Stardust

We were at Blockbuster a couple of weeks ago, renting movies and causing ruckus like only we can. Tarik and I were looking at and commenting on a bunch of movies as we walked past. Manny was quiet for the most part, looking at the movies and rolling his eyes every time I saw a movie about gay people and tried to hand it to him. I picked out Eastern Promises because I heard that it was a good movie (and it was good, although I did not hear about the gratuitous Viggo Mortensen nut shots, although I assume Manny has) and Tarik picked out The Brothers Solomon and a bunch of other movies I don't remember. Manny had not picked out anything except for the Halloween remake, which he had already seen.

We get to the end of the New Releases section that snakes around the store, when Manny taps on a box and says "Ooh, Stardust! This is a good movie!" I have never heard of this movie, but I judge things by their cover. And this was the cover.



It might be a good movie, who knows, but sorry, I don't trust any movie that bills Claire Danes and Michelle Pfeiffer over Robert DeNiro, who's gamely sporting a "So I get paid every two weeks on Friday, right?" look on his face.



We stopped by the video games section to see if there was anything good out (Manny, of course, sidesteps XBox 360 Game of the Year contenders like BioShock or Medal of Honor to look at The Golden Compass) and then headed over to pay for the movies (Manny went to the magazine section and of course, sidestepped issues of Rolling Stone or Maxim to look at the latest Star Wars magazine). When we got to the register, Manny had rejoined us, and I immediately zeroed in on the lady cashier and asked "Hey, have you ever heard of Stardust? Is that any good?" She gave me a weird look and said "No." So I said "Stardust is my friend's favorite movie" and I pointed at Manny, and she laughed. Manny immediately got this look on his face and said "Do you guys REALLY have to make fun of me in public?" The answer, of course, is yes.

Suddenly, a dashing knight, the other Blockbuster cashier, swooped in and came to Manny's rescue. He said something along the lines of "Hey, you like Stardust too?" and immediately started talking about scenes or whatever. Even I was confused, because I asked "What are you talking about?" and Tarik laughed and said "You're the one who brought up Stardust, and you don't know what they're talking about?" It was a mild Manny moment for me, but I couldn't believe that another person had seen that movie. Not only that, he was going onto the history of Stardust, about how Robert DeNiro took that role because he turned down Pirates of the Caribbean or Harry Potter or one of those movies.

Long story short, the evil Jason tried to make fun of Manny for watching Stardust, but the valiant and daring Blockbuster clerk came in to save the day. And they all lived happily ever after.