Serves me right, right?
Friday night, Christina and I were walking to the supermarket, when we happened to walk right by a little wooden cart loaded with pirated DVDs. I was just going to have a look while Christina bought Pirates of the Caribbean (apropos, no?). However, this was the beginning of my weekend-long hibernation and I cracked and bought Pirates too, as well as Capote.
I bought these two films for 10 kuai. That’s a little more than a dollar for both. I watched Pirates later Friday night and have to admit it was pretty entertaining. The DVD starts after what I presume is fifteen minutes of movie. I won’t go into details since this film is STILL IN THEATERS and some of you might go and see it, but I can tell you what it was like watching this film. I thought for sure the cameraman had a tripod until someone would get up to go to the bathroom from his row and jostle him, at which point he must have hidden the camera or tried to. He held the camera so stable the whole movie! Except when he would laugh at a funny scene. Or, when he’d cough or eat something or spit or start smoking! Yes, there is smoke wafting in between the camera and the screen at a few points. I asked a Chinese friend if there are smoking theaters in Shanghai and she said absolutely not, so I’m not sure where my cameraman was filming. Apparently it wasn’t a local job. The sound is pretty good once you get used to it, as are the fuzzy characters on screen, again, once you get used to them, they’re almost not on a screen being filmed through a camera. (Don’t spend too much time analyzing that sentence, please.)
I became ashamed of myself when, at a climatic point (in a movie I don’t even really care that much about, I might add) someone stood right in front of the cameraman and he had to put the camera away. I could still hear what was going on, but I could no longer see anything. I actually threw a teeny tiny fit, you know, talking out loud and making “ugh” noises for no one to hear? It was pathetic. Especially when I remembered that I had paid 5 kuai for the opportunity to watch this piece of pirated artistry. Did I think I was going to stomp out to the lady who sold me the DVD and demand a refund? I swear, these are the things that make me think I’ve really suffered a nervous breakdown. What else could possibly explain such incendiary reactions? (The heat, yes.)
Because I know you’re curious, Capote was perfection. I’ve learned a valuable lesson. Don’t purchase a pirated DVD of a movie STILL IN THEATERS. Wait a bit, until it is being mass-produced in a factory in China where a worker will snatch up a copy and sell it to a “street-artist” for a day’s wages. (Oh, don’t worry, my conscience will wake up when the heat dies down, I promise…but that won’t be for another couple of months at the least!)
