Famous People and Dreamgirls

So on Monday we went to see what the ballyhoo was about. Taking advantage of the fact that Mondays are "día del espectador" at the Cine Ideal, we went to see Dreamgirls at the discounted rate of 5.30 euro. In spite of the infelicitously leaden narrative songs that bog the film down in the middle--we are thinking of the one about families and trees, in particular--we are prepared to join the chorus of voices saying that Jennifer Hudson is the bomb. Eddie Murphy was good, and Jamie Foxx did a great job, as ever, this time as the oleaginous agent/promoter.

And we experienced further evidence that Madrid can really feel like a small town sometimes. Just before the movie started, while we were trying to figure out whether we could move out of our assigned seats and into better ones, in came famous Spanish authors Antonio Muñoz Molina and Elvira Lindo, who were there with two unknown amigas. They sat in our row, separated from us by their two friends. When we figured out who they were, we contemplated talking to them, but then we realized that we just don't feel comfortable talking to famous people in movie theaters.

Why? Maybe it has something to do with not wanting to pump up the famous person's ego too much. After all, look what happened to Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. But we also figure that famous people probably want to be left alone. When we sat behind Pedro Almodóvar for Casino Royale (reported in our post on November 25th), we stewed through the commercials and previews before the film thinking about whether or not we should talk to him. We even felt a little jealous of the guy sitting in front of him who shook his hand. But then we have to admit that we were relieved when the movie finally started, thereby making any awkward introductions impossible.

We did more or less the same thing with Muñoz Molina and Elvira Lindo on Monday, even though we did have something we could talk about with them: In November 2002, during one of the long dark semesters of dissertation writing, S drove to the Dulles airport in Washington DC to pick the pair up and bring them to their speaking engagement at the University of Virginia. But surely they don't remember that episode as vividly as we do. We figured that this Monday they probably just wanted to enjoy Dreamgirls in anonymity. And then slip out with their friends as the credits rolled. And probably go out to dinner.

Someday amagomundi will publish big novels and achieve world renown for our artwork, and then 30-something literary critics and art teachers will gaze at the back of our heads in darkened movie theaters wondering if they should talk to us. And when they do come up to us and ask us to sign things, we will probably be thrilled to have our egos pumped up, even while we will feel a little bit annoyed that we can't go out anymore without people bothering us.