vlad.tribnet.com / Issue #164 / Social life / Reading article...

There’s nothing like wasting a Sunday afternoon on a really lousy movie.

It’s a luxury made particularly easy in the Far East because stations here regularly screen the after-school specials, made-for-TV movies, and Hollywood dregs that drop off the charts within minutes in the U.S., if they ever caught anyone’s attention at all.

So I felt like I’d hit jackpot when one of Hollywood’s cheesiest blockbusters popped up unexpectedly last Sunday with full Russian voice-over. A perfect chance to pretend I was brushing up on my language skills while I enjoyed two hours of pure movie-land fluff.

“The Bridges of Madison County,” I’ll confess, sucked me in from the start. Even though Clint Eastwood’s husky drawl got chucked for a whiny Russian screech, I was in the thrall of Hollywood’s most adept emotional button-pushers.

I watched, close to tears, as the two heroes fell in love, consummated the deal, and mused about hitting Vegas for a shotgun wedding. And I waited for the inevitable ending, when Hollywood cleanses us of all our demons, teaches us that true love really exists, and leaves us wondering about all those weirdoes in the American Midwest.

But it didn’t come.

I don’t mean the movie was somehow better than I expected. Or that I felt like I hadn’t wasted a sunny Sunday afternoon. I mean that the ending didn’t come.

Just as Clint took off in his ’50s Chevy pickup, clouds of dust billowing behind him and dirtying the tears streaming down Meryl Streep’s face, the Russian station (Channel Four if you want to call in and complain) mercilessly cut to a commercial. And never came back.

As I waited longer, I got one of those “sinking feelings,” as they say in the movies. The commercials took on a more settled tone. It became clear that the station people weren’t cramming them in before Clint’s return. My worst fears were sealed when programming cut to “The Sunday Channel,” a FIVE-HOUR show for Vladivostok kids that broadcasts last year’s school dance production, interviews with babushki, and next week’s after-school movie schedule.

It was pure torture. Instead of that nicely-wrapped Hollywood contentment, I was left with guilty feelings of anger at an innocent, well-meaning kids’ show. Those meddlesome brats had gotten in the way of me and my “Bridges.”

Just look at what a lousy movie can do to you.