Saadnoor Salehin.
I Came for Oppenheimer, I Watched Barbie

I Came for Oppenheimer, I Watched Barbie

September 11, 2023

“You don’t look like you understand German — and this movie is the German dub, you know. You sure you want to watch this?”

I stared at the girl at the counter in disbelief, the Oppenheimer ticket in my hand. A ticket that said nowhere on it that this was the German-language Oppenheimer.

I don’t miss a single Nolan film — I always watch them in the theater — and I’d been obsessed with Oppenheimer for the past five months. So the moment I got a first-day IMAX show, I came straight from the office to a theater far from home to watch it. And one minute before it started, I learned the movie was in German.

“But it doesn’t say so anywhere on the ticket.”

“Right — by default all shows are German shows. If it’s shown in English, there’ll be ‘OV’ written in brackets. You bought the wrong ticket.”

“Okay, I’ve come from really far away — is there no way to arrange an English show for me?”

“It’s already pretty late now; all our Oppenheimer shows are done for the night.”

“Alright — is any other English movie available right now?”

“Yes. Barbie.”

Barbie?

I couldn’t believe my ears.

I said, “Okay, fine, give me that one.”

I couldn’t believe my own mouth.

And so that day I watched Barbie. All alone. A trash movie — but it’s fun to watch in the theater.

Two days later, I watched Oppenheimer.

After that I watched Oppenheimer two more times. At the cinema, almost always alone.

Today I’m going to watch Jawan. Alone.

There’s a post going around on my homepage — people talking about how those who go to the cinema alone are suffering, that sort of thing. But honestly, I think most movies are meant to be watched alone. Every time I’ve gone to a movie with someone else, I’ve been so busy keeping up the social niceties that I could never relax and actually focus on the film.

When I’m rich one day, I’ll book a whole cinema hall just for myself and watch a movie alone :p

(If you ever watched a movie with me, I’m sorry :3)

#randomthoughts