Enlightened Movie Experiences

Have you ever been into a movie hall with very irritating neighbours surrounding you? I’ve been multiple times. The recent two terrible cinema hall experiences, not to confuse with movie experiences were Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi and Slumdog Millionaire.

In the previous one, there were what seemed to me like two gossiping housewives of Indian software type people (like us). I thought all they did was reading articles for various websites and building public perception. Their seating arrangement was like one geek, his wife, other geeks wife and the other geek. Nikunj & I were right in front of the two (phenomenally blessed with gossiping knowledge of the world) ladies. The movie begins, so does their fairly loud commentary. A whole wide world of topics come up in their discussions ranging from Shahrukh Khan’s tailor, his relationship with Aditya Chopra & Co. to new comer Anushka Sharma’s dance teacher. Vinay Pathak’s introducing scene prods one the geek to ask whether Ranveer Shourie was also in the movie, as if both of them signed any movie only if both were offered roles. That leads the enlightened discussion to Konkana Sen Sharma & Ranveer’s marriage!! At one point in time we felt like asking them to close their encyclopaedic discovery channel about Indian cinema, but behavioural limitations prevailed.

The other such experience was when we went for Slumdog Millionaire. The movie shows grim realities of Indian slums from where an un-educated kid goes on to win a “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire” show with his unmistaken fluent English with amazing accent which I never understood where he imbibed from in the movie. Like any other movie that we see, we have many discussions about the pros and cons of the movie. I thought the direction of the movie was very good. Overall the movie was average, Nikunj thinks it was over-rated.at Golden Globes. But for me the fun part was the people behind me, this time two youngsters also having some volume control problem in their sound-boxes. They were thinking aloud, throughout the movie. They tried answering, unsuccessfully of-course, all the possible answers that they can. At one point I felt they expected Anil Kapoor to come out and award them a few prizes. But alas! To their despair and ours too, it didn’t happen and they went on for the entire movie. They had a comment on every angle of the movie. “That’s exactly how it is!”, “Have you seen Dharavi”, “They make kids beg like this only” “What will happen to India where people live like this!!” went on and on. None of the gentlemen looked or sounded like they grasped anything about what was tried to be represented by the movie. Commenting is the easiest thing that any one can do without feeling guilt.

I’m sure all of you would have been disturbed in the hall by a loud cell phone ring, where the receiver receives the call, tries to explain the caller about him being in a movie, which movie, how is it, a bit of the story and then realization dawns and asks to call them back. By the time the call ends, you’ve lost track of the movie plot or missed a hilarious scene. All I have to say to these fantabulous knowledgeable people is – “excuse me sir/madam, there are other people wanting to watch a movie here too! Who have paid for THE MOVIE and not your additional commentaries”.

Well, in hindsight I think if entertainment is the only reason that you go for a movie, it shouldn’t matter whether you get it from the performances of the people in the movie or out of it. :)

Entertainment