Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Sneak Preview "Movie Love"


We are ardent movie lovers. That says all.

Back home weekend meant movie time.
In India movie releases normally on Fridays, beginning our movie marathon weekend that evening itself. We would check which movies released that day, will go out for dinner directly from office and then movie ( or directly to movie and then dinner outside ); sometimes we would have to make many stops at many multiplex theatres to get the tickets. ( I told ya, we were never good planners )

We had open air drive-in theatre as the last resort. Lately that too used to get too crowded, often resulting in a long car queue, long enough to create traffic jams on main road !
It used to be hot-spot dating place those times, hahaha we actually visited it quite often, nop never for date, always when we couldn't get tickets in any other theater, when it was nearly month end and we couldn't afford multiplexes, when more than movie we were interested in picnic with friends and when we wanted to have drive-in pizza !

We could never made upto other drive-in lovers though(By Drive-in lovers i mean people who love drive-in theatre and not lovers who used to go to drive-in ) who could bring all the picnic stuffs with them, including picnic baskets, snacks, chairs, table, pillows, picnic blankets and sometimes even mattresses for more comfort. But we did manage to level up from solely car bonnets to accompanying pillows... :o)


Aahh did i mention that we were working 6 days a week that time ? But it didn't matter, nothing could ever dampen our movie watching spirits... Friday, Saturday and Sundays.

After moving to Netherlands, we didn't know much how it worked here, and we couldn't afford to spend that much every week on movies. ( 50-60 € per weekend on movies, resulting in 200-300 € per month )
So we diverted our marathon to on-line movie watching, initially on laptop while lying in the bed. Soon we realised we have to upgrade, it's not that comfortable.
And that resulted in our first major shopping in NL. No it wasn't car as one might think, it was our 42"sony bravia. We could watch our movies on comparatively bigger screen then and also could utilise our time in playing games on bigger screen (That can be a post in itself ! )

Again some time passed, we came to know about Pathe unlimited scheme, first we didn't believe, ma be some misunderstanding and scrapped the idea. After a while again we heard about it, now we checked ourselves, okay double check, can that be true? 18 € per month and watch as many movies as you want, yes it indeed was true.

Calculations made, all we needed was to watch 2 movies ( okay 3 if you consider discounted early shows) per month and we are at break even, and we sure do watch more than that.
As soon as we confirmed that it was true we drove to Pathe to subscribe, ironically Ashu did and i couldn't as i was not carrying my ID with me ! And we had no time as we have to go there to register before 6:00 pm in the evening. So next day our movie love made us deviate from our routine, waking a bit early and going office a bit early than our always last state so that we can leave early and go and register myself. Ok done.

Since then our weekends means watching movies, sometimes just one, most of the times two and at times even three if we have quite a backlog... hehe
It will be almost one year now. One thing we didn't try was "sneak-previews", again because when we came to know about it, we were already nearing winter with short days and cold !
Also because it's on Tuesdays and it never worked out for us. Sometimes we were afraid what if movie is in Dutch hehehe otherwise sceptical about what if it's a movie we wont watch normally, and then we have office Wednesdays !

Now as day is getting longer and we see more of the sun, we were motivated to try our hands or eyes or whatever at "Sneak Preview".
So we finished dinner early and drove to Pathe Spuimarkt.
As we bought tickets we reviewed the display guessing which movie might be on preview. We saw some movie poster on display which we definitely wouldn't watch.
Wondering we just walked and surprisingly theatre was full, amazing how people like surprise element in everything.
We wishes silently that movie is something watchable and promised ourselves that if not, we are not going to suffer, we are going to leave this time...hehehe

Gratefully it was watchable.


I think now we are going to be hooked with this as well, It's like thriller, going for something you don't know, excitement, element of surprise, mystery with guesses in the air... not only you but all around you there adding to that.

I guess most of us loves a bit of surprise element in their lives, yes only pleasant please!


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15 comments:

Dhara said...

oyee, Finally a post of urs where i can also say "me too" :) as I am zero in kalaa i.e painting and stuff, my love of eating is more thn cooking, but in this movie watching matter I am With you. May u get to see more and more , enjoyable and interesting movies. and by the way ahina multiplexes na magaj ma avi koi scheme ghuse to majaa avi jaay :)

Nithya said...

