Shrek and I

I like watching movies alone when I am serious about them. 'Coz when I am, keep your trap shut if you've got no interesting trivia to add (Sabby, Tandy and Rakesh,with their side-spltting wit, are always an exception).

I have walked into movies sometimes to discover gems.
When I was a kid in Lucknow, there was only one theatre that screened English movies - Mayfair. Then there were the morning shows at Novelty. I caught a lot of the English classics there - cycling on the weekends to the movies, watching my first Indiana Jones, Spielberg, brilliant 80s dramas, alone - and coming back; silent, as I had none to discuss the stuff I had seen either at home or school; dreaming and running the scenes again and again for months at end.

After that, there are three instances I have walked into shows on the first day they were released, with no idea about the plot, the movie and the buzz.

Satya - Actually, this one I saw with the Ebot gang. We had gone to Mall road to catch some Govinda flick but the tickets were sold out. We just walked into this movie as this was the only flick available. I remember the unaccustomed silence in the gang as the juggernaut of the plot unrolled and the hushed remark by Rishi at the interval - "Yaar, kya movie hai!"

Dil Chahta Hai - I had just returned from the US and was pretty down after the two-months struggle to land up a job. I was staying with IIT mates whom I really didn't know very well and was very tied up for money and burdened heavily under the kindness of near-strangers. I had gone to this movie, my first in a year, without knowing the cast or anything about the buzz. Boy! Was I surprised! i also remember seeing Lagaan around this time but I had an idea about the buzz.

Shrek - An evening walk at MG Road, notihng to do, let's catch this animation flick at Plaza. And lo! The genre of animation was forever redefined; history was made; unimaginative and stereotyping Disneyfication challenged. I laughed so much that I actually cried.


Just finished watching Shrek 3 What a letdown! Where is the imagination and iconoclasm that made Shrek? Were these really the script writers that gave us the previous two installments?