My son asked me recently, "what was the first movie you saw and where". I didn't remember. Everything is a blur. My mother recollects watching movies in thatched sheds, a talkie alright, not the silent one. She too does not remember the name of the movie.
Of course I remember the last one. It was yesterday, a U torrent download of a Malayalam movie called Madambi. The file took 4 days to download, but the picture quality was perfect. I am not sure if this is legal and being in the publishing industry, am a little squirmy about copyright violations. But the experience was new. A few of us huddled around the computer and watched it, in between pausing to see Gilchrist massacre the Delhi Daredevils.
As yet, I prefer the couch and its comfort. As soon as I reach home after a days tilt at my windmills, I grab the remote and check out all the movie channels first before moving on to sports. Unless of course
I remember the open air screening of Ben Hur, Benji, Born Free, and like movies at our school. Our school had a visual education programme where we saw many movies including hilarious ones like Crazy boys of the games, The Gods must be Crazy and the like.
My most poignant recollection of movies at theatres are Bullet Train at the Casino, the Malayalam movies Chemeen and Nellu at Palaniappa, Gone with the Wind at Sathyam, and Saturday Night Fever at Safire.
My first Hindi movie at a theatre was Kala Pathar at Pilot. Strangely I don't remember my first Tamil movie. Was it MGR's Arasa Kattlai at Lakshmi. I don't remember. But I do remember Mozhi and Dasavatharam as movies I saw at a multiplex called Mayajal.
What was the first movie I rented from a movie store? I can't recall, neither can I my first movie on the CD/ DVD. I recall watching a Tamil drama by SV Sekhar called Kattila Mazhai (Rain in the forest). My uncle used to be a Kathakali buff and I am told I fell asleep through an entire Kathakali show when I was 5. I have seen Kamalahasan's Pesum Padam, a silent movie.
So what other formats are left. My friend tells me, the touring talkies are famous in villages. I have no clue. But from the talkies, to theatres, multiplexes, channels, CDs/DVDs to U torrent downloads is quite a journey in ones lifetime. What else is in store? Quite a bit I guess.
So what is your favourite mode of watching movies?
Nothing like watching a good movie in a theatre!
Hmm..my first movie in theatre that I remember well was Himmatwala and the song “ta thayya ta thayya ho” and the most recent being “kaminey” 2 weeks back. Bought a 52 inch tele 2 months back but its still theatres for me for movies.
Even i have seen movies n talkies with thatched roof and bed bugs between d seat.on vacation to my home town v used to b taken to d near by talkies ver movies like satyavan savitri would b playing even n d 90s.and current wud fail every now and then and those sitting on dbenches wud start hooting.Dat was an xperience for v kids and my fav mode of watching movie:)
i am not much of a movie buff.. but do prefer to watch movies on cds/dvds at home rather than in a theatre. moreover i cant ff the songs in a theatre.. lols.. the whole world might be going ga ga over bollywood and indian song and dance.. but i dislike most of the songs… (tho i like to listen to them).. are you in chennai? i thot u were in delhi…
Again a topic that noone writes aboit and taking us down the memory lane…but how come Eka thinks she belongs to ur mother’’s generation? I agree with Dilip, movies are better on the big screen! I have lost patience to watch movies now. The earliest ones I remember are (maybe 6 -8 years age) Chemmeen, The Mad Mad mad world, Chengis Khan etc which was seen with parents and I am not usre if I understood anything those days!! hehe. Trust u to come up with innovative topics!
Aatukaara alamelu is how far I can go back in terms of remembering a tamil movie…Lakshmi Talkies, I think it was! I can remember being quite enthralled by a head-butting contest between goats.
The audi in BITS was perhaps where I”ve watched the most number of movies…about 50-60 each semester!!! And then there used to be Saturday movies with Anantha - a staunch no-vernacular person, because of which I got to see a whole lot of English movies!
As for the future, you”ll probably be watching a movie on your mobile phone…or if we”re to go by what Pranav Mistry has in store for us…just possibly anywhere! You go define your silver screen (Check out Pranav Mistry on the TED blogsite).
quite nostalgic- which takes me back down the memory lane- which was my first movie? i can”t recall- maybe as a toddler some movie at trichur’’s jose theatre somewhere in the late 60s. But ofcourse my first hindi movie was Purab aur paschim of manoj kumar at Ramadas theatre of trichur- which incidentally was the first movie of the first ac theatre-
in the theatre with pop corn and friends…
the big screen is my fav haunt… so a theatre, for sure….
aah u took me back tpo the open air theatres . dad was in the army so enjoyed those too…as for the TV..well I just cant sit and watch movies on the TV
4 days to download?
