Saturday Night at Market Chess Cinemas

I was working for a firm in Milan, Italy, in the summer of 2004. During my time there, I recall plenty of experiences and people, including an Italian office mate who would sing Bruce Springsteen songs in broken English all day because me being American reminded him of Bruce. 

However, another memory was going on a date with a young Italian lady from the office. If you have been to Italy, then you likely know that Italian women have a reputation in Europe for being extremely conservative and basically the opposite of promiscuous. In fact, when I had previously been to Italy in my early-20s, I had quite a few male friends who would be considered experienced "gentlemen of the evening," or players. They certainly did well with the American girls in Italy. But the Italian girls were rarely seen out at night, and they were most definitely not getting drunk with Americans. 

Thus, my date with the lovely young lady from the firm stands out, as well as for the fact that we eventually made our way to see a movie together right off Piazza del Duomo, after going for apertivo (happy hour) first.

On a personal level for me, the film we saw was dubbed in Italian, with no subtitles. And I can still recall the immense pride I took in not needing any subtitles to comprehend every sentence of the film uttered. 

The film was Out of Time (2003), directed by Carl Franklin and featuring Denzel Washington. Denzel is, well, Denzel Washington, and he does a solid job with a crime thriller with plenty of neo-noir aspects to it.  And Franklin had made several films in his career I found to be of high quality. This one is an entertaining and under-watched Denzel Washington film, and is worthy of a viewing. 

via YouTube:

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