“There are about 150 cinema halls in the various cineplexes and multiplexes,” wrote the reader. “However, only about 20 movies are being screened in these halls.”
Twenty? Isn’t that more than enough?
I mean, how many movies can one person watch?
This weekend, for example, if you want to watch anything other than Transformers: Dark Of The Moon, you’re just being a trouble-maker.
You know how many hundreds of millions of US dollars they spent making and marketing director Michael Bay’s latest feature-length toy commercial so that you’d want to see it? I want to be able to watch computer-generated images out-act Rosie Huntington-Whiteley anywhere I want, anytime I want.
No screen should be wasted on a non-Transformers movie.
Like what’s this Monte Carlo tripe starring Selena Gomez?
If it doesn’t have a giant talking robot from outer space turning into a race car at the Monaco Grand Prix, I’m not interested.
Wait, I just read the plot synopsis for Monte Carlo. The main character goes to Europe and is mistaken for some sort a British aristocrat. Isn’t that the same plot as Garfield 2?! I may want to watch it after all.
The Straits Times reader also lamented: “Cathay Cineplexes quietly removed their Picturehouse cinema recently. So has Golden Village its Cinema Europa. Both these halls used to screen less mainstream art/niche movies.”
You mean Monte Carlo isn’t a less mainstream art/niche movie?
The reader continued: “Golden Theatre used to have some Japanese arthouse movies, although under the guise of R(A) movies, much to the chagrin of some ah peks. That has stopped too.”
He then appealed to cinema operators to “give Singaporeans a wider choice”.
Well, I have good news for him and those “ah peks”.
Last week, it was announced that Golden Village Pictures will be distributing the Hong Kong blockbuster 3D Sex And Zen: Extreme Ecstasy in Singapore "just to add variety to what we already have at our cinemas", said a spokesman.
Hooray for variety!
After watching hunks of hard metal wrestle each other in 3D in Transformers: Dark Of The Moon, what a welcome change to watch chunks of soft flesh wrestle each other in 3D in 3D Sex And Zen: Extreme Ecstasy.
Thanks, cinema operators, for giving us a wider choice.
Let it not be said that they don’t listen to public feedback.
Opening here on July 21, the R21-rated 102-minute “international version” of 3D Sex And Zen will be shown uncut. The same cannot be said of some of the characters in the movie.
I’m not sure which version I saw, but if you’re over 21 and plan to watch it because of all the hype, beware not of the wacky sex scenes, but of the off-putting violence.
There are some things you can do with robots that you shouldn’t do with actual humans. (And vice versa.)
Not that the “ah peks” would mind.
- Published in The New Paper, 3 July 2011
UPDATE: Transformers stomp Singapore box office
