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Rockstar – Anna Karenina in the time of Jim Morrison

2011-12-02T09:17:00.002+05:30

Director Imtiaz Ali probably understands romance the best amongst the current crop of Bollywood directors. Socha Na Tha was a conventional romantic genre movie, on the other hand Jab We Met and Love Aaj Kal explored a very different strain of romance. In the former a spunky lady gets rejected by the guy she loves while in the latter the guy and girl break up only to realize after much time and heart break that they are meant for each other. All these movies though end with the lead pair at the altar of marriage and the proverbial walk off into the sunset living happily ever after. Rockstar [a most inappropriate title] on the other hand explores unrequited love, an epic romance fuelled by a love outside of the socially accepted convention of marriage fuelling rage and destruction for the persons involved.

While Deepika Padukone finds the conviction to tell her husband on the night of her marriage that she does not love him, Heer [Nargis Fakhri] is a much more conventional woman. As sparks fly when she meets her partner in crime post marriage [a right-out-of-college-marriage] she can only say “Yeh sahi nahin hai” when they kiss. In real life Heer is the rule while Deepika is the exception. Unlike Imtiaz’s other heroes Jordan here is very sure of his love for Heer. Being a musician inspired by Jim Morrison it draws the predictable response-rage when his love is not requited.

The rage that thanks to AR Rahman’s excellent soundtrack is expressed beautifully in his music makes him a darling of the masses and he can finally show the middle finger like his idol in public. A singer who would just dab alcohol on his face and clothes to act drunk is now spurred on by an inner fire, and just when he has a second chance at Heer’s love reality intrudes in the form of the paparazzi leading to one of the most tragic ends we have ever seen. No wonder then that about his success all he can say is “Mujhe lagta hai ki mujhe keedey kaat rahe hain har dam”

Imtiaz Ali choses to shoot the movie in bits and fragments with a “non-linear” narrative. We are not a big fan of non-linear narratives for the sake of it but in this case it accentuates the way a person as de-ranged as Jordan would remember his life pass by if he ever did, maybe while setting a guitar on fire next to him under the shower. And the way some shots are composed -- Watch the way Ranbir Kapoors eyes blaze with an uncontrollable hate, when post dinner Heer’s husband puts his hand on her shoulder, or a lingering sequence when Heer is leaving Jordan “Apna Kaam Jaldi Khatam Karo aur waapas aao”, little knowing what the circumstances of their next and final meeting will be. Such is the conversation that real life couples have and remember. Aah and of all of Shammi’s songs to shoot “Tareef Karoon Kya Uski”* really made our day.

AR Rehman’s sound track is as much an integral part of Rockstar as Imtiaz Ali, for a movie about Rock I went in with mixed feelings expecting to be disappointed [Rock On anyone]. We were in for a pleasant surprise, the sound track not only lived up to the title but is one of the most effective, easily his best after Delhi-6.

There has been a lot of criticism on the choice of the heroine, but surely the role required a slightly vain, beautiful girl. Like quite a few beautiful people I know who are also slightly blank especially when confronted with the tragedy, we personally did not feel that it spoilt the movie for us or would have enhanced the experience for us with a better emoting actress. Ranbir Kapoor goes slightly over enthusiastic with his wide eyed realization at the Dargah but otherwise plays the part spontaneously rather than spoil it with “method acting” that would have stuck a false note in a movie driven by a singer whose demons are all internal.

* -- Made our day since Kashmir Ki Kali is a very special song for a person we absolutely adore and now miss a lot.

Review : Peepli Live

2010-08-25T22:56:00.003+05:30

In one of the first few scenes of “Peepli Live” we witness Natha and Budhia meeting the local MLA surrounded by his coterie at what looks like his residence. Natha and Budhia are hoping that the MLA can do something about their land that will soon be confiscated by a bank for non-repayment of loans. The attitude of the powerful towards these inconsequential men is full derision and ridicule till one of the lackeys suggest that one of them commit suicide as the government would then pay Rs 1 Lakh as compensation. The seed of the idea is sown and soon enough the shrewder of the two Budhia has convinced Natha that to retain their ancestral lands Natha has to commit suicide. The consequences of this decision lead to something beyond what either of them could have imagined (the dream that Natha has of running in the first scene seems a premonition by the end). It is by-election time in Peepli and a farmer committing suicide has the whole national news media landing up in Peepli. The way the news media ends up invading Natha’s life and their ridiculous attempts at capturing the most inane things and in some cases manufacture news to get TRP ratings forms the rest of the movie.

Perhaps in this also lies the main failing of the movie. Like most “breaking news” stories the real human beings involved get pushed to the background and the media persons take center stage, (one only has to watch the recent Randiv no-ball controversy where every two bit news anchor was bad mouthing a cricketer of the caliber of Kumara Sangakarra) by the second half of the movie we are no longer privy to what Natha is thinking but instead more involved in the way the media handles the whole situation. One cannot but feel that to do such a study one could have chosen from a host of other subjects, the way the news media regularly laps up the official version of events without any question when it comes to police encounters or chooses to remain remarkably silent when the usual suspects are illegally detained and interrogated after any bomb blasts or the uneasy silence that the media is maintaining over the “pay-for-news” controversy just before the elections. Perhaps farmer’s suicide is a much more acceptable issue for the multiplexes crowd to engage with and the news media to feel good about their own “social service”. This is though a very personal quibble.

Debutante director Anusha Rizvi shows remarkable balance in not going overboard with her depiction of the news media to the point of reducing it to a caricature while at the same time not taking a Madhur-Bhandarkaresque moral preachy high ground. Also for a first time director she has a remarkable understanding of the power of the camera. Shots that frame the MLA and his coterie at a much higher level compared to Natha and Budhia, the first shot of the movie where Natha and Budhia are traveling in a Jugaad tightly squeezed in and the shot moves out to show a Hyundai speeding on a national highway on which construction is still being carried out by impoverished children, a whole mela being set up at Peepli—mirroring the atmosphere of our news channels whenever there is an election/by-election. Our favorite though is in one of the most poignant moments of the movies where after the death of a farmer (symbolically one who has dug his own grave and maybe belonging to the lower castes considering the desolateness of his dwellings) a tight rope walker is shown indicating the precarious balance on which most poor farmer’s lives hang.

“Peepli Live” shies away and is much the better for doing so, from using abusive language in local dialects unlike quite a few movies released recently which for some strange reason are guaranteed to elicit laughter from the multiplex crowds. Admirable is also the way that the movie chooses not to have a gratuitous “sex scene” or a couple “making out” with no relation to the narrative. Maybe the budget allowed for it, but this is a movie that has all the actors performing equally well unlike other non-mainstream movies where the acting of the extras leaves a lot to be desired.

An exceptional sound track (by Indian Ocean and folk songs by Ram Sampath and Gangaram Siwar) means that this is the fourth excellent Bollywood movie we have seen this year (Ishqiya, LSD, Udaan being the others).

(Photo Courtesy : buzzintown.com)

Grace Under Pressure

2010-08-13T21:51:00.002+05:30

It is said that in the Hyderabad of yore, one could walk into an Irani cafe to have a chai before the early morning cricket practice at 6am, find two old men debating about politics. Again when one went back at 9am to buy bread one could still see the same two old men this time talking about cricket. A throw back to such times is what VVS Laxman's batting is all about.

In today's times of T-20 cricket and sportsperson's increasingly looking like Hugo Drax's ideal human race it is ironical that the two batsmen who have catalyzed India's rise to the top in the ICC test rankings are both pot-bellied and bald. One only has to think that well oiled assembly line machine called the Australian cricket team and look at the fate of players like Martyn, Symonds, Warne (never to be captain) and Tait to name a few of the fate of players who would not conform to the win-at-all-costs mantra.

Our obsession with statistics implies that a middle order batsman who will probably end up with less than 10,000 runs and an average below 50 may never be counted in the pantheon of great batsmen that Sehwag, Sachin and Dravid are firmly entrenched in. But add 10 runs for each innings for the fact that VVS played at 6 with the tail and mediocre wicket keeper test batsmen (Dhoni included) and you get an average of 56 with close to 10000 runs.

But VVS's batting is more than just about the numbers. It is poetry in motion, batting as the gods must have conceived it. Throw back to the summer of 2004 and the SCG, the greatest batsman of my time is partnering VVS and for once Sachin is so overshadowed, so eclipsed by the sheer genius that is VVS. It was at this same venue in 2000 (ironically Sachin was captain then) Glenn McGrath over stepped by a couple of inches and so Shane Warnes catch at slip was dis allowed and what would have been a decent 50 from VVS was allowed to flower to an exemplary 167. The BCCI being what it is VVS probably has to thank that no-ball because his test career could have ended very well there and would have been consigned to one of the numerous what-if’s of India’s cricket players.

Rusell Arnold in the present series before the third test match was making a point that neither Dravid nor VVS have done much of note in this series and that they probably ought to be dropped. That great man called Professor Deano jumped to Dravid’s rescue but none was forthcoming for VVS. Three words come to mind to describe his response to such queries on his place in the squad – Grace Under Pressure, because whenever his place has come under scrutiny he has let his bat do all the talking.

Thanks to the BCCI’s magnanimity the final day of the last test match was on a weekend which meant I could watch it in real time. And what a delicious situation the match was in 200 runs needed on a fast deteriorating pitch. Once the formality of removing Ishant Sharma was taken care off by Randiv, VVS joined Sachin. It is very rare that the commentators these days actually say something of value but Arun Lal was spot on as the two removed all the sting out of the Lankan attack by saying “We are seeing two absolute masters of the game in action here”. VVS would have had to play against Mendis who had gotten him out 7 times (ironically in Mendis’s debut series where he ran through the Indians, VVS had the highest average after the openers Sehwag and Gambhir). The kind of form that VVS was in Mendis was greeted by an extra cover drive followed by an on drive the kind of which only VVS could play. Battling back spasms (the break for its treatment leading to Sachin losing his concentration and throwing his wicket away) VVS scored the kind of hundred that is most satisfying to any batsman, one that leads to the team winning. As Raina hoisted Welegedara to the mid wicket fence for a six one could only marvel at what we had watched an innings to treasure.

Arun Lal in a rare display of stating something other than the obvious uttered about Sachin and VVS’s partnership “This is probably not something that we will get to see again in Sri Lanka”. It left me feeling very old but unlike the way a grey fleck of hair this one seemed to leave a richer pleasanter feeling, like wine that that is ageing.

Love, Sex aur Dhokha

2010-03-22T22:01:00.003+05:30

Rahul : “Director kabhi dikhna nahin chahiye… Uska kaam dikhna chahiye,”

Dibakar Banerjee's third offering "Love Sex aur Dhokha" is an excellent case in point. His first movie "Khosla Ka Ghosla" continues to stay a multiplex favorite since it plays very well into middle class sensibilities that anything is achievable if one puts ones mind to it. This was followed by "Oye Lucky Lucky Oye" a much better movie where the director's disdain of class was depicted in the character of Paresh Rawal. But while Khosla Ka Ghosla may have been run-of-the-mill Multiplex fare and OLLO a chit of a movie, with his third offering he has broken into new ground.

A movie shot entirely with new comers and mostly on hand held, CCTV and sting operation cameras could very well have gone down the path of many other avant garde movies where content was subservient to form. But if one were to define classicism as an effortless intermingling of form and content it is to be found in this movie.

The movie as the title suggest is a collection of three interweaving stories about Love Sex and betrayal. While the first section about love is loosely inspired from DDLJ one can also make out the damning indictment on the mediocre fare that Bollywood mass produces in the name of Cinema by the director. This is about the only section that we had a problem with, where we thought that far too much time was devoted and a few more sections could have been edited out.

The second section and by far the most brilliant one tells the story of the vast urban non-rich. Adarsh seems to be a boy who is related to the owner of a super market looking at the CCTV footage of the shop. Rashmi is a girl working in the super market store who will be used very deviously by Adarsh. I cannot recall any movie in recent Bollywood history that has tried to tell the story of a girl working in a super market. Later in the concluding part of this section of the movie it is not even apparent as to whether the contact number she has given is a real one or not. A vast majority of the urban populace who escape the attention of the so-called new wave directors like Mr Farhan Akhtar.

The third section takes us through the travails of a TV journalist trying desperately to bring off a sting operation. The darkest possible form of humor ever seen in Bollywood cinema comes about in his attempts to commit suicide. Trying to help him in this endeavor is a Bengali girl (Who thankfully does not mouth sweet words in Bangla like "Ekdummmm Mishti") who has come to Delhi with dreams of being launched in a music video.

As Naseeruddin Shah says in this piece, once you cast a star in a movie (and this is true of Abhay Deol as well is what I feel) the movie tends to be about the star rather than the work itself. But in this case since it is a whole cast of new comers there is a starkness to this movie that is unparalleled in recent history and the lives of the principal characters are essentially messy like what most of us go through.

So unlike the synthetic clean lives that the principal protagonists of DCH led (ever wondered what Saif did for a living or how Akshaye could so easily earn so much as a painter) this in more ways than one mirrors everyday lives captured through a novel medium that of a much smaller camera. That is why we think this is easily aeons ahead of any Bollywood movie of the past decade (yeah DevD and DCH and Omkara included).

Vinnaithaandi Varuvaayaa

2010-03-14T22:14:00.003+05:30

Back in college while reading Pirsig's "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" one of the sections that stuck with me over time was the fact that one never is really very vocal about the obvious. If my memory serves me right the passage went "The sun rises from the east, but no one shouts that it rises from the east". And so when in Vinnaithandi Varuvaaya (VTV) Gautham Vasudev Menon's (GVM) latest movie the protagonists Kartik (Simbu) and Jessie (Trisha) decide that they will be "just friends" and keep repeating it over a space of a few scenes one realizes that over the rest of the movie they are going to be anything but just that. For before this conclusion to be "just friends" is reached Kartik travels to Allepey (but not before one of the endless self-referencing ode to other lovers who have traveled to the US for love) where he apologizes to Jessie for declaring his love to her to be an act of impulse and you notice as Jessica's eyes flicker that this is not what she had hoped for. And hence the vociferous declarations of being "just friends" which precedes yet another brilliant sequence shot in a train after the absolutely charming one in "Vaaranam Aayiram".

And let us make no mistake, this is a movie driven entirely on the weight of the conversations throughout the movie between Jessie and Kartik and occasionally between Kartik and Ganesh. (As an aside how long has it been since we have had such situational humor that Ganesh creates in the movie while at the same time staying relevant to the advancement of the plot.) It may not be entirely in the "Pulp Fiction" class, but I cannot recall any Tamil movies that have made me pay so much attention to the dialogue in the movie with me straining to not miss any word that is being spoken. Handled excellently by a director who is on much surer ground than either Minnale or Vaaranam Aayiram both of which we personally were very dis-satisfied with, especially since both promised so much but followed an all too familiar path.

GVM is probably to Tamil cinema what Imtiaz Ali is for Bollywood. And in what must be an astonishing parallel we see an almost Rashomon-esque story presented from the point-of-view of Kartik and so are left guessing as to what is the truth and what is a product of his imagination. A similar thing can be seen in the love story of Rishi Kapoor in Love Aaj Kal where we thought the whole black-and-white part of the movie may or may not be reality. It is also quite novel to see a Tamil heroine who wears normal clothes, seems to have a normal job and speaks Tamil the way it is spoken.

But there are still some discordant notes in the movie especially the part about the hero being a boxer and having the mandatory fight scene where one hero bashes up an army of goons. The sequence at the end of the movie where what we consider a holy tenet of film-making "Show-don't-tell" is violated while explaining the difference about what happened in the movie-within-the-movie and in VTV. That was a let down, almost seemed patronizing about the way the director thinks about his audience. The endless self-referencing petty jokes about his own movies was a source for irritation for us throughout the movie.

But these are minor quibbles about a movie which is so far above the average that we are seriously tempted to buy into the "Tamil New Wave" argument.

P.S : While we had immense respect for the ending, we have come to know that they are now running a modified ending in the theaters which makes me wonder about this post by Jai.

Tamil New Wave and Classic Hollywood

2010-03-08T21:42:00.002+05:30

Since we are too lazy to write our own reviews of these movies, we link to :

Ebert on an old Hollywood Classic

And Bharadwaj Rangan on the emerging Tamil New Wave.

Review : Ishqiya

2010-02-01T22:13:00.004+05:30

Ishqiya begins with a blank screen and the melodious Rekha Bhardwaj crooning "Ab Mujhe Koi" and the first visual we get to see is that of Krishna Verma (Vidya Balan) in bed with her lover. While we were expecting to see a set piece involving the two main con-men of the movie director Abhishek Chaubey instead shows us a voluptuous woman (And thank god we do not have yet another heroine who seems digitally produced to be size zero) much in love with her husband. In fact over the whole movie the director does this skillfully, just when we think that we have a grip on the proceedings on screen the director yet again pulls the rug from under our feet. In fact it is almost like an Agatha Christie novel in so far as that the clues are all there in the scenes building up to that point but one almost feels stupid for not seeing them for what they are. Such a movie runs the risk of coming across as contrived (Think Race) but until maybe the last 15 mins of this movie full credit has to go to the writers that they don't fall into this trap.

Depicting the story of a con duo Khalujan (Naseeruddin Shah) and Babban (Arshad Warsi)on the run from their sadistic boss Mushtaq (Salman Shahid). Their different attitudes to life are captured during the song Badi Dheere Jali (our personal favorite and yet again Rekha Bharadwaj) sung by Krishna during Sunrise , while Khalujan rushes to find the source of the vocals, Babban is none to impressed and wants to get back to sleep. So while Khalujan and Krishna have debates about whether a music piece is SD Burman or Hemant Kumar, that of Krishna and Babban is sheer smoldering physical love with a post-coital swinging to Mika's "Dil Main Baji Guitar". All this set amidst a visually tantalizing confusing back drop of Eastern UP where kidnapping seems as much of an everyday occurrence as traffic jams in Bangalore, Millionaires indulging in S&M in what is ostensibly a beauty parlor, well armed caste based armies in a state of conflict, which in one of the most mischievous dialogue Nandu educates a wide eyed Babban by saying "Kids here learn about guns before toilet training". (One needs to listen to it in Hindi to appreciate it).

But the real hero and the central figure in this movie is Krishna. Playing a femme fatale who is the defining feature of any film noir she manages to pull off the twin role of the smooth seductress with her old world charms to keep Khalujaan hooked, while using her body with Babban all the while manipulating them like chess pieces in her master plan. Though Vidya Balan has done an admirable job much to my surprise by not screwing up the movie totally for me, this is where I think the movie suffers, she would have cut more ice as a Tier II town femme fatale rather than a village belle. The rusticity is short of the mark even though I believe she has done her best. (Think Konkona Sen Sharma in Omkara). But that is a minor point to nitpick over in what is otherwise an excellent movie.

The cinematography is consistently excellent throughout the movie and one can detect the influences of some other directors whose movies we are big fans of.

And what better tribute to pay the movie than that after watching Babban we are seriously thinking of growing a mustache!!!

Review : 3 Idiots

2010-01-10T22:38:00.003+05:30

*** Extremely high spoiler alert, please watch the movie before proceeding ***

Early on in the movie when Farhan Qureshi walks into his hostel at the Imeperial College of Engineering on his first day with a character called Millimeter (where else but in a Rajkumar Hirani movie can one encounter such a marvelous name) towing his bags, he pauses and starts taking photos of a few pups. And you know all too well what his choice of profession is going to materialize in this movie which is built on the premise that we all have a passion for something, something which we are good at and that our education system ought to allow us to find that passion rather than just make us bricks-in-the-wall to quote Floyd. Do not expect any surprises in how the other characters lives turn out in the movie though it does have its moments.

As is Hirani's forte his execution of some of the set pieces mainly involving the lighter moments in the movie is impeccable. The by now popular chamatkaar-balaatkar speech followed by the drunken stupor scene following it, where the Type-A Chatur taken for a ride challenges Rancho (yet another stereotype played by Aamir Khan of the guy who tinkers with machines and tops the class without apparently studying) to a Henry-esque 10 year later meeting or the dissolve into black-and-white whenever Raju's (Sharmaan Joshi) poverty ridden family is shown. What really impressed me though was the song "All eez well", which almost like a spinners flighted delivery lulls you into this happy feeling only to end abruptly with a student hanging himself. At times though the movie seemed a pastiche of Dil Chahta Hai (the by now bride ditching the groom at the wedding all too conveniently), Munnabhai and even Scent of a Woman in the scene where Raju is told that in order to save his backside he needs to kick Rancho's.

As much as the first half sets up things deliciously on how life will turn out for all the four protagonists in the first half, the post-interview flatters to deceive. What we really didn't need was Chatur being reduced to a caricature even in his post college life. We have known a lot of such people in my college and they tend to end up being extremely successful by their own definitions of what constitutes success. We also know of a lot of people who take up photography and other non-mainstream engineering professions and cannot make it big like Farhan (publishing > 5 books) and Rancho (more than 400 patents). It maybe speaks of a lack of conviction on the director's part himself that we end up seeing such an obvious affirmation of his message at the ending leaving no room for uncertainty of any kind. Another sore point for us was that for the vast majority of the people in the real world there is really no passion or at least nothing tangible that they can readily and/or easily identify which the movie does not portray.*

Much as we believe that the Hollywood movie It's a wonderful life had a lot of shortcomings, there is a sequence where some of George Bailey's friends come from the city in their fancy cars. When they leave one can sense the frustration of Bailey that everyone else has gone ahead while he has stayed at the same place where he was 10 years back and kicks his car. Though George Bailey's feelings are temporary one can sense that it is not easy to be always convinced of the choices one makes, such things are sadly sandpapered over in 3 Idiots which would have otherwise made an excellent movie instead of just a decent watch.

And finally a word about the performances, for the lead actress of the movie :

1. Do not kiss on screen
2. Do not cry on screen
3. Do not do scenes where you are drunk.

Happy New 2010 to all you folks who still follow this blog, hopefully we will be more regular this decade around.

* -- But a counter point can be that the movie was not even intended for that purpose, which we personally think limits its enjoyment factor for us.

Waking up Sid but not quite smelling the coffee

2009-10-29T22:49:00.003+05:30

Imagine if an alien landed on earth in India. He is then told that to gain an understanding of India he should a. Watch Cricket b. Watch Bollywood movies. Now apart from figuring out leg before wickets and the subtle differences between fine legs and long legs, the alien can be excused for assuming that everyone in India is rich, work in some kind of creative field or manage their father's business.

We guess by now one would have guessed we are not big fans of "Wake Up Sid". And against this backdrop we present our review. Watching the trailers one can easily make out that "Wake Up Sid" does not claim to have even an ounce of realism in it. So by the time the movie starts you can predict that Sid will fails his exams, meet Konkona, decide that he wants to do something in his life, his coming-of-age moment, that Konkona will be working in some kind of creative/yuppie field like writing/music composing/acting, that her workplace will look uber-bohemian, the mandatory marine drive scene, have someone with long hair at the workplace, that there will be some kind of props referencing cult movies(Annie Hall), authors (Murakami) and watching Sid snapping away at his camera that he will end up becoming a photographer.

Image Courtesy : wallpapers.oneindia.in

We so wished against our better judgment that there would be at least one place where the director could surprise us, like maybe Konkona would refuse to let Sid stay at her place and he instead finds refuge at Kashmira Shah's place and gets a better understanding of life. For once it would have been good if we had Konkona working at a place where has to work with say MS Excel or Cadence or something equally banal since that is what most of our work involves. On the other hand the scene which we thought could have sparked a modicum of interest in the movie, the part where Sid and Konkona talk well past midnight by the sea is such an ordinary, trite, inane piece of conversation that we would prefer "Beta maine tumhaare liye gaajar ka halwa aur mooli ke paratha banaaye hain" any day.

And why this fetishism with Bombay/Mumbai. We had high hopes after "Jab We Met" that maybe someone would actually make movies about Ratlam or countless such towns which we guess have much more unique and interesting stories to say. One only has to watch Dor or Manorama Six Feet Under to realize that life exists beyond what is easily the most cosmopolitan city of this country. By the way the Bombay depicted in Wake Up Sid and which Konkona goes ga ga about in the whole movie, almost going so far as to becoming a character in the movie, all we can say is that the titles of Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na was infinitely more preferable.

Overheard a friend saying "Wake Up Sid a good sing song movie, a bit like Lakshya much better and far lesser senti ness in it". So it seems like this is what the "Multiplex Movies" are all about, make movies which do not tug at our emotional strings. To answer another friend who contends that today's Bollywood movies are better than the 80's, well what can we say that it is still the same escapist fare. Just that the Bollywood movie watcher these days is the kind of person who so wishes he becomes a rock star rather than a I-banker. Leads us to wonder whether having a wide choice of movies to choose from is leading us to choose the kind of interpretations of the world around us that make us happy and maintain status quo rather than ones that would actually provoke one to think, to debate. We have a sneaky suspicion that our previous generation forced to watch movies on DD every Sunday afternoon might have watched a wider range of movies dealing with more varied subjects and settings.

There is a big positive in this movie and that is the casting. Everyone seems to be tailor made for their roles. Ranbir Kapoor is fast evolving into the new Saif Ali Khan, playing roles of overgrown confused boys effortlessly. Konkona is bang on as the girl with big eyes in the big city, Sid's mother is endearingly played by Supriya Pathak. Anupam Kher as the father is refreshingly different from what he was in yer another cult DDLJ. The song "Dil Bole Iktara" has a very high hummability quotient about it.

"Wake Up Sid" reminds us of a great mannequin at a high fashion store. It is exquisitely clothed, the curves are gorgeous, the clothes oh so elegant and the lighting exactly right. But all said and done it is still a mannequin, give us a real lady any day with less than perfect clothes.

A Kamina Review of Kaminey

2009-08-16T22:04:00.004+05:30

***Minor Spoiler Alerts***

Imagine going to a small shack run by a great cook. The food there is simply awesome, an Indian dal-roti kind of place. Now our owner moves onto a slightly bigger place with chairs and tables. The food is still great, the ambiance slightly better, one could take one's non-existent girl friend there. And finally after making yet more money the owner decided to take the next logical step up the restaurant chain. So now it is the talk of the town, it is going to be the next "multi-cuisine" restaurant in town. So we walk into the new place, the ambiance is simply great, the waiters are dressed very smartly, the menu now is way beyond the dal-roti. But wonder of wonders the food now is passable like most other multi-cuisine restaurants. Such is the experience I had when I watched Kaminey.

Vishal Bharadwaj's more memorable parts of his previous movies have been in the way a shot not pertaining to the plot captures the essence of a character. So we have a genuinely scary Langda Tyagi doing a mad dance with a cummerbund and applying nail polish to himself in Omkara. The one scene where Abbaji becomes angry in Maqbool that lets you in no doubts that this is a man whom you are better off being in the good books of. Kaminey on the other hand is an effort to make a movie of another genre where instead of having a small group of very powerful people whose ambitions and the means (and the consequences as well) they chose to carry out their ends are portrayed; we have a whole range of mad cap characters all trigger happy and all of whose paths intertwine over the course of a couple of days.

And so one has a McGuffin involving a guitar case which has a lot of Cocaine in it (to all those reviewers who thought that Vishal Bharadwaj was not condescending with Indian audiences and that this is Bollywood's answer to Pulp Fiction, well think of the McGuffin there),corrupt anti narcotic bureau officials , sons-of-the-soil politicians, Bangla book makers and the chalk and cheese twins Charlie and Guddu.

Tt the center of it all is Sweetie played endearingly by Priyanka Chopra. Her nuanced almost effortless transformation from a madly-in-love girl to one who brandishes a burnt log of wood against her brother's henchmen and in the end going about firing a shot gun makes hers the standout performance of the movie.

With the plot being of such an explosive nature and offering immense opportunities for dark humor as well as an incredibly engaging soundtrack, on both fronts the movie flatters to deceive. What can one say when Bhau tells his name as "Bhau!!! Bhau!! Baw-Bow-Wow-Wow" goes for dark humor, or a dialog about how the non-Maharashtrian Mumbaikars are like sugar in milk to which the riposte is "Bhai ko to diabetes hai" or the genuinely cringe inducing "You two" in the suburban train. Come on Mr Bharadwaj you can do much much better than that at dark humor.

About the sound track, playing a couple of RD Burman "Is zindagi ke din katne kam hain" while bashing someone up or "Duniya main logon ko" when the guitar falls into the wrong hands makes for an extremely dis-satisfying experience. One need not look further than DevD I suppose. And here we are not talking about the full blown songs in the movie which are extremely well written by Gulzar and set to some genuinely good music.

What is admirable though is the cinematography which is extremely slick. Right from the start of the movie involving a chase over railway tracks till the climax sequences this is probably a redeeming feature of the movie. Though quite why the outlandish dream sequences of Charlie were interspersed seemingly at random is probably beyond my comprehension and maybe more educated cinema goers could shine some light on that, but to me it seemed jarring at times.

