This Thursday when I made a visit to Ameerpet Bigbazaar which houses Adlabs on the top floor, I was stunned to see a serpentine line in front of the Ticket Counter. The advance booking has just begun and people started thronging the place like some mad gold rush.

People have really accepted the Multiplex Cinematic Experience. But the saddening thing to be noted here in Hyderabad is the presence of only 4 Multiplexes with combined screens of 17+1 (IMAX). Unless you book tickets in advance or thru Internet, it is really impossible to get your hands on the tickets for a new release.

The demand has really picked up. Recently Prasads has opened up another screen taking his tally to 6. The market has also made a Popular Cinema (Narshimha) to use his 2 adjacent stand alone theatres as Multiplex and branding them as “TALKIE TOWN”.

Still I find the infrastructure to be lagging the demand. And today when I visited Adlabs again to get my tickets which were booked from my mobile, the same scenario!!. It took me more than 30 mins.

Is Adlabs enjoying the collection due to its prime location? We cannot be judgmental so early. Getting tickets in Prasads is even tougher. And so are PVR Cinemas. The impact of “PLACE” can be answered with the opening of CINEMAX at Banjara Rd # 1 and the one at the GVK ONE. But I feel people here won’t really mind the distance if the probability of getting tickets is high.

One thing which I am still unable to understand is why this culture/experience so slow in the city where more than 400 movies release every year, city where the favorite time-pass of majority of the crowd is watching movies and most of the students who bunk classes prefer watching movies. Taking their purchasing power into account and the presence of more than 20 engineering colleges and Post Graduate colleges there must have been hundreds of screens across.

So is there some good real opportunity in this Business field here in Hyderabad? Well there are 30 screens ready to mushroom across the city and their fate could decide the further existence of Multiplexes and the business related.

One more Telugu movie and I ll go crazy, completely crazy towards the extreme. On 15^th August India got its freedom from the British but when will these Telugu movies get its freedom from the timeworn, stereotypical formulas of making a movie? Is there anyone who could help me out of this?

Yesterday along with 2 of my friends went to watch BALADOOR (an aimless fellow, useless fellow in local parlance) expecting it to be good as it was from Suresh Productions’ Banner. The movie right from the beginning was out of proportions with over dose of nonsense, idiocy and meaningless songs all over and all of a sudden. Nothing new with this movie or any previous Telugu movies. These directors don’t have a word called “Experimentation” in their formula book. If a director comes out with a good subject, others follow the same with some slight changes in the cast.

A small peek into this movie “BALADOOR” or any Telugu Movie:

Hero beating up 10 villains at a time even tough he has a bullet or a dagger is in his stomach (as usual). His friend always knows the location where the hero is being beaten up, as if he is equipped with GPS or something!!! Light years far from Reality. Hey James BOND you are still lagging from our TOLLYWOOD movies. You need more than 10 mins and some futuristic gadgets to locate whereas our dudes do that in seconds and that too without any gadgets. Howzzat????

I really don’t understand why these directors are sticking to the same old tried tested formula? Aren’t they able to follow up with the audience and their tastes? Well the crowd is also to be blamed. Movies like Iqbal, Being Cyurus were at least noticeable in Hindi, if the same movie was to be made in Telugu? God only knows. Directors like RGV and Nagesh Kukunoor have moved away from this Industry with no signs of coming back.

However with some new off time directors and their movies like these (CELL: poster given below) provide some relief to people who want some change.

Well I have decided that I won’t watch any Telugu movie again until I get good reviews from the movie.