Things of Which I May Not Speak

Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island is an extraordinary film. It is Hitchcock, classic noir, Dr. Moreau all at once. But does it cheat?

It’s a question that comes up many times in movies that provide an elaborate twist at the end that makes you rethink the entire movie. Like, say, The Sixth Sense (does not cheat), The Usual Suspects (one big cheat), The Sting (cheats).

What I mean by cheating is this—were there scenes in the movie which were solely meant to mislead the viewer? Or did they serve a purpose in the plot?

Of course, all movies cheat through editing; through what they do not show. But what they do show shouldn’t be a lie.

Well, I’ve only watched it once, but I believe Shutter Island does not cheat.

Tread lightly from this point forward, for here there be dragons! Spoilers about the film may be revealed. Turn back, all ye who wish to remain unsullied. Continue reading ‘To Live as a Monster or Die as a Good Man’ »

Considering the talent involved, this should have been a much better movie—Adam Sandler, Seth Rogen (Knocked Up), Jonah Hill (Superbad), Eric Bana (Hulk, Black Hawk Down), Jason Schwartzman (Rushmore), Aziz Ansari (Parks & Recreation), Aubrey Plaza (Parks & Recreation). Written and directed by Judd Apatow. This should have been so much better.

It’s the story of a comic (Sandler) who learns that he may not have very long to live. He takes a struggling comedian (Rogen) under his wing. This is Sandler giving his second-best performance of all time (the best is here) and I really wanted to like it. The first hour was fantastic, but it just falls apart after that.

This is your life and it’s ending one minute at a time.

A few weeks ago I did a post about As Good As It Gets—how so many lines from that movie are the voices in my head. Well, that’s not the only movie that provides color commentary to the events in my life. Another one is Fight Club

Keep in mind that this movie came out when I was 19, when it was easier to be glib about nihilism. This is not to say that Fight Club lacks intellectual depth—it’s just that I hadn’t been through enough to make up my own mind about it.

I felt like destroying something beautiful.

The #1 line from that movie that pops up in my head every time I edge sidways to my middle/window seat on an airplane: Continue reading ‘Tyler Durden and the Voices in My Head’ »

I finally saw Park Chan-wook’s Oldboy today—the uncompromising mother-of-all revenge films. This is not for the weak hearted. Or the weak stomach-ed. It is violent, but mostly the way Tarantino is violent—you see the perpetrator, not the victim, but what is being inflicted is so vile that your imagination takes over.

But it is, after all, a revenge film. But it’s more than that—it is an epic tragedy. It is raw and brutal in its violence and sexuality. And it is gorgeous—you could pause the movie at any point, and you’d have a hyper-stylized poster.

Oh, and it’s Korean; though the Netflix streaming version is dubbed.

Chan-wook’s JSA is one of the best movies of all time, and not as violent. Next up, I need to see Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance and Lady Vengeance. Yes, he has a Vengeance Trilogy.

∞

For Bollywood types, Oldboy was copied recently as Zinda starring Sanjay Dutt. I haven’t seen it, but I’m guessing they’ve left some things out. I’m not sure Hindi cinema is ready for… well, I’m not going to give it away.

A couple of days ago, Ram Gopal Varma wrote about one of his first reality checks while making Shiva twenty years ago:

I was so confidently clear about the opening shot of my first film “SHIVA” that the camera set on the crane should be showing the college in the suggestion of a college name-board, come down slowly and pan to the close-up of a car wheel coming into the foreground and stopping in front of the camera. Tired of my repeated narration of this shot of mine during the pre-production of SHIVA, my assistant Siva Nageshwar Rao advised me not to get fixed up about shots as it might not be always practically possible to do things on location the way one imagines while writing the script. He pointed out that it’s possible that the height of the crane might not match up to the height of the name-board of the college. Or if the board is too high we have to tilt the camera up and we will only see the sky in suggestion and not the college, and if it’s too low and you have to tilt down, either you will see the ground instead of the college or the travel downwards to the wheel in the foreground might not be enough.

Of course, these days with computer graphics (especially in Hollywood) I suppose you can compose any shot you want in post-production. But you can’t change the realities—the physics—of the world. This post reminded me of Sidney Lumet’s book Making Movies—specifically this passage on Kurosawa:

“I once asked Akira Kurosawa why he had chosen to frame a shot in Ran in a particular way. His answer was that if he he’d panned the camera one inch to the left, the Sony factory would be sitting there exposed, and if he he’d panned an inch to the right, we would see the airport – neither of which belonged in a period movie. Only the person who’s made the movie knows what goes into the decisions that result in any piece of work.”

The book is an excellent look at the process of making a film; what a director actually does from the day he gets the job to the release date.

The other great thing about RGV’s blog is the comments section—I was not the first person to make the Making Movies connection. Two other people (Arvind Swarup and the indefatigable Vamsee) had already mentioned it in context of this post. That comments section is a wonderful, crazy place and there’s a decent chance that if you say something insightful, meaningful or especially wacky, RGV will respond.

[My previous post on my impressions on the current state of RGV’s films.]

