Govinda 

How come that the only Hindi movies I enjoy nowadays are Govinda's? Saw Govinda-Rani Mukherjee starrer Chalo Ishq Ladaye, a mindless comedy, no harm in that if you don't expect much. Afterall what do you expect from a Govinda movie other than being a total timepass.

I read some bad reviews about this film, what I don't understand is what were these reviewers looking for? Were they expecting a Shyam Benegal or Satyajit Ray movie? Come on, people, if you are looking for stellar performances and serious cinema, you are watching the wrong movie. The very name Govinda ensures that you can turn off your brain cells for the next two and half hours, sit back, relax and have some silly laughs while you are at it. This movie guarentees that and some of the dialogues (especially Gulshan Grover's in the first half) are really funny. Then there is the indomitable Grand Mama of Indian cinema, Zohra Sehgal as Govinda's daadi (grand mom), who's funny and convincing as the tight fisted autocratic daadi.

There was a time when I considered Govinda movies as total trash. Had Nostradamus told me that I'd be enjoying them sometime in the future (not that Nostradamus would waste himself on predictions like these...just to explain the gravity of the situation), I'd have asked him to pursue some other trade. Greeks were better oracles anyway, not Italians. Coming back to Chalo Ishq Ladaye, the other actors are ok, Rani is not bad, neither is Gulshan Grover and Kader Khan, Johnny Lever's role and his dialogues don't go well with the rest of the film, might have added him for that 'extra dash of comedy', only to spoil the broth. Not much of a story, nothing at all if you have already seen Hitchcock's 'Strangers On A Train', which I saw a couple of months back. All in all, a pure Govinda film, don't try to think and review the film, watch it and let go.

Read More

Late Marriage 

Israelis are certainly noisier than Americans but they are a lot less noisier than Punjabis or Greeks, thats what this Israeli movie, Late Marriage taught me. On the DVD cover I read the film being compared to My Big Fat Greek Wedding and Monsoon Wedding. Although all three deal with the same subject of marriage and the family's need for the boy or the girl to find someone who'll fit in well with them, the Israeli movie lacks the tempo and exuberance of the Greek wedding or the Indian wedding.

Its about a 31 year old bachelor, named Zaza, who is pursuing his doctorate in humanities at Tel Aviv University and his family's plans on getting him settled with a nice girl of their choice. Meanwhile Zaza seems to have other ideas and is pursuing an affair with a divorcee who is elder to him by three years and also has a kid. Now you get the picture....the movie is about the whole extended family of Zaza plotting to trap him in an arranged marriage and what happens in the end is suspense, you better go watch the movie. It is different from the usual Hollywood mish-mash, but then that is expected of anything thats filmed outside Hollywood, right? Other than that, I don't think its much of a ground breaker or anything, its different, thats that.

Read More

The IMax Effect of North American Landscape 

There is a picture of rural America (by America I mean the North American continent, I am yet to travel to the Southern part of this continent) in my mind....the horizon kissing expanse of yellow fields with a red barn thrown in, a couple of horses grazing on the green patch by the road, an old Chevy pickup, rattling down the dust road leading away from the house hidden behind the towering oaks, it's been a long time since I saw that scene in real life. While we were in San Ramon, we used to drive the back roads into real California country, that is the piece of Californian land which had not yet fallen into the hands of greedy real estate companies looking for another piece of 'prime land' for development.

For a first time visitor, the beauty of American landscape is like seeing a movie at an IMAX movie theater after having watched 35mm movies all your life. Especially for a person like me, coming from Indian subcontinent where the scale of the landscape is mostly intimate, like the narrow twisting green lagoon corridors of Kerala or the mughal gardens of Kashmir and Himachal which miniaturize paradise in a few precious terraced acres, of course I am enthralled by those landscapes too. They epitomize another kind of beauty, of home. I am surprised 'cause Europe is s'posed to be beautiful, not America. America is the place where the modern has gone berserk, atleast that was what I thought.

American geography was a revelation of sorts in a big way, literally, the scale here is monumental. Right now, sitting with my laptop at my dining table, I can see the snow covered road leading away from our balcony, cutting across an urban corridor lined on each side with drooping conifers as if its aiming straight at the mountains pasted like a tableau near the horizon and here I am, sitting in the middle of downtown Anchorage.

We used to go for long bike rides through the farm country which lay behind the urban facade of San Francisco's East Bay, which is punctuated by rolling hills and valleys, with farms on the hills dotted with hundreds of black n white cows and an occasional park or preserve. It was the vastness of the land that enchanted me, the idea that owning a hundred acre farm does not exactly make you the biggest farmer around, chances are that you'd be the smallest one. Like the 'grande' helpings you get at restaurants across the country, everything about this nation adheres to the slogan 'think big' and I have a suspicion that it was Nature who started it that way. With its wide-screen version of the world, the physical scenery of United States is something the glossy coffee table books cannot give full justice to.

In Alaska, the American landscape is presented in the grandest of all grand scales. Forget about you the fact you are in United States, it is 'specially easier if you can comfortably turn a blind eye to the the well maintained highway which led you till this last frontier. My friends who pride themselves to be real Alaskans warn me not to consider any place accessible by road as a part of real Alaska. The great wilderness of Alaska they say, lies beyond the reach of the ordinary motorist like you and me. For me who has just started learning the Alaskan primer, even the places I can access on four wheels leave me speechless, mountains that start straight off from sea, the white vastness of the endless tundra in the winter, pristine forests bursting off in all colors imaginable during the spring, golden hues of the fall, every season it is like being in a new place, and I'd have hardly ventured out of my own backyard.

