Titanic(1997) was the
first English movie I saw in theatre. I must have been in 6th Std
and I remember asking my father ‘Why is everyone laughing?’ when Kate Winslet’s
bodyguard says ‘It's interesting. The young lady slipped so suddenly and you
still had time to remove your jacket and your shoes.’ to Leonardo DiCaprio
after DiCaprio saves her from her suicide attempt. I didn’t understand a thing
then. As a kid, though I enjoyed many movies like Home Alone(1990), Home Alone 2: Lost in New
York(1992) and Dunston
Checks in(1996), my knowledge of English Film Industry was only limited
to these movies. Somewhere in November 2006, we shifted in the new house and
then came Cable Network. Until then, we never had one. Even television came in
our house pretty late, sometime in 1996 I believe.
By the time I was in my 3rd year
of my Engineering, because of Broadband Internet network and Movie channels
like Star Movies and HBO had kindled my passion of Films. Few of my Friends I
considered as reliable sources(most of them, I still do) were used to be my ‘go
to’ guys about movie suggestions. Because of J.K.Rowling and Harry Potter, I
was also reading lot of English Literature as well(I should also thank my
friend Mandar Harshe, who lent me first 4 books of the series). Reading those
books made me comfortable with the language while watching English films. Friends(1994)helped
immensely too.
Then I came to Massachusetts for my masters
in August 2009. Availability of much superior infrastructure at very affordable
cost made a lot of things easier for students studying thousand miles away from
home like us. An Avid movie lover l was by then, it was almost impulsive to me
to use this for watching many movies I always wanted to watch but were not
available for various reasons. It was my chance and I was not going to miss it.
Netflix, College Library and other sources to get movies became my lifeline. I
became a regular visitor of IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes and similar sites.
I finished most of my course work by Fall
2010. Since Spring 2011, I was working on my master’s project. Lack of any
definite time table gave me the freedom to do everything as I wanted to. Now, I
had time to do many things that I loved but could not fit into my schedule
because of lectures, home-works and assignments(I have read 7 books since Jan
2011. Almost double the books I read since coming to US). By default, I was
watching a lot of movies. I have had quite a collection now; my friends were asking
me for movie recommendations; my roommates were teasing me about being in wrong
career (they wanted me to be a movie critic. :)
I was enjoying my journey of Films. But
after some time it was natural to urge for something more. I was doing a lot of
reading regarding movies myself, various articles, blogs like Riku Writes(This is one of my
major source of my Inspiration. I am going to steal a lot of ideas from this
blog) etc. etc. And one fine day, I thought to give it a try myself. And here
we are. I can never be a movie critic; whatever my roommates want me to be. But
at least I can try to write about them. This is my humble attempt to channel my
various thoughts regarding movies that I kept to myself until now. Hope you
will like it. Your comments about anything will be most appreciated. Bon
Voyage!!
:) I had completely forgotten that I'd lent you the Harry Potter books. Btw, I recommend reading rogerebert.com (he's won the Pulitzer for movie criticism). And also ericdsnider.com for funny and good reviews too.
ReplyDeleteI remember that because those were my First English Books. And thanks for recommendations. I know Ebert - I have seen him before.
ReplyDeleteGood start. AS you know I will be looking forward to your recommendation & comments for movies. Good luck ....!!!!
ReplyDeleteYour Titanic experience wasn't that bad. Mine was memorable. I was watching Titanic with my friend at his home. And just when Kate Winslet strips off for the drawing, my friend's dad enters the room. He sees naked girl on the computer screen and looks at us. We look back. Eyes locked. Nobody says a single word. He goes out of the room locking door. We never even had chance to explain him that we were not watching porn.
ReplyDeleteTill now, when I go to his house and meet his dad, I remember that incident. Maybe someday, I am gonna explain him what really happened that day. LOL.
@Blue Sapphire: My experience was to show my Naivety. Your experience is outright embarrasing. :D
ReplyDelete@Shantanu: U mean the embarrassment of his dad, right . haha
ReplyDeleteBTW, here are my fav movies handpicked by /b/ros
http://rojanshrestha.blogspot.com/2011/06/top-100-movies-handpicked-by-bros.html