movies

After experiencing movie theatres in the USSR, where the seats were always made of hard wood and your rear end was numb by the third hour of the movie (they all seemed to last three hours), I am a little suspicious of foreign theatres. But the ones in Jakarta are fabulous. The seats are plushy and comfortable and they're made for people my size (the seats in the US always seem to be designed for people who are 7 feet tall). You can get hot dogs with melted cheese and a generous smear of delicious hot chili paste, and french fries delivered hot to your seat. The seating is assigned, so you don't have to stake out your territory and guard it like a dog.

All this for only $2 to $2.50 a ticket! Except at really fancy malls, where it's more like $5 or $6.

There's censorship here, of course, and that's the downside. We went to see Brokeback Mountain, which I had seen in the States, and I found the editing choices puzzling. They seemed to leave in most or all of the gay scenes, including the first, pivotal one. But they cut out part of a scene between Heath Ledger and his wife. Chad's theory is it's all about protecting women, which seems to make sense. In which case I would say, hey guys, don't cut anything, I can handle it, no problem. I imagine the actress involved would say the same thing. But as so often happens, those who are being protected are not consulted about the terms of their protection.

The photo above is a still from the making of Janji Joni, a movie about the love of movies, by a cool director named Joko Anwar. You can link to his blog on the right side of my page.