Magic of Movies was really nice 
Though I haven”t watched more of what you have done, it felt good to imagine you watch so many movies 
I, am far from settled, so cant answer in one line.. While in Lucknow, for some time I had made all theatres a commonplace, before that at hometown, it was only TV and Sunday movies on DD, In Mumbai when I was in a locality, there was one theatre near my office, one near my apartment and one near the railway station where I used to go attend weekend classes… While in b-school, I missed all those days and there was no time for movies, but some times I would travel by local trains to watch movies in some famous and historical old theatres of Mumbai… These days, movies have become scarcest… Waiting for another change to get back… I think I am talking to myself 
Keep writing.. Regards, (Rahul)
I don”t remember which movie it was … I do remember that I saw it in the theatre along with my family members … And those fight scenes used to scare me so much that the theatre used to be filled with my wail ..
… O yes, during Ganesh Chaturthi, a large screen was put up in our colony and movies were shown at night … We could sit in our house and see from the kitchen … It was truly a big screen experience .. 
So for me movie at home on a DVD player is more entertaining than getting into a movie house with all the stink and smell of the sweat and sebacious glands. A movie, any for that matter, with the accompaniment of a short of whisky….mmmmmmmmm thats what I call relaxing
Krishna, manian, just the 2 theatres i reckon, close to the place where I lived. Then a suburb of coimbatore but now well within the city limits of Coimbatore. But frankly we were not frequent movie goers, what with stringent budgetory restrictions. So as time went by I was not truly interested in movies until the time I started working for a living. This took me places round the globe, where to kill your solitude, you had to have some kinda entertainment. What better entertainment than watching movies after a hard day’’s grind? So I have ended up accumulating DVD’’s to the extent that I could watch each one of them afresh even now without actually remembering the story. It went over your head ya? What I meant is that I have lots of these DVD’’s lieing around, some of them untouched. I was on like….a DVD buying spree.
Let me start off by saying—–you have an excellent way of putting up your blogs and let me tell you, I read whatever you present from start to finish without a break. I might also add that the same does not hold good for movies these days, what with the pause and rewind of DVD players making it possible to watch a movie at home in bits and pieces and maybe in a week.
I believe it was in my 2nd grade? I guess so. In a thatched movie house in Thevara or the near abouts in Cochin, a movie by the name “Lisa”. Half the movie I spent digging deep into my mom’’s saree pallu. (I guess this movie even at this time, makes me rush for my mother’’s saree pallu tee hee…just kidding). Since then movie theatres in Coimbatore where I spent all my early days in school and college.
And as ekanthapadika says in one of her comments here, I too have watched movies in thatched theatres. And I definitely do not belong to that old a generation
the theatre, on the big screen! somehow, films don”t give that special fim when watched on TVs or computers…
I forgot to mention the friday morning excitement we kids had during the holidays. As many cars as there were “talkies” in our small town , would go along the streets and bylanes, announcing the new films . A guy inside would throw notices out of the window, which we kids ran after. The idea was to get as many of those pink, blue and green little bits of paper as we could. It would give details of the producer, director and the main actors as also a bit of the story line with the conclusion..”Shesham vellithirayil” which meant “the rest on the silver screen”. I had better stop. Madhu you”ve pushed me back into my childhood with this post.:-)
My father would only be interested in watching movies with a generous portion of the jungle or safari etc. He took me and my brother to see the fim “Nellu” because the story was based in Wynad . Everything went fine till there was a scene where the hero started getting intimate with a tribal belle (or may be it was she who was trying to seduce him, I don”t quite remember..the actress was somebody called kanakadurga) Then my father started muttering , which became louder by the minute much to our embarassment and eventually he just got up and walked out. We had to follow him of course. Now it makes me smile , but my word it caused so much discomfiture then! The first film I can remember was a tamil one called “En Kadamai”. Can”t remember anything of it except one scene where somebody was digging out the soil and the hand of someone buried there became visible. Remember having bad nights after that. I love movies . Am a member of “Big Flix” now.
