lesson of the day; June 8, 2009

Apathy is the supremest of revenge. And being unkind follows in as a close second.

I bought Lyra’s Oxford and Once Upon a Time in the North by Philip Pullman this past weekend and played mentor to my 7 year old niece, who must be weaned off the steady diet of Hannah Montana she’s been getting. I started off with buying her some Roald Dahl books. Roll in on your Giant Peach, James, and rescue this child from the skulduggery that is commercialised tweens and packaged childhoods!

I am this close to actually calling up the people at Readings and telling them that I need to work there in exchange for a stack of books. Getting paid in books for work is not a bad bargain at all.

P.S: I’m not sorry about neglecting this thing. The more life happens, the less I write. Which is a bad thing – but eh.

playful & gritty; March 26, 2009

AUSTRALIA.

It was lengthy but not that lengthy. I don’t know what people are complaining about! It was a beautifully stylised film with a lot of heart to it. And it wasn’t without some classic Baz Luhrmann Cinematic Quirks. Where Zack Snyder is a fan of the slow motion technique, Luhrmann is a more quick motion kind of a guy. The sudden fast-forward effect inserted here and there made Moulin Rouge an absolute treat of eccentricity. In Australia, he uses the trick sparingly but to maximum effect. I got the feeling of racing through time or actually sitting through a classic film – which is what this film is: a modern classic.

The acting is spot on. Nicole Kidman is not my favourite actress, and I don’t get excited about her projects too much but she is a good actress and no amount of ‘Flop Queen’ catcalls can take it away from her. As the Duchess away from home, she is uptight, commanding, prim & proper. At the same time she is vulnerable, fragile, naive and entirely out of her league and at her wits’ end. I love the way she is determined to prove herself to the Drover (and maybe to herself), only to show how sheltered and unknowing she is about the Australian outback way of life. Hugh Jackman is an absolute gem. He’s a man’s man – and a ladies man – and I wish he was my man. There is no trace of WOLVERINE here. He brings a special kind of tender machismo to the role of the Drover. He serves the purpose of being the eye-candy and the emotional anchor. And last but not the least, I love Nullah! I love how Luhrmann has told the story from the aboriginal kid’s perspective rather than telling it from Sarah or the Drover’s perspective. It feels more honest and timeless this way. Faramir (sry, don’t remember the actor’s name right now) (OH IT IS DAVID WENHEM, RIGHT.) is a right bastard but he is not the average mustache-twirling baddie this kind of film may have cast fifty years ago. He is shown to be a man of the land who is looking out for his interests. Too bad everyone else seems to be in his way.

LAST BUT NOT THE LEAST!

Australia itself (herself? I dunno.) is the best character of all. The place is harsh, punishing and appears to be entirely unforgiving – yet it is also welcoming and warm. I read a book in eighth grade called ‘A Town Like Alice’ and it made me cry so bad – I loved it, it prepared me for Australia, I believe. I have to read it again now!

So yes, I really liked the film, despite its fantastical and hard-to-believe moments.

-

My beef with the whole studio system in film making is that films like Australia suffer because of botched marketing and ‘limited release’. If films like this ‘flop’, does that mean filmmakers should stop making beautiful & intelligent films? Should we all be bound to watch memory-ruining Transformers films and such? I sure as hell hope not!

myth maker;

why should i save the world? March 11, 2009

There are fanboys all over the world spontaneously combusting in the streets while trying to get into theatres screening Watchmen. There are fanboys in some countries who are not watching the film because Alan Moore is ’spitting venom all over it’. There are fanboys who are swarming the cinemas with their reluctant friends in tow to exclusive screenings. And then there are fanboys who have seen it.

Them & about a million other people who haven’t read the acclaimed graphic novel, but got roped in the hysterical declaration of ‘FROM THE VISIONARY DIRECTOR OF 300′. Well.

As smart and savvy Zack Snyder is, he isn’t particularly visionary. Even with 300, he hasn’t given us a film that would make us stop dead in our tracks and make us wonder how anyone, ever, could top something like this. The last time most of the world turning to cinema (& Hollywood) felt like this in the past two decades was possibly when The Matrix came out, and Keanu Reeves and his School of Single-Expression Acting became synonymous with other-worldly uber-geek smoothness. That film, that character, made all of us feel like the geeks <i>will</i> inherit the Earth. It terrified some, and electrified others. The overall outcome? It was a universal love affair. With Watchmen, however, the young director isn’t re-defining genres and inventing new laws of physics. He is simply putting forth a film that almost everyone in Hollywoodland deemed an epic failboat of a project. His fleeting glory, then, does not lie in how good the film is, but in the fact that he has actually dragged this one out of Production Hell and has made it happen.

