Pirates

Coming to a channel near you

When Axel and I first moved Dubai I had no idea how popular piracy was internationally.  We would consistently receive knocks on the door from Chinese people who only knew two phrases: "You want DVD?" and "Good copy, bad copy".  I didn't take them too seriously until I realized that Axel and I would completely miss out on American cinema if I didn't succom.  We often got stung with movies that were dubbed over in Russian with ridiculously poor English subtitles.  I still don't understand how you can get the subtitles wrong when the original is in English.  Or worse, when the copy is so poorly taken that you can see cinema viewer's heads and can hear their cell phones ring during the movie.  I suppose for 3 bucks a movie, what could I expect?

When we arrived to Nepal, I was shocked to not only see piracy going in full force, but the DVDs were sold in the stores.  Hun?  Is it illegal if you pay money at a cash register?   Furthermore, if you want to find a legitimate DVD in Nepal, you can't.  If you are buying a DVD, you are buying a pirated copy (at mere .50 cents a copy).   

Just when I thought it couldn't get much worse, I was working out at the gym and happened upon a sweet channel - THE PIRATED MOVIE CHANNEL (or also known as Channel 8).  Sure enough, they were playing Wolverine before it had even been released in theaters.  The copy wasn't even great.  In fact, the film was incomplete.  I have since watched this channel and you often must wait for someone on the other end to press 'Play'.  It is commonly frozen on the main menu whist the channel DJ takes a bathroom break.  The other perk to this ever-so-illegal-channel is it skips all the credits and shows 'Open', 'Close' and 'Loading'  indicating another movie is about to begin.  

Bad movie, good copy

Piracy is such a way of life for us we rate movies not necessarily on the content, but instead on the quality of the copy.  I can often convince Axel to watch a girly movie simply by telling him that it is a good copy.  Almost anything is worth watching if it is a good copy, which is proven by the fact that I saw this movie last night on TV:

Only a good, clear copy could make me sit through an hour and a half of Mike Tyson.