Yesterday I went to Inception at a 1030 night showing with my brothers and a couple of their friends. They were basically going to it on my recommendation, which was "Inception is the awesomest movie I have ever seen. It is so cool. Every human has to see it."
So they went. I was worried that they wouldn't like it because they are used to the idiotic romantic comedy musicals that Bollywood pumps out like clockwork every week. But I will get to their reactions later.
Pratik and I looked in the paper for showtimes for movies. The ad for Inception had critical accolades like US ads often do, but they were things like "3 and a half out of 4 stars!!!!!" (with all of the unnecessary exclamation points) from a real newspaper and "Saw Inception. Really liked it!" from a mysterious figure named Shah Amin Rakat. So already it was a little strange.
The Fame Multiplex has its six screens spread out over the floors of a towering mall. I guess instead of each movie costing the same, they put them on different screens arranged by how popular they will be, and then make each screen cost more or less. So they name their screens. We were in the "French" theater, which is apparently the third best, and the third most expensive. It cost me 130 rupees, which, for reference, is less than three dollars. The multiplex didn't have quite as much seating as the Muller Monster Screen in Lakeville, but the screen was about as large.
Before the film started everyone rose for a clip of bunch of old people singing the Indian National Anthem. I couldn't understand any of the words, of course, but it seemed to be a pretty rousing tune. Then we sat down and watched. The film was dubbed in Hindi and I was exhausted, so the parts where there wasn't awesome dreaming stuff happening I was falling asleep. But I was awake for the awesome parts. It took the Indians a while to understand what was going on, but they got it. Also halfway through the movie there was an intermission. Also whenever an audience members cell phone rang they answered it.
I hate intermissions. I also hate dubbing in any situation. If foreign movies were dubbed in English at like, the Lagoon, I wouldn't go to them. And I HATE people talking on their cell phones in a damn film. I love Pratik and Akshay, but I really wanted to take them to America and explain how to watch a movie.
Of course, this is ignorant of me to say in retrospect. They just do things differently. Nonetheless, I was quite irritated.
All of you who have seen Inception (which had better have been all of you otherwise you are a huge loser) will be pleased to hear that they loved it. They used the phrases "mind-blowing", "superawesome", "the Matrix with more cool", and "they can never make a better movie".
But the point of this is to describe the process of going to a movie in India, so other details - we booked our tickets in advance and had assigned seats. Also the theater was absolutely stuffed. Indians love their movies, even if they aren't Bollywood. Sunday night, according to Pratik's friend Roosil, is the hopping night on the town for India. I don't really understand why it wouldn't be Friday or Saturday. For the most part, weekends are timed the same way there. School and work do start again on Monday. It really doesn't make any sense why Sunday is the party night of the week.
This experience also reminded me that movies are going to be one of the biggest things I will miss. It's time to start making good use of Netflix Watch it Now when I have spare time.
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