Come May and come the Summer Holidays. One year passes at Delhi University and you find yourself gaping at totally empty days without holiday homework(which, for the first time, you miss), which you spend doing… nothing. You crawl over the internet faster than the Google spiders and, hopefully, discover something that gets you hooked. I discovered imdb.com. And hooked is an understatement.
The Internet Movie Database is a vast database(duh) of movies around the world. You can find something about each movie months before it gets released into the entertainment hungry public, who then rip it apart and review it, again on imdb. You can find detailed profiles of actors around the world which also lists all the movies that they have ever done. I found out that the guy who acted as Harry’s dark godfather in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and movies following it was the same guy who acted as the good, honest cop Lt. Gordon in Batman Begins. His name, by the way, is Gary Oldman(This guy? I have read about him somewhere…). I also found out that James McAvoy, who played the charming Mr Tumnus, the Faun in The Chronicles of Narnia also played Dr Garrigan, Idi Amin’s doctor in The Last King of Scotland. Forest Whitaker, who played the dictator Idi Amin, won an Oscar for this movie. McAvoy is also opposite Angelina Jolie in the new action flick, Wanted. mmm….
Linking the dots. I liked playing this game of connect, who did that, also did this. And imdb.com became a hobby. Whenever I am about to watch a movie, I first look up who acted in it, what is the storyline. And the film’s rating that thousands of imdb users have given it, little gold stars counting to a maximum of 10, on top of the screen can also help a bit.
imdb only helped my liking for movies turn into a mania. Top ten lists recommended by other movie enthusiasts had to be watched, movies of your favorite actor that you didn’t know about had to be crossed off in the checklist. In all, in a period of under 50 days I must have watched around 100 movies, from The City Of God (wow) to No Country For Old Men (yuck). From Donnie Darko to The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy. From Black Hawk Down to August Rush. And I loved every second of it.
Do you want more connections? More trivia? I shall be connecting some names in a story from now on…