VB is in great control when shooting ambitious and powerful albeit manipulable personalities meeting disappointments. In his earlier movies one of the best things would be the way a character in the movie was peeled layer by layer like an onion slowly unmasking his insecurities, his internal demons. The "haan ki naa" sequence from Omkara where there is this extremely almost claustrophobic close up on Omi. In Kaminey there is just one such charming vignette that Guddu narrates in a petrol pump about his childhood just before the interval which had me engaged, disappointingly the same cannot be said of the rest of the movie.

The kind of movie that Kaminey attempts to be, needs a larger-than-life-sinister presence in the movie. Think of Samuel L Jackson in Pulp Fiction or Brick Top in Snatch. We were just left guessing till the end who is going to be the imposing guy in this movie. We thought Tashi bhai would be the man considering his introductory sequence, but the moment he says "I like bitches", I turned off, is this the best that Tashi can do!!!! Sadly enough even though Priyanka Chopra does does deliver a power packed performance, this kind of movie needs a bad ass boy who will put the fear of god into everyone else.

If the non existent readers of this blog sense an extreme Maqbool and Omkara fixation with this review, then they would be true. Kaminey made by anyone else would have been a fairly good movie, but coming as it does after Maqbool and Omkara it is a disappointing movie. And it falls far short of either Tarantino or Guy Ritchie, to me the two masters of this genre. To sum up my feelings I quotePauline Kael:

“It really is a wonderfully exciting field to write about when the movies are good. When they’re not so good, it’s to despair. The really bad movies you can write about with some passion and anger. It’s the mediocre ones that wear you down.”

Bas Ek Kahaani Badle Zamaana -- The Love Aaj Kal Review

2009-08-02T22:28:00.004+05:30

(Spoiler Alert, if there do exist spoilers in a romantic movie)

Watching an Imtiaz Ali movie is a bit like driving through a city where there is a lot of Metro construction that is going on. You know where you are starting, you know where you will end up but the journey that encompasses these two points with all the road blocks in between is what the two to three hours you spend watching the movie will be about.(As the lyrics in one of the songs go "Bas ek kahaani, badle zamaana") Such is the case with Love Aaj Kal as well, but the journey this time is decidedly less vibrant than the one we went on during Jab We Met, less darker than Aahista Aahista and definitely much less interesting than Socha Na Tha.

Love Aaj Kal inspired by the Taiwanese movie Three Times depicts two different love stories, one set in sepia tinted times of the past is the story of Veer and Harleen (it is hard to say whether it is the 60's or pre-independence India) and one set in contemporary times, that of Jai and Meera. The movie begins with Jai and Meera breaking up as their work is taking them on diverging paths. At the end of a "breakup party" thrown to celebrate this event Jai meets Veer and so unfolds the rest of the movie flitting between the past and the present.

The essence of the difference between the two stories can be summed up in one dialogue between Jai and Veer about choices. How we as a generation we have infinitely more choices than Veer ever did. As Veer says "Humaare zamaane main to choice nahin tha, sirf majboori thi". And as the rest of the movie unfolds one realizes how what Veer says is a timeless truth when it comes to love.

What made the movie really endearing to me was the set design and the cinematography showing the sepia tinted love story. The shot that cuts from the Golden Gate of San Franscisco to the Howrah Bridge in Calcutta made it for me. But while one could say of the other Imtiaz Ali movies that this was a master in control of his craft all through the movie, such is not the case with Love Aaj Kal. Take, for example the scene shot after Meera marries Vikram and is about to irredeemably break his heart. I am not so sure Imtiaz Ali meant this scene to elicit the kind of sniggering and amusement that it triggered amongst large portions of the audience. Hark back to the last few shots of Aahista Aahista or in Socha Na Tha when Viren and Karen break up.

The minimal characterization of anyone other than Jai, Meera and Veer (played as a youngster by Saif and Rishi Kapoor in the present) also means that this is a movie that has to be carried on Saif's and Deepika's shoulders. While Saif has made the role of a confused metrosexual male (Dil Chahta Hai, Hum Tum) as much a personal trademark as the high backlift cover drive of Brian Lara, as a young Sardar there was something unconvincing, something missing that I just cannot put my finger on. Deepika on the other hand seems only to revel in scenes where she just has to smile or talk about Saif's red shoes, she makes us wish for an Ayesha Takia or a Mahi Gill whenever she has to emote.

All in all one feels that the bigger budget did not necessarily lead to a better movie in the case of Imtiaz Ali. Be warned though that unless you are in love with the idea of being in love the movie will just not work for you.

Co-incidence

2009-07-23T15:36:00.002+05:30

Eerie, extremely eerie.

Two of my friends both get married in the same year.

And their life style pattern is as identical as that of Seeta and Geeta was not. Now they are in different countries but sometime back even that was common though the folks who invented golf might beg to differ. They both do the same activities over the weekend with their better/worse halves, both are regular gymmers, both are presently home makers, both will be joining a masters course soon in the same country (though thank god different specialisations) and both will be on a visit to the home country soon.

Well as one of our favourite characters Monsieur Morse (or was it Father Brown, damn it we are growing old) says "Life is full of co-incidences"

New Yolk

2009-07-13T11:12:00.002+05:30

Review: New York

Once upon a time in history, there was this perfect, ellipsoidal-shaped egg. Paraphrasing the Great Reporter himself, it had bumps and dents where it was entitled to have bumps and dents. On seeing such perfection in form and goodness of purpose, the French presented the egg a statue of the lady with a ~~lump~~ lamp. Naturally, the next thing you know, the egg and the eggcup have an "immigrant problem", but that is neither here nor there, since we are not concerned with the egg, but rather with a movie made about the egg.

The movie starts off with NeNiMu, an aspiring Telecom company, who makes his first trip to the land of the egg to do his "further studies" in, apparently, taking on a first-generation unconfused Johnny Baba in various sports, in a failed attempt to win the beautiful Maya. As an aside, Sab maya hai seems an appropriate description for this part of the movie, which is a picturesque, one-sided depiction of that most trite and holy Bollywood cliche, the love triangle. Or in this case, a directed graph with one extra node.

One mugging and a stabbing later, the graph gets pruned, but before the stars could have done their bit in converting what is ostensibly a thriller of a movie into a drama, History with the capital H intervenes in the form of that invention of '01, the manned Jet-A1 missile.

Since I have no qualms whatsoever of spoiling this movie for the readers (both of whom have better things to do than to watch this movie), I will proceed with a straightforward commentary on the plot: in essence, the Baba is arrested on suspicion (or whatever it is called nowadays), tortured, jailed, and so on in scenes that are filmed in such an over-the-top, grand-mal inducing manner that one feels pity for the poor strobe light used for filming. Once this interlude is complete, the Baba goes on a bread-buying spree that finally gets him a slot as the entree in a four-course terrorist cell wherein, by some mysterious process of Bollywoodical natural selection, he becomes its leader, with contacts with the Raashan mafia who supply weapons and bangers⁽²⁾ in exchange for getting shot.

Meanwhile, the misnamed telecom giant has, in typical inscrutable fashion, managed to become a taxi magnate (or magnet) of sorts, running his own fleet. When a failed smuggling attempt manages to get him the undivided attention of the FBI (about which, by the way, the viewer needs to exercise his sore and aching Suspension-of-Disbelief.) Naturally, what he is asked to do now is to reestablish contact with his old friends (who have, by this time, done their bit in adding to the population problem.) His case officer is Irrfan Khan, who does such a good job of acting that it is actually painful to watch the others on-screen -- even Miss Eyecandy is almost not sufficient incentive to actually watch the screen.

In an interesting aside, you will be pleased to know that Terrorists-R-Us, CEO'd in some mysterious process by J.Babu, is an equal-opportunity employer. All South Asian nations that owe significant bits of their history to terrorism are represented. If what happens to one of them (well, two, actually, with one at the end of the movie) is an unintended reflection of history, it serves in its own fashion to advance the plot.

Speaking of plot advancements, la Eyecandy, after completing an unmentioned course of study and doing her bit for the world's population, also is apparently working in an NGO for, you've guessed it, the rights of prisoners wrongfully taken in The War Against Terror. As a demonstration of "police brutality", it also serves as one of her patients (maybe she was a psychiatrist?) commits suicide, and in the process, la EC gets her chance to see an anticompetitive deal being made between Irrfan and the telecom giant. This naturally leads to the grand denouement, and the inevitable shootout wherein the telecom giant gets to take care of a budding young ~~waste of space~~ baseball star. The END.

For a movie that seems to have gotten a lot of praise about presenting multi-faceted viewpoints, most of the time is spent in attempting justifications for the acts of terrorism attempted in the movie, while only a cursory glance is spared for the alternate viewpoint, and these dialogues are actually the weakest part of Irrfan's repertoire. Perhaps given the current backlash against the less than humane acts depicted and the praise that the movie gives to the Economic Superhero, this is a good thing. Time will tell, even if the Box Office has returned a clear and unambiguous opinion of the movie. Oh, and Maya really ought to stick to ads. Or Item Numbers. Mmm.

(As an aside, an IMDB review calls "Mission: Kashmir" a Bollywood epic. Did I even see the same movie?)

[2] - No, that wasn't a footnote.
[e] - Johnny Baba makes one wonder about strange pecularities of uncivil engineers that is the sort of discussion best taken offline as providing great opportunities going forward.

Movies to watch before you die

2009-03-07T21:20:00.005+05:30

Well, it's that seasoning of the year again, and who are we to deny ourself the urge to move fiction away from the first spot (it detracts from the tone of the blog, don't you know) On this note, we present to you some classic movies whose enjoyment is best gotten over with before you complete your transition into decaying organic matter.

Gooch Gooch Hota Hai

After Hum Aapke Hain Khan - an existential subjectivist look at the difficulties of being film-stars in modern India - bombed at the box office, the director decided to go back to Objectivism. With backing from the Bwrdd Criced Cymru a Lloegr, this movie tells of one man on his way to captaining the English cricket team, and in passing proves the Zeroth Rand Axiom, that, indeed, א is א and therefore only Gooch can be Gooch.

Show Leh

In the heights of the upper Himalayas, two lonely young men run into a colony of monks terrorised by the legendary Yeti. Their efforts to free this community embroil them deeper in their quest to turn the monster into a waiter who says: "are o, sambaar"

Calypso Now

A young and earnest musician paddles up the river of life looking for a legendary master of song, and shows vignettes of the life he could have had if he had used a search engine before plunging into his task. Featuring scenes that caused PETA to ask Eva Mendes to shed clothes even faster, this movie was re-released after strict sound editing as: "Calypso: Now Reduced!".

Mongol, paan de!

Once upon a time in Central Asia, there was this boy who swallowed a stopwatch, and was henceforth known as Timer the Lung. This movie chronicles his journey from Gujarat to Bengal in search of ingredients to make the perfect digestif that would mould his warriors into an invincible fighting machine his descendants would use to conquer the world. Followed by the award-winning "Paan's Labyrinth", this movie marks the start of a series that did its best to paint the town walls red.

Tory Zameen Par

Tracing the evolution of a young Breton, from in impressionable backbencher who falls into scandal, to a respected demagogue and feared political opponent who leads his country into the new world order, while expiating for crimes committed through omission when he was young.

Le Daal se Vitamin

In a top-secret research lab for a major agricultural company, a previously nondescript researcher discovers an answer to the world's hunger problem. But is this really what his organisation wants? Intrigue, suspense, murder and deceit follow him as he fights to present his discovery to the world for peer review.

Bhais Don't Cry

After the success of a number of movies about the underworld, this one chronicles the rise of a new don as she hides her identity from everyone as she climbs her way up the ladder of crime to sit at the top of the deadliest mafia in the world, and the her fall as her real identity: a top police spy, is discovered.

Citizen Khan

When you're the first citizen of a small sparkly town, none of your actions go unremarked, and a good number of them will be slavishly imitated by your fans. In this situation, how does one go about leading a normal life? Sometimes, the answer is to do the right thing, always.

Braids on the River Qua

Long-haired rats are an endangered species, because their hair can be woven into cloth with amazing properties. One such rat rebels against having a haircut, and sails away to the sea, it hair growing longer by the day, until it reaches the beaches where it is promptly mistaken for a carpet.

Tray

When young Paris steals away with a prized tray belonging to the neighbouring gang leader, the leader promptly marches up to his home to take it back, whereupon a pitched battle ensues with the leader finally gaining access to Paris through trickery and guile. However, even if he gets the tray, can he make it back to his hideout?

Devi Does Dalhousie

After a discussion of whether Yandaboo is spelled with one 'o' or two, a young princess discovers that she may have misunderstood the intent and meaning of the Doctrine of Laps while trying to regain her rightful throne.

Garam Beer

Two brothers, separated at birth, do their best to find each other over vast regions of space and time. United by their hatred of warm beverages, they fight against the evil Refrigemonster who has reversed the Second Law of Thermodynamics, making it impossible to get a cool drink at the local bar.

Armour Akhbaar Antimony

Modern soldiers require protection, the daily news, and poisonous metals to fight. Will three brothers, each of whom has received a piece of the puzzle from their parents, be able to unite in time to outfit their army for war?

Rogue On

After a 'job' goes wrong with deadly consequences, a gang of master thieves breaks up, with each going their own way to spend the rest of their lives in relative peace and contentment. When one of them is overcome by a fit a nostalgia, can he convince the rest to join him for one last caper?

Bread Eater

When a legion of elite soldiers ventures into deepest jungle to rescue some of their own, they run into a strange alien life form that eats all their bread, leaving them only cake. Will they prevail against this monster bent upon destroying their way of life?

Strangers in the Night

2009-03-02T14:12:00.002+05:30

His Story

"Strangers in the night", Frank Sinatra was crooning. He never understood her fascination with the song, but over time had learnt to appreciate it. They were just about finished with their first glass of wine, at the Cafe Coffee Day next to the International Airport. They were celebrating the 10 years that they had been together.

"Hey weren't you guys at IITM ?" Thick glasses, blue-eyed, long hair tied in a pony tail and a stubble at least six months old seemed vaguely familiar. There seemed to be a scar that started somewhere on his left cheekbone buried under all that facial hair and which seemed to end somewhere below his left ear.

"Yes we were, I am Jai and this here is...."

"Geeta I guess" pony tail chirped.

"Yes I am Geeta" she said with an uneasy edge to her voice. He knew that IIT girls being the rarity they were on campus pretty much everyone remembered her.

"Well I am a couple of years junior to you guys, John do you guys remember ?"

"Aah yes Johnnie "keep walking" Walker right" A nick acquired due to John's typically being found in drunken stupor more often than not.

"Yup, I remember bowling to you and Vijay at IITM"

Out of the corner of his eye he could see Geeta pursing her lips. Vijay was literally the blue eyed boy of his batch. A Comp Sci student, was in the top half of his class but you would rarely find him mugging. A Mardi Gras P-team member, hostel band's vocalist he was also one of the most stylish batsmen of his hostel who batted like a millionaire meant that whenever John was sober he would throw his wicket away. Plus he had that rarest of things at IIT, a girlfriend.

"Yup you really did have Vijay's number I remember, never prepared to ground it out....well what can you say to the style merchants"

"And I don't think you scored too many off me either, I knew your correct batting would always mean that I could bowl to my field"

His time at IIT was a big contrast to Vijay's. He belonged to the "fighter" class rather than the "stud" class. He studied very hard to reach the top of his class and his batting much like everything else about him was a very studied perfected technique. He was no big shot at Mardi Gras nor was he good at any other extra academic stuff, he could not strut a guitar and shout "Born in the USA" or go around in a false accent shouting "rock is dead". In an institution where a lot of emphasis was placed on doing things without appearing to put in any kind of effort he was not exactly very popular except during exam times. People tolerated him because of that. But then he was a stud in one field and it was that he could keep drinking till even the last person in his group gave up. He never could figure out why he never got drunk like everyone else, the more he drank the only feeling he seemed to have was a kind of fury at the world, a dull throbbing pain in his temples. But he rarely gave voice to it and would keep drinking.

"Jai stop being all nostalgic about your cricket memories, John join us in the celebrations, we are celebrating our 10th anniversary"

"Ah and we are to be having wine I see. The new policy of the government regarding wine licenses is cool."

Another glass was called for and the wine was poured out in the correct manner by Jai.

"Cheers" as the three glasses clinked, "To you guys" John said.

"So Jai what are you up to these days ?" John asked

"Well I always realised I was not really cut out for an engineering job so passed out and did an MBA at IIMA. Now work for Barclay's at London"

He realised that he had done exactly what most of his friends at IIT did, an engineering optimisation problem of making the most money in the least possible time. Was very successful at his job too, but there was always an inner voice that kept telling him that this was not what he had dreamed of all those years back. And these days the inner voice seemed to irritate him all the more and far too frequently for it to be called an irritation.

"Whoa man that must be interesting!! And what are you up to Geeta"

"Oh I have given up my job, keep myself busy by trying to paint mostly"

"Any idea what happened to Vijay ?"

"Well he passed out of IIT, had this fantastic idea that he wanted to be a writer but never did amount to much"

"Ah after my own heart then, I am also a writer you see."

"Oh what do you write ?" Geeta asked

"Nothing path-breaking, right now writing some technical manuals to make ends meet. The idea being that this kind of free lancing work is temporary and with all the free time that I have, I should eventually get down to writing a novel" John said.

"Oh I see" there was a disappointed note in her voice.

"Anyway guys all the best to your future, I have a flight to catch now"

And he left them and walked out of the cafe. Jai envied everything about John, the ease with which he had come over to the table and talked to them, the apparently effortless small talk he made. He himself would have walked out of a cafe if he had to confront people from his past whom he did not know too well. He remembered what Vijay had told him long ago at IIT after getting drunk "Man you are born with style, there is no way it can be taught, not to you".

Her Story

There was the usual music that played at most coffee shops that was playing that night. Ten years since she had been with Jai. Ten years since she had bet on safety.

"Hey weren't you guys at IITM ?" For a moment she thought, but no it just cannot be. The first few years had been great, they had travelled all over the world, seen all the places she had wanted to see.

"Yes we were, I am Jai and this here is...."

"Geeta I guess"

"Yes I am Geeta" Being a girl, an attractive one at that at IIT meant that everyone three batches junior and senior knew you.

"Well I am a couple of years junior to you guys, John do you guys remember ?"

Jai and John seemed to get lost in their cricket reverie. She did not particularly like cricket. She knew that whenever Vijay lost a match he would be irritable the whole night and that the whole evening of hers would be spoilt listening to the ravings of Vijay on what so-and-so ought to have done.

"Jai stop being all nostalgic about your cricket memories, John join us in the celebrations, we are celebrating our 10th anniversary"

"Ah and we are to be having wine I see. The new policy of the government regarding wine licenses is cool."

Another glass was called for and she could even with her eyes closed imagine exactly how Jai would pour the wine out.

"Cheers" as the three glasses clinked, "To you guys" John said.

"So Jai what are you up to these days ?" John asked

"Well I always realised I was not really cut out for an engineering job so passed out and did an MBA at IIMA. Now work for Barclay's at London" This is why she thought she had chosen him, someone who had mapped out his future like all the road trips that they had been together on. Unlike someone whose life seemed to like the innumerable paper boats set to sail in rainwater puddles, taking a course that was so random that one eventually got trampled upon.

"Whoa man that must be interesting!! And what are you up to Geeta"

"Oh I have given up my job, keep myself busy by trying to paint mostly"

"Any idea what happened to Vijay ?"

"Well he passed out of IIT, had this fantastic idea that he wanted to be a writer but never did amount to much" She remembered this same day ten years back. The writing thing for Vijay was not working out too well, Jai meanwhile was having great success as a banker. Today was the day that she told Vijay about Jai.

"Ah after my own heart then, I am also a writer you see."

"Oh what do you write ?" Geeta asked. She had come to see Jai off at the airport and he had proposed to her.

"Nothing path-breaking, right now writing some technical manuals to make ends meet. The idea being that this kind of free lancing work is temporary and with all the free time that I have, I should eventually get down to writing a novel"

"Oh I see" Which was her first awkward response then as well to Jai.

"Anyway guys all the best to your future, I have a flight to catch now"

It stuck her then that she would trade a lot to be liker her husband, always in control. Always knowing what you need and knowing exactly what is needed to achieve those goals.

The third story

Frank Sinatra's exquisite voice sounded over the background "Strangers in the night". Ten years was a long time, but if he knew Jai he knew that he could not resist it and would be here. He was right. As in batting so in life.

"Hey weren't you guys at IITM ?"

"Yes we were, I am Jai and this here is...."

"Geeta I guess" He still loved the way the name rolled off his tongue.

"Yes I am Geeta" and he knew that she was adopting the voice that she used with most IIT guys. If anything she seemed more desirable than she ever was at IIT.

"Well I am a couple of years junior to you guys, John do you guys remember ?" The subterfuge came naturally to him

"Aah yes Johnnie "keep walking" Walker right"

"Yup, I remember bowling to you and Vijay at IITM"

"Yup you really did have Vijay's number I remember, never prepared to ground it out....well what can you say to the style merchants"

Maybe Jai was right after all. He always thought that being a writer meant a bohemian lifestyle. Like everything else at IIT he thought writing success too would come easily to him. Maybe he really ought to grind it out, put in those hours of sweat that he had for the JEE towards his novel as well.

"And I don't think you scored too many off me either, I knew your correct batting would always mean that I could bowl to my field"

He never really understood why he had almost always wanted to put Jai down, both here and at IIT.

"Jai stop being all nostalgic about your cricket memories, John join us in the celebrations, we are celebrating our 10th anniversary"

"Ah and we are to be having wine I see. The new policy of the government regarding wine licenses is cool."

Another glass was called for.

"Cheers" as the three glasses clinked, "To you guys" John said.

"So Jai what are you up to these days ?" John asked

"Well I always realised I was not really cut out for an engineering job so passed out and did an MBA at IIMA. Now work for Barclay's at London"

And the memory of a frustrated James Stewart kicking his car in A Wonderful Life came to mind.

"Whoa man that must be interesting!! And what are you up to Geeta"

"Oh I have given up my job, keep myself busy by trying to paint mostly"

"Any idea what happened to Vijay ?"

"Well he passed out of IIT, had this fantastic idea that he wanted to be a writer but never did amount to much"

But then again those are the problems when one belongs to the stud class at IIT, the expectations are almost always sky high.

"Ah after my own heart then, I am also a writer you see."

"Oh what do you write ?" Geeta asked

"Nothing path-breaking, right now writing some technical manuals to make ends meet. The idea being that this kind of free lancing work is temporary and with all the free time that I have, I should eventually get down to writing a novel" John said.

"Oh I see" he could figure out that she was lost in thought and maybe had overstayed his welcome.

"Anyway guys all the best to your future, I have a flight to catch now"

Walking out he thought that Geeta probably led the best life of them. Married to someone rich enough to take care of all material comforts and so afforded her the time to follow her hobbies. On the ride back home he slept on the bus and dreamt of marrying a rich heiress and writing books just for the joy of it.

Dev-da the bewda

2009-02-22T21:29:00.009+05:30

It is rarely the occasion that everything fits well enough in a movie, that one has to actually sit and dig through fuzzed memories to find out what didn't fit. Dev.D does this. Now, it's definitely not a great movie - competition for that apellation requires that one can actually sit through the movie twice - but Dev.D is by far the best movie out of Bollywood so far this year. Given past standards, that makes it likely the best movie that escapes from there this year.

What can you say about a Bollywood movie that begins with the hero asking the heroine if she touches herself? That it is made by one of the most avant-garde directors of the industry, that it stars two leading ladies who are so good one is left wondering if this is one of their first movies, that the movie is psychedelic enough to be compared to our own cinematic equivalent of “The Wall”.

Image Courtesy : businessofcinema.com

There's an interesting story about how censorship in Sweden was changed due to work by Bergman of the Svensk ~~Blondskindustri~~Filmindustri, who is one of the few non-cricketing impersonalities to have a semipermanent shrine on this blog. Sadly, it turns out this is partially untrue (500-9 might be relevant to some nsfw google-fu here). One can only hope that Dev.D proves to do something similar in this country. Most of the requisite elements are there.

As the jobless readers of this blog would have realized by now we are talking about DevD. Directed by Anurag Kashyap and staring Abhay Deol (who is a personal favorite HTPL notwithstanding) in a role that is tailor made for him (the credits read “Concept – Abhay Deol”), DevD is “loosely” inspired (re-interpreted is probably a better word) by the Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay book. DevD is the story of Dev’s life, his successes and failures in falling in love. It is also the story of Paro Dev’s childhood sweetheart and Chanda rendered brilliantly by Kalki Koechlin. In the inspired version the notable differences occur in why Dev and Paro cannot get married and the reasons Chanda is forced to turn to prostitution (a college going one by day at that). There are also pointers to the BMW case, the DPS MMS leak amongst other real life incidents.

Anurag Kashyap, apparently with help from the eponymous lead actor, came up with the script and direction for this movie. Now, functional illiteracy prevents me from reading SCC's দেবদাস, and a pact of mutual non-aggression between the shreds of common sense and insanity serves as an effective deterrent from watching any of the multiple prior efforts. Under the distinct and unheard-of handicap of judging a movie purely on its own performance, let's see why you may want to watch this movie in a theater.

DevD offers a reflection of the Indian male’s attitude towards female sexuality in our times. Dev is not able to handle the fact that Paro probably slept with someone else, when he is guilty of the same offence. Chanda’s father, who views her MMS clip, comes up with the following pearls of wisdom “She knew what she was doing”. There is also a scene involving the guy who shot the MMS landing up at Chanda’s house with an offer to marry her (Raja Ki Aayegi Baarat anyone), pointedly he talks to Chanda’s mom before talking to her. To cap it all there is a brilliantly shot scene of Dev waking up after passing out the previous night and looking at Chanda with intense scorn and contempt.

Dev.D works well because the rapid-fire succession of memorable scenes forces the suspension of disbelief in order to concentrate better on the creation of hilarity through vulgarity. Add on quite a bit of "inspired" gorgeous camerawork (which inspiration, by the way, we applaud wholeheartedly), unsubtly subtle tongue-in-cheek humour, and if these aren't reasons enough to watch it on the big screen, well, there are other, more effective reasons to do with (lack of) plot and execution.

DevD is a movie where the two leading ladies show excellent character, while all the males are at the other end of the spectrum. When Paro comes to meet Dev the first thing she does is clean his room and wash his clothes while all Dev can do is sit back and allow her to take charge. According to a book we read a long time ago one of the reasons for this is the extremely lavish affection that most Indian guys get as kids. Towards the end of the movie when Dev comes home to attend his father’s funeral, his mother rains slaps and fists on him and you wonder whether she was not twenty years too late in meting out the treatment which might have given him a bit more spine to go through life.

Image Courtesy : media.movietalkies.com

The movie starts of with a young Dev and Paro having a catfight of sorts over the hygienic nature of canal water on its banks, whereupon young D is sent off to school in the land of the former colonial masters. Naturally, there persists (one of those incidents of suspension of disbelief) a relationship between them over what ought to be an absurdly long time, and the next thing you know, a much older D comes back[1]to the vaterland. Oh, and it turns out that one of the perks of transplanting the movie from the east to more agriculturally rich areas is that Dev and Paro do not expand as expected, while C does.

Anurag Kashyap’s direction is awe-inspiring. For a change we do not have the heroine look as though she has just walked out of a Beauty Parlor while walking through Punjab’s fields or a hero who for a change only drinks rather than sports six packs. The teasing and mocking references to that totally lacking in soul and the endlessly grimace inducing Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s movie Devdas are well placed. I could count at least three and the one we liked the most was the very off hand way in which Paro and Chanda meet in DevD on a train, after which Chanda boards a bus and the song “Dola re Dola” is playing on the bus. There is a long contrived plot to get Chanda and Paro to meet in SLB’s Devdas and the conversation they have is probably much more boring than the Monday morning 0730 lectures of Physics-II in SN Bose Auditorium. The way the titles come on both at the beginning and the end of the movie is something we liked and if you have not seen to watch out for. The other thing is the way a drunken Dev is handled, instead of the usual Bollywood way of the hero ranting and raving at God for all the injustices doled out to him, we find Dev more often than not yielding to Newton’s forces in a random but all the same natural manner.

Now, there's no point in outlining the plot (well, there might have been, if the movie had anything worth spoiling), so we can skip right on to the interesting parts. There's a nice bit of ambiguity on whether P has a relationship with a third, unnamed person with a head that doubles as a dysfunctional corkscrew. While a cursory view of the movie might reinforce one side of this argument, there remains enough doubt as to what the correct answer is. The script works harder than expected to keep this as an open question, so we leave it that way. (Such small touches - there are a few more - make this movie an enjoyable watch for someone doomed to absorb such questionable pearls of wisdom as might be provided by observing TV quiz shows.)

