In early 2003, A major fire in Film and Television Institute (FTTI), Pune destroyed hundreds of original negatives and prints of very rare black-and-white golden classics films of 1950’s. This happened once, and this may happen again.

Well, why do we need to be old fashioned in this. I do agree to the point of having the original negatives and prints of movies, but why can’t we have a digital backup of the same also? Why can’t we convert the archive into digital formats and store it in some server, or may be multiple mirror servers.

According to Handbook of Indian Copyright Law, Any film will be released from it’s copyright and belongs to public domain after 60 years from its first release. So that essentially means that any movie released before Mar 31, 1948 has been released from its copyright and belongs to public domain.

I’ve done a quick search on p2p/torrent networks for the movie Raja Harishchandra, released in 1913, but didn’t fetch me any results. I can see many classic Hollywood movies available for public domain.

Reason being the digital format of the movie is not available for the public domain. Let alone being it available for public domain, there’s no digital format of that movie at all!

Converting the film archive in FTTI to digital format holds helpful for at least two reasons.

1. Save the movies from any chance of destruction in future, as may people/servers will be having copies.
2. Makes the availability of copyright-released movies for public domain, as Internet is the easiest medium to share any media.

And this definitely ensures the visibility of Indian classics outside the country too. I’ve many friends outside India who want to see classic Indian movies, which are available nowhere.

Despite of plethora of bad reviews for M. Night Shyamalan‘s The Happening, i think the movie is not so bad. It definitely is the not the Best of Hollywood or even Best of Shyamalan, the movie is pretty good and watchable.

Unlike the other Shyamalan movies, this has got a simple and straight forward story-line. This seems to be the primary reason not many are happy with it. After a disastrous Lady in the Water, Shyamalan doesn’t try anything extra-ordinary. This is a simple tale shot in a simple way.

But the problem with The Happening is – something tend to happen, but at the end, not much happens and we don’t know why it happened. The plants emitting chemicals theory is not properly explained, or not properly backed up with.

The movie start of well, and ends with a lot of questions unanswered.

What happens if you want to play 10 roles in a film, and you couldn’t find more than three in the story? You’ll start playing every other roles in the movie. What if you still ran out of roles at 7? You’ll create roles for you, having no relation to the story.

That’s what happens to Kamal in his latest movie: The grand Dasavathaaram, made at a whopping 1.3 billion budget. The movie has got a very weak (or no) and predictable story line, surprisingly bad make up for a few Kamal characters, lot of unnecessary and characters and sub-plots, bad music and few other bad things.

The movie seems to be made only to showcase Kamal in ten roles, and nothing else. Kamal tries his best to give ten different get-ups and fails miserably in many. The movie’s most memorable characters are those with a minimal make ups.

The movie start with a very interesting and well shot Shaiva-Vaishnava upset set in 12th Century, for which I still couldn’t find the connection with the main storyline of the Movie. But this definitely was the only enjoyable part of the movie.

Hell lot of Cliches & Non-Senses

• Villains still opt for suit cases to carry money. Don’t they know that this is the age of e-banking and m-banking?
• CIA training in Pakistan – WTH?
• Prez Bush, PM Manmohan and Kalaignar, Gimme a break man!
• Vial needs to be stored in a cool, dry place – and the vial is open in hot and humid condition of Chennai, most of the time. Still nothing happens.
• Bullet takes out your cancer – This definitely is Indian!
• What’s the problem with te character played by Asin? We had seen enough of “the annoying lady lead”.
• and lot more…

What worked?

• The 12th Century episode. This is well shot, even though it had no connection with the main storyline.
• A few of Kamal roles – Balram Naidu is hilarious and Kamal at his best. Rangaraja Nambi and Vincent Poovaragaan are pretty good.

What didn’t?

• The very predictable, weak story
• Mallika Sherawat
• Make-up – Fletcher, George Bush and Kalifullah seems very fake and amateur.
• Music – Bad
• Climax – CGI was bad.

Final Word: If you’re an ardent Kamal Fan, yes, you can afford to watch this one. For others, this is a strict no-no.

My friend Deep has written about how SeventyMM Customer Support almost sucks. I also had minor issues with SeventyMM but nothing so big. Compared to what I had with BigFlicks, SeventyMM is much much professional in their Service and Customer Care.

