Category: Movies

Today I received two phone calls in regard to my complaint about the StarWars incident I had last week. The first call was from Alan Hall, the General Manager of KNCC. He apologized about the incident and told me they would investigate it. When I asked him if they had received any other complaints he told me no they hadn’t but that they also generally never receive any feedback from anyone, good or bad. He then told me they would contact me again soon.

Around 5 minutes ago I received a call from another guy, he again apologized for the incident and gave me his number and told me the next time I go to the movies to give him a call 1 hour ahead so I can get free tickets. He wasn’t very clear on the issue so I asked him if I brought my wife can I get 2 tickets, he said yes. I said thank you and closed the phone.

The free tickets gesture is nice of them but I don’t think its good enough. I am not being greedy or anything but there are a couple of issues here.

1) I already paid for 2 tickets last time and wasted my time going to the movies at midnight on a work day to watch the movie and they fucked up. If they give me 2 free tickets in return then I am not getting anything extra.

2) Do I get 2 tickets or more? I asked the guy if I need 2 tickets for me and my wife would that be a problem, he said no. What if I need tickets for me and my friends? The guy wasn’t very clear on this issue.

3) I have to call the guy before I go to the movies? Would he remember me? When is this valid till? What if he doesnt pick up? I think calling a person on his mobile before I go to the movies is to much of a hassel and I wouldn’t be in control. Plus do I still book the tickets online or do I tell the guy what movie I want and he books the seats and buys them for me?

4) I booked the tickets and paid for them online, why couldn’t they credit my account with the free tickets? That would have solved a couple of issues. First I would know the exact amount of tickets I got. Secondly I can book my tickets online whenever I want and pay for them with the credit I have.

In conclusion, I am glad they called me back but I am disappointed with their gift.

Update: I just called the guy again to get clarification on the booking issue. Turns out I have to tell him what movie I want and he will book the seats and get me the tickets. I should have asked him how many tickets I get but I forgot..

Update 2: Just received the email below from Alan, very nice of him:

Mark

I refer to our discussion of this morning and thank you very much for providing the feedback. We are in the process of a major investigation as to why this happened. We do not take such matters lightly.

As a gesture I would love to welcome you and your wife back to enjoy a screening of Star Wars, with sound, at your convenience.

Santhosh, our operations manager will be contacting you to co-ordinate.

Kind regards.

Alan Hall
General Manager

After the catastrophe yesterday at Marina, where is the best movie theater in Kuwait?

I just got home from Star Wars, its 12:30AM. Yeah the movie started at 12:00AM but it was such a fucked up experience. From what I saw of the movie though, it was looking REALLY good, like REALLY good, BUT the Marina Mall theater is just terrible.

The issue I had was with the sound. The first 15 minutes of the movie was this huge gigantic space battle with explosions and chaos non stop. The sound though was incredibly low and was coming out of the front speakers only. I swear I could hear the guy next to me eating his popcorn! I told Nat we should just leave, she suggested I should tell someone. So I did, I went up to one of the movie ushers and told him to raise the volume, he went and told some Kuwaiti guy who was sitting watching the movie with us. He went out and came back in a minute later but the sound was still the same. So I told Nat lets leave, I wasn’t going to watch the movie like this. So we got up and left, once we reached the main entrance where we got the tickets from, I saw a guy who looked like management, I asked him who I should I ask a refund from. He looked at the tickets and told me that once the tickets were cut that I couldn’t get a refund. He didn’t bother to ask why I wanted a refund or why I looked pissed and wanted to leave, nothing. So I proceeded to tell him that I paid KD5 to watch Star Wars and you can’t expect me to watch it in a theater where the sound system is lower then mine at home. I told him the sound is too low and I already complained about it and no one did anything. He told me that no one had told him about the sound, he assured me he would fix it and told me to go back to my seat. So I did. I got back inside, by now I had already missed a good chunk of the movie but I was like its ok, at-least the sound will get fixed. It never did! It didn’t get louder and it didn’t go into surround.