The cinematography is also of a standard well beyond most Bollywood movies. The first half of the movie has so many uses of mirrors that we are reminded of our personal favorite the incomparable Ingmar Bergman. The second half showcases Delhi in a way that we have never before seen in Hindi cinema. The shots of the Hotels in Paharganj makes one feel like RK Narayan’s books do, you think you are right there
on the same street with the characters and as much part of the action as they are. Watch out for the scene with Hotel Grand in the background when Dev and Chunni meet for the first time. The shots of a drunk and stoned Dev apparently thanks to Danny Boyle’s camera are also the first of their kind in Hindi cinema, the way the whole world around Dev seems to whirr faster and faster. Talking out of personal experience (for obvious reasons we do not remember most of them) this is exactly how one feels when drunk, for stoned we probably need to wait for a certain sheermelody writer to second.

Image Courtesy : media.movietalkies.com

Next, of course, is the inevitable MMS scandal. AK has drawn a lot from once-current events in this part of the world, and this one seems exquisitely appropriate for some reason. Relying on imperfect memory with AWGN, it seems that the original scandal had surreal moments, such as when certain bloggers in the proximity of the original Lenni demonstrating the breathtaking stupidity of posting real names online (an inevitable consequence of an unjustified sense of entitlement meeting a functional internet connection). We ignore (for obvious reasons) other antics from this time entirely. While remembering whether more mainstream news sources handled things any better isn't feasible (and is probably not worth the effort), one lesson the "great opportunity going forward" types ought to have learned is the unusual persistence of anything ever left on the internet. The other lesson, regarding blogs in general, and blogs by people originating from a particular timezone in particular, we leave out owing to our fear of the blogwa.

The sound track of the movie is yet another unique aspect. I don’t think that I have ever heard a Hindi movie having such a psychedelic sound track. Almost all the songs are played twice consecutively, once when Dev is drunk and immediately followed by for a lack of a better choice of words the morning after version. If we had to pick personal favorites they would be “Saali Khushi” and of course “Emosanal Attyachar”. And the dance that “The Twilight” folks perform in the bar simply left us gaping with our mouth wide open.

We move on (change, etc.) to Chandramukhi/Lenni, a proficienct juggler who is also fluent in Tamil and French (but apparently not Bengali), and has a tendency to read pandaic literature (did I mention my hate of schmottasses?). She's the (cute, when not all dolled up) third main character, and not so surprisingly the only one we feel any real sympathy for, even if her methods of learning to drive are better called accident zones. As a completely unrelated aside, what's with the designery rooms, Che ashtrays and coffee machines? It certainly incites unrealistic thoughts about recession-proof careers.

The casting director deserves full marks. Abhay Deol is tailor made for the role of Dev. Playing a rich spoilt clueless passive personality should come as natural to him as throwing pitty files out of the lab comes to Electrical Engineering professors. Mahi essays the role of the pragmatic Paro with an ease that is rarely seen in most heroines of Bollywood. In one of the best scenes in the movie Dev tells Paro “Main tum se pyaar karna chahta hoon!!”, Paro replies “Log pyaar karte hain, pyaar karne ki koshish kaun karta hai!!”. Those two lines in a most succinct manner sum up the two characters. But the real star of the movie is Kalki Koechlin playing Chanda. The portion where she talks on the phone in Tamil followed by French and then back in Tamil, end the call, call her boss and inform in the coolest possible tone the time shows us that this is a lady who means business, that it is just a profession for her. The pain her voice as she says “And they call me a slut” makes one want to reach out and comfort her, this goes down at least in our book on cinema as comparable to “I could ‘ave been somebody”.

Image Courtesy : media.movietalkies.com

Old man D remains thoroughly detestable, right from his initial appearance, a tendency to view the world from a Dannyboyle-enabled bottom-of-the-bottle, and finally to the demonstration of why ethanol-powered automotion might not mean what you think it means (with, of course, apologies to I. Montoya.) D's procurer, who apparently has enough clout from the original to be listed in IMDB's cast, has a viciously two-dimensional character, and one wonders why he's in the picture at all, particularly since his second-in-command was competent enough to do his job. P is the central object of affections for D, real or imagined, but apart from the beginning of the movie, and a delightful little detox interlude, doesn't really figure much in the latter half. Not that we're complaining, of course.

Roger Ebert felt that the reason Pulp Fiction is a great movie, is due entirely to the high quality of dialogue in the movie. DevD is right up there in this regard. From “Main aa raha hoon” to “Dilli main billi ko maarna chahiye, khaana chahiye lekin paalna nahin chahiye” it is one roller coaster of a ride. The clincher though is how a migration from east-west-east made a certain man change from a) Whiskey to Vodka, b) Chicken to Fish c) Voluptuous women to size zero men with b****s!!! Be warned though that some of the dialogues being in Punjabi may not be easily comprehended.

The movie is split into three parts, one for each main character, and one not-part that ought to have been for the intermission, which of course was noticed later than it should have been by the projectionist or its modern equivalent in the modern multiplex. Each part has what one assumes are to be subtle events that dovetail them together, and this could have been done using much less film: the movie is just too long, particularly since there are elements that either should have been developed more (like the brother and the sister of the brother) or just been completely removed.

The one complaint we have with this movie is that the ending was too good to be true. But then again we have a thing for dark despairing endings, we would have much preferred an ending where Dev dies on the Tso-Moriri plains and the last shot is of some scavenging birds tearing his innards apart. (Here is when you readers are supposed to go “Thank God, he studied Thoka and does circuit design and not make movies”)

The music deserves firm applause, for firmly sticking to the background where it belongs. It's a decent score, even though its very aptness condemns it to the grey oblivion of forgetfulness. Emosanal atyachar notwithstanding.

All in all this is a cult movie. There have been comparisons with this being the Indian equivalent of “English August”, “Catcher in the Rye” or the equivalent of “The Wall” due to its psychedelic music. To add our two penny’s worth to the comparisons, if it did remind us of any book, it was Midnight’s Children. Like the book we hope that the movie ushers in a whole new genre of Indian film making, and like the book which had a quality of sustained brilliance to it, the movie is similar in scene after scene one encounters cinema of a very high quality. And to a movie that I can compare it with, if I may do so without inviting the wrath of anyone, I think it is in a way like “La Dolce Vita”. While LDV is the story of a writer trying to write his great novel, DevD is the story of Dev trying to do possibly the most creative thing possible, live one’s life and try to find meaning in it.

It is the ending where this movie really disappoints. It may not be realistic to expect a commercially unviable ending from a Bollywood movie, the current unsatisfactory ending only leaves us wondering why anyone who demonstrates the catalytic action of alcohol and additives to convert mechanical perfection into a ton or so of instant death actually deserves a happy (for some questionable value of happy) ending. Or even any ending but one at all. What might have been a worthy equivalent of 'Requiem for a Dream' ends up as the Slumdog Love Triangle.

And the greatest incontestable proof that this is a great movie is that The Alternate Moebyus promised to strangle our necks once he was done watching the movie with us. But the fact that we are writing this review and TAM came up with “This is a decent movie” after watching it should educate you on really how good the movie was.

[1] No, he does not, apparently, return.

(Bah. not posting regularly here means that the story of when the Brain watched Pinky confront the molar police is necessarily out of date. Sheer pity.)

Slumdog Millionaire

2009-02-14T15:01:00.007+05:30

Just watched Slumdog Millionaire yesterday. It was a bit disconcerting to watch it with just maybe ten more people in a theater and none of them Indian at that.

The plot of the movie is the most engrossing part. Jamal who grew up in the Slums of Mumbai is on the verge of answering the final question in KBC*. In police custody and accused of cheating, Jamal narrates to his interrogators how each question related to different incidents in his life and as a result his knowing the answer.

The movie starts off with a particularly well filmed scene of the cops chasing a very young Jamal as he is playing cricket on the outfields of the Mumbai airport. As the cops wind up running through the nooks and crannies of the slum, for me these were the most vivid images of the film. But sadly what started off as a very promising beginning only ends up going south after that. In a particularly improbable series of events involving Jamal escaping onto a train, landing up in Agra becoming an official tour guide at the Taj Mahal which by a more gifted director/cinematographer would have probably been the high point as far as visual imagery was concerned, in Danny Boyle's hands turns out to be a underwhelming experience.

Anil Kapoor perfectly plays the part of the show host who cannot put up with the fact that someone else will earn in a couple of hours what probably took him decades to achieve**. But what really spoilt the whole movie experience for us was the obvious mis-casting of Dev Patel as the grown up Jamal. He has the same I-am-lost-get-me-out-of-here expression in all his scenes without exception. One could probably understand the sense of awe in the scenes involving the TV show but in scenes involving Freida Pinto*** the love of his life the results come off very badly.

AR Rahman has done a wonderful job with the sound track of the movie and we think we will be buying the music CD*** soon.

To sum it up all, the plot is great, no thanks to the film crew and all credit to Vikas Swarup. With no dis-credit to Danny Boyle but this is probably the best he can do and it just did not pass muster for me. A good movie should never leave one feeling "if-only-someone-else-had-made-it"*****, unfortunately the same cannot be said of Slumdog Millionaire. If you are really tempted to watch a similar movie that is infinitely better we recommend City of God. We are sorely tempted to pick up the book though.

P.S : Any movie that shows the great Sir Jack Hobbs as Jack Hobbs is surely mediocre, the cricket aficionado part of me says.

* In the movie the show name is changed to "Who wants to be a Millionaire" targeted towards the American audience I guess.

** At the beginning of the movie his making fun of the chai-wallah is very improbable, thought most of them would probably have the same opinion but they would have expressed it in private rather in full public view. Most of our super stars are very very careful under the flash lights.

*** And we seemed to have developed a massive weakness for Ms Pinto now.......

**** If we shake off our customary laziness and get our Car CD player to work again that is.

***** Krzystof Kieslowski or the late Satyajit Ray, yeah we know we are being unfair to Boyle but then again the plot was so good it deserved a better director

Quantum of Entertainment

2008-11-10T09:02:00.008+05:30

We interrupt the stalled story of the KF Panda to bring you matters that are even less relevant to reality

It is humbling sensation to realise that, in spite of all the efforts of the best humourists, the funniest things still remain side effects of human (mis)behaviour.

In other, possibly unrelated news, it turns out that you can still discover new fundamental particles even when the LHC is not yet at absolute zero. We refer, of course, to the discovery of the smallest possible particle of entertainment after watching the latest Bond movie.

The movie itself is nothing special (more on that later) but when you consider a remarkable conversation that the cricketer (bunking yet another collapse) and I were privileged to witness on our uncoordinated shamble towards the door (due to a regrettable combination of fairly evident factors, reproduction is, as mentioned in the disclaimer, likely to be faulty but covers the essentials):

"...I tell you man, this movie is only for the illiterates who have not read the originals by Iron Flamingo"

"Agreed - did you know that in the original, Felix Leiter was a white guy in a straw hat?"

Forgive us, O potential vegetable for our transgression. We shall not err. Or not more than the permissible error rate, anyway.

There then followed an unrepeatable discussion of the flaws and nonexistent virtues of the current actor, and a historical comparison to the disadvantage of most of the other actors except that Remington Typewriter guy. As we all know, there is only one real Bond whose first name is Fevi: it therefore seems redundant to comment any more. It might also be that you need to be female to appreciate the comparison, of course, which masterwork of logic seems to have crossed my ears more than once recently.

Quanta of Enjoyment aside, it is fairly obvious that someone at the studio has somehow misspelled Jason Bourne as James Bond, having him drive, of all things, a hybrid SUV? The DBS passes through too, as do some horrendous boxes driven by Holga that we will pass over lightly since any application of weight might lead to the unwelcome discovery that they are made of paper.

(Image stolen from filmschoolrejects.com)

No Bond movie is complete without eyecandy, and we're not referring to Aston Martins or gadgets which are conspicuously low key, if that isn't a contradiction in terms. In fact, I believe the last few movies might end up in giving a whole new meaning to the Bondmobile. Anyway, Holga is the delectable bond girl, and after Hitman, Max Payne and this, she seems well on her way to becoming Ukraine's answer to Milla and Michelle. Gemma plays the quick and the dead, in the process generating perhaps the only picture worth adding to this not-review. The real Bond girl, though is Dame Judi, with whom we even see (if one eye is closed, and the other squints sideways) Bond show a bit of emotion. Next thing you know, Bond is going to act in a good movie with Eric Bana about a senseless terrorist act.

Now this might even be better than Hitman, but one does wonder if Nicky Parsons smiled only because she knew that Jason would surface with yet another loss of memory, and find a pulp fiction paperback in his pocket that miraculously survived the Potomac to give him his name and a back story (which, by the way, is worth reading: the Bond website may be overly reliant on Flash, but the aggravation is worth the new backstory.)

We might, by the way, make an interesting comparison of Bourne and Bond:

Chase sequences: Bourne excelled, and borrowing a roof or two from him seems to be Bond's way out of (and into) trouble

Hot girls: We may be devout believers in the Theory of Dyevolution, but Bourne has Franka and Julia, while Bond has Eva and Holga. No contest.

Conveyance: Both realise the utility of two wheels instead of four while travelling 'other' countries. I should probably not even mention the hybrid SUV again, but it strikes a sore nerve.

Widespread conspiracy theories: Hell, Ludlum developed his Burnished Brass, while Bond sticks to physics instead of metallurgy.

Lone psychotic with a gun against the world. No Jimmy, you cannot eat world - it is inedible.

Both push back the boundaries of scientific discovery: Bond by demonstrating the difficulty of making a Focault pendulum using two people, and Bourne by staying sober in Goa

Globe-hoppery

Both treat hotel rooms very badly

On a less serious note, both are major reinventions of the originals, to 'keep with the times'

In other, perhaps more welcome news, A Most Wanted Man is fairly high on the bestseller list that the city's practitioners of KF do their best to populate. Maybe there is indeed a God, even if it is dyslexic.

The K.F. Panda part 4.141592: A New Soap

2008-10-10T11:00:00.003+05:30

Long long ago, in a Union Territory not too far away, there lived a panda. This was no ordinary panda, but one who lived within sight of the snow-capped peak of Mount I, wherein the best of the best of the best of the best of the best[infinite loop detected] passed (in some cases, only figuratively) the best years of their lives.

Naturally, with aspirations of climbing ABO peaks, it was practically certain that the panda would soon have the engineering dream, and so it happened: one day, the panda dreamed that it was located in a square, enclosed area with incomprehensible instructions pouring in from unknown directions. This naturally made the panda and its nearest and dearest think long rosy thoughts, with a perfectly predictable and completely irrelevant outcome.

We now carefully skip through a few boring parts, wherein the panda jumped backwards through a few hoops (note: simulated hoops only), bent over backwards to bite its own tail, and generally made an ass of itself while demonstrating its ability to climb the estimated 2.5e5 steps that took it to Mount I.

Now, once the climb was over (with a lot of dubious side effects that are the subject of a fascinating psychological study someplace), it found itself near the peak. It was here, that it had its first sight of the cream of the cream, the practitioners of K.F. This event changed the subsequent life of the Panda

Now, the ancient and holy art of K.F. is a curious one indeed: as a bystander explained in passing to a now wholly chastened and gullible panda:

"You see, the true art of K.F. has reached fruition in its exponents before you: note the careful and apparently artless positioning of the string backpack as armor, inspired entirely by the noble turtle. Next, the careful use of filler material to give the backpack solidity without mass - and at the same time giving the exponent the capability to inscribe profound thoughts influencing our very existence. Then of course there is the air, no doubt acheived through the combustion of substances that hone the practitioners art while at the same time preserving their ability to appreciate it..."

Leaving the rest of this description (deserving of a new post in itself), we proceed to the first challenge faced by the panda: not getting kicked out. It might please you (but I doubt it) that there were no explosions as the panda managed this stupendous act.

(Yes, I know. It is, after all, part π+1, with many many more iterations to go)

Appropriate vusic mideo for the challenged is here

Bergmania in Bangalore

2008-09-27T17:09:00.007+05:30

For what it's worth to the people who read this blog, we have not blogged since the time Aamir Khan had hair on his head but oh well.

So Palador decided that they had to popularize one of our heroes. And so there was the film festival at our old haunt. Which means that the crowd that loves to kiss the air next to the cheeks of the person they are meeting was present en-masse. So you can understand what an odd figure a couple of bag-toting bespectacled geeky engineers cut.

Anyway arriving slightly early at such events has the advantage that we could get seats to sit on, the usual ones at the extreme ends of the row below the fans, which in retrospect did turn out to be the one time we regretted it.

And since most people in this great city believe in IST there was the crowd that came about 10-20 minutes late and not everyone found a chair to sit on. There was this couple that found just one chair left, so the lady decided that she better sit on the lap of her partner. To re-affirm one's love for each other every 10 minutes by cuddling up and muttering sweet nothings loud enough to carry over to the row behind, resulted in our co-author (who incidentally was in the row next to them) of the blog watching shall we say shots of movies from the dark side.

**Hint to TAM to pen a post on this as vitriol is much better coming from him**

The movie in itself was good and TAM already has a review here.

And then there was this girl who was sitting next to me. Apparently she seemed to have got too tired taking baths/showers in mere hydrogen-di-oxide so she decided to experiment. And experiment she did we believe in Davidoff, she seemed to have just swum in a pool of it and come over to the movie. Now when the fan was such that the wind blew towards us we breathed Davidoff and not oxygen and since our body is not accustomed to such experimenting we ended up coughing. Apparently the Davidoff experiment has still not gained ground even with the arty crowd since when the fan changed directions there were a couple more guys whose lungs still seemed to be more accustomed to elements with atomic number 8 rather than aforemetioned perfume.

We must say when we walked out, never in our life have we been happier to breathe in the air of Bangalore.

The next movie Summer Interlude was about first love. It portrays how the choices we make when we react to a tragedy (unfortunately first love here does end in tragedy) end up making us the person we are. The ending of the movie is marvelous. A characteristic of his used here, to show mundane events interspersed with the intense emotional turmoil the characters are undergoing, in this case a practice for a ballet performance is something we admire. A similar theme is also found in The Magic Flute where the narrative of the play is shot between with the reactions of the audience, and conversations between the actors during the breaks.

(Image Courtesy : altfg.com)

The third movie to be screened was Through a Glass Darkly the first part of his famous Faith Trilogy. An extremely claustrophobic movie, it is shot mostly on a small island with just the four principal characters. Bergman is at his best where he is dealing with questions of faith. Tackling questions of the purpose in staying alive and if there can be a single objective reality. An extremely bleak melancholic movie so characteristic of Bergman.

This was followed by Winter Light, our pick of the lot. The main character in the movie is a priest at the Church who is having his faith deeply questioned due to all the despair and unhappiness he sees around him. When a fisherman who is having similar doubts plaguing him and tormenting his mind enough to contemplate suicide the priest is not able to offer any succor. The whole movie spans between two services in the church and left me deeply shaken. There is a deep resonance to be found as the priest grapples between what he has been taught and what his surroundings are leading him to believe in, if one has personally undergone the same crisis of faith. A must watch if you like Bergman. (Incidentally this is the second part of the Faith Trilogy and is panned by all and sundry film critics, Bergman himself did not think too highly of it)

(Image Courtesy : dvdbeaver.com)

Next up was The Silence (the third part of the trilogy) followed by Summer with Monika. We skipped the former as we had already watched it. Summer with Monika is about love between the tempestuous Monika and literally the guy who works next door Harry. After a date he falls for Monika madly and once Monika has a quarrel with her family, Harry decides to escape in his boat with Monika to an island. By the time they are done with their holiday Monika is pregnant. After having the baby Monika figures out that her priorities in life are to have a good time while her youth and good looks last while Harry wants to work and study towards a better future for him and his family. And an all to predictable end comes to it. Later we find Harry reminiscing about his Summer with Monika; less troubled times, might just be the happiest time of his life.

What we found even better was the FTII short film (Was screened before the beginning of each movie) titled "The eight Column Affair". It tracks a marathon winner who falls for a tennis player both of whose snaps are on a newspaper. As he goes through the various sections of the newspaper trying to reach his love forms the movie. Quite easily the best of all the FTII movies that were shown, it is no wonder that the director went on to shoot Johnny Gaddar.

Concluding the festival was The Devil's Eye, all we would say is that directors who are good at dark despairing melancholic movies should not try their hands at comedy.

There was another excellent FTII movie starring Sonali Kulkarni that we liked, anyone who can re-collect the name of the movie shall be appreciated.

And to conclude TAM's hypotheses : "Any movie shot by Sven Nykvist is twice as better as any movie shot by anyone else".

5 Reasons We Love Ana Ivanovic

2008-06-18T21:08:00.008+05:30

Reason #1:

(Image Courtersy : anaivanovic.com)

Reason #2:

(Image Courtesy : sunnysiteup.blogspot.com)

Reason #3:

(Image Courtesy : sportsmandaily.com)

Reason #4 :

(Image Courtesy : mensvogue.com)

(Did we hear someone yawn and say Anna Kournikova's better, well beat the next one)

Reason #5:

(Image Courtesy : rolandgarros.com)

Two technical PJ's and one courtesy Tashan

2008-06-03T21:47:00.002+05:30

The technical ones are of course courtesy a manger G at the place where I work:

Q : Why is Abhishek Bachchan a bad actor ?

A : Coz both Amitabh and Jaya Bachchan are good actors and hence due to common mode

rejection he is a bad one.

Q : Why is Abhishek Bachchan so tall ?

A : Because of differential gain!!!!!!

Now our riposte was :

Q : Who is Saif Ali Khan's favorite pace bowler ?

A : Dilhara Fernando

Why you may ask and we say just watch Tashan and see Saif go "Dilhara re Dilhara hara Dilhara re"

Youtube Link here.

Ek Purana Mausam Lauta

2008-05-22T21:31:00.003+05:30

As we have previously indicated we are big fans of Rohit Brijanth's writing. And so we link to yet another article of his courtesy a friend from school P. It talks about one of our favorite batsmen Mohammad Azharuddin.

Circa May 1990 :

Nightwatchmen then is in a summer camp fast nearing its end. We are being coached on the game we love to play and watch from then till today. A time when we would laugh so much while Appa was tossing and lobbing his slow off breaks that we would inevitably get out bowled. A very thin slightly tall for his age NW is coached to bat but also to bowl left arm spin. Today is the last day of the camp and to sign off we have Azhar and Maninder Singh coming over. So NW bowls a spell to one of the most beautiful players that the great city produced. At that point in time life was worth living and we were on top of the world.

Later in 1992 we see India playing Australia in the world cup. India lose the match by one run but one shot stands out. McDermott pitches one in short slightly outside the off stump, Azhar shuffles across and with a flourish of the wrists plays a back foot drive over the bowlers head for four. To generate that kind of power with wrists off the back foot was a sight to behold.

Fast Forward to the 1997 tour of India to SA. India are 58-5 in reply to SA's 529. Out walks Azhar and in the company of the greatest batsman of my era plays the kind of innings most batsmen can just dream about. First there was a cut that was played behind point off Allan Donald (and for all those who think Shoaib Akhtar is quick, they ought to take a look at white lightning). Not a single fielder on the off side moved. And Donald moves his point finer to where the ball sent. Next ball and the shot is played oh so squarer and again the result the same, all fielders left static almost admiring the shot. The look on Allan Donald's face was quite the look of incomprehension usually reserved for a Class IV student getting quizzed about Maxwell's equations.

(Image Courtesy : cricketnetwork.co.uk)

Rewind to December 1996. The Eden Gardens where for some reason Hyderabadi batsmen seem to find their best touch. India are 119-6 in reply to South Africa's 429. Out walks an injured Azhar and proceeds to play the sort of knock only he can. With Anil Kumble for company by the time he is out India's score is doubled and Azhar has made 109. It also included an over for the poor debutante Klusener (he made up for it in the second innings) who got hit for five boundaries.

The same series the third test match is at Kanpur and it is a square turner of a pitch. First innings either team does not pass 250 and India has a lead of 60 runs. India are at a tricky 121 for 4 when Azhar starts batting. The way he batted and the rest of the batsmen plodded was to use a cliche chalk and cheese. Top scoring in the match and remaining undefeated he put paid to any hopes that SA entertained of winning.

One of his Derbyshire team mates I forget who once had this to say about his batting "There was this bowler who bowled him a half volley on off stump, Azhar opened the face of his bat square drove him and scored 4 through point. The next ball was a similar one but this time Azhar chose to close the face of his bat and flick it through square leg for four. It could hardly have been done by any other batsman in the world".

For the right reasons he became a much hated player towards the end of his career. We believe that his career and life took a down turn the day Raj Singh Dungarpur told him "Miya captain banoge"

But to us he will always remain a player who was very easy on the eyes (when the bowling was not directed short and at his body) and one of the main reasons we took to the game.

P.S : We could not get the photo that we took with Azhar on our camp since by the time the snaps came we were leaving the city to go to some other place where Appa was transferred to and Appa did not have the change for the photo and neither did the organizer have the change for 100/-

P.P.S : If you are a fan of Jagjit Singh and have not listened to the ghazal in the title of his post, do not miss it. Make sure you somehow listen to it right away.

P.P.P.S : There is also a review of an excellent biography of him by Harsha Bhogle here.

Stranger and Strangest interpretations

2008-05-07T21:57:00.002+05:30

We have been listening to this song from a movie called Super Star.

Youtube link here.

Lyrics go something like this :

Ajnabi khwaab main dekha ta jo, ho tum wahi.

Well the object of this post is whether there is a comma after Ajnabi.

Now the usual interpretation of pretty much everyone has been that it is actually:

Ajnabi, khwaab main dekha ta jo, ho tum wahi.

Which sort of translates to "Stranger, you are the person we dreamed about"

We think the comma is not there.

We believe it actually means that "You are the person we saw in a strange dream", strange dream being "Ajnabi Khwaab".

Now we have no takers for this interpretation amongst the people that we talk to. Instead we have gotten lot of suggestions for psychiatric counseling.

We hope of the people who read this blog that if you do agree with us, please to comment so. Even if you do not let us know why ours is not the better one :)

Either way, whatever interpretation you do follow, it really is a great song isn't it......

P.S : Ever wondered why hurricanes are named after Bollywood actresses Katrina and now we have Nargis ? (Well maybe actress is paying too much of a compliment to Katrina maybe, what say ?)

Chihwaseon

2008-05-05T21:43:00.004+05:30

We watched a Korean movie called Chihwaseon (Painted Fire) on the Thursday of last week. The movie is about the life of a painter called Jang Seung-Up. Born in poverty he is noticed by a noble man as a child. He mentors him and makes sure he gets the training an aspiring artist gets. But the need of his to gain acceptance while at the same time not conforming to what the artists think "art" forms the crux of the story.

This inner conflict is bought out quite excellently in one scene. The artist has just finished copying a painting by a Chinese artist. His mentor and some of his friends who are connoisseurs of art (or at least think of themselves that way) are at a loss to differentiate between the original and the fake. But there is a difference, the fake has an extra sparrow in the painting. "Alone and desolate", isolated and then they cut to a close up of the artists face which reflects precisely the same emotions. (We would have rather preferred not to have the close up since we figured that the point was made). Almost the whole movie is spent in the artist trying to re-concile himself between being popularly accepted and to follow his own heart and develop an individual style of his own. And it is this that makes the artist go on drunken binges and shout at the top of his voice from a roof top. We would recommend that you not miss this scene when you watch the movie.

Also woven very well into the script are the loves of his life. From the perennially ill younger sister of his mentor, to shall we say "the-ladies-of-the-night" and a flute player as well. If you are a romantic you would love the scene where he paints a grand screen for his lady love #2 when on the verge of breaking up with him she asks him for a painting that will have good market value.

With the artist's mentor being one of the prime movers behind the reformists, we are also given an insight into the political upheavals happening in Korea in the latter half of the 19th century.

If you are a painter, a writer or even a techie who has had to face the sort of questions and make the choices that Jang Seung-Up had to then you will be able to truly appreciate the movie.

(What is the question for a techie you might ask, Well to choose between what you believe in and what your manager believes in ???)

(Images Courtesy : Cinemania and koreanfilm.org)

300/30

2008-05-02T22:20:00.005+05:30

300/30

This was originally going to be a post about an obscure little gem called Pants of Fire (sadly, no, it was "Painted Fire", though I like the UK title better). Fortunately, sanity intervened in the form of a surprisingly good movie by Abbas Kiarostami, whose only other movie we watched had more Epic Fail Guy per frame than a Pshaw rooke ad for the kolkroaches. All right, no more links to E.Dramatica. For a few more sentences, at least. Particularly considering the alternative (just search for India). Mind you, the State names are hilariously funny enough to make me wonder if an Indian wrote it. If so, may we express the opinion that India's search for its very own Dave Barry and Art Buchwald has ended.

