Magic is a 1978 American psychological horror drama film starring Anthony Hopkins, Ann-Margret and Burgess Meredith. The film, which was directed by Richard Attenborough, is based on a screenplay by William Goldman, who wrote the novel upon which it was based. The score was composed by Jerry Goldsmith. Méliès wrote, directed, produced, distributed, built the sets for and performed in his films himself. Despite this artisanal mode of production, his was for a time France's leading film studio. Only on the eve of the first world war was he driven out of business by better capitalised corporations like Pathé – an economic lesson fudged in Hugo, which ascribes Méliès's business failure to the war itself. He was rediscovered in the 1930s operating a candy store in the Montparnasse railway station – belatedly decorated by the French government and lionised by cinephiles and Surrealists. When a family of three takes a wrong turn to enter the spirit world, things go astray. The father and mother turn into pigs while the daughter remains to fend for herself in a magical world, ruled by a witch. Akin to ‘Alice in Wonderland’ and ‘Wizard of Oz’, in terms of motifs and themes to describe human greed, ‘Spirited Away’ is an animation masterpiece, woven in love. Directed by Hayao Miyazaki and produced by Disney, it received widespread acclaim and won many accolades around the world, including the Academy award for best animated feature film. For a long time now, that venerable storytelling art form — literature — hasn’t been able to do much for me. I had once written, in this very newspaper, that books had given me my longest standing identity: that of a reader. Now I’ll have to say I know myself more (and better) as a multiplex movie-goer and a home theatre DVD watcher. I do not contribute much to the box office collection now. Unless pestered too much by someone , I do not go to the multiplexes. The reason being I do not think much about the current productions. Too much violence and bloodletting makes me nauseated. Movies have come to our drawing rooms and are available on the smartphones. That suffices my needs.

Last summer I had a fun experiment with my family. We started watching the movies that won the Academy Awards for best picture.

I am nostalgic about the days when watching movies in single screen theatres was a national pastime for one and all. I recall with remarkable fidelity, the divinity in viewing movies in a hall filled with a crowd of all hues, clapping and whistling at good-humored scenes. When the scenes were glum, the hall fell into a melancholic silence.

However, the film has several positives. The performances are quite good, and they keep us hooked to the film. It also has a distinctive tone that pulls us right into the film’s world. Like I said, it’s still a very entertaining film if you’re willing to leave the logic at the doorstep and are ready to go on a fun ride with several exciting twists. It is highly recommended for fans of caper thrillers/ heist movies. 13. Oz the Great and Powerful (2013) The story follows a young street magician named Bo ( The Maze Runner's Jacob Latimore) who is taking care of his little sister Tina ( 12 Years a Slave's Storm Reid) following the death of their mother. Performing magic on the streets for tourists isn't enough to pay the bills, so Bo has turned to peddling drugs at clubs and parties for a local drug dealer Angelo ( Psych and West Wing's Dulé Hill). Making clever use of his sleight of hand skills, Bo is able to avoid trouble from the police. How true is such a thrilling, lofty vision of cinema when it comes to our own movies? How do Indian movies rate as art and entertainment, both now and in the past? I’ve been talking mostly of our shared, common experience of movie-watching in theatres and not in our homes, so how have we fared with our movie-going practices over the years? When I asked Pico Iyer, a writer with a deep respect and reverence for cinema, what he felt about literature’s relationship to movies, he said: “It’s no surprise to me that those writers who hold us most are often the ones — I think of Raymond Chandler, Graham Greene, Kazuo Ishiguro — who have clearly learned from the leanness and wordlessness of movies. Movies have given us a new way to lose ourselves, and our artists a new, crafty, universal and post-verbal way to tell a story.” Yes, yes, yes — exactly. Pico’s eloquence comes to my rescue: these are the very things I have perhaps been fumbling to say about what movies do for us. Such were the captivating acts of the thespians on the screen. The audience was vocal, identifying itself intimately with the star.I don’t know how much this once large and troubling reality about going to the movies in India has changed for women, but I do see a few young women now, mostly college-going, catch a morning or matinee alone at a multiplex. Killing time, bunking college or an irrepressible passion for cinema? Whichever it is, it’s nice to see they can choose to watch alone. I wonder how much of that ridiculous old stigma had also to do with the poor reputation cinema had in India for several generations as trashy and artistically inferior cinema. Our movies are hip and cool now, but even until the late 90s they were thought of as cheesy and infra dig. (What we could all unabashedly relish and celebrate were the movie songs, especially the old Hindi songs). Watch with purpose. Don’t just passively sit. Look deeply, listen intently, and get into the mode of an observer or critic. Here are examples of things to think about: Through movies we fulfill our need to connect with, and understand each other. With stories that bridge the gap and remind us of our shared needs and aspirations we enrich our lives and accentuate our humanity. Siskel, Gene (November 13, 1978). "Hopkins' stellar 'Magic' act weaves a spell". Chicago Tribune. Section 3, p. 6 . Retrieved September 29, 2022– via Newspapers.com.

