I ought to warn you that this review is not on new upcoming movies, but oldies those that I plan to catch on TV channels in the near future. You will be surprised at the no. of quality offerings that we take for granted and go unnoticed. There’s definitely more to the TV-scape than the likes of The Mummy and ConAir.
After a hectic period of workaholism and life in the fast lane, it was frustrating at first for me to be inactive following an accident. However as recovery progressed, I am managing to make the most of my idle status. This involves catching upon studies / reading and plain relaxing. Most of the time is spent on books and music and occassionally the TV. Not much, just one or two movies a day!.
Being a movie afficionado, its been a blessing in disguise to catch up on some of the classic as well as obscure gems on the CRT screen. The ones that I have managed to chance upon this past month include classic oldies like Magnificient Seven, To Sir with love, Lawrence of Arabia well as cult favorites like The Doors, Get Shorty, Usual Suspects, Being John Malkovich and Hollywood biggies like Cape Fear, Hellboy, Oceans 12 etc. Not to forget pulp movies like Jeepers Creepers, From dusk till dawn and Dracula 2000.
However it can be frustrating if you miss out on some really good movies, mostly due to not being aware of the telecast at all. And more than once, I was caught watching barely sufferable flicks for the n’th time even as something more worthy played out on another channel. The schedules given out in the dailies can be misleading, and after missing out on more than a few good movies, I resolved to make my decisions more informed.
So this is what I do now.
Directly from the Horse’s mouth
Major movie channels put out their schedules in advance, and you can even have the monthly schedules. However nothing’s cut and dry, and occassionally changes do take place at very short notice. The daily schedules are more dependable. Anyway, the links relevant to those in India are given below.
HBO https://hbosouthasia.com/southasia/schedule
Sony PIX https://pixtelevision.com/schedules/Schedule_main.php
Star Movies https://app.indya.com/epg/asp/displaySchedules.asp?ddChannelName=starmovies
ZEE Studio https://zeestudio.tv/ProgrammeGuide.aspx?PageId=2
Casting the net wide.
After finding out which movies are on, I head to allmovie.com for more info. Though not in the scale of sibling allmusic, the site is useful for plot synopsis and a general overview. It also throws up occasional nuggets and trivia.{ did you know that both Quentin Tarantino and our own Ram Gopal Varma **learnt their craft while being clerks in Video Stores?! *}
If I still need to know more, I can head out to rottentomatoes.com (the premier website which collates and hosts reviews by the most reputed reviewers on the web.) They have an excellent tomatometer rating system which seldom fails you.
If I like a movie, and want to know more of the cast / crew and related projects there’s nothing more useful than the good old internet movie database **imdb.com
So this way I dont channel surf needlessly and am looking forward to bone up on a lot of good movies before returning to the humdrum existence of the never ending rat race.
Cheerio! Have to leave now. "A hard day’s night" is on Zee soon. Catch you guys later.
Others to watch in the coming days:
Curse of the Jade Scorpion(Woody Allen, Helen Hunt & Dan Arkoyd)
Tailor of Panama(based on Le Carre’s novel, *ing Brosnan, Rush & Jamie Lee Curtis)
Taxi Driver(Dir: Martin Scorcese, *ing Robert De Niro & Jodie Foster)
13 conversations(McConnaughey, Turturro & Amy Irving)
The Big White(Robin Williams & Giovanni Ribisi)
Blow Out(Dir: Brian De Palma, * John Travolta)
Suggest you do the same., if possible:-)