Now, on the surface of it, Ten is not precisely the sort of movie that ought to expect rave reviews: it's shot in a car, with cameras aimed at the occupants. For some reason, we see only one of them at a time, though as the movie goes on, we do get to make a catalogue of the rings worn by the driver. It also starts off with the sort of effortlessly irritating spoilt brat that makes you weigh seriously the pros and cons of genocide. As the movie progresses, though, it provides small glimpses of the lives of a certain number of Iranian women, in a way that actually makes you want to watch the rest of the movie. On a highly unrelated aside, why weren't the femi nists born to write in sandland? That may have been where they could have done the most good, and it might, just might, have spared us some amount of ghastly reading brought about by an overactive curiosity.^[1]

This sort of a minimalist approach to filmmaking was last panned in the Bleary-eyed Bitch Project. Leaving apart the fact that we consider minimalism essential in only a single subject, the minimalism works - and surprisingly well - for Ten: you actually want to hear the stories being narrated without the usual Amitabh-voiced sanctimonious prig. Starting right from the appropriately named Mania's messy divorce and subsequent remarriage, and her discussions with her bratty son, the sister, the old lady, the prostitute, the heartbroken and the hairless woman (whoever is absent, pleej raije your hand) their stories are presented, with plenty of reading between the lines (or watching between the frames, as you prefer). The net result was that the movie was never boring: a considerable achievement since all you can see is either whiny brat or whiny woman, the rings or other assorted jewellery, the (chaotic) traffic that reminds us of a certain hellhole - all of which are subjects guaranteed to bore us out of our tiny skull within seconds. The fact that it does not do so is both a credit to Kiarostami, and a reason to watch this movie.

(an aside: did you know that Bheja Fry was never a dish of exotic ganglia cooked in oil and served in a neatly trepanned cranium of the enemy? And here we were, having such pleasant dreams. For the record, 300 is reviewed in a highly better way by Ruthless - go and read it there.)

[1] For the record: we have no quarrel with the aims of the femi knists (apart from considering them irrelevant in an ideal world) but do have quite a few objections to their methods. Was it Holmes who had madness in his method, and method in his madness?

Edit: 10+4? 10+4!!

The First rain

2008-05-01T22:49:00.005+05:30

So while we were playing Badminton on Tue night suddenly we felt that the roof would cave in on us. Such was the din that the first rain of the summer was causing.

With much trepidation we left office once the rains abated since there is almost always a huge traffic jam once it rains in Bangalore. (There are jams on only two days in Bangalore, the cardiac-arrest-inducing ones on days it rains and the merely frustrating ones on days it does not)

Photo Courtesy : Google search that led to a flickr user by the name Jace.

And so it turned out to be. Traffic was clogged horribly till we crossed KR Puram bridge and as we took the flyover to get onto the traffic free zone we were praying that the radio plays a song that we like, and so it turned out that as we joined the Outer Ring Road a personal favorite "Maula Mere Maula" from the movie Anwar was played.

YouTube link of the song here.

There is something about Sufi Music that is so uplifting, as if one is transported to an alternate universe.

And onto home after a great dinner, we were sitting in our room with the balcony door open and the cool winds blowing in (since ours is a west facing balcony and the summer being hot by Bangalore standards at 38C cool winds are not so common) we find that a friend who is now in the US is online and wants to play Scrabble on Facebook.

We have played maybe thrice on Facebook with A and lost all three times. But on this day everything was going our way and we had a string of firsts. Our first bingo on Scrabulous (83 points at that), 400+ points for the first time in Scrabble. And this is how the board looked at the end of the game :

Result:

NightWatchmen : 454
A : 263.

The Good, the Bad, and the Leaky? No, that's not right...

2008-04-30T17:49:00.006+05:30

The rather glaring omission made by the mad cricketer in his post on commentators is (in retrospect) explained easily. Categorisation, however, proved harder. That's not Leaky Washingstone, by the way.

A spirited (hic) PJ

2008-04-29T21:55:00.002+05:30

Came up with this one while sipping on a Mojito last Friday evening at Take 5.

Q : What do you call it if you clone a person with infinite capacity for alcohol 8 times ?

A : "Nau"tanki

For the uninitiated, aforementioned person is usually referred to as "tanki" (As in a tank, not to be confused with the LC tank.

The commented become the commenters

2008-04-28T10:16:00.009+05:30

It is the season of the IPL, with all the cheer in the air what strikes a discordant note an extremely amplified one at that are the people who at one point of time had their moments of glory unfortunately for our well being on a 22 yard stretch of clay a.k.a as the pitch. And to compund our agony they have not gone mute as yet.

(Photo Courtesy : HT)

Here is a sample of some of them:

Exhibit A: The Improviser

His biggest claim to fame is that once upon a time he would walk out to bat with a person whose batting I would admire more than most.

Sample his commentary:

i. Bowler bowls a dot ball : "This is what a bowler MUST do in 20-20 cricket, vary his pace and improvise".

ii. Aforementioned bowler gets carted over mid wicket for a six : "This is what a batsman MUST do in 20-20 cricket, improvise and hit boundaries"

Our comment : We should improvise and collect all the bowler hats on earth and try and smash them on his vocal chords.

Exhibit B : The Italiciser

His biggest claim to fame is that once upon a time he bowled on a rough patch outside the leg stump of what the rest of the world thinks is the best batsman on earth. (We of course believe we qualify for that honour)

Sample : That was exquisitely timed. The bowler really has to get his line and length absolutely right. And the captain has to ensure that fine leg is really fine.

Our comment : He really ought to stop italicising all his statements before some ex-leg spinners who are excellent commentators decide that he is spoiling the reputation of the clan and decides to do something drastic.

(Photo Courtesy : The Age)

Exhibit C : The Ominous one

Now this man's biggest claim to fame, is err well he has none.

Sample : Gilly has not fired so far this tournament, those are Ominous signs for the bowling team. Shane Warne has really not done anything great in this tournament so far, ominous signs for the batting team.

Our comment : When this man says ominous, the signs are ominous for our physical well being.

P.S : To quote Jane Austen in the times of IPL "It is a fact widely acknowledged that a man in search of a hug from Preity Zinta, on not getting it, cries openly on the field"

P.P.S : If you still insist on watching IPL without muting the idiot box, maybe it is better to listen to this at the end of it so that you do not end up being a homicidal maniac.

P.P.P.S : Our suggestion to SRK that his next show should be titled "Kya aap in commentators se acchi commentary kar sakte hain ?" I think it will be a big hit since almost anyone who gets picked will win!!!!!

The Loaves of Others

2008-04-09T19:38:00.000+05:30

Sometimes, a batsman hits a century in 24 balls. Sometimes, a director makes a movie so poignantly beautiful that my stock phrasebook of negative statements (most of which are machine translated from the original Dot) seems woefully inadequate to pan the movie. The Lives of Others is one such movie.

That paragraph above ought to be enough to encourage you to go and watch this movie, particularly since it's been rerereleased in Das Vaterland by the Bulla and Ch- sorry, wrong movie, that would be BharatBulla, er, BharatBala Productions, who were also apparently running an online fillum contest related to this movie.

A recent weekend back, yours truly, the cricket mad fiend, and another anonymous person goose-stepped our way to the local, highly expensive tent house to watch this movie. We interrupt the proceedings to remind you that local tent houses in the Pensioners Hellhole charge enough for the privilege of sitting in inflexible chairs with wobbly backs that it tends to attract our favourite breed of two-legged ape originating from the north of our favourite Carcinogenic line across the globe.

For no good reason, we will ignore the differently volumed people who tend to somehow get the seats to the edge of the rows in which the cricketer's good efforts to book tickets well in advance place us. After all, personal attacks ought to be made only on people who can help being what they are. And the bloggers, and the banjo players. And the old lady in (but you get the idea.)

For some reason, I actually had the foresight to take the seat between the two other unfortunates who accompanied me to this movie, which means that instead of having to actually listen to the thought processes of alien movie watchers, I was surrounded by popcorn, which is the sort of auspicious happening that makes me immediately suspect that the movie has a special appearance by Corrino K to balance things out. As it turned out, however, the cricketer had to spend an hour each time listening to edifying statements before he could run to the safety of the rather large and low-ceilinged restroom, while I could enjoy the movie more or less undisturbed. For my own amusement, and to test your patience, the usual nebulous statements about the movie will be interspersed with pearls of wisdom from the couple next to us (conveniently named H and S, for He and She.)

The movie opened auspiciously enough, with "Captain" HGW (no, not that Captain, who shall not be linked to in an effort to keep PageRank from dropping even more) teaching a class of aspiring Staatssicherheit officers how a person is to be interrogated (O Wilt, Wilt, wherefore art thou, Wilt?)

Naturally enough, once this successful demonstration commenced, we (for once, not the Royal we) were apparently treated to the following statement:

H: "Oye, is movie me sub taaitul hain"

We refrain from further comment, and merely observe that it is clear that the language of one Vaterland has inspired an official language of a Vaat-er land to do away with the Neuter gender, leading to much aggravation when we actually had to pass exams for such things.

Soon enough, HGW accompanies his facial-hair endowed superior officer to a play by "Laszlo"^[1], where we meet our heroine (or is it heroin? No matter) of the drama. One thing leads to another, and HGW is put in charge of investigating "Laszlo" for whatever form of thoughtcrime it is that Type 4 artists are supposed to indulge in. Aided in this noble endeavour by the great minister Schlumppf (no, Hempf), a listening post is soon established over "Laszlo"'s residence, and HGW and Sarge Udo settle down to listen in to our officer.

In what ought to be a characteristic of such situations, Schlumppf is apparently in lust with our very own Christa (who is, of course, the previously unnamed heroine of this movie), which is why the HGW's sharp instincts that suspect "Laszlo" of, shall we say, unwanted tendencies to put pen to paper, are allowed free play.

For reasons of his own that have no doubt to do with the listening to advanced classical muzique over telephone wire, a precursor of the modern and holy system of being put on hold by customer disservice, HGW lets "Laszlo" get away with quite a bit of stuff that he might have, with profit, shown to his boss.

S: "ooh he has started liking them"

We also discover that Christa has this annoyingly stupid habit of popping pills:

H: "What medications is she taking?"
S: "For depression" [Prozac in the eighties, of course. Very advanced,
these germans]

Which naturally leads in to a good reason as to why she would be unreasonably susceptible to blackmail. When the inevitable blackmail happens, we get:

H: "Bitchhhhh"

Ah well, the rest of the story need not be told, and while it ought to be worth the watch, you might perhaps choose a more congenial theater. Or, in normal countries, to buy the DVD. It's rare to see a movie that does not exactly go overboard with mawkish sentimentality when speaking about the triumph of humanity uber alles (if such a triumph does happen, you might be entitled to string together a coherent thought or two of suicide.) Instead, this movie sets the right note, and even though it could have profitably have ended about five minutes earlier, does not follow in the footsteps of the Melodious Monkeykar to screw it all up with a sermon at the end. In case you haven't realised already (and have actually had the patience to sit through disjointed ramblings to reach this point, I consider this the best movie of 2008 (er, no, 2006) so far. Which might actually be amusing, were it not for the fact that we watched Anthony Con Hai some time before watching this. And while watching Minissha Lamba might be distracting, we'd rather encourage the cricketer to put a large picture of Amrita Rao in the previous post.)

Of course, there only remains one unanswered question at the end of all this: What would H and S say if they watched something by E I Bergman?

[1] sz z? Zzz!!

Shaurya kya hai ?

2008-04-08T22:44:00.000+05:30

Long long ago there was a movie named after some behemoth buses that run in Bangalore. One of the scenes that one remember about this movie is one involving shall we say S**T packaged in a perfumed box. Most new Bollywood movies actually remind me of this scene and it is nowhere more truer than the one that any person of even Forrest Gumps IQ by now would have guessed we watched over the weekend (Hint: Please to read the title).

Shaurya seems at a first glance to be a rip off from that Hollywood Movie which stars the intolerable guy who made shades popular. But there are such basic errors as calling
the same Army regiment Rashtriya Rifles half the time and the other half metamorphosing into the Rajputana Rifles. And for some strange reason the director thought that putting a nose stud on Minnisha Lamba (yeah the same one who played a super girl and in the process almost disproving our hypotheses that no role can be essayed any worse than what Rakhi Sawant can) would somehow give her a rugged tough journalist look, well one-nose-stud-no-the-maketh-a-jodi-foster.

There is Rahul Bose (RB) who is supposed to be defending an army man accused of shooting his senior. Javed Jaffrey (JJ) handles the prosecution, and Kay Kay Menon (horribly over-rated as an actor in our opinion looking at his recent performances)is supposed to be playing a brigadier and to mouth:

"You wanna know the truth you cannot handle the truth!"

That seems to be the story. Now to the other things that go up in making the movie, we must say they are all so uniformly mediocre that we think that the producer is an idiot and if he is still alive be a living proof of the adage that "A fool and his money are soon parted". So we first started by saying that the director has no idea of using long shots, then the person next to me said that he cannot use close ups till about half an hour into the movie we concluded that he handled the camera with as much ease as the way the room-mate of TAM did his march past at the turn of the last millennium. Then we get to the sound track, there are songs that pop up like ghosts in one of those dark room of horrors and leave you feeling the same way, cold and physically afraid of the next one. And the music at some places is as inappropriate as a Sanjay Leela Bhansali shot without any hint of ostentatiousness.

But as Manasi Sinha used to tell us long back, go beyond the obvious look at the deeper meaning. Maybe this was a tribute not to Hollywood but to that great man Francois Truffaut and his movie Jules and Jim. There is definitely gay bonding between RB and JJ, nothing more demonstrates this than when both are drunk all JJ can come up with is that RB looked more handsome than him in some attire. Plus when JJ is posted to a different place, the escapades that RB described that the two of them had together we really have to now think of another Bollywood classic Dharam Veer. Maybe at a later time this movie might be called as the harbinger of love triangles where the love vectors add to zero (a.k.a JJ loves RB who loves Nandini who loves RB, by the way Nandini is supposed to be married to JJ).

We must say that the only whiff of fresh air during this whole process of masochistic indulgence was Amrita Rao who looked oh-so-desirable in a white saree.

Some piece of trivia : The Hollywood movie talked about led to a change in a George Michael video where he wears Ray Bans, whether it made him look any cooler is debatable but for sure you can see the camera in one of the close ups in the video.

Finally to answer the question that is the title of this post, Shaurya for us was to spend 200 bucks and since there were 5 of us close to 1000 bucks on a venture such as Shaurya. (Yeah right we know we are idiots and are hence further living proof of the adage we so cleverly bought into this post)

The three (or so) laws of Frustodynamics

2008-03-17T15:50:00.000+05:30

Dedication: To the unknown soldiers of HogUARTS.

To keep in line with the Fravian definition^[1] of a blog, we provide below random crap for your amusement.

Once upon a time, in a far-off university called HogUARTS (there exist many other possibly valid names for this place, but we prefer this for what ought to be obvious reasons) there came into being a concept. This was called, for want of a clever acronym, frustness. We leave it to your imagination to deduce the proper state of mind required to conjure up such a concept, and merely remark in passing that while certain other not-quite-"first"-rate institutions may lay claim on the concept, it is to be found in its purest form in exactly one place in the universe.

We elide an explanation of this concept, since it is as much of an in-joke as "Vladimir Vapnik, Cosmic Conqueror".

Much time passed after the above earth-shaking paradigm shift (not to be confused with per diem) occurred, there occurred much research into this concept, whose results we present you (having plagiarised from like-mindless people) below:

The laws of frustness:

Zeroth law: The law of pseudomathematical equality

This really requires a pretty diagram to illustrate effectively, but we make do, and state:

"if A is as frust as B, and B is as frust as C, then A is as frust as C".

Roughly paraphrased, this states that equal amounts of frustness do not usually result in noteworthy incidents, but in the event that there is a significant discrepancy in the ~~quanta~~amounts of frustness, an equalisation process occurs. For example, if individual A was frust, and B was not, prolonged (or in some cases, instantaneous) contact usually results in B becoming at least as frust as A. The second law usually applies in such matters, though...
First law: The law of conservation

"The total frustness of the universe remains constant"

Unfortunately, this says nothing whatsoever of the actual distribution or evolution over time of frustness, and neither does it provide any constructive method of determining said distribution. It therefore suffices to say that if you're reading this, you are a local maxima of the distribution. Cautious application of the first law usually results in your reaching the global maximum. This explains why people of similar frustness levels tend to congregate, as might be proved by your favourite local Orkut groups. Note, however, that the constancy over the universe implies that there exists at least one recycler of frustness somewhere in the universe under consideration.
Second law: The law of ~~entropy~~increase

"The frustness of an isolated system increases with time."

Usually used to determine the direction of the arrow of time, this very useful law serves as an explanation of why things are as they are, particularly since it applies, through some oversight, to systems that are not isolated, too.
Third law: Asymptotic (un)stability

"Frustness can tend to, but never reach, zero."

Since it is far more likely to go in the opposite direction, this law might seem redundant. It's most useful function, however, is both as a reminder that there is a minimum, and that you can't quite achieve it no matter how hard you try.

Examples of the last two laws are left as an exercise to the reader, rather like this review does.

Disclaimer: No claim whatsoever of originality is made, indeed, it would surprise us if we were involved in this particular formulation of the above laws, since they quite likely date from the time Maxwell's demon's memory overflowed, or even the Carnot aurus.

[1] A blog is...^[2]

The most over-rated nonsense on the internet. It's essentially someone's rambling, online diary, that links to real sites in order to pretend that there is actual content, (other than the self-absorbed, indulgent crap that makes up most of it).

[2] Our clarification: Anything whose title is a permutation of "random [verb] [proposition] [article] [adjective] [noun]". Note that only the word "random" is not negotiable.

PS: It turns out that this marks a century. How appropriate.

Beatles - And Your Bird Can Sing

2008-03-13T19:32:00.000+05:30

Came across this. So decided since we did not have anything blog worthy we might as well do the lazy thing.

The rules are:

1. Put your MP3 player/Media player on shuffle
2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.
3. You must write the name of the song no matter what.

IF SOMEONE SAYS "IS THIS OKAY?" YOU SAY?
Metallica (Kirk Hammet) - One

Ye Kaisa Jawaab Hua

WHAT WOULD BEST DESCRIBE YOUR PERSONALITY?
Queen (Brian May) - Brighton Rock

Though TAM might say &^@#%@^% Rock

WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL?
Smashing Pumpkins - Geek USA

Puhlezzzz

HOW DO YOU FEEL TODAY?
Ozzy Osbourne - Crazy Train

Finally we get to show off our Scrabble Lingo --- BINGO

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE’S PURPOSE?
Metallica (Kirk Hammet) - Fade To Black

DOUBLE BINGO!!!!!!!

WHAT IS YOUR MOTTO?
Pink Floyd - Money

Aha

WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU?
Jimi Hendrix - All Along The Watchtower

Now we are TALKING

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR PARENTS?
Eric Clapton and Allman Brothers - Layla

Ahem

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN?
Eric Johnson - Cliffs Of Dover

Yeah RIGHT

WHAT IS 2+2?
Led Zeppelin - Stairway To Heaven

Absolutely right 4 is the Stairway to Heaven or for rather large values of 2 it is 5.

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND?
Eagles - Hotel California

Not unless it is the Mallu version :)

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
Jimmy Hendrix - Purple Haze

YOU BET WE DO

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY?
Pearl Jam - Alive

And we do it again BINGO............

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP?
Eric Clapton - Cocaine

Rather than becoming can we sort of become a user

WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
Sublime - Santaria

We would prefer the former.

WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU?
Pantera - Cemetary Gates

No surprise to the zero readership of this blog.

WHAT WILL YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR WEDDING?
Stevie Ray Vaughan - Texas Flood

Rather interesting sight that would be or on second thoughts maybe not.

WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL?
Jimi Hendrix - Little Wing

Ok no smart comments come to mind.

WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST?
Black Sabbath - War Pigs

For some reason this leads us to think of a random Forsyth novel.

WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SECRET?
Rolling Stones - Sympathy For The Devil

Oh yeah absolutely

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS?
Phish - Stash

Phishing is of course a hobby of some of my friends I would like to think. Sadly like Hobbes these are also just thoughts.

WHAT SHOULD YOU POST THIS AS?
Beatles - And Your Bird Can Sing

How apt :-)

Superman tripping on capes

2008-03-06T10:43:00.000+05:30

Came across this excellent article on Federers dip in form in 2008 so far. Do read it, fascinating writing because of which we are still great fans of The Hindu.

In other news The Alternate Mobyeus has been to the Hard Rock Cafe in Bengalooru and went absolutely frusth there after having to look at Madonna next to Clapton.

Jodhaa Akbar -- The Review (Or the lack of one)

2008-02-25T21:25:00.000+05:30

To all the non existent readers of this blog, we are pleased to start posting once again.

Over the weekend we found ourselves in Fun Cinemas watching Jodha Akbar, if only its title had started with a K we would have been completely convinced that this was an Ekta Kapoor production. For the time being we will have to satisfy ourselves with the theory that the premise proposed in the Antara Mali flick Mr ya Miss has actually come true and that Ashutosh Gowariker's soul had swapped places with Ekta Kapoor while the making of this movie was going on.

All in all this movie is what would happen if an Opera singer were given stock options a.k.a. so(a)p opera.

We really hope that this movie gives rise to characters like Travis Bickle in Indian society.

By now you would have realized that we do not propose to give this movie any sort of respect by blogging anything more about it, if not then a better post about it can be found here by a much better (and may we say funnier) reviewer.

Mit Mithya, jäh?

2008-02-25T19:41:00.000+05:30

(yes, making multilingual puns in languages we don't understand proves that we suck.)

The Academy Awards were announced today, and as might have been expected, Pixar's Magnum Opus on the rendering of multiple hairy animals did win something. This is not about that movie, unfortunately, since the idea of a rat cooking up anything other than Plague a la mode is endlessly entertaining.

Mithya is, at its simplest, a remake of Don. Lest this bring to mind that insipid overhyped Pshaw Rooke starrer, we hasten to remind you of movies like these, which lend their inspiration well (don't you love euphemisms? No? Oh well.)

Mithya starts off well, with a bridge that might have served Guy Ritchie well being turned into the scene of a shootout, and Ranvir Shorey(VK) hiding, terrified, under it as two people who we shall know by the names of Inspectors Ram and Sham do their utmost to adjust the pH of the waters below (It is suggested that any subliminal imagery you might see of curvy horns and con men might be replaced by this. It does not make much difference to the eventual outcome.)

Earlier, our hero plays his part by playing the part of an extra at a film, wherein we first get to see Neha Dhupia(forget her name, at least till the end of this review) playing her part (now, and throughout the movie) as a Cicinnurus regius impersonator. More generally, she does try to cover all the Paradiseae, sometimes with incongrous results (but we are getting ahead - or behind) the story here. Sadly, she's no Zeenat Aman, but then, who could be? She still does provide a restful, if lush, backdrop to the increasingly grim stuff put on screen in the name of realism, though of course, we wonder about the rocky docky imagery.

Somewhen (it is rather confusing) during, before, or after the process of pH readjustment, the inspectors inspect the visage of VK, and find it (as you might have expected) a rare match with the Don, and a reaction of substitution is initiated. There follows a rare comedy sequence reminiscent of the reactions of someone presented with their first digital camera, ending in a barber shop where the shot is taken. Sadly, we never see this theme develop any further, remarks about brains and backsides notwithstanding.

Naseeruddin Shah and That Other Guy Whose Name I Do Not Know play the competition to Don, though in a rather effective way, which provides for a certain amount of restful tranquility as we wait for the inevitable ending to this movie.

This provides a rather nice spot to bring up our main complaint with this movie? Didn't someone say that switching genre mid-movie is bad? After all, there are only a finite number of ways to end a movie like Don properly (or worse, improperly), and the darkly (or otherwise) humourous first half offered so much more potential; particularly when a sane viewer would have been enormously tempted to bail out during the first 45s of the movie, given certain a priori assumptions.

The humour works extremely well, but once we start getting to the unfunny parts (which tend to be as gripping as a bald radial tyre on a bicycle being driven through yet another Himalayan avalanche), the predominant thinking is a wish that whoever did the scissorwork had had the good sense to borrow from this movie. It would have enlivened the proceedings, and probably would not have caused lasting harm to its eventual success at the bocks ofis. After all, if you can inspire a fan site (or a great citizen of the east) into speculating about what the movie really means, you have a classic some decades down the line.

The Company of D

2007-12-20T20:19:00.000+05:30

This is not intended to be an attempt to imitate an aging humourist who lost his funny bone about the same time Das Kapital was thrown out of the Kremlin. It is also (most unfortunately) not a review of that gangster movie - but then, reviewing that does not offer much opportunity to pour the hate out. Instead, we try to fulfill (in suitably roundabout terms) a request that you may have seen in the previous post. Note that when you're talking about G's and D's, there usually arises a question that we carefully step around here.

So, there's this little village that could. Unfortunately, the Breeteesh decide that it really could, and go ahead and build a Jail there. Fast forward to a certain long march over long years, when a person wearing a rose and a funny hat decides that the best possible thing he can convert a jail into is a college - after all, the function is basically the same: to keep unproductive members of society in close contact with each other in the hope that the unproductiveness averages out on the long run. It is a mystery to us as to why this college was not named hogUARTS, so that is what we call it.

Anyway, hogUARTS prospered after such an auspicious beginning, with millions of decistudents passing through its hallowed translocation-proof walls. However, such prosperity was soon to end, as, in an unrelated event, the writers of this sequence of bad prose ended up there.

Now it is true that in most large collections of inhumanity, there are usually some people who define the average, and the rest just try to make sure that the values specified for variance and skewness are justified. This particular gathering was no exception: There was D.

And that's all. We avoid carefully all description and implication of telescoping paper carriers. Let there be no accusations of adhering to the letter of the law, while strangling its spirit!

Rendezevous with G or Why 6 hr stop overs at Airports are good!!

2007-12-13T16:03:00.000+05:30

As we were travelling abroad for some meetings the whole of this week, and could not find a direct flight from The Garden City (yeah right!!!) we were forced instead to fly through the "Commercial Capital of India". Plus we had a interminable 6hr stop over between connecting flights. Between cursing my travel agent, my manager, the folks who organised the meetings we realised that one of our old friends G who was unfortunate enough to be yours truly's wingie in the fresher year in an engineering institution located somewhere in the eastern part of the country stays there.

So much Orkutting ensued and we decided to meet. After talking quite some time and figuring out the latitudes and longitudes of where each of us were after landing at the airport we finally met and decided to have dinner at some non decrepit location just outside the airport.

Over something called American Dosa and Manchurian Dosa we reminisced about old times. A thing one notices about good friends is that when one meets them after a long time, it almost seems as though we never were away, conversation flows as freely as Madeira< in a Madhushala. So we began talking about how there was a time when MBAs were done by engineers who had nothing better to do in life and how now engineers who have nothing better to do still work in engineering. (OK that was an attempt at saying that more engineers do MBAs in a not too subtle manner falling flat on its face!!)

Conversation did turn very funny when we listened to the story of one of our more notorious batch mates D. Now D is a dangerous guy, the sort of person anyone and I mean anyone in EILITEPI #1 [1] shudders to be seen around with. Apparently G was infinitely embarrassed by juniors asking him how come that both him and D are from the same engineering institution.

So G came up with this truly astonishing idea. If someone asked G about D's origins before asking D then G would say he is from EILITEPI #2[2] instead of EILITEPI #1. So we naturally asked him but what happens when someone has already asked D before asking G. Then in a true mater piece, G said that he would tell them "Well he did turn up at EILITEPI #1 on a student exchange program with EILITEPI #2". We were clutching our stomachs with laughter. (You really have to meet D to really appreciate this story. If we could inspire TAM we just might get a post dedicated to D)

Then we got to discussing attendances and proxies in EILITEPI #1. Apparently a cheque signed by one of G's friends did not get accepted since the signature did not match with the one in their records. So G who had a long history of signing proxies for his friend signed it and it got accepted.

Another fascinating turn of discussion came up when we got talking about Stochastic Calculus. Interesting stuff G reads and our latest work might just involve a whole lot of calculus but god forbid the stochastic kind.

And so we talked about batch mates who are married, juniors who ask stupid questions, about post grad institutions that now have slots marked for students in classes for them to avoid proxies etc etc

By this time the waiter had come and stood at our table thrice expecting us to get up but we thick skinned just did not get up. After the fourth iteration we did manage to get our asses out of our temporary parking slot and catch an auto to the international airport.

Maybe the waiter was really frusth with us since we realised our watch was no longer on our hands, maybe them aliens had stolen it after telepathy's with the waiter.[3]

And before we finish this we need to say that the Mumbai domestic airport rocks, absolutely. And the international one was a disappointment in comparison to that.

Photo Courtesy : Wikipedia

[1] EILITEPI #1 --> Engineering Institution Located In The Eastern Part of India. Look at first link that this blog links to

[2] EILITEPI #2 --> Another Engineering Institution Located In The Eastern Part of India.

