Funny – Page 13

The Flea Pit

I went to watch Avatar 3D today at the Odeon in Guildford. Now, initially I planned to talk about the experience of watching a movie here in the UK as a footnote in my review of Avatar, but the footnote grew unwieldy enough to warrant its own blog post. When will my review of Avatar come out, you ask? In due time, buddy, in due time.

photo credit: Secret PilgrimMeanwhile, let me talk about the experience of watching a movie in a UK theatre. Now, as El Wiki so knowledgeably informs me, they call it ‘the flea pit‘ around these parts. Personally, I’ve never heard anyone say so but until such time a [citation needed] is added in that wiki article, I’ll run with this because ‘The Flea Pit’ is an immensely more interesting sound article title. ‘The cinema’ (notice the similarities to ‘the weather’ and ‘the Queen’) , as the indigenous folk call it, is an Odeon multiplex not to far away from university campus. Thus far I had avoided it purely for the reason that I was quite satisfied with DC++. With university closed for Christmas, I reckoned that a movie and some company would be worthwhile. Oh, and the movie was in 3D.

As far as buildings go it’s not very striking. I almost walked right past it without noticing, for it certainly isn’t as big as any multiplex I’ve come across on New Delhi, say, any of the PVR Cinemas multiplexes. But maybe that’s just us Indians who do that. Chetan Bhagat is sure to attribute this to a genetic tendency amongst Punjabis to build massive marble-floored monstrosities and try to pass it off as ‘appealing habitation’.

Given the evidence I had seen earlier for how crazy Brits can be, such as movies which start at ‘17:60‘, I decided to reach half-an-hour before the show just to be on the safe side. Got in queue at the box office to wait my turn to collect tickets I’d booked online. Normally, I prefer to use automated ticket collections kiosks any day – and I would have done so here too – but if you’ve bought a student discount ticket then you need to collect it from a human who’ll verify your student ID.

So I’m chatting with my friend, when a family joins the queue behind me. In tow is a toddler whom daddy decides to hoist on his shoulder a few moments later. What a cherubic child, except that the bastard kept swinging his legs and kicking me in the head while mommy and daddy discussed what movie to watch. Do you have any idea how hard it is to have a conversation when you’re trying to grit your teeth?

photo credit: A Sweet Success (Laura)Thankfully, my turn at the counter came soon enough. Dude With Really Long Hair Who Looked More At Home In A Metal Band perfunctorily checked student IDs and handed out golden tickets. After this point, you are granted the privilege of moving on the one area that every moviegoer hates but has to live with anyway – the food and drinks counters.

Multiplexes know that within the confines of their premises they’ve grabbed you by the nuts. Odeon UK is no different. Highway robbery prices for soft drinks, glasses that are (deliberately?) thin enough to allow liquids to burst apart at the slightest pressure, popcorn that tastes like industrial sawdust…ah, everything just like back home. It’s nice to have a semblance of familiarity, innit, so multiplex chains across the globe put up a united front in the department.

Raring to watch the movie now. At the allotted time you rush into the screen your show is in. First thing I notice when I settle down is, horror of horrors, the seats aren’t reclining! On the bright side, the moron sitting behind you (rule #67 – the person sitting behind you is always a moron) can no longer slide forward and sharply kick the back of your seat.

Seats found – check. Popcorn and drinks secured into holders – check. You’re buzzing with excitement going “Let the show begin…woooo!” Except…for the next forty fucking minutes Odeon ‘entertains’ you with nothing but commercials. Including a chosen few in 3D. (I kid you not.) And here I used to think PVR owners were such pimps to keep showing ads for ten minutes before the actual movie began. I’d rather get herpes than have to endure such torture ever again. I don’t buy overpriced popcorn to munch while finding out the ingredients of Tanqueray, goddamnit.

: Image by coxy via Flickr

To be fair, once the show began things went smoothly. A discussion on how 3D effects worked for Avatar is best left for its own review. However, I would like to mention that Odeon Guildford uses new RealD 3D projection systems. I found the experience to be a significant improvement over the old red-and-blue-window-glasses system as the glasses are much more comfortable to wear for someone who already wears spectacles (like me), could be seen acceptably even without the 3D glasses, and felt that it strained the eyes a lot lesser.

