Movies in all these past months

Quite a lot of months have passed by. I've had enough inertia to keep me away from blogging. But not enough to keep me away from watching movies. That seems to be the only thing that I continue to do well as I've watched a lot of movies in this period.

Lay like a dead man, and stare into the idiot box with some rental DVD playing some junk movie on the box. In this vegetative state of mind, there have been a few movies the names of which I can still recall - which means that they were not so bad. Most of them were just so-so, some crap, but some were good. Not all the good movies were good in the same sense, or were equally good. Here are a few movies, and what I liked about them:

1. Heartbreak Kid - A comic and light-hearted movie where a man meets the right girl and marries too quickly. While on his honeymoon and in the process of discovering that his new bride is a nightmare, he meets the girl of his dreams. Ben Stiller is cut out for such roles.

2. Conversations with Other Women - A totally different treatment to depict the 2 sides of a love story. The movie has 2 windows running in parallel - one for each side of a story. Two persons meet up and start talking about certain memories as if they were common to the two of them. The past gets slowly revealed as the viewer connects the dots during the movie. Excellent treatment!

3. Amores Perros - It still makes the cut despite a vague ending. The end is vague probably because I could not understand it, or I could not place it with the remainder of the movie that was extremely charged up and gripping throughout. Non-linear story-telling that connects 3 stories through 1 accident. It reminded me of 'Crash' a bit. This Spanish movie is from the same director who later went on to direct 21 grams and Babel among other movies.

4. Zero Effect - Nice and intelligent movie that connects the entire case of private investigation in beautiful manner. Each and every word was well-weighed before putting it in the script. I had somehow low expectations from this movie, which somehow helped me in rating it highly.

Good Read: Anger Management

http://www.anger-management-techniques.org/

Movies this week

My Best Friend's Girl (MBFG), Casanova, Birthday Girl, We Own the Night, Woh Lamhe (WL) were the movies that I had watched this week, of which only MBFG and WL deserve a mention here (though Casanova was funny too).

MBFG is a funny movie - with lewd comments & scant regard for love, feelings and emotions- worth a light-hearted timepass.

WL is just the opposite of it. It is the love story of Mahesh Bhatt and Parveen Babi told beautifully through a movie. Some very nice performances and decent script & songs make it worth watching. Those who have loved and lost would relate very well with this movie. Others may not be able to empathise with the obsessive feelings (shown in the movie) a lover undergoes. But anyway, it is a commendable effort by the director.

Fill in the blanks: Country A and Country B!

Country A and Country B share tense relations. Both of them have waged many wars and proxy-wars against each other. Both the countries have nuclear weapons.

Country A experienced a terrorist attack in the recent past that was targeted at foreigners and that got broadcast live in TV. Country A blamed Country B of sending terrorists for that attack. Country A got the sympathy.

Now, in Country B, foreign players are attacked by terrorists that gets broadcast again. Country B is yet to blame Country A for having a role in it, but it seems only to be a matter of time.

Whatever may be the case, this sure seems to go on and on. An eye for an eye is going to make the whole world blind!

Film Mania

What Planet Are you from? (WPAYF), Vantage Point, Starsky & Hutch, Groundhog Day, The Weatherman, Thirakkatha (malayalam) - I've watched all these movies in the last 5 days. Add to it another travel documentary on Mexico, and a half of another movie - Chicken Run that I managed in the same last 5 days.

Either I'm nuts or I do not have any other job left now or both! But yes, I've been watching movie with a vengeance these days. As if there's no tomorrow; As if I want to run away from all the worldly worries and responsibilities; As if I want to become a film critic or a film director!

WPAYF was funny, Vantage point was engrossing, Starsky & Hutch was light & fun, The Weatherman was decently treated, but what stood out from the rest were - Groundhog Day & Thirakkatha.

Groundhog Day in its very own peculiarly funny way brought out a meaning - of not cribbing about the daily chores (stuck in a rut thingee), and being helpful to others. Very innovative way of dealing with this subject! No wonder it figures in the top 200 of all time best movies (imdb).

Moving on to Thirakkatha (script in Malayalam), the script is the clear winner in this movie. I really don't know how the Malayalam film industry manages to get solid stories/scripts. This movie Thirakkatha manages to pull off a wonder with a small budget, great story, good treatment and small-time actors (except Prithviraj - this guy is there in all the good movies!). To borrow another critic's words - It is a charming film that's plainly life-affirming without being overly pretentious or markedly melodramatic. A must watch if you can follow a little bit of malayalam or if you can read the subtitles.

The Weatherman

A divorced husband who was apparently trying to bring his family (wife and two teenage kids) together gets a word of advice from his father: 'Usually, the easy things to do are not the right things to do. Most of the times, the right things to do are always the hard things to do.' (How true!)

The husband had all the good intentions, but somehow was not trying to get his act together. He wanted to bring his family back...together with him. He thought that moving from Chicago to New York (NY) with a new, bigger and more-than-well-paying job would be key to it. He lands the $1.2 mn job, but finds that his ex-wife is going to marry somebody else.