Read More

A White Christmas 

It has been ages since I posted anything other than a book or a film review. But with more than 36 inches (3 feet) of snow in the last 3-4 days and still showing no signs of stopping I guess its time I wrote something about the Alaskan snow. This year we are sure gonna have a white Christmas. The picture here (if you can see anything in it) is taken from my balcony looking out to the driveway approaching the apartment, which used to be forty feet wide ;-), now with all the snow pushed on to the sides and invisible cars which are buried under snow (which the owners have not cared to check upon since the last three days), the road is hardly 20 ft wide.The snow pile seen on the bottom right corner of the photo, is the snow that has piled up on our balcony railing in the last 3 days. Only last week did I clean the whole balcony off snow, not because my cleaning instincts were awakened, but I had this sudden creative urge to build a snowman. It isn't worth mentioning that half an hour of my snowman building efforts ended when all I could come up was a mound of knee high snow, which did not remotely resemble any snowman I had ever seen. That being said, it doesn't mean that such small setbacks make me not like the snow, I love snow. Coming from a place which sits almost right smack on the equator, snow used to be a distant dream while growing up. It took twenty one years of my life to see and feel the wonder of snow for the first time, in a small town in the Himalayan foothills. Alaska is a long way off from Himalayas, but the white wonderland of enchantment is the same wherever you go.

I had people tell me how they hated the long and snowy Alaskan nights of December and January. Maybe because they have been here all their lives and I guess that kind of familiarity might breed contempt. For a newcomer like me, five months of winter is like living in a totally new place. Gone are the days of hiking, camping, fishing and other summer fun things, and in comes the days of skiing. With three world class ski resorts right here in town, what else could you ask for but ski all your free time away. Tomorrow you might not find the time or might not be in the right place, who knows. Coming to think of it, we are usually the only skiers on the slopes these days, seems like alpine skiing has given way to snow boarding in a big way, everywhere you see youngsters tagging along snowboards in psychedelic colors.

But then winter is not all fun either. You need to change your summer tires to winter tires, the ones with studs (tires fitted with spikes/studs for use in winter). Its comparitively better if you have a four wheel drive vehicle instead of a two wheel drive, that explains the overpopulation of trucks and SUVs on Alaskan roads and also how a puny person like me ended up driving a truck. On an ordinary day with moderate snow shower, there are atleast three to four dozen distress calls from drivers sliding off the roads, getting trapped in snow or getting into minor accidents, all because of snow. Well...we try to drive safe, but then you can never say. We are glad our homes are heated, so its always the warm tropics inside, even if its sub zero temperatures outside (currently it is -15 deg celsius outside), but don't be too cosy either, thats what a recent accident taught us. Earlier this month five members of a family died in their home, right here in town, by carbon monoxide poisoning, all because of a defective / blocked vent. After that incident Costco ran out of CO monitoring systems, as people started buying them like crazy. Now it seems like snow blowers are also out of stock, as people have given up snow showelling since its getting them nowhere with this huge pile up of snow around and have turned to snow blowers.

For those who are scared of cold and snow, let me tell you something. Alaskan winter is not the worst winter I have ever experienced in my life, that coveted title goes to a winter, a couple of years back in New Delhi. Zero degree celsius, brick and cement houses (can't imagine the state of people who live in slums in this kind of climate), no central heating (I didn't even have one of those handy portable heaters), all I had was a woollen blanket in a house that was chilled to the core of its foundation. Here, in climate controlled environs, unless you are a real outdoor enthusiast, all that you can feel and see of the changing seasons is thru' your window - either your living room window or your car's. All the rest could be summed up as minor inconveniences - like tredging 20 feet thru' snow to reach the department store entrance from your car or getting some kind of pollen allergy when flowers start bloomin' in spring, the rest is all the same, unless you go out and live every season differently.

Read More

The Five People You Meet in Heaven 

A beautiful story. I read it in one go, could be an excellent book to take on those intercontinental flights or one of those long non-stop journeys. This book is written by Mitch Albom, who is better known for his earlier novel, Tuesdays with Morrey, which has been made into a film. I haven't read Tuesdays with Morrey, but Five People... is definitely a keeper.

It explores a new concept of heaven (or afterlife?), according to which, the protagonist of the novel, Eddie - ordinary of all ordinary mortals, meets five people in the so-called Heaven. More than a place this Heaven is a state of being, state of consciousness and everyone will meet their five chosen people in heaven. The five people Eddie meets in heaven are varied as a group can be, some are total strangers, some are acquaintances and one is his wife.

If there is a book that can make you cry, not in desperate sorrow, but in quiet contemplation, this is it. For all those, like me, who have not yet been 'saved' enough to forget that we are just a mass of organic compounds, bound to decay, insignificant as the withering plant in your balcony which you have forgotten to water, Five People You Meet in Heaven is salvation, atleast during the hours you are reading it.

Read More

Bicyle Thief, The 

Vittorio De Sica's acclaimed masterpeice , The Bicycle Thief brought back memories of old Satyajit Ray films, black and white films of another era which were touted a class apart. Ofcourse, they were, they reminded us of a not so colorful world we inhabit daily, but nonetheless poignant and sanguine. Bicycle thief is set in post war Italy where people are struggling to make ends meet, not at all confirming to the glorious picture of Europe that people from developing countries might have of it.

