Avatar

Yesterday my family and I went to watch Avatar. We went for the 9:15pm show instead of 6:15pm because of some goof up due to lack of listening skills on my sister’s fiancé’s part. I was obviously very excited after hearing rave reviews from everyone I didn’t care which show we went for. I was trying to book tickets for that movie for over a week!

The plan was to have an early dinner at 7:00pm (we were late for that by half an hour no thanks to the guys in my family who took their time to get ready!) and head off for the movie. We decided we’d eat at Little Italy (Karkhana) and watch the movie in Cine Planet. Now, none of us have ever gone to that cinema. And of all the movies to test the cinema on, my Mom decided to choose this one! I figured it couldn’t possibly be THAT bad…I mean, isn’t that a multiplex? We finished off dinner by 8:30pm and zoomed our way to Medchal Highway in search of Cine Planet.

I stepped out of the car and saw the condition of the ‘mall/cinema hall’...Without wanting to sound snooty about the whole thing, the crowd was very… down market. People showed up in their pajamas for the movie which is a crime in itself. The highlight of the evening for me was this ignorant man who walked in wearing a bathrobe! Yes, that’s right, a bathrobe! He strolled in casually with his hands in his candy floss coloured bathrobe (pic here doesn't show it so well) and was waiting for the movie to start. It took a while for it to sink in that the poor man had thought that bathrobe is a long coat!

Now, I’ve been to some pretty crappy cinema halls (courtesy my Mom again) in my time but none like this. I mean, even in shit holes like Anand Cinema hall, where the seats have metal rods sticking out of them and the whole hall stinking of urine, people at least had the decency to not wear their night wear and come! Anand Cinema also, surprisingly, didn’t have the letchers and gawkers that are now a part of every cinema movie experience. My Mom used to insist on the cheaper ticket cinema halls thinking she shouldn’t waste good money on a movie. She didn’t like shelling out Rs.100-200 for a ticket when she can watch the same movie for Rs.30-50. Thankfully that attitude has now changed!

We had to wait for half an hour because the cinema hall geniuses started the earlier show late. Of course I was cribbing about it. Finally a man came and opened the gates at 9:45 pm. We waited for a few seconds for the crowd to thin out, but realized that there’s no man at the door to check the tickets! It was like a stampede! People were taking two to three steps at a time to get to seats they wanted. I doubt some of the regulars even had tickets! I figured perhaps someone will come by later during the movie and check for the tickets. But no! No body came!

I kept chuckling to myself throughout the movie thinking that we could have seen the movie for free. It’s not like anyone would have stopped us!

The movie started and the sound quality was awful! It was almost as if they were whispering! Damn it, I would have gotten better sound quality out of my laptop! So, for the first forty five minutes I was straining my ears and almost learnt the art of lip reading when the Cinema folks decided to turn the A.C. off! Yup, I figured they had to cut corners from somewhere! It’s not like they were charging people for the movie to begin with! So, after that the sound was better. (By better I mean I didn’t have to strain my ears so badly.) The place then became a stinky sauna! Pair that up with uncomfortable seats because it only had the option of making people sit straight. We also had some goons passing cheap comments and whistling in our row. Midway in the movie, my brother and I heard loud snoring from someone a few seats away! We practically ran out of the cinema hall after the movie ended. The movie was okay according to me. The graphics were awesome but the storyline has been done to death! I will definitely remember this movie experience for a long time. I went to watch the ‘greatest’ movie of all time in the crappiest cinema hall!