non sequitur

The Pilgrimage - PG Wodehouse's Gravestone

PG Wodehouse's death anniversary is on Feb 14. Over this long weekend I decided to take a trip to Long Island where he lived for the last part of his long and illustrious life - and more importantly pay respects at his gravestone. A little research on the internet lent me the information that he is interred behind a church in Remsenburg, NY. I drove up to Long Island and reached this almost deserted town with small roads. Failing to find any church nearby, after hovering around for a while, I spotted an elderly couple taking a walk in the cold afternoon and asked them the way to the church. 'There are many churches here in this town. Do you know which one you want to go to?' 'The one where Mr. Wodehouse - the great English writer - is buried'. 'We do not know much about the history here but you can start with the closest one that is about a quarter mile down the same road'. My guarding angel suddenly woke up from her afternoon siesta and it came to pass that the said church had a nice visible signpost with Wodehouse's biography.

I stood in front of the grave with folded hands and tears of joy and gratitude in my eyes and said in sotto voce - paraphrasing the epitaph - 'Thank you for bringing joy to my life'. I opened the book that I had brought along - The Inimitable Jeeves (which by the way is my favorite Wodehouse, if there can be such a thing as a favorite Wodehouse) - stood beside the grave and read a few paragraphs. My original intention was to also leave the book respectfully at the site but I realised that the wind would have disrespectfully blown it away in no time. The graveyard was covered with snow and I saw a pair of footprints leading to the gravestone. Someone else too was recently here.

As a double-tribute (in fact technically it would qualify as a triple-tribute), on President's Day, my journey coincidentally made me pass the Lincoln Tunnel and the George Washington Bridge. Of course, it would be a sin to go to Long Island and return without having the famous drink that originated there - the Long Island Ice Tea. Was it potent or was it potent!

The chapel where the master is interred - The Remsenburg Community Church.

The sign beside the chapel.

The cemetery behind the chapel.

The tombstone. The epitaph reads 'He gave joy to countless people'.

The Master's creations.

Where is it: Remsenburg, New York. If you are going to Long Island from New York - which is how you typically would go to Long Island - once you reach close to Remsenburg, when you are on NY-27A, turn right on to S Country Rd and about a mile-and-a-half down the road on the right side you would find The Remsenburg Community Church(Presbyterian).

Life of Pi - Movie Review: Pietic Justice

Let us get the first thing out of the way. Is the movie better than the book? I cannot say that the movie is better than the book - it does great justice to the book though.

The first two-thirds of the movie held me in thrall. The early sequences when Pi's mother narrates the story of Yashoda and Krishna and the camera turning to pages of the comic books reduced me to tears of joy. I had to remove two layers of spectacles - first the 3D glasses and then my prescription glasses to wipe my tears off. On the other hand, the book made me cry towards the end when the journey ends and Richard Parker leaves without turning his head to say good bye. I distinctly remember how moved I was after reading the book - I called up my best friend and bawled out saying how unfair it is that Richard Parker had to leave like that. I even promised myself that if ever I have a pet, I would call it Richard Parker - that coming from someone who hates pets.

Coming back to the film, the opening titles are the best I have come across in a while. The dinner table conversations in a middle-class Indian household, the discussions around religion, a child's systematic exposure to various faiths, the transformation of a child reading comic books to an adolescent reading classic novels (Pi turns the pages of another all-time favorite book of mine, Albert Camus's 'The Stranger'; it is a very short novel and I recommend it to you all) - all these were very realistically portrayed. The first half of the film depicts the life of Indian middle-class in a very authentic way. I can't stop myself from saying that this is realest India the West has been shown till date - not the land-of-elephants-and-snake-charmers depiction of the last century (inspite of the movie actually showing elephants and snakes), the IT stereotype that has come to pass in this millennium or the ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ extreme. The movie mixes wit and Philosophy, religion and rationality in a very intelligent and comprehensible manner. Example: When a character asks Pi how he could take to so many religions at the same time - "Faith is a house with many rooms"... "Is there no room for doubt?"

I thought the movie gets a bit hurried after the meerkat island episode. The whole concept of the Unreliable Narrator with the alternate story of what happened after the ship sank - both in the book and the movie - is brought out in a wicked and mischievous way. If you are wondering why this long rant doesn't discuss at all about the visual effects and performances, I think the visual effects are a given. You can find other reviews telling you how wonderful they are and all that sort of thing. The actors who play Pi - all three of them come up with very convincing performances. Katharine Hepburn fervently disliked Meryl Streep's acting stating that she could "recognize Streep's constant search for tactics during a performance". The same can be said about Tabu. The effort shows!

'Life of Pi' is an immensely uplifting movie. Take your children to watch it - not because it is a children's film but because it is a very intelligent film that has to be watched with the entire family. If the movie wins the Oscar for the Best Picture in February, remember that I said it first.

3.5 out of 5 Stars

JoQ

Today Amitabh Bachchan turns 70. on that note, arz kiya hai...

Ek Shahenshah ne kya banaya... Taj banaya
Teji ne kya banayi... Shahenshah banayi!

Enigma of Arrival

One way to allow a new country and a great city not overwhelm you is to break it down in the mind to manageable and understandable patterns and stereotypes that you already familiar with. Over the years I have often heard Bombay being called the New York of India. I have never been to Bombay but in its own way, New York City reminds me a great deal of Bangalore. Bangalore's Brigade Road and MG Road become Times Square and Broadway. Walk a little distance from MG Road and you have the popular shopping destination, Commercial Street - a few blocks off Times Square you have the world famous shopping street Fifth Avenue. Bang in the middle of a bustling city you have a huge mass of greenery - the Lalbagh of Bangalore transmogrifies itself into the Central Park of NYC. (Notes to self: Don't get carried away and commit the blasphemy of calling the Public Utility Building as the Empire State Building of Bangalore.) The similarity became even more telling when I noticed that a certain section of the working class of both the cities have a similar pop-culture icon. I noticed a couple of Yellow Cabs sport a bright hoarding over their heads saying 'Robert DeNiro is Taxi Driver' with the mug shot of Travis Bickle in his mohawk. My mind instantly went back to the ubiquitous cutouts of the bearded Shankar Nag that stare out of every auto stand worth its manipulated meter in Bangalore. Robert DeNiro in and as ‘Taxi Driver’ in New York City is the philosophical equivalent of Shankar Nag in and as 'Auto Raja' in Bangalore. The parallels take a very personal turn when I reflect that in 1993 I left my hometown to start life in an Engineering College on the outskirts of Bangalore and now I left Bangalore to restart a new life on the outskirts of New York City.

The short of it is, I do miss Bangalore very much. I often feel nostalgic, forlorn and homesick. I miss my friends, my erstwhile home, my books, my movie posters, my DVDs and my almost perfect life. As one of my dear friends famously mentioned the night before I left Bangalore, it is indeed the end of an era. It was the 'Jazz Age' of my life - parties, movies, late nights, laughter, friends... When I follow the happenings around my family and friends in India through email, chat and other social networking channels, I often surmise that this, in a way, is an opportunity to get a glimpse of my world and my loved ones and how they would be getting on with life if I were dead and gone.

The thing about being in a new and strange place is that the sense organs that are otherwise used to the routine of a familiar place become active and alert to digest the new surroundings. Once again one becomes like a child trying to understand how to use his hands, feet and other senses to go about the world. Things like buying and using a train ticket, lighting a cigarette, running a washing machine become exciting adventures in themselves. Learning that frozen yogurt and ice-cream are two different things becomes enlightening. Before I came to know about it, I had had frozen yogurt with relish thinking that it was ice-cream. It reminded me of Ashwatthama running cheerfully to his daddy Drona claiming he was having milk while holding a pale mixture of rice and water in his hand. In a country which is extremely user-friendly, it distresses me every time I take out my wallet to pay by cash. All the currency notes are of the same colour and size and I always need to double check that I haven’t pulled out a $5 or $20 note instead of a $1 note. Back home in India, it is so easy to handle cash because each denomination comes in its own distinct colour and size. Another disappointing thing I have noticed is the size of the screens in the movie halls over here. In India, you walk into a random theatre in a random town and you are dazzled with huge wide screens. The screens here are so small and underwhelming that sometimes you wonder if they are running the movie with a projecter and a oversized television. It is like the emperor’s new clothes. Nobody talks about them. Just to cite one example, I went to watch 'The Dark Knight Rises - The IMAX experience' and what was touted as the IMAX screen in front of me was much smaller than any other screen I ever watched a movie in. As you know from here, I come from a State where cinema halls matter a great deal. Plus, cinema halls over here don't have the concept of 'Interval' and the films themselves mostly have forgotton Alfred Hitchcock's advice that the length of a film should be directly related to the endurance of the human bladder. If one ends up choosing to go to an Indian movie, one has to endure the insufferable tittering, mewling, running around and other assorted noises of children brought into the movie halls by their loving parents. I once went through the harrowing experience of seeing a very bright parent hand over his/her iPhone to shut the kid up. If Ulysses were sandwiched between the noisy kids and the lights of phones while watching a film he would beg and plead to be thrown back between Scylla and Charybdis.