The hero of the film lands a job, after a long wait, whose requirement is that he should have bicyle, which he procures after repaying the loan he has taken on the bicycle. As luck would have it on the first day of the job itself the bicycle gets stolen and the movie follows his search for the bicycle and its thief on the very next day thru' the streets of the city, with his young son.

The young boy who follows his father in his search has been portrayed as a silent observer and witness of all the events, at once the viewer is the man and the boy. Lamberto Maggiorani, who plays the main character of the man who loses his bicycle is brilliant inspite of being a non actor. The child actor Enzo Staiola was casted right from the streets to play the character of the little boy, it is as if he is the character. The movie won the best foreign film Oscar in 1949. By some coincidence or similarity this film reminds me a lot of Bimal Roy's Do Bhiga Zameen.

Read More

Salaam Bombay 

Fifteen years, thats a long time to abstain from watching a great movie from your own country, made by one of the greatest directors, that too a woman, why did I do this unpardonable crime? I saw a bit of it once, at one of my friend's houses in Ahmedabad, five years back, didn't give it more than a fleeting glance since we had a seminar presentation the next day. Yesterday I got the opportunity again, what more could I say, salaam Bombay! salaam Mira Nair! for giving us this gem of a movie, salaam to all the people who worked behind and in this film, one of the best movies, in any language I have ever watched.

Salaam Bombay is one of the few movies, that unleashed a mass movement in India, a movement for the betterment of lives of street children, in Bomaby. You can catch that at Salaamstreetkids.org The other similar movie I can remember is Roland Joffe's City of Joy, which led to the creation of City of Joy trust by Dominique Lapierre for the underpriveleged in Calcutta. For a little more than two hours, you are made to realize how lucky you are, lounging in the sofa infront of the TV or munching pop corn at the movie hall, you will be glad you are not one of those street kids whose life epitomises the meaning of struggle every next second, yet they are happy, they are innocent and they are real. The director Mira Nair, selected real street kids for the roles, in addition to a few character actors like Raghuvir Yadav, Nana Patekar and Anita Kanwar. When one of the street kids in an interview done fifteen years later says that 99% of the movie is true to life in the streets of Mumbai, you will know this is as real as it gets. Salaam Bombay is one of the movies that will awaken that altruistic streak in everyone of us, the moment we are done with the movie, we are bundles of enthusiasm, we burst with goodness, we are faced with the blessed idea that we have to contribute something to the betterment of humanity. Well, if you feel that way, don't let that feeling die a natural death after a couple of hours, act on it, it is actually true when they say, 'you can make a difference'.

The DVD I saw included interviews with the main actors and technicians who worked in the film in 1988, a segment in the lines of "Where are they now?'. Shafiq Sayid, the protangonist has gone from a street kid to a national award winning child star to a nobody and to being an assisstant cameraman settled and leading a peaceful life with a wife and two kids in Bangalore. Another street kid (Kira in the movie) was adopted by Salaam Bombay's camera woman Sandy Sissel and is now Bernard Sissel, living in LA - talk about chances in a billion. Mira Nair, ofcourse as everyone know went on to become one of the acclaimed directors in world cinema. I have watched all the movies made by her, except the documentaries, but this one, her first one, I'd say, is by far the best.

Read More

Qayamat 

Watched a mainstream Hindi movie after a considerable interval which made me realize I had been nurturing an impossible notion that commercial Hindi films were indeed getting better. I could not have been more wrong, considering the fact that Qayamat had a good run in most Indian cities.

The movie blatantly steals from a bunch of Hollywood movies, falls shamelessly short of each one of them . I had completely forgotten how Hindi movies jump into the song-dance routine at the batting of an eyelid, this movie has given me a whack on the head and jolted me into the harsher (or should I say sweeter syrupier mushier) realities of Bollywood entertainment. Lately I had seen a couple of low budget Bollywood flicks, yes.. they made a string of those sometime back with aspiring teen actors and to say the truth they were much better than this star studded action flick. Arbaaz Khan and Sanjay Kapoor are pathetic as villians, who told them to be villians all you needed was a wide mouthed villianous laugh?!?? The saving grace of the movie is Ajay Devgan who inspite of having found himself in the middle of a bad script and shoddy direction has proved that he is one of the best actors Bollywood has churned out in the recent past.

Read More

Down With Love 

A romantic comedy set in the sixties, starring Rene Zellweger and Ewan Mcgregor. I like both of them, there is no serious stuff in here, no lessons learnt, although the movie does repeat once in a while that its underlying theme is the battle of the sexes, its a fun battle and McGregor has cool sixtyishname - Catcher Block !!!

Read More

Amelie 

I saw Amelie sometime back, liked it, then forgot all about it. Its like a funny feel good Disney animation with a Made in France tag and real life characters. The style of narration is quite refreshing, so is the camera and lighting. The actress who played Amelie, Audrey Taotou lives being Amelie, you know the kind, even if you see her 50 years later on a street, you'll recognize her and you'll call her by name(Amelie, ofcourse), as if she has always been your next door neighbor. The film is red and green, very holidayish colors, and yeah, thinking about it - its a good movie to watch during the holidays.

Read More

Barbershop 

A pure entertainer, for a change its from the African Amercian perspective. Ice Cube is the owner of the barbershop which is in the south side of Chicago and it could be called the neighborhood community center. The whole movie takes place in a day, from dawn to dusk, which starts off like any other day for the local barbershop. Fortunes fluctuate, minds change, decisions are remade and finally everything turns out just perfect. Good timepass.

