Hollywood O Hollywood

I know a person who like me has strong aversions for Hollywood movies. Actually, he was the one, when we discussed movies and characters, who taught me to see Hollywood for what it is. I can understand now why he’d rather watch an amateur video than the violence, lust, and larger-than-life action heroes of Hollywood.

It’s only been about three months now, since I’ve vanquished Hollywood movies from my itinerary of enjoyment. I’ve gone to film festivals and watched low budget movies, hired lots of Indie movies, and seen lots of foreign movies. It’s been one helluva exercise. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the diversity I’ve encountered. The plethora of lives, characters, plots I’ve views has been very uplifting. You only need to get out of that Terminator mindset and look where you land.

Yesterday night, for the umpteenth time, I watched: You and Me and Everyone We Love. It’s an American movie, not Hollywood. The director, the writer, and one of the main actors are the same person. She’s some talent. It’s about two people who have difficulty separating reality from their own muddled thought process. They do strange things, unaware that people might be aghast with their endeavours, and in the process, fall in love in a very strange way. Have a go at it. It’s just very funny and really nice.

But it seems now, Hollywood, the infamous giant that it is, has gotten back to me.

DVDs were hailed all over the world when they came out. There was no format on them, unlike in tapes. A DVD produced in Timbuktu could be viewed in Alaska or in Argentina. But Hollywood didn’t like this setup. The reason - their movies released in America could easily be smuggled to all corners of the world, before they could officially released it elsewhere. Hence, they divided the world in several regions. The UK and Western Europe is region 2, America is region 1, and the Asia is 4.

It’s difficult getting multi-regional DVD players. In my laptop, every time I played CSI DVDs send from America by my sister, a software popped open, indicating I needed to change region. When I played something from UK, again I had to change region. After five changes, the software announced I’d exceeded the limit of changes I was allowed. No more. My laptop is now locked in region 1, and I can’t play any movies from rest of the world. How unfair is this?

The world tackles drug cartels, slams gambling conglomerates, wants to curve the influence of big multi-national companies, I think they should start to gaze at what Hollywood has been doing also. I am very angry at the moment, and want to really bring down the ugly beast.