A note regarding spoilers

I'll never forget the time when a friend of mine ruined the movie Gladiator for me....

We were all seated around a table late some Friday evening, as we often did to role-play every week, and during a break in the action the discussion turned towards a movie that had come out not too long ago and was quite popular. It was receiving a lot of critical acclaim too, so it was hard to avoid hearing about this movie which, of course, is Gladiator.

At one point my friend turns to me and says, "Have you seen this movie yet?" to which I reply, "No. Not yet. I really want to though." All of my friends at the table let out a collective groan as they figured everyone had seen the movie by now and they continued to give me a hard time/encourage me to go see it as soon as possible.

The conversation about the movie, and all its kickassory, continued despite the fact I just told them I hadn't seen it. I remember sitting there, with a clenched jaw, waiting for someone to spill the beans about some great scene or some unbelievable twist. Fortunately the topic of Gladiator seemed to die down after a bit and we were more pre-occupied with chowing down on some grub.

WARNING!! THE FOLLOWING CONTAINS SPOILERS!! READ AT YOUR OWN DISAPPOINTMENT!!

NO JOKE!! THERE IS A SPOILER EVEN IN THIS NON-REVIEW!!

YOU'VE BEEN WARNED....

As fate would have it, though, one of my friends, who still clearly was watching the movie over again in his head, perked up and said to everyone, "Yeah, it's too bad he dies at the end though!"

There was a brief moment of awkward silence. My friend didn't quite realize what he had done but everyone else did. This time the collective groan was a bit louder but also equally as muffled from the food shoved in our mouths.

"Dude! I just told you I haven't seen it yet!" I cried out. My friend could only sheepishly shrug and offer up an apology.

I'll never forget that.

As it turns out, I ended up watching Gladiator a few weeks later and, despite wondering the whole movie, "When is he gonna get it?", I still thoroughly enjoyed the film. As I recall, it even choked me up and still manages to tug at the ole' heartstrings. In fact, it stands as one of my favorite movies period. That movie singlehandedly made me one of Russell Crowe's biggest fans and I would go on to watch it numerous times since.

The reason I mention this "funny" little anecdote is that spoiling movies for other people just straight up sucks. Whether intentionally or not (and of course my buddy didn't really mean to). BUT, given that this blog is dedicated to discussing and reviewing the latest movie(s) I've watched, it's inevitable that key moments and revealing twists will be exploited.

Until I can become more savvy in the ways of the Blog, I will do my best to denote when spoilers will be coming up, perhaps by stating it in bold print (as used above) or some other more creative way. As long as you understand that they WILL be part of this blog experience. I hate to have movies ruined for me and equally hate doing it for other people so I want to stress the warning as much as I can. Furthermore, for all involved, if comments about movies can somehow contain a warning about including spoilers then that'd be most appreciated. Obviously I can't rightly police that, until after it's been read, but out of respect of all parties involved let us be mindful of spoilers and of the fact that simply not everyone has seen the same movies as you and, in fact, they just might want to see that movie you're about to ruin....

Thank you!