Saturday, February 01, 2025
Distorted love in 20th century bollywood
I attended a great course called ‘Culture in Media’ in Undergrad in 2007. As part of the course, we watched the 70s movie ‘Deewar’ starring Amitabh Bacchan in his classic angry young man avatar. As a mafioso, he faces off against his brother the cop, essayed by Shashi Kapoor. Some of the commentary and discussions in our undergrad class focused on how the movie reflected the anger and frustrations of the youth against the Indian state, during those times.
During the 70s right through the 90s, the shambolic and
helpless depiction of the cops symbolized the state of the Indian state. Financial
health in decline, the country was tottering towards the balance of payments
crisis of 1991. The Naxalite movement was burgeoning. Arch enemy Pakistan’s GDP per capita was 1.5x of India in 1970, and Pak
replaced India as the numero uno Hockey team in the world, winning Gold in 1968
and Silver in 72. The only bright spot seemed to be the 1971 victory in the battlefield
against Pakistan. The Nana Patekar movie Prahaar demonstrates the situation well-
the hopeless situation of the common man, contrasted with the effectiveness of
the military.
While anger in the form of ‘angry young man’ was one response,
the other reaction was escape. Escapist romantic love was the overarching theme
of big Bollywood movies. A deep romantic love can lead to a complete loss of
one’s logical faculties and convenient escape from the realities of day to day
life- which I read later are actual neurological side effects (albeit momentary)
of deep romantic love. Suddenly, the
courting couple are in Switzerland! How did they get to Switzerland from Dadar
in a blink of an eye! And how can they dance and sing at the same time! Where
are the drums playing? Those dance moves are ridiculous!
So many big movies of the time had this romantic love form
of escape from reality. The desperation to escape (via the route of romantic
love) was to the level of SRK chasing Kajol in DDLJ despite her refusal to
entertain him. Message to the viewer caught in a gritty job and hopeless circumstances
– try hard and find this romantic love at any cost. It allows a beautiful
escape. Apart from dangerously encouraging stalking, this era of movies created
a foolish exaltation of romantic love which I believe would have affected many impressionable
young minds of the generation, including me. I had a complicated relationship with
romantic love in my teens and 20s, on one hand despising and ridiculing the Bollywood
depiction, but at the same time desperately seeking it and going weak in the
knees at times, Bollywood style. I avoided
using the word ‘love’ in the ages 18-28- it was too loaded.
The escapist romantic love shown in Bollywood was also not the right kind of romantic love to demonstrate to vast audiences. ‘Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction’, said Antoine de Saint Exuperey, something a mature me resonates with. The romantic love of Bollywood rarely depicted the nitty-gritties of looking outwards in the same direction.
The romantic love of the 70s-80s-90s not only caused escape but overruled and ultimately defeated other kinds of love. In DDLJ, romantic love was the ultimate manna towards which paternal and maternal love were subservient or worked to enable. Love towards one’s work could not be talked about, because work itself was hard to come by, and if it came, it would likely be desultory and dissatisfying. Private sector was small and the uninspiring yet sprawling public sector was parodied in shows like ‘Flop Show’. ‘Love siblings, parents, or neighbors’ would imply a grounding of the screenplay in the domestic mileu, which was to be avoided because of lack of material comforts and the poor state of housing, sanitation, and public services. ‘Love friends’ was difficult to show because ‘friend-zones’ such as college or travel were not common. ‘Love nature’ was not possible, because the world then was in thrall of industrial and human invention, and the zeitgeist was of humanity ‘conquering’ nature. The conservation movement was yet to take off seriously.
The term 'love-story' was a common term when discussing a movie plot. It referred entirely to escapist romantic love. So 'love' in this definition did not refer to all the other kind of loves (parents, siblings, friends, community, work, nature, hobbies, what not). Together, these other loves can play as big, if not a bigger role, in many lives, than romantic love. There could have been fantastic stories woven around those loves too.
These thoughts came to me at a spiritual event I attended recently, chaired by Nipun Mehta (who by the way has done lot of good through the organization he founded called Service Space). My friends RR (a regular volunteer) and NP were also with me in what was a beautiful evening. So in the middle of some other point he was making, NM said something on the lines of expressing love towards others, and casually added ‘not like the Bollywood kind of love’. This was not even the key thrust of his talk, just a sidenote. However, it stimulated me to put down these thoughts which I’ve often blustered about in bits and pieces to friends and family over the years.
To some extent, I concede that the conclusions I've drawn might be somewhat amiss due to my limited knowledge of Bollywood
movies. I’ve watched few Bollywood movies compared to many friends. So my data set might not be big. Happy to engage and be corrected!
Labels: Cinemas
Sunday, October 18, 2020
"Life of Ram" : The song/video/lyrics is an artistic tour-de-force
I have sporadic barters with Bluestag (aka Rahul Reddy) on the subject of South Indian songs , the best takeaway of which was Kangal Irandaal till 1 year ago. 1 year ago, he suggested to me the Tamil song “Life of Ram” (here it is link) which I heard and enjoyed then, and have been giving it the odd listen on and off. Now RR knows nil Tamil while I know broken, so your ignorance of the language need not be reason to pause here.
