I imagine this probably isn't normal.

I was combing through Blockbuster today and got a bit peeved that neither The Fast Runner nor The Way Home was in stock. Mind, I didn't expect to see them with The Way Home, as it's Korean, but The Fast Runner is one they actually stock - both copies had already been rented. So I sighed and started pawing through the action section in the hopes of finding something like Bichunmoo, since I'd rented Shiri the day before...

At which point it percolated through my head that I was looking in the Action section, and not the Foreign section. It took me a little while longer to realize they didn't seem to have a Foreign section any more, but as far as I was concerned, that was perfectly normal... because the stuff I was looking for didn't count as 'foreign movies'. Seriously. My brain doesn't shelve Hong Kong beat-people-up movies with the 'foreign' section, it puts them in Action. Chen Kaige's films? Those don't count as foreign either, those belong in Drama. Godzilla? Science fiction or Action. Kurosawa- say, The Hidden Fortress, which I have only seen halfway through? Drama. Shiri? Action. Asoka, an Indian movie about their great Emperor? Drama. Possibly Musical, owing to the weird nature of Bollywood films.

I thought at first that I was only applying this to Asian films, and then I realized - no, as far as I was concerned, Howards End (drama) wasn't foreign either. Nor was Life Is Beautiful (drama) or even Johnny Stecchino (comedy). No, as far as my brain was concerned, the primary criteria for a movie to belong in the 'foreign' section are:

1. Is it in a language other than English - preferably a European one?
2. Is it annoying?
3. Is it not only annoying, but pretentious?

Hit two out of three and the movie belongs in 'Foreign'. Hit all three and it belongs in 'Foreign' on the end next to 'Art House', which more often than not seems to rely on #2 and #3 to determine whether a movie belongs in its section or not. Dear Lord, if I ever encounter anything as pointless as All the Vermeers in New York again, someone's going to get slapped. Nothing happened in it and I really don't think I could have cared one whit less about the main characters...

Anyway. Just thought it was interesting what seems to constitute 'foreign film' inside my head, 's all.

Had a moment of cowardice again.

Went over to the shopping area on Highway 10 where Kam Man Foods is located. I had every intention of going to the video store there and trying to find The Way Home, or possibly Bichunmoo... right up until I got to the door. No English in sight anywhere, except on the poster advertising prepaid phone cards.

I wimped out and kept on walking instead of stopping in and saying 'yes, I'm totally clueless, is there any chance you could point me at the Korean movies and tell me which one is the one I'm looking for?'. It's one thing to look like a goob when you're far from home - say, Toronto, which is far for me - but... I don't know. It's sort of okay to be clueless and a tourist, but if you're in your native country on no particular tourism mission and you go into a place owned and operated by people of another culture, for people of that culture, it seems to me that you ought to at least know what you're doing. And I didn't.

I feel like such a wimp.