∞

UPDATE: There is actually another clearer connection between RGV and Sidney Lumet. RGV’s latest Rann is an obvious descendant of Lumet’s Network (“I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it any more.“)

This year, I’m going to try to watch all the short films nominated for Oscars. Some are available online for free (and legal), some are available for $1.99 on iTunes, and some seem to be missing completely from the Internet. Bad on those nominees—it would have been easy money and publicity. I haven’t seen them all, but I’ll update this as/when I do.

Animated Shorts:

• Wallace and Gromit: A Matter of Loaf and Death—I haven’t seen it yet, because it’s the longest (almost 30 minutes). But it’s Wallace and Gromit, so it’s most likely the best of the lot. They’ve already won three Oscars, so I wouldn’t be surprised if this was their fourth. Available on iTunes.


• Granny O’Grimm’s Sleeping Beauty—an old grandmother re-tells the story of Sleeping Beauty, from the perspective of the old fairy that nobody loves. This one starts out mildly depressing and ends up creepy. Available on YouTube.


• Logorama—this one is really inventive, subversive. I’m not sure what the message is, but it’s something about corporate/consumer culture, I’m sure. Available on iTunes.


• The Lady and the Reaper—an epic battle between a doctor and the grim reaper for the life of an old lady. It’s heartbreaking, but fast and funny. Available on iTunes.


• French Roast—it’s quirky and fun story about a man in a French cafe who realizes he lost his wallet. I like the way the camera work is in two dimensions, but the animation is in three. Available on YouTube.

Live Action Shorts:

• Kavi—can’t find it online


• Miracle Fish—can’t find it online


• The Door—on iTunes


• The New Tenants—on iTunes


• Instead of Abracadabra—on iTunes

I’m not doing predictions for the Oscars, because that’s boring. Here are the awards that I would give out, based on the nominees. The ones in italics are the ones I’ve seen, bold is the one I want to win. As an over all philosophy, I want Inglourious Basterds to win as much as it can and I want Avatar to win some but not sweep the awards. Continue reading ‘The Oscars’ »

So- we were watching Pyaar Impossible yesterday, which is a silly little movie starring [Priyanka, Uday] Chopra and directed by this guy.

I’m not going to tell you if you should watch it or not—figure that one out for yourself.

∞

The movie is laced with all kinds of geekery. Uday Chopra is ostensibly a geek—his room has pictures of Asimov, Star Wars posters (vote Grievous ‘08!) and a picture of Steve Jobs on his bedroom door.

His dad (Anupam Kher) had a picture of Bill Gates.

Later on, Uday Chopra has a lightsaber battle with a kid and the visuals are reminiscent of the carbon freezing facility in The Empire Strikes Back.

Also, he’s created a software called Unity that lets you run software from OS X, Windows, Android, Palm, Ubuntu, Symbian and other stuff on the same computer, with the flip of a keystroke, like VMWare on steroids. No, he doesn’t say all those names, but those are the icons I saw. Those, and one generic tux penguin.

∞

In the olden days, I would have sat watching the movie wondering who had all those ideas. Is Jugal a not-so-closeted geek? Uday Chopra? Some random writer in Bollywood?

But these are modern times. I just fired up Tweetie and asked Jugal Hansraj and Uday Chopra.

ooh more Pyaar Impossible geekery—a lightsaber battle! was this your idea @udaychopra or @JugalHansraj’s?

And four hours later, @JugalHansraj’s reply:

@devanjedi The light saber was Uday’s idea – he’s the Star Wars fan -as for me – give me ‘Lord of the Rings’ anyday!

Another glourious day for the Internet!

∞

The only thing that bothered me about the geekery in the movie was that they kept using the phrase “program files” when they meant source code. As in, “I can’t give you the program files, but I can give you the executable”. Why trust the audience enough to use the word executable, but not to say source code?

Bottle Shock (2008) is a great little film, about Napa Valley in the ‘70s. It tells the story of a time before anyone took American wines seriously, when a little winery named Chateau Montelena competed in a blind taste test against the best of the French wines, with French judges, and won.

It’s “based on a true story”, but knows enough to tell the story as a small comedy of quirky characters and unassuming underdogs. It stars Bill Pullman as the owner of Montelena, Chris Pine as his son and Alan Rickman as the British wine snob who is organizing the competition. Freddy Rodriguez (El Wray of Planet Terror!) is understated, but good as Gustavo Bramila, who works for Montelena and has wine in “his blood”.

I am an AR Rahman collector. I have close to everything he’s done in Hindi, and a lot of the other stuff too. Yes, even Love Birds. And Lakeer- Forbidden Lines. And yes, even the Hindi dubbed version of Duet, known as Tu Hi Mera Dil. Such a thing exists.

But there are a lot of AR Rahman songs that even his (northern) fans have not heard. Some movies did not get released, some were never heard north of the Deccan plateau. So—here are my favorite 7 AR Rahman songs that many people (even among his fans) have not heard, or are unfairly ignored:

Continue reading ‘Seven Best AR Rahman Songs You’ve Never Heard’ »