CHENNAI:Last week, the iconic video rental store, Tic Tac, shut shop after 33 years. Its owner Prakash Kumar explained why he had to do it: “Internet streaming, high-speed broadband connections and the trend of downloads.” As the cliché goes, when one door closes, another opens. The announcement of Tic Tac’s closure sent the cine buffs running to the store, to stock their houses with the rarest DVDs from the store. “I underestimated the brand of Tic Tac,” smiles Prakash.
Tic Tac, which started with a modest collection of 72 tapes of English classics, over time, accumulated over 30,000 titles. The store has been giving these away at discounted prices to passionate cinephiles. Among those benefitting is director Thiagarajan Kumararaja, who bought many classics including some of Mani Ratnam’s.
Everything has been sold. Krithin Srinivasan, an associate director working with Sripathi Rangaswamy, bought as many as 70 Telugu films (Varsham, Munna, Mirapakay) and 30 Blu-ray discs of the Stanley Kubrick collection — which includes movies like Raging Bull, Road to Perdition, the Great Escape — for about `14,000. That’s not all. He has even shot a documentary about the store being closed. “I wanted to capture the whole process. I am not sure who will be interested in it, but I couldn’t let the story go untold,”he says.
The store, which had around 11,000 DVDs and 1,000 Blu-rays, has sold all but 400 Blu-rays. “Of those that remain, 70% are Hollywood movies,” he says. Before the arrival of Internet, lots of filmmakers bought world cinema, especially the aspiring directors who joined various film institutes.
“They were mainly interested in French and Korean films. Kurosawa used to fly off the shelves.” Prakash has kept aside about 30 DVDs like Operation Daybreak and Monte Carlo for himself. Having watched them during his college days, he is especially fond of these DVDS, he says.
Interestingly, there’s little interest in new Hollywood films. “People opted to take away Hollywood war films like The Great Escape and classics like Casablanca, Gone with the Wind. New ones aren’t as good as the old films. These days, it’s all about the size of the budget and nothing else.”
Prakash feels there are some Tamil classics he could have kept for himself. He tells us he saw Uyire on television recently and loved it so much. “Also, films like Kannathil Muthamittal, Kasethan Kadavulada, Bama Vijayam are worth keeping.”
Dhananjayan, founder of Blue Ocean Film and Television Academy (BOFTA), purchased a whopping 7,000 DVDs, including Hollywood classics like After Hours, Airport, Vertigo, Back to Future, Apocalypto. He doesn’t want to reveal how much he spent, but says, “The cost is of little concern, as it is for education.”