block off for the big annual ball drop - if you're a New Yorker like me, you usually watch this on TV and probably have a rule about never, ever going there, because that's for tourists and suckers. Well, I'm not a tourist or a sucker but I found myself scheduled for an event next to the event with the biggest crowd anywhere, and, as I've always assumed, the most chaos possible.
SO with dollar signs in my eyes, I bundled up in layers and headed for the one place that I swore I would never go, Times Square on New Year's Eve. I knew the location because my comic book shop is right across the street, and I had been invited by the event manager to join her on a walk-through of the space the week before. I figured any knowledge I could gain from seeing the space or talking to the staff would be useful, but all the prep in the world could not have prevented the chaos that ensued. Long entry lines, bitter cold, and confusing ticket structure was the start of it, then there were multiple problems with random people sitting where they weren't supposed to, guests demanding services they were entitled to but hadn't received, and very confusing instructions from the event organizers - like, is re-entry allowed or not allowed? You know, it doesn't matter, because even if it's not allowed, people are very entitled these days and they're just going to do whatever they want.
The worst thing that happened was that even though the TVs in the restaurant were all tuned to the ball drop, and champagne was handed out to everyone at 11:45, somebody realized that the actual live event was happening just a few blocks away, and it would be really great if they walked outside with their champagne and experienced the majesty of the event live, in person. So suddenly 200 of my guests were walking out of the event with drinks in hand (umm, it's illegal to drink alcohol outside in NYC) and then they expected to walk back in right after midnight (umm, you guys all just left your coats and purses unattended) and this created an instant logistical nightmare for anyone working the door (umm, me). Well, I couldn't hold back a crowd of 200 entitled tourists who were not satisfied with standing in a restaurant and watching the ball drop on TV, but guys, if you want to be like a New Yorker, that's what we do, we watch it on TV even though it's happening just a few blocks away, because come on, we're inside, we've got food, we've got drinks, we're safe and we're getting the best possible view of the event thanks to the magic of television. I'm sorry, but if you choose to go outside into the madness of Times Square with a drink in your hand, I can't be held responsible. I'm just one man in charge of a team of people trying to control the chaos of an event. The good news is that nobody got hurt, I think most everyone had a good time, and next week I'm going to get paid, if this company doesn't disappear overnight and screw me over.
When it comes to events, I'm now used to being the first one there and the last one to leave, and that was the case on New Year's Eve, I was there until 1 am, at which point I had to walk the bag of supplies back to the main office, a few blocks away, turn in the time sheet for my team, and give my handler some kind of event wrap-up. I didn't get home until 2:30 am, after navigating the piles of trash and puke in Manhattan and then avoiding the party at the roller-skating rink in Bushwick. I caught the re-broadcast of the ball drop on CNN at 3:00 am, which is, again, how a New Yorker should experience the event, and then slept for a solid 8 hours, THEN worked on New Year's Day at the Barclay's Center. This feels a bit like a work schedule that would take down a normal man, but I seem to have recovered OK.
Francisco Bereny AND Toto Rovito carry over from "The Games Maker". Now, these two films were released 10 years apart, so I think I can assume that the pool of Argentinian actors is just not that large.
FOLLOW-UP TO: "Alive" (Movie #461)
THE PLOT: The flight of a rugby team crashes on a glacier in the Andes. The few passengers who survive the crash find themselves in one of the world's toughest environments to survive.
AFTER: First off, I would never compare my recent stressful experience on New Year's Eve to the tragedies and hardships that were endured by the passengers on this Uruguayan airplane that crashed in the Andes mountains in 1972. There's no comparison, their struggles over 71 days in the extreme cold highlights perhaps the worst conditions that anyone ever encountered, and it's a miracle that 29 of the 45 passengers survived the crash, and that 16 people ultimately made it to safety, after 2 people hiked for 10 days to find help in Chile. That being said, I can kind of relate in some small way after spending 6 hours working in a freezing hotel lobby and going 18 hours without eating anything. When I'm in "event mode" I'm just too busy and stressed-out to eat, plus I'm not supposed to eat event food, unless the event is over and I'm sure that all of the guests have eaten their fill before me. So yes, I've recently been cold and hungry and under pressure, but it was all transitory, my inconvenience was nothing at all compared to what the survivors of Flight 571 endured.
