Blogathon - Movie Products

My very first Blogathon participation comes from a blogathon started by Nostra from MyFilmView.com

Taking bloggers into the world of science fiction gadgets/products, my mission is to change movie history and in some cases include myself in movie stardom by answering these following questions;

Which movie would you find in your own Pulp Fiction briefcase? (One which you would treasure or is impossible to see because it is not available)

I've actually been trying to get my hands on the DVD of an excellent Indian film called Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron. Although the movie was made in the 70s, it still remains one of the freshest and funniest movies to ever come out of Indian cinema. Furthermore, lightheartedly looking at corruption in India, the films still hold true after decades.

If you had a Back to the Future DeLorean, which cinema related time period would you travel?

I honestly cannot answer that. I don't think I will truly be able to appreciate the 20s to 50s period and 80s onwards has been pretty average and something I've lived through. So, either have a look into the future, or if I must travel back in time, I guess the time of free love and radicalism would be fun to experience, so 60s and 70s it is, especially since the true Summer Blockbuster films also originated around then. 

If you woke up tomorrow morning and found out that you were living your own Groundhog Day and could only escape it by watching all the movies from a specific genre, which genre would you choose and why? And which genre would be your personal hell?

If I was living my own Groundhog Day, then first I would arrange to meet Anne Hathaway. If that works out, I guess I will not be watching any films because I would be in my celebrity heaven. If the plan fails, then I would probably go for the brainless action films (Fast and the Furious, Transporter, and the like) which would take my mind off living my life in a loop. As for my personal hell, period dramas. I can take only small doses of those every few years, and having to watch them day in and day out would be horrible. 

You have the Neuralyzer from Men in Black in your pocket. Which movie would you travel into to use it on one of the characters to change the movie in a fun or interesting way and what would happen because of the change you made?

It would have to be The Usual Suspects. I'd like for Verbal Kint to have a memory loss on the ship after the explosion and then see how the movie progresses since he would then not know who Kyser Söze is ;-)

If you would be able to enter the dreams of a famous movie character like Cobb did in Inception using the dream machine, which character's dreams would you jump into to get to know that character better and what do you think their dreamworld would look like?

I'm a big fan of psychology, so there would be a number of characters whose brains I would like to pick to see what's really going on in there. Jack Nicholson from One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest. Maybe Edward Norton from Primal Fear. Or even Anne Hathaway from Rachel Getting Married which is such an underrated performance. I think all the three characters would have edgy dreams, but that of Edward Norton in Primal Fear are the ones that are bound to be the scariest.

Lacuna Inc, the company from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind just opened on the corner of your street. Which one movie memory would you delete to experience it for the first time again?

You know I asked this questions recently when I was watching Predator one day. How cool would it be to watch a movie without knowing anything about it? I would definitely love to experience some of the movie greats like Star Wars, Indiana Jones, or even Clerks again without knowing anything about them...not even a trailer.  

Right next to Lacuna Inc, another company Rekall from Total Recall has opened as well. Which character in which movie would you like to be to experience it in first person?

No doubt, Ferris Bueller from Ferris Bueller's Day Out. That would be an amazing experience. 

Thank you Nostra for the opportunity to participate in the Blogathon. Cheers! 

Movie Thoughts - Does your traffic dictate your blog & your movie watching experience?

Now, this question relates to pretty much all bloggers and not just film bloggers, but honestly speaking have you ever specially gone and seen a movie, or skipped one, because you thought that it would/not appeal to your blog readers?

Although I have never really done this, but often when I write about an Indian film or like right now I am planning to write about two books on Indian films that I have just read, I do wonder how many people will actually read it considering most of my readers are from the western world and not too much into Indian cinema. Moreover the books cater to people who have seen the movies, which I am pretty sure most of my readers have not (although I am always pleased to be proved wrong).

Now, I do go ahead with writing articles and reviews on Indian cinema because I have a personal goal of trying to make it more popular. I also did a recent post on when someone might have had to go watch a movie when they really did not want to, be it to impress a girl or even for their blog. This question is more specific in that knowing who your readers are, and where they are from, or what they like, are you thinking about what you write and maybe even how you write, when you do write?

So far I’ve tried to keep true to myself. I know I have a very basic writing style and I like to write as little or as much as I want to about a movie, but there is always a question in the back of my mind, checking to make sure, if the post will be "popular" amongst my readers.

Have you ever thought about your readers when you stood in the theater deciding on your next film, or has it always been what YOU want first and then the reader?

Let me know... 

Blogger Syndrome - The Pressure to Review

When I started blogging about a year back I came across a relatively famous blogger (can't remember his blog name) who after about a month of me reading his posts declared that he was going to quit writing. The reason for this sudden decision was that he found himself not enjoying movies anymore. He claimed that in place of letting the film entertain him, he found his mind wandering off towards what to write in the review.

I too seem to be suffering from this case it seems. Lately, I have found my mind get distracted while watching a movie thinking what I would want to write in its review. I don't like this one bit. Just the other day, while watching True Romance for the very first time, I made a conscious decision that I would not write a review of the movie. To my surprise I enjoyed the movie a whole lot more because it had my 100% attention throughout its course.

I know some of you are seasoned bloggers who watch movies on a daily basis as well as publish reviews everyday. My question to you is if you too suffer from the same problem which i've termed as the "Blogger Syndrome"? Do you feel that as a result of the pressure to review a movie, be it for a personal blog or professionally, more time is spent fixating on the positives and negatives of the movie rather than its total enjoyment? In fact, in-between I even started taking my iPad to take notes while watching a movie in my home theater, a practice that I did not continue after a couple of movies.

In a perfect world, I would love to disassociate myself from any thought during the movie and just think about it afterwards when I write about it, but unfortunately that has not been the case. I have tried not writing a review on my immediate return leaving it at times for weeks afterwards, but still I find myself forming sentences for my write-up mid-movies. Ideally, repeat watching would be a great solution to the problem. Enjoy the movie the first time round and then look at it critically the second time, but with the abundance of movies to still watch, repeat viewings are few and far between.

For now I haven't reached the stage where I would give up writing and that might disappoint some of you, but I have had a hard and long thought over it and if this does continue, I fear I might one day follow on the footsteps on my above mentioned fellow blogger.