Yesterday I made a spur-of-the-moment decision to go out with my colleague, Abdullah. He lives by himself and drives to the UAE almost every weekend – and when he doesn’t – he asks if we would like to do something, but my laziness and driving guilt have always engulfed me.
So when we decided to watch Captain Phillips, I felt a positive oddness at the act of booking movie tickets online. Then I remembered why. The last movie I had watched at the cinemas was The Hobbit – Part 1, way back in December last year.
Not only was I stunned, I felt really awful about it.
A year and a half ago, Bookmyshow.com was always one of the frequently visited URLs on the work computer or the phone, people knew to come to me to check on what was playing and what the next change would be. Driven by boredom in Gurgaon, Ankita and I watched almost anything – be it the embarrassment of having to tell people that we survived through ‘We Are Family’ or ‘Bbuddah Hoga Tera Baap’ to being friendly with the caramel popcorn vendors at DT City Centre or MGF Metropolitan – we were cinemophiles extraordinaire.
Captain Phillips is a biopic of cargo ship captain – Richard Phillips, who was taken hostage by Somali pirates in the Indian Ocean during the Maersk Alabama hijacking in 2009. It has a lot of drama and Tom Hanks excels as always, in making the story even more intense – reminding me of Cast Away on instances more than one. Just like the reviews I had heard and read, it was every bit moving.
I’m glad I got out of bed and made the plan – and I have promised myself that the next movie will be very soon – definitely The Hobbit – The Desolation of Smaug on December 13. Or earlier!