The film is a faithful adaptation of the graphic novel which the Time magazine has listed as one of the best <u>novels</u> of the past century. There is a twist in the end (and a slip up in the over all narrative – those who have read the novel would know what I’m talking about) but for cinematic purposes, it works. The film is long at about three hours or so, but Snyder has spared us from having to sit newly initiated people into the Watchmen glory-land for five hours a la Steven Soderburgh’s Che. The production design is meticulous; the art direction is carefully superb. The make-up is horrendous, however, and someone needs to fire whosoever designed the ageing make-up for Sally Jupiter (the ever-fabulous Carla Gugino), Richard Nixon (his nose is a whole other undiscovered continent) and for Adrian Veidt (Matthew Goode).

it became real.

My favourite part of the film has to be the opening sequence, which has been almost universally lauded. And rightfully so. In about 6 minutes, Snyder sums up the what, why, how and when of the Watchmen and then moves on, keeping the film focused on one major plot. Yes, there are flashbacks – and sometimes flashbacks amidst flashbacks – but whatever we see on the screen doesn’t stray too much into the territory of an inside joke. The film works on two levels. It is stylish and cerebral, and it is entertaining. Although the emotional core maybe lacking (many have found it to be too ‘artsy’ to carry any real sentimental punch) but it has its shinning moments. And they are provided by a spectacular cast of men. Jeffrey Dean Morgan is disturbing and incorrigible as the no-nonsense Comedian/Edward Blake who chomps cigars and shoots people with almost no remorse. As the ageing superhero relieved of his life, he remains the Atlas upon whose shoulders the entire plot is set. It’d be hard for anyone to be sympathetic towards this fellow, but JDM gives the character more than just reasons to be hated. Jackie Earle Hayley is eerie and relentless as the moral absolutist Rorschach. This man would rather break than bend, and Hayley does it so well. Patric Wilson plays Night Owl II, and with his geek glasses, bowties, pot belly and certain graceful restraint, he is perhaps the voice of reason and calm amongst the bunch. He is also present in the moment and most human of any of them, with his regrets and his joys being the impetus that dictate his actions, not his guilt and his anger. With his passive softness and unlimited powers, Billy Crudup’s Dr. Manhattan starts as the naïve and wide-eyed physicist with great intentions and ends up as being a reclusive genius who’d rather build a new world than help save the one everyone already has. Matthew Goode plays the megalomania card right as the high and mighty Adrian Veidt, who is obsessed with the greatness of kings of past and as Ozymandias, hoped to recapture them but then chose good old consumerism instead. As an unruly band of not-brothers, this group is complex and as anti-heroic as they come, and their differences are what make them work.

I have said it several times before and I’ll say it again: I think Snyder is not an ‘actor’s director’. He concerns himself more with the overall package of them film than nit-picking about each character with each actor. And if rumors are to be believed, and he gave his actors just enough artistic liscence to find their own voices in the provided material, than that is his greatest triumph. The only failing in an otherwise stellar cast (of nobodys!) is Malin Akerman, who needs to deliver and hold together the emotional threads of the film, and who fails miseravly each time she opens her mouth. Carla Gugino, even while underneath layers of ageing makeup, is far superior to Akerman’s wooden dialogue delivery and play at emotions. As Silk Spectre II, she is mere eye-candy, with even her wig showing more acting chops than her.

It is not an easy film to digest, but it isn’t a complete failure either. People need to realize that this is <u>not</u> a superhero film, that it is not for children, there are no ‘caped crusaders’ here, it is very violent, the only thing ‘comic’ about it is perhaps the Comedian’s smiley face button and that it requires some working knowledge of history. And then there is the slow-motion abuse. I like slow-motion as a stylistic tool to drive in a point in the film, but Snyder is definitely way too trigger happy when it comes with portraying things in slow motion.But despite it all, I really really liked it, and would go to watch it again WITHOUT the company I previously invited to tag along. I have been telling people who like their entertainment spoon-fed to avoid this film, and that too out of sheer selfishness because I don’t have the patience for listening to people whine about things like ‘but The Dark Knight was so much better’. Well, good for you and the Dark Knight.

But I know who’d win if the Joker and the Comedian were put in a fight. And the funny thing is: I think you know too, and our answers match.

