SUBEDAR JOGINDER SINGH, NR ( 2 hr & 19 min )

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I went to see this movie's 10:25 p.m. showing yesterday, Thursday, April 12th, 2018, at the Century Hilltop 16 in Richmond, CA, in auditorium 13, row 6, seat 8. The price of admission was $11.50. And I bought a 20 oz. Dasani Water for $4.25 at the concessions counter.

Quickie Review:  A military officer, with experience in two previous wars, is recalled into active duty in 1962 during the Sino-India Border War. Heavily outnumbered, he and his men achieve martyrdom in the field of battle. Subedar Singh was posthumously awarded India's Highest Wartime Gallantry Award.

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I went to see this upon the recommendation of Taj Grill Restaurant's proprietor here in Vallejo, CA, when I went to have lunch there the day before, on Wednesday. I had mentioned to him that I recently saw SAJJAN SINGH RANGROOT. That was when he told me to go check-out SUBEDAR JOGINDER SINGH.

Unfortunately, I was disappointed in this movie.

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What's wrong with this movie?  The battle, as depicted, left much to be desired. I really don't know how it unfolded in real life; but the way it was depicted in this movie did not make sense. The Indian Army had the advantage as they were on top of a hill. But they didn't take advantage of that for these reasons: Their trenches were not built properly; by this, I mean that small "portholes" should have been built into the walls to afford the shooters with better head protection; there were no snipers posted; they were not spread out; the two times that the Chinese soldiers retreated, they should have appropriated the dead soldiers' rifles, grenades and ammunition since their ammunition was in short supply.

But the glaring error was the fact that this movie showed Subedar Singh fighting to the death. When, in reality, he was critically wounded, captured, and taken to Tibet as a p.o.w. where he died from his wounds.

The Chinese, out of respect for the Indian hero, returned his ashes to his homeland when India awarded Subedar Singh with the highest military honors.

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Before the movie started, I wanted to have dinner at the nearby McDonald's Restaurant. But it closed at 9:00 p.m. I scanned the whole shopping center to see if there was another restaurant open late at night. That was when I spotted Me n Ed's Pizza Parlor across the parking lot.

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I should have worn my jacket, instead of my vest, when I walked two hundred yards from the theatre to the restaurant.   😕

I had a sandwich and a fountain drink. I forget how much I paid for both.

P.S. I liked SAJJAN SINGH RANGROOT better--except for the "British" lady with her bad English accent.     😆

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BAAGHI 2, NR ( 2 hr & 17 min )

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I went to the MAYA CINEMAS, in Pittsburg, CA, yesterday, Monday, April 9th, 2018, to see the 7:30 p.m. showing of this movie in auditorium 6, row 4, seat 6. The price of admission was $10.00. And I bought a medium drink and a medium popcorn for $11-something.

Quickie Review:   A soldier gets an urgent call from his ex-girlfriend. And a complicated mystery soon unravels surrounding the disappearance of a little girl.

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This is Bollywood's answer to Rambo but with more over-the-top action sequences. It's a good enough action movie if you just ignore the "logic potholes".      🤓

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I decided to see this movie in Pittsburg because it's not showing in Richmond, CA.

I have never been to Pittsburg before. And this is the second MAYA CINEMAS that I have been to. If you recall, I went to a Maya Cinemas in Bakersfield, CA, about 10 years ago.

I had to rely on my Samsung Galaxy J-3 Luna Pro's free GPS app to help me with my travel.

I saw a homeless encampment along the freeway on my way to Pittsburg.    😮

And I took the wrong exit because my GPS said, "Take Exit 26." Even though the exit sign said, Willow Pass Road! I soon found myself on a lonely stretch of country road---Well, at least I now know what is at the opposite end of Concord's Willow Pass Road! Upon closer examination, I realized that my GPS was on "preview mode"! What kind of idiot, with a stupid sense of humor, would even think of putting a "preview mode" program on a GPS device? I wasted time and gas because of it!   😡

I eventually arrived at my intended destination after another wrong turn. Next time, I will navigate doing it "old school" style: With A Map!    👍

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The theatre is on Century Boulevard because, at one time, it used to be a CENTURY CINEMAS.

And I really don't know why Century sold this theatre to Maya because it is in a very nice shopping center with LOTS of Eateries.  😋 .   But no buffet restaurant, though   ☹️ . None that I noticed, anyway.    😕

I will have to come back here more often even though it is over 23 miles away from where I live.   😊

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I CAN ONLY IMAGINE, PG ( 1 hr & 50 min )

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Today, Sunday, March 25th, 2018, I went to Century 14, here in Vallejo, CA,

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to see the 12:30 p.m. showing of the movie, I CAN ONLY IMAGINE, about a Christian band's lead singer's ( Bart Millard, portrayed by J. Michael Finley ) rise from an abusive home environment to music fame. It's based on a true story. With Amy Grant's ( portrayed by Nicole DuPort ) help, his break-out song, of the same title, earned a Triple Platinum! What Amy Grant did towards the end of the movie made her earn my deepest respect for her!

The price of admission was $5.75.

The movie was shown in auditorium 3. I sat in the 3rd row, seat 3 ( the seat is numbered 6, though :-/ ).

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Being that it's a Sunday today, I went to the concessions counter to buy an Honest Tea ( $4.85 ) to sip throughout the movie. ;-)

They now have the new recliner seats installed in the left side of the building. They're getting ready to do the same in the right side.

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And since today's a Sunday, I went straight to church, on Solano Avenue, after seeing this movie. But I wasn't satisfied with the Church's service: I had to wait 15 minutes for my $10.70 3-piece chicken w/ an extra side! :-/

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I can personally relate to the main character's life in an abusive home.

In case you're wondering, I will never go and see, A WRINKLE IN TIME! That movie's Christian theme was omitted by Hollywood's communist/atheist libertard's interpretation of the classic novel that the movie is based on.

P.S.

It rained while I was at Church's Chicken. And their roof had a leak:

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On my way home, I had a craving for a rootbeer float or a milkshake. So, I stopped at the KFC/A&W, in the FoodMaxx Shopping Center on the corner of Redwood & Tuolumne Streets, to have a large Strawberry Milkshake ( 4-dollar something ). They had a leak, too. And it was worst than the one at Church's!   Ha, ha, ha.

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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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