Binge with a capital M

Those of you being families with Indonesia will know that there are some difficulties going to the movies there currently. When I first arrived I was way excited to go to the movies properly. The island in Thailand where I had spent my previous two months was too small to host a movie theater so I was looking forward to the big screen in Jakarta.  I was up for a surprise though. No big time movies where available. Apparently Hollywood had decided to not ship movies any more. But why!?
Turns out that the Indonesian government, always in need or tax money or bribe money decided to put some extra taxes in for the foreign movies. They claimed it was money that was going to support the domestic movie industry. Which by the way is in horrible condition. Movies made 15 years ago are way better than the crappy horror comedy (comedy part non intentional) movies that air today. They are so bad that parts of Indonesia ban then when they showcase their area in them. It seemed to be much confusion about what taxes or fees had in fact been put on these importers of movies. Eventually people seemed to conclude that if was a extra tax put on all distribution, which makes up of a very large part of movie costs in Indonesia.
I guess that's one way to really encourage pirating DVDs and downloading. I mean if it's the only way to watch movies that's what people will do. Good job Indo government.
Anyway getting out of J-town and flying to Kuala Lumpur, with a brief stop over in Bali, I'm again in a nation which likes movies. And not only are they available here, they are cheap too. There are also a range of different classes of movie theaters. The most interesting one being "gold class". Gold class is a theater class with really big and comfy sofas that serves food and drinks during the cinematic experience. of course the air con is way cold and thus you have blankets to boot.
So far I've seen Transformers 3D, the Green Lantern and X-men. Will definitively have a look at what else is available over here. Movie Binge here we go!