[3] An alterntive explanation propounded by G was that the loops of my watch strap had been torn quite some time back. Us in our capacity of infinite laziness had not fixed it and since the watch was anyway wound quite loosely around the wrist it would have fallen off since Newton came up with some ideas about the earth attracting apples towards it and stuff like that......We prefer our explanation of an inter galactic conspiracy!!

Lost -- The Khoya Khoya Chand Review

2007-12-12T13:38:00.000+05:30

A red fuzzy foreground in the left with the heroine on the right, cut to the same fuzziness on the right with another person on the left. Same thing repeated a couple of times before you realise the two characters are the audience of an outdoor badminton match.

Lovers walking on the beach, a scene done to death but in this case both of them are outlines in the sort of half darkness that can happen only just after sunset..

Heroine dancing next to a burst fire hydrant water exploding all over the screen and lot of kids around, yet another cliched scene but just before that happens we have the car in which she is traveling covered by keechad but then that getting cleared due to the fire hydrant water explosion and the movies title track playing in the back ground.

A small kid falls on the road, her father comes and picks her up, the heroine has a fantasy about her own father who in real life abandoned her as a kid.

Such are the images that one carries of Khoya Khoya Chand. The second movie of Sudhir Mishra of whom great things were expected after his first effort, tells the story of writer Zafar. Zafar travels to Mumbai to escape from a family that is loveless. On coming to Mumbai he is sucked into showbiz and his efforts at making movies and the story of the love of his life Nikhat form the rest of the movie.

The movie has an excellent sound track, one of the best in recent times. There are some excellent performances notably by Vinay Pathak. Soha Ali Khan try as she might just cannot emote on the screen as well as one would like. But all too often the movie seems more like a collection of great images, a photo album. Rather than these being incidental to the movie, the movie seems to revolve around them. All in all in us engineers terms this movie lacks flow.

Most charitable comment that my co-moviegoer came up with:

"I really liked what Soha did with her Sarees, especially the combination with the blouse, you know the whole thing!!!"

Eh, what's up, doc?

2007-11-05T15:36:00.000+05:30

Ultraviolence is a difficult concept to pull off in a movie, and apart from a few Arnie movies dating from the great eighties, there have not been too many good efforts in this direction by hollywood. QT did do an exemplary job in a two-part movie, but by and large, the best movies of this kind have always been made in India.

From Rojni saar's stunts that manage to violate both general and special relativity (usually at the same time), to Sunny paaji's attempts to imitate Bond, we have had an abundance of movies that make use of violence to distract the viewer from seeing the 747 that's looping the loop through a gap in the plot. Of course, this assumes that a plot exists: take, for example, consider yet another Pshaw Rooke starrer that (regardless of our opinion of both Sush and Amrita Rao) should never have been made.

It is therefore appropriate to consider Shoot 'em up as Hollywood's reply, complete with: fresh produce producing fresh corpses, bullet physics that overshadow Rojni saar's two-gun makeshift howitzer shooting bad guys behind a wall[1], and the particularly unique brand of humour that results from trying to do things seriously, much like a Michael Moorcock novel. In fact, when people set out to tell a story like this, they start by combining together chopped bits of 35mm reel stolen from the celluloid graveyard, stitch by painful stitch. When eldritch lightning finally powers up unknown devices made to give such a creature life, the creators end up running screaming from it, only to be pursued and caught, since the poor thing is lonely, and wants a sequel (or perhaps two or five, but that is beside the point.)

The movie opens innocently enough, with drunk Agent Smith sitting at a bus stop trying to drown his sorrows in lukewarm coffee. Er, no, make that Mr. Smith, and it's difficult to say if he's in Washington. A much-pregnant woman hobbles past him, pursued by a carload of trash driven by a lone thug, and Schmidt decides to pursue his duties to ze vaterland, by promptly dispatching the thug and all its clones, while simultaneously attempting to discover whether the mail-order degree that he received in midwifery was worth it.

To cut much of a long (non)story short, Mr Sch err, Smith ends up with a baby in his hands, and marches off to meet "DQ", played by the Bellucci herself.

Midway through this, Mr Smith suffers an identity crisis brought about by the consumption of fresh produce, and thinks he's the wabbit himself. Naturally enough, this means that Sam turns up, played ably by Paul Giamatti, an ex-FBI-profiler turned into hirer of clone armies for ze greater good of ze greater number. Much hilarity ensues.

Unfortunately, beyond this point, the story is really a tattered transparent cloak over the container lorryful of gunfights, which makes it rather difficult to describe much more, but certain items do stand out: the one rat-power Leonardo-made lock, the critical-velocity-defying vertical gunfight ending upon a helicopter and body-strewn rails, and of course la Bellucci. Doesn't leave much out, does it? An IMDB reviewer recommends watching the last part of the first trilogy of Bourne instead, but I'd suggest watching both: it's a quick way of propping up a few economies. And remember, for those people who cannot yet watch the whole of Kill Bill in one sitting, this is useful training.

[1] I've never actually seen this. Youtube links, anyone?

A Panoramic review of Manorama -- Six Feet Under

2007-09-28T12:06:00.000+05:30

Long long ago there was Veeru and not too long ago he gave birth to Prof Ajoy Chokorborti who mouthed these immortal lines to the ISI chief in the greatest spy movie in Hindi cinema history :

"Do baat"
"Ek tum godha ho"
"Doosri baat, yeh Amreeka hai Pakistan nahin jo godha
sadak pe ghoomta hai"

And then was born Ajoy Chokroborti's brother. Now chota chokroborti who also goes by the popular name Abhay does not have it in him to pull off movies about love stories of spies. But what he can do is play off beat characters like trying to catch the last local train with the highly improbable occurence of a former Miss India who has grown fat for company, a "marriage fixer" or a super hero married to a super heroine.

He pulls off another role as a complete loser in life (mirrors the life of the author of this post, except no one publishes my stories and I do not have a wife who has two absolutely fabulous dimples) in his latest movie. We for sure appreciate the characters he chooses to play.

We have already mentioned one of the female leads, the other one is played by the ever droopy Raima Sen.

The story of the movie revolves around the loser when one lady approaches him to take photos of her husbands peccadilloes. The reason she chooses him is that in a small town a writer is considered a detective (On the lines of in the land of the blind a one eyed designer is considered a project lead). His book that sells exactly 200 copies and sinks without a trace has a cover design more reminiscent of James Hadley Chase rather than a Conan Doyle or a Agatha Christie. Now go figure why either the loser or Mr Chase are popular among women.

And as he takes those photos life as he knew it goes for a toss. People out to bash him, stelaing his bike prompting him to take his old rampyaari a.k.a scooter out. Plus in between he almost manages to have a live in relationshsip with Raima Sen. The story has more twists and turns than the hips of the item bomb in a number and does manage to hold your attention till the end. Unlike other movies in this genre which end up in either a moral lesson which one stops appreciating after third grade or everything is shown to be hopeless with "the-bloody-system-is-rotten-to-the-core", this one leaves you with a pleasant feeling. Though it is supposed to be a thriller, the movie is a slow moving one and grows on you. More in the Le Carre class rather than Forsyth one would say.

The cinematography is quite good except that maybe they should stop doing stuff from the Ram Gopal Verma school of filming where every scene is done with a "look-at-me-I-can-copy-from-the-best-when-it-comes-to-technique" philosophy. One would think that with greater experience the director would leave things more understated and subtle.

There is just one song in the movie which is just about right for this one. But definitely could have done with a much better sound track. Considering the movie is based in Rajasthans desert one has the scope for a really great theme, am thinking what Tarantino would have done.

Before we forget, the guy who played Mr Pignon in the hindi version of Dinner game also has a role and speaks Hindi with an impeccable Marwari accent. Special marks to him for swallowing his whole breakfast in one gulp everyday.

All in all you are much better off watching "Manorama Six Feet Under" rather than sitting at home with nothing else to do and end up watching "Six Feet Under".

Fanny and Alexander (1982)

2007-09-26T14:36:00.000+05:30

Long ears ago, when cranial hair was ample, and optimism had not yet made its entry into the red list, we had this great opportunity going forward of getting to study in a hot, dry, cold, and wet place north of the Tropic of Cancer. Given the natural tendency of such places to accumulate dubious characters, we had to run into our esteemed cricket-mad fellow fowl fellow. (Who, you will notice, has not commented on the boys in light blue finally managing to thrash the boys in green black and blue without excessive punctuation.)

Much mayhem involving assorted bits of Silicon and chunks of Gallium nitride followed, the details of which are elided as far as possible to spare your tender years. The central result of this, however, was that yours truly was pressurised (in one case, literally) into watching some true gems of Bollywood, such as the incomparable trinity of Cabby Khushi Cabby Gum, Bog Boon, and some indeterminate shaw rooke starrer whose name had mercifully receded into the dim mists of memory, even if the resulting trauma had not.

Anyway, the purpose of boring the lot of you to tears was to set the stage properly for the introduction of a much better family movie by that master of cinema, Ole Bergman. Without (too many) side trips, we therefore proceed into a review of Fanny Och Alexander

It's a family movie, just another family movie. Instead of cricketers dreaming about their family before hitting themselves on the head, we proceed into a Christmas celebrations of three generations of Ekdahls at the turn of the last century. We meet the hypertensive Oskar, the philandering Gustavus Adolphus, and Professor Carl, all of whom form a part of the intricate tapestry that is this movie, along with their mother, their kids, and the rest of the household.

Seen with a jaundiced eye, it is just the story of Oskar's death, his wife's (a card-carrying member of the party of svensk blondsk that make Bergman's movies watchable most of the time) remarriage into a rather doctrinaire religious family, and the subsequent end of that marriage, all seen through the eyes of young Alexander, her son. However, it is the sort of storytelling with the little details (Hamlet and kind people, anyone?) that make this an enjoyable movie - its length notwithstanding.

Irony might be...

2007-09-26T10:39:00.000+05:30

Someone who says:

If she is particular about manners, there is a good chance she will be particular about grammar. Please revise your old copy of Wren & Martin.

Following that right up with:

They [i.e. multiple such points as the above] are only the necessary condition. Not the sufficient condition.

Leaving aside the fact that it's been a long time since I looked inside W&M, relying on the old ear to tell the difference, aren't we short an 's' or two? Oh well, you only get what you ask for.

The rest of the blog is hilarious (and definitely not work-safe), so parts of the null-set that is the readership of this blog might enjoy it.

Donald vs Atherton

2007-08-06T10:37:00.000+05:30

Here is a blog entry that has Atherton's description of the torrid spell that he had to face from Allan Donald at Trent Bridge in the 1998 series. Link courtesy India Uncut.

We did not have cable at our house till mid way through 1997. And I began watching test cricket seriously on TV with the 1997 Ashes where Steve Waugh's feisty twin hundreds with a split webbing on his right hand left a lasting impression. While this one might not be in the same class one has to remember that the bowling was Allan Donald and not Dean Headley, Darren Gough class. Atherton was maybe an unsung hero for the English through the 90s mostly because they never won anything. But he had a combination of fairly good technique and bloody-mindedness that helped him through this spell. And it is also because of flatter pitches and bowlers who bowl medium pace that jokers like Ponting score so many runs these days!! Can't really see Ponting surviving this torrid examination.

Maybe Sreesanth should watch the video of this spell to know what agressive pace bowling is all about rather than change his action every couple of deliveries or bowl one foot no balls.

Lyreeex

2007-08-03T17:01:00.000+05:30

While we were working today our xmms playlist had zee songs of a Hindi movie called Bazaar and were listening to a song called "Karoge Yaad To" and we were mighty impressed with a particular section that goes:

Gali ke mod pe
Suna sa koi darwaza
Tarasti ankhon se
Rastaa kisi ka dekhega
Nigaah door talak jaa ke laut aayegi

Make sure you listen to all the songs of this movie, really great soundtrack must say.

P.S : The movie is also great by the way.

While my frustration gently creeps

2007-07-24T21:48:00.000+05:30

Well we have not blogged in a long time but this particular frusth post can only be appreciated if you know 2 things:

i. IC design

ii. Zee Beatles

Inspired from the Original "While My Guitar Gently Weeps"

So here goes our attempt at poetry:

I look at your amp and see all the loops that are sleeping
While my design gently weeps
I look at the ground and see it needs connecting
Still my design gently weeps
I don't know why nobody told you how to bias your amp
I don't know how someone recruited you
They trained you and you untrained

I look at the amp and I notice its oscillating
While my design gently weeps
With every mistake we must surely be learning
Still my design gently weeps
I don't know how you were recruited
You were perverted too
I don't know how you inverted (** the feedback **)
No one reviewed you

I look at your amp and see all the loops that are sleeping
While my design gently weeps
Look all your biasing
While my design gently weeps

*** Bows down to the standing ovation ***

Yours Truly

Nightwatchmen.

The Nightwatchmens Conjecture

2007-06-20T18:22:00.000+05:30

Title inspired from "The Original Conjecture".

What theorem did the Punjabi mathematician standing next to a bull munching a McD burger in one of the chane ke kheths that the land of the five rivers seems to abound in come up with ?

Zee "Saand""vich" theorem

Shout out at Makkhanwala

2007-05-29T10:23:00.000+05:30

It is the height of prohibition, and lawless gangsters rule the city of chicago. Into this scenario enters a lone superhero. With smart-aleck old wise cop, and discriminated-against sharp-shooter, he proceeds to fight against the empire of crime. Actually, wrong movie. Twenty years after,Lakhia, who may not be de Palma (for which he has our sincere condolences), proceeds to make a pretty fair movie about India's own high tide of gang wars.

Shootout at Lokhandwala

Maya (not Mayawati) is a small-time crook in Mumbai. He gets his start at a very young age, when he gets an opportunity to prove that he cares.

Fast forward to the time the movie is set in (which is apparently sometime in 1991), where a defense lawyer, played by the man who's done the most advertisements ever, is listening (and making smart comments) to
excuses put forward by a bunch of elite cops (sound familiar? Only, instead of the semi-believable people in Untouchables, you have the dedicated high priest with family problems, the trigger-happy muscleman who does airport security part-time, and the traffic cop who wants more.

The flashbacks involve the great man's son in a guest appearance as the cop who busts open a cell of urbane turbans, and is promptly gunned down for his pains. Following this, the dedicated cop guns down the turbans, with embedded reporting by our lady from Hyde. Her dedication to the job deserves applause, particularly her ability to put the right spin onto current events.

As counter-story, we are also provided insight into how Maya grows into his position as the pre-eminent Man of Significance in Mumbai, interspersed with what is Indian cinema's longest experiment with the Item Number. Shame, really - the Item may be quite a number, even though she is restricted to, basically, wallpaper. Maybe it was for the best, though - it is possible to reduce the length of the movie to a bearable minimum, simply by excising her presence. Kudos to the director to give people who watch this on media with lower returns an unambiguous clue on when to fast-forward.

This is probably the right moment to introduce the music: When you have songs by Indian Ocean and Euphoria, is it reasonable to expect it to suck less than the baseline? Even ignoring the Longest Item Number Ever, it's still nothing special. Hell, listen to Nancy Sinatra, and mull over how the song would sound with Andrea Corr and Bono singing.

Since this is really too big for a movie that is based on true rumours, we cut to the shoot-out: The big bad gangsters are counting their spoils in a remote location surrounded by people who wish to live a normal life, and the Man from the Middle-East decides to be a law-abiding citizen by informing the high priest where his personal demons are to be found. Much boom and bang later, the movie ends with an impersonal question by the embedded reporter to the audience of this movie. Unfortunately, the only audience reaction is along the lines of "Finally, it's over."

Perhaps it's worth mentioning that the post-shootout camerawork, (which, owing to a strange bubble in spacetime, is shown at the beginning of the movie) is impressive - whether it's enough to make you watch this move is your call.

Nuevo Cinema Paradiso

2007-05-28T20:34:00.000+05:30

While we were growing up RK Narayan was one of the authors we loved. Now if someone were to ask why exactly, we would be very hard put to come up with an answer. The fact that his short stories are just that, short and a story that you can relate to very well. And we were very pleasantly surprised by Cinema Paradiso the movie we watched over the weekend. It is true in word and spirit to the Sony Pix tagline "We tell stories".

There is a scene in Cinema Paradiso where Alfredo a person who shares a very unique relationship with the protagonist of the movie projects the movie onto a house in the town square so that people who could not watch the last show can enjoy the movie. Only after a few minutes Alfredo loses his eyesight as the film catches fire. Moments like these make Cinema Paradiso the great movie it is.

We follow Salvatore at three different times in his life: as a child, then as an adolescent and finally as a middle aged man. As a child he sells money meant for milk to watch movies, Alfredo of course bails him out of tricky situations with his mother. As an adolescent he falls in love with Elena who initially does not reciprocate his feelings. And finally as an adult for whom something in life is missing and closure is finally obtained when he travels back to his village from Rome.

The very simplicity of the movie is what appeals to you. You can feel the raw emotional attachment that Salvatore has toward movies and Elena.

The cinematography is superlative. Watch out for Alfredo exclaiming "Progress is always late" or a madly in love Slavatore exclaiming 'When will this bloody summer end. In a film, it'd already be over. Cut, and there's a storm.' And true to cue Elena does come, there is lightning and they do kiss passionately.

Then of course there is the soundtrack made by one of our favorites Ennio Morricone.

We really cant say much more except that it is a movie you will treasure, so get off your arse and go watch it!!.

The Retro Show --> Review of Life in a Metro

2007-05-13T14:36:00.000+05:30

There was once this senior of mine who told me that the best equation he liked in Physics was

Work Done = Force X Displacement

The equation implies that for work to be done it is not necessary to just apply a force but also to do so in the right direction.

Anurag Basu's latest movie Life in A Metro has the right direction, but lacks the required force. We might be biased, considering we have been pampered on a diet of noir movies that involve an ex-marine whose idea of a date is watching a porn movie, a paranoid mathematician or about movies that talk about the amount of weight lost when a human being dies.

The movie gets the basics right. The cast is great (I mean if Shilpa Shetty can actually emote on screen, that should amount to something). The screenplay is excellent, and so is the soundtrack (Mark Knopfler, operatic solos way to go Mr Basu).

An effort towards creating our own Amores Perros, we appreciate Basu for not going their way and start off by showing how all the parallel stories are interconnected. And not since Naseeruddin Shah and Om Puri acted as the witches of MacBeth, have we seen an innovation like having the actual band perform the songs in the movie. The first three tracks are good but the last two we could have done without. Thankfully that takes care of any of our hero/heroines running around trees.

We can forgive Basu for making Kangana Ranaut's hair straight (As Hobbes says "Redheads, I like redheads!!" our philososphy is "Curly Hair, We like curly hair!!, Sandhya Mridul, Sushmita Sen, Bipasha Basu you get the drift we guess"), but sir please the Indian audience is much more appreciative than you would think. Why did you have to have that extra long bit on that "Style and RDB" guy explaining why he is making money for a good reason ? Why oh why did you have to end it with such a sugar-coated-everyone-rejects-money-and-follows-love-at-the-end ? And still we do not have an Indian heroine walking out of an unsuccessful marriage, now that would have been something!! And you had to break the heart of the one guy we liked in the whole movie, Shiney Ahuja ? Don't worry sir you are not the only one even Mani Ratnam made an unapologetic movie till in the end he felt compelled to make Gurubhai the Mahatma!!. We definitely could have done without the horse in the rail station and some more screen time for Ifran Khan and the lady who said no to "The Namesake". (with good reasons we must say after watching the movie)

All in all it is an excellent movie till about the last 15 minutes where it quickly degenerates into yet another Bollywood movie.

And as we were shaking our head in disappointment at the dumb ending and went home we switched on our Idiot Box only to find "Main Hoon Na" and we realized how much better by orders of magnitude your movie was, so what if the ending was not what we wanted, we will surely watch it yet again and maybe add it to our DVD collection just yet.

P.S : The boss working out with the "Brokeback Mountain" poster in the background was quite good eh. And if you have read so far and are wondering why the title is what it is, well we are equally clueless!!

The Inheritance of Loss -- Brian Charles Lara

2007-04-23T22:12:00.000+05:30

When I was a kid, me and my father would talk about Cricket a lot. He would recount more than once the match where Viv Richards made his debut and Chandra had him out in both innings which left Richards absolutely bamboozled. This is of course well documented but the reason me and my brother remember it so very fondly is because when he would talk of Chandras bowling, my fathers face would undergo a beautiful transformation. It would seem that he went backward in time and he would look like a 20 year old watching the greatest leg spinner of his era bowl to the greatest batsman of his era. I hope that 20 years down the line when I talk about Brian Laras batting to someone, I hope, no I am sure they would say the same thing can be observed in my visage.

There were two cricketers whom I would never tire of watching, one Brian Lara bat and the other Wasim Akram bowl. There was something totally out of this world, almost divine when they would play in the whites.

Maybe some other day we will talk about one half of the Sultans of Swing but this is about Brian Charles Lara the prince of Trinidad. Arguably the greatest test batsman of the past 20 years he almost seemed to reserve his best knocks for the best opposition of our time Australia. It all started with that stupendous knock of 277 at the SCG (He has named his daughter Sydney in memory of that knock).

Watching him play then it seemed every ball went precisely where he wanted it to go. As Ian Healy on commentary once remarked the only way he could have gotten out was by getting run out and that is what precisely happened. And then again in the 1998-99 when the Aussies came visiting. Down 1-0 in the series and 37 for 4 at the end of the first day, Lara proceded to play the sort of knock that only he can conjure. Result Australia loose by 10 wickets narrowly avoiding an innings defeat.

And then followed it up with an excellent 153 on the final day of the third test for WI to go up 2-1.

Finally an innings I watched live in Adelaide, November 2005. After scratching around for the first two matches Lara just turned it on in the first innings in Adelaide, a scorching knock of 226. After pulling Brett Lee to the mid wicket fence for four to bring up his double hundred, he square drove through the covers for four. There were two fielders on the fence one in front of square and another behind square and he threaded it perfectly.

He reserved some special treatment for the English as well, setting the record for the highest runs in an innings by a batsman not once but twice. His 375 was scored over the first 3 days of the test match. In the 4th session of the match it became apparent that Lara was going to overtake Sir Gary Sobers record, it was fated. What else can you say but that when Lara pulled Lewis to overtake 365 his right foot flicked the stumps yet the bails did not fall off. And then again another innings that I watched live, his 400. Perhaps the shot to overtake Hayden was the best, 2 steps down to Gareth Batty and the ball is soaring well over the long on ropes.

He would raise his level whenever he played against the great bowlers (perhaps one of the reason he did not have a great record against India). In the 2001 tour to Sri Lanka he scored 688 runs in 6 innings including one double hundred and two hundreds on some of the most viciously turning tracks against the best off spinner ever Muthiah Muralitharan. And he still ended up on the side that got whitewashed 3-0.

His handling of the spinners was probably the way god would play the spinners if he was a batsman. Clobbering Robin Pietersen for 28 runs in one over, that too the penultimate over of the day, setting a record for the most runs scored in one over. Yet again in 2006 leaving Danish Kaneria rue the day he decided to become a leggie, when he was hit for 3 sixes and two fours in one over. In the champions trophy sweeping Hogg square bisecting the gap between deep backward square and the sweeper on the leg side. Ponting decides to get the deep backward square in front of square and he promptly sweeps him fine this time making the short fine leg and the square leg fielder run after the ball.

There are a lot of comments about the "Spirit of Cricket" going on and no one epitomises it the way Brian Lara did. He has walked since he played cricket and does not make the big noise that Mr Adam Gilchrist does (and he does not always walk, only when he knows that the remaining six can do the job). Remember the 1994 tour of WI to India and Lara was playing on 91, fast approaching his maiden hundred against the Indians. He nicks one behind to Mongia off Raju that probably other than him only Mongia would have heard. By the time the Umpire decided he was out, Lara was well beyond the inner circle on his way to the pavilion.

Someone once remarked "There is nothing better than watching a cover drive in cricket", well we would say "There is nothing better than watching Brian Lara drive the ball through covers". Almost every shot of his had a magical quality to it, the square drive played off the back foot, the flick through fine leg or the pull in front of square. Even when he would leave balls outside the off stump you would think man that was not merely a well-left but a dismissal of the ball that it is not even worth any attention. There is a sense of heightened anticipation when his bat has that high backlift and he crouches ever so slightly, almost like a spring that is coiled and ready to unleash its full force. One has to see it to beleive it.

No piece on Lara is complete without a comparison with Sachin. My take Sachin is the solid, dependable, safe Mercedes while Lara was the Ferrari. Not the best car in all situations but "My god what a drive it is gonna be ?", let us rest it at that.

He played at a time when West Indies cricket was at its downswing and seems fast headed for the absolute pits. For all his brilliance he was unlucky in that he had such a weak team and for a batsman to have scored so many runs and yet win so few trophies leaves one thinking that life is very unfair. If ever there was one batsman who deserved to play in a stronger team theres none worthier than Brian Charles Lara. It really was an inheritance of loss. Much like his last ODI match which the WI lost by one wicket and a ball to spare, Lara's career will also have that tinge of disappointment at achieving it all and yet not achieving all.

Maybe Kipling was thinking of Lara when he wrote:

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;

Statistically Speaking

2007-04-09T15:21:00.000+05:30

We were at a friends place over the long weekend.

Now M is one of those guys like Ranjan the Boxer here (do read his latest post), who first went through the hallowed halls of IIT Madras followed by the no less sacred place known as IIM Cal.

And as it turns out M's parents now feel he is ready to get settled down and should be married off suitably.

What is the hitch ? Well M does not want to. Now he being a IIT+IIM guy came up with what I would call a brilliant strategy.

He told his parents since he is so intellectually dumb (or advanced as the case maybe) he wants someone equally dumb from the other species a.k.a a bandi who has also been affixed with the tag "IIT+IIM".

Why is this brilliant strategy ? Lets analyze:

M passed out in 2001 from IIT and his parents don't want him to marry anyone older than him. So that means that we basically have bandis from 2002-2004 batches qualifying for his hand. (Another qualification was that she needs to be working so that rules out the batch of 2005 that passes out in 2007 from IIM)

Now there were 20 bandis in my IIT. So 7 IIT's put together that is 140 every year.

2002-2004 gets us to 420.

Now about half of them write CAT. That is 210.

About one in 10 get through so 21 is the number we end up.

Since most bandis anyhow get hitched up in IIT or IIM lets assume even in the best case half of them are stll single. That leaves 10.

And the parents want to be sure she is from the same state etc etc which means that that 10 would probably come down to one.

And what are the odds that the horoscopes match: close to zilch.

Seems that IIT+IIM has helped M in at least something.

Though the point is debatable whether M will ever get married if he keeps such strict entry criterion and if he does manage to do so, whether it will in anyway help anything.

P.S : Something by Mark Twain that the Indian Cricketers (esp the senior ones Sachin/Saurav) might need to be told the next time they play:

"It is not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog that counts".

Sir! My Liver!

2007-03-26T16:41:00.000+05:30

quoth some random sailor on board the Redoubtable when he was swept off deck by a volley of shot from the Victory that severely impeded his alcohol tolerance (with multiple apologies to le docteure Canadienne).

To scribble about more immediate matters, after we watched our representatives follow our good neighbours on their way out, it was intended to review that incomparable parable of freedom, war, and bad choices of personal jewellery: CCC. However, the War Nerd did the job better than we ever would^[1], so we instead abuse the royal pronoun prodigiously as we try to answer another hypothetical question: is it at all possible to review satisfactorily a movie we like? For various reasons related to bile and spleens and the requirement of venting the same periodically from within the safe confines of that spongy mass we call our body, we prefer to review the opposite, particularly when events conspire to put so many of them in our path.

So, consider Sur Mes lèvres, a crime thriller by Jacques Audiard that relates a touching story of thievery as pulled off by a deaf girl and a parolee from one of France's unpronounceable prisons. The film starts off with much camerawork emphasising speaking lips, hinting at what the title translates to: "read my lips", to us multiculturally challenged individuals. Carla is a partly-deaf secretary at a large civil engineering firm, who works hard at her job (and works on her own time drawing up contracts and projects for the greater good of the germ.. er, the firm.) Her job also involves her picking up emptied cups of coffee that weightier individuals leave at her desk, answering the phone, and otherwise doing what a nonentity does best: existing, babysitting a better-looking friend's baby as the friend enjoys the experience of being a "mindless piece of meat" (or thereof, quoting from subtitles is sadly difficult.) The audio follows her hearing aid, with some nicely framed scenes where the volume changes as she adjusts the volume in both load, and crucially, quiet environments.