To start with – I was almost happy with SeventyMM for around six months. I had subscribed to their 4 DVD per month (this plan doesn’t exist anymore). This was slightly costly affair, Rs. 40/- per DVD.

Fair and good. But why not an unlimited plan then. I’m such a movie buff, and definitely any store will have stock to feed me unlimited for at least one year. The unlimited plan of SeventyMM was much highly priced at Rs. 550/- per month. I looked for alternative and found two. BigFlicks and Catchflix. Catchflix was more like Pay and rent type, but BigFlicks’ plan was real attractive. One DVD at a time unlimited plan for Rs. 250/-. 3 Months subscription for Rs. 650/-. Even if I manage to rent 10 DVD per month, it would be like Rs. 22/- per DVD.

So why wait. I jumped in. I paid rs. 1050/- (650 for 3 months subscription and 400 refundable deposit). Things went fine for almost for a month. Like SeventyMM. I rarely got movies on top of my queue, but I was happy as long as it’s from my queue. I managed to get almost 15-16 movies the very first month.

Unlike SeventyMM, BigFlicks also have multiple stores. One fine morning – or was it evening? Never mind – I decided to pay up a visit to one of the nearest store, 22 KM away from where I stay and 15 KM away from where I work. It was not kinda huge store, but still okay. They got good collection over there. I had taken a couple of DVDs before making a final decision.

Then I stumbled at what! Prison Break! The whole first season! I was almost in heaven when I was informed by the store guy that they do give the complete series in one go (unlike SeventyMM which never gives you more than two DVD a time). What say, after two minutes, I walked out of the store with 6 DVDs of Prison Break Season One.

It took almost 3-4 days for me to complete the first season. The next one I want, no prizes for guessing, was Prison Break Season 2. But surprisingly it was not available to be added to the queue. Okay, fine. I decided to go with another series – LOST season one – and there started the painful part of my honeymoon with BigFlicks.

I got a couple other movies before they delivered me LOST Season One, disc three. Yes, you read it right. Only one disc. I got a call from the runner (that’s what they call the delivery boy), that he’s gonna deliver LOST Season One at my home. Since I was at office still I asked to give it to my friend. I checked online and the delivered movie was LOST Season One (7 Disc). But when I discovered that in fact there was only one disc delivered, I immediately called up customer care and explained the situation. They offered me a replacement delivery of complete set the very next day. Peace of mind. I’m defensively not going to watch the disc 7 before disc 1-6. Good Night. Sleep Tight.

The very next day they delivered the movie, but not LOST Season One (7 Discs). I dialed up C Care again. the same promise. But this time the LOST Season One was disappeared from my movie Queue. You know why? It was already delivered! I added it again.

Surprise! No delivery happened for next 6 days! I tried almost everything I can do. I dialed Customer Care some n number of times, every time they opened a new ticket. They don’t have a clue what happened to my previous (n-1) tickets! I dialed all their stores in city. I even dialed the mobile number of normal delivery boy to my location!

At last, the seventh day, I took the DVD to my nearest store (mind it, 22 KMs) to return the DVD back (after all I’m the loser in an unlimited plan if no delivery happens!). They were very kendly enough to refuse the DVD. Reason: A runner already had gone for delivery at my home! I tried almost everything but kicking his butt. But he simply refused! Ok. Fine! This is the end. I asked to cancel my account, and they promptly refused that also. The runner needs to collect the DVD from me to cancel the account.

I dialed C Care again. The same old promise. Next day I was delivered Disc 7. I denied the delivery. I got Disc 2 next day and Disc 1 the day after. I was driven mad by then. I made several calls by then, opened several service requests on the website and got the golden gyan. They don’t the whole series as a whole. Only a DVD a time. But the Customer Care repeats the same old promise of single delivery of complete series.

I got to talk to their Customer Relations Manager by then, who tried to convince me understand why they don’t deliver a series as a whole (anymore). I tried to convince him back that their supply chain (at least in Hyderabad) is not intelligent enough to handle series. After a conversation of almost an hour and half he promised me that they deliver one Disc a day, but in the order I add in my queue. So I added up Disc 1 – 7 in my queue and he verified it.

