Torture in the modern world

Somewhere in a third world country prison, there exists a small, dark, damp room. The prisoners call it "the chair room" and most prisoners cower in fear at the mention of this room. The room is empty save for one chair.

It is said that spending three hours on this chair alone is enough to break any prisoner. It has never failed, and with it, the corrupt government of this third world nation takes pride in being able to break even the most stubborn political opponent.

Among the prisoners, many of which have broken fingers, missing fingernails, and charred body parts, the mere mention of that chair sparks fears and hysteria beyond anything humanly conceivable.

Meanwhile, in Montreal, legions of geeks come in droves to sit on that very same chair model, at the Fantasia Film Festival.

Yes folks, those butt-wrecking knee-killing chairs are back, and after yesterday's double-feature, the discomfort and pain is enough to seriously make me reconsider my attendance to the festival for the next years. If I could record the feeling I get after 2 hours in this chair, and play it back just the second I get near the Admission counter, I'm sure that I wouldn't go see 24 movies, as I am this year. That's right folks. I've beaten my record once again. But why go to so many movies when you're so uncomfortable in those seats?

I seem to recall last year, during the speech of the opening movie, that "new seats had just been received but there wasn't time to put them in place". Those "new seats" look, and feel, exactly the same to me. Newsflash : the old seats weren't defective. They were crappy. And if those seats are new seats, they're equally crappy.

So that's my rant for today. As with every year I will bring you reviews of every movies, but to reflect my frustration with the current seating arrangements, and to help alleviate the responsibility of my unpleasant movie going experience from the movies themselves, every score given to every movie will be accompanied by "THE BUTT FACTOR".

This represents the amount of points I consider the movie lost, not because of content, but because my brain's primary job was to suppress pain, and not concentrate on the movie. So if a movie gets a 6.5/10 with a BUTT FACTOR of 1, then this means I probably would've given the movie a 7.5, given enjoyable watching conditions.

Stay tuned for my reviews of "The Descent" and "Seven Swords" later today.