Read More

Naomi Klein's No Logo 

I started reading Naomi Klein's No Logo yesterday, can't believe she's just 5 years older than myself and has already published such a ground breaking book. Cool!

From what I have read in the first few pages of the book, it seems like nobody is selling products these days, they are selling brands. For ex, I quote from the book "..Tommy Hilfiger, meanwhile is less in the business of manufacturing clothes than he is in the business of signing his name. The company is run entirely through licensing agreements, with Hilfiger commissioninng all its products from a group of other companies: Jockey International makes Hilfiger underwear, Pepe Jeans London makes Hilfiger jeans, Oxford Industries make Tommy shirts, the Stride Rite Corporation makes its footwear. What does Tommy Hilfiger manufacture? Nothing at all." This is new information for me. I am all geared up to read the rest.

Read More

The Exorcist 

Can horror movies be termed watchable? Atleast in my moviemeter, the Evil Dead Series, Nightmare on Elm Street series etc never caused any ripples. Well, the Exorcist is quite a different story, considering it was made thirty years ago and it still doesn't seem dated.

A generation and a half of movie goers have watched the Exorcist before me, so any high handed comments from me, I think, is totally unnecessary. I loved the movie, how a usually unconvincing story is made convincing, without taking any sides. All the special effects in the movie are purely mechanical, no digital makeovers were possible at the time. A technically perfect movie with a strong storyline about a much contraversial subject and a real horror movie for a change, thats what the Exorcist is for me.

Read More

Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch 

Science fiction is a territory I tread with caution, because many of the stories dissect and mutilate the same areas as time travel, aliens and the like. After a long time I decided to give science fiction another try and read Philip K Dick's 'Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch'. He is the same author whose story, Minority Report was made into a movie lately, starring Tom Cruise.

Three Stigmata deals with a time when every piece of rock which can support life in the Sol system(solar system) has been colonized by man and the people who live in these places are branded as colonists. Like during the times of Vietnam war, 'drafting' is dreaded word, that means you were drafted to live in one of these space colonies, far from terra (earth) for the rest of your lives. It is an alien narcotic(a lichen that grows in some other galaxy) called Can-D which the colonists use, to have hallucinations of earth, with out these hallucinations, lives of the colonists border almost on insanity. The story turns when Palmer Eldritch, a rich businessman who had traveled to some far-off galaxy and presumed dead for years, returns with a more potent stuff than Can-D, names it Chew-Z and starts marketing it across the colonies and the earth. The story goes on from there..

This novel was written in the early sixties, although not very exact or advanced as depicted in the story, I could draw a lot of parallels between the life in the story and our lives now. We have not colonized solar system yet, but factors like the control of big corporations and media over our daily lives, the virtual reality games like Sims, SimCity etc have all been anticipated by the novel in some way or the other. You'll like Philip.K.Dick's style if you liked the story of Minority Report. Has to give the man his due, all of this, including Minority Report was written forty years ago.

Read More

Shallow Hal 

If media can corrupt you, then media can redeem you too. In an age when the staple of infontainment are the images of thinner-than-air femme fatales and informercials air 24/7 the ads of miracle drugs that can make you lose 30 lbs in 30 mins, anyone with some(or any) grey matter still left, should by now, be aware of the warning signs of a massive media brainwash of the masses. Shallow Hal, coming from the Farelly brothers (There's Something about Mary and Dumb & Dumber) is a two hour effort to convince you that beauty doesn't always come in wafer thin packages.

Jack Black is good, so is Gweneth Paltrow and I for one is a comedy lover unless it is too 'slap-sticky'. Jack Black's character, after a chance encounter with a new age guru falls in love with Gweneth Paltrow's character, who is actually 300+lbs and not exactly Black's type. Its the guru who does a small trick with Black's vision that he starts seeing the inner beauty of all women, not their physical assets. So the 300+lb girl appears as Paltrow to Black and he's head over heels in love. This is like a modern fairytale, becuase there are some parts of the movie which needs more convincing, especially towards the end, but then think of it as a fairytale and everything's fine. By the way, the movie has a good soundtrack.

Read More

Unforgiven 

The first real good western I have ever watched, thats what Unforgiven is to me. I have decided to watch every movie Clint Eastwood has directed or will ever direct. May his tribe prosper. Its unforgiveable that I had not watched Unforgiven till now, so if you are movie buff and if you are yet to watch it, the only way can redeem yourself is to seize the earliest opportunity to go watch Unforgiven. Let the movie speak for itself, I am not sayin' anything.

Read More

A Dangerous Place: California's Unsettling Fate 

Thats the title of the book by Marc Reisner, I read recently. A doomsday look at the booming California, supported by facts and coming from a convincing scientist, A Dangerous Place is an informative read. To think about that one and half years ago, I lived right smack on top of the San Andreas Fault, one of the most geologically active faults in US and didn't even care a hoot about it. I knew then that this famed fault was somewhere nearby, but not right under my feet, now 6000 miles north and one book later, I know better.