Today, I went deep into the said song on Youtube. And came out astounded! It’s an artistic tour-de-force (called TDF hereon), I feel. There are 5 amazing aspects of this artistic TDF:
1) The music2) The lyrics3) The video4) The interplay between the music and the video5) The interplay between the lyrics and video
Let’s dive in.
The music? Thought it was lovely. Vocals are fabulous. The gentle guitar strumming at the start is pleasing. And the way the song seamlessly traverses the high and low pitches, and the rapid and slow speeds, is remarkable. In your first journey through the TDF, I suggest just focus on the music.
As for the lyrics, the youtube video itself displays the lyrics as captions surprisingly accurately, but I suggest don’t focus on the lyrics on the first run. After the first listen, go through the lyrics here: <link> . And that will help you truly soak in the lyrics independent of the song. My Tamil vocabulary is quite limited, so I don’t think knowledge Tamil is required to appreciate. I enjoyed the part about how one likes the sea after reaching the shore, and that today’s experiences will make sense tomorrow. The sentences below are really poetic in their alliteration, and rhyme, and I am guessing took some dexterity in Tamil vocabulary to compose:
Vagai Vagai Vazhgiren, Pagai Paagai Aagiren
Coming to the video, it’s a beautiful endorsement for India’s varying colors, sights and sounds, ranging from forests, seas, country side roads, wildlife, deserts, mountains, city scapes, etc. The video jumps from the contrasts of solitude in the jungle or desert, to the milling crowds of Kolkata. My least favorite part is the romanticization of pigeons because I believe pigeons are noisy pests. The product placement of Renault Duster is not annoying. Also, another hat tip to Reddy here, who himself owned a Duster (Terrano, which is just the same) long ago.
The song and video are interwoven beautifully. Some mesmerizing sequences:
1) Smooth flows: At 20:10, the song is slow and thoughtful and so is the man. At 2:13, the vocals pick up vigour and pace, and simultaneously the man plants his umbrella and purposefully strides out to the waters. at 2:20, when the song goes into “Ad a daaaaa”, the wave is shown flowing smoothly from top view and in a smooth gesture, the man scoops up some water. Fabulous.2) Emergence: At 3:25, the song is mellow. While the song hits a mini crescendo at 3:32, the man emerges from behind a dune, perched atop a camel. On the same theme, a little ahead, the vocals enter an ecstatic sequence, and we suddenly cut to a scene of the man soaking in a waterfall.3) Calmness: At 3:54, when the vocals become calm, the video zooms out, and the waterfall which displayed seconds earlier a frantic energy , is now seen to be calmly and slowly falling to the rocks in wave upon gentle wave.
The interplay between video and lyrics is the final element of the TDF. Some remarkable instances:
1) 2:16 – “The joy of a kitten’s caress”: the wave from the sea caresses the foot of the man.2) 2:19 – “I want to stroke everything I come across, beautifully”: the man bends down and caresses the wave.3) 3:11 – “With the wind flies the hawk”: The wind buffets the lonesome tent in which the man peeps out of4) 3:21 – “Like the rock that goes to the depths of the water” – we see the man falling fast through the dune.5) 3:27 – “Renouncing of sound”- the sound of the chaotic descent of the man through sand disappears as he surveys the surroundings.6) 3:34 – “Like the bird that rides on the bulls hump I will live on the earth”- the man is perched atop a camel and then quickly gets on the ground.7) 3:49 – “This moment envelops like a mother”: the waterfall gushes down and envelops a rock.
Urge you to go through the TDF in the same order as listed above, one by one. Would require 5 journeys through the TDF, which would be a half hour “immersing into the depths”, as the song itself urges.
On a side note, the above exposition on this song puts into practice some of the observational skills I’ve
learnt in the Creativity in Arts and Science course during MBA.
@RahulReddy: Am sure that if this song came out during undergrad, it would have got as many repeat plays on loud volume on your Altec Lansing, as Engel and In the End. Also, the man in the video does resemble you to some extent.
Thursday, September 13, 2018
Impressions from the good movie 'Loving Vincent'
Title's a hat doff to VVG - Impressionism. And font colors are in Van Goghian complementary color style- Blue next to orange. (Could have picked Red-green too)
It is monumental that the entire movie is made of multiple art pieces and 100+ artists contributed to it. I thought it was Prisma filter kind of work- but thanks to iDoc and CK for enlightening about this, and also for bringing the movie back into the radar from which it had dropped off a year ago.
I went to the VVG museum in Amsterdam, a few years back, and it was really well done. As for the works themselves- the paintings, the colors and the brush strokes are mesmerizing. Bought a book which I thought would be pride of place in the living room coffee table but which right now is absconding. After the movie, I'm inspired to launch a search party- and if you visit ma crib and are kicking back on the fouton, I urge you to flip through.
The movie is set in the form of a whodunit, a trusted route for snaring audience attention. Now embellish a whodunit's inherent snare-factor with a renowned artist subject, add art-piece rendition (para 1), some moody music- and you have quite an irresistible recipe which will tickle your lachrymose glands more than once. And when Don Mclean's Starry Starry night chimes in at just the right moment, you have to hit pause- it's too much to handle.