Let me share something funny that happened a few days after I arrived here. I bought a bottle of whiskey and some cigarettes. Before I lit up, the contemplative side of me wondered if there are any smoke detectors in the house and if they would come to life and wake up the whole neighborhood late in the evening. In that state of tentativeness and uncertainty, I called up a friend who has been living in the US for many years and asked him if we can smoke inside the house or if alarms go off. He suggested that it would be judicious not to take the risk. We hunted for a while here and there around the house on video chat and figured out a contraption that could be a smoke detector. I didn’t take chances and stepped out for a smoke... and then started wondering if it is allowed to smoke in the neighborhood. All this stressed me out so much so that the next day I checked with the apartment management and they clarified that I can smoke in the apartment (as long as I am not 'smoking' something illegal) and the contraption is meant for something else - not before my 'interesting question', as I called it, provided them sufficient amusement. So, here's what you got to do as my dear reader. Spread a story that I actually lip up a cigarette and had hells bells ringing. The whole neighborhood was at my door step catching me with a whiskey glass and cigarette in hand. Fire engines came buzzing. The management came and I ended up being fined and utterly embarrassed - the humiliation would be complete.

Bahut khoobsoorat hai har baat lekin, agar dil bhi hota toh kya baat hoti...
Another interesting experience I had is related to getting my cell phone connection up and running. For some unfortunate reason the usual steps to activate the phone didn’t work and I had to call up the customer support. The customer support tries to activate it without success. I am told "I truly apologise for the inconvenience but I have to put you on hold for a few minutes" and then passed on to another department. Same story repeats. After attempting this exercise for 3 days, 2 hours each day and multiple restarts of the phone which always opens with a nice tune and a logo with a slogan that reads 'Rethink Possible' I told the latest customer service representative on the other end of the line after being on the phone for half an hour "I do hope you have a sense of humour... You guys ought to change the slogan to 'Nothing Possible'". What I get in response is a flat "I truly apologise for the inconvenience but i have to put you on hold for a few minutes". It greatly surprises me that I am able to laugh at my own misery while the folks trained to mechanically go through the motions by rote forget that they can sometimes be human too. Oftentimes such incidents remind of the Orwellian world that we are slowly turning into.

But all is not lost. Here's what happened while I was in a train from the NYC Penn Station to Secaucus Junction. I typically buy a ticket and enter the train. The ticket collector comes and punches a hole in the ticket and hands it back to me. I frequently notice that he also has tickets in his hand and there are a few people to whom he sells the ticket in the train. This piqued my curiosity and I once stopped and asked him “What happens if I board the train without a ticket?” He answered “You pay $5 more and buy a ticket in the train”. I always stick to the simple philosophy - When in doubt, act like an idiot. After a few minutes he passed by my seat and asked “Where did you say you were going?” I mentioned Secaucus Junction and he pointed out that that is the next stop I had to get down at. I had already travelled in that route several times but didn’t attempt to reply that I know it - he felt that I was new around here and was only trying to help a stranger in a new country. It was about 10.05pm and as I was preparing to get down, I heard an announcement that I generally don’t hear - "We are at Secaucus Junction and the train to Dover is at 10.13pm. This announcement is for the 23 people who are on the wrong train". There was laughter all around the compartment and I went home with a smile on my face. You see, folks do have a nice sense of humour if they wish to.

As I mentioned earlier, our sense organs are very alert when we are in a new place. The other day, I overheard a young lady on phone while walking in the corridor - "...do the pictures match the voice..." I nodded knowingly to myself thinking this could be the beginning of a great love story.

Speaking of overhearing, 4 years ago as I was stepping out of LA Airport, I overheard another young lady (African American - I say this because it has relevance to what follows) over phone saying - "...he said he likes Obama. I thought it was corny”. That must have been a popular pick-up line back in those days; why! may be even now it is since another election is just round the corner.

Bryant Park Summer Film Festival - The Adventures of Robin Hood & Woody Allen's New York

I have learnt that the sure-fire way of feeling at home in a new place is to go and watch a movie. Bryant Park Summer Film Festival is a yearly event which I discovered was on-going as I landed in the vicinity of New York City. The festival has some great classic films lined up and I would like to think that the choice of the film was apt - the swashbuckling Technicolour 1938 entertainer, The Adventures of Robin Hood. There are a few dramas and film noirs to pick from, but for a first time experience, The Adventures of Robin Hood was just perfect. But then, hindsight, as the cliche goes, is 20-20.

There is just one word to describe the atmosphere - carnival. As the screen lit up at sunset, people stood up and broke into random jumping, dancing and general fooling around. I have watched this film about 3 times already and watching it on the big screen in such an exciting and happy setting made it an extraordinary experience. The cheering at various points in the film bordered on the absurd. Let me advance a few examples; the hero comes on screen for the first time - cheering, the hero and heroine kiss for the first time - loud cheering, Errol Flynn bests the bad guy in a sword fight, more cheering, Flynn wins a archery contest, cheers all round. The funniest part was every time the minor character Richard the Lionheart who is roaming incognito unmasks to reveal himself, there was uproar going up the skies and happiness all around. People were so much fun that it reminds me of what Miss Marple always insisted - human nature is pretty much the same everywhere. All the hilarity around these goings-on almost made me forget - albeit briefly - that I was homesick, sad and forlorn. We are happiest when we are silly.

the crowd settling in

 
Pepsi, Popcorn and me; not to mention of the glee.

before the show begins

Feature presentation - notice the jumping and dancing crowds - it was indeed a carnival

the eternal and ethereal Olivia de Havilland... even as we speak, the Maid Marian of Robin Hood and Melanie of Gone with the Wind recently celebrated her 96th Happy Birthday.

it is only our charming rogue Claude Rains... no rain clouds.

Flynn is In.

Errol Flynn - the MGR of the West.

From here on, we turn to slightly weightier matters. After the film as I was walking back to New York Penn Station to take my train back home, I overheard a conversation (you - like me - will soon learn that it was actually not a conversation) between two passers by which can only be the real life replica of that famous man-in-line scene in the great Woody Allen New York-movie Annie Hall:

Man-in-line: We saw the Fellini film last Tuesday. It is not one of his best. It lacks a cohesive structure. You get the feeling he's not absolutely sure what it is he wants to say. I've always felt he was essentially a technical filmmaker. Granted La Strada was a great film. Great in its use of negative imagery more than anything else.
Alvy Singer: I'm going to have a stroke. He's screaming his opinions in my ear.
Man-in-line: All that Juliet of the Spirits or Satyricon. I found it incredibly indulgent. He really is one of the most indulgent of filmmakers.
Alvy Singer: Key word here is "indulgent."
...
Man-in-line: It's like Samuel Beckett. I admire the technique, but it doesn't hit me on a gut level.
Alvy Singer: l'd like to hit him on a gut level... He's spitting on my neck when he talks... They're probably on their first date. Probably met by answering an ad in the New York Review of Books. "Thirtyish academic wishes to meet woman... who's interested in Mozart, James Joyce and sodomy."
...
Man-in-line: ...I never read that. That was Henry James' sequel to Turn of the Screw? It's the influence of television. Marshall McLuhan deals with it in terms of it being a high intensity. Do you understand? A hot medium.
Alvy Singer: What I wouldn't give for a large sock with horse manure in it. What do you do when you get stuck on a movie line with a guy like this?
Man-in-line: Wait. Why can't I give my opinion? It's a free country!
Alvy Singer: He can. Do you have to give it so loud? Aren't you ashamed to pontificate like that?

