The Right IP Address

A few years ago, Verena Paravel and J.P. Sniadecki’s Foreign Parts got some critical love and was a must-see film. The documentary’s setting in the Queen’s auto parts lanes besides the New York Metz stadium was also the setting for Ramin Bahrani’s Chop Shop, a film which made it across Canada. However, Foreign Parts has remained foreign and not touched my local Canadian shores theatrically or rental DVD. Currently, Amazon.com streams the film for $2.99 (USD), a few weeks ago that price was $2.35. The website also sells a digital copy of the film for $9.99. But one can only rent or buy this digitial film if they live in the US. The only legal option for me to view Foreign Parts is to buy the film's DVD. Amazon.ca sells a DVD of Foreign Parts in Canada for $29.71 (CAD). Hardly a fair differential to view the same film but people in Canada are used to paying more for everything. Even Canadian oil is cheaper in the United States than in the Canadian spots that extract the crude variety out of the ground.

Often excuses of tariffs, taxes, population and currency disparity is used to explain the price difference. None of these excuses matter when it comes to a digital streaming file which does not have to travel across a physical border. In fact, the price difference feels worse when it comes to streaming a digital file from a remote server which may be located in one common location. For example, iTunes US rents most new releases for $3.99 (USD) while the same film costs $4.99 (CAD) in iTunes Canada. At the current currency rate, USD 3.99 = CAD 4.09. And this ignores the fact that for most of last year, the Canadian dollar was on par or above the American dollar.

Then there are the lack of legal streaming options in Canada compared to the US. Fandor and Hulu don’t stream in Canada while Netflix.com has almost 10,000 more titles than Netflix Canada. SundanceNOW also has more streaming films in the US than in Canada. Licensing rights are blamed for lack of film availability in Canada. But there are many titles that have no distributor or rights holder in Canada. To make matters worse, in a few cases Amazon.com won’t ship a DVD to a Canadian postal code even though there is no place in Canada that sells the DVD. I ran into this problem last year when Film Movement confirmed in an email that they don’t have legal rights to sell The Country Teacher in Canada. As a result, Film Movement and Amazon.com won’t ship a DVD of The Country Teacher to a Canadian postal address.

When seeking reasons for the lack of film title availabilities in Canada, some say it is due to the Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) regulations. But the CRTC can’t be blamed in all cases. Regardless of who is to blame, the fact remains that many films remain unseen.

If one followed the legal path, then one won’t have access to most films. But if a computer has the right IP Address, an American one in this case, then one has access to a world of films. But if a computer has a Canadian IP Address, then one must continue to be frustrated and see the message that the film is not available.

Invisible Cinema

The following words stand out from Anthony Lane's article for the New Yorker:

There’s only one problem with home cinema: it doesn’t exist. The very phrase is an oxymoron. As you pause your film to answer the door or fetch a Coke, the experience ceases to be cinema. Even the act of choosing when to watch means you are no longer at the movies. Choice—preferably an exhaustive menu of it—pretty much defines our status as consumers, and has long been an unquestioned tenet of the capitalist feast, but in fact carte blanche is no way to run a cultural life (or any kind of life, for that matter), and one thing that has nourished the theatrical experience, from the Athens of Aeschylus to the multiplex, is the element of compulsion.
................

As Justine’s mother says of marriage, and as the movie tries to say of mortal life, so we should say of cinema: “Enjoy it while it lasts.”

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His words may be applicable to those who live in New York City but they hold very little relevance outside New York. The truth is that for people living in North American cities aside from New York and to some extent LA or Toronto, home is the only logical option to watch foreign films. There are no choices for people in majority of North American cities to catch Melancholia or even The Turin Horse in their local cinema. I can confidently vouch for the latter because no Bela Tarr film has ever played in my city. As for Melancholia, it might eventually get here but it won't be until the summer of 2012, more than a year after its Cannes premier. Is that considered a valid choice? Not really especially if the film is going to be available officially in Europe via DVD or by digital pay options much earlier than that.

Talking about the pure experience of cinema is not relevant for people whose weekly cinematic choices are Spider Man 1: the 10th remake, Shrek 7, Transformers 5 or Harry Potter, the diaper years. If these are the only theatrical options that I have each week, then I rather not visit a cinema hall.

