So, I was a little tired after getting into Hong Kong super late last night.
I stumbled through the Hong Kong Museum of Art (By the way, "Bravo!" on the great retrospective of the History of Chinese Ceramics. Those pieces from the Yuan Dynasty really changed my thinking on the application methods for glazes in the 13th Century, guys!) and Kowloon for a few hours trying to shake the cobwebs loose. But was still a bit out of sorts from the lack of sleep.
Finally, I decided to take it easy for the day and go see a movie.
I saw Iron Man 3.
It was awesome.
But the only reason I'm sharing this with you all is because I was the only American in the audience.
You might be asking: "How do you know this, Parker?"
Well, I'll tell you.
In the role that Robert Downey Jr. was born to play, Tony Stark, the character is known for his carefree, playboy attitude. As such, there are several jokes written into the dialogue that play up this image. And, while most of them are delivered in a way that is pretty universal, there was one about 30 mins into the movie that was apparently a bit too American in nature to translate.
And, well, my reaction was a guffaw.
Everyone else's was NOTHING.
To which I guffawed again.
Then people looked at me...
With the final reaction of my audience mates, I was able to come to the conclusion that I was the only person who got the joke. And therefore the only American. Because no good American wouldn't get a good "A Christmas Story" joke.*
Quod erat demonstrandum.
God I wished there was a few more Ralphie fans in the audience at that moment.**
I stumbled through the Hong Kong Museum of Art (By the way, "Bravo!" on the great retrospective of the History of Chinese Ceramics. Those pieces from the Yuan Dynasty really changed my thinking on the application methods for glazes in the 13th Century, guys!) and Kowloon for a few hours trying to shake the cobwebs loose. But was still a bit out of sorts from the lack of sleep.
Finally, I decided to take it easy for the day and go see a movie.
I saw Iron Man 3.
It was awesome.
But the only reason I'm sharing this with you all is because I was the only American in the audience.
You might be asking: "How do you know this, Parker?"
Well, I'll tell you.
In the role that Robert Downey Jr. was born to play, Tony Stark, the character is known for his carefree, playboy attitude. As such, there are several jokes written into the dialogue that play up this image. And, while most of them are delivered in a way that is pretty universal, there was one about 30 mins into the movie that was apparently a bit too American in nature to translate.
And, well, my reaction was a guffaw.
Everyone else's was NOTHING.
To which I guffawed again.
Then people looked at me...
With the final reaction of my audience mates, I was able to come to the conclusion that I was the only person who got the joke. And therefore the only American. Because no good American wouldn't get a good "A Christmas Story" joke.*
Quod erat demonstrandum.
God I wished there was a few more Ralphie fans in the audience at that moment.**
* For those who you saying to yourselves, "Well, I'm an American and I'm not sure I would get that joke". No hard feelings and fear not, Thanksgiving is right around the corner and TBS will be playing it for 24hrs straight.
** Not really, it was like having my own little private joke-time with Iron Man. Which was nice.
Last, but not least, another question to consider. Could it be that they got the joke, but hate the movie because of the negative way that the Chinese characters are portrayed in it and therefore wouldn't laugh on principle?
Sub question: is it in fact unfair to criticize a formerly great artist for his latter day sins, is it better to burn out than fade away?
For those of you who have made it to the end, clearly I had a little too relaxing of a day if I'm this punchy at 11pm.
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