Then comes the clincher from his father: 'Sometimes you have to chuck some things in your life to move ahead.' (Again, How true!)

Provided with an option to pursue his american dream of a new BIG job, the husband obliges, and moves on. He stays in NY for his new job, gets back his self-esteem, and keeps visiting his children in Chicago. Ex-wife gets married to the other guy.

That's the movie for you. But one point that got easily noticed was that this weatherman had to appear in the show for 2 hours a day, read out the predictions based on the analysts's reports, and still got paid $244k per year plus the appearance allowances (in his current Chicago job). And since it's just based on winds, there is a possibility of giving out a completeley false prediction too. Imagine that for a career!! ;)

Complicated Relationships

Mutiple stars, a lot of couples, passionate affairs, complicated relationships, independent persons, confused persons, dependent persons, faithlessness, honesty, casual attitudes, millions of problems, unhappy couples, happy people, etc. - yet good movies!

A lot of movies have used some or most or all of these ingredients. After having watched 'Your Friends & Neighbors', I asked myself - Why are relationships so complicated? Not just between lovers, husbands-wives, girlfriends-boyfriends, but most of the relationships like father-son, father-daughter, etc. There have been a lot of movies that have used such complicated themes and found success.

Among other English movies, it just struck me that even 'Vicky Christina Barcelona' (VCB) is based on complicated relationships, though VCB is much more on the funny side. On looking back, 'Closer' and 'Matchpoint' (Off the top of my mind) also stand out as interesting movies based on similar themes. The way they were dealt with made them non-judgemental and non-preachy, yet they were so beautifully narrated that the viewer will be glued to the screen all through. There are many more movies like that, but for the lack of words (read lack of memory cells in my brain) now, I shall stop at that.

Needless to add, at least three of the above four movies are a recommended watch (by yours truly) - VCB, Closer & Matchpoint. I guess it's time now for me to move on from movies with such complicated stories, and enjoy some other genre for a while.

The Last Cigarette

What do you do when you suffer from a Compulsive Behavior - an Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) or an Addiction of some sort.

Let's assume that you are an addict of cigarettes. (For those who do not smoke, think of any other thing that you are addicted to - alcohol, gym, surfing the net, making phone calls, etc. - so that you empathise with the Cigarette smoker). And let's assume that you want to quit that compulsive behavior. What do you do?

There may be many ways and techniques avaible. But here's one that I've found to be effective in many different situations myself (Explained with the example of a cigarette addict):

Carry a cigarette with you always - just one - to allow yourself one last chance to smoke. It gives you the enticement that you are so near to smoking, that you can smoke anytime that you want to. But it also tests your determination in a way that if you smoke the last cigarette, all your determination will go for a toss.

It gives you an option to smoke, and derives from you a commitment that you will not smoke in the future. If you smoke, you smoke for the last time; thereby losing yourself a chance to have your last smoke in the future.

Initially, there will be very strong urges to smoke. But slowly, and steadily, those urges to smoke will become few and far between as you continue seeing that cigarette daily and continue controlling your urges. Gradually, as you become grittier and are able to develop enough self-control, you may not need to carry the cigarette always with you.

I know there are various types & levels of compulsive behaviors, and various types of personalities, so this technique may not be effective in all the cases. So to try it or not is totally up to your discretion.

Dev D

An imdb rating of 9.2 doesn't mean that a movie is going to be great. But it does ensure that the movie is worth a watch so that you can decide it for yourself whether it's good or bad.

And that's what this movie has done to me. A very high imdb rating, a modern interpretation of an old story (which was interesting in its own way - why else would it have 9 movie adaptations?), fair reviews, and finally Abhay Deol - it has all the ingredients for making it interesting.

After having seen Abhay Deol's 'Oye Lucky, Lucky Oye', I, somehow, have pretty high expectations from him. This guy does something to the characters that he plays.

Also, against all the odds, I had liked Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Devdas too. It was possibly because I had very low expectations from that one (I had a BIG mental block against this movie - still I watched it...after 3 years of it being been released!). And having liked that 'Devdas', I'm pretty sure that this contemporary interpretation is going to be a pretty cool one.

Let me go watch it before I write the review!

Sambar Millionaire - II

V is standing near the Kitchen sink with Pressure Cooker in his hand. He is wearing a T-shirt, Boxer shorts and a helmet. What? A helmet? He doesn't seem to be going out anywhere now.

Hovering near him (but still maintaining a safe distance from him) is S - giving him instructions to open the cooker. S, having already seen the cooker fury, didn't have any courage left to open the cooker. So in came V with oodles of confidence. With a little bit of help from the onlookers (read cheerleaders A & R), V did the right thing - Opened the cooker with no casualties!

This brought into view the vegetables (drumsticks, beans, etc.) that were boiled for Sambar. Meanwhile S had already cooked Dal in a pan. Now, again with the help of cheerleaders (A& R), S & V started pouring all the essentials into that pan. S kept reading all the ingredients and recipe from the back of MTR Sambar masala pack. One by one, vegetables, tamarind, salt, etc. went in to the pan. Sambar resembled the color that it should have taken, but it lacked the smell and taste of a Sambar.

