Choreography to beat

The song is revving, but not peerless. But buoy, the choreography is non-pareil. It has been 10 years now, but it still give me goosebumps which no other dance routine, except Thriller's, can give.

Shooting into the top

If it is so good, then it has to be seen. After watching Spiderman-III last year, I had developed an instant anathema for these super hero movies. Much to my chagrin though, these sorts of movies continue to jingle coins at the box-office. The prime examples are IronMan, and the recently released Hancock. So, when Dark Knight was mentioned and introduced to me as another Batman movie by one of my friends, I greeted it with another shrug-of-shoulders thing.

But it somehow kept appearing everywhere-print, media, discussions. And when I saw its profile in imdb, I was gob smacked. Number 3 in all-time movie rankings ! You are kidding. Oh my God, it has actually reached Number 1.Either people must be dumb or Dark Knight must be truly outlandish. For me, no movie can match the magic of ‘The Shawshank Redemption’. So, if it is so good, it must be more magical. My rankings fixation aside, the movie has actually received some beyond-this-world reviews. Ah!

So, I am gonna watch it now. But the problem is I haven’t watched previous Batman movies. When I searched, I found that there is a serious backlog to be completed. So, Mr Knight, you will have to wait for some more nights; and if you are so good, moon must be blue that night.

A song has haunted me

I have been listening to this song continually since yesterday. And really I had no intention of doing it, but somehow got hooked to it. I was just youtubing some songs by Rihanna, when I stumbled across a song ‘Take a Bow’ re-sung by some ‘Sheena Melwani’. I didn’t know her; probably you too wouldn’t have.

But curious to watch the song as it was on the top of the list, I buffered it in a new tab: the girl was beautiful, the song lilting, and the voice musically melodious. I searched more, and wow-I had just heard the voice of the Internet. Follow this URL:-

http://sheenamelwani.com/

An Indian-American singer, another first among the ubiquitous engineers and doctors, she had taken to Internet to reach out to the people worldwide. And indeed, she has succeeded to a great extent. In just first 7-8 months, her songs have received many million views on different sites, but more importantly, lots of rave reviews, appreciation and offers. Now, that is something to start on a career one loves dearly. And I did ‘take a bow’.

And searched more about her... I then reached the song, ‘Bad Grammar’ on her MySpace profile. Though not originally song by her, she has lent an incredible voice to it. Her two original songs, ‘Crazy Place’ and ‘Wonderful Life’ too are mellifluous. Since then I have been listening to them, more devotedly to ‘Bad Grammar’. Oh, I gotta leave now; the song needs a re-hit on the ‘Play’ button.

Pathos of worst kind

It has been a very bad movie-watching phase for me in the last few days. I have watched a few movies more than I normally do, but unfortunately they all have been trash-kinds.

The first one was ‘Dan in Real Life’ which I watched during my flight from Munich to Chicago. A Steve Carell movie, the first of his that I probably watched, it was another a-lonely-man’s romantic life perspective. There has been a surfeit of these kinds of movies in Hollywood, but still if put in a refreshing way, ala Sleepless in Seattle, can be really worth watching. ‘Dan in Real Life’ was painfully slow, its only saving grace being the suaveness of Steve Carell.


The next week, I watched ‘The Strangers’ in a theater. Touted as a very chilling horror movie by my accompanying friend, it was another let-down of massive kind. It did have its striking moments, drawing gasps and screams from the viewers including me. But in the end, you felt unconnected to the whole set-up. Three psychos lurking around a house and brutally killing a couple: the story deserved more than this. Where have the genuine unobtrusive scary movies gone?


To continue on the scary genre, I watched ‘The Happening’ of M Night Shyamalan fame the next day. Being a reputed director of Indian origin, he is naturally held in high regards by all of us. He started off very well, with his ‘The Sixth Sense’ undoubtedly moving in the pantheon of unforgettable cinema. But he has tapered off since then, and with ‘The Happening’, it seems, he has hit the nadir. The story revolving around trees emitting toxic gases leading humans to kill themselves, had ample novel scope to make the movie a classic. But I don’t know what he made of it. Sometimes, the movie felt like a comedy. And I am not alone; just go around the movie-forums for the proof.


How much things can go bad? Not worse. To challenge it, I watched a low-profile movie, the 13th Alley, which was simply a non-descript even on the list of movies being shown in the theater. We two along with another idiot, i.e. three in total, watched the movie, and needless to say, it broke all the records for squalor. I don’t want to talk more about it.


So, that is the story till now. After taking a break, I will start afresh and watch the classics only now, at least for a few days. They have forgotten to make movies now-a-days. Anybody listening?