What actually happened is this: As I was walking I ended up being at hearing distance from a couple that was walking in front of me. Apparently they too were on their way back from the movie and the guy was talking to the girl - it cannot be called a coversation because the fellow was - to borrow that word from Woody Allen - pontificating to the girl (most obviously his date) on the social, political and cultural significance of Robin Hood. The depression era period during which the movie came out originally and how Robin Hood represented the hero of the masses. Obviously, my curiosity was piqued and I suspected that I have hit some sort of anecdotical gold here and made sure I matched the bloke's stride for stride. He then went on to talk at length about how John Dillinger was in a way a real-life Robin Hood of the depression era, how he used to burn off the mortgages of the people with banks and became a hero in certain sections of the society. It was so long a monologue that I was almost impressed and started taking him seriously. The fellow then went on to lecture on how Robin Hood is relevant not when it was written but for all time, since we are again in a large scale depression and we search for Robin Hoods and so on and so forth. All the while I didn't see or hear the poor girl - his companion - utter a single word edgeways. I would like to think that she was switched off and was just watching him 'dumbstriked'. Based on a survey conducted not very long ago, I can assure you that a guy like this is going to be dumped in the next 5 months - maximum. I was stunned that the fellow was so well equipped to turn a cheerful film into a Kafkaesque experience.

I came back home with the pleasant thought of how well Woody Allen knows his New York City.

Eega - Movie Review: Where Eegals Dare

Eega - is extraordinary; the thrills and adjectives to describe the film exhausting. When I first watched the trailer a few months back, I discussed it with a friend saying that the entire film is given away in the trailer. My friend sagely said it is SS Rajamouli's style to always give away the film in the trailer. It was of course stupid to complain. It is not the story alone, it's the execution that makes a film and that's a motherhood statement. Eega brings together the background score, the graphics, Sudeep's performance and the screenplay to create a great recipe of entertainment. The special effects of the film are realistic and of very high standards. The film is a must watch for everyone.

The movie takes off right from the moment the hero is bumped off and doesn't let go of the breathless pace till the end. Much is written about Hitchcock bumping off the heroine one-third into 'Psycho' - say something about a Telugu movie where hero dies in the first third and then shifting to top gear. It takes a great deal of self-assurance and generosity for a Superstar like Sudeep to take up the role of a ruthless and unapologetic villain; he delivers a performance to remember. The film steers clear of all the standard tropes of a Telugu film - the extended cameo of Brahamandam, the mandatory presence of the all the 'usual suspects' of Telugu Cinema et. al.

There are periods when the movie assumes an episodic nature. I thought the scene where the villain runs nude around his house chasing the fly (Eega) could have lasted 30 more seconds to provide a brief exchange between the shocked onlookers and the embarrassed villain. For a movie lasting 2 and a half hours, we are hastily taken to the next episode where the villain is sitting among his henchmen nursing his wounds, everyone apparently having forgotten what happened just a little while ago. Of course, these are but minor complaints in an almost perfect film. After a long time we see a movie where the humour is situational and is not driven by punch-lines and musical cues. The boardroom scene was the only section where the film leans towards slapstick but the scene rises above itself for an interesting pay off.

We talk and hear ever so often about how Pixar makes films for kids that have a universal appeal and are equally enjoyed by adults. Indian films for children instead of entertaining the adults who go along often disrespect the needs of children themselves. Here is finally an Indian film for children that adults would enjoy too. And on the surface, it doesn’t even seem like a children's film. Here is a Telugu movie - after K Viswanath's golden age - that can confidently be recommended to everyone in the country, nay, the world. SS Rajamouli has made Telugu Cinema proud with this achievement.

4.5 out of 5 Eegals.

PS: If cinema, as is often cited, is all about being an escapist pass time, Eega is high-escapism - I was so engrossed in the movie, that I forgot where I was; as I stepped out of the movie hall it suddenly struck me that I wont be going home in a familiar route and I actually am in a whole new country still experiencing the Enigma of Arrival. Mentioning it now again puts a lump in my throat.

Capsule Reviews

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (05-July-2012)
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is a charming little movie that doesn't test its prolific cast. When was the last time we found an assemblage of a steller starcast of such proportion in a 'popular' film? It was, the way i remember it, in the Harry Potter series, where JK Rowling demanded the best artists from the British Film Industry to sell the rights of her books to film. And here, I assume, by sheer strength of the script someone managed to convince these great actors to be a part of this project. And what we get as the end product is something that is not completely satisfactory. What I found the most appalling was the Great Dame Judy Dench's voiceover belting out chicken soup for the soul kind of truths about life and the generally accepted cliched, indulgant and condescending views on India. Consider these cases in point: 'the colours and the chaos assault your senses', 'in the end everything will be fine and if it is not fine, it is not the end'. I wonder if all the positive reviews the movie is attracting owe it to the credibility of the cast more than the film itself. Or may be the expectations from a Western audience about a movie set in India are different from the expectations of a Indian from a foreign movie set in India. The movie doesnt rise above the expected and predictable story arc and has a tame happy ending. The ending is so sweet and endearing that it would make a diabetic numb with paralysis at the overdose of saccharineness. As one watches the film, one does enjoy the dialog but on reflection, one doesn't see anything extraordinary. It was a similar feeling I had after reading Paulo Coelho's Alchemist many years ago. It creates an illussion that you are witnessing something special but in truth it is underwhelming.
2.5 out of 5 Marigolds

The Amazing Spider-Man (29-Jun-2012)
I stood at the ticket counter and showed my ticket confirmation. The girl at the other end asked me 'Spider-Man?'. I said 'The Amazing Spider-Man'. Giggles exchanged between the personnel at the ticket counter. True Story. You know what makes him amazing? That he is so real a Superhero. Spider-Man goes out to work every single day and comes back home bruised, scarred or bleeding like a guy who can do something to a certain limit and overreaches his own limits. You see all through the film Peter Parker (or his alter-ego Spider-Man) standing up for something and getting beaten up and coming home bleeding - which indeed is superheroic, isnt it? And the best scene... it's the one where all the crane-operators come together to Spider-Man's assistance. The movie is filled with a few nice touches like this. There is another scene where Gwen Stacy and Peter Parker wish good byes and as Gwen turns back to steal a glance, you see Spider-Man turning in the direction of the police sirens as duty beckons. It is scenes like this that make cinema the art form that it is - for a minute it directly touches your heart and leaves you a memory to cherish and share with your friends and talk about it with a kind of enthusiasm like it happened to you. I went to the movie with the preconceived idea that I wouldn't like anyone other than Tobey Maguire as Spider-Man and came back satisfied with Garfield's interpretation. On the other hand, I thought Gwen Stacy was underwhelming, to say the least. I always thought that Kirsten Dunst as Mary Jane looked older than Peter Parker. My view now is that if I were Peter Parker, I would fondly look back on that memory of that wet kiss with Mary Jane while hanging upside down.     

Prometheus (08-Jun-2012)
The movie didnt leave anything much to take away - or ponder upon - after leaving the movie hall. It was a bit predictable though for the few minutes after I left the hall, I wondered about the motives of a few of the characters. There are a few scenes that scare you and make you feel repulsive towards the screen. As we approach the end, the movie comes closer to the Alien vs Predator series than the Alien series that was originally kicked off by Ridley Scott. All in all a middle-of-the-road movie that doesnt offer much. The 3D is unintrusive by saying which I mean it doesnt really add or remove much from the entire experience. The movie touches upon the theological psychobabble that has been better handled in a few other movies. Si-Fi is not my preferred genre and 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind', the way i remember it, still remains the best movie in the genre as far as I am concerned. Whatever great work Michael Fassbender does, he will always remain the guy who used the wrong finger to point the number 3 that resulted in a large scale massacre in an underground-pub.