Thankfully, there are great films being made around the world every year even though access to such films is getting more and more restricted via traditional theatrical means. Even rental DVD is getting hard as local independent DVD stores across Canada are vanishing at a fast rate. Before anyone else blames Netflix, they need to have a look at the dismal selection of films available on Netflix Canada. As for digital/pay-for-view options, they mostly carry the same Hollywood titles that play in every Canadian multiplex. However, the foreign films are out there. The onus is now on each cinephile to look hard to find those precious films lurking in some region free DVD zone or via other digital means.

Here are just a few worthy films from the last few years that I was lucky enough to see via the film festival circuit. For the most part, these films are still invisible to the rest of the world. That is a shame because they demand to be seen:

Manuel di Ribera (2010, Chile, Pablo Carrera/Christopher Murray)

This visually stunning film is a fascinating mix of Lisandro Alonso and Bela Tarr yet is completely original. The lonely journeys of Manuel, conducted with the aid of boats, has touches of Alonso (from both Los Muertos & Liverpool) while the mostly grayish/dark environment and the drunken locals' distrust of Manuel feels similar to Tarr's The Outsider and Satantango. Also, the film brilliantly plays with the concept of reality by having two almost similar scenes of an event incorporated into the film -- one real and one imagined. The audience is left to figure out what the reality is.

The Intern (2010, Argentina, Clara Picasso)

Clara Picasso's sublime film cleverly uses a Buenos Aires hotel setting as a springboard to examine wider issues, such as male-female power games and the thin boundary that exists between private and public life. Not a single minute is wasted in the film's brisk 64 minutes. Almost at each 20 minute segment, the viewer has to track back to the previous segment to get a clue as to mystery or relationship tussle taking place on screen. The end result is an engaging film.

R (2010, Denmark, Tobias Lindholm/Michael Noer)

The tag 'dark film' is easily thrown around but in the case of R, the tag is entirely justified. The film makes the wonderful Un prophète look like a feel good happy film. Besides being completely savage, R is intelligent and that is demonstrated by a clever perspective shift two-thirds into the film which shows the similar hierarchies of two rival gangs.

Hunting & Zn (2010, Holland, Sander Burger)

This powerful Dutch film shows how a complicated relationship can be strained when lies and a pregnancy enters the equation. Like Maren Ade's brilliant Everyone Else, this film is bold enough to look at the nasty side that exists in all relationships and thereby causes the audience to get deeply involved with the film. As a warning, pregnant women or couples expecting a child might want to brace themselves for an emotionally challenging film.

Breathless (2009, South Korea, Yang Ik-June)

This debut feature by Yang Ik-June packs quite a punch and as per the title leaves one breathless. There are many movies which claim to be anti-violence but instead end up glorifying violence because the consequences of violence is never fully explored. On the other hand, Breathless clearly depicts the danger of a violent life, whether that life is in a household or in a gang. There is a consequence to every violent action and Yang Ik-June’s film has a purpose for every scene of violence and abuse.

The Happiest Girl in the World (2009, Romania co-production, Radu Jude)

Winning a free car is supposed to usher in new freedom for Delia Fratila. All she has to do is act in a 35 second car commercial and drive away with her new car. But things don’t turn out to be that simple. Her parents want to exchange the car for money to finance a better future and the commercial shoot turns out to be an artistic and physical challenge. Funny and engaging. Another vintage film from Romania.

Katalin Varga (2009, Romania co-production, Peter Strickland)

Devastating cinema! After Katalin is kicked out of her home along with her son, she undertakes a journey. The music points to a dark past and even a darker future. Indeed, there is some darkness for Katalin Varga is a revenge tale. But it is unlike any other revenge movie. In fact, it carves out its own rules for vengeance. That means no dramatic dialogues but instead we are treated to beautiful images and haunting music which conveys the hovering tension in the air.

Call If You Need Me (2009, Malaysia, James Lee)

A visually sharp film that combines the sensibilities of diverse film-makers such as Hou Hsiao-Hsien, Pen-Ek Ratanaruang and Quentin Tarantino while still retaining a unique Malaysian flavour. Hou Hsiao-Hsien elevated a gangster film to an art form with Goodbye South Goodbye and James Lee does a very job in carrying on that tradition. Call if you Need me is about gangsters and kidnappings but there isn’t a single gun or drop of blood to be found on screen. All the violence is kept out of the frame and we are instead shown events that precede or succeed a violent act. The lack of violence allows audience to focus on the characters and their day to day lives, including their love interests and their choice of food and drugs.