If VVG were to be born in today's world, he'd find the going much easier. Only one work of his was sold during his lifetime. Today, it would have just gone viral and would have drawn buyers from all corners of the world, legit or otherwise (say Russian arms dealer cum-art-collector). Further, as SN pointed out, he would have found a community for his art on FB- called Impressionist Painting Studio, leading to reduced feeling of 'loneliness'. Group would have had Monet et al. Further, I suppose the world is so used to change today, that the change from Realist to Impressionist would not have seen much resistance. In this free market economy, creative destruction is the norm, and this is literally 'creative' destruction.
There's the eternal theme played out in VVG's life of "Out of darkness comes light"/"Night is darkest before the dawn" which a multitude of m ovies and authors and success stories have depicted. VVG loses 3 jobs, and writes in one of his many deep letters that he is not accepted in society, and so on, but then all of this hardens his resolution to prove himself as an artist- which he does with panache.
Edit 1: Search party was successful- book has been located. Below is the wonderful cover, consisting of one of his works. Also, one of his evocative works, Shoes. Shoes also reminds me of the sentiment I feel towards my ol' Woodlands after a nice arduous trek.
My own woodlands, in the middle of a trek in some fairly exotic European location, though not in Netherlands where the above shoe would have been been. Mine do look similar to Van Gogh's boots in make, though not as worn:
It is monumental that the entire movie is made of multiple art pieces and 100+ artists contributed to it. I thought it was Prisma filter kind of work- but thanks to iDoc and CK for enlightening about this, and also for bringing the movie back into the radar from which it had dropped off a year ago.
I went to the VVG museum in Amsterdam, a few years back, and it was really well done. As for the works themselves- the paintings, the colors and the brush strokes are mesmerizing. Bought a book which I thought would be pride of place in the living room coffee table but which right now is absconding. After the movie, I'm inspired to launch a search party- and if you visit ma crib and are kicking back on the fouton, I urge you to flip through.
The movie is set in the form of a whodunit, a trusted route for snaring audience attention. Now embellish a whodunit's inherent snare-factor with a renowned artist subject, add art-piece rendition (para 1), some moody music- and you have quite an irresistible recipe which will tickle your lachrymose glands more than once. And when Don Mclean's Starry Starry night chimes in at just the right moment, you have to hit pause- it's too much to handle.
If VVG were to be born in today's world, he'd find the going much easier. Only one work of his was sold during his lifetime. Today, it would have just gone viral and would have drawn buyers from all corners of the world, legit or otherwise (say Russian arms dealer cum-art-collector). Further, as SN pointed out, he would have found a community for his art on FB- called Impressionist Painting Studio, leading to reduced feeling of 'loneliness'. Group would have had Monet et al. Further, I suppose the world is so used to change today, that the change from Realist to Impressionist would not have seen much resistance. In this free market economy, creative destruction is the norm, and this is literally 'creative' destruction.
There's the eternal theme played out in VVG's life of "Out of darkness comes light"/"Night is darkest before the dawn" which a multitude of m ovies and authors and success stories have depicted. VVG loses 3 jobs, and writes in one of his many deep letters that he is not accepted in society, and so on, but then all of this hardens his resolution to prove himself as an artist- which he does with panache.
Edit 1: Search party was successful- book has been located. Below is the wonderful cover, consisting of one of his works. Also, one of his evocative works, Shoes. Shoes also reminds me of the sentiment I feel towards my ol' Woodlands after a nice arduous trek.
My own woodlands, in the middle of a trek in some fairly exotic European location, though not in Netherlands where the above shoe would have been been. Mine do look similar to Van Gogh's boots in make, though not as worn:
Labels: Cinemas
Saturday, January 20, 2018
A post post the Post
Spotlight (a fab movie on a similar journalistic scoop) and the Post will always be spoken of in the same breath, I suppose. In terms of cinematography, the Post is a more melodramatic, 'Spielbergized' version of Spotlight- more star power (Hanks + Streep is a 1-2 sucker punch), more dramatic camera angles -camera switching often between two scenes- and more music. One of those "two scenes" is classic Spielberg- camera doing different angles and positions of the 'boiler room' of the newspapers- show first the type-setting, then the printing presses, and pan to all the other large machines. Frankly, I felt the boiler room shots were overdone a tad. Spotlight, for example, had none of this. The 'human interest' angle was much more in this movie, definitely- the story of Meryl Streep family, for example. Sounds like me dissing human interest angles, and a vague inner voice criticizes me for doing that.
The Post saw the Supreme Court in its 6-3 ruling, and a united Media (NY Times+Washington Post), come together as one - involved in a show of strength for the 'check and balance' side, in the democracy. Good job, yo, media and jury.
In the US consciousness, this movie probably comes at a good time- the zeitgeist of the press bashing from Trump and the Metoo movement being represented in the movie by the attitude of Nixon towards the press (his sentences on the white house silhouette shots mirror those from a certain famous twitter handle), and Meryl Streep's rise.
It was also interesting for me that the lawyer team of two in the movie stars two actors who I recognize from some of my infrequent dalliances with Sitcoms- Jared from Silicon Valley and Robert Daley from 4*1 Black Mirror 'USS Callister.
Oh and this was the first movie I've gone to a theater watched alone. But, in my social self's defence, the theater was 750 m away from my house and I booked it just an hour in advance, and I did reach out to a large-ish whatsapp group.
