Weekend movies

After a long break, we caught up on some movies over the weekend.

First, we saw Just Married, which is a supposed romantic comedy about 4-5 honeymoon couples in Ooty. There was hardly anything of note in the movie and the only thing of interest to me was how Easha Deol gets to act in movies. She is too plain looking, can’t act to save her life. Movie Rating: C-

Next up on Saturday was Spiderman 3. I had read a lot of reviews about how bad this was. I think that they got their inspiration from bollywood and tried to pack in everything, action, romance, heartbreak, many holes in the plot etc. The overall effect was disappointing, but then I don’t think they had a choice. They’re already on the third movie and they had to do something different. Hopefully, there is no Spiderman 4 for some time atleast. Rating: B-

On Sunday, we finally got around to seeing The Devil Wears Prada (I’d bought the DVD at National Market almost 3 months back). I remember people raving about Meryl Streep’s performance, but I don’t really understand why. The movie plot was so predictable, we could see where it was going 5 minutes into the movie. The only thing that held my interest was the absolutely fantastic print. The overhead shots of New York looked absolutely stunning on my LCD TV. Despite that, it was very disappointing. Rating C

Seventymm

Online video rental sites are sprouting up everywhere in India. Seventymm was the first out of the blocks and now it has been joined by another company, Madhouse. I recently learnt of another one, Catchflix. I’ve been a customer of Seventymm for the last 4 months now. Below is my impressions of the service

Website Design
Their site is fast and loads quickly and is designed well. I like the fact that a complete summary of the movie is shown when you move the mouse over the title, saving you a few mouseclicks.
Overall, the site is very professional looking and on par with the major sites. It definitely gives the impression that these are serious players and not any aira-gaira site.

Signup Process
They charged me a deposit (999) + a joining fee (around 500). With increased competition, they may do away with the joining fee. Even the deposit should be replaced by a credit card guarantee.

Plans
They have two plans, an unlimited one for 600 rupees a month and another for 200 rupees, where you can rent up to 4 movies. In both plans, you can have two movies with you at any time.

Movie Selection Process
If you know the movie you are looking for, it works well. But, if you want to browse their catalog, it is painful to use. I’m not sure if their language option works as a filter and where it is applicable. They’ve added a new additions link recently that atleast simplifies the process a little bit. A glaring omission is a powerful search tool that allows for search by criteria like movie, actor, language, genre, date ranges etc. Once you find a movie you like, you add it to your movie queue. They will deliver movies to you from your queue, depending on the priority in the queue and its availability. I’ve seen reports on the Net of services like Netflix that emply sophisticated algorithms to manage the queue and smoothen out the spikes in demand. I've not seen much evidence of that with Seventymm. That said, it is expected that newer releases are in much higher demand that the older ones, and if I have older and newer movies in the queue, I have got the older movie before the newer one.

Movie Quality
This is one of their USP’s and where it scores over the neighbourhood video libraries. They claim to only stock original prints. The quality of the print has always been top notch. But, I’ve received a few discs (mainly English movies) that were meant for Malaysia/Thailand (i.e. Region 3 discs with a choice of Malay/Thai subtitles). Also, I’ve noticed that the DVD cover is not the original in some cases (without the artwork) and have holders for two discs when the movie was obviously shipped in only one disc. I’m not sure of the legality of these discs, whether these are original discs bought in SE Asia due to their non-availability in India or the pirated stuff from KL. These haven't occurred often, so I'll give them the benefit of doubt here.

Older movies may not be available on DVD, so you would have to settle for VCD.

Movie Choice
My interest is restricted to English, Hindi and Tamil. Here’s how I would rate the choice of movies offered

Old Hindi movies : very good, choice is extensive and even obscure movies are available
New Hindi movies : good, they get the discs around a month or two after release. This is for blockbusters, the lower budget movies are available sooner.
New English : bad, choice is very minimal
Old English : average
Tamil : below average

Delivery Method
I can request for a pickup/delivery very easily by SMS, web or phone. They have a delivery person who comes to the house for this. Delivery and pick up happen at the same time, unlike with services like Netflix where there is a postal delay. I would like a postal/drop off option as well, but its not very feasible in our country.

To sum up, I've been very satisfied with their service. I think they have a bright future, as Indian consumers are looking beyond cost nowadays and are ready to choose quality even if it is more expensive. While competition in this space is likely to increase with other companies also coming up, they would also need to wathc out for companies like Moser Baer, which plans to sell VCD/DVD at 28 and 34 rupees. If that takes off in a big way, it could totally kill their business model.

Last weekend movie: Guru

We are on a movie watching spree, it seems. Dhoom 2 last weekend and this weekend, we went to see Guru.

We saw it at the Innovative Multiplex.. I went to book tickets on Friday afternoon and expected to go away disappointed. But, there were plenty available. Which, I discovered later, was because they were running it on all 4 screens. And all of them were sold out.

The movie was average. It was technically brilliant, and the cinematography was really good. The sets were just how you'd expect, not a thing out of place. Just what you would expect from Mani Rathnam. The story wasn't really new, but interesting. There were similarities to Dhirubhai Ambani's life , the early years in the Gulf, the cult of the shareholder, the manipulation of the government etc. Some of the scenes were a bit hard to swallow, how Guru comes out of many months of paralysis and starts defending himself in the courtroom, likening his struggle to Gandhiji, the songs that did not fit in at all (how many CEO's would gyrate to a song like Yamma Yamma). The performances were just average. I still don’t think Abhishek is that great an actor. He’s ok for roles like Bluffmaster, Dhoom etc, where you just have to show up and look cool, something he does well. But, he’s just not cut out for roles like Guru, which require a lot more depth and range. Maybe, he’ll develop it over time. The rest of the characters were bit players, including Aishwarya, who played her usual wooden self. That said, news of their engagement today is sure to lead to a surge of interest at the box office.

Movies this weekend

We saw two movies this last weekend, one at the theatre and another on DVD. Both were very similar, action flicks with spectacular special effects and storylines with holes big enough to fly a 747 through them.

We finally caught Dhoom 2. It’s run for 50 days and after watching it, one wonders how. Just like how a room full of cops fails to notice the mini car waltz across the room, climb up the pedestal, remove the diamond and deliver it to Hritik? What were the people monitoring the cameras doing? Eating vada-pav? It was the same for the other movie, Mission Impossible 3. How is it that you can plug any wire into any socket and they work just like that? Haven’t they heard of protocols? Wish it was just as easy in real life.

They belong to the genre where its best to not ask any questions, and just enjoy the action on the screen. And on the entertainment quotient, both delivered. I felt MI-3 was more paisa-vasool, as we paid only 50 bucks for it!!!