Gabbar Singh (13-May-2012)
What can one say about a film where the only fellow you remember after watching it outside of Pawan Kalyan is the guy who parodies Pawan Kalyan. Gabbar Singh is an overdose of self-indulgence by the hero and one gets tired of the camera always showing the hero in slow motion and towering over the screen. Notice that most of the scenes featuring him are shot from below the eye level which makes him look lager-than-life. the whole marketplace where most of the film takes place looks like a set erected in a studio - very artificial - and the whole film is a series of gags strung together. I have been told that the director is a fan of Pawan Kalyan. The film does look like it is made by a fan and made for fans. The director could learn a good deal from Ram Gopal Verma by watching Kshna Kshnam on how to make a movie featuring the star you hold in great adulation. Of course, the movie is only about Pawan Kalyan - with him breaking not only the bones of the goons in large numbers but also the 4th and 5th walls frequently. Was I entertained? Yes, I was, to a certain extent. I found myself smiling or laughing at various places during the film inspite of being conscious that it was turning out to be a movie-length portfolio of Pawan Kalyan. But is that enough - I am not sure of that. By the way, there is also the little matter of the cheerful dig at Dr. Rajasekhar which people knowing the background between the two of them will enjoy it even more and then I have my regulation complaint of Pawan Kalyan piggybacking on Chiranjeevi after all these years.
2.5 out of 5 Stars

The Artist (24-Feb-2012)
As part of a worldwide initiative to revive interest in classic movies, the 1935 silent classic 'The Artist' has been re-released. We know from Calvin and Hobbes that the world didn't turn into colour until the 30's and so like everything else of that period, the movie is in Black and White. unlike the modern movies in widescreen - this was before the invention of television - this one is shot in 35mm (i mean 4:3 aspect ratio). The space on the screen is used very productively - the film is loaded with visual symbolisms which might be one of the many reasons that might make you want to watch the film more than once. it is one of the finest movie watching experiences in the recent times for me. (i shall park my thoughts here and hope to revisit this movie for a full review sometime in the future)

The Tree of Life (09-Feb-2012)
It is a journey of evolution. Adaptation. The journey we all take. A journey that unites each and every one of us. Darwin writes that we all come from the very first single-cell organism. Yet here I am. And there's Laroche. There's Orlean. And there's the ghost orchid. ... in moments in history. That's it. That's what I need to do. Tie all of history together. Start right before life begins on the planet. All is... lifeless. And then, like, life begins... with organisms. Those little single-cell ones. And it's before sex, because, like, everything was asexual. From there we go to bigger things. Jellyfish. Then that fish that got legs and crawled out on the land. And then we see, you know, like, dinosaurs. And then they're around for a long time. Then an asteroid comes and - the insects, the mammals, the primates, monkeys. The simple monkeys. Old-fashioned monkeys giving way to the new ones. Whatever. And then apes. Whatever. And man. Then we see the whole history of human civilization. hunting, war, love... heartache, disease, loneliness, technology. And we end with Susan Orlean in her office at The New Yorker... writing about flowers..." -Charlie Kaufman, Adaptation (2002).

Businessman(13-Jan-2012)
The first half of the movie is very good with a lot of dead-pan-straight-faced humour/dialog delivery from Mahesh Babu. The second half threw my mind back on the 'thank you Ram Gopal Verma' card before the opening credits for being an inspiration for the movie. It is incoherent, comes across as preachy to the point of pontification and you can actually see Mahesh Babu reading out the Telugu translation of RGV's blog and his cynical philosophies and arguments. This is the second time in succession - after Dookudu - that Prakash Raj has been underutilized in a Mahesh Babu film. I went to this movie with a lot of expectations - it offered something different but definitely not completely satisfying. But do not be discouraged by this. All in all, I must agree that I enjoyed the film and heard myself laughing out loud for most part of it. A definite watch.
3 out of 5 Stars

Panjaa (09-Dec-2011)
The first half of the film is predictable but good. The second half is entirely pointless with the plot coming back on track in the last 15 minutes. The whole film is a linear reworking of Baasha and the million assembly-line ‘Seema’ Movies where the hero is leading a calm life as a regular guy in a relatively serene setting and ends up with a gory flashback and the climax eventually taking him back to his roots. (Don't think of 'Out of the Past' (1947). That's blasphemy.) The opening credits of the film look like the pages of a graphic novel setting the mood up for a powerful/intense movie. What follows is something that could have been a far better effort. The background score sometimes sticks out and distracts the audience from the dialog. Two girls play major parts and both of them look very ordinary. We have something to worry when Pawan Kalyan starts looking like his less-illustrious sibling.
2.5 out of 5 Claws.

Singham (11-Sep-2011)
"Jis mein hain dum, dont fuck with Bajirao Singham". This is the best Entertainer of 2011. This is what Dabangg should have been - The Bang was what was missing there. To pontificate on the subject... well, let's leave it for another full length review of the film. 4 out of 5 Stars. "kyon ki kuch bhi karne ka tha Singham, Jaykanth Shikre ka Ego hurt nahin karne ka tha".

Inception (16-July-2010)
To paraphrase Quentin Tarantino, Inception (2010) is a Heist Movie with a sci-fi-chological thriller iconography. Don't believe notices that the movie is complex or incomprehensible. It's pretty straight forward, exciting and fun. I wonder why most movies now-a-days have to have a hero with a moral conflict - may be to add depth to the character. It's not a complaint; it's an observation. The best line of the movie comes when the heroine, for lack of another word, is exasperated and says, 'Whose subconscious are we in exactly?'. it kind of sums up the movie and reflects the audiences thoughts.
Didn't the totem wobble in the final scene? I couldn't help craning my neck to check. What do you think?

Before Sunrise (11-Apr-2010)
The protagonists in 'Before Sunrise' are on the same Ferris wheel and not one of them acknowledge Harry Lime(Orson Welles), Holly Martins(Joseph Cotten) and the cuckoo clock speech. They are indeed made for each-other.

Herold and Maude (09-Sep-2009)
Herold and Maude(1971) is the love story between a 19 year old boy and a 80 year old woman. One of the characters of the movie - not one of these two - sums the movie up brilliantly when he says...

I would be remiss in my duty if I did not tell you that the idea of intercourse - the act of your firm, young body... comingling with... withered flesh... sagging breasts... and flabby b-b-buttocks... makes me want... to vomit.

I cannot think of a more succulent summation of the movie. It is the best one line movie review ever - and ironically, the movie itself provides it.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (01-Mar-2009)
“The most unfair thing about life is the way it ends. I mean, life is tough. It takes up a lot of your time. What do you get at the end of it? A death. What’s that, a bonus? I think the life cycle is all backwards. You should die first, get it out of the way. Then you live in an old age home. You get kicked out when you’re too young, you get a gold watch, you go to work. You work forty years until you’re young enough to enjoy retirement. You drink alcohol, you party, and you get ready for High School. You go to grade school, you become a kid, you play, you have no responsibilities, you become a little baby, you go back into the womb, you spend your last 9 months floating with luxuries like central heating, spa, room service on tap, then you finish off as an orgasm! Amen.”
-George Costanza, Seinfeld.

Racha - Movie Review

For someone whose movies have titles like CHIRUta and MA(e)GAdhera - titles that are references to his celebrated father - one would expect that with a name RAm CHAran, Ram Charan would come into his own with his new film. If you are someone who goes to watch 'Racha' with such kind of self-styled expectations, you are sure to be disappointed. Most of the movie has hat-tips to films of Chiranjeevi. But then on the other hand, one ought not to complain much considering that he is still fresh in the industry; Pawan Kalyan after so many years in the industry still piggybacks on his brother's name.

The most natural gift that Ram Charan possesses is the fantastic voice modulation of his father and his style of dialog delivery. That is one area he needn’t work hard on to mature as an actor. What he has proven in Magadheera, he reiterates in Racha - that he is an effortless dancer and he can be wonderful in action sequences. The scene where he balances between two bamboo trees and holds a long bamboo in his hands to give bamboo to a cartload of rowdies is the stand out scene of the film. When he says a thing like 'Raj, Betting Raj. Aadmi kum, risk zyaada', you can't but smile thinking that he is being a sport and has reconciled with the fact that he can't grow any taller. As for the songs, 'vaana vaana villu vaaye' is a feast to the eyes - all thanks to Tamanna. I have decided to follow Tamanna's career with special interest after her performance in 100% Love.

