Brakhage saw Méliès as his precursor, "the first man to recognise motion pictures as medium of both super-nature and under-world". Scorsese has said that, for him, the most enjoyable aspect of Hugo was the opportunity that it gave him to be Méliès, reconstructing Méliès's glass studio and recreating the underwater set of his 1903 Fairyland: Kingdom of the Fairies.

There is another magic documentary that I would have liked to have included titled Magic Camp, about kids from around the world who gather every year at Tannen's Magic Camp. Directed by Sylvain Chomet, based on an unproduced script written by the legendary director Jacques Tati, ‘The Illusionist’ tells the story of a struggling French illusionist who travels to Scotland, where his life changes after he meets a beautiful young woman named Alice, who believes he genuinely possesses magical powers. I happened to watch this film recently and I was pleasantly surprised by it. The plot here isn’t particularly original or striking in any way but it’s Chomet’s treatment of the story that stands out for me. It is, in my opinion, one of the most underrated animated movies of recent times. 4. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004) Turn movie watching today into a joyful experience by taking an active role. Engage with the story and have the best time. Read My Lips", a 1993 episode of Batman: The Animated Series, features a villain called the Ventriloquist, who leads a group of criminals through the persona of his dummy Scarface.

1. My Heart Will Go On (Titanic)

Stories are a big part of religion and culture. They indulge our imagination. More importantly, they bind us together. 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.

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. Today I’d like to invite you to immerse yourself in the movies you want to watch—not by just passively consuming the story, but by fully living and experiencing it. 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. Not all magic movies are lighthearted. Some, like Richard Attenborough's 1978 movie Magic (starring Anthony Hopkins), are actually quite creepy. The life of a magician isn't always a happy one. Making a living selling illusions to the world can lead to madness, and deadly competition. 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)

Movies tell the stories of our times. They define the landmarks of generation after generation. They document our prejudices and where we went wrong. Or they can spark debate and be the voice of change. Because Disney via 20th Century Studios never owned complete rights to this film, other companies (especially Embassy and, currently MGM) have been able to release home video versions of Magic under different licenses. However, legal complications kept the film from being formally reissued on VHS and DVD in the last decade [ when?] due in part to Embassy Pictures' corporate holdings being split among different entities. Recently, the rights were acquired by the American Movie Classics division of AMC Film Holdings, LLC, and the TV rights are handled for syndication by Trifecta Entertainment & Media (under Paramount Television Studios). An unedited version is available on widescreen DVD and Blu-ray. [ citation needed] Reception [ edit ] Keep it light and playful. Don’t take things too seriously. Watch with playful curiosity and enjoyment as it comes naturally to you. If you feel you’re stressing out, you’re over-thinking. This defeats the purpose. The main goal is to have fun—consciously.

I mean, prefer the way movies tell stories to how novels tell them. Oh, it’s not choosing images over words — I do a lot of heavy duty non-fiction reading and love the long-form, immersive factual narrative — it’s more from a preference now for stories narrated in pictures than in words. (I just realised this explains to me my growing interest in children’s picture books!). There was a time I never went to a movie based on a book without first having read the book. Now I put the book down and wait expectantly for the movie version. (You’ll be surprised how many of them turn out nicely).

A Separation is a realistic movie that might be expected to make us think of life and shake us up, while something like Scorsese’s Hugo, a fantasy — a richly entertaining 3D fantasy — is as far away from true life as we can get, and yet they both fill our senses and touch us deeply. In different ways, yes, but both, a story about a boy’s adventure in a Parisian train station and an intimate, complex moral drama of two families in modern Tehran become in our hearts, in our imagination, one indelible emotional, aesthetic experience. It’s not the high level of realism in one and the delirious sense of fantasy in the other that get at us, but their art — cinematic art. I list below some of the things I’ve done to enjoy the experience and engage with the story and the team behind such a magical creation.

Although he is considered the first cinema artist, the cinema as we know it did not yet exist when Méliès went into production. In fact, it was the cinema that ultimately put him out of business. Barnouw points out that the movies effectively automated stage magic (as talkies would later render live musical accompaniment redundant): "The transfer to screen of the magician's most sensational illusions – disappearances, bizarre transformations and beheadings – proved ultimately catastrophic for magicians. Anyone with a camera and a splicer could produce the same miracles, and did." What then does "magic of the movies" mean in the light of the new situation, namely the development of computer generated imagery? 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? 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." There is nothing wrong with watching a movie to escape and unwind. However, it’s more rewarding to watch with a clear purpose in mind, combined with a desire and curiosity to connect with the story and how it’s told. Stories have been weaved into the fabric of our existence—they are as old as humanity. And storytelling as an art form (or perhaps a necessity) remains at the heart of the human experience.

We build strong memories and associations with movies that we watched as kids and adults. They are part of our journey. Behold, the sorcerer supreme arrives in the world full of superheroes! MCU‘s ‘Doctor Strange’ is the story of an egoist but acclaimed Doctor who loses his ability to use hands in an accident. Looking for a cure, he roams around the world before he reaches the mystic Kamar-Taj. There he learns the art of various realms and discovers the hidden world of magic. Unlike the comics, this served as the origin story and future movies such as ‘Thor – Ragnarok’ and ‘Infinity Wars’ shall explore more about his powers. The wonderful Benedict Cumberbatch played the titular role and was much appreciated for his portrayal of the sorcerer supreme. The movie stands out for its spectacular and mind tripping visual effects. This is really where you get to appreciate the story and the magic of movies. How to immerse yourself fully in the experience And with the technologies of today, movies have a wider reach than ever. We can watch movies from countries around the globe.