Rough Cut (2008, Korea, Hun Jang)

Rough Cut has taken some aspects of the extraordinary Korean film Dirty Carnival and gone in a different direction with good effect. Dirty Carnival showed how gangsters complained about movies not having authentic fight scenes and in order to correct things, a local gangster (Byeong-du) helped his old college friend (Min-ho) to make an authentic gangster film by giving pointers to the actors and fight instructors. In Rough Cut, a once popular action star asks a local gangster to play a villain in his movies so that the actor can save his career. The gangster, who always dreamed of being an actor himself, agrees provided that all the fight scenes in the film are real and not staged. The end result is a no holds barred on screen contest where even the film’s director has no idea if the end result would hold true to his original script.

Wonderful Town (2007, Thailand, Aditya Assarat)

Wonderful Town is a tender love story between a Bangkok architect Ton, who comes to the southern Thai town Pakua Pak to work on a new beach resort, and Na, the owner of the hotel that Ton stays in. Everything in the film exists in harmony, be it the haunted house, the construction of the new resort, the empty hotel, the isolated beach or even a road-side garage. The town is empty, almost a ghost town, where everyone knows each other. Yet this loneliness never feels oppressive but just a natural cycle of life.

Kill the Referee (2009, Belgium, Y.Hinant/E.Cardot/L.Delphine)

This Belgium soccer documentary does not have any narration or title cards to guide the audience but instead dives right into the action. Like the Zidane film, this documentary gives a completely different perspective to what one experiences when watching a soccer game. One gets to see the game from an on-field angle, but instead of a player's point of view, we see the game from a referee's angle.

This film is essential viewing for anyone who has ever seen a soccer game. And since the film is artistically shot and edited, it offers non-soccer fans plenty to chew on as well. The games shown in the film are from Euro 2008 and if a person is familiar with some of the players, then that enhances the experience. This film does an excellent job in showing us the human side of the refs and also some of the egos that operate in the game.

Steam of Life (2010, Finland, Joonas Berghäll/Mika Hotakainen)

A beautifully shot contemplative film that places the viewer in an awkward position of a voyeur observing Finnish men pour their heart out while sitting in a variety of saunas. The film remarkably shows that any enclosed space can be transformed into a sauna, even a phone booth, and the calming effect of the steam is essential to allow men to tackle life's daily burdens.

Woman without a Piano (2009, Spain, Javier Rebollo)

A sublime film that uses a low key treatment in depicting a single night's events. The camera quietly follows Carmen around and the events that unfold around her are hilarious and sad at the same time. The film is set in Madrid and in some alleys we see situations which Pedro Almovodar uses in his films but Woman without a Piano is an art film through and through, with a pinch of comedy.

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Note: I have mentioned these films previously but I still get puzzled looks when I talk about these films to people. Since I have no power over these film's distribution, all I can do is repeat my words.

Healthy Cinematic Nourishment

David Bordwell has written a perfect response in defense of slow & nourishing cinema. Bordwell's entire article is an essential read but the final line in this paragraph is a fact that most film critics and film magazines regularly ignore:

Still, Kois’ complaint touches on something important about film history. We have a polarized film culture: fast, aggressive cinema for the mass market and slow, more austere cinema for festivals and arthouses. That’s not to say that every foreign film is the seven-and-a-half hour Sátántangó, only that demanding works like Tarr’s find their homes in museums, cinematheques, and other specialized venues. Interestingly for Kois’ case, many of the most valuable movies in this vein don’t get any commercial distribution. The major works of Hou, Tarr, and others didn’t play the US theatre market. Sátántangó is just coming out on DVD here, nearly twenty years after its original appearance. Most of us can’t get access to the most vitamin-rich cultural vegetables, and they’re in no danger of overrunning our diet.

In New York on any given night a film lover has atleast half a dozen worthy healthy cinematic options but the average cinephile living outside of New York has limited access to seeing rich cinema in theaters. So it is not a surprize that a put down of slow cinema would originate in a New York publication. The rest of North America, including Canada, has mostly cinematic junk food options.