Our lady of the coffee leads a boring existence, ~~screaming "arbeit macht frei" every now and then,~~ until in a fit of inspiration, she decides to use the local employment exchange to find herself a secretarial assistant with nice hands. In steps the hero, better known from the sequel of a movie we like (of course, he includes a Shocker K'Boo flop in his filmography, to compensate), who is, as mentioned, out of jail. For reasons best known to herself, Carla passes him off as a former employee of an upstanding firm, and trains him up, applying small pokes and jibes that were probably aimed at her during her existence. Much obvious misunderstandings between them later, our man of the jail gets an offer he can't refuse, and finds an opportunity to make a killing. Much plot development later, the prince kisses the frog. Er. Maybe not, but the you get the idea. Notwithstanding the fact that I praise it (which, in some circles, is considered deadly for a movie), it still remains a movie you can watch once. Which is more than can be said for some other blogkill.

[1] No link. Find this one yourself, it's worth it!

Oh, and before I forget: this is a very good movie about the so-called "great war"

Alvida Inzy Bhai

2007-03-25T21:14:00.000+05:30

Inzamam Ul Haq has decided to retire from One Day International Cricket. I first watched Inzamam play in the 1992 World Cup as a 10 year old teenager still trying to lift a bat properly. What astonished both me and my brother then was the fact that he was never hurried into playing any stroke, seemed he almost could wait that extra nanosecond thinking "Hmmm now where do I dispatch this ?", and once the answer was found to that question hit it with such precision that the presence of fielders seemed almost incidental to the shot. It is of course another entirely hilarious story that he probably thought an extra minute for "Should I run ?" and was involved in some of the most comical run outs in cricket history.

Over the years whenever the Pakistan team would be batting I would wait for 2 great batsmen to strut their stuff, one the wristy and elegant Saeed Anwar and then wait till Inzy would walk out to bat. From the time he would mark his guard to the running between the wickets there was an element of a laid back attitude, a it-is-only-a-game outlook. This was probably why he could never be a good captain.

He shot into prominence with two excellent knocks in the 1992 World Cup, a 37 ball 60 against an as yet undefeated New Zealand, and then another excellent finishing knock in the final. But the innings that stand out in my memory are A. The match in Karachi of India's tour of Pakistan in 2004. Chasing 350 to win and losing 2 wickets for just 34 on the board, Inzy walked out to bat. And for the next 2 hours he went on to show the world as to why he must be in the top 5 of any list of world class batsmen. Nehra was pulled with a swivel of the hips both in front and behind square depending on the field. Balaji was cut with the gap between point, sweeper cover and third man being repeatedly found. But the greatest joy to watch was his repeated stepping out to Murali Kartik. Driven inside out over extra cover (one of the most difficult shots to execute), and when he strayed on the legs swept fine, square. He almost pulled it off but for Moin failing to do a Miandad and they fell short by 5 runs. (By the way rekommendation read Rahul Bhattacharyas "Pundits from Pakistan" this innings is described in much much better words in the book) B. Again old opponents India this time in India, Ahmedabad to be precise. Needing 316 to win Inzy walked in with Paksitan 183-3 and 20 overs remaining. He again proceeded to play an innings in such a calm and controlled manner that not for once did it look like Pakistan were going to lose. Not even when 1 run was required off the last over and the phlegmatic finisher waited till the last ball to hit a boundary off Sachin. C. Again the opponent is India and this time the Venue is Bangalore, India is up 1-0 in the test series. On the first morning it is 7 for 2 and Pakistan are already in trouble. Enter who else but Inzy and as he stroked and caressed and sometimes bludgeoned his way to 184, it was an education in batting of the "fury under control" kind. The match went onto the final day and a visibly charged up Inzy marshalled his bowling resources well and made sure that Pakistan levelled the series 1-1. Another test innings worth mentioning, when he played with No 11 Danish Kaneria against Bangladesh to deny them a test victory and secure a win for Pakistan.

I was talking to one of my school friends who also used to play cricket for the school, and he once told me that if there is a chase on and Inzy is at the crease, nothing can be more absorbing than watching him bat as he calculates and times his innings precisely. Choosing exactly at what time to accelerate, which bowler to attack and exactly which gap to pierce. In this he was comparable to Hussey and Bevan two other great finishers of limited overs cricket.

Probably the only reason he has never got his due, is due to his poor record against the Aussies. Just as every batsman of the 70's was bench marked with how well they played the WI pace quarter just will it be the test that every contemporary batsman needs to pass against the Aussies in the 90's.And he would always find new ways of getting himself out like obstructing the fielder.

His captaincy was rarely inspirational and usually very reactive. But his press conferences were always known for starting with "First of all Thanks to Allah". In a time when most captains mouth inanities like "We were about 20 runs short" it was always much more fun listening to Inzy say those words.

He was a gentle giant shrugging off Indian audiences comments of "Aloo Aloo" with a wan smile more often than not, well respected and rarely had anything other than a good word for anyone else.

And so in keeping with the tradition of the book we are reading "So Long Inzy and Thanks for all the Innings"

Raid: The dockside

2007-03-12T13:52:00.000+05:30

Raid: the Dockside

Vikram Bhatt demonstrates why it is a bad idea to watch "Cries and Whispers" and "Basic Instinct" just before brainstorming for a new method to take money off a credulous audience. While not completely an expedition of suitably clad cockroach-killer wielding amazons out to recapture Diego Garcia, Red does come close, in all critically acclaimable aspects of the matter.

I imagine the conversation must have gone something as follows:

Dyerector: "The last decent movie we made was way back in 2002! Let's do something new, it is a great opportunity moving forward to capitalize on our culturally challenged audience."

Yes-Man 1: "Aye Aye, Cap'n!"

D: "You know..."

Yes-Man 2: "Yes Sir!"

D: "...Actually, you don't. I watched two whole movies yesterday!"

YM1: "I believe Congratulations are in order, sir. How were they?"

D: "Red! Red! I have a new idea for a movie, now."

YM's: "Congratulations, sir!"

D: "This will be a movie about murder. There will be a lot of redness around. In fact, we'll fade from and to red between scenes!"

YM1: "Wonderful Sir!"

And thus, was born Red. The movie starts off with Affitabh pawning his dog at the local, and promptly suffering from the debilitating effects of a hole in the heart (Note that this is not necessarily the same as the aftereffects of having an arrow through a cardioid shape that happens near the ides of February, but for the sake of argument is assumed to be so.) After a long and involved trip through hospital rooms and general cinematography reminiscent of this, we see Affy get a new heart, a bottle of "immunosuppressant" drugs, and promptly celebrate by getting drunk and trying to find out who was the previous possessor of his heart. Affy, by the way, owns a computer corporation called CompTran, when he's not pawning dogs or otherwise falling around in fits (and various other things).

The "immunosuppressant" touch is very nice, by the way. According to the movie, he has to take them for the rest of his life, to prevent the new fluid pump from being rejected by his body (true). His doctor also claims that these drugs reduce infection rate (true, for a certain restricted meaning of infection), and have other most
interesting effects (truth unknown) that form a key step of the plot. If nothing else, it makes one wonder: what poison takes about an hour to act, but once it starts, affects the "immune system" rapidly, but still leaves the victim capable of a spirited rendition of Hamlet's soliloquy?

Speaking of Ham: guess who was responsible for the music for this movie? We need say no more, save the fact that it is an appropriate backdrop to the red-(un)clad heroines that infest this movie. Horrifying visuals apart, the two heroines don't do much more than remind us that we could have been wasting time in more pleasant ways.

To get back to the (excuse for a) storyline, the hero finds out who he stole his pump from. After a certain amount of stalking this person's wife, wherein our hero nearly undergoes a frontal lobotomy by metal rod (which would have improved the movie no end), meets up with the love of his life, and generally scatters a few woses awound. Much unpleasantness later, the movie grinds towards its conclusion, leaving the audience free to meditate on the transience of material (the hero's Breitling watch) and non-material (our temper) goods.

As an interesting aside, we note that the so called ~~tabloid~~ newspaper featured as the hero stalks makes the grave mistake of referring to the "greiving[sic] widow". Maybe she was a graven window, an example of "Arbeit macht grei", but it grieves us to see such examples of shoddy copyediting lifted into prominence by a movie that otherwise maintains uniformly standards otherwise: low necklines, low comedy, low lows, and we low not what else.

To paraphrase the last (or thereabouts) line of the movie: we'd die to have not watched this movie, we may want to kill the idiot who dragged us to this movie, but we're damned fools to have watched it in the first place.

Fundamentally un-sound

2007-03-08T22:13:00.000+05:30

About the only thing that could be worse than an Indian cinema is the Indian cinema audience. After two months of this year passed without my voluntary contribution to encourage the great Unified People's Cooperative Industry for the Production of Mass-Viewable Culturally Uplifting Movies, a decision was taken: to watch the great man of Indian cinema direct a greater man in a disastrous exploration of alternative immorality: the copied localisation of two movies from the distant barbarian lands of the west.

All started auspiciously, given the pronounced crowds that make one wonder how this particular multiplex actually makes a profit. The fond hope of watching a movie undisturbed by the grunting masses was rapidly dispelled by the swine that treat a theatre as their theater to demonstrate to a largely uncaring audience that they are now fully empowered citizens, entitled to irritate everyone by talking about most uninteresting matters were present in full force (Hey, it only takes one to contaminate the lot, and when you have a 19 people of an audience of 20 indulging in intricate manipulations of the stock market, the resulting euphony as funny as a phony cry for help.)

Anyway, on to the Bheejoy^[1]-starrer of the modern era: what can you particularly say about a movie that starts with "American Beauty", carefully hacks out the decent parts, and replaces them with, shall we say, material of dubious origin? Consider, for example, the memorable scenes of Lester Burnham on his way to dreamland: replace them with Bheejoy having an extremely irritating fit of laughing that pisses off his wife (and his audience.) And the roses! To add insult to injury, when you copy from a movie starring this person, we may be wrong to expect a swimming pool, but to replace that with a hosepipe is decidedly poor taste added to rank advertising.

The "18 year old" young Angela Hayes is played by Ramboda's find of the year, the young lady whose picture we put on this post to irritate the usual bunch of characters who read this tripe at work. (as an aside, what the hell is a lambada? We know the lambda, and worship it between hacks, but this is a new one.)

Consider, now, a ~~tooth-numbingly stupid brat~~ pretty young thing with exactly two thoughts rattling around in a vast, cavernous blackness otherwise known as "the skull". The thoughts are just the sort of rules Wolfram cooks up for his cellular automata, somewhere along the lines of "water=good", and "old man=want", but that is incidental - replace them with any other rules of your choice, and the resultant emergent behaviour will get you a movie.

A maelstorm of secondhand emotion camouflaged by breathtaking imagery from the Communeast southwest demonstrates how complete Amitabh's transformation from angry young Vijay to sad old Bheejoy is. Ah, and who can forget the other kind of visuals? (Watch carefully, though: uncontrolled exposure has been known to permanently scar the retina.) Add to that the repetitive drone of "take 't light", and it makes you wonder who, exactly, the exhortation to stay "light" was intended for. Certainly not the audience, who were reminded unfavourably of another pet hate. It's all there: the crying, the irrelevant remarks about family, the characters made out of moldy cardboard, and finally, the screenplay (which, by the way, is the real destroyer of this movie - it could have been so much better.)

The Shaven Samurai: a modern parable

2007-03-05T14:19:00.000+05:30

A long time ago and a himalaya or two away, there lived a girl called Snow White. Changing social circumstances and norms resulted in her having to leave home and live in a glass house, accompanied (atleast, in the Tadsilwenyan mythos) by seven appropriately named dwarves: Doc, Dopey, Grumpy,... oops. Wong er, that is, Wrong story.

One wonders just what particular version of the story of Snow White the great Master K was thinking about when he made his gritty, realistic masterpiece about the shaven ones. An off-beat one, one hopes.

The 'Seven Samurai' opens with a millety spy listening in on the deeply deliberative discussions of the executive council of some unnamed ship of the high seas of international finance. The leaders of this particular leviathan wish to determine the optimal moment to effect a transfer of ownership to maximise their holdsharers profit. Unfortunately for them, the spy has a conflicting material interest, which is where this story begins.

Spy runs in his hoppy gait to his headquarters of nonmilitary unintelligence, where the spiritual ancestor of General Schiesskopf promptly dispatches an early scouting patrol armed with jugs of rice and pots of sake to gather up renegades from the holy band of people who wield two swords^[1]. Collecting such people naturally affords us an insight into the collected people's character, where we meet the shaven one (who is capable of wreaking havoc by creating a cannonball from two hemispheres of rice), watch him becomes the General, and lead a motley crew of sword-wielding characters in their meaningful fight to do justice.

Much fighting later, we see that Toshiro "Kikuchiyo" Mifune, the only samurai of the lot whom we cheered for, is dead from an bullet, and the last of the financiers have joined him. Our remaining heroes from the best colleges^[2] are left with no utility to their present employer, and thus end up with miles to go before they, well, need to write another statement of purpose^[3].

Seriously speaking, this is a good movie about the beautiful futility of war. After all, maneuvers on the high seas of international finance need a certain time before they can settle down into a steady state.

[1] Not what you think, sadly. The shorter sword has "Made in IIT" engraved on the blade, (something like Hattori Hanzo would do) while the longer one has "Forged in IIM"[4] painted over the engraving.

[2] They might have been from the Musashi school of ring and sword. That is the same thing, though.

[3] I hope this was just a historical thing. The usual kinematic cinematic disclaimer of "all characters and events [...] fictional [...]" applies here.

[4] It has since been implied to us that this is ambiguous. To be absolutely clear, we mean forged(1) from here, and not forged(2).

A "Scientifically Updated" Post

2007-02-28T10:24:00.000+05:30

This post is not our creation, but we found it here.

To quote some of the sections we found quite interesting:

"I would like to request something to all the Movie Fans / IMDb users out there.It is as follows: -> It's OKAY to be Morally Upright but it's necessary to be SCIENTIFICALLY UPDATED first (Especially for those whose academics are from a Non-Science background)."

"if you oppose this movie you not only oppose the Father of Human Evolution Theory -CHARLES DARWIN but also oppose something important that Darwin's theory proves : Human Male is capable of producing Sperms all his Life-Time. In contrast, a Human Female's Menstrual Cycle ends roughly at the age of Forty-Five years. This Fact is enough to prove that a Male is Naturally Designed ...yes, Naturally Designed to fall in love with female counterparts all his life time(Yes,even at the age of 60 years like Mr. Bachhan's character in the Movie or even 90 years) and further still reproduce with the help any number of adult Females."

"This is an appeal to 'Indians' especially. Because it's important to know the difference between a 'Godzilla' and a 'Jurrassic Park'. It's necessary to reject the former and accept the latter. Let's accept the Reality."

Godzilla is better than Jurassic Park, scientifically speaking eh!!!!

HTPL a.k.a Hyper Tortuous Private Limited

2007-02-26T13:23:00.000+05:30

Good movies are all alike, every bad movie is bad in its own way.

That is the reason why we prefer reviewing movies that are bad rather than the good ones. This Saturday we had the misfortune of watching Honeymoon Travels Pvt. Ltd. Just re-phrasing what Ian Botham had to say about Pakistan "This is the sort of movie that you send your mother-in-law to in the hope that better sense might just prevail and she might decide to give up the worldly existence that is full of such perils as this movie".

Reasons why we decided to watch the movie in the first place. Sandhya Mridul and Kay Kay Menon. The former is our latest muse after watching movies like Waisa Bhi Hota Hai - II and Page 3. Kay Kay of course is someone to watch out for after his excellent rendition of the word "Hello" in Ek Khiladi Ek Haseena".

The first story started off well when the director got her facts right and talked about the Halley comets sighting in 1986. But little did we realize that a "Its all happening" does not maketh a Bill Lawry. And of course we didn't bargain for Minissha Lamba (yes the same actress who once said in a HT interview that she wanted wider hips) and Abhay Deol making sounds, that one would opine belonged to 101 Dalmatians. (On second thoughts it would have fit only in a scene where all the 101 were being fried to death on an Electric Chair, and not to worry Ms Lamba I am sure the villains pet cat would rather enjoy this) rather than Honeymoon Travels Pvt. Ltd. (As a portent of things to come we have a scene where a 10-year old Abhay Deol hides himself in a trash can, we wonder whether the director was making a statement that all scenes involving him were actually full of garbage.) By the way the super hero thing, well when "Toby Maguire" can play Spider Man and "Halle Berry" Catwoman I suppose anything goes.

Then there is the story concerning Dia Mirza, Ranvir Shorey and Arjun Rampal. Well even though we are biased towards Dia (Her being from Hyd and all that), we think she should stick to hosting award functions and item numbers. Arjun Rampal, well he should stick to doing nothing actually, and Ranvir dude get a life. (Though we might not be the best ones to approach on how to do that!!)

Amisha Patel and some unknown whom we shall refer to Mr X1 from now their story seems to be for lack of better words right out of M&B (Caution: Opening this link at work might cause co-workers to doubt your sanity). People who work in my industry, dudes it is not mount and bonding diagram I am talking about (sorry couldn't resist the pun) rather the great "chick-lit-hall-of-fame" presidents. Anyway Amisha Patel gives ample reasons why she should not act and instead get married to some rich Diamond merchant (pearls actually if you go by the movie). Apparently she is this bubbly Punjabi Kudi, well we can say there is more spice in the kadi we get in our Cafeteria.

The story of Sandya Mridul and Mr X2 is very superficial to say the least and the fine actress is wasted in the movie. One would have expected slightly more discerning choice of roles from her. Even though it is more sensible than the others there is nothing of substance that actually happens in this story in the whole movie and is as predictable as finding IT Engineers or Stray Dogs on Bangalore roads.

Boman Irani and Shabana Azmi play persons past their youth, both have been married before and have suffered the loss of their loved ones. Yet again predictably the daughter of Mr Irani is no bharatiya nari and ends up confiding in Ms Azmi at the end (predictably some boy friend dumping her, we wonder where the hell do such chicks roam around man $%^%). And everything is hunky dory, except the expressions on the faces of the audience.

Finally to the one saving grace, the story involving Kay Kay and Raima Sen. Kay Kay is the typical "boy-next-door" for a change instead of the usual "girl-next-door" (we still wonder why the ones next door to us look like a cross between Queen Latifah and Judi Dench). Kay Kay combs his hair so straight that had it been any straighter Sunil Gavaskar would have been proud. Raima Sen wants toescape the boredom that has set into their marriage. Looking to break free of her "better-halfs" parents home (the way she convinces Kay Kay is probably the only saving grace of the whole movie) and of the strict order by which her husband lives his life. And quite disturbingly there is some difference between the beginning and the end as far as this story is concerned.

We recommend you watch this movie only if you think that the only possible way for you to loose weight is to make your wallet lighter by 200/-. (Then again probably not.......)

The fourth K a.k.a Random Trip #4 -- Turtle Bay Resort Kundapur

2007-02-10T16:29:00.000+05:30

The last trip which was to Belur-Haleebedu (I know I haven't blogged about it) left us very apprehensive of NH4 traffic, so this time we started a full hour earlier at 0730 than the last time around. But this time surprisingly there was not much traffic on NH4, and we did good time reaching Neelamangla soon. After that we took the diversion to NH48. Now NH48 is a two lane highway and has lots of curves and mostly empty compared to NH206 which is pretty much straight and has 4 lanes at most places. But I was zipping at 100kmph on NH48 when I had to round a curve and did a U-turn that made sure we went to 100-0kmph in about 10 seconds and a radius of about a couple of metres. No small contribution was due to the fact that Comfortably Numb was playing while I was driving. Anyway the photo down here will pretty much show how the ABS of my car got tested and passed with flying colors.

We took a diversiona at Channarayapatna and had breakfast at the Kamath there. At around 11am we started and hit Hasan soon and then Sakleshpur. The road degraded a lot from here on and the view was not very scenic either. We were crawling along and the Ghats section roads were atrocious. We somehow managed to reach Mangalore at about 1700 hours. Just before that at around 1500 hours we had lunch at a very shady place called Highway Inn. After Mangalore we hit NH17 and went towards Udipi. NH17 is a very narrow NH and there is a lot of traffic as well on it. So we had to give the car over to our slowest and safest driver.

We were given to believe that the resort was very close to Mangalore so our original plan was to leave Bangalore at 0400 and hit the resort sometime in the afternoon. Instead we left at 0730 and then came to know that the resort is more like 150km from Mangalore. So all said and done we reached Kundapur only about 1845.

Our ounly source of entertainment (my guitar CD and a collection of songs which seemed to have far too many Himesh Reshamiyya on it notwithstanding) was the commentary of the India-WI cricket match on Vividh Bharati. By the time we reached Kundapur we knew the sum total of ODI runs scored by Ganguly, Dravid and Sachin.

There was more disappointment to await us at Kundapur. We were 5 of us and had booked a room for 3 people and a cabana for 2. We reached only to be told that the person suposed to vacate a room had not done so and we 5 of us had to fit into one cabana. We also ended up missing the sunset.

There was a bonfire planned for the night and we just got a few mats and lied down on the beach next to the bonfire. By the time we had dinner and reached the tent all we could think of was sleep.

Next morning we got up at 0700 and played beach volleyball and then went into the sea with the waves. Yours truly realised on coming back that we had not emptied our pockets so our mobile went phut and so did the car remote. We tried a manual enter into the car only for it to start beeping really loudly. After some frantic calls to about 20 different people we found the software hack to open it manually and then finally started off at around 1100 from Kundapur.

This time we decided to hit NH206 instead of NH48 so we went north on NH17 and took a diversion to reach Kollur from where we hit Hosanagara. The drive through this section of the ghats was very good with a narrow winding road but minimal traffic. The view of the forests on either side of us was also truly awesome. We hit Hosanagara at about 1300 and then did good time to reach Shimoga by 1500. We had lunch at an awful dhaba and then drove all the way till the Kamat in Neelamangala where we reached at around 2000 and decided to have dinner there. The meals there were quite awful.

By the time we reached Bangalore the time was 2200 and we had about 50/- and about a litre of fuel left in the car.

The resort is worth visiting and the beach looks great. But definitely to enjoy the resort you need to stay there for at least a day and drive through a better route. Unlike us who reached there and left before we could even have the feel that we are on a holiday.

And yes do not get into the sea with your car remote and mobile phones.

Go For Guru

2007-01-25T15:20:00.000+05:30

Guru reminded me my analog design classes. After discussing a high gain Common Emitter amplifier for half the course the next half would be dedicated to something called "De-generation" so that the high gain can be stabilised.

Guru fits the description perfectly, the first half is excellent Mallika Sherawat's role as a belly dancer notwithstanding. One could almost term it path-breaking since Bollywood is usually not known for making movies that are biographical in nature which dont portray the protagonist as a born-angel-society-turning-him-into-mafia-don or a-honest-do-gooder-never-again-to-be-born-on-earth.

Gurukant Desai is an entrepreneur and an unapologetic one at that. In the first half of the movie Guru starts from a small town boy with dreams into one who has pursued them and is halfway there to achieving them. The cinematography is excellent. There are some scenes that stay with you for long, Guru shaking a few shells in his hand with one of Istanbuls mosques in the back ground, Guru and his future-brother-in-law climbing a set of stairs to the top of a temple, and an excellent one just before the interval where Guru and his wife after having a fight are standing on two opposite sides of the road and a tram passes right in between them capturing the poignancy superbly.

In the second half Guru goes on to become the owner of Indias largest company not always following the law. And a newspapers editor is out to get him. He uses a young news reporter Shyam Saxena who is equally ruthless and uses distorted versions of the truth to purse his vendetta against Guru.

But the second half quickly de-generates like the emitter amplifier with an entirely avoidable song, an un-necessary character called Meenu (just to show the soft side of Guru) and a speech at the end which has so much hamming in it that you are left tearing your hair out in frustration as to why a movie that promised so much has to suddenly revert back to the old corny dialogue delivery that pulp Bollywood movies are famous for. (Guru comparing himself to the Mahatma, give me a break) The only saving grace is yet again the cinemtography, an excellent take from the top of a much older Guru and his wife lying on a bed in the small house from where it all started. Some other scenes that stand out in memory are the way the board meetings of Gurus company start from a small maidan to in the end a huge cricket stadium, and where a Taxi Driver tells Guru he could not have done wrong since he could get three of his daughters married by selling Gurus company shares.

The performances are quite simply put excellent. For once Aishwarya Rai playing Gurus wife does not shed bucket loads of water each time something goes wrong. An admirably restrained performance from her. Abhishek delivers a power packed performance, but why the sudden urges in the middle of the movie to try and mouth dialogues a-la Marlon Brando in Godfather or a swagger like Al Pacino!! Mithunda plays a great role as the only upright editor who dares to oppose Guru. Modelled on RP Goenka, Mithunda delivers yet another spell binding performance. Madhavan essays the role of Shyam Saxena with aplomb. And then there is a whole range of support cast that does quite well.

The cinematogrpahy of Rajeev Menon is excellent. And of course when A R Rahman composes music for Mani Ratnam there is bound to be magic and it is true for this movie as well.

Guru is definitely worth a watch, but dont expect too much in the second half of the movie.

Free Verse: Worse is Free.

2007-01-17T17:01:00.000+05:30

From a listing of the top 20 cliches of the newspapers of the great vaat-er land comes this tarnished (dis)inspiration:

We wish to ensure a level playing field
if you are in the red,
so that, at the end of the day
you will, time and again,
be found in the black
rather than become a fly by night
thing that requires a last-ditch effort
leaving no stone unturned.
We await the eleventh hour
with bated breath
thinking: better late than never.
You watch those who rushed to the scene
cry all the way to the bank
and then call it a day
as time is running out
before we can up the ante
then happens a freak accident
in hot pursuit
of facts shrouded in mystery
that ensure survival of the fittest.

The cliche distribution itself is present (as an image) on some other blog, so do search around to find it. It's a lot more impressive than (one more) proof of my insanity.

Murder in Milan

2007-01-08T14:54:00.000+05:30

Unfortunately, I don't remember whether Agatha Christie ever wrote anything with this particular title. No matter, since Patricia Highsmith did write a similar piece that promptly (or not, in this case) got converted into that thing the twisted writership of this blog really likes: a reason to remember and revile another antibiographical waste of nonbiodegradable DVD. And unfortunately, for the same reasons, too (Kate Hep... err, Cate Blanchett not being one of among them.)

The Talented Mr. Ripley[1]

Mr. Ripley is the untalented nonentity who believes that it is better to be a fake nobody than a real one (though he does achieve both extremes rather rapidly) unlike his better performances as a ludlum hyperhero, or a dumb pickpocket, who were probably too uncultured to consider such solipsistic syllogisms.

On his way to nobodyness, Our Man in the Mothballed Suit manages to commit murder, perpetrate mayhem, and generally make life unbearable for all those doomed to sit through this generally awful waste of two hours, that should have been better spent studying John Hinckley's reasons. Better murders too, since they do not have to contend with razor-sharp oars.

To be fair, The Talented Mr. Ripley might actually be a good thriller, if you can get through the parts that make you yawn, the parts that make you wish you had the editing scissors (if not a fast-forward button) handy, and the parts that make you wonder what a thriller actually is.

[1] To increase the ratio of weird google hits to weirder ones, we
'ereby hembark hon ha program to scatter hour 'aitches habout.

Colombus in the time of Christmas

2006-12-26T11:45:00.000+05:30

**** DISCLAIMER : All characters are fictitious and if you know who they really
are do not read ahead. It can be detrimental to their careers ***

1000 Hours 23-12-2006:The portents for the tour were not very good when we took
a wrong turn when joining the ring road itself. That made G very
reluctant to take directions from any one who said "Go straight" after that. But
as R pointed out "The Law of Averages would mean that we were less likely
to make a mistake in a territory we did not know." Traffic till we hit NH4 was
moving so slowly that some Snails in "Who comes last ?" competitions would be
put to shame!! But once we hit NH4 there was no looking back.

We first had to go through a toll gate where we needed to pay 21/-. After much
searching and finding a 1/- coin we got out through that toll only to miss the
Kamath and deciding to have early lunch. B had told us that we needed to by-pass
Tumkur and take the Gubbi road to join NH206. We did hit the correct road only
to lose it and travel through Tumkur and re-join the same road later. After
hitting Gubbi and joining NH206 the next landmark was Tiptur. At Tiptur there
was some blocking of the NH and we had to take a circuitous tour of Tiptur and
asking all and sundry how to reach Arasikere. We finally managed to hit
Arasikere at around 1400 hours. Just before we reached Arasikere we had lunch
at a place called Varun Dhaba. The spicy Dal that we had for lunch was just a
precursor for things to come. After gobbling down 12 rotis, capsicum masala
and all such we hit Kadur where two national highways intersect when I was
fast asleep.

There was quite a funny incident involving a shop-keeper Aunty who took R to
task for not learning Kannada even though he was in Bangalore for 5 years. We
escaped by a smattering of Kannada we knew. Though we did not have the strength
to reply to "Are you a pure telugu guy ?" So the next time you are on NH 206 do
stop just after you cross Tiptur and talk to her.

