When boredom hits at the movies

I must start by requesting all sane people not to watch the movie ‘Dil to Bacha hai ji’. I thought Golmaal 3 was insulting to one’s intelligence, but this flick coming from Madhur Bhandarkar is just painful. I land up at a theater after a weird day at work and have to choose between this monstrosity and ‘Dhobighat’ and I chose this because , “Oh, Bhandarkar movie…should be interesting. And Oh! Shruti Hassan….drool! Will be very interesting”. Needless to say I wanted to shoot myself thanks to absolutely banal humour…or that’s what I assumed it was because other people were laughing their heads off. Don’t even get me started on Shazahn Padamsee…..just don’t. I still fail to understand how my parents liked that movie and did not warn me before I went for it. (PS: Also discovered a friend of mine studied with Shruti Hassan in school….but refuses to give me an intro. Typical of you all….humph! Friends it seems…. Tsk tsk!)

Talking about movies, I have this habit of going for at least one movie a week by myself at the theaters. Why by myself? Because quite frankly I have not the time or patience to play personal secretary to everyone’s schedule. Nothing like randomly showing up at a theater, seeing what ticket is available and going for the movie. And once it’s dark, like anyone cares if I came with someone or not. Think about it, you can see what movie you want, no unnecessary interruptions to explain the plot, you can eat whatever flavor popcorn you want, you don’t have to share your popcorn….and the most important – You can actually watch the movie. I fail to see the big hullabaloo people make about me going to a movie by myself. Every now and then, I try to see if I get company, but it ends up being an argument on the lines of ‘I don’t like that actor’, ‘I don’t like that theater’,’ they don’t serve caramel popcorn’,’ I don’t like such movies’…..and if you thought the above excuses were from women only( you sexist cow), you are mistaken….even guys get moody when it comes to watching a movie. It’s simple….Go…see schedule…book tickets….buy refreshments….shut the hell up and watch the movie. But noooo…..this has to be a long winding consensus of what movie, which actor, what sort of popcorn, which theater and all that jazz. No thank you! I’m going lone ranger on this one.

During my painful ordeal of watching the movie mentioned above, there were parts that were in Marathi. I’d have been happy if they had put in subtitles. This sort of got me thinking as to where subtitles would be appropriate or not. I understand why one would have subtitles in perhaps a French movie, or even and English movie considering the fact that many people don’t get a lot of what the Americans say. But the one place I’ve found subtitles very annoying….and please don’t ask me how I’ve come to this juncture….is in porn movies. Irrespective of which language the movie is in….oh and believe me, there are many languages…. Does one really not get it when the actress( being very fair to the fraternity using that word) is screaming’ Oh my God’???? The whole point of subtitles is to understand the plot, so why would some….erm….religious movies have subtitles? (I refer to them as religious movies because somehow people seem to remember God a lot in them) Is the plot really that important that you need to have subtitles? What part of ‘Do me baby’ is tough to understand whether it be Japanese or German? Have you noticed that even in an English movie, if there are subtitles, you still tend to read them although you understand the language perfectly well. The same applies to ‘religious’ movies too, one tends to get caught up in reading the subtitles. Don’t ask me how I came up with this revelation…but I am sure it all ties back to the painful experience of watching ‘Dil to Bacha hai ji’. Perfect case study for the saying ‘An idle mind is a devils workshop….and if it is my mind, it works over time’.