The Friday Phenomena
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iView Author: Sethumadhavan (Vijaywada, India)
Email: sethumadhavan.n (at) gmail (dot)com
The Friday Phenomena
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While Saturday has always been the day to chill out and unwind & with Wednesday being the new Saturday not many people have realized that there is a completely different tribe that exists. The tribe to which people like me belong.
For us Friday is the most important day of the week. Every week Friday’s are eagerly looked forward to. The countdown starts from Tuesday & the excitement actually pours from Wednesday as Friday is just around the corner. Friends if you are wondering what I’m talking about then let me end the suspense here. I’m talking about Friday because that’s the day of the week when movies release usually.
Never really realized why Friday is usually the day of the release when I was a kid, but later on I realized that Friday made perfect sense as the weekend sets in by Friday evening and that’s the best time to release a movie. So even as a kid while I couldn’t watch too many movies due to restrictions at home, I would be glued to the newspaper on Friday morning to check out the new releases. On the way to school I would also yearn to catch the posters of the movies that have released.
This particular interest of mine has increased with time and it now works as an inbuilt mechanism for me. During the days of the 80’s and 90’s when we did not have the luxury of the internet, the scenario was different. One actually looked forward to the newspaper advertisements and announcers of the new releases. Posters were a major means of announcing the same & if the city you lived in was large enough to have multiple release centers, the more the excitement in knowing the details.
With the passage of time & having lived in most of the major cities in India, the habit remains with me- only the means to the end have changed. Nowadays whether it be Bollywood, Hollywood or regional cinema, thanks to the internet for people like me it’s easy to have tentative release schedules of the forthcoming movies in advance. As the release date draws near, there would always be some alterations in case of multiple releases lined up for a week. So typically I end up starting the tracking from Monday onwards as to what’s the status as seen online.
In case of multiplexes the bookings in the most places is thrown open from Wednesday & so it becomes even easier to know what’s releasing on Friday. So from Wednesday I get into a pre-release analysis mode of what the Friday releases would be like. And in most cases if there are releases I’m looking forward to watching regardless of the reviews, I tend to try & get the tickets arranged before the movie releases- I know once the movie releases getting tickets for them in the first weekend would probably be next to impossible.
Now coming to my next point- the thrill of watching a new release in the first weekend of release is something unique & I can vouch for the same. The Friday phenomena is not just restricted to knowing which movie is releasing on Friday, its also about watching it on Friday itself or at least before the first weekend is over. I find the excitement and the adrenalin running for a movie to be at the highest level in the opening weekend of its release & generally when I fail to catch up on a movie during the first weekend I usually feel quite low.
The thrill of waiting & knowing a Friday release, trying to get the tickets for the same, the joy on managing to get the tickets ( for a much awaited release) and finally culminating in viewing the same in the opening weekend is all part of the Friday phenomena. And yes a very essential part of the phenomena is to track the movie’s progress and read the innumerable material on the movie (review & other stuff) coming up online, on T.V, print etc.
Nowadays the trend of paid previews is catching up big time & so I try to see if can catch the movie for the same itself. So I know when for example CC2C releases on Friday 16th, I would have an exciting weekend in store. If there is a paid preview, I would try to go for it & then I would be eagerly reading reviews, tracking the movie’s progress and probably even writing on the movie.
Whenever I get to miss a movie in the opening weekend like I had to miss OLLO in the first weekend, I feel that I’m lost something. Whenever I watch an RNBDJ, a Dark Knight or a Ghajini on the first day/paid preview there’s a strange sense of excitement.Mind you I’m not talking about the movie being good or bad here, it’s all about just watching the new release as soon as it’s released. People have different options when it comes to spending their weekend while for me catching up on the Friday releases is the best way to unwind. So let the magic of cinema continue and as for the coming Friday-9th Jan- well I must admit I’m not too excited with the movies coming up, but then there’s always the next Friday, right friends?
Tags: Dark Knight, Ghajini, OLLO, RNBDJ
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
man u are just like me yaar… my whole week revolves around fridays..the charm of movies and the whole experience of watching movies in multiples with friends is something which cant be described but has to be experienced.. and a reason why we watch movies on friday in the first show is not to be influenced by the reviews…
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oye filmi, thank gawd for fridays!
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Sethu, Kya likha hain bhai. Muh ki baat chheen li aapne.
If I ever write an article on Friday, I would have just written “Ditto ditto” and still it would not have been as good as yours.
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My week use to start from Fridays to Thursday. Even I would work around the calendar like, October 20th 1995 DDLJ released so October 22nd is a Sunday. October 6th 1995, Barsaat released so October 2nd was on Monday :-)
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Cinosh,Magik & Filmy-
Its good to see I’m in good company here.Usually I’m used to situations where people look@ me strangely when they ask me about any movie & most of the time my response is like ” woh to maine kab ki dekh li” & they go ” are kal hi to picture nikli thi ” etc
.And yes Vishesh even I’m like you with the dates.So MagiK TGIF in the true sense!!! cheers !!!
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Man Friday is my friend too
(like Robinson Crusoe’s)
I make Fish Fry on Friday,(Fish Friday)
then Film programme.:)
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we are luckier not..jeb me paisa hai..movie dekh sakte hain…
I remember feeling very jealous of my classmate who would get to watch a movie on the big parda every weekend as her folks could afford it.