Finally we decided fuck the refund, lets just get out of here. If the movie when action packed was low and imagine how a normal scene would be. When I got back up to the main entrance, I took a feedback form, filled it in and dropped it in the feedback box. I don’t know if anyone will read it or care, but I just had to do it. Now I am back home, disappointed and pissed off. The Marina Mall cinema totally ruined my movie rush. I was planning to start booking tickets online and make this a weekly thing but now I don’t think I will since its just better off watching a movie at home on my sound system.

What did I learn today? Marina Mall theater is one of the worst I have ever been to, and that KD1 for a large popcorn at the cinema doesn’t seem expensive after passing by Starbucks first.

To read the letter I emailed to the people in charge click on more

Who here is going to watch Star Wars tonight? I am going to the Marina Mall showing at 12:00AM.

Where is it playing tonight? Here is the list:

Marina 12:00 AM
Muhallab 12:15 AM
Al-Fanar 12:30 AM
Al-Kout 12:30 AM
Al-Sharqia 12:30 AM

Nibaq told me he was going to watch Star Wars III at the movies on Tuesday, so I decided to check out the KNCC website for showtimes. Turns out there is a showing on Tuesday at 12:00AM at Marina Mall so I just bought 2 tickets and reserved our seats online. It was the first time I tried using their website and it was also the first time I bought tickets online. Its a very easy feature to use and I am surprised we have this technology in Kuwait.

1) First you need to sign up on their website, a very easy and quick process.
2) Then you look for the movie you want to watch.
3) Once you find a movie you want you then have to find a showtime that would suit you.
4) The next step is to reserve your seats. This is the best option, they show you a map of the theater and then you can choose where you want to sit. Very cool.
5) You pay for your ticket online using Knet, Credit Card, M-Net or a Smart Card.
6) You receive an email and SMS message confirming your order.

Very easy and very simple. I now might watch more movies because of this.

Yesterday SheWrites posted her movie of the week which is a favorite of mine, Dazed and Confused. So today I am gonna post my favorite drug related movies, here is the list:

Dazed & Confused
How High
Half Baked
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Carlitos Way
Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle

update: I forgot about Trainspotting!

Team America is one strange movie. Firstly the movie is made using puppets and surprisingly it works very well. The movie overall is very funny and full of silly situations. One silly thing for example is all the arab terrorists in the movie know two words, Jihad and Mohammed. So whenever arabs talk in the movie its like “Jihad Mohammed Mohammed Jihad Mohammed” that would be the conversation. Very silly, its making fun out of the fact that when American’s think of arabs they think of these two words first. Its very hard to talk about this movie without ruining it for you so I will just tell you about one scene. The first scene of the movie, Team America go to Paris to capture and kill some terrorists who are planning to blow up a weapon of mass destruction in Paris. While trying to kill the terrorists Team America manages to destroy the Eifle Tower, the Champs Elese and blow up the Louvre museum.. more destruction then the terrorists would have done. The whole movie is funny in this silly way. I would recommend watching it with other people so you could all share the laughs.

The score, 4 out of 5.

PS: The sex scene is the coolest!

Yesterday I went down to Rihab Complex in Hawalli to my favorite videogames store. When I first walked in I noticed something different but I couldn’t figure out what. So I shook hands with the owner, and I told him I wanted Doom 3. He took out a piece of paper, wrote down Doom 3 on it and gave it to an Indian employee at the store. The Indian guy took the paper and left the shop to get me the game. I was like huh!? Usually I ask for a game and he gets it for me from a box behind the counter. Then it hit me, I looked around the shop and noticed there wasn’t a single pirated game anywhere. Thats what looked different, the shop looked emptier. So I asked the guy what happened, turns out the municipality has been giving them a hard time and are cracking down on them every week. So now they are being extra careful and all the games and stuff are hidden in another shop.

I took my game and left to another shop elsewhere in Hawalli where me and Nat wanted to get some DVDs. So we walk into the shop we usually buy DVDs from and there are no catalogues to be found. The only thing you could find in the shop was computer power cords hanging on one wall. At first glance you would think this store only sold power cords, but I asked the guy what no more DVDs? He is like yes sir one minute. He went outside the shop and came back in with a small box full of catalogues. Turns out the municipality has only been giving them a hard time.

