Thanks, "Jack Ryan," you ruined Bangkok Shutdown for me

One of my favorite frivolous things about Bangkok is movies are only 100 baht (about $3) on Wednesdays. As far as I know it’s all movies at all theaters at all showtimes. Spectra and I saw Captain Phillips in an Imax theater at 7:30pm for a total of $6. It’s a deal so sweet that Spectra agreed to lower our threshold for seeing movies in the theater to take maximum advantage. Normally a movie has to be either a New York Times critic’s pick or some long awaited passion of mine for us to see it in the theater. Now it only needs to not obviously suck. 

The silver lining of Bangkok Shutdown for me was it made seeing Wednesday night movies automatic. Why trek across the city, passing through area after area that could turn violent when we could just chill one night a week and take advantage of one of Bangkok’s quirks? Sure it’s going to Hollywood movies but Thai people are doing it too so it’s not like it’s some shameful expat-only thing. It’s cheap, it’s local, and it’s fun. 

Our Wednesday nights had been impeccable: American Hustle, Captain Phillips, and Inside Llewyn Davis. I knew our luck would run out as we burned through the award-bait movies and rounded the corner into the dregs of winter but I wasn’t sure when that would happen. Between the delay in some of the movies opening here--The Wolf of Wall Street isn’t here yet--and a smattering of “better than you would have expected” movies I was hoping we could extend the streak for another few weeks. 

Our best option this week was Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit. I still love The Hunt for Red October and while I have no comment about the subsequent Jack Ryan movies I’m not philosophically opposed to the idea of a good Jack Ryan movie (unlike my feelings for, say… oh, I don’t know, anything associated with Jud Apatow). I like twisty-turny, spy-action movies. They don’t need to be art to be good, like Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, they just need to be not flagrantly stupid, a bit clever here and there, and fun.

As badly as I want to write a 5,000 word tirade about the incredible stupidity of Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit I’m not going to because I know only about 2 people would read that. All I’ll say is it’s the kind of stupid that’s so stupid it’s not fun. It’s “if you’re driving a van at high speed and there’s a dude in the back you need to stop who isn’t wearing a seatbelt while doing something fussy and technical the way you stop him isn’t by swerving, it’s by slamming on the breaks” stupid. That kind of stupid sucks, it’s lazy, and it’s boring. And now it's made my life more difficult.

Thanks to Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit we have to reevaluate the "doesn't obviously suck" movie threshold for Wednesdays already. I’m tempted to lay some of the blame on the New York Times review, which I’d sum up as “it’s not great but it’s interesting here and there,” but after sleeping on it I see now that maybe part of the problem was I don’t know how to read reviews looking for indications of a movie merely not sucking. It’s certainly a murkier designation than whether a movie is outright good or not.

Until I get that sorted out we’re back to seven days of Bangkok Shutdown uncertainty. Now Wednesday is another night of the week we debate traveling across town through a gauntlet of protest sites. This is a bummer. The logistical, emotional, and philosophical cloud of Bangkok Shutdown has lost its silver lining. Consequently I will definitely be reading the review of I, Frankenstein with the utmost care. The sentence preceding this one says a lot about my life.