We never could.
For the record the only movie the only movie i saw on the big parda during my school days was gandhi (duh..thru school), sound of music and witness(harrison ford)…badi kangaali thi :-)
All my excitement was reserved for the movies on DD Sunday(a lot of them were pure trash) and thursday old movies on DD (a newer concept in mid 80s) thanks to which I lapped up kagaz ke phool and pyaasa and of course the 2 week movie fiesta in 1988 over the 75th or was it centenary celebrations of indian movies….
They showcased 3 movies per director…boy was it good.
Living on a shoestring budget dint get sweeter in those days.
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DND- of course I remember the thursday movie slot on D.D which came up in mid 80’s.The 2 week movie fiesta was due to the 75th year celebrations of Indian Cinema.Well even I’ve mentioned that when I was a kid in school, I couldnt watch too many movies in theatre and I’m sure that would be the case with most of us- I mean how many families would allow their kids to watch movies every weekend in the theatre even if its affordable?
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Friday is also the day of Daaru…Daaru and Filmein..best combo ever..thank you Friday :-)
Nice article Sethu
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@sethu..
Are nahi I know some families which are so passionate they wont miss Amitabh ki filmein and of course they could afford it too….
this friend was from Lajpat nagar and never missed a good one shown at Alankaar.
saala …hum to taraste reh jaate the…
my dad wud joke that filmon aur ganon ka test hoga to mujhe 100 me se 150 aayenge…
DD bhi padosiyon ke ghar par dejha jaata tha kaafi saalon tak..bless those padosi….pakode -shokode aur kabhi milk shakes bhi mil jaati thi;-)
ghar par ek radio tha..uska bharpoor fayda uthaaya gaye chitrageet, sangeetsarita, bhoole bisre geet ke madhyam se…
I still get overexcited on going to to a movie hall… House full hua aur ticket nai mili to mujhe heart attack jaroor aa jayega kisi din…I cannot bear that dissappointment :-)
Id rather flunk a test…which I almost did when i saw Guide on TV in 1985 April and had to scrape thru with some highly emabarrassing marks in my English finals the next day….
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@ Sethu:
TGIF. During good old days, before these mutiple channels reviewing the movie on the day of release itself, I would wait for the Sunday paper to read the review of the latest movies, and if i had already watched that movie, I wud try to compare my personal views with that of the reviewer.
Yes, I also try to catch the eagerly awaited new releases on paid previews these days, and if i cant manage to do so by the weekend, i generally lose interest in tht movie.
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OM- yes movies & daaru make a sexy combo – no doubt
Jha- I share your sentiments completely.
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I echo the same sentiment infact i started to read newspapers for looking at posters.
But do not know but movies i have seen on first day first show has been disaster e.g
Garv
Sssshhh
Lajja
so now i avoid first day first show.
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gr8 sethu,
sunkar accha laga ki friday fever wale logon acchi ginthi hai…me and my wife also check wednesday hindu (in chennai) for all booking opens and most of the time my first job in office is to log into satyam cinemas online booking aur jo cinema mile book karne ka…sply i plan to watch out small budget hindi movies as in chennai they stay rarely more than a week…so WTS, Wednesday, OLLO sabhi first week main dekhli…
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Cinemausher-
I’ve seen Garv & Lajja myself on the first day.
But most of the other movies seen on friday have been much better than them
Prashant N- I keep doing the same always.Sathyam
Cinemas was like my second home when I was in Chennai, so tumhari baat ko main samaj sakta hoon yaara!!!Have a very regard for that place dude.
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Brilliant post. A film may be satisfying or not, it is no way related to the excitement of THE FRIDAY FIRST SHOW. It takes me to my college days while we had to skip some classes to be there in the cinema hall. Now, I cant skip office work, so it is changed to FRIDAY NIGHT SHOW. Earlier it was with my friends now with the family. But the excitement is unchanged. In my college days we had only one cinema hall in my town, so we had no choice. Today my daughter goes through the newspaper and select the movie for the night show. Her excitement begins with the FRIDAY NEWSPAPER.
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Friday really means a lot for movie buffs(like me). We wait for the movie with bated breath…just like spine chilling excitement…hahahaha…
I really get excited with RGV and Manis movies. Next in line are Anurag(both Basu and Kashyap), Akshay movies(jus creepin in – the best is yet to come), Those telugu feel good movies(yep correct), Those tamil realistic movies(just BLOW you away)….and etc etc…Great Times ahead for Indian Cinema…
Good post Sethu…
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Utpal Dutta, Sridhar Mayur-
Good to know there are more like me
And yes its tough to make it for friday first show for people like us who are working, but then friday night seems to be the best answer for us.Heck I even watched RGV Ki Aag on friday night show though the reviews had already been pouring in like mad
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@Sethu – Hahahaha…really man…RGV ki Aag night show might have been real hard work after a long week…lol…
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@ Sridhar- you are right – RGV Ki Aag on the opening friday night show was very hard work.I wish I had consumed some booze before the movie- my pain would have reduced to some extent.I cringed at watching AB & Mohanlal – both excellent actors reduced to buffonery with in this movie
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