Pickin’ cotton

Sandra likes to see movies without knowing anything about them.

She doesn’t even want to know basic plot points such as, “It’s about a guy with cerebral palsy who overcomes both physical obstacles and social bias to become a productive member of society and renowned artist and writer.”

She usually decides based on the actors who are in the film if it’s something she wants to see. She likes to be surprised by the story. She doesn’t want to know anything.

I don’t think this is a particularly good way of deciding what to see as most of the time knowing what the story is about is crucial to knowing if you’re going to enjoy it or not. And many times it’s important to have some background on a subject.

This leads to problems like when we first started dating and Sandra wanted to see Zodiac because she likes Robert Downey Jr. and Jake Gyllenhaal.

Then she was upset at the end because the film has gruesome murders. I didn’t know her very well at the time and I asked, “You didn’t know it was about a serial killer?” “No, i knew nothing about the film,” she responded.

Well recently I mentioned that I wanted to see John Sayles’ new film, Honeydripper. She said she would go with me. I started to read the beginning of the plot description.

All I managed to say was, “In Alabama in 1950…,” before she stopped me and said, “Great, now i know it’s going to be about black people picking cotton….”

“Nice knowledge of American history. Black people picking cotton was 90 years before that.” (Really she said ‘picking up cotton’ but that’s because English isn’t her first language).

So we saw the film. I swear to Christ the second scene in the film is black people picking cotton.