I took this book because I wanted to know better about California, home for a year, this extensively irrigated, highly populated desert of a 'nation-state' and what its odds were in the long run. Well, after reading this book I would say I'd warn even my grandchildren to stay clear off CA, that is, if its still there with its fake lush charm. But then,some of the greatest cities of the world still exist in the worst of topographies, take Tokyo for example. Tokyo has been built and rebuilt again and again on the same terrain, one of the most earthquake prone in the world, for centuries now. So why shouldn't it be true for San Francisco or LA? If you keep aside the inherent plate tectonic defect of the region, there is still another problem - water. Well, water is problem in almost all the big cities of the world, you don't expect a sinking aquifer or a fast depleting lake to support exploding populations forever, right?

Whatever it is, I think California is like a prototype, a working, living machine, a real time experiment to test how far men can go, how far we can stretch and expand resources and how much can nature tolerate or when will we have to switch to alternatives (no, no no ......not soda instead water kinda alternative) just in time to save ourselves. Reisner has a scenario in the end when a big earthquake strikes SFO, and the last chapters are the simulation and effects of this event, its interesting to read, if you know or live around the place, just to see which houses will stand and which bridges will fall !

Read More

American Movie 

Another one from my documentary seeing spree. American Movie documents an aspiring film-maker, Mark Borchardt, somewhere in the depths of Wisconsin, trying to make a direct-to-market movie with his meager resources and infrastructure. At one point you may think that Mark's obsession with movie making is foolish, even pathetic, but as you watch the documentary you see the person, his relationships, his dreams and above all his life and in the end when he accomplishes the task, you know you'll have to applaud the guy, for all that he has been through.

Mark is an average or even below average(in terms of financial status) American guy with a penchant for film making. He adores horror movies like Texas Chainsaw Massacre(the original one), Night of the Living Dead etc and has been making short movies since he was fourteen. We follow the making of his new movie Coven, a 35 minute black and white horror flick, through a time frame of 2+ years. Other main characters in the movie are Mark's ex-stoner pal Mike, who found his calling in life, which is to buy lotteries and who is a born again teetotaller after years of drug use and alchoholism and Mark's ailing uncle, who after Mark's relentless persuasion finally agrees to finance the film out of his retirement fund and Mark's parents, who although reluctant at first, support Mark in his pursuit of the 'American Dream'. Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival, 'American Movie', is something you can only find in 'America', in the rest of the world we'd be done in by survival pressures before anyone of us had made it even halfway thru'.

Read More

4 Little Girls 

Spike Lee's documentary on civil rights movement of the sixties, starting from a vortex - which is the death of 4 little girls in the Alabama church bombing of 1963 and spreading outward. Its a memory trip, the entire civil right movement and the turbulent sixties of the American South seen through the eyes of the people who were caught right in the middle,in the eye of the storm. We live the era, through the interviews with parents and friends of the girls killed at the 16th St. Baptist Church bombing, we hear the lawmakers and the administrators, we hear how the police and KKK were inseparable in those days (acc. to the movie, one in every three policemen was a clan member!) and ofcourse about the will and determination of blacks in Alabama and the South, when an entire nation had turned a blind eye on their freedom and their needs. Thats history for you, if want to the see the real thing outside of the History Channel.

Read More

Kikujiro

A beautiful movie, I can describe this movie with a plethora of pompous adjectives, but that still won't do it enough justice. One of the best movies I have ever seen, this Japanese movie from Takeshi Kitano, flows like a poem, one that does not need a dictionary or an understanding of rhyme structure to enjoy it.

I watched it about six months ago and saw it again the second the time yesterday, when we bought the DVD. The movie is a search and a journey, undertaken by a six year old boy and a man who accompanies him, which is Mr.Takeshi himself. This film is supposed to be an exploration of a different genre by Takeshi, since most of his other films are associated with yakusas, violence, blood and the like. There is innocence and there is comedy - one that is neither slapstick nor what could be called the thinking man's humor, but something altogether different, something quirky. Kitano has kept up his deadpan acting style, but that only adds to the charm of the movie, the little boy is perfect for the part, so are all the other strange characters they meet on their journey, music by Joes Hisashi is another ace up the sleeve of this movie.

Read More

Ballad Of A Soldier 

Grigori Chukrai's Russian movie, Ballad of a Soldier is a timeless masterpiece. Here I was in 2003, watching a movie made in 1959 in post war USSR, checking again and again on the DVD cover whether this movie was actually made in 1959 or shot in black and white in 1999 or 1989 or so? There is a certain finesse, a certain element in the movie that I cannot discern which makes it timeless, you cannot see the the dramatic acting often seen in forties and fifties movies, you cannot see the abrupt jerky shots and actions characteristic of pre-war movies and there are not many style statements which stamp the movie as belonging to one era or another.

Its WW2 and Alyosha Skcortsov is a nineteen year old Russian soldier who is granted a visit to his mother after he singlehandedly fends off two enemy tanks. We follow Alyosha and his life during those few days of his journey to his home, through a war torn country, through loves lost and found, through demolition and strife, through hope and despair in the lives of people he pass through and finally he reaches home with just enough time to hug his mother and get back to the battle field. Ballad of a Soldier doesnot entrust its fame on the young shoulders of a brave teenage soldier but rather creates a poignant visual poem with him as the symbol of life, innocence, youth, love and hope, in a time which desperately needed all of these.

Read More

Hannah and her sisters 

Another Woody Allen flick, centered around the lives of Hannah, played by Mia Farrow and her two sisters. A typical Woody Allen story, characters and humor, a definite entry in the list of thinking man's list of comedy movies.

