Alone at the Movies

I .

So the other day (It was a Friday) I got super bored at work and I looked up a list of movies which were showing in town and I was quite delighted to see that the new sci-fi thriller Looper starring Bruce " He was actually dead the whole time" Willis and Joseph Gordon-Levitt was showing at a theatre near me. So I shut down my 'puter and walked to Gopalan theatre and then bought myself  a huge bowl of caramel popcorn and a large coke and sat down to enjoy the movie. Alone! Watching A Movie Alone!

There was this couple next to me (who spent most of the first half cuddling) and the guy was intrigued enough or impolite enough or saddened enough by my plight  to ask me if I was actually watching the movie alone without anyone accompanying me! I answered in the affirmative and mumbled something about my friends ditching me because they hated me. 

Thing is I don't mind watching movies alone. Even at home I'd rather watch a movie alone or at the most with another person so that I can fully concentrate on watching the movie.Watching a movie with another person also puts some pressure on me of hoping that they'd enjoy the movie as much as I do or  laugh at the parts I find funny in Dumb and Dumber!  I want to watch my movie with minimum distraction!

People consider going to the theatre to watch a movie as a social thing but what usually happens is you actually sit in silence for about 2 hours and watch the movie so I don't see any particularly huge social benefit in watching movies with friends . 

If you go watch a movie alone you are also the master of your own destiny etc etc...you don't have to wait for friends who may or may not turn up on time; The other day a couple of my friends actually landed up at the wrong movie theatre while we waited for them at the one we were supposed to go to. Idiots! I'm looking at you Bena and Makima!  I hate missing the beginning of movies and I also love watching the title sequence shown at the start of the movies . The titles at the beginning of the Leonardo di Caprio movie "Catch Me If You Can" are one of the best I've seen in this regard. (Linky)

Or maybe I'm just a loner.

II .

I still love Dumb and Dumber but of late I've become rather snobbish in my movie watching habits and Hollywood blockbusters such as The Transformers series or GI Joe or The Avengers don't particularly get me excited and due to this I hardly watch movies in theatres since most of the English movies which hit the theatres in India are the blockbusters. 

I prefer my movies to be dialogue/plot driven and even though I am able to enjoy the occasional Michael Bay special effects product placement blockbuster I'd much rather sit down to  an engrossing  Hitchcock/ Fincher/ Scorcese/Coen Brothers/Lynch movie which makes me think about the movie long after it is over.

Looper is a time travel movie directed by Rian Johnson who also directed the excellent modern noir movie Brick and I would definitely recommend both movies to the discerning movie aficionado . Looper is a movie which  follows a story line  similar to the "if you could go back in time would you be able to kill yourself but then wouldn't that be impossible because your younger self would be dead and if you were dead how would you be able to go back in time to kill yourself?" conundrum.

Go watch.

3/III

'1979' and 'Thirty Three' are two of my favourite Smashing Pumpkins songs. I was born in 1979 and I turned 33 yesterday. Apt. Both songs are from their cleverly titled album "Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness".