PAD MAN, PG-13 ( 2 hr & 20 min )

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Today, Monday, February 12th, 2018, I went to the Century 16 Hilltop, in Richmond, CA, to catch the 11:45 a.m. matinee showing of, PAD MAN, based on a true story. The price of admission was $5.75. I bought a $5.60 Snack Pack ( junior popcorn & drink ) at the concessions counter. And I went to auditorium 10 and sat in the 3rd row, column 8 seat to watch this movie.

Quickie Review:  In India, a man sacrifices everything to make sanitary napkins readily available to the 88% of women ( approximately 440 million ) who have no easy access to such a personal hygiene product.

I liked this movie a lot! It is a "must-see!" I especially liked the "panties experiment."  ( Ha, ha, ha---What a riot ! )  I also liked the scene wherein he pulled out a sanitary napkin from his pocket, on a darkened road, when some female stranger was having an "emergency." And his speech at the UN--in Linglish, at that! was also quite a charmer. Lastly, it is simply admirable how a simple man with an 8ht Grade education was able to drastically cut down the retail cost of sanitary napkins from 55 Rupees ( $0.86 ) to 2 Rupees ( $0.03 ) for a 5-pack, starting a revolutionary cottage industry in the process!

I don't know if it's just a cultural difference. But his wife, Gayatri ( Radhika Apte ), should have stood by his side.

I was hoping that Pad Man ( Akshay Kumar ) would end-up in a relationship with Pari ( Sonam Kapoor ) because of their shared interest--and because Pari is more beautiful than Gayatri.

Interestingly enough, in the Old Testament of The Bible, there is also a similar requirement imposed on ( ceremonially unclean ) menstruating females. ( If you ask me, however, I think that it was just to keep couples from engaging in promiscuous sex! Remember folks, thousands of years ago, people had a very limited set of options for birth control. )

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After the movie, I went to Yome Chinese Buffet Restaurant at the Hilltop Mall, to have a late lunch. I was charged $4.00 extra because today is a holiday, Lincoln's Birthday. Had I known, I would just have eaten lunch at the nearby McDonald's! Oh, well ....

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After I got back to Vallejo, CA, I went to the local MetroPCS Store to finally upgrade from a ( dual core ) Samsung Galaxy Mega 3 to a ( octa-core ) ZTE Blade Z Max:

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They're essentially the same size, but the Blade is newer, stronger, better and faster. And I was issued a new 'phone number because I couldn't remember the PIN on my Mega! Well, if I'm gonna start with something new, I might as well have a new number, too! I paid over $180.00 for the cellphone, its initial month's service, a case and a screen protector. And I also ended up spending almost $30.00 for an extra USB cable.

I will buy a 128 GB Micro SD Card for it soon!

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PADMAAVAT, NR ( 2 hr & 44 min )

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I went to see this on Tuesday, January 30th, 2018, at the Century 16 Hilltop in Richmond, CA, for the 11:25 a.m. matinee show.

Quickie Review:  An ambitious, egotistical, ruthless and greedy Muslim king, Sultan Alauddin Khilji ( Ranveer Singh ), hears of the legendary beauty of the Queen of Chittor, Padmavati  ( Deepika Padukone ), and raises an army to capture the queen.


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The day after I saw this movie, I talked to the owner of the Taj Grill Indian Buffet Restaurant here in Vallejo, CA, about it. He said that it was based on a true story and that there had been widespread protests in India over the release of this movie. I thought that it was all just fiction but, apparently, there are historical references to the Sultan and his Rajput rival, Maharawal Ratan Singh ( Shahid Kapoor ). But he and I agreed on the screen performance of the movie's bad guy, Sultan Khilji; it will be a good shoe-in for an award.

However, the movie's ending, which shows a mass Jauhar, will not go over well in today's #MeToo movement.

Here are the things that I found wrong in this movie: Why did nobody from the queen's father's kingdom of Singhala come to the aid of Chittor?

Why didn't the Rajput king dress a not-so-beautiful woman and used her as a substitute for the queen when it came time to present the queen to the covetous sultan? This would have accomplished two things:

1.) The sultan would have been so disappointed as to exclaim incredulously, "You call this The Most Beautiful Woman In The World? Why, my queen is way better looking than this!"

To which, the Rajput king would have answered along this line: "Well, beauty is, as they say, in the eye of the beholder."

This deception would have put a stop in the sultan's plan to conquer Chittor, right there and then!

2.) The sultan, then, would have had the Brahmin sage, Raghav Chetan ( Aayam Mehta ), executed for wasting his time and resources before any other lives would have been unnecessarily lost.


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I bought a new back-up cellphone, a Samsung Galaxy J3 Luna Pro, a few days beforehand. Because I somehow lost my LG back-up cellphone on Saturday, September 27th, when I had to go home sick from work because I was having diarrhea. Hey, maybe I flushed the LG down the toilet in one of my "episodes"! Ha, ha, ha.

But I think that losing my LG back-up cellphone was a blessing in disguise since my Samsung Galaxy J3 Luna Pro is w-a-y better than the previous 'phone!

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And when I was loading my Galaxy J3 Luna Pro with apps, I came across a free off-line GPS app! This is great as it works with my 'phone's Location app to give me navigation instructions without the need to use up my 'phone's data.

And this off-line GPS also has a "heads-up" function as well as a "dash-cam" function. Sweet! My only gripe is that its instructions are in kilometers--I found this out soon enough when I tried the GPS. Maybe, I can get someone to switch it to miles, instead.

I don't have a problem mentally converting meters into yards, as they are approximately the same length. It's the kilometers into miles that I have a problem with, especially when the GPS would post the speed limit signs! At which point, I would have to quickly glance at my car's speedometer to do the speed conversion and the speed adjustment.

The off-line GPS's female voice is British. And I really don't have a good ear for such an accent.      :-/

I'll see if there's another off-line GPS app that's geared more for Americans.

I will try out the "heads-up" function tonight. And I will try the "dash-cam" function in a day or two.

Lastly, it has a "Real View Navigation" function that isn't free. It costs $12.49. I might get this someday, though.    :-)


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Update: I tried the "heads-up" function. It didn't work properly because the image projected onto my car's windshield was just an upside-down reversed image of what was on my 'phone's screen.    :-(     Somebody needs to fire the programmer who wasn't clear on the "heads-up" concept!    :-/


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