Read More

Blood Work 

A Clint Eastwood movie again, where Eastwood himself is the hero as the retired FBI man, with a newly transplanted heart. The movie begins with Eastwood being approached by the sister of the his heart donor, who is a murder victim. Although he has said goodbye the crime solving business, tugging at the 'heart strings' of his borrowed heart, is the question, "who killed the real owner of my new heart?" So our man plunges into unravelling what seems to be a murder during a convenience store heist. The story is good, the pace is fast, there are not many unwanted scenes in the movie, its pretty much tightly packed as the boat which serves as Eastwood's home in the story. A good murder mystery and I have finally decided I should watch Unforgiven after years of exercising restraint, thats says something about this movie, I guess.

Read More

Adaptation 

Nicholas Cage in a double role, Meryl Streep and Chis Cooper - that makes four actors who have acted extremely well in this movie. It gets off on a slow start brooding on the life of Hollywood screen writer called Charlie Kaufman and his newest project, a movie about orchids, which has experienced a writer's block at the very start itself. The other Nicholas Cage is Kaufman's twin Donald, a happy go lucky guy, who is an aspiring screen writer, who surpasses and surprises his brother when his so-deemed no good script is swooped up for millions in Hollywood. Meryl Streep plays the reporter who goes down to Florida to do an article on orchids and ends being having an affair with the eccentric orchid man, played by Chris Cooper, although its not as straightforward as I said it. Where does the characters of Streep and Cage connect? Well it is Streep's story that Cage is trying to adapt into film. The pace quickens up towards the end, although some of the actions of its main characters towards the end are questionable.Nicholas Cage is beyond recognition as Charlie Kaufman and the juxtaposition of the serious loser character of Charlie against the exuberant Donald, both played by Cage, shows his infinite range. I am not that much inspired by the movie, but Cage's acting is something to write home about.

Read More

25th Hour 

Directed by Spike Lee, this film starring Edward Norton is about the last day of freedom in the life of a NewYork drug dealer (Norton) before he goes to prison for seven years. I felt it was more like a narrative than a story with some destination. Norton has acted well in a low key role. It is not a typical Hollywood movie where you would expect car chases, clandestine deals and wailing cop sirens packed into a drug dealer's last day as a free man. This is pretty much like life viewed in retrospect through the actions of one day. So don't expect any nail biting or edge-of-the-seat thrills here, its a movie for grownups, though Iam not sure I am that grownup yet or not. It does sometimes go away on its own free will sometimes, like the time Norton curses everyone from Newyork cabbies, harlem boys, whites, Osama and almost everyone out there or at the time of Norton's ride to the prison with his father - these scenes are like complete poems in themselves.

Read More

Catch Me If You Can 

Like Men of Honor, this again is a biographical movie of a man who achieved the unachievable of a rather dubious nature. Frank Abignale, the ingenious imposter, crook, defrauder a la master of all trades is the ME in Catch Me if you Can. Don't think any of us can catch up with him, especially if you are already past your teens. He impersonated "successfully" an airline pilot, a doctor, a lawyer(passed the bar exam too) and cashed millions of dollars worth of fraud checks before he was finally caught and he was just 19 at the time! Leonardo DiCaprio plays Frank Abignale and Tom Hanks plays Carl Hanretty, the FBI agent hot on Frank's trail. Its a good movie to watch, to see how Frank make fake checks, degree certificates and the like, at a time when nobody had heard of photostat or photoshop. Catch it if you can.

Read More

Men of Honor 

Men of Honor is a feel good movie, one where the tough and steadfast but downtrodden hero triumphs atlast. Its a movie for the dark horses in us, who desperately need a win, who need a symbol for our hope and that is what Carl Brashear(played by Cuba Gooding Jr.), the navy diver who aspires to be the master chief achieves in the movie. Inspired by a real life story, Men of Honor traces the journey of Carl Brashear, the first African-American deep sea diver in US Navy from his Kentucky hometown, thru' the navy training schools and barracks and his experiences as the first African American in a not very welcoming world of US Navy deep sea divers. His never quit attitude and perseverence in the face of adversity leads upto his final triumph of will when the Navy allows him to continue as a deep sea diver inspite of an amputated leg and from there he goes on to become the Master Diver. Robert De Niro plays Master Chief Billy Sunday, who is out to get Brashear kicked out of the diving school and the Navy, who later on turns into a dependable ally of Brashear. The best part of the movie is not the acting, though Cuba Gooding's & De Niro's performances are outstanding, but the fact that one man, who is real as you and me, went thru' all this and emerged victorious. So why go to Krypton, we have our own, right here on earth!

Read More

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil 

This is a Clint Eastwood movie, one I saw as a part of my initiation towards knowing Clint Eastwood, the director, after being bowled head over heels by his latest film, Mystic River. Midnight in the Garden... is set in Savannah, Georgia, suffused with the old world charm and mystery of the South, feels like it is a different continent out there. Starring Kevin Spacey and John Cusack this is a murder mystery, seems like Eastwood is quite a reader, this one too like his other directorial ventures is an adaptation of a novel. Cusack is John Kelso, the big town reporter who comes down to Savannah to write an article about a society party held each year on Christmas by Jim Williams( Kevin Spacey), a prominent Savannah businessman. The photography is soothing, there are some interesting characters like Lady Chablis - the transvestite, Minerva - the voodoo woman etc, though the murder is not much of mystery. Kevin Spacey plays a charcter very different from his usual roles. A lazy afternoon movie, in Southern accent that is.

