Though we love our visits to the movie theater, it's not convenient for frequent visits and is too expensive. That doesn't mean, though, that no one here gets to see the latest movies. Though there are no Blockbusters or Netflix, there are pirated movies for sale on nearly every street corner, either in wooden display stands or laid out on the sidewalk.
It's important to ask about the quality of the movie and if it's dubbed or subtitled. The very newest movies are always really bad quality, like handheld camcorders in movie theaters where you can hear people coughing or laughing and someone's head covers part of the screen. I think that out of this picture,
Angels & Demons is in that phase. Of similar quality are the combo DVDs that might contain three or four movies. Popular combos are Steven Segal movies, the Harry Potter movies, or other animated children's movies. Though they're really fuzzy and often hard to hear, four movies in one is a pretty good deal.
After a movie's been out for a while, its quality increases to like an award show preview so every once in a while a notice will come up on the screen saying, "For Awards Consideration Purposes Only." These pictures are good quality, but I don't understand how non-English speakers can watch them: the subtitles are always comically bad and often make no sense at all.
The jackpot is when it's a DVD "
con menú" and sometimes they even include the special features and deleted scenes. Most movie salespeople are pretty honest when you ask about the quality, and many even have portable DVD players so that you can preview a movie before you buy (movies always cost C$20, or $1).
The movie sellers also keep big stacks of movies that they'll hand to you to browse through, or they'll hand us things they think we might like. Normally, their guesses are way off and they try to convince us to buy the newest Bratz movie or
Anime Combo 2 en 1 or something like that.
We've seen most of these movies and many volunteers trade movies when they come across a good one ("good" in terms of cinematic value and/or good video quality):
Obviously, we would never condone the purchase or viewing of pirated films. We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.
Read more...
Posts