Nobody can beat Lataji

It is true; Lata Mangheshkar is the best singer India has produced. Now-a-days she doesn't sing that often, so her poor pretenders to the throne rule the roost. But still if competed with them, she will win hands down. In fact, one of her fellow compatriots had commented on her voice, "Saali kabhi besuri hi nahin hoti"

I have a strong liking for melodies, and in fact, it is the only genre that holds me now. There is such a wide array of such beautiful songs sung by her that it is almost hard to pick the best. But I like the song embedded below the most. It is a wonderful lyrical song picturised on the ever-gracious and beautiful Vidya Sinha. Simply outstanding!

The Narnian Wonder World

The Chronicles of Narnia-I is an amazing film. I watched it now only because I wanted to watch the sequel-Prince Caspian, which has received rave reviews worldwide. It is by no means a children’s film only, and even if it is, why this long-held distanced opinion about movies catering to children’s delight? They are far better than movies replete with sex and violence.

The movie is really a fantasy world story where a witch has ruled over the land of Narnia for many years. The totalitarian rule unleashed by the self-appointed queen has turned the once-beautiful land into a veritable icy zone. There is a great lion, Azlan, who the people look up to help them overturn the queen’s oppressive rule. But according to a prophecy, the victory can not be achieved without the help of four humans; and these four humans are four children protagonists in the movie.

The children are lovely too, the cutest – Lucy. They all are different emotive beings so reminiscent of our own characters. There is one solicitous but domineering character; another one wanting to establish his own against him; a girlish morally-bossy one; and a refined pure kiddy soul. They experience a very similar nature of their original world–the fight of evil against good- in the land of Narnia, and despite their initial reluctance, join forces with Azlan to fight and defeat the witch. A lovely sleep-time story, but told in a visually spectacular way. The scenic beauty rendered on the screen is instantly captivating.

Hollywood movies are masters in telling stories just through their stills and music. Bollywood, for its hearty self, has never wanted to excel on storyline and technological refinement. Hope they learn these good aspects. And no offence from me, at least, in aping movies like Chronicles of Narnia, for they are refreshing treats to eyes and heart. I really wanna watch the second part now.

Dogs of War

With my wonted way of browsing the Internet intermittently during office hours, I opened the rediff site to have a look at the headlines. Below the top 5-6 news items, there was this line - ‘Shahrukh licking at my feet’, glaringly conspicuous with its content. Rediff had succeeded….

It is no news at all if a dog licks at someone’s feet. But if the dog happens to be ‘Shahrukh’ and its owner, ‘Aamir’, then it is a news of the most deviant and sensational kind, especially if it comes directly from the horse’s mouth – the mouthpiece blog of Aamir Khan. I too was taken aback by reading the news and had an immediate doubt over its veracity. I opened the blog which I am a regular reader of. But the site was down, further lending credence to the arresting and instantly abominable words written by Aamir. Anyway, I read it in the night after office hours, and the words were literatim as in the news article on the rediff website.

At that point of time, I didn’t know how to react. Aamir had just written something which he always stood against – to take media leverage to promote himself in a cheap way. It immediately struck discordant notes among his die-hard fans, me included, as was evident from the trenchant comments underneath that blog item, ‘Settlers of Panchgarhi’. The news might be exactly true that the previous owner of the house which Aamir bought in Panchgarhi had named his dog after Shahrukh in reverence. But to mention it in public with such gibing ways was an absolute low-kind affair from Aamir. I know it looked so tasteless because it came from the most unexpected person. Probably we all are reading too much into it. May be Aamir wrote all this in his usual whacky jest, but I can’t believe that he didn’t know that this would create a furore. Media are having a field day already, and here is I believe Aamir too succeeded ….

Before the release of TZP, Aamir had stirred a hornet’s nest by calling ‘Black’ an insensitive film and taking on ‘Amitabh Bachchan’ openly ( a favourite past time for all now). He did manage to get a high-falutin spotlight on his movie. Right now, his new home production movie, ‘Jaane Tu’, is getting released in a few days. Is he wielding the same tactics? I am indeed cynical, pardon me for that.

My ‘over the top’ - to use his favourite phrase to lambaste AB’s acting in Black – reaction gets more justified for me because it places him in the same loathsome zone as SRK’s. And I don’t like it, if it involves my real-life heroes. Aamir is still my favourite because he is the best. Nobody can take that spot on the pedestal. But Aamir, you should understand, there is more to it that meets the eyes, the eyes that look up to you for every act.