The foreign film theatrical & DVD rental options in Calgary have gotten worse in 2011 when compared to 2007-08. The city still has three art house cinemas but the selections are not as diverse as a few years ago. The three cinemas have to regularly program Hollywood fare as the foreign distribution of films in Canada appears to have slowed down, especially outside of Toronto. On top of that, Calgary now only has one DVD store (Casablanca Video) where one can rent foreign/indie films. A few years ago, there were 3 excellent DVD stores (Video & Sound, Bird Dog Video and Casablanca) which carried the newest foreign films from around the world. Also, VHQ (owned by Movie Gallery) carried some foreign films titles as did Blockbuster & Rogers Video. However, all VHQ stores shut down as of last year and a handful of Blockbuster & Rogers Video stores have closed as well. Elsewhere in Canada, things are not that optimistic for DVD rentals either. In Edmonton, Sneak Preview closed up shop after nearly 30 years in business and Vancouver's Videomatica also announced plans to close up at the end of summer. Videomatica is still one of the best DVD stores in Canada and their DVD mail rental service is exceptional (majority of my film spotlights from my 2007-08 were possibly only because of Videomatica). Plus, zip.ca's foreign DVD rental selection has drastically gone down in the last few months leading one to question how long they will be able to hold on.

However, there is no shortage of Hollywood films in any Canadian or American city. If one wanted to gorge on the latest robot transformation exercise, then one can stumble into a multiplex near one's residence. If the off chance that someone missed the theatrical release of this Hollywood film, then the DVD, special edition Blu-Ray, special special director's cut with more noise edition DVD/Blu-Ray combo of the film will be available in every big chain grocery story in every city. Basically, one can never be short of junk food. And one cannot go too long before someone defends the virtues of cinematic junk, both here in North America and in India as well. Last week's tragic news of Mani Kaul's passing brought out plenty of remarks from a few Indians who said Kaul's films were difficult to follow. In fact, the late Manmohan Desai, famous for his Bollywood action/revenge films with Amitabh Bachchan, once remarked that it was harder to make "masala films" (popular commercial films) but anyone cold make an art film like Mani Kaul's debut feature Uski Roti. A variation of those words were repeated online last week when some people defended the junk of Bollywood over Indian art cinema.

Too much junk food is not good for the human body. Neither is too much cinematic junk. But of course, the argument is that one person's junk is another person's sophisticated taste.

Slow cinema in two takes in everyday life

1) Man Shaving his face

No matter how many blades get added to a razor, shaving is an activity that cannot be done in an instant. Certain portions of a man's face (especially around the chin) require one to slow down and carefully shave lest one cut oneself. Shaving is also a boring task. I am sure no man wakes up every morning and looks forward to shaving his face. Yet, it is also an essential task. Some people do get tired of shaving and grow a beard or variations of a beard to avoid cutting their facial hair. However, the men that shave everyday are heroes in their own slow cinema.

2) Ultrasound

Every parent will talk of the thrill in watching their baby's ultrasound video. The images are not the clearest nor is there any sound but the black and white grainy video is one of the most riveting set of images that a parent can see. In fact, parents will be patient and watch carefully for the slightest movement of the baby. Sometimes, the baby moves and sometimes he/she does not. An ultrasound video might offer much slower images than any of Hou Hsiao-Hsien's or Béla Tarr's films but no parent will ever describe their baby's ultrasound in the following manner:

"It was boring. Too slow. There was not enough action. The baby just sat there not doing anything."

Emotional interest --> visual cues

So why are ultrasound videos so enchanting for parents? Because the parents have an emotional stake in the ultrasound video. They are emotionally hooked and they will automatically adjust their eyes to look only at the baby and nowhere else. They do not need any cues to help them through the video. The same can apply for cinema as well. If cinema viewers have an emotional interest in the film, they will be able to adjust their eyes automatically to pick up objects of interest. By default, most audience have no emotional interest in robots or ogres but Hollywood assists film viewers by tacking on an emotional layer to their stories. Hollywood wants audience to care for a CGI generated image so dialogues are carefully written to incite support and even some humor is added to give personality to non-humans. Bollywood is another example of cinema overloaded with emotional manipulation. On the other hand, art cinema does not generate artificial emotion so that can leave some viewers lost and they would have no idea where to look.

When tourists walk out on a foreign street for the first time, some have a map and check for directions while some just follow any path in front of them. Cinema can be tackled in the same manner, either with a map or a complete dive into the unknown. Some effort is required on behalf of the cinematic tourist but the rewards are worth it. The problem is access to foreign cinematic roads is getting limited each year and maybe in the future (say next year), the only way to access rich foreign cinematic paths might be through hidden underground portals, lurking underneath some treasure bay.

