I first went down to Brisbane sometime in 1996 as part of my Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) research project. (At that time, I was a PhD student at James Cook University in Townsville, North Queensland.) Brisbane is of course the vibrant capital city of Queensland State in Australia. Two photos are provided to provide the city’s recent infrastructure context (Figure 1 and Figure 2)

 

 

 

 

On that particular day, I felt very tired after working in the library and wanted badly to unwind and relax my mind. As a result, I decided to watch a movie at a theater along Queen Street (Figure 3), which is Brisbane’s main thoroughfare. Queen Street is named after Queen Victoria, a former monarch of the United Kingdom.

 

 

Given its favorable review in the magazines, I decided to watch the film titled Dead Man Walking, a 1995 American crime drama film. I knew that Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn, as a nun and as a prison convicted murderer, played the lead roles, respectively. Tim Robbins directed this film.

Without much thinking, I simply went to the ticket booth and told the teller casually that I would watch the film Dead Man Walking. Synopsis of this movie (rating was 7.5/10) may be accessed through https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112818/. Maybe, I did not say the movie title properly given my Asian accent, perhaps the teller was only half listening, or both. Upon purchasing my ticket, I went inside the theatre and sat lazily while munching my popcorn and drinking my root beer.

However, I was amazed when the film started with a train traveling in a sort of desert. It was also in monochrome (black and white), which was rather unusual for a modern American film. Moreover, neither Susan Sarandon nor Sean Penn could be seen. I suddenly felt that there was something wrong but could not figure out what it exactly was. When the movie’s title appeared, I was horrified, partially spilling portions of my popcorn and drink in the process (Figure 4).

 

 

Why?
Because I was instead watching the wrong film titled Dead Man starring Johnny Depp! Dead Man was also another 1995 American film but instead of a crime drama, this one was more of a western genre written and directed by Jim Jarmusch. A summary of the film (rating was 7.7/10) may be viewed at https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112817/. Its director dubbed it as a “Psychedelic Western”.

Figure 5 and Figure 6 show the two movies’ comparative posters. The first two words of the titles of both movies are identical. Only the word ‘walking’ was added to the Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn movie. Hence, a confusion is very likely for an unwary movie goer. Lesson learned for movie goers: pay particular attention to the exact title!

 

 

 

 

Since I can no longer refund my ticket, I just stayed and watched the Dead Man movie. It was actually good. In fact, the reviewers rated it higher than Dead Man Walking.

Copyright © 2019 Michael D Pido