The Documentary to Human Melodrama scale below. BBC Planet Earth's 'Life in the Air' is excellent- a documentary on quirky birds. I added 'Human' before melodrama because 'Life in the air' does have melodrama, but not human- only of the avian kind.
The Post saw the Supreme Court in its 6-3 ruling, and a united Media (NY Times+Washington Post), come together as one - involved in a show of strength for the 'check and balance' side, in the democracy. Good job, yo, media and jury.
In the US consciousness, this movie probably comes at a good time- the zeitgeist of the press bashing from Trump and the Metoo movement being represented in the movie by the attitude of Nixon towards the press (his sentences on the white house silhouette shots mirror those from a certain famous twitter handle), and Meryl Streep's rise.
It was also interesting for me that the lawyer team of two in the movie stars two actors who I recognize from some of my infrequent dalliances with Sitcoms- Jared from Silicon Valley and Robert Daley from 4*1 Black Mirror 'USS Callister.
Oh and this was the first movie I've gone to a theater watched alone. But, in my social self's defence, the theater was 750 m away from my house and I booked it just an hour in advance, and I did reach out to a large-ish whatsapp group.
Labels: Cinemas
Sunday, May 15, 2016
"Nil battey Sannatta"- great watch; remarkably timed for yours truly
I watched last week an offbeat movie called Nil Battey Sannatta. A hindi phrase which means "absolutely nothing"- word by word translation gives you: Nil divided by zero. Mathematically it should mean infinity but linguistically in hindi it means a superlative of zero (zero, zero-er, zero-est). Great acting, cinematography and music, decent storyline- overall a very good watch. It's about a girl in 10th grade who is struggling in math mainly because of a lack of motivation to study. She tells her mother, a housemaid, that she'd rather literally follow her mother's footsteps in entering the very same houses in the very same capacity- as the maid. This leaves the mother aghast and the movie follows the sacrifices of the mom as she attempts to set her ward on the path of aspiration and hardwork. I went with a bunch of friends to Phoenix, had a good time.
For me the movie was remarkably timed, for two reasons. Firstly, that very same morning I had had a fruitful discussion with a volunteer organization called "The Lighthouse project"- do check it out and consider joining. If all goes to plan- I will start in July. It pairs you as a mentor with a mentee from an underprivileged community for a year or so. This one-one mapping creates a bond and gives the mentee a personal peep into the what might seem, especially in India, the distant world of material comforts and organized economy and career planning and whatnot. I think this is a great idea. In fact, during my discussion with them I learnt that 10th standard is a key decision point for families sending kids to government schools, because the way forward after 10th is not clear. This is in fact exactly what I'd heard from our housemaid here, regarding the education of her daughter who is now in 9th. Now this movie is all about that- this girl is unmotivated, and frustrated with the idea of studies, because she has no clear understanding of the way forward- her friends are from the same background as her, and her mother has not much of a clue either. The Ma gets enamored by the whim of her daughter becoming a District Collector- just because the Collector treats her kindly when she is crossing the road and lives in a princely mansion, and thus becomes her only exposure to Organized economy life. They need a more organized and personalized introduction to this world.
Secondly, it was Mother's day the very next day. I'm pretty sure the movie was not planned around Mother's day for it was in its third week running. The Ma in the movie does put herself through some immense sacrifice for the sake of her kid, and it's quite heart warmingly depicted. I did make the phone call after the movie.
Credits: J, AC and AK for company during the movie; SA for telling me about the Lighthouse project.
For me the movie was remarkably timed, for two reasons. Firstly, that very same morning I had had a fruitful discussion with a volunteer organization called "The Lighthouse project"- do check it out and consider joining. If all goes to plan- I will start in July. It pairs you as a mentor with a mentee from an underprivileged community for a year or so. This one-one mapping creates a bond and gives the mentee a personal peep into the what might seem, especially in India, the distant world of material comforts and organized economy and career planning and whatnot. I think this is a great idea. In fact, during my discussion with them I learnt that 10th standard is a key decision point for families sending kids to government schools, because the way forward after 10th is not clear. This is in fact exactly what I'd heard from our housemaid here, regarding the education of her daughter who is now in 9th. Now this movie is all about that- this girl is unmotivated, and frustrated with the idea of studies, because she has no clear understanding of the way forward- her friends are from the same background as her, and her mother has not much of a clue either. The Ma gets enamored by the whim of her daughter becoming a District Collector- just because the Collector treats her kindly when she is crossing the road and lives in a princely mansion, and thus becomes her only exposure to Organized economy life. They need a more organized and personalized introduction to this world.
Secondly, it was Mother's day the very next day. I'm pretty sure the movie was not planned around Mother's day for it was in its third week running. The Ma in the movie does put herself through some immense sacrifice for the sake of her kid, and it's quite heart warmingly depicted. I did make the phone call after the movie.
Credits: J, AC and AK for company during the movie; SA for telling me about the Lighthouse project.
Labels: Cinemas
Saturday, June 27, 2015
On CitizenFour and Ed Snowden
I watched
today CitizenFour, an Oscar winning documentary on the doings of Edward Snowden,
in a cosy little theater on the 10th floor of the Films Society building in
Peddar Road, Mumbai. The documentary is very real- it stars Edward Snowden
as himself, Julian Assange as himself (in a blink-and-you-miss it appearance,
mind you), with live interviewing of Snowden by the Director Glen Greenwald.