After Kadur we hit Tarikere at around 3 in the afternoon. After that the road
visibly degraded in quality. After taking a diversion to Shimoga from NH206 and
then taking a Tirthahalli by-pass after asking a couple of people we finally
were on the road. (Special mention must be made of a direction giver who told
us to turn right but used his left hand to indicate turning left. Eventually
we had to turn left.) After that the route was very picturesque and we made
good time to reach Tirthahalli by 1730 hours. A total journey time of 7.5 hours for 350km.

B was there to meet us. After freshening up the first place we went to eat
Bondas had no bondas so we had to do with hot Chilli Bhajji and not-so-hot
Aloo Bhajji. Then we went to a Mela which was taking place there. We were
astounded by the hepness of the mela. For those who don't know our lingo this
means that the BQ there was of a few 10's of helens. As compared to the local
ones that we see on Forum, Garuda or Brigade Road which involves low rise jeans
or tank tops and all that superficial-made-up-oh-look-at-me-I-am-so-hot
pukefest that we are used to. The colombus ride took the wind out of us and
yours truly whose remark of "Aah that thing is not so scary, let us try the
giant wheel" left having a T-Rex's foot in mouth syndrome.

And then we all planned to get drunk. After sipping lots of Vodkas the effect
on R was as follows:

1. Lights he saw were trailing away.
2. An octagonal shape first became heptagonal then circular.
3. He then tried finding a bride for G and that too from zee workplace.
4. After lot of persuasion we came up with a name of a married and old plump
female.
5. After that we had R enacting out the new 7-Up Mallika ad.
6. R : "I think we should order 60+60+90=310ml of Romanov"
7. R : "I want one 30ml".
B : "You can either have 60ml or 90ml, not 130ml"
R : "Ok get me 1 space 30ml"
G : "It still is 130ml"
R : "Ok get me one underscore 30ml"
G : "It still is 130ml"
B : "How about 10ml+10ml+10ml"
R : "What the hell is that!!!!"
Finally of course we made him drink 60ml more.
8. Then he went after the director of our group.
9. Then A questioned the credentials of our CTO.
10. R then decided to write a mail to the CTO to tell him what an
un-enviable state he was in being the mentor of A and all that.
11. At this point dinner was over and the fun carried over into our room now
involving another female who apparently had turned up in Pink sometime and
had taken up G's fancy.

Next day morning began with hot dosas for breakfast. Yours truly ate so many that
B's brothers wife decided not to serve us and pointedly disappointed us by
serving A and R. Point to be taken note of "Don't eat like a barbarian when a
human being who is not your mother is making dosas, eventually you get kicked
out" (I probably had 15-20 before I stopped)

Next we trekked on top of a hill, that totally tired us out. But the view from
the top was quite good. Legend has it that you cannot build a house unless one
goes on top of this hill and builds a small one with stones.

And then I showed off my expertise at hitting a single stump by hitting one in
about a zillion tries. What didn't help was the fact that I was the only one
playing for the cricket team.

After that we went to a place close to Singeri where we saw fish that were
about 100 times the size of ones that you see in a Aquarium. R tried to
catch them but they would just slip out of his fingers, so he consoled himself
saying that it was a soothing touch he was giving them.

After a bit of rest and a bath we drove to a place called Kondadri where we
could see the sunset. The view was astounding and G was really happy
since he could drive till almost the top and didn't have to burn a calorie of
energy.

On the way back we realized that Bondas had yet again finished and we had to
make to do with Chilli and Aloo Bhajjis and Vadas this time around.

After having dinner in a basement restaurant in downtown Tirthahalli we decided
to call it a day and hit the sack.

Next morning was Akki roti for breakfast and after the experiences of the
previous day both me and R finished quite soon. We started at 11 not least due
to the fact that I needed to change the frame of my spectacles. Drive back was
uneventful till Gubbi. After Gubbi we managed to scratch B's car. This time
though we ensured that we stopped at Kamath and made sure we had Bonda soup
there so that B could claim that he fed us "Bondas" on the trip to his
hometown.

But the drive from Yeshwantpur back to our houses was terrible and by the time
we reached Bangalore it was 2000.

So ended our trip to Tirthahalli.

The Wizard "Down Under" is going Out

2006-12-22T11:20:00.000+05:30

Cricket has lots of facets, but none as interesting as Wrist spin or Leg spin. It is a particularly difficult form of bowling in that it is bowled with precisely the opposite action of what one would naturally bowl
after picking a ball i.e. Offspin.

And so most of crickets leg spinners have been freaks right from the days of Clarrie Grimmett and Bill O'Reilly down the years to Richie Benaud to Bhagwat Chandrasekhar and Abdul Qadir. If there is one thing that unites all of these bowlers is that though their bowling styles varied from the parsimonious (Grimmett) the ultra agressive (Reilly and Qadir) the purists delight (Benaud) to the freakiest of them all (Chandra) they all fascinated audiences the world over.

And so in this era of post 1990 also we had 3 contrasting leg spinners, the conventional leggie who would bowl the flipper as well as the googly with equal ease Mushtaq Ahmed to the accurate quick Anil Kumble and to the topic of the post Shane Warne.

And so the game of cricket will loose a lot of its shine when probably the greatest character in it Shane Warne a.k.a Hollywood is retiring. (I am sure pretty soon Dev Anand will make a movie on his life).

As a batsman you treat spinners as the item number of a bollywood movie a la Rakhi Sawant. They tease you with their flight and the great spinners dont mind being hit for a few boundaries before they set you up with a sucker of a delivery and you think to yourself in the pavilion "What was I thinking!!!" (The hero also thinks the same after Rakhi ditches him and the heroine consoles him at the right moment, me I have no heroines to console when I sit and think like that but we digress). Another thing as a batsman is that you prefer leg spinners since they give you more room since the ball is turning away. But what made Shane Warne such a great bowler was that even though he didnt possess a googly and pretty much lost everything of the flipper after his shoulder operation, was the in-drift he would get. As a batsman a leg spinner getting the ball to curve in the air towards your legs is like a 2-wheeler overtaking your car from right behind your blind spot. You always have that uneasy feeling at the back of your head when you play them.

And then there was his attitude. Post his shoulder operation he won half of his wickets purely by playing on the batsmans mind. It was interrogation of the highest order something that would probably even oershadow what our own Karan Thapar tries on Devils Advocate.

My enduring image of Shane Warne: Second test 4th day SCG 1997-98, Jacques Kallis has played 110 balls for 45 and has almost saved the match, Shane Warne is bowling the zillionth over of the match. Warne bowls a ball, curves in Kallis has the line covered but the ball somehow sneaks through the millimetric gap created between bat and pad by Kallis being a shade late and Warne has his 300th wicket in test cricket. It rains at the end of the fourth day and almost the whole of the fifth, this wicket was the turning point of the match.
Have a look at the photo. Excellent stuff.

And so I finish this post by some Lyrics from Black Sabbath's "Wizard" :
"What a batsman thinks when Warne is onto bowl":

Misty morning, clouds in the sky
Without warning, the wizard walks by
Casting his shadow, weaving his spell
Funny clothes, tinkling bell

Never talking (Not strictly true!!!)
Just keeps walking
Spreading his magic

"Now what the batsmen think":

Sun is shining, clouds have gone by
All the people give a happy sigh
He has passed by, giving his sign
Left all the people feeling so fine

Never talking (Ok he has plans of being a commentator so again not strictly true!!)
Just keeps walking
Spreading his magic

Three reasons

2006-12-20T21:30:00.000+05:30

Three Reasons I should have been a South African cricketer:

Reason #1

Reason #2

Reason #3, also the reason behind why Neil McKenzie needs to be in the SA Cricket team.

P.S : Wondering how they are related, they all belong to the WAG club of SA cricketers.

Black Friday

2006-12-08T20:50:00.000+05:30

Well reason why I am cursing a Friday of all days is this.

As a person who has always rated style over substance when it comes to batting (yeah yeah I know it is in my genes after all, look at these Hyderabadi Cricketers)it is definitely sad news.

In an era where the emphasis has been on gluttony of runs, heavy bats and powerful strokes, Martyn was like a whiff of fresh air. Without a doubt we can say that Martyn was the David Gower of the first half of this decade.

I first watched him bat in the 2001 Ashes and was instantly hooked. Even the best of balls was dispatched with a minimum of fuss, the balls were stroked (He probably took what Wasim Akram said in an interview "Treat the ball like a beautiful lday" too literally) rather than hit, the bat working like a wand in the hands of a magician. One could see the unadulterated look of bewilderment coupled with wonder in the eyes of the bowler when the deftest of touches or prods would make the ball race away on the turf. He had the look of a person who has been denied his due when batting, his sheer hunger for runs indicated that. He probably should have played more than 100 tests but for some stupid ruthless policy of the Australian Board that chose to axe the junior most player who scored much more than most in the batting order for a batting collapse against SA in 1994.

Over the years I have watched some superb knocks from him the centuries in the sub continent in 2004, the world cup final, the champions trophy innings this year. But he would probably be the first one to admit he was off tune in the 2005 Ashes as well as now. So it is good he is retiring when people ask "Why ?" rather than "Why not!!".

So heres to Damien Martyn the sublime, one of the last style gurus of the art of batting.

Time your kills

2006-11-20T11:56:00.000+05:30

What is good advice to the Amerigo's Army player also tends to be good for the aspiring psychopathic serial killer too. After all, the two tend to be the same kind of person living in different worlds.

Sadly, this is on a different topic. The great Caleb Carr, author of two books on early american psychopaths, the people who inspired criminal psychology to its current state ("analyze this", "analyze that", and one thing and another), decided to write about something more modern, and therefore suitable to the current crop of airport hoppers, and came up with Killing Time, a post-apocalyptic post-dystopian postmodern post-everything-else novel. It's enough to inspire you to go postal.

Normally, you tend to associate old Hawksley with the India caricatures, but reading this one impresses upon you (with a pneumatic hammer) how accurate Hawksley actually was. The Great Indo-Pak Nuclear Conflict tends to be an old favourite of post-* writers, with Carr providing an abject lesson on how to mess up. His deceased president "Rajiv Karamchand", for example - a name probably made up after ~~skimming wikipedia~~ PHD-class research (ignore for now the fact that if someone actually has a genetic history of both Rajiv and Karamchand, (s)he has to just not drool when making public appearances to be perpetually elected.)

We're probably better off not dissecting the story, beyond mentioning that it is a complicated pile of horrendous coincidences mingled with gratuitous insults to the readers intelligence interspersed with leaps of faith over steaming pollution-filled seas. Actually, no: it's just 'Atlas Shrugged' meets 'Timeline', updated with an even more disgustingly superhuman (assuming such a thing to be possible) cast.

My favourite line in the book is where they say that they've hoaxed religion, and so now need to hoax science, to keep things approximately even.

In other news, taking off ye olde spectacles[2], closing one eye and squinting with the other might make Eva Green look rather like la Bellucci might have in her younger days, which is a good thing. The rest of that movie defies comment, though. The Iron Flamingo must be regretting franchising his hero.

[2] Dangling reference. Where's [1]?

Wild Strawberries eaten in The Silence lead to Cries and Whispers

2006-11-13T14:22:00.000+05:30

...due to food poisoning. We'll ignore any effects that mingling with alternatively qualified multiculturally uplifted self-expressive individuals may cause. (Today is political correctness day.)

Bergmania is a pandemic disease that can affect even the die-hard Mithunda fan[1]. SIR model apart, the usual cure for this is identical to any vaccination: a small (or, as in this case, large) dose of the organism causing the disease in the first place. It appears that the pensioners hellhole is now safe from this disease, if the diminishing crowds at the screenings were any indication. (At least, until the next crop of new-age ~~cellphone abusers~~ cinema fans is spawned by the machines.)

Without more background noise, let's do a blinkered breakup and breakdown of a set of truly great movies:

Smultronstället (1957) aka Wild Strawberries

An escapee from the deadly Borg, Professor Borg is finally honoured for his desperate deeds and dashing bravery in support of the enterprise by some sort of medal, and so is on his way to an unfortunately named Swedish university. A few dreams, hitchhikers and accidents later, he discovers the meaning of life. Unfortunately, we are not the recipients of such information.

Tystnaden (1963) aka The Silence

A great entertainer, this one - not least, because it was punctuated rather effectively by an operatic rendition of "The Two Rings".

IMDB notes parenthetically that this movie was the Lady Chatterley of Swedish cinema, which is perhaps appropriate. Like that book, it is long, rather boring and at best, pointless. And given what it opened the floodgates for, you wonder if it might have been better if it was banned.

Viskningar och rop (1972) aka Cries and Whispers

This movie is in colour, which seems somewhat appropriate, as the director had discovered a new special effect when working in such an unfamiliar medium: the fade. A lot of fades to and from Red (black is so mainstream) intersperse the tired old cinderella story of the sick and wealthy heiress, her grasping sisters, the devoted slave and the rabid prince. Well, maybe not the last one.

All in all, movies you should not miss. Use high-CEP weapons, though.

[1] 80's action heroes, personally. Bruiser Willis, Steven "Eric"
Seagal und die Gubernator, vhere are you when you're needed?

Randomness

2006-11-10T11:05:00.000+05:30

The random article feature on Wikipeida is quite interesting. Found this random article on The Oxford University Invariant Society.

No wonder then that the co-author of this blog calls himself the Alternate Moebyus. Though never seen him wearing the six colors of the Rubiks cube at the same time.

Four Books and Er Two Movies

2006-10-08T21:38:00.000+05:30

It has been a long time since I posted, been horribly busy at work. But have managed to finsh reading 4 books and watching 2 excellent movies.

So here are the reviews:

1. The Life Before Us ("Madame Rosa") by Romain Gary -- Good book. But even better than the book is the interesting biography of the author at the end. Do read it if you havent already.

2. The Vines of Desire by Chitra Divakaruni -- Stupid and useless book. Dont even try reading it leave alone buying it which in a moment of temporary madness I bought. How could I have missed "From the author of the Mistress of Spices" which was staring at me right on the cover. As my English teacher in class XI and XII at school used to say (unlike most others I had), that dont use twenty words when two can suffice. Apparently Ms Divakaruni did not have Ms Baljeet Kaur teaching her English. Long winded sentences, flowery language, I think she would have gotten a lashing from Ms Kaur.

3. Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai -- Again an excellent book. Not since RK Narayan has any author written fiction with such characters in them that you could almost exclaim "A guy exactly likes that lives down the street". Surely a must buy and I am now planning to read her first book Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard.

4. Indian Summers by John Wright -- A book of a handful of anecdotes. But to the discerning reader who wants to read more than just a confrontation that Sehwag and Wright got into or a faux pas with VVS regarding TV commercials there is nothing much. You gain no insight into what went into making a team that would frequently roll over when push came to shove into a team that could push the Aussies to the limit. Diasppointing would be my opinion of the book. It does have some amusing sections though, like when he sees a lanky lad smashing the bowlers all around and Wright assuming that it must be the new batting opener Shiv Sunder Das only to turn out that it's the opening bowler Agarkar.

Right now am reading The Glass Palace by Amitav Ghosh. Review to be posted soon.

Also watched 2 excellent movies:

Pulp Fiction -- Excellent movie as only Tarantino can come up with. Watch out for Bruce Willis's girl friend talking about pot bellies and how they are different from a tummy. Man some movie it is.

On the Waterfront -- The movie on which Ghulam was based. Watch out for the famous taxi scene betweenMarlon Brando and Rod Steiger. Apparently to convince Brando who was a huge superstar at that time to act in this movie the producers decided to show him a ceratin up and coming young actor's audition for the role. It worked and Brando signed up. The "up and coming young actor" answered to the name of Paul Newman.

Going, Going, GongStar!

2006-09-22T21:54:00.000+05:30

Boy meets girl
girl loses boy
girl meets boy
girl loses boy
girl loses boy
girl loses self

What can you say about a 0.4-year old movie that flopped? (Apart from rendering its thoughtful story and sensitive message into a form suitable for machine translation into Lojban, that is.) It seems to have gotten rave reviews elsewhere, so we feel it is our bounden duty to correct certain impressions that may be formed upon the tender and uninformed minds that tend to watch escapees from the Bhott stables.

Let's see, where do we start? The very beginning of the movie throws it into flashback mode, which is a curiosity - most cliched fiction tends to hold to the belief that your life flashes before your eyes when you drown, and not after a terminally bleeding shortsighted cop with meghalomaniac tendencies shoots you in the shoulder using a weapon that can be almost guaranteed to hit anything but the target at that distance.

Oops, did I "spoil" the story for you? Appy-polly-logies.

To continue, consider this guy - India's answer to Rowan Atkinson, who can out-act everyone else in the movie in spite of (or perhaps because of) having fewer words to say in the whole movie than are in this self-referential sentence. Also starring in this movie are the cereal kisser as the sharpshooting bar-singing empathetic dedicated diamond-and-coal (or similar unmixed metaphor, I forget) cop from "Indian Intelligence" who is out to make the arrest of his lifetime, with such success that, well, goes quite literally to his head. King Kongna, who manages to successfully distract the viewer from the fact that she can't quite act and speak at the same time, is the third angle (or side) to this convolutedly straight plot, and is perhaps the only reason to consider watching this movie at all.

Hm. That many long sentences later (which I hope your eye jumped over, as it should over this,) we move on to what this movie teaches us: For perhaps the first time in Bollywood movies, here is a movie with the music done almost right. (The other thing it did teach is that movies should be watched comfortably, but that is a whole different story.)

Oh, and I almost forgot: it's based on two real people (the cop being, most unfortunately, the creation of a fertile and scintillating mind?) who would be most thrilled to see their fate, since as far as I know, they're still alive.

Omkara

2006-09-12T20:56:00.000+05:30

Omkara is an excellent movie. Period.

After Maqbool (an excellent adaptation of Macbeth), Vishal Bharadwaj has come up with another adaptation of Shakespeare, this time around it is Othello.

And you fall in love with the movie right from the first lines of Langda Tyagi portrayed excellently by an ever improving Saif Ali Khan. The screenplay is exceptional, the music is great and the songs dont seem to have been inserted just to fill time, rather they flow with the movie.

For once Kareena Kapoors role didnt have me reaching for a brown bag to puke in. Casting her in the role of Dolly Mishra our own desi Desdemona, she looks every bit the extremely beautiful woman that she is supposed to play. Look out for her trying to sing Stevie Wonders "I just called to say I love you".

Ajay Devgan plays the role of a brooding Om Shukla (a.k.a Omi Bhaiya), Othello in the original. I thnk far too many people give a lot of credit to him for playing such roles. I think its as easy for him to do these serious no-fun roles as it is for Shah Rukh Khan to play Rahul the lover boy. But again excellent casting.

Konkona Sen Sharma plays Indu or Emilia in the original and comes up with yet another brilliant performance. Two of her scenes stand out in the whole movie, the first one when she teases Ajay Devgan after he gets Kareena to elope with him and the other one at the end where she looks like the devil incarnate.

The directorial touch here introduces Bipasha Basu as a dancer of the more "exotic" variety, and I guess she never looked hotter in any of her other movies. And the lyrics by Gulzar for both her songs are exemplary.

Vivek Oberoi flatters to decieve when he plays the role of Keshav 'Kesu Firangi' Upadhyay, Cassio in the original play. He does do a decent job, but then when compared with the rest of the cast he does come up short.

And finally we come to "Langda Tygai" played by Saif Ali Khan, Iago in the play. This has to be the performance of the movie, and probably the best ever by Saif. The look on his face when Kesu is made bahubali is priceless. There are so many more scenes that stand out in your memory : The bridge scene with Raju, the drunken binge just before the item number, the scene with Omi just as they are about to kill someone, where he amplifies the seeds of suspicion that are there in Omis mind about Dollys fidelity. I wrote the review late just to see how much I remember of Saifs performance and it seems to me that most of it is still there at the back of my mind.

Special mention must be made of Naseeruddin Shahs performance as bhaisaab, the scene where he tells the guard to reverse the train is abosultely hilarious.

Coming to the screenplay and dialogues, both are magnificent. Theres a song called "Jag Ja" and its shots are film making of the highest order. Dialogues, they are too good and are in the local dialect. So if you have problems with strong language or cannot understand Hindi spoken very rapidly then you are better off skipping it or watching it on DVD with sub-titles though I wonder whether it will have the same effect as watching it in a theatre and understanding the language.

All in all a great relief to watch Omkara, after watching Junk Movie #1, Junk Movie #2, Junk Movie #3, Junk Movie #4.

Practically Pathetically Poor joke

2006-08-28T14:58:00.000+05:30

As I was watching a Clint movie yesterday, I just came up with the following poem :

A Clint a day keeps Marlyn away,BUT
A Mithunda a day keeps Rakhi Sawant away!!

Great birthdays

2006-07-28T14:25:00.000+05:30

Todays the birthday of two great men Sir Gary Sobers and Sachin Dev Burman (his 100th to boot according to The Hindu).

The former is arguably the greatest all rounder to ever play the game of cricket while the latter was one of Indians all time great music directors. A curious co-incidence is the fact that one of the best batsmen of my times Sachin Tendulkar is named after Sachin Dev Burman.

First Sir Gary Sobers, 8000 odd runs at 58 and 235 wickets at an average of 34 says something about this master of the game. He is one of the players chosen in Bradmans XI of the best players the Don has seen play and fills the crucial all rounders slot along with another of my favourite cricketers Keith Miller. Sir Gary got 90 votes out of 100 for the five Wisden cricketers of the century second only to the incomparable Don who got all 100(nothin less was expected from him).

But then Sir Gary was more Keith Miller than the Don. Probably his best innings was the 254 that he played against the Australians while playing for the World XI. In the first 3 innings he was something of a bunny against Dennis Lillee. He didnt earn any sympathy from Lillee by bowling short to him in the second match's first innings at the MCG. Lillee is supposed to have said "That little bastard, I will show him ... I haven't really bowled at him yet'." What followed the next day in the second innings was pure vintage Sobers, he just thrashed them. 254 superbly compiled runs which led him to remark : "Every attacking shot went to the boundary and Dennis, as inexperienced as he was then, was bowling too short." There is one shot that will always remain etched in my memory (courtesy all those Saturday special couloumns that I would read in The Hindu by Nirmal Sekhar and co.) a yorker to which most batsman would have thought of defending off the front foot to a pacer of Lillees pace (Abdul Razzaq found out too late yesterday against Steve Harmison of not going forward) just lent back and sent it crashing into the long off fence. Lillees views "went down in my follow-through to try to stop it; by the time I was down, I was looking back and the ball had hit the boundary fence and bounced back. I have never witnessed a shot of such power and grace. I thought to myself, `We are in for some,'".

The Dons comments: "Having seen all the players of the last 50 years, I believe that Sobers' was the greatest exhibition of batting seen in Australia. I have seen nothing equal to it in this country."

He also commited some blunders mostly as a captain, declaring against England setting them a target of 200 in 165 mins resulting in a loss. But then thats the way he played his cricket, for him it was just a sport and there was no fun in no result test matches.

Heres a much better account of the meastro : To Sir With Love

What can one talk about a musician of the calibre of Sachin Dev Burman, well all one needs to do is watch Bandini to realise his mastery, suffice it to say that each composition just kept getting better as the movie went on and listening to "O Re Maajhi" I was transformed into some other dimension, a higher state of living. I will leave the rest to my Musician Friend.

Every day in every way I am becoming more and more Bitter

2006-07-24T15:26:00.000+05:30

Sjecas li se, Dolly Bell (1981)

How do you like a movie? In general, I believe there are three kinds of movies: the kind you hate in the absolute sense, the kind that you can watch once, and the kind that you can watch many times (which is usually because it has a lobby scene, the lady herself, or maybe the great chain gang talks about sailing into the uncharted international waters of high finance)

Movies directed by Kusturica seem to fall into the last category. No fault of his, though. Somehow, with a small-name cast (well, no-name, but I was curious about Dolly) he manages to bring down that rare bird: an enjoyable movie.

The story, itself, is not very unique: a "growing-up story", crammed into the post-Sputnik era in that most bombed of Bosnian cities, where young Dinosaur learns that he is a special person: He has been empowered by the Baba of the earth above and sky below as his prophet in Jugo. His mission (which he chose to accept) is to preach the wonders of autosuggestion and hypnotism to none other than Mandrake the Magician.

Unfortunately, real life intervenes. Dino is a great musician with an appalling taste in music (as clearly demonstrated by an Italian love song that he sings. Another proof: when his uncle belts out a snappy Servian number on the local guitar, he chooses to have an impromptu session of all-in wrassling with a brother of his, who is only too happy to oblige.) The local Kommuneastern Hauptkampgruppefuhrer, affectionately referred to as "four-eyes" by the subtitles, is obliged to organise a band to rock out said Italian song. Band gets led by the young saurian himself, which naturally cuts into his prophetic works.

Incidentally, there is this almost amusing incident where one of the more fervent followers of the deputy baba tries to hypnotise his girl (judging from earlier remarks he makes about her, and his later behaviour, I have no hesitation in claiming they are the "made for each other" type.), only to have the hypnosis succeed all too well. He is so surprised by that that the baba resolves to punish him for his thoughtcrime.

All stories about growing up inevitably tend to involve a certain type of female love interest. This seems to be a reasonable truth. When in doubt, remember la bella's second least horrible role, in Malena. (While I am sure that Caulfield did not have any such thing, what do I remember? Maybe the reference passed right over my head. Anyway.) The dinosaur meets his companion from the ark when she gets rudely dumped at his window, with instructions from the local mafiosi on what she is to be fed when kept in his zoo. (Literally a zoo, since he feeds pigeons and hypnotises rabbits there.) The usual sort of stuff happens, followed by the usual sort of denouement when said mafiosi recollects that he had left a package c/o the saur. Incidentally, this female interest is Dolly Bell, and she gets this name from (another!) Italian "actress", whom she does her valiant best to impersonate, with the full and compleat package consisting of a blond wig and not much else.

Interspersed with this moving and touching and feeling story are the inevitable subtexts, such as on the evils of smoking, and the problems that hospital life causes to your devout scientist.

The finale consists of le Saur reading out the least efficient plan to cause a permanent summer on the earth to his father on his deathbed (not Dino's.) Everyone knows that moving the earth's plane of rotation is silly: a nuclear war is the fastest way to cause that particular type of summer. It beats out the closest competing plan - that of burning fuel like mad - as it is much faster.

Actually, no - that's not the finale. The finale is the usual "moving on, better times, better places" kind of stuff. But by then, the audience tends to wait in a sick dread for the inevitable discussions that follow such movies. They reminded me, rather clearly, why I considered the great zentral schule board's move to replace traditional english textbooks with "communicative "english"" to be somewhat less than optimal. Remember your english classes in school? People who couldn't recognise an original idea if it gave them a lap dance would proudly declaim original "explanations" for the chocolate cream soldier's cowardice.

In conclusion, the movie leaves us with two thoughts:

What the hell happened to Dolly Bell?

Ingrish classes are injurious to health

And yes, dark chocolate is nice. As is coffee without milk.

C.S.R -- Korporate S**t Review

2006-07-17T16:46:00.000+05:30

I Nightwatchmen dont believe I am doing this (shamelessly inspired from this). Reviewing a movie filled with so much stupidity that it does not deserve a review, but then again I dont do too many things I believe in.

Basically think of the director as a IIT-ian who like all male IIT-ians is totally deprived of any sort of female company for 4 years when his hormones were in over drive. Now he wanted to make a porn movie but then he realised to get into Page 3 you needed to do something else (no puns intended). So then he wields the camera and derives vicarious pleasure(s) by making actors and actresses play out what he would have been fantasising about when he was in a class of Applied Geology on Friday afternoons in the sweltering heat of April.

1. As one of the guys on the board who screws his underling and gives her a "out of turn" promotion.

2. As the chairman of a big company who has a news reporter for confidante who arranges for young nubile nymphomaniacs for him. (Just to releive his guilt he calls the confidante a "bloody pimp" sometime in the movie when I was not muttering "what the f**k is going on ?").

3. As the COO of the rival company who keeps giving lecherous glances at anything that has a hole and moves.

4. As the finance minister of the state who gets to screw the top notch(all the notches were really at the top) item girl. (By the way please if the item number bandi does have weight in all the wrong places it is not the best thing to make her bend and film her in profile, it sort of shows that gravity actually exists....)

5. Again as the COO of the rival company who is first seduced by the bong COO(bherry bherry komplikated name) of the rival company only to refuse to sleep with him but in the process causing a spurt in his testosterone generation. Later on going to a disco and finding a model with big whatever (surely not brains) who literally performs lots of jobs and once our COO is asleep only to see the bong COO back, use a USB to download data from the hard drive of his laptop (this is getting dirtier and dirtier) which shows all the promos of the latest ad campaign to be run by his company. Passwords anyone ??

6. And then of course how can I forget the loser of the world who screws the heroine only to jump off a building and die and leave the heroine all alone with his kid.