Racha, as I pointed before, has a heavy Chiranjeevi hangover in the first half. The plot takes time to pick up and eventually the movie turns out to be a good entertainer in the second half. The screenplay is a little incoherent towards the end but those are all minor gliches. We are talking about high entertainment and not high art (I am not for a moment saying high entertainment can't be high art). Over all the movie delivers. It neither disappoints nor does it offer anything new. The hall I watched it in on the second day of the release was not houseful - but it was running in 5 other movie halls in town. I was pleased to see the entry of the main villain of Magadheera in the latter half of the film, albeit in a minor role. The way Chiranjeevi build his career was with a team of regulars like Rao Gopala Rao, Radha... fans would also remember a regulation fight with whom-in-those-days-we-called-'Bombay Rowdy', that bearded Neanderthal-from-hell who had no dialog and a solitary fight unto death. If the presence of Dev Gill is any indication, Ram Charan is going in the right direction.

3 out of 5 Stars.

The Wit and Wisdom of Roger Ebert

I have always followed reviews and lists. Back in the 90s, the only reason I visited my college library was to read film reviews by Khalid Mohamed from the Sunday paper on Monday morning. Circa 2005 I discovered Roger Ebert as the first film critic to win the Pulitzer Prize and that was also the time when the movie bug bit me. I (and all of us) was very fortunate that almost his entire work is available online and I pursued his reviews, his great movies list and imdb 250 like Mary's little lamb. I own his Great Movies I, II and III, a Movie Year Book and his Little Movie Glossary. My dear friends make fun of me saying I wont watch a movie if Ebert doesn’t have it in his Great Movies; I can’t form my own opinions and I parrot views of other people and lists. For me, reading Roger Ebert's reviews and articles has been like going to a school to attend the class of a favorite teacher. I would like to believe that he made my movie antennae (movey-sense?) sensitive to various aspects of the art form. I once famously said that I am Ekalavya to Roger Ebert's Drona.

Here is my little collection of excerpts from his reviews that remain very memorable and quotable. They range from insightful to philosophical to laugh-out-loud funny. I think the collection has reached a substantial size for it to be shared. I have tried to arrange them in a certain logical order and I hope you enjoy reading what follows as much as I have.

Reading these excerpts out to my friends to enthuse them to start watching movies and reading Ebert's views is something I have been doing for years now. I managed to make one friend a convert and another has come to follow reviews he gives poor ratings to for the humour in them. I hope you get enthused to read him too.

__________________________________________________________________

"I have here a heartfelt message from a reader who urges me not to be so hard on stupid films, because they are 'plenty smart enough for the average moviegoer.' Yes, but one hopes being an average moviegoer is not the end of the road: that one starts as a below-average filmgoer, passes through average, and, guided by the labors of America's hardworking film critics, arrives in triumph at above-average."

Introduction to 'Great Movies'
One of the gifts one movie lover can give another is the title of a wonderful film they have not yet discovered.

Casablanca
If there is ever a time when they decide that some movies should be spelled with an upper-case M, "Casablanca" should be voted first on the list of Movies.

My Fair Lady
It is unnecessary to summarize the plot or list the songs; if you are not familiar with both, you are culturally illiterate, although in six months I could pass you off as a critic at Cannes, or even a clerk in a good video store, which requires better taste.

Groundhog Day
Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, in his case, doesn't creep in at its petty pace from day to day, but gets stuck like a broken record.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
That they lose their minds while all about them are keeping theirs is a tribute to their skill.

Vanaja
But "Vanaja" ends in a very Indian way, trusting to fate and fortune, believing there is a tide in the affairs of men, which -- but you know where it leads.

The Princess Bride
His voice seems to contain a measure of cynicism about fairy stories, a certain awareness that there are a lot more things on heaven and Earth than have been dreamed of by the Brothers Grimm.

Lost in Translation
I loved the moment near the end when Bob runs after Charlotte and says something in her ear, and we're not allowed to hear it.
We shouldn't be allowed to hear it. It's between them, and by this point in the movie, they've become real enough to deserve their privacy. Maybe he gave her his phone number. Or said he loved her. Or said she was a good person. Or thanked her. Or whispered, "Had we but world enough, and time..." and left her to look up the rest of it.

Psycho
What makes "Psycho" immortal, when so many films are already half-forgotten as we leave the theater, is that it connects directly with our fears: Our fears that we might impulsively commit a crime, our fears of the police, our fears of becoming the victim of a madman, and of course our fears of disappointing our mothers.

Psycho (1998)
I viewed Hitchcock's "Psycho" a week ago. Attending this new version, I felt oddly as if I were watching a provincial stock company doing the best it could without the Broadway cast. I was reminded of the child prodigy who was summoned to perform for a famous pianist. The child climbed onto the piano stool and played something by Chopin with great speed and accuracy. The great musician then patted the child on the head and said, "You can play the notes. Someday, you may be able to play the music."

Midnight Cowboy
The second scene went wrong when Joe jammed the telephone in the guy's mouth and the false teeth went flying. We already knew Joe well enough to know he simply wouldn't do that; why didn't Schlesinger(the director) know him as well?

Godfather
Familiar as I am with Robert Duvall, when he first appeared on the screen I found myself thinking, 'There's Tom Hagen.'

The Godfatehr Part III
Here, for example, is a new character, introduced as 'Sonny's illegitimate son,' and, yes, we nod like cousins at a family reunion, yes, he does seem a lot like Sonny.

Easy Rider
But it's hard to identify with the Fonda and Hopper characters. So Hopper and his co-writers Fonda and Terry Southern write in a brilliant character, Old George (played magnificently by Jack Nicholson). And when this alcoholic, tragic ACLU lawyer from a small Southern town enters the picture, suddenly that's us there on the bike with Fonda. And the movie starts to work.

Amadeus
Milos Forman's "Amadeus" is not about the genius of Mozart but about the envy of his rival Salieri, whose curse was to have the talent of a third-rate composer but the ear of a first-rate music lover, so that he knew how bad he was, and how good Mozart was.
...
This is not a vulgarization of Mozart, but a way of dramatizing that true geniuses rarely take their own work seriously, because it comes so easily for them. Great writers (Nabokov, Dickens, Wodehouse) make it look like play. Almost-great writers (Mann, Galsworthy, Wolfe) make it look like Herculean triumph. It is as true in every field; compare Shakespeare to Shaw, Jordan to Barkley, Picasso to Rothko, Kennedy to Nixon.

Murder on Orient Express
Lumet overcomes his difficulties in great style, and we're never for a moment confused (except when we're supposed to be, which is most of the time).

Jackie Brown
You savor every moment of "Jackie Brown". Those who say it is too long have developed cinematic attention deficit disorder. I wanted these characters to live, talk, deceive and scheme for hours and hours.

Buster Keaton
It's said that Chaplin wanted you to like him, but Keaton didn't care. I think he cared, but was too proud to ask... Buster survives tornadoes, waterfalls, avalanches of boulders and falls from great heights, and never pauses to take a bow.

City Lights
Most of Chaplin's films are available on video. Children who see them at a certain age don't notice they're "silent" but notice only that every frame speaks clearly to them, without all those mysterious words that clutter other films. Then children grow up, and forget this wisdom, but the films wait patiently and are willing to teach us again.
...
I witnessed the universality of Chaplin's art in one of my most treasured experiences as a moviegoer, in 1972, in Venice, where all of Chaplin's films were shown at the film festival.
One night the Piazza San Marco was darkened, and ``City Lights'' was shown on a vast screen. When the flower girl recognized the Tramp, I heard much snuffling and blowing of noses around me; there wasn't a dry eye in the piazza. Then complete darkness fell, and a spotlight singled out a balcony overlooking the square. Charlie Chaplin walked forward, and bowed. I have seldom heard such cheering.

Modern Times
They're classics, everyone agrees, but that word "classic" has become terribly cheap in relation to movies. It's applied so promiscuously that by now the only thing you can be sure of about a "film classic" is that it isn't actually in current release.