It’s a bit tingling in that it’s very live- you are seeing Snowden at a time
when the entire world, including the FBI and CIA, were trying to find him.
Citizen Four is Snowden’s code name when he established contact with the
Guardian journo. Greenwald won a Pulitzer for Public Service for what counts as
a remarkable piece of journalism. Based on conversations with Avtansh, and some
pondering thereafter, I write below.
The
government having access to your entire data, while seeming like a distantly
distasteful proposition, never struck home in my head as something truly
terrifying. That's till today. But think about it- as the movie mentioned in
passing, if the government can have complete access, any form of protests can
never happen. Identify the dissidents, and ensure that all their tweets pass
through your monitoring system, and voila, never can Tahrir Square happen. Or
better still, invest 5x more, create the enabling technology, and you can
monitor not just the dissidents, but everyone. And this is exactly what was
happening – the NSA snooped on 1.2 Billion people. The world of East Germany where
every envelope was unsealed , read, and resealed, and the tyrannies of the
Stasi (East German secret police) as depicted poignantly in the Lives of Others,
come to my mind. Just that the process now is automated and quicker and
more efficient.
One major
issue with governmental snooping is, how the government would decide where to
draw the line on multiple fronts. The first line is the motive - What started
as the war against terrorism, ended up with Angela Merkel’s phone being tapped.
And once you have Merkel’s phone on tap, why not use it for Foreign policy
decisions? Then comes the line on access – now if the head of Halliburton,
who’s say the POTUS’ close chum and major campaign donor, has access to the
line on the CEO of Transocean (France), what’s to stop him from getting access
and getting winning information on a bid for drilling a well in Mozambique? And
finally, the line between passive listening and active action- why listen and
wait, why not suppress and thus nip the problem right in the bud? If all these vaguely visible lines (and many
more) are breached, then power becomes dangerously concentrated, in the hands
of say the US, and more crucially, in the hands of a few individuals, say the
POTUS, and a few others.
And
what’s the issue with concentration of power? As long as it’s a democracy with
all its checks and balances, its fine, right? No, remember Indira Gandhi. If
she had access to complete information, and could suppress information of
dissidents going behind bars, and what news gets reported, what’s to separate
the India of 1975 from the India of 1984, replacing the Big Brother with the
Big Sister? Information is power, all
information about everyone - a possibility in today’s world as demonstrated by
the NSA – is absolute power. And absolute power corrupts absolutely. Even for
the noblest of souls, it may be just too tempting.
Then
there’s this associated issue of concentration of information. Because the NSA was not dealing with just verizon and AT&T, they were intercepting Google, Facebook and Skype, too. This has been
adequately dealt with in a number of glamorous sci-fi books and movies, take for example Die Hard 4.0 and the Fire Sail. And this good Sci-fi book I read about robots gone rogue- Robocalypse, by (Robotics PhD) Daniel Wilson. The humans battle it out by "taking full advantage of human adaptability and ingenuity" and taking unpredictable actions such as moving only on terrains where robots can't move. Once you control
information, in today’s networked world, you control a lot of physical assets.
Including weapon systems. Automobiles. Trains. Robots. And telephones can be thought of as sensors - voice sensors. And with today's phones, sensing includes location, fitness, assets (through online purchases), video (through skype sessions), your social networks (who are your friends/vulnerabilities). That's a ridiculous amount of information for the government to justify holding, and lethal if it falls into the wrong hands.
Thinking
about it, a multipolar and decentralized world then has merits. Keep those big
idealogical barriers alive between the Venezuelas and the Russias of the world,
and the US - so these other poles can act as a “check and balance” and shelter
the Assanges and the Snowden’s. It’s intriguing that Assange today actually
heads an organization that helps procure asylum for political whistleblower.
Thumbs up, Ju.
The movie
mentions in passing that in today’s wide open and boundary-less world, privacy
equals freedom, and taking away privacy means taking away freedom. Europe and
the US, with their more individualistic culture and evolved dialogues on
freedom and self-expression, are where the protests against snooping would be
strongest. Collectivist cultures like Asia may not protest so vehemently
against privacy invasions.
However, I
wrote above, it’s mentioned in “passing”, and that’s where the issue with the
movie CitizenFour lies – there are too many “in passing” references to
intriguing lines of thought. It spends too much time initially on Ed Snowden
the man, and that too without really doing a fabulous job of it, and the
implications of snooping are left for passing remarks and brief clips from the
CNNs and the BBCs. On such a fantastically thought provoking topic, the movie
could have stoked much more.
Last words-
this blog post mentions NSA a couple times, and Assange and Snowden a few
times. Surely, the intelligent people at NSA would have put some filters to let
this post and the author through to some level of scrutiny. While this is amusing to some
degree, it is also slightly chilling. Think about it.
