Cinema

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On Thursday night I went to the cinema for the first time since I have been away, and I had such a great night! It was just cool because I have started to miss going to see movies at the cinema so it was just a little taste of home. In Sri Lanka I didn't see any cinemas at all, but in KL and other cities in Malaysia I've seen cinemas in a few of the big shopping malls. They show a mix of asian and english-language films, but most of the english-language ones seem to be kids movies, big special effects movies etc etc, so nothing I have wanted to see up until now.

On Thursday I went to see Be Kind Rewind, a sort of goofy feel-good comedy written/directed by Michel Gondry (he also did Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Science of Sleep etc), with Jack Black and Mos Def. Honestly I haven't laughed so much in years. Totally predictable and a bit naff, but just so funny and warm. Actually everyone was loving it, the whole audience was laughing throughout the film.

But the best thing of all is that cinema tickets here only cost a ridiculous MYR11 (less than GBP2)!!!!! And even the refreshments are less than 50p!!!!! I would save a fortune compared to my life at home!

Amazingly I thought this would mean cinema attendance in Malaysia would be really high. Apparently not. Interesting fact of the day is that Malaysia has the lowest per capita cinema attendance of all monitored countries in the world, averaging about 1.3 times per person per year (about half of the UK level). It must just be solely concentrated in urban centres like KL. But hopefully I'll be beating that average myself as soon as another good film comes out here!

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