————

graphic by carry the fire.

your favourite bald man; February 24, 2009

his girlfriend 'for this incarnation'. altogether now: awwww.

Art always lends itself to interpretation and is never objective. Insisting that a work of art can be objectively assessed is both inane and naïve; something no true artist would ever own up to. Film is the most acceible form of art (apart from music, of course, but that’s another discussion). It is made for massive consumption, and even where the label reads ‘independent’ or ‘art house’, the aim is to inspire and entertain. The entertainment can come in the form of multiple emotions: derision, disgust, awe, enthrallment, sadness, hope and so on and so forth. Just as long as it manages to stir something up inside the audience, it is worth all the trouble. As a partial cinema-buff, I have believed in this theory. Then came the film studies, and I was literaly ruined for the cinematic experience. I now notice things that people usually don’t give two figs about. Chief of them is continuity and set decoration. Well, set decoration may still be noticeable by many, but no one cares about continuity, whereas if an actor’s hair or a teaspoon on the table change positions without rational on-screen explanation, I call the director’s, or the editor’s, bluff. This is of course followed by more details that I don’t want to get into, but what it all boils down to is the fact that I love films. I have some more-basic-than-the-basics knowledge of how hard the procedure of filmmaking is, so

a) I never take any film for granted
b) I have double the expectations from films when it comes to script, acting, art direction, direction, post-production work
c) The films that I don’t like…I don’t like. I can come up with a list of reasons why
I’m harsh about my critique but I don’t impose it on anyone. That’s the same I expect from people that I talk to, but some of them tend to creen out of control, which is just silly. The other extreme comes from people who judge me for my taste in films (and music, books, clothes, et cetera et cetera) and question my ‘seriousness’ about life, hence implying that I am a fickle creature with her head in a tub of pop-corn and backside in a cinema seat all the time. Well, I’m not, and it isn’t. The following is the list of things that take precedence over film in my life/mind:

1. Faith
2. My family
3. My health
4. War & world peace
5. Anti-golbalisation sentiments
6. Food
7. My cat
And other such things. I don’t (usually) get paid for my film critique so it isn’t the center of my world, and even if I did, I don’t think it would. What, you think Roger Ebert swims in celluloid and showreels all the time? He probably does, but you get my point. (And before anyone gets shirty: DISCLAIMER! I don’t count myself in league or at par with Ebert. I am my own damn favourite film critic.)

I think I needed to go into this rant before I put up my list of best/worst moments from the Oscars yesterday; as a disclaimer and as a declaration. Of love, and of focused finger-poking born of it.

Best

- Anne Hathaway: She has come a long way from being squeaky clean and annoyingly wide-eyed cardboard princess to an assertive and commanding actor with lots of talent. I have promised myself to pay more attention to her from now on. Her likability factor is much higher than that of Keria knightley, who continues to being pointlessly hyped up. She appeared to be genuinely moved by Shirley McLaine’s praise for her, and that was just classy.
- Hugh Jackman: What a charming showman. He is not a comedian, but he played to his strengths, which involve singing and a penchant for breaking out into dance. As one of Oscar’s most good looking presenters, he was calm and never obnoxious, taking things in stride.