Labels: Cinemas
Wednesday, April 01, 2015
Kramer vs Kramer - A good Hoffman-Streep show
Kramer vs Kramer: 3 things:
1. Notable parts of the movie (Spoiler alert)
a) The start perplexes: Why did the wife leave? The husband seems to have no clue, and one would expect a series of fights/disagreements and a state of rancour in the air, leading to a slow transition to the moment when she leaves. Instead, ka-boom! She's gone, and Ted is stunned. I was perplexed, too, and this hangover stayed with me through a good part of the movie.
b) Great courtroom scene: The entire courtroom scene was very real and shorn of exaggeration. Ted makes a solid defense: If today (1979), women are expected to be equals to men in the workforce, then men can be expected to be equal to women at home, and therefore custody suits should not be biased towards women.
c) French toast: Great symbolism- right at the start, when the father son relationship is rocky, Ted makes a meal of it (metaphorically!), with gooey milk-egg mixture splattering and the bread burning. But right towards the end, he makes a meal of it (literally!), with the kid Billy giving an able helping hand. These symbolic acts/places/phrases are great aids for storytelling and for showing "full circle" moments in a story. Nice, warm-fuzzy feeling teamwork between the father son pair. I for one am going to make some French toast at home, and the movie would surely have led to a spike in French toast sales at restaurants.
2. Great acting. I wore a hat while I watched the movie, and after the movie- Dustin Hoffman, to you I doff man, and Merryl Streep: to you I merrily tip. Hoffman, very real, some powerful high word-speed dialogues when agitated. Streep very good as the confused, mopey character. They won the academy awards, anyway, both of 'em. The movie won a whopping 5! My sister tells me Streep has won the most Oscar nominations, ever.
3. Do powerful movie stars influence behavior/mannerisms of people?
I had a senior colleague in the US at work, who would have been an impressionable kid during the release of this movie and other Hoffman starrers. Now this senior colleague I think has some serious Hoffman influence in the way he speaks (and even in the way he looks) - struck me as I watched this movie. Movies were a powerful influencer during the pre-internet days. Would an entire generation's accent and body language be shaped by the characters and actors in the movies they watch, especially as a kid?
1. Notable parts of the movie (Spoiler alert)
a) The start perplexes: Why did the wife leave? The husband seems to have no clue, and one would expect a series of fights/disagreements and a state of rancour in the air, leading to a slow transition to the moment when she leaves. Instead, ka-boom! She's gone, and Ted is stunned. I was perplexed, too, and this hangover stayed with me through a good part of the movie.
b) Great courtroom scene: The entire courtroom scene was very real and shorn of exaggeration. Ted makes a solid defense: If today (1979), women are expected to be equals to men in the workforce, then men can be expected to be equal to women at home, and therefore custody suits should not be biased towards women.
c) French toast: Great symbolism- right at the start, when the father son relationship is rocky, Ted makes a meal of it (metaphorically!), with gooey milk-egg mixture splattering and the bread burning. But right towards the end, he makes a meal of it (literally!), with the kid Billy giving an able helping hand. These symbolic acts/places/phrases are great aids for storytelling and for showing "full circle" moments in a story. Nice, warm-fuzzy feeling teamwork between the father son pair. I for one am going to make some French toast at home, and the movie would surely have led to a spike in French toast sales at restaurants.
The famous French toast scene, with the two Kramers at work
2. Great acting. I wore a hat while I watched the movie, and after the movie- Dustin Hoffman, to you I doff man, and Merryl Streep: to you I merrily tip. Hoffman, very real, some powerful high word-speed dialogues when agitated. Streep very good as the confused, mopey character. They won the academy awards, anyway, both of 'em. The movie won a whopping 5! My sister tells me Streep has won the most Oscar nominations, ever.
3. Do powerful movie stars influence behavior/mannerisms of people?
I had a senior colleague in the US at work, who would have been an impressionable kid during the release of this movie and other Hoffman starrers. Now this senior colleague I think has some serious Hoffman influence in the way he speaks (and even in the way he looks) - struck me as I watched this movie. Movies were a powerful influencer during the pre-internet days. Would an entire generation's accent and body language be shaped by the characters and actors in the movies they watch, especially as a kid?
Labels: Cinemas
Tuesday, June 17, 2014
Edge of tomorrow - 10,000 hours packed into 2
Watched The Edge of Tomorrow - aliens, war, time travel - the ultimate guy parade, perfect for the guy-duo audience I made up one half of at Cinepolis B'ghatta. Good movie.
Now the movie reminded me of sports- Tom Cruise gets a zillion chances to get it right. It's like in sport- play the outswinger first time without foot movement and snick it to the keeper. Play-Die-Repeat (EoT slogan) . You get back the next day, plant your foot uncertainly forward, and send a thick edge to third slip. Play-Die-Repeat. And third attempt- you plonk your foot to the pitch of the ball - and Bravo! A cracking cover drive. In that sense, the movie is an illustration of Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000 hour principle. Am sure Mr Gladwell would wager a bet that the sum total of the Major's failure hours would approximate 10,000- Mr Gladwell, please leave your assent in the comments section below if you read this post. Oh, and did I say "failed" hours? No sir, no- Major William Cage is Edisonesque in the movie. When I asked the Major, "Why do you persist in this folly? You have failed more than 9,000 times", he looked at me incredulously and said, "I haven't even failed once; nine thousand times I've learned what does not work" (Source: Creativity in Business)
I was quite envious of the Major - the number of chances he gets at Sergeant Rita Vrataski (Indian mom - Russian dad?) . And that brings me to pretty Ms. Emily Blunt- she has built up quite a repertoire of time travel movies - EoT, Looper, and Adjustment Bureau (as per fellow EoT watcher GSN). She truly deserves a role in Doctor Who.