Well movies have driven me crazy too.. Miss the drive in experience.. The hogging the complete picnic experience.. we dint have car then so accompanied my uncle.. gosh wht fun.. packing all stuff in hot cases to munch.. bed sheets n all.. sooper..
Now we kind of try to save money on the ticket thanks to buy one get one free on our credit card..heheh but now these movies are becoming costly affair.. but manage to see some real good movies..
I loved the explanation for drive-in lovers hehehe
Happy movie watching.. I remember ur review blogs very well..

Anonymous said...

Ur post reminded me My nights @drive in. Though I'm no more movie buff n rarely watch 1-2 movies per month.

Pinay in Dutchland said...

Oooh never had a drive-in movie experience. It sounds so cool, very old school and romantic.

My hubby and I, like you and Ashu, are crazy about online movies. They are just too easy to get. Were not really cinema goers (because of a very Dutch reason) but we also spend most of our weekends cuddled in the couch watching movies or series.

Nice post Lopa. Keep it up.

Efrutik said...

Do you guys have Netflix by any chance? That's what I use for movies these days. Always wondered if there is possibility to get those in Europe ??

Also, please share with suggestions on what movies to watch. I would love an advice :)

Enjoy, I like the post :)

~ Lopa said...

@ dhara 

You are no where zero my dear friends, tara ma je kala o khuti khuti ne bhareli padi che e mane khabar che, so shanti rakhva vinanti :P

But i know your movie love, i remember when we were on on-line movie watching spree you had given quite a few very good recommendations and we had enjoyed all of them, so i trust you with movies ;)

Seriously yaar, if there is such scheme in multiplexes, it is going to be super duper hit, but i guess here they are trying to attract people to come to theatres and there without such schemes we have housefuls so they are not realising need for such schemes !

~ Lopa said...

@ Nithya 

Ohh so you were one of those movie lovers, huh? fully packed and prepared for the picnic style movie watching....hehehe

I know, multiplexes are becoming so expensive, entertainment should be free :P hehe

~ Lopa said...

@ krunalc 
I think anyone with connection to A'bad would have this drive-in connection... it was fun at times, specially in nice weather in company of friends :)

~ Lopa said...

@ Pinay in Dutchland 

It's phase, we used to love it, but not with those movies where you need concentration and fantastic sound system as it was open- air.

It was more of outing and fun for us than movie watching and now when remember, miss those old days...hehe

~ Lopa said...

@ EFRUTIK 

We don't have Netflix, but i have come across commercials about similar concept in UK, here there are local DVD stores who provide DVD rentals by post, but not sure about exactly something similar to Netflix, may be someone else have better idea as with my Unlimited card i am definitely a wrong person to have been asked this question, hehehe

I used to write movie reviews on this blog, but then i realised sometimes personal preferences are so different and we have reviews on-lines so i don't do much now a days, but i will sure try to include some tips here and there in my random rambling !

AmitL said...

Hi,Lopa-this was a fun read..I remember my school/college days in Baroda- used to be at least one movie every other week..and,great fun-will do a post on this,shortly...been planning to,in fact,but never go around to it since ages..:)
-----
The Pathe Unlimited scheme seems too good to be true..(for outside India,I mean.:))..here,do you know, the silly video guys still think they can charge 40-50 bucks for a movie-when you can get it on Moser Bayer for the same price,many a times...wish they'd grow up and move with the times.:)

Anita said...

Hey, you're a HUGE films fan.
Since the birth of my kids I cannot go so frequently to movie theaters anymore. And I LOVE the Dutch theaters !

~ Lopa said...

@ AmitL

I bet if they come up with any similar offer in India, it will be a soooooper dooooper hit !
Looks at those multiplex tickets, getting expensive day by day ! Entertainment is getting expensive man !

~ Lopa said...

@ Anita 

Ohh ya, in fact when we moved here to NL, that time that was the only time pass we had got, before we explore other ways to engage our evenings and weekends.
Dutch theaters are classic.

Orange said...

You bet, we tried the online movie stuff for quite some time after moving to NL..now theater works the best for us, as it was in India :)

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