Invisible cinema

It is so common to hear complaints that a given cinema year is dull. Yet, a person lazily applies the dull tag by only looking at a handful of movies playing in a cinema near them. If a person is not lucky enough to live in New York, Toronto (to some extent) or a select city, then chances are they will only have access to Hollywood films in their local cinema. Last year, I went to Cardiff and naively hoped that I would get a chance to see some British or European films in local theaters. Yet, every single theater was playing the same Hollywood movie hogging the theaters back home in Canada. In brief travels around the world in the last few years, I have found the same Hollywood films playing in Paris, Barcelona, Madrid, London, Delhi, Mumbai, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore and Bangkok at the same time. There was a slight difference in Paris & Spain in that a given Hollywood film was dubbed in French and Spanish respectively but the same product existed in all these places. The pattern seems to be that as more multiplexes are built around the world, only Hollywood films can provide enough prints to book up all the screens. Some countries such as India, South Korea, Brazil, France and Japan are able to hold their own against Hollywood but even in these countries, it is the commercial titles that occupy the multiplex screen. In Delhi and Mumbai, Bollywood rules the multiplex while an Independent Indian film (yes, shockingly there is such a thing) struggles to get screen time. Same goes in America where indie cinema has a tough job edging out the muscular Hollywood machine.

There is clearly a horrible imbalance in the ratio of Hollywood vs indie films on theater screens not only across North America but around the world. Yet with the exception of a few film blogs, one rarely finds mention of this imbalance. So A.O. Scott’s new article is more than welcome:

And the Oscars reinforce this, frequently ignoring accessible and entertaining movies from other countries and settling on a frequently random-seeming list of finalists.

Scott tackles this variance by using the foreign film category in the Oscars as an example. The foreign film category begs to be expanded as many great films from around the world need more attention. Also, he questions the one film rule per country which really needs to be removed in this day and age of co-productions:

For some reason, the Academy insists on a one-film-per-country rule, which places a large part of the decision-making process in the hands of film industries at least as corrupt and agenda-driven as our own. Why should “Of Gods and Men” have been France’s only shot? And what determines the nationality of a film in any case? Why is Rachid Bouchareb’s “Outside the Law” an Algerian rather than a French film, given that its director is a French citizen and that it was made with mostly French financing and therefore within that country’s extensive legal statutes governing cinematic production? And what makes "Biutiful," shot in Barcelona with a Spanish cast, a Mexican film?

Another example that comes to mind is who between Germany and Austria can claim the brilliant film The Robber as their own? There is clearly a lot of lobbying and discussion that goes on in each nation as to which film should be submitted as a sole representative. For example, every year the question in India does not seem to be which is the best film of the year but rather which film has the best shot to get nominated for an Oscar. This question has certainly gained prominence in the last decade ever since Lagaan got a surprize nomination.

While there is a shortage of foreign/indie films at local theaters, it is not all doom and gloom. Thankfully, some of this great world cinema can be found via film festivals, DVDs and online. Scott highlights this as well:

Their work is almost invisible here, though it commands a fair amount of attention in the flourishing and contentious cinephile wing of the blogosphere. But it is nonetheless available to anyone with the curiosity and patience to navigate the new, fast-evolving cosmos of V.O.D. and streaming Web video.

I like to believe that theater owners will book a non Hollywood film if the movie will make them money. An award and a nomination for a foreign film will certainly go a long way in helping theater owners make that decision, as will a film’s success at various international film festivals. Also, if a foreign film is a box-office hit in its native country, then that will also increase the film’s chances of getting some screens in a North American multiplex. Yet, such awards and box-office success only greets just a few out of the thousands of foreign films that get made every year.

We are supposed to be living in an open world of limited boundaries yet theaters in North America appear to be firmly closed to the world. There is a line in Saul Bellow’s novel The Dean’s December along the lines of "For God’s Sake, open the universe a little more!". So taking that line as an inspiration:

For God’s Sake, open your theater doors a little more and let in the world.

and...a nudge towards film programmers:

If you book it, people will come.

They may not come in droves at first but a few will appear to see what this Carlos movie is all about. Then slowly others will follow. But the average person has much better taste than what film producers and distributors like to think.

Abundant Limited Choices

Sometime in the future....

“What movie do you want to go see?”

“I don’t know. What’s playing?”

“Transformers VI 3D, Shrek 6 3D, Spider Man 5 3D”.

“That’s it?”

“Yup. That’s it. Every multiplex in the city is only playing these three movies”

“Hmm. What do the critics say about these films?”

“What do you mean by critics?”

“You know, those people who review a film and sometimes give a rating.  Their reviews are printed in the friday newspapers”

“Oh..You don’t remember, do you?”

