(Just a Little) Sex and the City

Last night I went to my first Indian movie premiere, well, I guess you would call it a Bangalore movie premiere, which was in fact my first time inside an Indian movie theater.  Not that I don't like the movies, but with good quality fake DVD's readily available at $1 each, sometimes it's not worth the hassle.  But last night, friends and I went to see the eagerly anticipated premiere of "Sex and the City" and it was quite entertaining - both the movie and the experience.  For starters, there were more men flooding into the 10pm screening than you would EVER see in the UK/US; my husband wouldn't be rushing to see SATC anytime soon.  So, assuming they weren't there for the "City" aspect of the movie, I assume they were there for the "Sex."  In Bollywood movies, it's still mainly taboo for actors and actresses to even kiss, let alone swing virtually naked from a sex-swing as we've seen Samantha do in the past, so the skimpy outfits on screen last night would be near-porn for the censors here.  Which leads me to another thing.  I'm not sure if we actually saw the whole movie because of the censorship issue; there were definite jumps and stops and starts in the soundtrack which led me to believe that either too foul language or sexier scenes were cut, despite the fact that some of the movie was still quite risque, as you would expect.  Something I wasn't expecting was the on screen instruction at the beginning of the movie to "Stand for the National Anthem" which was then sung by a host of celebrities... Being British, it felt like it was time to go to bed as when I was a kid, they'd play the National Anthem on TV at the end of the evening's broadcasting (pre-24 hour TV, of course!)  This was followed by the obligatory movie trailers and an hour and a half of movie, before an unexpected interval:  the film stopped abruptly, everyone rushed out for a pee/ice-cream or both, then headed back for a second round of movie trailers and an equally abrupt resumption of the movie.  The last time I was at the movies and they had an interval was during "Out of Africa" which was about 9 hours long!  The trailers were quite entertaining:  really good trailers for some likely bad US movies and some really bad trailers for what could be good Indian movies (one was touting the fact that some actor was playing 10 parts in one movie; I guess he's the Indian equivalent of Eddie Murphy!)  SATC itself was entertaining enough to keep me awake, unlike the premiere of "Star Wars:  The Phantom Menace" in Leicester Square, London, at which I managed to sleep through the "most exciting section" of the movie, the pod race.  I can only blame that on too much pre-movie champagne, a humiliating stagger down the longest red-carpet in history (with people wondering, "who the hell is she?"), and a less than compelling story-line; I'm Star Wars old school.  So, back to last night.  Whilst there was no red carpet or champagne (no liquor licence) we enjoyed a free pepsi and popcorn, but bought our own Baskin Robbins.  All in all it was a great fun evening and a real 'taste of home' for those who miss the "City" that never sleeps.  Speaking of which, having got home at 1:30am (how can movie theaters stay open that late but bars and restaurants close at 11pm???) I desperately need some sleep before I head off to buy the fake DVD that is sure to be on-sale already.