I don’t know whether “the audience was spellbound” by James Cameron’s artful direction, but man are people exceptionally quiet in a movie theatre here! You could, figuratively speaking, hear a pin drop during the show – and that’s saying something because it’s a thickly carpeted hall. I noticed this, because watching Sam Worthington in the movie reminded me of Terminator Salvation, which in turn reminded me of Christian Bale’s ridiculous raspy voice, which in turn set off one of my non-stop laughing fits. This is very noticeable when absolutely no one else is making any kind of noise at all. Here’s the ‘stiff upper lip’ in action – nobody told me to shut up, and instead opted to go home traumatized. Those in the front rows must have wondered though as to why Cameron inserted a laughter track at random parts in the film.

Avatar is a fairly long film – about 160 minutes in length. Add to that the time Odeon whored itself out to show ads and you’ve been in theatre cooped up for more that three hours. One would expect that, as we do in India, a 5-10 minute-long intermission halfway through the movie would be a fair demand, right? Over here, Odeon thinks the answer is a resolute “NO”. What the fuck is wrong with you English folk? Don’t you, ye know, feel the need to empty your bladder once a certain amount of your Pepsi is finished? Get nachos? Popcorn refills? Admittedly, not having an intermission can make for toilet-humourous news article like this but for the love of humanity please don’t be so cruel to moviegoers.

Gotta go now. Nature’s callin’.

2 States – The story of a miserable book

A note to my new readers from UK: This is the first in the long line of posts that you’ll face over the next few years which you’ll probably not ‘get’, because they’ll make more sense to an Indian reader. Do not be disheartened, brave reader. Go discuss the weather with your mates or pay homage to the Queen, and come back a few days later.

If you still want to soldier on, I suggest you find out about people who read “lulz ntn odr dan ncert buks n chetan bahgat novels”.

Chetanblocks lolcat — From chetanblocks.com. Doesn't quite have the right Impact, does it?

If you’ve been living under a rock (read ‘not on Twitter’), then you might have missed the brouhaha over #chetanblocks. Chetan Bhagat was in his period and he went all cranky by blocking people on Twitter. (It started off with a discussion about his books being pirated.) Hilarity ensued as everyone picked up on this made jokes about ‘the new kid on the block’. Chetan Bhagat then wrote a whole blog post split into 140-character sentences and posted it on his Twitter profile. Apparently, he hasn’t heard of his own blog.

Anyway. Moving on to his latest book, 2 States – The Story of My Marriage. I was relieved that being in the UK now would mean that I would no longer have to read his books. Surely Amazon – or any other sensible book retailer – wouldn’t bother to ship his trash this far? Oh bollocks, never mind. I weep for humanity.

So when someone I follow on Twitter mentioned that she had an ebook of his latest book, I couldn’t help pissing off Chetan Bhagat by including him in this piracy-involving conversation to exchange the ebook. Yes, I have a goal in life now – get blocked by Chetan Bhagat on Twitter before I die.

My rating of 2 States by Chetan Bhagat: 0.01 / 10
Publisher: Rupa Underwear & Co
Cost: Priceless Worthless

This book supposedly picks up from where Five Point Someone left. There are nudge-nudge-wink-wink references to ‘being involved with an IIT professor’s daughter’, ‘wearing his shirt’, ‘missing academic records’, ‘disciplinary issues’ and whatnot. Um, so why exactly has the protagonist’s name changed from Hari to Krish? Was the earlier name not superhero-ic enough for Chetan Bhagat, just in case this book got made into a movie? Or does he not read his own books. Surely IIT professors’ daughters getting fucked by people from the institution can’t be that common, bundled with all the shenanigans in the first book.

