Religulous

I mentioned previously that my trip to see Frozen River was my second attempt to get to the West Newton Cinema. The first, which took place a week ago Thursday, was quite a fiasco, but had a happy ending thankfully.

Thursday is usually the day devoted to seeing all the flicks that are about to see town. It's "last chance day" for a lot of films, because the new schedules usually start on Friday. Religulous was at West Newton and according to web site, it was about to finish its run.

The day was a two-fer. I'd been in Worcester earlier seeing a different last-chance film before heading east towards Newton. Because I had a large gap of time before the sole evening showing of the Maher flick, I killed time by a pleasant detour to the great shining mecca of commercialism called the Natick Mall, which is located, of course, in Natick, just off the Massachusetts Turnpike.

The Natick Mall is not just any mall. It's one of those beautiful malls, with a fancy designed exterior and upscale stores. It was very easy to find, and I knew I was in consumer heaven when I had to drive past the valet parking entrance by Lord and Taylors to get to the parking lot for plebes like me. Being that it was a weekday afternoon, and in mid November, the mall was nice and quiet. I had a nice stroll down the luxury wing, surveying the winding contours of the ceiling that resembled an airport. To top it off, there is even a condo development attached right to the mall near Nieman Marcus. All the while I'm contemplating the report I had seen on the local Boston news about how the operators of the mall, General Growth Properties, were going bankrupt. The news anchors assured viewers that the mall itself would not be closing.

After lunch at the food court there, from a burger joint called Flamers, I got back on the Turnpike and headed east, thinking it would be an easy jaunt into Newton. Boy was I wrong. I found myself in a situation that Boston-area drivers know all too well, which is Mass Turnpike Hell. Even though it was not yet rush hour, and I was heading into the city, not out of it, I spent a good forty-five minutes crawling up to the line of toll booth collectors, just to hand them a dollar and forty five cents. It was absolutely preposterous. It set me back far enough in time that now I needed to hie it to get to the movie on time.

The directions in the Boston Globe movie section, which I carried with me, said the theater was at Highway 16 at the Mass Pike. I had located this on my road atlas, which has a not-too-useful map of the Boston area. Up until now, directions such as these had proven more than sufficient to find any theater. I figured it would be a piece of cake: all I had to do was get of the Mass Pike at Highway 16, which was supposedly only a few miles ahead.

A few miles came and went and there was no exit. Finally there was an exit, for Newton, but no mention of Highway 16. By this time it was dark and there was no way I could consult my map while driving (users of GPS devices are by now rolling their eyes). To make matters worse, the Turnpike in the other direction going out of downtown Boston was jammed solid in all lanes and barely moving.

So I got off at the exit and found myself at a jammed up standstill in a tangle of streets, unable to read the street signs at all. There were no signs for Highway 16, and no sign of any theater. Following the only path I could through traffic, I crawled in a line of cars along a winding road towards Newton center,which I knew was the wrong direction, but which I thought my lead me to an obvious landmark. I was wrong. There was just more traffic and more cars. Finally I stopped and tried to consult my map. But with no interior light in the BMW, a weak flashlight, and (worst) no magnifying glass for my 44-year-old eyes, the map was practically useless. So I did the only sane thing. I turned around, and headed back into the tangle by the exit.

Obviously I had gotten off at the wrong exit. So when I got back to the Turnpike, I got back on, heading towards downtown of course, and hoping for a second Newton exit to appear. None did. In a few minutes, exits for other suburbs appeared, ones closer to downtown than Newton.

A few minutes later, the outside of Fenway Park, all lit up for something, was looming along the the road. An advertisement for a gun sales outlet graced the Turnpike side for motorists to view. I knew my goose was cooked. Unprepared, I was headed right into the heart of Beantown in the thick of the evening rush hour. There would be no turning around, unless I wanted to spend a hellish two hours in traffic getting back out. Ready or not, I was driving into the center of the city.

Trying to keep my wits, I bailed off the turnpike at Copley Square, snaking through the underground viaducts and emerging amidst a cluster of tall dark buildings. It was like being back in Manhattan and immediately I summoned the best of my old NYC driving skills to cope with the sudden challenge. All I really wanted to do at this point was pull over and consult my atlas, but there was no place to even idle. Finally I found a spot, but it turned out to be valet parking for a restaurant (should have remembered from New York), a fact I learned while waving off the attendant who started sprinting towards my door. Like it or not, I was going to have to figure out what to do while driving in the dark through downtown.

Somehow while stopped at stoplights, I managed to maneuver the copy of the movie section of the Globe at the right angle to determine that Religulous was also playing that evening at the Loew's Boston Common multiplex, which was listed under Boston proper. The showing was not until 7:50, giving me plenty of time to save the entire evening, so long as I could find it. Then I saw the address: 172 Tremont Street, with no mention of highways or cross street. I knew I'd never find it on my atlas map, especially without my trusty magnifying glass. I contemplated calling my sister at home and having her help me find it, and even dialed her number before deciding it was a stupid idea. I got myself into this, and I'd get myself out.

Then by some miracle, the very next street was Tremont Street, and thanks to the quick turning radius of the Beemer, and a lucky guess, I found myself in the 400 block of Tremont, heading into the lower addresses. Once again the Lady of Fortune had smiled on me on my trip while I groped without a clue of what to do.