S & V took turns and kept on stirring the Sambar. Only after stirring it for about half an hour, did they realize that they had missed out a major ingredient. Since they were reading it out of the pack, it never struck anyone that they have to open that pack and pour out its contents (The Great MTR Sambar masala) into the Sambar.

By the time Sambar was ready, all of them were so hungry that they could not have found any fault with it. Needless to say, the cheerleaders kept on cheering S & V for their initiative and bravery, without which they would not have been having that lunch. They do not remember the taste of Sambar now, but they do remember the scenes pretty vividly.

Sambar Millionaire - I

This is a story set in flat no.4, Vignesh apartments where dwelled 5 (sometimes upto 6) bachelor folks in the pre-tsunami era of Chennai.

It was yet another Chennai (read hot and sultry) sunday morning when the last remaining vestiges of sleeping bodies in a small flat got up from their sleep. As was their practice those days, these bachelors would get ready and start their hunt for lunch (These guys would never wake up in time to have their breakfasts!). But this was bound to be a different day as one of the flatmates had got the enthu (short for enthusiasm) to cook lunch.

In one corner of the hall sat V who was trying to come out of his hangover (from previous night's party) by sitting and studying for CAT. CAT is just another entrance examination in India that attracts takers in the lots of bees, and springs out successful results only by dozens. Then, there was A who was giving exercise to his eyelids by trying to open them. And then, there was R who was reading newspaper with so much vengeance as if the earth would stop its spin if he hadn't read all the words in it by end of the day. (BTW, there is a lot to read in that newspaper 'The Hindu'). All this while, S had been doing the prep work in kitchen for preparing Sambar. G and T were not in town that day.

Suddenly, they heard big noise. An explosion in chennai? Attack by the extremists? Nah...that was not to be, it had come from the kitchen.

A's eyelids sprung open, and he jumped up from the bed. The earth stopped its spin and the newspaper managed to leave R's viewfinder. The explosion made V tick on the wrong answer and he turned around. With all these folks rushing to the kitchen to find out the source of explosion, they couldn't believe what they had seen then.

S, draped only in his bare minimum towel (they could believe it as they were used to seeing S in primitive attire), was covered top to bottom in water and was holding the pressure cooker (with a boiled potato in it). In the sink lay the cooker lid, and all over the floor were present remaining potatoes (each in a different direction) and water. It was SOME sight.

It took them just a minute to figure out that S had luckily survived the incident with no visible damage to his body. And since S was apparently deaf for the next few minutes, A, R and V let out a loud laugh so as to make S listen to their amusement. S stood there grinning from ear to ear.

After cleaning up the entire place, all of them embarked on the next phase of their Sambar Millionaire.

More about that...after the break!

Profound Thoughts - I

“There's one sad truth in life I've found while journeying east and west - The only folks we really wound are those we love the best. We flatter those we scarcely know, We please the fleeting guest, And deal full many a thoughtless blow to those who love us best.” - Ella Wheeler Wilcox

"Even the best of friends face conflicts, but that needn't mean the end of the relationship."

Nice Thought

When people die, in their last moments, they do not remember moments from their workplace. But they do remember best times with their close ones!

Shakespeare in Love

I, usually, do not like period based movies. And that too, a fiction that involves real life characters. It may have been true, as the authenticity of history and the knowledge levels of historians are always debatable (After all, those who wrote history may not have been aware of all the facts!)

But it is a very nice perspective that they have brought out through this movie. Needless to say, the story has been very well-treated, and the actors have done justice to their characters. The movie captures your attention right from the beginning till the end. The end scenes are especially worth a mention. The director manages to up the tempo of the movie as it progresses, and you are left to get absorbed in the theatre scenes (even though you can predict what's going to happen next, you still maintain a pin-drop silence to watch the actors enact the scenes).

And the best part of the movie is the way they have dealt with the concept of love. It has refrained from the jingoistic glorification of love (Love conquers all, Love is necessary for world peace, etc.). In fact, it has brought it out in as much practical manner as possible. You will not disrespect the feelings and emotions that has been portrayed as love, even though it borders on the edges of lust. One of the protagonists is married and away from family for an eternity, whereas the other is about to get married according to her parents' wishes. They are divided across the class and age barriers. Still they are able to cherish their love and live the moments in their present.

The cravings that they have towards each other transcends everything, and the two are able to bring out the best in each other. Both are in a symbiotic relationship letting each other achieve their dreams. One gets to showcase her acting potential, and the other gets the inspiration to pen one of the greatest stories.

And as is the fate with any great love story, it all ends up very realistically. It is not a coincidence that most of the greatest love stories of all time have all had tragic endings - with the protagonists either dead, or separated from each other.

Wonder, if that's true in real life too. Dead or alive, it is not everyone who's lucky enough to experience such a great feeling. Love, truly, is an emotion worth dying for.