waterworks each weeknight at 11 as we turn on the cinematic shower.
True Story: The house my family lived in from the time I was nine years old until high school graduation had an unusual bathroom. I didn't think it was so terribly unusual because I lived with it but whenever friends would come to visit for the first time they would always demand to see the bathroom. They'd heard, you see. The storied feature in question was a sunken shower. You had to step down into it, as if it were an in-ground swimming pool and it was larger than your traditional shower or bathtub. But there were no rounded smooth edges, just tiles. So it wasn't, unfortunately, a comfortable bathtub unless you find sharp flat corners restive for reclining against, in which case… are you an invertebrate?
I suddenly flashed to my parent's old house while watching The Fifth Element recently. In the scene in question, law enforcement of one sort or another (it's hard to keep track in Luc Besson's frenzy-filled futurism) has entered Bruce Willis's building and good ol' Bruce realizes he needs to hide his strange guest, supreme being Leeloo (Milla Jovovich).
Where else? The shower, that most private of places... except maybe in the movies.
read the rest after the jump. (safe for work.)
So in the shower she goes. Maybe while she's there she should work on a new color rinse? What's with those yellow roots?
It looks like Bruce Willis has not de-mildewed that shower in some time.
English is not, apparently, the native tongue of Supreme Beings (patriotic Americans will be so disappointed) and Leeloo is regularly confused by what's happening to her. But this would be confusing for anyone not from this particular futuristic time and overpopulated place. Bruce Willis's shower is not sunken --he shoves her right in with no stepping involved -- but like most of the features of his apartment it moves. In this case it elevates up and out of the way. His bed also disappears into the wall and plastic wraps itself when he's done sleeping.
(If you're reading this from a cramped metropolitan apartment you are jealous of these sci-fi digs. His car flies, too, just to pour salt in the wound.)
After Bruce tricks the police into leaving he goes to retrieve his strange guest who is now soaking wet. Ooops. He forgot about the "auto wash". Milla emerges comically shivering and dripping.
Bruce towels Milla dry (who wouldn't?) and then he makes coffee nervously to keep himself from checking to see if the carpet matches the drapes while she nonchalantly strips down. The whole scene Leeloo keeps repeating "aut•o•wash" with her oddly funny phonetic delivery. Ms Jovovich is playing a Supreme Being and while it might be a stretch to call her a Supreme Actress she sure can sell an improbable character when she wants to (see also her recent work in the otherwise questionable Stone).
Do you wish you had an aut•o•wash moving shower? Are you a fan of The Fifth Element? Did you know that Jovovich married Luc Besson after that movie? Two years later they divorced and two months after that she was married to director Paul W.S. Anderson (Resident Evil and up next: The Three Musketeers). She adapts as quickly as Leeloo!