One Day Six Movies - What a Weekend! - I

Lately have this wierd idea of understanding how the movies are made! In literal sense, how many shots are there in the movie, where do they place the camera, how do they make the camera move etc etc. Rather than picking up a theoritical book, i decided to watch some English movies and explore. My obvious choice was the movies of the type Romance / Romantic Comedies! I had couple of movies already in mind like The Lake House, You've Got a Mail, The Break - up! Recently I bought a 180 GB External HDD and have become little fancy about filling it up with some videos. Though I have known lot of converters which can rip the DVDs, somehow an working one doesnt exist on my Laptop. So I decided to rent VCDs as much as possible and if they dont exist let me try DVDs. Contradictory to that, a few years back, i use to ask for DVDs first and then VCDs. I guess I am the only, one on earth moving BACK WARDS! [:)] Well, i could get VCDs of You've Got A Mail and The Breakup. The Lake House - DVD and i observed some one returning the movie "The Holiday", so grabbed that one. Then i decided, well will get 2 more as i had sunday too. SO i picked up "Serendipity" and rang up my friend who advised me to try "Before Sunrise" and "Before Sunset". So totally i picked up 7 movies on Friday evening

1. The Lake House - IMDB Link, Warner Bros Site
2. The Breakup - IMDB Link, Official Site
3. You've Got Mail - IMDB Link, Official Site
4. The Holiday - IMDB Link, Official Site
5. Serendipity - IMDB Link, Official Site
6. Before Sunrise - IMDB Link, Official Site
7. Before Sunset - IMDB Link, Official Site

Except for the last one (Before Sunset) i finished all the movies starting Friday Night ending Saturday Evening and ofcourse with Sleep of say around 8 hours. Well will not get into the details of movies, or their stories etc. Really all of them were class movies and one would love watching them. Except for The Lake House every other movie was a REAL - TYPE and definitely one can pretty easily co-relate though it depends whether you could connect yourself to any of the characters in the movie. The ratings i would give for these movies are

1. The Lake House - ***1/2
2. The Breakup - ****
3. You've Got Mail - *****
4. The Holiday - ****
5. Serendipity - *****
6. Before Sunrise - *****
7. Before Sunset - Havent Seen YET

I have never seen movies of such a high quality in succession. I am kind of notorious in watching movies non-stop, when i go crazy. Couple of incidents to share with are -

1. It was on one of the Semester exam days. Usually i had this habit of seeing a movie @ 3PM show @ Sterling Theater @ Mysore. Incidentally i did my BE from SJCE Mysore. I use to watch a movie irrespective of the performance in the exam. Sometimes friends use to accompany, sometimes i use to bump in all alone. I finished one by 6 PM, came back to home and found my cousin who had a back subject to give planning to go for one. He had given 2 subjects that day. Morning one and Afternoon One. There was this nearby theater called Saraswati @ Saraswatipuram Mysore and we just walked in for 8:30 show. That was first time i ever saw movies in succession on a single day
2. During mid Nov 2006, i realised that i was not watching any movies at all. Reason 1, a little hectic work. Reason 2, Not interesting Company. Reason 3, Pain of standing in Queues. I decided, will watch 36 movies in 28 days. Isnt it crazy? Well I felt it too... It was a Saturday - Went to PVR trying for DON. Tickets werent available. Somehow Dhoom2 was not being screened @ PVR. Anyways, even if it was i never would have got the ticket. I browsed through the display and found "Thananam Thananam". I had heard about Kavita Lankesh making this movie and the fact that Rakshitha and Ramya acting in it made me to opt for this. It was a treat to EYES for three reasons - 1. It was like watching both a movie and a drama, as around half an hour of the movie revolves around performance on the stage, 2. Above that, I loved watching Hampi in the songs. Previously i loved Hampi in "The Myth". I have always been a great fan of HAMPI for reasons unknown. I plan to shoot it in my documentary which i am planning to make in this life time [;)]. 3. Preformances by Girish Karnad, Bharathi, and chicks Ramya and Rakshitha were indeed Great. Especially in traditional costumes, all were looking great. It was a TREAT to watch. That day evening i felt it was a great start. The next day, Sunday i went early around 11:30. There was a ticket for DON which was supposed to start @ around 2:20. I grabbed that ticket first. I dint had patience of waiting till that time. Then browsed for movies which were showing around 11:30 or 12. I found Hubbali @ 12:00. Got into it. Cameout at 2:15 and walked into the other screen showing DON. It was quiet a hectic day. But i felt it was great going. On Monday, it was the turn for one more movie. There was a near by theater by name Kamakya which was screening Dhoom2. It was easy to get a ticket in Black for 70 for a ticket which costed 50. Went in and it was a real pain in the A.. Not the movie was bad. I enjoyed the movie. But the theater was so horrible, the seats were just not the seats anybody would love, almost not workking fans, densely overcrowded, they started adding additional plastic chairs, adding to the mystery was the theater was full of mosquitoes. The passion of making it 36 movies in 27 days made me to hang around for the entire show, just praying that it would get over ASAP. That night was a real nightmare and my passion died down with my count @ 4. [:D]

Our Movie Makers, off-late (or even from the begining) are well known for Copying the Script, Music etc etc, I just wonder how come they missed the 7 movies i listed little above. Anyways coming back to my objective of learning from the exercise over the weekend, i think it has given me some knowledge, the results would be seen in my first dowcumentary or the first short film.
Now its been 30 minutes since i am keying in. Let me get back to the work which is waiting for me....

BTW, i dint watch any movie on sunday as it was the real REST day after a hectic Saturday and needed the rest as it was my Niece Bday and was attending the small family get-together in the evening.