I hope piracy doesn’t end in Kuwait. Some games are worth buying original but other games, games you would only play once or twice are not worth KD18.

I watched Soul Plane yesterday night and it wasn’t that good. It was funny in some scenes but not enough to make it a funny movie. If this was a 5 minute skit of Saturday Night Live it might have been extremely funny but a whole 90 minutes of it is not. Definitely nothing close to being as good as Airplane! It just didn’t have too many funny scenes and it made the movie just boring.

Yesterday night me and nat watched Office Space which tivo had recorded earlier in the week. I already have watched the movie atleast half a dozen times but its a classic and always worth watching again. But, this was the first time I watched it censored! I can’t believe how badly one tv sucks! The words fuck and shit are censored, there is a whole “PC Load Letter” scene in the movie which was cut short, there is a completely missing scene in the movie where the Michael Bolton guy is listening to rap, there is a cancer tits ad missing scene, there is just so much cut out that the movie wasn’t worth watching anymore. They completely slaughtered what has to be one of the coolest movies of all time. In the end I just couldn’t handle it, we deleted the movie off the Tivo and watched something else. The only good thing about One TV is The Contender. I don’t know how they got the rights for Sopranos..

Yesterday I was reading how the director of Sin City left the Directors Guild because they wouldn’t let Frank Miller (the guy behind Sin City) co-direct the movie and today I just read how Paramount went ahead and allowed EA to make The Godfather videogame and they didn’t even bother to ask Coppola’s view on it. And now Coppola is really pissed.

Luckily with Sin City, the director Robert Rodriguez was able to take a stand on the issue and make a statement. If he hadn’t left the Guild and allowed Frank Miller to co-direct, the movie would definetly have come out a lot different. With EA, well, why didn’t anyone even to think to include Frank Coppola? Didn’t anyone at EA or Paramount think the game might actually turn out better if Coppola had a say in it? Is it the bigger the company the dumber they are?

But Coppola, who says he has managed to get a preview of the game, believes the characters have been mishandled. “They use the characters everyone knows, and they hire those actors to be there, and only to introduce minor characters. And then for the next hour they shoot and kill each other,” he said.

“I had absolutely nothing to do with the game and I disapprove. I think it’s a misuse of film.”

sucks!

I was walking in Salmiya yesterday when I noticed that there seems to be a lot more DVD and VCD hawkers on the street. A few minutes later while passing some more hawkers I noticed something really cool. One of the street hawkers had a portable DVD player with a built in LCD screen. That guy has to be the smartest hawker on that street. He can use the player to attract people to his stand and then allow them to try the movies before they buy it. This way he creates better customer satisfaction and people will come back to him remembering him as the hawker with the portable movie player.

This post is dedicated to Simply Stinni. BMW Films came out I think 2 to 3 years ago. They were short movies directed by famous people and starred famous people. For example the movie “Star” was directed by Guy Ritchie and starred Madonna. The budget was provided by BMW and each film had a different story then the other and different actors, except for one, Clive Owen. He played the same person in all the movies, a driver. Here is a summary of the movies from BMWfilms.com

Brace yourself for intricate plot twists, riveting car chases, and a dose of wit. All eight short films of The Hire, created by Hollywood’s finest talent, are available now for downloading and streaming.

These brilliantly produced films star Clive Owen as the driver. Hired for his superb driving skills and unshakable poise, the driver encounters unexpected obstacles that put his abilities to the test. Watch as each film reveals new depths of character, intrigue, and cinematography.

There are 8 movies in today. All free to download. Make sure you watch the Season 1 films.

[Link]

Daniel Craig is set to be the new James Bond, The Sun can reveal.

Daniel, 37, has been offered a three-film deal by 007 producer Barbara Broccoli. [Link]

So who is this guy again??

Turns out there is a group of StarWars fans who are standing in line outside a movie theater in the States.. but the movie won’t be playing at that theater. The movie will be playing at a nearby theater and they were asked to move and stand in line outside that theater but the fans refused. They believe the movie should be played at the theater they are standing outside of and they are determined to stand in line for another month and a half till the movie comes out.. although it wont be playing at that movie theater. [Link]

UPDATE: Read the comments under the article on that site. Really funny..