I miss the day's of the single screen theatres where the viewing public would make sure you know that you are at the movies, with their catcalls and whistles!
Each impressive dialogue would be whistled at. Every actor entry would be cheered, with the exception of Tushar Kapoor, whose entry would bring in a hushed silence.
Rumours are, that the latest Vidya Balan movie was titled 'The Picture' until they cast Tushar Kapoor. But let's not get into that since this post is not about him.
My favourite theatre was 'Urvashi' which was very close to where I lived. It had a 50rupee balcony seat and an awesome Dolby surround sound.
Bangalore was also well known for the 'Majestic' area, which along with its - then- state of the art bus station was also named after the most popular theatre - Majestic. I think KG road alone boasted of over 20 theatres at a point!
The MG road area had a few very popular movie screens - Rex, Symphony, Plaza, Bluemoon. Some of them still haven't lost their 'charm', I remember Plaza still had ceiling fans and windows until a 3-4 years ago when it was shutdown.
Then came PVR - with its multiplexes. The ticket cost shot up, the screens got smaller and the experience more diluted. The multiplex movie audience now was more like the cricket crowd watching England play New Zealand at Lord's.
Also ordinary movies(Bodyguard, Ready) started getting called 'big hits' simply because of their collections (not surprising when some tickets are priced at 450bucks!). Sad.
But it the multiplex does have its benefits - If you feel like watching a movie but don't know what movie. The multiplex is perfect.
Certain movies got made, targeted right at the multiplex audience - 'Pappu can't dance saala' to cite the most recent example was awesome!
So all in all I still go watch loads of movies, but miss the whistles and the energy at times.
Each impressive dialogue would be whistled at. Every actor entry would be cheered, with the exception of Tushar Kapoor, whose entry would bring in a hushed silence.
Rumours are, that the latest Vidya Balan movie was titled 'The Picture' until they cast Tushar Kapoor. But let's not get into that since this post is not about him.
My favourite theatre was 'Urvashi' which was very close to where I lived. It had a 50rupee balcony seat and an awesome Dolby surround sound.
Bangalore was also well known for the 'Majestic' area, which along with its - then- state of the art bus station was also named after the most popular theatre - Majestic. I think KG road alone boasted of over 20 theatres at a point!
The MG road area had a few very popular movie screens - Rex, Symphony, Plaza, Bluemoon. Some of them still haven't lost their 'charm', I remember Plaza still had ceiling fans and windows until a 3-4 years ago when it was shutdown.
Then came PVR - with its multiplexes. The ticket cost shot up, the screens got smaller and the experience more diluted. The multiplex movie audience now was more like the cricket crowd watching England play New Zealand at Lord's.
Also ordinary movies(Bodyguard, Ready) started getting called 'big hits' simply because of their collections (not surprising when some tickets are priced at 450bucks!). Sad.
But it the multiplex does have its benefits - If you feel like watching a movie but don't know what movie. The multiplex is perfect.
Certain movies got made, targeted right at the multiplex audience - 'Pappu can't dance saala' to cite the most recent example was awesome!
So all in all I still go watch loads of movies, but miss the whistles and the energy at times.
2 comments:
Actually, Hyderabad still has lots of single screen theatres and the single screen culture is quite prevalent here. Overall, watching movies in Hyderabad is a better experience - more theatres, cheper tickets.
Getting to Hyderabad is the only issue I see, else I am sold!
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