Going to the Movies

02/20/08

Someone told me it is Academy Award time, so maybe it is worth a comment about going to the movies in Samoa. Samoa has one theatre, The Majik, located in Apia. I consider the theater to be modern. It has two screens, sells popcorn and candy, is air-conditioned, and has first run movies for $2.25 US. I have only seen three movies there. The only one worth remembering is “The Transformers”. Whatever the Academy Award nominees or winners are, I doubt they have been shown for long, if at all, on Samoa’s silver screen. Even though the movies are not memorable, watching the Samoans watch them is.

American movies are filled with “in” stuff designed to generate certain responses from the audience. When your audience “doesn’t get it” or misses the point of the scene altogether, it is time to check your cell phone for missed calls. This may blind the person behind you, but since there are no explosions in the scene, it doesn’t matter anyway. The din of ringing cell phones really isn’t a problem, because it tends to drown out the constant chatter and the crying of babies. You do realize you are in a different place when Will Smith, sobbing, kisses his dying dog that has just saved his life and the audience laughs.