obligatory journal 001 trying something new

obligatory journal 001 trying something new

well, here I go ... this is for the ones who feels like reading.

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Day: Thursday

Date: 27th of October 2016

Time: 10.15 a.m. to 07.30 p.m.

Reason of travel: Doctor Strange screening

Okay, here's a backstory. As I have mentioned in my first podcast before (go and have a listen!), I traveled mainly from my semi-rural area of Sungai Besar to more populated areas in the city to watch movies and I always reserve the almost two hours journey for the release of movies that I anticipated throughout the year. For this instance, the movie is Doctor Strange and since my usual ritual to watch the first midnight screening and suffered the way back, I decided to go the next day instead and as early in the morning as possible as to not be rushing going there as always.

As habits die hard for me, the inability to sleep on time and wake up early the next day kept me still affected by the drowsiness at eight in the morning, rendering me still sleepy despite getting the required eight hour sleep. Trying to blink it away, I try to check the time of the screenings again on the website of the main cinema I always frequent, the aspect of watching it on a bigger screen came up and the biggest that I could find was in Times Square. I remembered searching for the best biggest format, IMAX, years before and came out with this exact place as the best substitute then but then tried out of hunch googling for the format again in this country and got a surprising result.

It turned out there have been a resurgence of IMAX specific cinemas which has been led by another company and one of its main locations is in 1 Utama, which surprised me to no end because I didn't notice it at all whenever I was there as I bought tickets in GSC or Golden Screen Cinemas, the more visible movie outlet in the shopping complex, and then I wandered around without any direction. My usual plan of watching movie alone has been a fixed one now since I reluctantly become a single bachelor almost two years now (wow, it's been a long time ...), the notion to at least change it up a bit excited me and that's the main crux of this particular journey of mine.

Every time I watch a movie, it would always be in the standard format and now the possibility of watching it in the best definition out there was now too much for me to ignore and in the end I reverted to fully pulling on the throttle of my bike and try to reach Petaling Jaya as soon as possible as my earlier procrastination ended up costing me the earliest twelve o'clock timeslot as I arrived twenty minutes over. Yes, the admission fee is the highest considering the format and it was my most expensive ticket to date, reaching over RM 30, but this sort of viewing experience should be reserved for that one of a kind movie that would be significantly improved by IMAX and luckily for me Doctor Strange fit the description just nicely. The more detailed breaking down would be in its own post coming soon down the line.

Under the pressure of my upcoming first IMAX viewing, I bought the ticket as soon as I could find the more secluded TGV or Tanjung Golden Village outlet (that was right under my nose the whole time!) and then since there's only one IMAX 3D screening at one time, I had to wait until the scheduled 2.30 p.m. and had to find ways to fill in the time. There are countless types of shops available there in the complex and I wouldn't mind window shopping through some of them: an electronic game outlet, an electronic gadget outlet, a bookstore and an obligatory visit to Uniqlo wardrobe outlet (my current wardrobe provider even made it into my dream!). I thought of watching another movie to fill in the time but decided to play a round of bowling all by myself instead (there's nothing wrong with it, I'm just practicing!) and since there was still a decent amount of time, I went to grab a bite at the complex's own food corner with its own diverse types of food to choose from, which delighted me more than the usual unchanged fast food menu.

I have always been attracted to the culture of the Koreans since I started to watch their shows on Astro's KBS World and SBS years ago and when I browsed through the different kiosks, the one selling Korean food grabbed my attention and to go with the flow, I decided to give it a go and bought a bowl of teobbokki, a simple delicacy that I always saw them munching through. Although I have the affinity to sweat when eating spicy food and couldn't really stand the heat that much, I decided to muscle through it but in my eagerness, I forgot to buy a beverage to go with it. Although I had to suffer through the heat and spice, the new taste and chewy texture that I got to experience was worth it but it had to be cut short because the time was almost up and the remaining teotbokki was still in the bowl as I walked with large strides (mind your manners, do not run in public in the complex) to the outlet. A beverage of iced lemon tea was bought first to counter the lingering burn on my tongue and even though I was a few minutes over, I thought I still had a wiggle room since the usual screenings would have over ten minutes of trailers still to go through after the recommended time but in this particular instance, I missed the trailers and even the opening as I was greeted with the opening scene when I walked into the cinema.

A note to myself: get there early next time. It is always a chore to sit through the trailers since I have watched most of them online but it was intriguing to see the reactions of the crowd and gauge their excitement for the movies and I know the giant format of IMAX and the addition of 3D would provide a more exciting trailer-watching experience, making me that more excited to hopefully see them next time. Missing the opening credit was definitely my own fault but my first eye-opening IMAX viewing and the excellent addition of 3D made up for it and delighted me for the rest of week. Although it wasn't shot with native IMAX cameras and was digitally converted to fit the resolution and the three dimensional effects, Doctor Strange is the perfect introduction to the format because Marvel Studios didn't took any short cut in using the resolution to the fullest and the bizarre dimensions the main protagonist had to go through was a marvel (pardon the pun) to watch and worth the price of admission alone. I was never awed when watching a movie but this time, I couldn't help myself from cooing in admiration and amazement from the spectacle and maybe it was first time syndrome and it would diminish after repeat viewings but I couldn't care less and just enjoyed it for what it was.

Well, that was all. There was nothing to write home about on my subsequent journey home except maybe a punctured tube of the back tire of my bike, leaving me to ride slowly with a wobbly tire almost fifteen minutes to the nearest bike shop and rendering my plan to reach home by seven moot.

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that's all, folks! thank you for reading ...