A Playful Misconception, A Childhood's Dream

On Monday in One Utama after lunch at Carl’s Jr. (yes, it is indeed better than Burger King but so is the price range) with Ji Yung, I had an empty afternoon so I thought now would be a good time to catch CCoBB, if it was still showing at all. I went to the old wing’s cinema and it wasn’t showing. So I went immediately to the new wing because if it was showing I really don’t want to miss it since I’ve been waiting for this movie to come to Brunei since December and it still hasn’t.

Upon reaching, my heart dropped a little because the movie started at 2.30pm and it was 2.32pm when I got there. Plus the screen was saying that there were limited seats left and there’s a long queue to the counters. I stood there for a few seconds thinking, there will be longer trailers and advertisements, or at least longer than Brunei anyway, so I should just queue up and see what seats are left. If there’re no good seats, then I’ll just watch either Seven Pounds or Role Models. I was thinking positively and not let my emotions take over (yeah, emotions… hey, I was really disappointed because next showing was at 7pm and that’s when I’ll be at dinner with the girls).

So I queued and the queue wasn’t really moving as fast as I had hoped (still faster than Brunei’s, no doubt). But after a couple of minutes, a guy in his 50’s I would say, came up to me and held out a ticket and said, “Free ticket, anybody want? Starting now.” I stood with my arms crossed over my chest and thought I’d better see if it’s something that I’m even interested in before I showed interest. At that point in time, I was sceptical and was afraid something “free” may have hidden strings attached.

And then I saw it, The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button, showing at 2.30pm. I could feel my face light up with a smile like an idiot. I grabbed it, thanked the gentleman and ran all the way back out of the queue. I almost broke into a run because I have no idea where the entrance to the screens were and went the wrong way twice.

So when I finally went into the cinema, I gave out a sigh of relief because the movie hasn’t even started yet. But then I realised that my row was the second row from the screen. No choice, I sat down. Then I saw that the screen was particularly smaller, and there is a bigger gap between the screen and the first row. This made second row, or even the first row, from the screen still very bearable. I even enjoyed it.

And the thing was, if I had queued all the way to the counter and saw only the first two rows were available, I wouldn’t have paid money for that ticket. Everything fell into place as if it there was an invisible hand guiding me. This must be another of Ko’s “synchro-destiny”. And oh, what a lovely movie. It’s one of the best of 2008, or could be for 2009 as well. And I cried like a baby. Tears wet my cheeks and I couldn’t reach up and wipe them because there were people on both sides of me. I was alittle ashamed, which I really didn’t have to be.

Moral of the story is, send out positive thoughts and positive energy and the universe may just respond in kind.

Rating for the movie: 9 / 10 (Full review will be on silverscreen.thinkbrunei.com)