Avatar and 2012

Undoubtedly both these films are good. In fact, they are brilliant. I wanted to mention them in the same breath; not only because I watched them within a span of two consecutive days but also because they are the typical supernal ideas - heavily employed in Hollywood - converted into celluloid of mass appeal.

Avatar is more conspicuous of the two due to the return of James Cameron and his high-end use of technology. In the theatre with 3-D screening, the movie seemed to play right out of a real-life disposition –people and their movements, the forests and the strange creatures, the fights with guns and arrows etc. It looked very surreal, but also fulfilling. For the first time, I felt delving into the cinema rather than the opposite way around. To quote one of my friends, for the first time, we saw human beings going to an alien land and also being technologically superior to the aliens. In fact, many firsts coming from this film …. I can transpose it to feel what jig the novelty of Star Wars would have caused when it was released way back in 1977.

2012, on the other hand, is an aggrandized talk of people’s conspiratorial side. It delivers what people want to see. Mayan prophesy of earth’s destruction coming to reality in the most devastating way. People decide to build a ship to survive the last beings of human race; the similarity with Noah’s Ark is substantial. The earth is in shatters but still human treachery and nepotism are on play. The good guys are taken for a ride by the rich and resourceful. The President of the US though stays behind, as also quoted in the movie, as the Captain of the Sinking Ship. The protagonists, playing the commoners, get into the ship through the backdoor. The climax is reached with the literal countdown of the ship’s collision with Mt Everest, and the hero’s underwater effort to avert it. For a change, the Black Actors took the center stage. A perfect potpourri!

And I repeat; I liked them both. But again I repeat; they both had the same worn-out renditions of Hollywood. The aliens, earth’s doom, mass-scale rescue effort, the brewed love in between etc – how many times have we seen them. It is another matter that the above two films defied the monotony, and shaped up as great in the end. But how long will the directors keep mashing the same stuff? Just my concern – as I am fearful of again drifting away from these movies if they are dished in plenty. Sounding cynical amidst the riches, but it is justified if you too look beyond the obvious.

3 Idiots' Songs

It was really the moments played over again. Another Aamir Khan movie’s music album release, and another set of dilated ears. 2001-Lagaan, 2005-Mangal Pandey, 2006- Rang De Basanti and Fanaa, 2007- Taare Zameen Per, 2008 – Ghajini. The music release of all these had been a waited event for me, for they were the harbingers of the actual stuff. Like with all the movies in Hindi cinema, if the music is good, the movie is definitely going to be great.

But to admit truthfully, none of the above music albums had managed to raise my feathers up. On first listen, the songs looked banal, worn-out and placid, not having that extra to create a buzz expected of them. Even the now-campus-theme ‘Paathshala’ had seemed a bit loud and tacky. There were some melodious and to-the-gallery songs like ‘Chaand Sifaarish in Fanaa’ or ‘Guzaarish in Ghajini’, but as a whole, the albums had failed to generate a collective oomph. I remember my colleagues in the hostel promptly changing ‘Ru Baroo’, ‘Waari Waari’ etc whenever I tried to play these songs to impress upon them. To sum it up, the songs were really too arcane or mystic for all of us when they were released. It was only when they were listened again and again, and when their superb films released afterwards augmented their meaning and mood, that these songs attained the great cult status they possess now.

I say it is deja-vu all again. 3 Idiots songs have just been released. And if I would have written this blog a week earlier, I would have really lamented the ineffectiveness of the songs. But now after having listened to them a few times, I do find the songs involving. The songs possess an inherent charm and melody. Barring the blaring ‘Aaal Iss Well’ which I still feel is a badly chosen theme song, the songs are full of message and lilt with the occasion. ‘Give Me the Sunshine’ is an after-word of a college worn-out student; ‘Behti Hawa Sa Tha Who’- a sincere appreciation for the hatke student amongst the streamlined ones; ‘Jaane Nahin’ a rendition of friendly bonds. But the song I like most is the Zoobi Doobi. A masterly work indeed, lyrics and music suiting aptly to the rain-filled sensuality of the song. You have to listen to it:-

Zoobi Doobi

It is typical Bollywood stuff, pulled right from the yesteryears for sounding music to the ears.