It's cold here in NYC today (again, no comparison) and it's snowed twice already (again, a mere inconvenience) but there are like 30 inches of snow in Buffalo and Syracuse - you know what, those people are probably used to it. They made their choice, I mean, who decides to live in Buffalo, they must be out of their minds. We had snow in NYC the day in mid-December that we left for the cruise, sure, it was a little difficult to get to the Brooklyn port because of snow and traffic, but come on, we knew once we got on the boat things would probably get better, as we were heading for Florida and the Bahamas. Barring any "Carnival poop cruise" situation, things were looking up as we were getting out of the cold for a week. That's really the whole point of "Society in the Snow", we are shown the tragedies and hardships and very difficult decisions that these crash survivors endured, and the only thing we can do in response is be glad that this didn't happen to us, and also be thankful for the things we have and the ways our lives have been improved by our technologies and our current living conditions. If you've got a warm home, access to food and you have someone special to share your days with, really, you're doing all right. Appreciate that through no fault of your own, things could be a LOT worse, you could be marooned on a deserted island with no food or water, or you could be stranded on a mountaintop in the freezing cold and debating the ethics of cannibalism.
So yeah, I'm feeling hashtag-blessed - it's a privilege that I got to sleep in today, get up and go get us some breakfast sandwiches, and then spend some time discussing movies with you. After that I've got nowhere to go, nothing to do today, just going to pay some bills, check e-mails, play some phone games and maybe my wife and I will go out to dinner later, because she really hasn't seen much of me over the last two days. That's our deal now, I go out and work a ridiculous, mostly nocturnal schedule and she stays home and works a 9-to-5 (OK, 9-to-3) remotely. Having a meal together or even watching a TV show together is hard to come by and requires some coordination, but it can be possible.
My theater job first brought me in close proximity to a screening of this film. For a few months straight I worked the Tuesday night film appreciation class, which is mainly an older crowd that pays the school for the privilege to come to the theater once a week, and a professor with connections manages to arrange a first-run or preview screening, often with the director or a screenwriter or a casting director there for a Q&A session after. In December 2023, the class screened "Society of the Snow", with perhaps unanticipated results - again, it's an older crowd that's paying to be there and they very much want to be entertained and informed, usually with a light comedy or drama ("Song Sung Blue" was a recent choice). Some people in the crowd were not prepared for such a stressful action movie about a plane crash, so they got upset. A few people walked out of the screening and left, others sat in the lobby and just wanted to sit in silence for a while, so as the house manager I comforted those people who just couldn't handle it, that's fine, everything is OK, you don't have to go back into the theater if you don't want to.
I get it, even the idea of a plane crash is stressful, to see it on the big screen and feel the vibrations from the speakers, it's a lot. Again, hashtag-blessed that I got to witness this from the comfort of my living room, sitting in a recliner with access to a box of cookies and a glass of soda. And then there are scenes later in the film that were designed to make viewers feel claustrophobia, once the plane wreckage sinks into the snow some people were buried and had to dig themselves out, others weren't able to - so there are graphic depictions of people dying, and this can be tough to take. Scenes with people enduring starvation, wondering when their bodies are going to fail them, and then debating whether it makes more sense to stay put and starve or hike to safety and potentially freeze to death. We can't really fault the screenwriters since this all really took place, again I think the only response is to appreciate what these people went through and be thankful we have what we have and hopefully never have to go through anything like this ourselves.