- Angelina Jolie & Brad Pitt while Jen Aniston and Jack Black were presenting: I don’t know what Jen was so edgy about, both Angelina and Brad appeared nothing but politely amused by Black’s career-suicide comments and there was no apparent coldness emanating from them for Jen. While the camera panning to them was expected and a bit of a cheap shot, they were both animatedly attentive and not sullen or looking elsewhere. Well played.
- Penelope Cruz’s speech: She was eloquent and surprisingly made sense. Her genuine nervousness was v. endearing.
- Heath Ledger’s family: They were dignified and humble, and did their son proud.
- Adrien Brody: Okay, he’s going for the hobo chic, but it may also have been a reminder to directors and producers that hey, he’s still here and he’s looking for the next big film. Since after winning the Oscar, he hasn’t been in any major roles/films and he certainly deserves better. His nearly-tears-into-beard when Heath’s name was announced as the Best Supporting Actor made me bubble up as well.
- Robert Downey Jr: In face of Cuba Godding Jr’s tirade against him stealing roles from the ‘brothers’, he was calm and amused. When Heath’s name was called, he was stoically accepting. This man has come such a long way from his drug-addled days, and he continues to press into the right direction. A true come-back story, further made impressive by the fact that he has really cleaned up his act.
- Sean Penn, ‘he is my brother’: I was convinced a bit late of Mickey Rourke’s performance in the Wrestler as Oscar worthy. I still don’t like Mickey Rourke as a person, but as an actor, I think he deserved that Oscar. Sean Penn won, and he’s not that endearing either (as a person), but he earned some points when he flourished his Oscar and said ‘Mickey Rourke rises again; he is my brother!’ While it is always a routine in humbleness and thank yous up on the stage, it takes plenty of quick thinking and class to acknowledge a fellow-nominee (and favourite contender) in those brief few moments allowed for a speech. Penn nailed it exceptionally well, and looked like he meant it. Aw, warm fuzzies.
- Kate Winslet’s father, whistling to signal her: It was expected and she deserved it. Her stuttering was boring (you’d think after getting practice at about a dozen other award shows she’d be controlled) but this immediate response by her old dad in the fedora from the back-waters of the crowd was rather priceless.
- Tina Fey & Steve Martin: Pure comedic genius. Wittiest jab at ‘religion’ during the show; Bill Mahar should take note.
- Will Smith: He made watching through all those boring award categories a breeze. His quip about popular films not being recognised as Oscar worthy was rather hilarious, without being pretentious or preachy.
- A.R Rahman: He deserved the Oscars – not just for Slumdog Millionaire, but just for being so consistently awesome.
- The Guy who did a magic trick: …and balanced his Oscar on his chin.

Worst

- Queen Latifah singing over the In Memorium montage: Nothing against her, she’s brilliant, but it was hard to follow anyone or read anything on those multiple screens. I only saw that Paul Newman has died last year. Really?
- Robert Pattinson & Amanda Seyfried: Both looked disheveled and out of place. The montage they presented? Awful.
- The ‘Musical is Back’ song and dance routine: just…no. Beyonce was out of place, so were the kids from High School Musical and Mamma Mia! Pure ham, not much juice.
- ‘Open it already!’: A production assistant could be heard saying that when they closed the curtains after the first time when Hugh got off stage.
- Sound trouble: You could hear James Bond asking Sarah Jessica Parker if she was alright when they were walking out to present the award. While it was v. chivalrous, it was a sound/production error and shouldn’t have happened.

There are probably a lot others, but I have apparently lost them in my cotton-ball-doused-in-water brain. Huzzah, influenza.

the fat lady sang alright; February 20, 2009

Random funny search term on my blog today: compare friedrich nietzsche and margaret atwood.

How the hell do you compare Margaret Atwood and Friedrich Nietzsche (‘Neeshaw!’)?

American Idol: The rednecks won and Anoop has gone home. bah! And as much as I loathed Tatiana, I’d take her annoying shameless self-centered OTT bullshit over Danny Gokey’s bumbling virtue and piety any day.

ugh; February 19, 2009

Cannot be more eloquent than this. I seem to have effed up my blog – the links aren’t available! Disgusting.

In other news, I have now watched an episode of Sons of Anarchy and I liked a few moments from it. I like the all prevailing sense of brotherhood and the sold-face Sam Crow represents. The heart is the strongest muscles in the body and some such clownery. Grey’s Anatomy continues to be annoying as hell, and I only watch it for the sass of Kevin McKidd (Dr Hunt) and arms of Justin Chambers (Dr Karev). It’s been broadcast late here so it’s only the beginning of season 5 and Denny has appeared with full vengeance for the first time. Izzie is completely losing her nuts over the sight of him and I want to punch her enormous face and blonde hair of unbelievable incredulity and bad acting.

Also: Just when I thought I should make my life more meaningful…I discovered Twitter.

here we go again; February 13, 2009

I’m hooked again so I will keep up the major rants and minimum raves right here in the blog.

You tell them, Gary.

…but I do. SO.

In an apocalyptic twist of fate (and Fox’s desire to allow these freaks to ham it up and get more viewers in a disgustingly obvious publicity stunt), both Tatiana and Nick have made it into the Top 36. Nate has been given a spot as well. Danny ‘waterworks’ Gokey, the nauseatingly hopeful forty year old be-spectacled widower has also been pushed forward & on us while Jamar (Chamar, lulz) was sent packing. Stevie Wright and her endless face also sailed through. Both Papa Bear (Matt Breitzke) and American Idol’s Very Own Joe the Plumber (Michael Sarver) were given a chance after doing a sing-off.

