Cinema and Toilets

Alright, I am just tooling around Turin stumbling over things to do and here is what I found:

The most amazing film museum ever. Set inside an old building called the Molè with a huge tower on top of it. Suffice it to say, I spent 2 and a half hours messing around in it. Where do I begin? I realize the Mad Hatter would stay start at the beginning and when you come to the end, stop. But that would be too easy. So I will start somewhere in the center, digress as often as possible from the main and end up finishing at the beginning. Ready?

First and foremost, there is in this wonderful museum a picture of Woody Allen doing 'the dusty'. You know the one, trying to take a picture of her and the automatic reflex of the tongue kicks in and out it comes. (Did I mention that I would occasionally switch to the third person - he-he, I almost wrote turd person, what an accent!) If there had been a postcard of this photo, I would have bought them all and sent them to everyone in order to prove that geniuses truly do think alike! :)

So as one roams the floors of this cinemuseum, one finds photographs of a young (hot) Marlon Brando, tons of photos of Marilyn - some special exhibit - and some Sean Connery's around the Highlander days...love that mustache. (His and Hercule Poirot's, any other mustache should be shaved straight away...oh wait, Sam Elliot can definitely keep his.) Going along the outer walls of this place, I of course went top floor first, thinking the bagno was there, which it wasn't, there are thousands of huge old movie posters! From Gone with the Wind to some crazy, totally 70's Italian Star Wars cartoon poster, to Jules et Jim and Citizen Kane - with a Barton Fink to boot. Amazing. Then around the second floor or in between the first and second - are you as disoriented as I am? good. - There is the history of cinema so to speak. Shadow theater, Camera Oscura, various mirrored kaleidoscope like instruments that make moving pictures, to lantern pictures, then to the Thomas Edison picture box that you look into and twist the handle to the side! That one reminded me of this crazy movie by two Polish guys that I saw in film class...talk about surreal.

The center of this building is hollowed out so there is just this incredible high ceiling. ground floor has, in the center, all of these space age looking red lounge chairs that you lay in like you are at the planetarium. There are four movie screens showing various films and the chairs are equipped with amazing speakers. Sort of a planetarium-drive-in-movie-house thingy. I love new words like that.

I think the best part though is that at the edge of all that, at whichever point you should choose to enter, there are various rooms depicting different genres of film. The first one that I entered wasn't that though, it was a replica of a Walton's type living room with that humongous TV that came in the big wooden cabinet...you all know what I am talking about right? Huge, dark wood business with a TV inside? Oh, the TV was showing Cape Canaveral lift-offs...

I backed out of that room and walked over to this giant refrigerator door that had steps going up into it, a huge fake gallon of milk and various fake condiments the size of my limbs and went in. I found myself in the aisle between rows of toilet seats. Modern art, I guessed. Then I noticed the video screen and ERIC IDLE. Ah, the toilet and comedy...they do go hand in hand. There were short clips from The Meaning of Life, Airplane, and Raising Arizona! Awesome. After watching the various shorts, while standing - opposed as I was to sitting on one of the toilets for fear of conditioned responses - I found out that the room was dedicated to the 'Assurdo'. Perfect. Next was the Big Bang room, with leopard printed Louis XIV chairs - not sure what they have to do with destruction - and watched bits of Apocalypse Now, Independence Day, Big Wednesday - there is apparently another theme - water, fire, earth...

I can't remember if it was the sci-fi room or horror but I saw the elephant man and Barbarella (one of my favorites)! Then there was a room dedicated to mirror shots. Thought that was brilliant. I visited the actual toilets on floors one and two and was happy to find Marilyn and Woody as the guideposts for the women's and the men's!

The high point (or low point?) may just have been noting that in the area that was highlighting the importance of cinematography they were using Keanu Reeves' film The Little Buddha. Did anyone see this movie? What sort of point were they making? Probably just there cause Bertolucci directed it...

Oooh, by the way, a couple of juicy tid-bits if you have made it this far you haven't much further to go...

One: The Simpsons, like everything here is dubbed, but for the Simpsons they use regional Italian accents for humor. The policeman is Napolese, the Scottish gardener is Sicilian or Sardinian, etc. It is supposed to be hilarious! Keeping in fashion with the Simpson’s style of course!

Two: I was watching Italian TV and there was this Tampax commercial...picture this, yes put your hands up in the little square like a director would and do it...a group of people in a motor home, going over 4 x 4 type land. Young people, stuff in the RV flying everywhere. Cut to girl going into RV bathroom with tampon. Cut to the tampon and it's qualities of ease, if you get what I mean. Cut to girl exiting RV toilet with grand smile. Cut to the rocky RV bouncing out of sight down the road.

That's all,

Was that enough toilet humor for everyone?

My roommate at the hostel from Spain just bought her favorite movie on DVD...Overboard with Kurt and Goldie. Was there a toilet joke in that?

By Dusty Taylor