The whole world knows going to the cinema is our national pastime. And that Hollywood hasn’t been able to dent our box-office or our tastes because of the kind of emotional grip our own cinema’s aesthetic has had — and will continue to have — on our imagination and our purses. We know too that the pan Indian Hindi movie is a myth, and that its hold on us is only a small part (too deracinated to take hold, really) of the larger, deeper seduction of South Indian movies which is far more vibrant and rooted than Bollywood. (And now we are hearing of wonderful things happening in the new Marathi cinema). It’s true that movies were even more of an obsession with us before the multiplex, but even so, most weekday evening shows and all weekend shows today still go houseful.I have wondered if one screen in multiplexes could be earmarked exclusively for classics. This idea of exclusivity was laughed at as an absurd business thinking. But, everything in life is not commerce. Movies have immense soft power. They can greatly influence one’s ideas and opinions. The movie makers can make a large chunk of populace toe their line of thinking and feed the minds with distorted facts of history. Such trends are dangerous. Movies, I feel should be produced to entertain and not to provide education on history, science etc. Let education be left to the educators in the know of the subject. Entertainment with some simple message for the good of society should be the buzzword.

Most of the actors, directors, producers, and crew on such movies have passed on. Yet their work of art is here to tell the story. They are alive in our imagination. Movies bring the story—in vivid detail—to life and transport us to a magical world. We escape, we laugh, we cry, we think and we learn through movies. I come from that generation for whom ‘movies’ was a guilty pleasure. You had to hide your love for it, you couldn’t celebrate it; you had to pretend along with the others that it was silly: at best, a way to kill time, at worst, a waste of time. It wasn’t art, it wasn’t a career, (not even a Vis Com course in sight) it wasn’t respected or even respectable. It also had to do with the state of the art of our movies which, frankly, wasn’t state of the art ‘anything’. (Yes, there were some charming, poetic, sepia-toned Guru Dutt-type movies, and some artsy cinema — the parallel cinema — but right there was the problem: it stayed parallel, didn’t connect, didn’t touch, didn’t go anywhere). No one in their right mind could look at our mainstream cinema then and say: that’s the most vital art form of the 20th century. A traveling magician and his group are challenged when a small European town’s leaders including the police superintendent and the minister of health question the veracity of their acts. To put the rumours to rest, they demand a private show to verify the same. What unfurls next is perhaps beyond the grasp of fragile human mind. Directed by the great Ingmar Bergman, ‘The Magician’ encroaches into the sacrosanct territory and dares to ask the question: Does science have an explanation for everything that happens or is there really a God?

2. Love Theme (The Godfather)

In his lifetime, Ed Wood was dubbed the "worst director ever" for making movies like Plan 9 from Outer Space or Glen or Glenda. Any sense of production value was nonexistent in these films, the dialogue was laughable, and there was no sense of continuity from one scene to the next. But there was passion on the screen. Wood’s clear affinity for his works and his embracing of idiosyncratic yet strangely personal plotlines make his movie the very definition of the Anton Ego line from Ratatouille, "the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so." Stories are a big part of religion and culture. They indulge our imagination. More importantly, they bind us together. I think cinema, movies, and magic have always been closely associated. The very earliest people who made film were magicians. ~Francis Ford Coppola