I”ve watched movies in thatched sheds, so I must belong to your mother’’s generation. In between, vendors would walk between the rows of seats selling peanuts and songbooks. When there was a current failure , the crowd sitting right in front on the ground ( i guess that’’s where the derogatory expression ” thani thara ” to describe someone not belonging to one’’s class came from) would start booing. All that was part of the experience of watching a movie. It used to be rare treats anyway. There was a whole process preceding it, the mostly insurmountable part being getting my father’’s permission after which the whole day was one of beautiful anticipation. My mother would finish cooking as quickly as possible; we kids would pretend that it was an ordinary day and try to engage ourselves as usual, but all the while there would be this undercurrent of a different kind of evening. No new technology or comfort of watching movies in our own time and space can replace that for me.
download !!!no no for me…..i just overload rather overlook the review from diff sites & newspaper.if satisfied then bring the pirated version of the dvd & watch.if the movie is really too good, then go to theater with family.
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Nice musings…you are a movie buff!
Free download of movies, if your connections are robust, is economical means of watching movie on PC. Personally, I am an inveterate collector of International movies and owns more than 300 movies - Bergman, Kurosovo, Fellini and folks of my liking-(That was a bit of bragging and you can discount quantity to about 200) and so I watch it on TV. Your blog has reminded me about an amzingly great Italian film I watched recently (I will write a blog) which is about the passion and magic of watching movies itself…First film I can recollect is ”Thulabharam”…..PGR
Watching movies on DVD is the most comfortable way of viewing it.
MPK.. the download is not legal.. :-).. but these days there are so many websites which offer such downloads.. some even do online streaming… btw how was Madambi.. isnt it a Mohanlal movie..
my fav mode? in a theater, buttered popcorn and a soda at hand, hubby on the side or a bunch of good friends… nothing beats the big screen experience.
like i watched angels and demons last week. (incidentally hubby and i were the only ones in the theater for that show
scores of sites now where u can watch free movies. will send u the link if u want.
Nice post. Right up my alley. I prefer watching movies in the theatre. I don”t remember my first movie
Good touch of nostalgia here.
hi, i dont remember my first movie, but i do remember my first adult (A) movie. it was during the 8th standard and we bunked the class, went straight to Samir’’s house(he too bunked along with us, total 5) and his father mother bothe being doctors and very busy from dawn to dusk, grabbed a video casette of some english porn. I remember when Ajay asked the video parlor guy for a ”matte type movie” and his facial expression. he gave us a mild one without any real thing, but that was enough for us. we entered streight to the forbidden realm of the reserved adult fora, or discovered titillating facts about sexuality.. compels me to write a similar post, watch my space in a day or so.. cheers:))))
I like to watch old Hindi movies (especially black & white) on TV ……but that’’s a rare chance. Besdes, there are some old/new movies which I can watch again and again, like Chupke-Chupke Amol Palekar’’s Gol Mal & Rajni Gandha, all pictures of Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Rajendra Kumar’’s Aarzoo, Kal Ho na Ho, Karz, Om Shanti Om, Kuchh Kuchh Hota Hai, Tare Zameen par, Step Mom, Wedding Planner, My Best Friend’’s Wedding, Jumanjee, Main in Manhattan etc.etc.
I had to dig real deep down my memory bank for this one. The first movie I saw in a small cinema behind my grandma’’s house was “Suspiria” when I was about 12. Totally silly horror movie. “Grease” “Sat Nite Fever” and the like. Then it was VCDs at home with family or friends. Now, it is usually DVDs at home and movies in cineplexes during the school holidays when my kids dictate what must be watched. Generally, me hubs and kids have ruled as far as movies are concerned and my interests have taken a major side step. Hardly watch movies on TV too. But it is certainly a pleasant experience watching a movie in a cinema with your loved one and chomping on pop corn. By the way, did not know about U torrent until this post. I am still in the dinosaur age I guess
My all time fav comedy is “A Fish called Wanda” and “Iron Man” simply cos it is Robert Downey Jr *sigh*
spur of the moment mode. i enjoy watching movies that interest me, they take me to places. i noted ur choice of classics- I have watched Gone With The Wind in compliance to a school requirement
great post.
if a picture in the net can be down loaded it is probably legal. in any case it is ok. one down load is not going to break the bank and the back of the producer.
I feel that if you record a move from the tv channel it should be perfectly legal.
think of it this way. if you watch a move and come back home and describe the whole thing to your wife it would be piracy. in such a case you cannot narrate the story of a film to an one. but it is not fair.
in any case the times of theaters is near the end of the road.
one of these days some one is ging to ask you ”which was the last film you saw in your life?” it not too far of.
a great Q, what is the fav mode of watching movies… I hardly watch any, wife soaks up from the idiot box. a good Q, is it legal?