How to watch movies: 10 min exercise for Beginners

Consider this. If there is national hobby, it is films. Any healthy adult of my age must have watched about 500 films (at the least) and that is more than 1200hrs of active viewing. But do we actually do enough to make this experience worthwhile, READ ROI. The point is that 'watching a movie' can be made richer by simply spending some more time in researching about it.
The idea is to lift your concept of Film criticism beyond the ‘Like’ button or a facebook status with words such as ‘disappointed’, and 5th grade teacher-like comments (can do better and other shit).After years of saadhana that involved sitting still in front of my laptop I have packaged the following exercise and i hope you gain from it. A simple 10 min per movie and post movie schedule will do.

PRE READ:

1) Get to know about the Film maker: If there is anything which is worth ‘hail’ing post mogambo, it is WIKIPEDIA. It has almost everything you need to know for starters.USE IT and read up about the director. Reading about the director and his filmography is a ‘must’ must. That will tell you why Anurag Kashyap makes Gang of wasseypur and why Dibakar makes Oye lucky!. Read about their filmography, what camps they belong to, how good their bowel movement is, what they have to say about Dengue and other stuff. Net net, know your director. Now, if that just acts as an appetizer and you are hungry for more, bite some bits on the Production house, who is the producer and wait.. thats it, beginner’s course, remember.

2) Do some research on the Setting: Ok, you did not get it right away. In other words its called ‘building the context’. You must have seen the trailer of this movie or read a bit on it. For eg, if you are going to watch Jab tak he Jaan, read something on Leh and its geography. Its like saying, if you are going to watch a Batman Flick, do make a point to read up on Gotham( if you wondering where is gotham. F*&k you and a middle fingure too.

POST READS:

3) Find out about the Inspirations: ooohhh, now it gets a little demanding. All of us know, our directors are a highly ‘inspired’ lot. So to start this exercise, it makes sense to read up 2-3 independent reviews say from CNN IBN, NDTV and tehelka. These reviews generally show us various references and inspirations that might have affected the movie making. And you might have your own ideas, smartboey. So do some reading up on it. it could be about some symbolism in the film, or the formulaic story/narration or the characters that seem like familiar. And that holds true for most films, as they say that even a film like Gangs of wasseypur is heavily influenced by Tarantino movies.

Betaji if you do itna(hands 6 cms apart), tumhe milega itna(hands outstretched).
But next time if you come out of the movie and say ‘yaar majja nahi aaya’, you might as well drive home as quickly as possible, call you parents and tell ‘ you love them’ as quickly as possible, then go to kitchen as quickly as possible and gulp down a knife as quickly as possible.

And Lastly popcorn and friends are all good, but respect the filmmaker and try not to have too many distractions during the movie, read phone calls, susu, munchies and so on. Happy Viewing.