Apocalypse Now
It is not about war so much as about how war reveals truths we would be happy never to discover...If we are lucky, we spend our lives in a fool's paradise, never knowing how close we skirt the abyss.

La Dolce Vita
There may be no such thing as the sweet life. But it is necessary to find that out for yourself.

Hotel Rwanda
Deep movie emotions for me usually come not when the characters are sad, but when they are good.

Tokyo Story
Given the opportunity at a family gathering to share our hopes and disappointments, we talk about the weather and watch TV.

13 Conversations About One Thing
Movies tell narratives, and the purpose of narrative is to arrange events in an order that seems to make sense and end correctly. The Sprechers are telling us if we believe in these narratives, we're only fooling ourselves.
And yet, even so, there is a way to find happiness. That is to be curious about all of the interlocking events that add up to our lives. To notice connections. To be amused or perhaps frightened by the ways things work out. If the universe is indifferent, what a consolation that we are not.

Back to the Future 3
The one thing that remains constant in all of the "Back to the Future" movies, and which I especially like, is a sort of bittersweet, elegiac quality involving romance and time... In all of these stories, there is the realization that love depends entirely on time. Lovers like to think their love is eternal.
But do they ever realize it depends entirely on temporal coincidence, since, if they were not alive at the same time, romance hardly would be feasible?

The Truman Show
If you think  "The Truman Show" is an exaggeration, reflect that Princess Diana lived under similar conditions from the day she became engaged to Charles...
For Harris, the demands of the show take precedence over any other values, and if you think that's an exaggeration, tell it to the TV news people who broadcast that Los Angeles suicide.

Raging Bull
...that, and the extraordinary moment where he looks at himself in a dressing room mirror and recites from ``On the Waterfront'' ("I coulda been a contender"). It's not De Niro doing Brando, as is often mistakenly said, but De Niro doing LaMotta doing Brando doing Terry Malloy. De Niro could do a "better" Brando imitation, but what would be the point?

The Gods Must Be Crazy
In any slapstick comedy, the gags must rest on a solid basis of logic: It's not funny to watch people being ridiculous, but it is funny to watch people doing the next logical thing, and turning out to be ridiculous.

The Empire Strikes Back
I have no doubt there are many improvements on the soundtrack, but I would have to be a dog to hear them.

Screwballs
There are scenes in this movie that are intended to inspire nostalgia, and will probably not even inspire recognition.

Frozen Assets
Movies like "Frozen Assets" are small miracles. You look at them and wonder how, at any stage of the production, anyone could have thought there was a watchable movie here... Here is a movie to watch in appalled silence. To call it one of the year's worst would be a kindness.

The Village
To call it an anticlimax would be an insult not only to climaxes but to prefixes.

Valentine's Day
"Valentine's Day" is being marketed as a Date Movie. I think it's more of a First-Date Movie. If your date likes it, do not date that person again. And if you like it, there may not be a second date.

Pearl Harbor
"Pearl Harbor" is a two-hour movie squeezed into three hours, about how on Dec. 7, 1941, the Japanese staged a surprise attack on an American love triangle.

Fanboys
Anyone who would camp out in a tent on the sidewalk for weeks in order to be first in line for a movie is more into camping on the sidewalk than movies.

Meet the Fockers
...you will probably find yourself going to "Meet the Fockers," because... you may be the kind of person who finds it entertaining to mention that you are on your way to meet the Fockers.

Hollywood Homicide
I am aware that "realtor" is a trademark and is always supposed to be used with a capital "R." But I refuse to go along. Realtors can complain all they want, but why should they get an upper-case R just because they say so? Would we capitalize Philosopher, Exterminator, Proctologist or Critic?

Godzilla
Oh, and then there are New York's Mayor Ebert and his adviser, Gene. The mayor of course makes every possible wrong decision (he is against evacuating Manhattan, etc.), and the adviser eventually gives thumbs-down to his reelection campaign. These characters are a reaction by Emmerich and Devlin to negative Siskel and Ebert reviews of their earlier movies ("Stargate," "Independence Day"), but they let us off lightly; I fully expected to be squished like a bug by Godzilla. Now that I've inspired a character in a Godzilla movie, all I really still desire is for several Ingmar Bergman characters to sit in a circle and read my reviews to one another in hushed tones.

Transformers 2
If you want to save yourself the ticket price, go into the kitchen, cue up a male choir singing the music of hell, and get a kid to start banging pots and pans together. Then close your eyes and use your imagination.

The Bucket List
I'm thinking, just once, couldn't a movie open with the voiceover telling us what a great guy the Morgan Freeman character is? The sole redeeming merit of the film is the steady work by Morgan Freeman, who has appeared in more than one embarrassing movie, but never embarrassed himself.

Heat
De Niro and Pacino, veterans of so many great films in the crime genre, have by now spent more time playing cops and thieves than most cops and thieves have. At this point in their careers, if Pacino and De Niro go out to study a cop or a robber, it's likely their subject will have modeled himself on their performances in old movies.

Lawrence of Arabia
You can view it on video and get an idea of its story and a hint of its majesty, but to get the feeling of Lean's masterpiece you need to somehow, somewhere, see it in 70mm on a big screen. This experience is on the short list of things that must be done during the lifetime of every lover of film.
The word ''epic'' in recent years has become synonymous with ''big budget B picture.'' What you realize watching ''Lawrence of Arabia'' is that the word ''epic'' refers not to the cost or the elaborate production, but to the size of the ideas and vision. Werner Herzog's ''Aguirre, the Wrath of God'' didn't cost as much as the catering in ''Pearl Harbor,'' but it is an epic, and ''Pearl Harbor'' is not.

2001: A Space Odyssey
2001 on a TV set is like the Grand Canyon on a postcard.

A Hard Day's Night
Perhaps this was the movie that sounded the first note of the new decade--the opening chord on George Harrison's new 12-string guitar. The film was so influential in its androgynous imagery that untold thousands of young men walked into the theater with short haircuts, and their hair started growing during the movie and didn't get cut again until the 1970s.

Manhattan
It is amazing, for example, how many women believe they are unique because they find Woody sexy.

Magnolia
In one beautiful sequence, Anderson cuts between most of the major characters all simultaneously singing Aimee Mann's "It's Not Going to Stop." A directorial flourish? You know what? I think it's a coincidence. (in a movie that is about coincidences)

Titanic
(At one point Rose gives Lovejoy the finger; did young ladies do that in 1912?)

On Om Puri: Om Puri is in the peculiar position of being famous in the West for films that have never played in India, and being famous in India for films that have never played in the West.

The King's Speech
If the British monarchy is good for nothing else, it's superb at producing the subjects of films.
____________________

This is not the end. Of course, the collection keeps expanding as I discover more gems.

I have always followed reviews and lists. Back in the 90s, the only reason I visited my college library was to read film reviews by Khalid Mohamed from the Sunday paper on Monday morning. Circa 2004 I discovered Roger Ebert as the first film critic to win the Pulitzer Prize and that was also the time when the movie bug bit me. I (and all of us) was very fortunate that almost his entire work is available online and I pursued his reviews, his great movies list and imdb 250 like Mary's little lamb. I own his Great Movies I, II and III, a Movie Year Book and his Little Movie Glossary. My dear friends make fun of me saying I wont watch a movie if Ebert doesn’t have it in his Great Movies; I can’t form my own opinions and I parrot views of other people and lists. For me, reading Roger Ebert's reviews and articles has been like going to a school to attend the class of a favorite teacher. I would like to believe that he made my movie antennae (movey-sense?) sensitive to various aspects of the art form. I once famously called myself Ekalavya to Roger Ebert's Drona.

 

Here is a list of my little collection of excerpts from his reviews that remain very memorable and quotable and I keep revisiting them. They range from insightful to philosophical to laugh-out-loud funny. I think the collection has reached a substantial size for it to be shared. I have tried to arrange them in a certain logical order and I hope you enjoy reading what follows as much as I have.

 

Reading these excerpts out to my friends to enthuse them to start watching movies and reading Ebert's views is something I have been doing for years now. I managed to make one friend convert and another to follow reviews he gives poor stars to for the humour in them. I hope you get enthused to read him too.

