Metropolis and the Tea Party

As a kid, tenth birthdays meant something special in our family- a real sign that you were growing up.  One of our parents would take us out for our own private date night, complete with fancy meal and whatever fun thing you wanted to do.  For reasons obscured to me today, I was dead set on dinner at Italian Gardens in downtown KC (a local spot- the national chain didn't exist yet), followed by watching Metropolis at the Fine Arts theater on Johnson drive.

New Release Poster

Fast forward 26 years later, and I learn Metropolis is showing at the Tivoli with almost 30 additional minutes of lost footage that was found in Buenos Aires in 2008.  And, it is two weeks from my birthday!  Mom and I quickly connect for the re-do:  my tenth birthday landed square in the middle of a nasty flu.  Twenty-six years earlier, I was determined to eat Italian Gardens and see that movie regardless.  I had a respectable 1/4 - slice of lasagna, but my Metropolis viewing consisted largely of puking up the lasagna in a ravaging dizzy spell right after the opening scenes and leaving the theater about 15 minutes later.

Italian Gardens is no more, but Cafe Trio is some excellent eats in town today.  I was feeling great with 6oz of filet mignon digesting away when my wife, Mom, and I sat down to finally see Metropolis all the way through.  Far be it my intent to trample on the thousands of quality hipster college papers that have already analysed this movie over the decades, but I can't let the opportunity pass:  Metropolis is the Tea Party allegory for 2010.  The movie is all over the place anyway, so why not give a modern argument a chance?

This doesn't take long:  Average hard working peeps lose it at the hands of a pseudo industrial-state complex, rallying to break all the "machines" and mistakenly almost kill all their kids in the unintended consequences of their rush-to-judgment.  A few smart folks try to tell them that they actually need the machines to survive, but the mob can't do much with this:  they've already gone off half-cocked trying to burn the wrong person at the stake--literally.

Take from it what you will, but I could stand a few million more American's viewing this movie as we enter the midterms.