Cruise plays Major Cage - this I believe is Tom Cruise doffing his hat to Nicholas Cage. EoT - the kind of movie that it is- very well falls in Nicholas Cage's repertoire. Perhaps the two ageing veterans signed a pact to help each other remain fresh in the audience's mind, and we will see Nicholas Cage playing Major Cruise in an action flick - coming soon to theaters near you!
Now the movie reminded me of sports- Tom Cruise gets a zillion chances to get it right. It's like in sport- play the outswinger first time without foot movement and snick it to the keeper. Play-Die-Repeat (EoT slogan) . You get back the next day, plant your foot uncertainly forward, and send a thick edge to third slip. Play-Die-Repeat. And third attempt- you plonk your foot to the pitch of the ball - and Bravo! A cracking cover drive. In that sense, the movie is an illustration of Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000 hour principle. Am sure Mr Gladwell would wager a bet that the sum total of the Major's failure hours would approximate 10,000- Mr Gladwell, please leave your assent in the comments section below if you read this post. Oh, and did I say "failed" hours? No sir, no- Major William Cage is Edisonesque in the movie. When I asked the Major, "Why do you persist in this folly? You have failed more than 9,000 times", he looked at me incredulously and said, "I haven't even failed once; nine thousand times I've learned what does not work" (Source: Creativity in Business)
I was quite envious of the Major - the number of chances he gets at Sergeant Rita Vrataski (Indian mom - Russian dad?) . And that brings me to pretty Ms. Emily Blunt- she has built up quite a repertoire of time travel movies - EoT, Looper, and Adjustment Bureau (as per fellow EoT watcher GSN). She truly deserves a role in Doctor Who.
Cruise plays Major Cage - this I believe is Tom Cruise doffing his hat to Nicholas Cage. EoT - the kind of movie that it is- very well falls in Nicholas Cage's repertoire. Perhaps the two ageing veterans signed a pact to help each other remain fresh in the audience's mind, and we will see Nicholas Cage playing Major Cruise in an action flick - coming soon to theaters near you!
Labels: Cinemas
Wednesday, April 02, 2014
Star Trek: Into Darkness (2013): Into Triteness, and Into Sacrilege
We know the Star Ship Enterprise's mission is "To boldly go where no one has gone before". Well, the movie sure did NOT swear by that mission, for it "Tamely went where many a movie has gone before". Boring, commonplace storyline, and every little joke and plot twist has certainly already been done to death in past sci-fi flicks. For a consumer with a honed taste in sci-fi, I'd say: Stay away- there's nothing new here.
And, coming to the lowlight of the movie- the most appalling stereotype at which my jaw dropped. There's this all righteous, Westerner crew and this token Asian guy, at the helm of USS Enterprise - yes yes, not much to protest so far if you aren't a radical globalist. Now this crew is in hot pursuit of, and tormented by, this evil guy who's already murdered a bunch of innocents and blown up a bunch of standard Hollywood issue 22nd century skyscrapers. Now what's this bad guy's name - KHAN Noonien SINGH! This badass guy actually introduces himself with the sentence, "My Name is...Khan"; and all of us Bollywood-watchers can actually complete for him- "And I AM a Ter__rist!".(Disguise incendiary words: N_A is watching!)
Now I know this is an old TV show, and you gotto stick to the original script, but they have to tweak it to modern sensibilities. This stereotype is wrong at so many levels, because it violates so many basic principles of 21st century civility-
1. Do not mix Khan and Singh- Gurudwara massacre in the US because of this confusion
2. Do not stereotype Khan as Ter__rist
3. Do not stereotype Asian as Ter__rist
Labels: Cinemas
Sunday, November 17, 2013
b-Looper: the Movie
Ok so I found no mistakes (loop-holes?) in the movie, but I had to be critical hence the title.
1. Movie too long for that one twist in the tale and tail. We've watched umpteen time travel movies, and you've got to have more than 2 minutes of OMG twists per 2 hours of movie. If not, the screenplay should be more engaging. When it comes to time travel movies, Twelve Monkies is case in point for multiple twists, and Back to the Future is case in point for interesting screenplay via humor.
2. Weak/not-fully-developed characters, like the wimp who goes after Bruce Willis and Joseph Gordon all the time.
3. Bruce Willis does not AT ALL look like an older Joseph Gordon Levitt.
1. Movie too long for that one twist in the tale and tail. We've watched umpteen time travel movies, and you've got to have more than 2 minutes of OMG twists per 2 hours of movie. If not, the screenplay should be more engaging. When it comes to time travel movies, Twelve Monkies is case in point for multiple twists, and Back to the Future is case in point for interesting screenplay via humor.
2. Weak/not-fully-developed characters, like the wimp who goes after Bruce Willis and Joseph Gordon all the time.
3. Bruce Willis does not AT ALL look like an older Joseph Gordon Levitt.
Labels: Cinemas
Saturday, February 23, 2013
Zero dark thirty @ Zero dark thirty
Finished Zero Dark Thirty @ Zero Dark Thirty @ Cinepolis @ Bannerghatta Road.