Read More

Artificial Intelligence

Brian Aldiss was one of the very few science fiction authors I had reading access to when I was a kid. He being British, his books were abound in the local British library in the city I lived. Artificial Intelligence in Steven Spielberg's take on an Aldiss short story by the name 'SuperToys Last All Summer Long'.

A.I is a cool story, I don't know how it did at the box office. There are always a number of failings to be pointed out when it is an SF movie. Science fiction traverses a realm where we haven't been yet, everyone's concept of the future differs, even though you and me are not Asimov or Bradbury or Clarke, everyone has an opinion of her/his own when it comes to the future. The success of an SF writer depends on how much his version of the future matches or atleast captures the interest of the majority of the population.

Artificial Intelligence as the title implies centers around robots, intelligent in the ways they are intended to be, by their makers ie human beings. The robots are called mecha (from mechanical?) and we, humans are called orga(organic) and now that everyone can think, scientists cross over to the forbidden territory of love. They make a mecha child who can love, and that is Haley Joel Osment. He has given a wonderful performance, as the eleven year old mecha boy, whose quest is to find the blue princess and make her grant his one wish, so that his (human) mother will love him. It is a fairytale, one set in the future, that makes it possible to have its own sets of trappings and rules, essentially different from the fairytales we have been hearing till now. Its has a good storyline, some lousy acting if you don't count Osment and Jude Law, who makes an appearance as Gigolo Joe, the lover Mecha, a fabulous futuristic landscape of Manhattan half flooded with sea (and you thought global warming was a joke, eh?) and a talking teddy bear, which is an aging super toy. If you like fairytales with a flair and a 'future', you might like this one. Oh, you like science fiction like in Star Wars?!??!! Then I am not quite sure.

Read More

Mystic River 

Its a wow! all the way. Where has the director in Clint Eastwood been hiding all this time? Or was it me who missed out on him? Whatever it is his latest directorial offering, Mystic River, has definitely made the cut and I can confidently say that it will be one of the top five movies of 2003. While reading Mystic River, I knew it was the right Hollywood material, the question was who'd grab it first? It was one movie I had been waiting to see since I heard that it was being made into one, if only they'd release it.

Everyone did great in this movie, Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, Kevin Bacon, Marcia Gay Harden, Lawrence Fishburne and Laura Linney, but the its the first two, Penn and Robbins who have really done some stellar performing. Do I smell an Oscar here? The story is about three childhood buddies, their pasts connected by an abduction and their futures connected by a murder. As Eastwood's Dirty Harry says, "go ahead, make my day" what more can I say, make his day, its worth it!

Read More

Heist 

I love those movies which involve plots and plans, especially the ones which has a plan as cute as a Chinese baby(what does that really mean? I don't know). Thats what the main character in Heist, played by the formidable Gene Hackeman calls his own brain child. The movie involves two robberies, carried out after elaborate planning and backup. The first one is to show the viewers how 'talented', coordianted and well prepared, the team of robbers led by the mastermind Gene Hackman are, they are no petty thieves, they only deal in diamonds worth millions of dollars of gold biscuits. I am not going to tell the story here as it'd kill the pleasure of watching it.

There are some real wise guy dialogues in the movie like "Well, don't you want to hear my last words?" "I just did" or "It's a good day for the race" "What race" "The human race.." etc etc. There are a lot more which I don't remember now. I think only film I have seen directed by David Mamet is Glengarry Glenross of which I don't have any recollections. Heist is written and directed by David Mamet, even though this movie hits the wall of credibility once in a while, its a watchable fare and has prompted me to out for more from the same director.

Read More

You Can Count On Me 

The bar tender from Los Angeles did it great. Mark Ruffalo, the leading man of the movie You Can Count On Me, spent the last nine years of his life as a bartender in LA before he hit gold in Hollywood. In the movie he's a vagabond brother, with no particular aim in life, to Laura Linney's character who is his sister working in a bank in a backwater town. Ruffalo with his easy going style and happy go lucky ways gives an excellent performance. The movie is also the debut vehicle for Rory Culkin as Linney's son. There isn't much of a story to the film and the director Kenneth Lonergan developed the whole movie out of a one act play, nevertheless its a poignant look at some ordinary lives in some ordinary small town somewhere in America and the interesting way it is delivered makes sure that its never uninteresting.

Read More

Do you believe? 

I wonder whether there are people who really really really believe in God. The ones who never questioned God's existence(or non-existence), ones who never debated that issue ever, not even in the remotest corner of their being on their most doubtful day. If such people exist, they must be the luckiest ones alive.

Read More

The Ring 

Finally saw the horror movie, which was tauted a class apart from other Hollywood horror flicks, The Ring. The remake of a hit Japanese movie of the same name, it is without any doubt a product of Hollywood Horror Hawkers Inc., the signature of which stares out at you from the start to the finish. I'd really like to see the Japanese version to see how they dealt with it. Since everyone knows the story I am not going to waste my time exercising my poor story telling skills.