My subscription was due in 7 days (I managed to watch around 10 – 12 movies – including Prison Break DVDs – in my last two months. I told him that my renewal will be based on their service for next 7 days.

The very next day they delivered me Disc 2 Disc 1! This is unbelievable. I was expecting the chain to be broken on 3rd or 4th day. But they are the limits!

I called this guy again – and at last he understood the situation and made arrangement for the delivery of the whole series. Happy at last.

It was a Saturday – and I was mentally prepared to start with LOST Season One. Around 11 AM I got a call that he’s gonna deliver LOST Season One at my home. I confirmed it that it’s the right set that I’m gonna receive. By around 12:30 this guy showed up with LOST Season Two complete set!

I gave up! This is not gonna work. I told him to go back and never come back again. I don’t want any more DVDs. I dropped an email to their CR Manager and updated the state.

He gave me a call by around 4 PM and said that they are going to deliver me the right DVD the same evening. I said I don’t want it and hung up. But they did deliver the same evening – this time the correct set!

By this time I’ve made my mind. After a week, I returned the DVD, called up the Customer Care, and canceled my account. The sweet voice at the other end asked me:

“Why do you want to cancel the account, sir?”

“Your service was so good for me; I can’t catch that!”

Epilogue: it’s almost two months since I had canceled my account, I’m yet to receive my refundable deposit. I already had sent 4 emails on this. Can’t complain – They always sends a prompt response, that they had forwarded it to the concerned department.

This is a late entry for the weekend before last. I’m too lazy to write a detailed post, so here are short reviews for each.

Kadha Prayumbol (Mal)
Where: Prasadz Big Screen
When: 9th Feb 2008, Saturday, 11 AM show
Typical Srinivasan cliches about globalization, movie scripts, actors etc are present. Well presented climax. Srinivasan as pratogonist and Mammooty in his short role was good. The movie is planned to be remade in Tamil/Telugu with Pasupathy and Rajinikanth  by P. Vasu and in Hindi with Irrfan Khan and Shahrukh Khan by Priyadarshan.

Rating: 6/10

Mithya (Hindi)
Where: PVR Cinemas
When: 9th Feb 2008, Saturday, 4 PM Show
Brilliant first half, and brilliant second half. Confused? Well the movie is good, having two good halves. There is a sharp turn from black comedy in first half to complete black in second half. But a brave bollywood attempt for Noir films. Excellent performance by Ranvir Shorey; and brilliant execution by Rajat Kapoor. I was disappointed to see Vinay Pathak was given a much shorter role than expected.

Rating: 7.5/10

Fool’s Gold (Eng)
Where: Prasadz
When: 9th Feb 2008, Saturday, 8 PM Show
Nothing much to say, very predictable, usual fare you can expect from this kind of movies. It provided some good laugh moments though.

Rating: 3/10

1408 (Eng)
Where: Prasadz
When: 9th Feb 2008, Saturday, 11 PM Show
Definitely not in the class of The Shining, but this horror flick is worth a watch. It doesn’t try to scare you with visual or sound effects, but with the psychological tension it injects into the viewers mind. 1408 is relatively free of gore or violence and barely shows any blood. Fans of the bloody horror genre (like Hostel, Saw) may not enjoy this. But if you’re a fan of psycho-horror (The Shining) then this is for you.  One of the best movie I’ve watched in recent past.

Rating: 8/10

Superstar (Hindi)
Where: PVR Cinemas
When: 10^th Feb 2008, Sunday, 12:30 PM Show
Sincere performance from Kunal Khemu makes this yet another double role film, a better one. The film is not a flawless one, in fact it had many. A better script, a better editing, and so on… But it really was refreshing to see a comparatively new actor taking such a heavy weight role in his shoulders, and being successful on it. This end-to-end is a Kunal Movie. Watch it for him.

Rating: 6.5/10

Rambo 4 (Eng)
Where: PVR Cinemas
When: 10^th Feb 2008, Sunday, 4 PM Show
Blood, Blood and more Blood. Enough Said.

Rating: 4/10

National Treasure: Book of Secrets (Eng)
Where: PVR Cinemas
When: 10^th Feb 2008, Sunday, 8 PM Show
Am I the only one who felt dumb after watching this movie?

Rating: 2/10