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.