 

Of course, the collection keeps expanding as I read more of his reviews.

 

"I have here a heartfelt message from a reader who urges me not to be so hard on stupid films, because they are 'plenty smart enough for the average moviegoer.' Yes, but one hopes being an average moviegoer is not the end of the road: that one starts as a below-average filmgoer, passes through average, and, guided by the labors of America's hardworking film critics, arrives in triumph at above-average."

 

In Introduction to 'Great Movies'

One of the gifts one movie lover can give another is the title of a wonderful film they have not yet discovered.

 

Casablanca:

If there is ever a time when they decide that some movies should be spelled with an upper-case M, "Casablanca" should be voted first on the list of Movies.

 

My Fair Lady

It is unnecessary to summarize the plot or list the songs; if you are not familiar with both, you are culturally illiterate, although in six months I could pass you off as a critic at Cannes, or even a clerk in a good video store, which requires better taste.

 

Groundhog Day

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, in his case, doesn't creep in at its petty pace from day to day, but gets stuck like a broken record.

 

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

That they lose their minds while all about them are keeping theirs is a tribute to their skill.

 

Vanaja

But "Vanaja" ends in a very Indian way, trusting to fate and fortune, believing there is a tide in the affairs of men, which -- but you know where it leads. (Shakespeare again)

 

The Princess Bride

His voice seems to contain a measure of cynicism about fairy stories, a certain awareness that there are a lot more things on heaven and Earth than have been dreamed of by the Brothers Grimm.

 

Lost in Translation

I loved the moment near the end when Bob runs after Charlotte and says something in her ear, and we're not allowed to hear it.

 

We shouldn't be allowed to hear it. It's between them, and by this point in the movie, they've become real enough to deserve their privacy. Maybe he gave her his phone number. Or said he loved her. Or said she was a good person. Or thanked her. Or whispered, "Had we but world enough, and time..." and left her to look up the rest of it.

 

Psycho

What makes "Psycho" immortal, when so many films are already half-forgotten as we leave the theater, is that it connects directly with our fears: Our fears that we might impulsively commit a crime, our fears of the police, our fears of becoming the victim of a madman, and of course our fears of disappointing our mothers.

 

Psycho (1998)

I viewed Hitchcock's "Psycho" a week ago. Attending this new version, I felt oddly as if I were watching a provincial stock company doing the best it could without the Broadway cast. I was reminded of the child prodigy who was summoned to perform for a famous pianist. The child climbed onto the piano stool and played something by Chopin with great speed and accuracy. The great musician then patted the child on the head and said, "You can play the notes. Someday, you may be able to play the music."

 

Midnight Cowboy

The second scene went wrong when Joe jammed the telephone in the guy's mouth and the false teeth went flying. We already knew Joe well enough to know he simply wouldn't do that; why didn't Schlesinger(the director) know him as well?

 

Godfather

Familiar as I am with Robert Duvall, when he first appeared on the screen I found myself thinking, 'There's Tom Hagen.'

 

The Godfatehr Part III

Here, for example, is a new character, introduced as 'Sonny's illegitimate son,' and, yes, we nod like cousins at a family reunion, yes, he does seem a lot like Sonny.

 

Easy Rider

But it's hard to identify with the Fonda and Hopper characters. So Hopper and his co-writers Fonda and Terry Southern write in a brilliant character, Old George (played magnificently by Jack Nicholson). And when this alcoholic, tragic ACLU lawyer from a small Southern town enters the picture, suddenly that's us there on the bike with Fonda. And the movie starts to work.

 

Amadeus

Milos Forman's "Amadeus" is not about the genius of Mozart but about the envy of his rival Salieri, whose curse was to have the talent of a third-rate composer but the ear of a first-rate music lover, so that he knew how bad he was, and how good Mozart was.

 

This is not a vulgarization of Mozart, but a way of dramatizing that true geniuses rarely take their own work seriously, because it comes so easily for them. Great writers (Nabokov, Dickens, Wodehouse) make it look like play. Almost-great writers (Mann, Galsworthy, Wolfe) make it look like Herculean triumph. It is as true in every field; compare Shakespeare to Shaw, Jordan to Barkley, Picasso to Rothko, Kennedy to Nixon.

 

Murder on Orient Express

Lumet overcomes his difficulties in great style, and we're never for a moment confused (except when we're supposed to be, which is most of the time).

 

Jackie Brown

You savor every moment of ``Jackie Brown.'' Those who say it is too long have developed cinematic attention deficit disorder. I wanted these characters to live, talk, deceive and scheme for hours and hours.

 

Buster Keaton

It's said that Chaplin wanted you to like him, but Keaton didn't care. I think he cared, but was too proud to ask... Buster survives tornadoes, waterfalls, avalanches of boulders and falls from great heights, and never pauses to take a bow.

 

City Lights

Most of Chaplin's films are available on video. Children who see them at a certain age don't notice they're ``silent'' but notice only that every frame speaks clearly to them, without all those mysterious words that clutter other films. Then children grow up, and forget this wisdom, but the films wait patiently and are willing to teach us again.

-----

I witnessed the universality of Chaplin's art in one of my most treasured experiences as a moviegoer, in 1972, in Venice, where all of Chaplin's films were shown at the film festival.

 

One night the Piazza San Marco was darkened, and ``City Lights'' was shown on a vast screen. When the flower girl recognized the Tramp, I heard much snuffling and blowing of noses around me; there wasn't a dry eye in the piazza. Then complete darkness fell, and a spotlight singled out a balcony overlooking the square. Charlie Chaplin walked forward, and bowed. I have seldom heard such cheering.

 

Modern Times

They're classics, everyone agrees, but that word "classic" has become terribly cheap in relation to movies. It's applied so promiscuously that by now the only thing you can be sure of about a "film classic" is that it isn't actually in current release.

 

Apocalypse Now

It is not about war so much as about how war reveals truths we would be happy never to discover...If we are lucky, we spend our lives in a fool's paradise, never knowing how close we skirt the abyss.

 

La Dolce Vita

There may be no such thing as the sweet life. But it is necessary to find that out for yourself.

 

Hotel Rwanda

Deep movie emotions for me usually come not when the characters are sad, but when they are good.

 

Tokyo Story

Given the opportunity at a family gathering to share our hopes and disappointments, we talk about the weather and watch TV.

 

13 Conversations About One Thing

Movies tell narratives, and the purpose of narrative is to arrange events in an order that seems to make sense and end correctly. The Sprechers are telling us if we believe in these narratives, we're only fooling ourselves.

 

And yet, even so, there is a way to find happiness. That is to be curious about all of the interlocking events that add up to our lives. To notice connections. To be amused or perhaps frightened by the ways things work out. If the universe is indifferent, what a consolation that we are not.

 

Back to the Future 3

The one thing that remains constant in all of the "Back to the Future" movies, and which I especially like, is a sort of bittersweet, elegiac quality involving romance and time... In all of these stories, there is the realization that love depends entirely on time. Lovers like to think their love is eternal.

 

But do they ever realize it depends entirely on temporal coincidence, since, if they were not alive at the same time, romance hardly would be feasible?

 

The Truman Show

If you think ``The Truman Show'' is an exaggeration, reflect that Princess Diana lived under similar conditions from the day she became engaged to Charles...

For Harris, the demands of the show take precedence over any other values, and if you think that's an exaggeration, tell it to the TV news people who broadcast that Los Angeles suicide.

 

Raging Bull

It is a vicious circle. Freud called it the "madonna-whore complex." Groucho Marx put it somewhat differently: "I wouldn't belong to any club that would have me as a member." It amounts to a man having such low self-esteem that he (a) cannot respect a woman who would sleep with him, and (b) is convinced that, given the choice, she would rather be sleeping with someone else.

 

...that, and the extraordinary moment where he looks at himself in a dressing room mirror and recites from ``On the Waterfront'' (``I coulda been a contender''). It's not De Niro doing Brando, as is often mistakenly said, but De Niro doing LaMotta doing Brando doing Terry Malloy. De Niro could do a ``better'' Brando imitation, but what would be the point?