There are 2 good things to look out for

1. Designer shades of the heroine (and no there are no shades of grey here)

2. Her designer watches, absolutely fabulous.

This is not a Review

2006-06-30T05:00:00.000+05:30

20 things not to do in a movie:

1. AMOUNT = PRINCIPAL + INTEREST does NOT constitute an IQ test. Please refer to a textbook on general psychology to figure out what constitutes an IQ test.

2. If you are making a movie on a superhero, dont make him do stunts like running faster than a horse, Mithunda runs faster than electricity to save his sister from the electric chair without claiming to have gotten any powers from aliens.

3. Have a random female who does not look good play your heroine who goes for para gliding and then crash onto a tree top only to be rescued by the hero. All that is fine but the random female emitting a series of "feline sounds" that would make you wish that you were actually listening to "Tera Tera Sooroor" by Himesh Reshamiyya who has a nose for these things is a frightening proposition.

4. Random females who para glide with so much make up that you wonder whether she was not better off following the example of her "most admirable living woman" Mother Teresa.

5. Have a species who is the random females companion who looks and sounds so irritating that you wonder whether it wasnt better for the villain to make an early entry and boil her in a vat full of castor oil before feeding her to his pigs.

6. Have the random female emit cacophonous sounds on twisting her ankle that it makes you suddenly realise that the "Old lady in the CL of IIT Kgp sounded melodious".

7. Have a heroine who looked great in her time and still looks good play the grandmother of the protagonist and somehow force her to act in the way that the Big B did in that @#&^@*#^ of a movie called Black.

8. After a serious bit of miscasting make her wash clothes so many times with the detergent brand displayed so prominently so many times that it makes you wonder whether there isnt more significance attached to it. Like maybe the grandma is a drug addict who compulsively has to have heroin which she conveniently stores in her detergnet pack to fool her MENSA club potential grandson.

9. Have the random female say "Krishna tumhe English aati hai", in the process making all guys who have that name a huge inferiority complex. I could hear a groan "Damn that explains why I am still single, the gals think I am an illiterate, uncouth guy who does not know English".

10. Have the random female and the companion wear such skimpy clothes to their office that it makes you doubt whether the real casting couch exists not in the film industry but in the offices of the news channels.

11. After having an irritating species for the companion(IC for irritating companion) get someone who is 10 times as bad to play the random females(RF) boss, and you think of the punishment in #5 above and immediately feel sorry for the pigs.

12. Not having enough money to make the movie, which leaves one at the sponsors mercy and then you suddenly have RF,IC eating the sponsors chips almost all the time. (For the discerning electrical engineers there was no pun intended in the above statement).

13. Have 5 songs too many. (For the numerically and arithmetically challenged this movie had 5 songs).

14. Have a person whos played some excellent roles in the past including a novice photographer and a cricket coach to play the villain.

15. Make him appear in such a mop of grey hair that you begin to wonder whether the joke really is true about grey cells all coming out with the grey hair. I mean why the hell would such a talented actor play such a stupid role.

16. Dont ever make the villain "The chairman of the biggest IT company in the world, Techtotronix". (Far too close to Tektronix in my opinion).

17. Dont make reporters interviewing the aforesaid villain come up with statements like "Your contributions to the field of wireless communications are immense. Because of your work computers have become handheld, we can now watch cricket matches on mobile phones". (Unfortunately I happen to work on this field which didnt really help matters).

18. When you want to give the villain a abnormal streak please come up with something more imaginative than the villain mouthing what the next days news reader would do beginning all the way with "Breaking News". Instead of giving the villain a psycho streak it gives him a comic one.

19. While making a movie about a superhero, dont wait till the second half of the second half of the movie for the hero to become the superhero. Making him romance RF for the first three quarters of the movie only makes matters worse.

20. Dont have grand reunions of the Great Indian Family at the end and then make the superheroes father make transmitters that emit "The sum of all vibrations in the unvierse - OM" to attract aliens, that makes you realise exactly what Jagjit Singh is talking about in this Ghazal :

"Jeete Rahne ki Sazaa de Zindagi ai Zindagi
Jeete Rahne ki Sazaa de Zindagi ai Zindagi
Ab to marne ki dua de Zindagi ai Zindagi".

Fear the Hairy Fairies

2006-06-28T14:19:00.000+05:30

If only we were talking about these.

To properly review a movie, it requires one of two things: that you really like it (and presumably, it is a great movie, rather than a pile of bat droppings that went unsold at the weekly fertilizer fair), or that you really hate it. Hatred is an underrated force, the kind that can move mountains and collapse buildings. Pure clean hatred, and glowing anger are usually an indicator that someone succeeded in doing something valuable to them (and pissing off everyone else, but that is a different story.) If a movie inspires neither emotion, it tends to be almost impossible to hate, and impossible to dislike either. The barriers are too high for successful tunnelling in either direction. In this respect, I would actually claim that hatred is a positive emotion.

Now this movie, which stars Paresh Rawal and his two lapdogs as the band of bumbling brothers who pull off a sick jape or two while simultaneously trying to channel Guy Richie, inspires one emotion. Actually, it inspires a lot more than that: The initial song-and-dance sequence demonstrates, a little too graphically, that some (all, probably) actresses are courageous, to actually allow themselves to be photographed at close-range. Or maybe photographed at all, particularly if you end up sitting in the cramped seating of the forward rows of a relatively large-screened theater whose projection devices are run by a deaf operator. However, this is digression.

The fairies in this case are the bloody-minded overspending lapdogs, and the owner of the lap, all of who get involved in a complicated plot to retrieve money they had stolen from "Ocean's Twelve" (the story was stolen from O12, and the money in "Hairy Fairies", I mean.)

The short of it is that they invest in the Great Indian Bull Market, which invests in the unnamed foreign Military-Industrial Cartel (in the words of the Bipshell Bong herself. Er, bongshell, but you get the idea), which is of course known to double its investors contributions in 7 days. Unfortunately for all of them, a peace or two happened, the bull went bear (in some shady nudist club or other, it happens to the beast of us), and they (and the people they borrowed from) are all suddenly looking at well, a flop?

Meanwhile, the busy investor was busy discovering the difficulty in converting a thousand-rupee note into smaller fragments without cutting it -- which is considered a heinous crime by all and sundry, even if its a fake note -- in the pleasantly unpleasant company of the other bongshell. This would have provided an amusing diversion, were it not for the fact that the movie itself is an amusing diversion for the terminally embalmed and fatally decomposed victims that archaeologists dig up every now and then, getting cursed in the process.

Much complications ensue, that involve:

dance bars which seem to be all dance and no bar

stereotyped villains

monotyped villains, who cross-dress (as cops also, that is)

a chimpanzee

a painting of Shivaji that gets desecrated

a toy rabbit that swallows diamonds, presumably with the daily recommended quantity of roughage (thus, of course, ensuring that Guy R's other movie is also copied from)

a circus

high-jinks and hijacks, acrobats and airheads

a lot more diamonds than can be expected to fit in a pouch that size

moral lessons

sartorial lessons, particularly on the inadvisability of wearing pink and simultaneously giving Himmy the Ham a chance to not breathe through his nose

while on songs, do you dream in audio? dolby, no less?

did I mention pink? purple? yellow? green?

and Himmy the Hammer? Who sings, not exactly like MC Hammer, but like the mosquito orchestra I train to serenade me while sleeping - they weigh much less than headphones, you see. And of course, the lack of visual distraction that might prevent people from noticing the agonies of torture they are suffering.

The prize of course goes to the comments overheard "The first half was good, but the second half was too complicated", and "those three are fun, but the side characters spoil the movie"

Since some people seem to feel that I have a negative attitude about movies, let me state that I look carefully for positive aspects, as the proactive synergy required for positive thinking requires a wholly partial fully distributed approach.

And the positive? The creative instincts of the filmmaker (may he go forever unnamed, so that no blasphemous words be uttered to despoil the peace) did not dare to tamper with LS2SB's ending.

gods, capital letters and capital punishment.

2006-06-26T16:52:00.000+05:30


All things dull and ugly,
All creatures short and squat,
All things rude and nasty,
The Lord God made the lot.

Each little snake that poisons,
Each little wasp that stings,
He made their brutish venom.
He made their horrid wings.

All things sick and cancerous,
All evil great and small,
All things foul and dangerous,
The Lord God made them all.

Each nasty little hornet,
Each beastly little squid--
Who made the spikey urchin?
Who made the sharks? He did!

All things scabbed and ulcerous,
All pox both great and small,
Putrid, foul and gangrenous,
The Lord God made them all
    -- Selim, at "the board"

For all the theists and monotheists offended by the above, do take the time to reflect that it is true: The ahwk needed enough room to carry the damn mosquito in it^[1]. Informal histories report that the statutory pool of sewage to ensure that particular pair's successful breeding was warmly welcomed by the rest of the animals. This may have been the first recorded instance of political myopia (save the pwetty bwoodsuckers^TM) causing long-term damage.

I devoutly hope that the polytheists are not offended by the above poem. After all, one set of polytheists does not have a god for lords, and the other set has snake (and jackal) gods.

But too much of these godly deviations can take up the whole post, which, despite the fun it affords, is not exactly what we aim for. So without too much more delay, we dive into:

Journal d'un cure de campagne (1950)

A movie that gives a deep insight into the above poem, as well as its original version. While the title does not need translation, those who think it refers to the famous article in the Non-Ahngleeish Medical Journal about the healthful effect of Dom Perignon 1950 will be disappointed.

This movie is about a young (and ill) priest who goes to his first parish, and promptly proceeds to solve all the problems that the local parishioners face. Unfortunately, some of them regard his approach as being theoretically unsound, and not amenable to use by number-crunching machinery. The rest of the movie continues this theme, and finally finishes by finishing off the priest (ill, you remember?)

One technique that Bresson abuses is the device of someone telling the priest something, and the movie proceeding for some time before the audience discovers what that was. Hey, it was made in '50, when this was probably a radical departure from 'standard' linear plot evolution. It is probably unfair to the man to consider it as a cheap attempt to add suspense.

This movie is, by the way, religious. In the words of someone else, you will like this movie, if this is the sort of thing you like.

[1] To bring this story within the bounds of ~~all~~ most modern fiction, maybe what the ark carried was the DNA of some unicellular organism?

Kaa ho, Seth?

2006-06-22T16:53:00.000+05:30

[uneditors translation of the above statement, made in a dialect marred by a mouthful of chewable carcinogen: "Death, where is thy sting?"]

Damnation (Karhozat)

Movies shot after the 60's should stick to colour. If not, it tends to give them a look that sometimes may wildly succeed (in spite of my initial objections), but more often than not, give the movie the look of a low-budget horror film.

Take this one, for instance: award winning and much tarred-and-feathered director, nameless (and anyway unpronounceable) cast, and in the end, the movie leaves you with a sense of -- but I'm jumping. Some amount of suspense is required.

So, the basic premise: it's the cold war, advisors say the analysts say that the golden age is just over, and production of minerals is at an all-time automated high. Ore cabs sail blithely over Notown, Communeastern Europe on their way to be processed into arms to continue the (Mexican) standoff. None of which actually matters, since the movie has nothing to do with weighty world events, except that the constant buzzing of the cabs provides background music to nonexistent conversations.

Enter into this, a solipsistic bar-hopping hero who spends his remaining time looking out the window and wondering why his calculator says that 1782¹² + 1841¹² = 1922¹², when he knows pretty well that the old man said it wouldn't.

Unfortunately for his peace of mind, the woman he stalks in whatever spare time his other occupations leave him is married. So he gets her husband a job, smuggling some unnamed material from a certain Khan, A. Q. to a nameless third power, via the long way (scenic trip, you know. Much easier on the tyres.) The aim being, of course, to convince the woman that he is capable of doing a lot more than just proving Fermat wrong.

A few thousand parties and bar-hops later, he takes the sensible step of informing the local CIA office that the husband (now safely returned from transporting his valuable cargo) actually smuggled something he shouldn't have to an undesirable destination. This masterstroke reduces him to conversing with dogs, who are the only company he has who don't actively bark back at him: naturally, he can bark a lot louder. Than the dogs, that is.

Oh, how could I forget the Oracle, making her first appearance here, as a woman whose hair went white because of the shocks that dealing with such heroes gave her? Her tendency to quote wildly inappropriate passages from holy books?

For a noir movie that pretends to not explain the meaning of life, the universe and everything else, it is the sort of slow-moving caterpillared plot-less egregious excuse for entertainment that would put a chess game between two rank (and smelly) amateurs playing underwater to shame. Anything else, however, is beyond its limited capabilites.

An imdb reviewer says "[the cameraman] Medvigy uses light like Ennio Morricone uses music." Quite true. It's overused, repetitive and the sort of thing you tend to carry in your mind for a very long time after watching the movie.

Now where's my Mithunda movie? I want my mithun movie! Dhormendro in "Garam Veer" doesn't quite cut it - warm beer is for the ancient Britons only...

Funaaaaaaaarghhhhh

2006-06-01T13:30:00.000+05:30

I had almost decided that this movie was not worth a review. But then when Megha decided to blog about it, I thought I would be doing a dis-service to all the insane people who read this blog.

Well review is gonna be short. I watched it on Friday night intending to watch a proper time pass 36 China Town, but zee Innovative Multiplex guys decided to become zee innovative and changed all the movie timings. And I had to end up watching this movie. Only when I saw that the director was Kunal Kohli (who by the way copied Hum Tum from When Harry Met Sally and left out what was in my opinion the best scene, yeah the one where Meg Ryan fakes it) did I realise that after Trimurti this was my worst choice ever.

The Movie starts off well though, what with Kajol playing a blind girl unpretentiously, such a refreshing change from the overacted-ultra-mega-giga-hamming-ooh-I-am-so-blind-look-at-me-fighting-to-behave-normally role that Rani essayed in Black. And of course the first song "Chand Sifarish" (excellent bass guitar and thankfully no nasal himesh to ruin it) and all the excellent shayaris did hold my attention for some time.

Theres the hot friend (forget her name, though I wonder whether Aamir did a Akshaye Khanna from "Dil Chahta Hai" by falling for the older woman). Just to remind me that its a mediocre Kunal Kohli movie yet again we have Kiron Kher (whose immortal lines in Hum Tum were : "nikke nikke bache tatti kar rahe hain road pe, mazaa aa gaya") whose only aim in life seems to be to get her daughter screwed by a "shehzaada" (roughly translated a prince who is straight), and yeah did I mention Aamir in a vain effort to build some strength in his forearms lifts Kajol(who by the way looks great and for once in a movie is not shouting in her high pitch irritating voice) in his hands and walks on some train tracks(Me wishing that the Shatabdi Express comes along the rails and Aamirs legs get stuck in one of those joints in the rails) and that at the end of the first half Kajol is voila not blind.

Then it all goes awry. Finally I guess I found why Indias population is so high, all it needs is for Kajol to get screwed once by Aamir and soon enough theres the kid later on (She was not only blind but DUMB as well you see). Tabu plays some kind of anti-terrorist-crack squad leader. No wonder imdb does not have her in the credits. Coz she and the whole squad of hers is really a crack. All in all the second half is tortouous the only saving grace being the last song "Tere Haath Main".

Please stay home and watch this movie being shown yet again on Zee cinema rather than risk Fanaa. Fanaa is seriously Fun-naaaah.

P.S : There was one redeeming feature for me, the fact that I ended up sitting next to a colleague who wanted to whisper coochy-cooes to his fiancee all through the movie but his bad luck that me and my friend made life tough for him till he bought enough samosas in the interval to stuff our mouths up during the second half. And also did I mention that to de-stress myself after this traumatic experience of watching Fanna I went home and watched Lara play an accomplished 69 in his penultimate ODI at Trinidad and Tobago. His six off Bhajji and two inside out lofted drives over cover off Powar made the day er night for me.

The reification of an ideal

2006-05-29T14:46:00.000+05:30

One of this insighnificant one's significant aims in life was to become a culture fart, after noticing that once you start talking about why Hegel and Schlegel are better than Whegel to similarly-minded people, why, your opinion on such mundane questions like, say, the best way to burn a transistor[1] is positively sought after. Your sphere of influence immediately becomes a target needing a radiation-hardened bunker, and you spend the rest of your life wondering why the lambs run away as you approach with the butcher knife hidden safely behind your back.

So naturally, once opportunity knocked with an offer to "improve my cultural horizons", I ended up taking it: Winners of the Palme d'Or (foldly called the "pah! deo!" by those of us who can't pronounce it), screened in a fashion to enlighten uncultured pond scum[2] while still providing wholesome entertainment to the rest of the world.

Naturally, some reputations suffered.

Here's a list, and the recommendations:

Shadow Warrior(Kagemusha)

A secret weapon created to avenge great loss of life, this movie succeeds in what it was created to do. The only doubt remaining is what, exactly, that was. It certainly wasn't to describe how Ieyasu Tokugawa became Shogun after Roman-descended missionaries sold him weaponry capable of converting three cavalry charges into dog meat. It wasn't a story of how one man reforms, discovers a purpose in life, and dies on losing that. This movie is watchable, in spite of possessing the trappings that a pahdeo winning movie seems to need.

Of course, the fact still remains: play Total War: Shogun, and you get a much more immersive experience of how to become Shogun. You miss the human interest stuff, though - which might be a bad thing. Or not. The historical details (as much as I know, which isn't much) are very nicely done in the movie, and if you like that sort of thing, and are willing to endure directorial dictatorship. Besides, Kurosawa had no Kensai. No Legendary Geishas, either.

Since this is supposed to be a movie that makes you think, don't be disappointed if all you can think is "Sank de Gott! Itt eis der Ower."

Underground (Podzemlje)

Light relief after shogunnic wars consists of the Wehrmacht rolling into Yugoslavia, the resistance run by a pair of actors, Tito and the Balkan genocide. Watching this, I realised that there is a very simple-minded formula to make a movie that I am almost sure to enjoy:
- crooked heroes
- crooked villains (who are the villains rather than the heroes through no fault of their own: Maybe they were born under a swastika, maybe Broccoli decided that they needed a hole in the head[3]). Even better, if the villain has no screen time, and just his(her? their?) deeds show.
- a plot that gets so complicated that keeping it in some sort of order requires a legion of auditors. It needn't make sense, thought that separates the truly great movies from the passing fancies. The Wacky Bros greivously disappoint on this score.
- Eyecandy. It need not be the Bellucci, even the fires signalling the orc (or whatever) advance (or retreat) in LotR:RotK fits. Bellucci is just more likely to tilt the scale on the "right" side, though...
- Humour. It need not be black, though that is always a bonus.
- Only in strict moderation, "social messages". It helps if they're not obvious. Gobbels wanted.
And of course, watch out for the chimpanzee.

This is the best movie of the lot, even considering the rose~~butt~~bud. Stolen news footage cleverly juxtaposed with Marko Markovich gives it a sense of immediacy about forty years too late, though the serbian shots make it worthwhile. Add in the wheelchair and the tolling church bell, to get one of the most powerful images of this movie (That the director promptly ruins with
his own version of heaven. If heaven is like the wedding of the Corleone daughter, we prefer hell.)

A taste of cherry (Ta'm e guilass)

No, it doesn't mean a Tam in a glass - imbibing that particular concoction will leave you lucky if you get off with the bubonic plague.

Another of those sensitive movies, this time about a guy who wishes to commit suicide, and yet be buried properly in accordance with his religious beliefs, I presume. What other reason can anyone have to offer people money to bury him? At that - Tehran seems to be a well-behaved and proper city. Try that particular stunt in this hell-hole, and you're likely to get your
wishes answered rather more quickly than you ever wanted.

The ending doesn't tell us whether he dies or lives (I've spoilt the movie for you. Appy Polly Logies.) More seriously: it doesn't tell us why he decides to commit suicide. Now, since I'm an insensitive character, here's my take: Badii the bad is a professional goldfish racer, who races his fishies against those the Smart Set of Iran cultivate. Owing to a sudden shortage of fish at the local Dhaba, the cook breaks into B. the b's place, and steals his thoroughbred racer, which has forty-two generations of careful inbreeding behind it (Cleo, eat dirt. You had what? Seven?) Next thing you know, well, you have a depressed rich maniac running around the industrial wastelands searching for an accomplice to help him die. Technically, they're not accomplices, but his burial duty, for a special consideration.

B. the b's even gone to the extent of digging his grave in an out-of-the-way place, so all they have to do is cause a landslide - no infrequent occurence in mud hills - which takes care of the problem nicely. So he finds his victim (accomplice, I mean), a loudmouth, talkative stuffer[4] whom he magically creates out of a stone shoveller, who is supposed to do his best to wake him up. Bad the baddy then goes, takes a sleeping draught[5] and goes to lie down in his makeshift grave.

The movie would end there, but then Der Directornaut Kierostami got a sure-fire idea to get his movie the pahdeo. The (now sadly annihilated) Republican Guard invades, and puts B. the baddy into a dilution camp, where he plies his trade. Die End (or is it Der End? No matter.)

It seems that being a c.f. is a nice thing.

[1] There is a best way.

[2] and coincidentally induce severe spinal disorder in the long term. Not that it matters - the pursuit of liberty, freedom and culture is fraught with hardship to be endured.

[3] Sadly, he wasn't the best villain Bond had to deal with. Bond villains never die, they never say never.

[4] Taxidermist. Refer Sharpe T., "The Throwback".

[5] Water?

Presenting V for Vishesh Tippani

2006-05-23T05:25:00.000+05:30

After reading Meghas latest post I decided to internalise a movie that one of my co-bloggers reviewed.

The movies name will be "V for Vishesh Tippani". Its hero will be the lovely person who is the object of Meghas post. The hero in this movie will quote Prabhuji, Chiru and Rajni of course not in that order.

Also his favourite movie will be this one rather than "The Count of Monte Cristo".

Next thing to do is figure out who will play the bald Natalie Portman in my movie, I will of course get Sushma Sworoj to do it since by then Sonia Gandhi would have become our PM.

I would like to ask Neha whether she would kindly agree to play the blood-thirsty-over-ambitious-oh-I-think-I-am-the-next-nobel-winner-doctor who makes VT to veer away from Mom, Aloo ke Parathe and Gajar ka Halwa to "Defend democracy in the holy and historical city of Chennai ruled by a vicious dictator with a scary-fear-inducing title called Bulla" (my tribute to the greatest villain in Indian movie history).

For people who are insane enough to visit our blog heres a sneak preview to one of the scenes as well (Part of a flashback of VTs previous life):
"VT is sitting on a metallic chair and Neha fed up of all heroes liking Aloo ke Parathe and Gajar ka Halwa has decided she going to convert him to liking Karela Juice and Baingan ka Bharta by electrocuting him. She flips on the switch, at the same time we see Nightwatchmen making his special appearance in his own movie a la Subhash Ghai (Hitchcock by reversing time copied these in his movies), start running and they show the blue streak of electricity travelling along the wire and straining his last sinew he throws VT off the chair, but gets himself killed since he comes into contact with the chair. (Of course there will be a whole flashback in a flashback where nightwatchmen is just another flundering poor mongrel on the streets who gets through IIT and then a job in the IT industry all because of VTs large heart.).Cut back to the flashback and VT is emerging out of a stinking Cooum (Bo Derek again copied this by reversing time) and take the pledge that was mentioned in the last paragraph."

And of course I am hoping that Megha would kindly consent to do an item number in the movie.

Now if only I could get someone to play the gay news reader, any ideas Ser Feenix or Mentalbaba ??

Gulliver's Travels, Redux

2006-05-08T17:23:00.000+05:30

Or: The One-sided guidebook to the lands of Polemica, Disinformatsya and Rhetorika

Or: How not to stab yourself in the face when you decide to inform the world that
some entity is mutant scum.

Originally inspired by some seriously brilliant writing on Ze Hindoo by an almost-spawned tadpole from Das Mutterland's least greatest Great Technical Institution, this turned into a reasonably good guideline for excitable authors. Kaaawya included.

Zo, liebchen: you haff decided dat I are evil? And you wish to proclaim this fact to the world? Here's how you do it:

Grab attention. USE CAPITALS. Marx wrote Das Capital, a masterly exposition of this little-known emendation to fast leg theory (not to be confused with the long leg theory of, say, H.Klum[1].)

Generalise. All generalisation is true, for some particular value of true. If nothing else, it will always confuse the issue

Adjectives are your friend. When absolutely unnecessarily scatteredly used, analysis will definitely positively require more effort than the reader is prepared to give, thus making your statements true by default.

Be sure of your facts. Then distort them.

Innuendo is your friend. When used accurately, it is capable of a lot more damage than a list of long facts that no one reads anyway.

Conflation and elision are both very valuable tools. (Explanation elided, for various reasons rooted in laziness)

Volume overrules mass. The loudest idiot who shouts the longest is the most valuable supporter any team playing in the forthcoming vorld kup can ever have.

Sensation overrides substance.

Vox Populi always Whacks Dei.

Never underestimate the power of the majority, it can argue for you more coherently than you ever could.

Ze master, being Ze German, stated these points better. A link to him might just be included here, but you really should find him for yourself...

[1] I would be tempted to put in a google imagesearch here. Still, do it yourself.

Bericht von München der Film

2006-05-08T10:39:00.000+05:30

Spielbergs latest offering Munich is a good movie but not quite there unlike some of his other movies. That Spielberg is very proud of his Jewish roots and Israel is quite apparent from some of his other movies primary among them Schindlers List.

11 Israeli athletes were kidnapped and then murdered by a terrorist group called Black September during the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich. This movie is about the Mossads retaliation to assassinate Palestinian leaders suspected of planning and carrying out this attack.

A 5 person team lead by Avner (Eric Bana) are recruited and assigned the task of eliminating the Palestinian leaders who are suspected of carrying out the attack. Initially the team does not question about the roles played by the persons they are asked to eliminate and even rejoice when the kill the first guy pn their list.

But soon the disillusionment creeps in when they realise that the persons they kill are being replaced by some one whos probably far worse. And soon they are forced into killing civilians and also start becoming targets of assassinations. The disillusionment is totally captured by a pleading Mathieu Kassovitz when he opts out of a mission where the team plans to kill a Dutch assassin who has killed one of their team: " We are supposed to be righteous. That's a beautiful thing. And we're losing it. If I lose that, that's everything. That's my soul. ".

This is probably one of the highlights of the movie, it does not pass any judgement on either the Jews or the Palestinians. The internal conflicts are brilliantly portrayed by Eric Bana, one of many gripping performances in the movie. What the movie lacks though is a single theme on which the director tries to get through to the audience. There is a superficial handling of a lot of issues but none of them are examined more thoroughly so what one ends up getting is a lot of questions without many answers. But surely the movie is well worth a watch, if for nothing else then for the excellent cinematography and the great performances (I am leaving out Geoffrey Rush and the new James Bond Daniel Craig here since I am too lazy to write anything more).

Zee Perfect Book

2006-04-20T18:38:00.000+05:30

Just finished reading A Perfect Spy by John Le Carre. And like most of his other books this one too had me engorssed right till the end.

The book is sort of semi autobiography based on his father who was THE conman. More known for his series on Karla and cold war spy fiction, this book makes for a refreshing change as it flits between the protagonists flashback and the English secret services desparate attempt on trying to locate him when he disappears after his fathers death.

And of course Jack Brotherhood and Axel (dont know whether I spelled that right)are exactly the sort of persons one would encounter in a Le Carre book, totally dysfunctional and anachronistic.

I started reading Le Carre about a year back when I was told to read The Spy who came in from the Cold. Hes the sort of author who grows on you, initially it feels sort of really boring stuff but as one perseveres one really enjoys such spy fiction more than that highly over rated Robert Ludlum stuff. And not too many people read Le Carre, in fact one guy in my alumni group was totally thrilled when he came to know that I read Le Carre but then we were just the two of us. And after that it continued with the Quest for Karla which involved a series of battles between Le Carres greatest creation George Smiley and Karla. Quest for Karla involved three books Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Honourable Schoolboy and finally culminating in the masterpice Smileys People (much better than the Bourne series which sort of just dipped in quality after The Bourne Identity). After that I was hooked and finished The Tailor of Panama (yeah the Pierce Brosnan movie), The Night Manager, The Secret Pilgrim, The Constant Gardener (yeah the Rachel Weisz movie), The Little Drummer Girl. Most of the ones mentioned in the last statement are not about the Cold War times. And finally finished The Looking Glass War (which I must say is actually right up there with his best) before reading The Perfect Spy. So if any of you who are reading this do happen to have copies of either Call for The Dead or A Murder of Quality please let me know.

And once I am done with the Salman Rushdie that I am reading right now I will be reading A Small Town in Germany and Absolute Friends next week which I am gonna get from the Alternate Moebyus.

So if you want a break from the James Bond level stunts and spies running against time to save the world and instead want to bite into some real life spy fiction written by a real pro whos seen it all then Le Carre is the man for you.

P.S: The "Zee" in the title has come from watching this movie.

Leander

2006-04-10T15:36:00.000+05:30

Heres an article on one of my favourite sportspersons of India and written by one of my favourite writers on sport.