As I mentioned in my Chetan Bhagat plot generator, any story needs to have a ‘strong’ female character; said biatch being defined as someone who doesn’t cover her face and make chapattis all day. This fact is established in the story by having lead female protagonist Ananya pick up a fight with the hostel caterers at IIM Ahmedabad. And picking up fights at restaurant as to why beer wasn’t on the menu. And eating chicken despite being a ‘Tam Bram, or Tamil Brahmin’. OH NOEZ!!1 In Chetan Bhagat land, she surely must be a succubus.

Chetan’s favourite plot device is ‘tuitions’. How should we make the story progress by making Krish and Ananya hook up? Why, he’ll give her tuitions of course. (Hint – notice any similarities with his previous book?) Initially they are just ‘fraands’ when BAM POOF BOOM they start having sex. HOLY SHITZ!!1 she also wears shorts! In the process, the ones who get the worst of it are pillows. Yes folks, pillows. I’ve lost count of how many times they ‘throw a pillow’ each other. They graduate from IIM-A and get a job in Chennai.

The monotonous part of the book is that it is composed entirely of dialogue between two characters, with filler material from racially stereotypical characters. In the oh-so-many pages leading up to their eventual wedding, we are subjected to Hindu-reading mustachioed South Indian father, marble-loving Punjabi mother, drinking coffee at ‘Barsaat‘, bad South Indian food in Chennai, almost getting arrested by a cop, obnoxiously rude relatives you’d never find in real life (who refer to people in their face as ‘gori Madrasin‘).

How does Krish try to win the approval of Ananya’s family? By giving ‘IIT tuitions’ to her younger brother of course. If only more people in our country gave each tuitions we’d have solved, at the very least, hunger and poverty. We even have the groom Krish catching an autorickshaw and running away in the middle of his wedding while wearing Mickey Mouse underwear visible through a ‘translucent lungi‘. True story. Also, when their kids are born Krish, Ananya and the medial staff are surprised by the fact that she’s given birth to twins. The conclusion that we can draw from this is that India got cellphones even before it had medical ultrasound facilities, made scarier by the fact that an ultrasound was not performed before a C-section. No wonder infant mortality rate is high in India.

John McClane — "Tango team to Alpha - mofos drinking rasam at 11 o' clock"

But here’s the thing – I don’t think the novel refers to enough ‘Indian problems’. Compared to his earlier work, which “reflects the ethos and pathos of an entire generation“ this book is filled with characters whose lives are strangely uneventful. At least at the climax of the book – during the wedding – you’d expect terrorists to hijack the wedding, and then get beaten to death by John McClane (who had been invited by Krish via email), but because McClane would yelp “Yipee-ki-yay motherfucker” when punching the bad guys the ‘Tamil family sensitivities’ Ananya’s family would have been offended and the wedding would have been called off. While at it, Chetan Bhagat should also added a monologues from random characters about the Indian Board exams, the lack of easy access to drinking water in villages, and how unfunny Navjot Singh Sidhu’s jokes are. Just saying. The book should be more realistic.

Bhagat labours metaphor after metaphor and joke after joke throughout the book. “Certificates from top US universities adorned the walls like tiger heads in a hunter’s home.” “…as much fun as wailing babies on a crowded train”. And humour. Don’t get me started on the humour.

“And some water, please,” I said to the waiter.
“Still or sparkling, sir?” the waiter said.
“Whatever you had a bath with this morning,” Krish said.
“Sir?” the waiter said, taken aback, “tap water, sir.”
“Same, get me that,” I said.
“I have told them of course. They don’t agree,” Ananya said…[referring to her parents and getting married to Krish]

See? Out of nowhere BAM POOF BAM joke. It’s almost as if Bhagat paced furiously around his room during the second edit of his manuscript going, “Shit, two pages of dialogue and no joke yet? [wail] HOW will my readers stay focussed and enjoy my novel?!”

Sneak peek: Weapons of mass distraction that Chetan Bhagat plans to use in his next novel, in place of jokes

photo credit: Slow Brook

Considering that his book(s) almost entirely consist of dialogue, I also find it extremely irritating to have him remind us in every line of the dialogue as to who’s saying what a la ‘Krish said’, ‘waiter said’ and so on. But I guess necessary given the juvenile level of most of Bhagat’s Orkutard readership.

I shall now leave and play Portal.