While watching, I thought the short clip of Mr. Obama speaking on TV banning torture, and playing quite the "spoilsport" in the context of the movie, was inappropriate, mainly because I felt it showed undue partisanship on the part of movie makers. But then the mind did not dwell much longerand went with the flow.
Turns out, the depiction of torture in the movie has provoked quite the debate:
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2013/feb/07/disturbing-misleading-zero-dark-thirty/?page=1
The other Bigelow flick, Hurt Locker, also stirred up many, who thought that a maverick like the movie's protagonist is precisely the kind of character an extremely "team" oriented unit like the bomb squad would absolutely shun from its ranks. Of course, I am on shaky ground here, for firstly its eons since I read the piece, and secondly it's more of a fair debate, when compared to the no-brainer the one on torture in ZDT seems.
P.S. Bannerghatta road will be absolute hell on earth once Metro construction starts.
While watching, I thought the short clip of Mr. Obama speaking on TV banning torture, and playing quite the "spoilsport" in the context of the movie, was inappropriate, mainly because I felt it showed undue partisanship on the part of movie makers. But then the mind did not dwell much longerand went with the flow.
Turns out, the depiction of torture in the movie has provoked quite the debate:
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2013/feb/07/disturbing-misleading-zero-dark-thirty/?page=1
The other Bigelow flick, Hurt Locker, also stirred up many, who thought that a maverick like the movie's protagonist is precisely the kind of character an extremely "team" oriented unit like the bomb squad would absolutely shun from its ranks. Of course, I am on shaky ground here, for firstly its eons since I read the piece, and secondly it's more of a fair debate, when compared to the no-brainer the one on torture in ZDT seems.
P.S. Bannerghatta road will be absolute hell on earth once Metro construction starts.
Labels: Cinemas
Sunday, September 02, 2007
Chak De ! Made my day !
Following the drudgery of yet another TIME class..( I shouldn't say yet another, 'coz I haven't really made it a point to attend too many of 'em classes) ..was a beautiful night- Chak De, dinner outside, and an engaging post prandial tete' a tete'.
Warning ! Upcoming para is a spoiler !
And I should also attribute the good time I had to some benevolent soul, some anonymous person whose identity I forget, who told me that the finale of the movie is India putting up a valiant fight and losing. Doff my hat to this big-hearted, immensely kind being ! Contrast this with those cruel friends who tell me that Snape is the Half Blood Prince, that Dumbledore dies, the moment I pick up Potter 6 ! As you would have guessed by now, Chak De ends with the India winning (surprise surprise..bah..you might say) ..coup de grace being black horse Indian goalie-skipper Kalpana Sharma staving off the final penalty stroke from the mighty Aussies. So India's coup de grace being the thwarting of Australia's finishing stroke (metaphoric vs. literal..beat that !)
Very well made movie. Excellent cinematography. The commentary I thought left a lot to be desired- given the fact that I fancy myself as a cricket commentator of considerable skill and ingenuity, my observations on this front can be thought to be knowing and scholarly. Exaggerated regionalism in the demeanor of the girls, nevertheless funny most of the time. And the gals, well, some of them not bad looking at all, they made for a good 2 hour viewing experience !
Despite the cliched, poetic justice laden ending, it was heart warming- the triumph of a motley bunch of girls, whittling down internal barriers, beating all odds, defying fancied opponents...A vindication of Bollywood's not-unsuccesful fling with sports movies. Think Jo Jita Wohi Sinkandar, think Lagaan (NOT Iqbal, NOT Bend It...) ..Chak De fits the mould - a worthy succesor to the erstwhile luminaries !
Warning ! Upcoming para is a spoiler !
And I should also attribute the good time I had to some benevolent soul, some anonymous person whose identity I forget, who told me that the finale of the movie is India putting up a valiant fight and losing. Doff my hat to this big-hearted, immensely kind being ! Contrast this with those cruel friends who tell me that Snape is the Half Blood Prince, that Dumbledore dies, the moment I pick up Potter 6 ! As you would have guessed by now, Chak De ends with the India winning (surprise surprise..bah..you might say) ..coup de grace being black horse Indian goalie-skipper Kalpana Sharma staving off the final penalty stroke from the mighty Aussies. So India's coup de grace being the thwarting of Australia's finishing stroke (metaphoric vs. literal..beat that !)
Very well made movie. Excellent cinematography. The commentary I thought left a lot to be desired- given the fact that I fancy myself as a cricket commentator of considerable skill and ingenuity, my observations on this front can be thought to be knowing and scholarly. Exaggerated regionalism in the demeanor of the girls, nevertheless funny most of the time. And the gals, well, some of them not bad looking at all, they made for a good 2 hour viewing experience !
Despite the cliched, poetic justice laden ending, it was heart warming- the triumph of a motley bunch of girls, whittling down internal barriers, beating all odds, defying fancied opponents...A vindication of Bollywood's not-unsuccesful fling with sports movies. Think Jo Jita Wohi Sinkandar, think Lagaan (NOT Iqbal, NOT Bend It...) ..Chak De fits the mould - a worthy succesor to the erstwhile luminaries !
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Labels: Cinemas
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