Last night Margaret and I spontaneously went to see Ocean’s Thirteen after dinner. We enjoyed it, though I’d have appreciated slightly more intensity to the concluding twists. I like just sitting around watching George Clooney, Brad Pitt, and their friends look stylish and ingenious.
On our way out, Margaret wondered what the movie was for which the long line had been snaking around the theater. “Why, the Transformers movie,” I answered. “No!” “Yup.”
Margaret had no idea just how deeply the Transformers reach into the dreams and nostalgia of their audience. I have only a faint appreciation for this, having fallen in with a Transformers fanboy online a couple of years ago. We spent the rest of our walk home coaching Margaret through her jaw-dropped amazement that anyone, much less a sizable crowd of mixed generations, races, and genders, would be willing to sit through a movie about cars that change into superhero robots — much less, that they’d line up for hours to see the first showing. She’s still researching Transformania this morning.