What assclownery is this. There is not a single person (as yet) that I am rooting for. Every time Tatiana opens her mouth, a little innocent fairy dies somewhere, hopes of so many normal, not-batshit-crazy, actually talented people are dashed to the ground. Nick Multiple Personalities is this season’s Taylor Hicks (REMEMBER HIM FOLKS? NO? I DON’T EITHER.) and Danny Waterworks is this season’s David Archuleta, with the same hopeful glint in his eyes and undefeated spirit. But while it may have been endearing in a teenager, in a man of Danny’s advanced years, it’s just frakking annoying. Every times he starts bubbling up, I want to tell him to go find a sensible job.

I actually got up from my couch and did a ‘WHAT THE HELL’ dance around the room in utter disgust. I would’ve loved for Simon to have finished her off in an uber apocalyptic bitchfight, but alas. Anyway. The females this year are all a big ball of blur, no thanks to the plague upon mankind, Tatiana del Toro. I can tolerate these:

1. Adam Lambert (Otherwise known as The Scary Troll with the Combover and HUGE VOICE). He sang Cher’s Believe in Hollywood week.
2. Anoop Desai. Anoop Dawg. (Otherwise known as Kal Penn’s long lost twin and/or the Anti-Sanjaya).
3. Brent Keith. His itsy bitsy hotness was revealed only in this week’s shows, I think. He’s like the poor man’s Daniel Beddingfield.
4. Matt Giraud. He’s utterly in-offensive and non eye-offending. He’ll be one of the firsts to be voted off.
5. Scott Macintyre. May or may not be a secret superhero. I can’t even pick on him because he’s blind, and I’m not an utter jerk. Just works for me that he can really sing AND play the piano as well, bless his heart.

Also: when Paula gave Tatiana that ring off of her own damn hand…no wonder it is All About Kara DioGuardi from now on. Kara the Ever-Awesome and Simon. Her presence – her shimmering, all-encompassing presence – has made both Randy and Paula appear rather useless on the show.

SO IT BEGINS.

P.S: Auditions for So You Think You Can Dance Season 5 have now begin. And AXN is almost done with Season 3 here. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that they’ll show Season 4 and not flake out on me. How else am I supposed to spend holidays like Valentine’s Day if there are no SYTYCD marathons on the TV?!

quote of the day; February 13, 2009

“Hatred is a marathon, not a sprint.”

:|

dees-tur-bee-uh; February 12, 2009

“They finally send Tatiana into Room 4, which scares the shit out of everybody because that’s Tati and Nick Mitchell together. She of course immediately tries to drag all of them into her shit, and nobody’s interested, because that’s how Slytherin rolls.”

“She looks cute, her voice is untrained but lovely. In Room 3, she slowly goes insane. Welcome to Hufflepuff, here are your safety scissors.” (From here.)

HAHA. My favourite random HP-verse name-dropping of the day.

Also: I hate Tatiana. I do like the scary troll with comb-over and the LOUD voice – uh, Adam Lambert.

Also: Why the hell am I following American Idol again?

Also: Why is my blog coming up on searches for ‘haircuts of women by khawar riaz’? What assclownery is this.

but sister, it’s the opposite of hallelujah; February 11, 2009

Something which I wrote for my best friend & never showed her:

my favourite picture of you two is the one in which you are both leaning towards each other and pouring over a new phone. you are oblivious of the world around you, and as such, oblivious about each other as well, with that little slab of microchips and buttons seizing your concentration exclusively. yes, that is my favourite picture of you two, which is impersonally romantic like the cold feeling of a paper cut. yes, that too is romantic in a punishing way, but then there is the certainty of you having gained knowledge as well as a scar from it. and isn’t love all about learning and accepting the scars as they come and painting them upon one’s skin?

there is wisdom in pain and the saints know it. but they don’t tell so the modern historian brands them as masochistic martyrs and forgets about them and we all move on to new phones and mutually exclusive romantic agenda learned from colourful books that give a deceptively cheerful outlook to the self-help section in the book store. that too is a kind of learning and scarring, but it all gets drowned in a bitter gulp of need whenever you look across the table and find out that despite all the books and the papercuts, you are still alone staring at two people who are in a dangerous kind of love but love nonetheless and who have found enough comfort in each other to be oblivious of each other’s existence from time to time.

perhaps i am talking about myself. but which side of the table are you sitting on? please don’t deny the fact that you heard that song* and felt it, and you said it disgusted you because you heard yourself in the words.

this is the opposite of being you.

________________________

*true love waits by radiohead