OK, that being said, this film is two and a half hours long - I have no right to complain about that, either, because what is two and a half hours out of MY life, compared with spending 71 days on a mountain-top without food or any heat source or any hope of being rescued soon? Oh, sorry, do you not like watching sub-titles? How terrible that must be for YOU that you have to read words on the bottom of the screen while you're watching your movie. Maybe you should just move on, because you're kind of missing the whole point here. Look, I read subtitles during EVERY movie because I'm half-deaf in one ear and it's just easier, OK? But sure, let's talk about YOUR needs as you eat popcorn and candy while watching a movie about people starving to death.
Look, I don't want to get too much into the details of this film, as you can just read about Flight 571 on Wikipedia, also this is the THIRD filmed version of this story, I watched the terrible Hollywood adaptation, "Alive", way back in 2010 - that's over 15 years ago now. The only thing I want to point out, from a narrative point of view, is that I thought the early church scene was very clever, the Bible reading involved the Last Supper, where Jesus broke bread and told his disciples to eat it, as if they were consuming his own body. That's some really adept fore-shadowing there, considering what happens later on the mountain after the crash survivors run out of crackers and chocolates. Honestly, I got out of Catholicism when I learned that church dogma still officially believes that during every service, the bread (hosts) and wine ACTUALLY turns into the body and blood of Jesus. Sorry, I thought that was just a metaphor, but no, the priests REALLY believe that their congregation is eating Jesus. That's way too heavy for me, man, it's church-sponsored cannibalism and thanks, but no thanks. You guys go on without me, I'm good, I had a big breakfast, man.
If I'm grateful for anything else today, it's that I was finally able to link to this film, and that it only took me two years. Now, if not for "The Games Maker", I could have just started the year with this film, that would have been another way to go, but I didn't have to. And thankfully, impossibly, somehow there's a path from here back to non-Argentinian, more mainstream movies. Really, with my method of watching movies, this is about as hard as it gets, and you know, all things considered, it's not that bad. Life is good, the chain method works and more often than not, it allows me to watch every movie at what turns out to be the perfect time. #blessed (but not in a religious way, in a humanistic effort-pays-off way).
Directed by J.A. Bayona (director of "Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom" and "A Monster Calls")
Also starring Enzo Vogrincic, Agustin Pardella, Matias Recalt, Esteban Bigliardi, Diego Vegezzi, Fernando Contigiani, Esteban Kukuriczka, Francisco Romero, Rafael Federman, Valentino Alonso, Tomás Wolf, Agustin Della Corte, Felipe Gonzalez Otaño, Andy Pruss, Blas Polidori, Felipe Ramusio, Simon Hempe, Luciano Chatton, Rocco Posca, Paula Baldini, Emanuel Parga, Juan Caruso, Benjamín Segura, Santiago Vaca Narvaja, Federico Aznarez, Agustin Berruti, Alfonsina Carrocio, Jaime James Louta, Juandi Elrea Young, Jerónimo Bosia, Giselle Douaret, Agustin Lain, Julian Bedino, Federico Formento, Laularo Martin Bakir, Tea Alberti, Lucas Mascareña, Maximiliano de la Cruz, Juan José Marco, Mariano Rochman, Esteban Pico, Pablo Tate, Virginia Kauffmann, Francisco Burghi, Daniel Antivilo, Ezequiel Fadel Hinojosa, Gustavo F. Sasco, Carlitos Páez, Tomás Friedmann, Roberto Suarez, Constanza Del Sol Giraudo, Gabriela Quartino Tilve, Sergio Armand'ugón, María Elena Pérez, Julio Lachs, Camila Chieza, Franco Rilla, Ignacio Martinez, Ramiro Rutz, Sandra Américo, Claudia Trecu de Lucia, Susana Groisman, Julieta Marcus, Clara Roibal Camino, Clara Ibarra Vierci, Lorenzo Bigliardi, Carolina Steinhorn, Belen Giannini, Camila Giannotti, Sofia Lara, Verónica Perrotta, Rogello Gracia, Álvaro Armand Ugón, Sara Bessio, Noella Campo, Berch Rupenian
RATING: 6 out of 10 phone numbers of girls in Santiago to contact for a good time
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