“huh?”

“Well..I don’t know where to start. You see, there are no more newspapers and so there are no more film critics.”

“What!! When did this happen?”

“When was the last time you saw a movie or read a newspaper?”

“Oh, I guess it has been a long time now...”

“There have been no newspapers printed in this city for almost a year now and the same is true for all North American cities. Most film critics were laid off two years ago and there have been no film reviews of any film anywhere in North America, atleast not officially.”

“what does officially mean?”

“After the North American film critics were laid off, most of them quickly went off to Europe where they have had a thriving career because films are still appreciated in Europe. The few critics that remained started some underground web sites where they wrote critical analysis of films.”

“Why underground web sites?”

“The thing is most Hollywood studios did not want people to review or judge their films. A few years ago, Hollywood decided to rebrand their films as an entertainment experience and thus were not happy when people wrote negative comments about their films. Hollywood decided audiences should sit in their seats, put on their 3D goggles and just consume whatever they put on screen, be it talking animals or green alien creatures. In order to prevent any chatter about their films, they got the governments (both Canada and the US) to prevent any mention of their films on the internet. The newspapers were already in trouble, so it was easy to get the newspapers to remove the film critics.  And then, the biggest coup for Hollywood was to ban all non-Hollywood films from entering North American shores.  This was the real clincher.  Once Hollywood prevented films from outside North America (such as Europe, Asia, Latin America) to ever be shown in any Canadian or American cinema hall, it became easy to control things.  The independent/art house theaters quickly went out of business because they didn’t have any foreign films to show and they could not afford the expensive 3D Hollywood films and then only the multiplexes were left who took whatever film Hollywood provided without question.”

“I don’t remember any of this.”

“In a way, I should not be surprized. You got so busy in your life that you stopped watching any films and no matter how much I tried, you never had time. Eventually, I stopped talking to you about films as I had given up on you ever watching a film again.”

“I am sorry. I never thought this could happen.”

“It’s okay. Even if you had watched the foreign films, this was going to happen anyway.”

“So what now? What films do you watch?”

“I don’t watch too many Hollywood films. There are still a few talented directors working in the Hollywood system who make intelligent and artistic films and I try to catch their works but I have to be on my toes as their films are only shown for a few days before the multiplexes are cleared for the next Transformers or Avatar 3D film.”

“I did see that film, Avatar.”

“Yeah, the 4th film in the series is coming out next week.”

“I only remember seeing the first one. I didn’t know there were more than one”

“You did live under a rock then.  The second and third films were almost mandatory viewings.”

“How were they mandatory?”

“Every night on TV, they kept announcing that this is the MUST SEE movie of the century and every human being on the planet must see the film. The ads and announcements worked in a way as lot of people saw the movie.”

“Did you see the movies?”

“I saw the first and second one and that was too much for me.”

“So what other films do you see?”

“Oh I try to go to Europe or Asia 1-2 times a year and get my films from there. Europe and Asia still have film festivals so it is possible to catch some great films there. And then, sometimes if I am feeling brave, I smuggle some foreign films home.”

“Smuggle?”

“Oh yeah. Officially, we are not allowed to bring any films into North America. And if one is caught with a foreign language film, they are then sent to a “cinema rehabilitation camp” for a week.”

“I thought you were going to say jail or something.”

“No, jail would be considered getting off easy. The  “cinema rehabilitation camp” ensures that a person’s brain will be purged of any non-Hollywood film images and that one would not want to watch any foreign films ever.”

“Do you know what goes on in a “cinema rehabilitation camp”?”

“I have only heard rumours. Apparently they chain you in a seat and pry your eyes open and force you to watch 8-10 hours of 3D Hollywood films in a day, and then repeat that for a total of 7 days.”

“Are you serious?”

Silence.

Finally, a burst of laughter.

“No I am not serious. We live in a democracy after all and are free to make our choices.”

A sigh of relief.

“Good. So you been making all this up?”

“Well only the “cinema rehabilitation camp” part. We can bring in any foreign DVDs we want. But the rest is true, we can’t watch any non-Hollywood films in a North American theater and there are no newspapers or critics.”

“Oh.”

“Cheer up. We can stay home and watch this great film from Malaysia that I bought last year.”

“Oh. Wow. That sounds great.”

“I am just glad you finally want to watch a film.”

“I can’t wait...”

“Good. And if you like that, then I have some films from Romania, France, India, Thailand that you have to see as well.”