“Did you watch America’s Next Top Model last week?”

“Are you kidding? That’s like my favorite show! I only watch like two hours of TV a week, but I always watch Top Model and American Idol.”

My hands clenched into fists and I bit my tongue. Felicity grabbed my arm and shot me a concerned look. I stared straight ahead at the pre-movie ad slideshow and tried to forget how to hear. Nevertheless, the giggle sluts behind us prattled on. But suddenly, from somewhere to my left:

“So I’ve been playing tons of WoW lately. Have you played WoW yet?”

“What’s wow?”

“WoW: World of Warcraft. Man, I never could stand those other MMORPGs like Everquest and Planetside, but WoW is just SO AWESOME! It’s like, I can’t even describe it.”

I grimaced and clenched my fists even harder. Felicity patted my arm and whispered soothing reassurances that the movie would start soon, but it wasn’t helping. The Britney Brigade behind us had launched into an excited discussion of how much they all loved TEXT MESSAGING people on their CELL PHONES, while the Dork Division on our left had moved on to a heartfelt rant about how “the last three Star Wars movies would have been so much better if Peter Jackson had directed them”.

Luckily, the lights dimmed and the trailers began. Not that this stopped the Giggle Gaggle from exclaiming, upon the appearance of Paris Hilton in a trailer for some shitty horror flick, “Ooh ooh we have to see that!” But I held out.

And then the movie started.

Holy shit.

Take away the technical brilliance—the gorgeous lighting, the perfect camera work, the seamless digital sets —and you still have a hell of a movie. The music: so understated, so sublime! The acting: so perfect! Bruce Willis manages not to seem entirely like Bruce Willis, Mickey Rourke almost steals the movie, Clive Owen does steal the movie, Benicio Del Toro just stepped out of a nightmare, and Elijah Wood manages to establish one of the creepiest characters on the screen without ever even changing his facial expression. And the story: it almost seems corny at first, and frankly it is; but that’s not to say it isn’t a masterpiece of riveting excitement and twisted humor.

I’m shivering just thinking about it.

There are movies and then there are movies. On the wonko scale of movie ass-kickitude, Sin City scored a five (“So good I forgot I had to pee.”). Previously, wonko’s scale of movie ass-kickitude only went up to four (“So good I had to pee but watched anyway.”).