Harry Potter - The Magical Realism

I was asked this question once, “Which of the two series you like more – Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings?” My answer was unsurprisingly quick – Harry Potter, of course. He scowled, but he knew he didn’t stand a chance for a debate of any kind.

My infatuation with the wizard boy’s stories is long and keeps on growing every time I imagine them. In my solemn free times, I have replayed the older Harry Potter movies’ scenes in my mind, just to feel good and escape into the world of magic realism. After watching the Half Blood Prince, I feel I am again in a different world now- full of magic, even though surrounded by dark forces.

No, I haven’t read the novels. And I don’t intend to, before I see the full series. I know, no movie can match its provenance. But for me, Harry Potter movies have been interesting enough to delight me on their own. Hopefully reading the novels later can bring both additions and shortcomings of the movies in glare.

Which movie of the series I like the most? It is the ‘Chamber of Secrets’, followed by ‘Half Blood Prince’ and ‘Goblet of Fire’. Which one was the blandest? No guesses, ‘the Order of the Phoenix’, as it would be for most of the cine-watchers.

What do I like most in the movies? Obviously, the characters. Dumbledore is such a profound character. His death (sorry for the spoiler) in ‘Half Blood Prince’ was a heart-rending view for me. The three main characters-Potter, Ron and Hermione are seriously well-delineated ones, and it has been both fun and insight to see their characters grow, both in age and behaviour. Hagrid, Minerva, Snape, Sirius, Lupin etc – all are very relevant, and seem to be part of one big family. But I like, above all, what the characters depict. The good and the bad of the world, and how the struggle between them is always on. The good will ultimately win, no doubt, but how that good develops or should develop is the instilling part. I have always felt a direct pertinence of the stories to the current world.

For many, Harry Potter movies might just be fantasy, but for me, they have been a source of comfort & fun, a mirror of virtues & vices, and also an imparter of goodness & strength. What else do you want from a movie?

Wanted !!!

Leave the Angelina-starrer one. Our own Sallu bhai’s is here. Dhisoom dhisoom …. What a masala flick!

I liked it, to the core. If Prem is sooo sober, Radhey is sooooo stylish. Better make Radhey the benchmark. Tere Naam’s one was brash, brusque and besotted with beauty in the end, but here he is only one – committed to himself. So he doesn’t listen to even himself if he has made a commitment.

More so consider the way he pooh-poohs his lady love, Ayesha Takia in the movie. A real first for me. Not the usual till-my-last-breath suitors and lovers of women. So, change for Bollywood? No. The songs are splashed at will, but you know their arrival time beforehand, courtesy the experience, and you can go out for a wee, a phone or a smoke. And come back to see another baddie being rolled down by our atlas-built hero.

Some of the fight scenes are really damn good. In the train, when he rams the rogue guy into one of the bars, I was thrilled. Omg, I have turned gory! But it was damn good. Didn’t you see how the other guy just jumped out of the train, in fear of that?

Our heroine too is ekdum kamaal. The perfect siti-inviter. Alas, she has got married, but still has the best tanker, sorry the best face, in the tinsel town. The villain though doesn’t look ike the villain. Now-a-days villains too have to do some comedy. Never mind though, he shoots as often as he jests.

So, what then? Go and just watch the movie. It is a perfect paisa wasool. If it doesn’t work for you, don’t come back and shout at me. Probably you still don’t know how to appreciate these cult kinds of movies.

How good was Stanley Kubrick?

The question doesn’t need any answering. He was fabulous, and miles different from and ahead of others. Some, including this review , might consider him second best to Spielberg or Hitchcock, but he is, to me, right at the top.

His last movie, Eyes Wide Shut, was my first of his. I had Computer Networks exam the next day. In the midnight, I just started the movie for a pre-sleep browsing kind of thing. How the next two hours passed, I don’t know. People considered it his worst, but if that is the worst, how good his best was, I wondered. Never mind my lost sleep, my exam too was a scorcher.