 

The Gods Must Be Crazy

In any slapstick comedy, the gags must rest on a solid basis of logic: It's not funny to watch people being ridiculous, but it is funny to watch people doing the next logical thing, and turning out to be ridiculous.

 

The Empire Strikes Back

I have no doubt there are many improvements on the soundtrack, but I would have to be a dog to hear them.

 

Screwballs

There are scenes in this movie that are intended to inspire nostalgia, and will probably not even inspire recognition.

 

Frozen Assets

Movies like "Frozen Assets" are small miracles. You look at them and wonder how, at any stage of the production, anyone could have thought there was a watchable movie here... Here is a movie to watch in appalled silence. To call it one of the year's worst would be a kindness.

 

The Village

To call it an anticlimax would be an insult not only to climaxes but to prefixes.

 

Valentine's Day

"Valentine's Day" is being marketed as a Date Movie. I think it's more of a First-Date Movie. If your date likes it, do not date that person again. And if you like it, there may not be a second date.

 

Ghost

We like to picture our dear ones up there on a cloud, eternally "looking down" on us, so devoted that they would rather see what we're cooking for dinner than have a chat with Aristotle or Elvis.

 

Pearl Harbor

"Pearl Harbor" is a two-hour movie squeezed into three hours, about how on Dec. 7, 1941, the Japanese staged a surprise attack on an American love triangle.

 

Fanboys

Anyone who would camp out in a tent on the sidewalk for weeks in order to be first in line for a movie is more into camping on the sidewalk than movies.

 

Meet the Fockers

...you will probably find yourself going to "Meet the Fockers," because... you may be the kind of person who finds it entertaining to mention that you are on your way to meet the Fockers.

 

Hollywood Homicide:

I am aware that "realtor" is a trademark and is always supposed to be used with a capital "R." But I refuse to go along. Realtors can complain all they want, but why should they get an upper-case R just because they say so? Would we capitalize Philosopher, Exterminator, Proctologist or Critic?

 

Godzilla

Oh, and then there are New York's Mayor Ebert and his adviser, Gene. The mayor of course makes every possible wrong decision (he is against evacuating Manhattan, etc.), and the adviser eventually gives thumbs-down to his reelection campaign. These characters are a reaction by Emmerich and Devlin to negative Siskel and Ebert reviews of their earlier movies ("Stargate," "Independence Day"), but they let us off lightly; I fully expected to be squished like a bug by Godzilla. Now that I've inspired a character in a Godzilla movie, all I really still desire is for several Ingmar Bergman characters to sit in a circle and read my reviews to one another in hushed tones.

 

Transformers 2

If you want to save yourself the ticket price, go into the kitchen, cue up a male choir singing the music of hell, and get a kid to start banging pots and pans together. Then close your eyes and use your imagination.

 

The Bucket List

I'm thinking, just once, couldn't a movie open with the voiceover telling us what a great guy the Morgan Freeman character is? The sole redeeming merit of the film is the steady work by Morgan Freeman, who has appeared in more than one embarrassing movie, but never embarrassed himself.

 

Heat

De Niro and Pacino, veterans of so many great films in the crime genre, have by now spent more time playing cops and thieves than most cops and thieves have. At this point in their careers, if Pacino and De Niro go out to study a cop or a robber, it's likely their subject will have modeled himself on their performances in old movies.

 

Lawrence of Arabia

You can view it on video and get an idea of its story and a hint of its majesty, but to get the feeling of Lean's masterpiece you need to somehow, somewhere, see it in 70mm on a big screen. This experience is on the short list of things that must be done during the lifetime of every lover of film.

 

The word ''epic'' in recent years has become synonymous with ''big budget B picture.'' What you realize watching ''Lawrence of Arabia'' is that the word ''epic'' refers not to the cost or the elaborate production, but to the size of the ideas and vision. Werner Herzog's ''Aguirre, the Wrath of God'' didn't cost as much as the catering in ''Pearl Harbor,'' but it is an epic, and ''Pearl Harbor'' is not.

 

2001: A Space Odyssey

2001 on a TV set is like the Grand Canyon on a postcard.

 

A Hard Day's Night

Perhaps this was the movie that sounded the first note of the new decade--the opening chord on George Harrison's new 12-string guitar. The film was so influential in its androgynous imagery that untold thousands of young men walked into the theater with short haircuts, and their hair started growing during the movie and didn't get cut again until the 1970s.

 

Manhattan

It is amazing, for example, how many women believe they are unique because they find Woody sexy.

 

Magnolia

In one beautiful sequence, Anderson cuts between most of the major characters all simultaneously singing Aimee Mann's "It's Not Going to Stop." A directorial flourish? You know what? I think it's a coincidence. (in a movie that is about coincidences)

 

Titanic

(At one point Rose gives Lovejoy the finger; did young ladies do that in 1912?)

 

On Om Puri: Om Puri is in the peculiar position of being famous in the West for films that have never played in India, and being famous in India for films that have never played in the West.

 

The King's Speech

If the British monarchy is good for nothing else, it's superb at producing the subjects of films.

 

 

Charulata - Movie Review

Spoilers Abound:
Charulata is a Bengali film directed by Satyajit Ray that tells the story of a 'Lonely Wife' whose creative abilities or her emotional needs are not recognised by either of the men she considers important at a certain point in her life. To say that one of them is her husband who eventually recognises her abilities is like saying 'thank god for small mercies'.

The story revolves around the life of Charulata who spends her days observing the life around her on the streets and far distance with opera glasses in her hands. The film is rich with visual symbolisms, the first being she observing her husband, only a few feet away, through those ubiquitous opera glasses. He is submerged in his passion for politics and journalism - to the extent that he confesses that the smell of the printing ink is the sweetest and the sound of a printing press is greater music than the sound of the sea waves. Into the life of the neglected and lonely Charulata enters her brother-in-law; the fresh-out-of-college Amol (Soumitra Chatterjee) like a whirlwind of energy and passion for the quixotic - which again is accompanied with a literal storm hitting the household. What follows is a beautiful juxtaposing of the political views of the older brother and the romantic notions of Amol. When an offer to go to London appears in front of Amol, the older brother is excited about Gladstone, Parliament and the Tories while Amol is excited about Shakespeare and Bristol. Drama and the desperation of an apparently neglected wife demands that Charulata leans towards the more romantic and poetic view of the world shared by Amol - and thus begins her infatuation for her brother-in-law. We would later learn from the implied article she writes for a serious magazine that she could have have probably been equally confortable discussing Gladstone with her husband if only he cared.

What follows is one of the most sensitively portrayed romantic relationship dramas on screen - where Charulata takes to unleashing her creative forces and encouraging Amol in a similar direction. It comes to pass that it is Amol who benefits more from the relationship in terms of expressing his writing abilities. When matters come to a head, Charulata is sure about her romantic inclinations for Amol while Amol is driven - rightly - by the notions of honour and propriety. It is two people at different stages of their lives and they both are right in their places. The viewer is cognizant of what is in the mind of Charulata while Amol's feelings are always ambiguous. I would consider it the right portrayal of the situation since Amol himself is probably unsure of what his feelings for Charu are. At the same time, the husband, thusfar in the background of the drama, has an important scene where a certain incident leads him to contemplate philosophically on the entire idea of trust between human beings. Amol shares a wonderful chemistry and has great affection for his sister-in-law but he and the audience are not sure if his feelings are romantic. The incident in his brother’s life gives Amol a definite clarity of right and wrong.

The performance that stands out is obviously that of Madhabi Mukherjee as Charulata. What caught my attention the most is the silent anger that is expressed in her facial expressions and actions and never in words through the entire course of the movie.

The movie ends with another storm - again both literal and figurative - one which makes the husband recognise the feelings of Charulata for Amol. He is shattered about the discovery and this leads to a scene which has the close up of the husband's face with tears streaming down his eyes. It is the most poignant scene I have seen in the recent memory. What follows is one of the most eloquent, powerful and silent endings in Cinema. Tagore's original play is named ‘Nastanirh - The Broken Nest'; the film is named Charulata and ends with the end credits showing "Nastanirh - The Broken Nest" in a freeze frame where Charu extends a reconciliatory hand to the willing husband.