As it happened, I learned that streets in Boston are not always straight, but take right angle turns, a fact I learned as Tremont turned into Oak in Chinatown, the one quarter of Boston I knew quite well, from so many trips on the Chinatown Bus Lines when I lived in New York.

I had to backtrack and found Tremont again, but this time it was suddenly one way, going the wrong way. So I shadowed it on a nearby street, hoping the two streets would not diverge. Within minutes, swerving around double-parked cars, I came upon a large open space in the dark. On the other side, through trees, loomed the large well-lit marquee of the Loew's Multiplex. Fumbling almost without trying, I had found Boston Common and the theater. It seemed like a sign that I was meant to see Religulous here tonight.

After navigating around the the Commons, I suddenly became aware of the acute need for parking. I assumed I would need to find a garage or a lot. The first one I found said "12 dollars for up to two hours." Cripes. A second lot had nearly the same price. My heart sank. It didn't seem worth it, to shell out so much---nearly Manhattan Prices. At that point I wrote off the whole idea of seeing the Maher flick. Worst yet, I still had hours to kill before the traffic out of downtown would be thin enough to venture back home. And it was getting bitter cold, dipping below thirty degrees. What the hell was I going to do, unable to even pull my car over to rest, while the beautiful heavenly theater stood so close by?

Then, by yet another miracle, as I crawled down the alley-like confines of West Street just off Tremont, only a block from the theater, I saw an Asian girl climb into her parked car just ahead of me while I waited at a stop light. With the chutzpa of a New York, I pulled over as far as I could and put on my blinker. The girl took her time pulling out, causing the cars behind me to honk. But my thick skin was back. The spot would be mine---and it was.

Once the Beemer was resting my curb I let out a long breath. It was the first time I could relax since leaving the Natick Mall---and somehow I had wound up in the middle of Boston with a free parking space only a block from the theater.

Or was it free? I got out and inspected the sign. Unfortunately it seemed ambiguous. Read one way, it seemed to indicate that it was ok to park there after 7 pm. Read a second way, it seemed to indicate that there was a half hour maximum at any hour day or night. Since it was only six thirty, I hung out in my car until 6:50, just to be sure. During that time, another motorist, a young Asian man, parked in a newly liberated spot behind me, got out and inspected the same sign and seemed to have the same tentative conclusion.

I decided that the Lady of Fortune was on my side, and that it was ok to leave my car there for the evening. It simply had to be so.

I walked to the theater, getting a good glimpse of the well-lit gold dome of the Massachusetts state house nearby, and entered the lobby, which faced out over the dark Commons. The lobby was crammed and swarming with young people, probably college students from Suffolk University and Emerson College, both of which were close by. I bought my ticket, and with nearly an hour to kill, headed back out into the cold to tour the dark Commons and watch the ice skaters circle the Frog Pond to the theme from the Lion King. Somehow I always wind up walking around downtown Boston in the dark. Next time I have to come in the day time.

The Loew's Multiplex was a true marvel of contemporary cinemaplexes, like the kind they built in Times Square. It was three stories. One presented a ticket on the ground floor and mounted escalators to the upper floors, where concession counters awaited the hungry and thirsty. The auditorium was down a separate side halfway. A wall of glass allowed a view out into the darkness of the Commons. It was so, so beautiful. What more could want in a cinema?

I'm not that big of a fan of Maher---in fact he sort of turns me off and don't really watch him, even though I had HBO for several years, and I agree with his politics more often than not. But he is very intolerant on certain issues, in particular one I happen to care about a lot, but which I would rather not mention here right now.

The crowd was sparse, but ample enough for a last-night showing. The movie was very entertaining. I laughed outloud on many occasions, uncontrollably at times, even though many of the interview spots were fairly predictable in their attacks on Christianity. The interview with the Catholic priest in front of the Vatican was perhaps the funniest part.

I was all set to give the movie a full recommendation, when, towards the end of the movie, something about it began to bother me deeply. Maher had spent most of the movie attacking the silly things that Christians believe, all the while proclaiming that he was simply asking questions, being a seeker of truth. Towards the last half hour, he turned his attacks on Islam.

What bothered me was my insight that the theme of the movie could well have been "Everyone is crazy but the Jews." Maher was raised Catholic, but his mother was Jewish, and she had recently died. It was obvious that this had led to a huge blind spot in Maher's religious views. Yes, he had spent some time on a few of the crazy things that some Jews believe (mostly that Orthodox Jews can't light sparks on the Sabbath), but it was very soft criticism compared to the other religions, and very brief. The "craziest" Jew that he presented was a rabbi who believed (gasp) that Zionism was wrong. Unlike the other guests, Maher barely let him speak or make any points without interrupting him. Maher's message here seemed to be "You have to be crazy to believe that God didn't give the Land of Israel to the Jewish people." On top of that, throughout the film, most of the crazy stuff from the Old Testament was presented as stuff that insane Christians believed.

In other words, you're not going to see anything like this youtube video or this one (or any of the others found there under a search of "Israeli Settlers") in any of Maher's movies any time soon.

So yes it was funny, but in the end, Maher's assertion that he was an honest and impartial seeker of truth was, to me, entirely phony. I forgive him for that, but it doesn't mean that I can give the film an unqualified recommendation.

Yet I must say, I did much enjoy the idea of seeing such an irreverent film in the seat of the old Massachusetts Bay Colony, America's original intolerant "Red State."