Its kinda urban-legendsy which starts out with two teenage girls talking "well, did you hear about that video, after watching which, the viewers will die in 7 days..blah blah". The horror films which starts with teenagers make me wary, I mean, give them a break, they are the most easy scapegoats for the horror mongers, 9 out of 10 horror flicks involve a group of teenagers stranded in some desolate spot. Anyway this one didn't stretch the teenager material too far and quickly pushes Naomi Watts into the storyline, as our damsel in distress, but a courageous one at that. Ms Watts seems to have become the staple of supernatural and surrealistic films after Mulholland Drive. The Ring could be said as a well directed horror movie, with a glaring "made in Hollywood" sticker attached, which is worth a watch on times like Halloween when world is in dire need to conjure an atmosphere of ghosts(dressed in Walmart Halloween specials) and the horror weekend in your favorite TV channel is horrible beyond tolerance.

Read More

I have been decoded !!! Isn't that so easy?!!!

The Big Five Personality Test

Extroverted	||||||||||||	48%
Introverted	||||||||||||||	52%
Friendly	||||||||||||||	52%
Aggressive	||||||||||||	48%
Orderly	||||||||||||||	58%
Disorderly	||||||||||||	42%
Relaxed	||||||||||||||	60%
Emotional	||||||||||	40%
Intellectual	||||||||||||||||	64%
Practical	||||||||||	36%

Take Free Big 5 Personality Test

Conscious self	Overall self

Take Free Enneagram Personality Test

Read More

Hearts in Atlantis 

Hearts in Atlantis has some mysteries in it and some shades of supernatural. Anthony Hopkins plays the mysterious stranger who walks into the life of Bobby Garfield, an eleven year old boy and the two form a strong bond as the film progresses. Its something like Green Mile (yeah coming from Stephen King) but its not quite Green Mile. It doesn't have quite a strong story line as Green Mile, but what redeems it is its child characters and its setting - the never never land of childhood. If you like stories set in childhood (were you a fan of Wonder Years? then this one is for you), where the narrator has a manly voice although his screen self is a child, then you will like this one. But then I watch the Stephen King stuff for what they are....starts off with mysteries..sets out to explore what they are.....gets nowhere...except confuse the viewers.....we are left more dazed and confused, than when we started, the mysteries of life, universe and space time - maybe a Stephen King reincarnated will have better answers. Wait for that day!

Read More

The Life of David Gale 

When this movie first came I thought it should be a good movie given a contreversial theme and good actors. But then after that I read some reviews asking why Kevin Spacey was wasting himself in movies like these. So when I got this movie from the library a few days back I didn't have any high expectations for it. Maybe that was why I liked the film.

Kevin Spacey has done a good job, being the wrongly convicted Professor, who is also an activist campaigning against capital punishment, who ends up on the death row himself. Shot in Texas, which has more active death rows than anywhere else in US, this Alan Parker movie makes a strong state against capital punishment, although whether any of it will reach the ears of the law makers is doubtful. Kate Winslet plays the role of investigative journalist, whom Spacey has entrusted the duty of proving his innocence, if not to the whole world atleast to his own son when he grows up. Watching the movie one is stricken by the fact that how easily things can go wrong in life, one minute you are leading a cosy suburban existence and in the next you are on the death row, knowing for certain the hour of your death, but no one answers the question, "Why?"

Read More

The Enlish Man Who Went Up The Hill But Came Down a Mountain 

Where in the world could being "English" be the ultimate insult? Where else, in Wales, ofcourse! "The English Man...." is the name of the movie, this could very well be the English movie with the longest title, for all that I know. The story takes place in Wales, the accent itself is so funny, its about half the humor in the film. Hugh Grant is one of the two surveyors sent by His Magesty the King of England, towards the end of WW1, to Wales to measure and map the area. They come across a hill in a Welsh village, which the villagers think could very well be the first mountain in Wales. The rest of the movie is about villagers efforts to make the hill a mountain and how they overcome this 'mountain-high' task. A nice and light movie.

Read More

The Shower 

The Shower, the Chinese(Mandarin) movie is about the story of a father and his sons. Set in a Beijing bathhouse (such places still exist!!!) its the story of the owner of the bath house, the aging father and his sons, the elder son who is holding a respectable job somewhere up north and who rushes home thinking that his father has passed away and the younder son who is retarded and is his father's assistant and companion.

Its a subtle story, lightly told, with its own undercurrent of humor, never becomes suffocatingly sentimental and has almost an all male cast. Its interesting to see the culture, watch the bath house tales unfold - like two men and their fighting crickets, a singer with stage fright who won't shut his mouth once he's in the shower, the adorable younger son who is the soul of the place and is a naughty but likeable and helpful kid. Watch it if you have a taste for foreign movies and could let go Hollywood for a while.

Read More

The Nanny Diaries 

A funny, insider's peek at "Nannying" for high profile Manhattan moms. A first person account, most of it fact than fiction, The Nanny Diaries is an engrossing read, especially for those of us who have no clue as to what happens after the high flying Manhattan socialites get an unexpected visit from the stork-with-the-bundle-of-joy. Co-written by Nicola Kraus and Emma McLaughlin, the book narrates authors' experiences in the wicked and often vicious world where the Nanny's only ally is the child who she is taking care of.

Those of you have done your share of baby sitting will be able to associate with the Nanny easily, but that doesn't make the book a less compelling a read for those who haven't, like me. Its enjoyable and though at times I'd have wanted the Nanny to be more vocal about her needs, afterall this is a free country where slave labor is not tolerated, right? And the children, who are being taken care of, who are being bred right with the right amount French classes, ice skating and all the other related skills are shorn away from childhood before they begin it. Don't let me get started on Nanny's employer Mrs.X and I'll lose all my restraint, lesser said the better. Take a look at this book yourself, you won't regret it.

Read More