Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Of hard disks and movies

Back then, when I was in first year of college, I had this crazy impulse to get an external hard disk. It was the thing then. I was a film buff, saw at least three movies or so a week and couple of TV shows. So, I thought it would be prudent to get one and store things. It was a fashionable thing to have a film collection, mostly English movies. In hindsight, I realise now that half the movies that people waxed eloquent about were hardly impressive. But then, its like modern art, even if you don't understand it you say a word or two to praise it so that you can show how refined your tastes are. So back to the story, I did get a hard disk, and in my childish over-enthusiasm stocked it with movies. The process in itself was fun, I admit. Asking your friends, comparing notes with others on what were "The Maasest/Beshhtest...(fill any superlative)" movies. In six months I built up a decent collection and came a full circle when other people started asking for mine to copy those movies they did not have. That was a proud (seems shameful now, but hey we all do crazy things) day for me.

No discussion on movies is complete without the "IMDB 250" the GODFATHER ( pun unintended) of all best movie lists. No hard disk collection is complete without the Sacred 250. I was different in one aspect, I could never accept that a list of best movies could ever be made. Common, think of it, it is highly subjective, varies person to person. That people could vote for movies made in different generations I couldn't agree. So I steered clear of it. I'm not carried away by words like cult classic and all that. For the record, personally, I found Thuppaki far more engaging and entertaining than Goodfellas. I watch movies for what they are and not what is told about them. Some people say Blade Runner is the greatest Sci-Fi movie ever. I beg to differ. Most of it is hype, I've seen the movie. It is a painfully slow script, the book was far-more engaging (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?) Primer, a little known indie film, by a Physics graduate is far superior.

Coming back to my hard disk, well, although the collection has grown and has saturated now, there are a lot of movies in it, that I never got around to see. I refrain from erasing it, telling myself that someday I'll get around to see them. I'm sure there are many out there with a similar tale of a disk full of movies they haven't seen and will never see in all probability. More than movies, I like TV shows slightly more. Can't think of a rational explanation, but I think it has got to do with the shorter length of a TV drama. I'm proud that I've seen all the TV shows in my hard disk collection. That offsets the guilt of not having failed to see the movies.

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