Then came, The Shining, A Clockwork Orange, Dr Strangelove and Full Metal Jacket. I was again watching Full Metal Jacket a few days back. This movie didn’t get the accolades it deserved, but of the movies I have seen, none has brought the hidden drama of war as glaringly as this one. Two stories, the first half of the regimental soldiers training life, and the second one of the actual war. There is a pun of futility about war and its hardships through every single shot of the movie. Somehow he managed it. I don’t know how, and I will wonder always.

He is no more, but certainly his charisma remains. I don’t know how I felt like writing about him today, but just that remembrance of excellence brought his name forward. Hope people learn from him, how to be delivering, rather than be showing. Is Tarantino listening?

Shahrukh's detention - whom are we fooling?

Believe me! It’s not about Shahrukh. It is about you and me.

Most of the times we give in to the dictates in the name of practicality, without giving a thought to its rhyme or reason. If Shahrukh let an outburst, it was because it happened to him. And I am writing it here, because it also happened to me.

Last year when I was traveling to India, I overheard two gentlemen talking behind my seat in the Inter-Airport Transfer Bus. They were complaining about the over-frisking done to them and their documents and baggage on account of their being Muslims. I felt sorry, but was also indifferent. More so when one of the guys admitted that somewhere the fault lay with the community also for fomenting these problems in the first place. If they are clean, most probably, it will cause just inconvenience but not injustice to them. Quite right, I nodded. Security comes paramount.

I don’t know how life comes full circle in this world. I am subject to the same kind of counter-feeling each time I travel to US. My dossier gets an automatic red-mark, on account of my passport being an Indian, read South Asian, one. At each security point, I am asked to step aside from the queue, and undergo an extra and grilling security-check. Each time, I feel devastated, and lament the fact that despite all my education and good beliefs, I am not above petty suspicion and that too just because of my colour and region. If the check is random, it is perfectly acceptable, but if it happens 9 out of 10 times and also to your friends, you can’t buy this logic of random search. Nevertheless I gather myself up, and let go the feelings smoothen in the name of the current realities of life. The security officers, bounden by duty, are merely doing their job. Period. So, I didn’t complain even if they put me to Second Immigration Check, ala Shahrukh’s, last week on my current trip.

Shahrukh has come out though, because he is a celebrity. I totally agree with the concept of treating celebrities and common people alike. But, here the point is different. If the same Immigration Officer is treated like that in some another country, say ABC, because some fellow Americans blew up ABC’s dome, I am sure, he would be peeved. He would be angered, despite knowing that it is legal and right in every aspect.

We all feel that, because we all know that in the long run, it is not right. This extra security might create a cocoon, but each such act, creates thousands of anti-American thoughts throughout the world. I am in total awe of USA, as no country can boast of such grand achievements based on the ideals of liberty and democracy. But what about the blinkered view in pursuing those objectives?

The above debate doesn’t lead my anywhere, except re-highlighting the universally known fact of ubiquitous prejudiced and racial profiling. So, the only request to everyone-Shahrukh, me, Immigration Officer, Muslim, American, Indian, ABCian- try switching the place for one day or even one such moment, you will get the gist of everything. You will see the world is not what you see, but what you feel.

Books -> Movies

It felt really good to read a news like this. A book, penned by an Indian author, being made into a movie. It is not the first of a kind, but does show a greater progress in the adaptation of a book into a movie.

However enchanted I am by Bollywood, I can’t condone its irreverent plagiarism. Not that it only copies movies from other film industries, but it also pilfers some original book scripts. To avoid paying royalties, the movie-makers take the stories without even crediting the authors. The point thus is not only about money, but also about a serious lack of encouragement for the writers to come up with good movie-adaptable scripts. For Indian cinema, the biggest challenge is the dearth of concomitant and inventive stories, and there is no other way than to start forming a bond with the writers to purvey it a good supply of stories.

Subhash Ghai has said that he is willing to pay even 1 crore rupees to the person who gives him a really good script. A welcome change. In fact, I am looking forward to the day when a film-making company will strike a deal with a coterie of writers, ala the ADAG group’s with Spielberg. Believe me, many more ‘Slumdog Millionare’s can then be raised based on the ‘Q&A’s.