Forget everything else. Have you seen Swades yet?
psa
- Post author By Vishal
- Post date January 14, 2005
- Tags Entertainment, iLevel.Blogspot, Reviews
Tag: Entertainment
Chow Yun Fat is going to be in the Pirates of the Caribbean sequels.
Chow Yun Fat. Johnny Depp. In the same movie.
In two movies.
ohmygodohmygodohmygod.
*head asplodes*
To complete a triptych of food-related photos, the other day I popped down to the local Malayalee sandwich juice guy and ordered, among other things, a chicken fillet sandwich. Upon getting home, I was happy to see that they had labelled the boxes so I didn’t have to open them up and test them.
Of course, what he had written on the box did strike me as a little disconcerting at first:
There’s no accounting for taste.
Speaking of Malayalees and food, yesterday I was at the airport seeing someone off, when who should walk by but that uber-star of Malayalee cinema (not counting Shakeela, of course!), the media magnate of the meeshe and mundu, Mohanlal.
I had half a mind to shout, “Hey, your restaurant sucks!” but seeing as I was surrounded by literally hundreds of my more southern Malabar-coast cousins, all of whom swarmed towards the star the nanosecond they caught sight of him, I decided against it. I wouldn’t have lasted more than three seconds anyway. This was not the time to be going toe-to-toe with the (rather hefty) Mohanlal on the matter of how the prawn curry was inconsistent (not to mention the fact that his restaurant is called “Mohanlal’s Taste Buds” — I mean, what da fug?).
The Bangalorean parts of my genes told me that the proper thing to do was to write to the Deccan Herald, in a prolix letter that must begin, “Sir, Esteemed Yourself is being hailed by Humble Myself to bring to kind attention of All-Selves the matter of…etc, etc.”
The Mangalorean parts of me wanted to forget such trivial matters, and to discuss the price of gold in a lengthy inner monologue.
The Mumbaikar part of me told both of them to shut up.
This reminds me of the time I saw Nikhil Advani in Oxford Bookstore, Mumbai. I didn’t recognise him at the time (“Hmm, that guy looks familiar.” “Of course he does, he looks like Droopy!” “No, I mean, besides that…”), but I’m pretty sure I would have wanted to say, “Couldn’t you have just killed Shah Rukh quick and saved us all from a bitch of a migraine?”
Today in the supermarket I passed the condiments aisle, and legions of little Mohanlals grin at me from their branded pickle bottles, the contents of which could probably eat through steel in less time than it takes to toss an appam.
He may have millions of fans, and a restaurant, and his own brand of pickles, but I have Chicken Fellate Sandwich.
And on a final note, I drove by Simran’s Appa Kadai, and tell me, why on earth would I want to go to a restaurant that serves some Punjabi girl’s father kadai-style?
I’m sure we’ve all, at one time or the other, come across this situation: someone comes back after a concert, a movie, or any event you’re interested in, and instead of talking about the event, they go off on a tangent about how bad the parking was, or the weird guy who sat next to them, while you’re sitting there with the slowly dawning feeling that you aren’t going to ever find out about the concert itself. Watching Michel Gondry’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind left me with similar feelings.
Eternal… is by no means a terrible movie; the concept of a person erasing people from their memories is fascinating, and seen from the mind’s eye of its protagonist, Joel Barish (Jim Carrey), it takes the form of a trippy, non-linear romp through his memories as all traces of his ex-girlfriend Clementine (Kate Winslet) are slowly and methodically wiped away.
The special effects in these scenes are top notch. As someone who knows some of the technical side of things, let me tell you, doing special effects on a moving camera shot is a nightmare. Eternal… employs a lot of handheld camera-work, and yet each subtle effect, be it a car literally disassembling out of existence, or the covers of thousands of books disappearing to white, is handled flawlessly.
The screenplay (By Charlie Kaufman, from a story by Gondry, Kaufman and Pierre Bismuth) itself, however, is less impressive, and doesn’t live up to the high standard of its premise. Joel and Clementine were pretty close, now they’ve broken up, and Clementine has had the memory of Joel erased from her. Joel decides, then, to do the same to her, i.e. have her erased from his brain. The rest of the film follows Joel on the night that the procedure takes place, and intercuts with the team performing the procedure on him.
(some Spoilers follow)
It is this subplot that I found more interesting than Joel and Clementine’s love story. There are some very intriguing characters here, and nearly all of them are wasted. Firstly, there is Patrick (Elijah Wood), an assistant at the clinic who — it is revealed early on — is using Joel’s discarded memorabilia of Clementine to woo her, replaying Joel’s words and memories. Patrick’s character, despite being worthy of an entire movie on his own (a man who steals other people’s memories for romantic gain) serves no purpose other than seeming a bit creepy, and giving us a look at post-procedure Clementine and how she’s not coping very well.
Then there’s Mary (Kirsten Dunst, in Eternal‘s best performance) as the clinic’s receptionist, and Tom Wilkinson’s Dr. Mierzwiak, seemingly the inventor of the erasure procedure. I don’t want to spoil too much, but suffice to say that when these guys’ story got going I was very irritated that the movie kept cutting back to Joel’s brain and yet another memory of him being a emotional arse and Clementine being somewhat likeable, but not quite.
And therein lies the problem for me: the protagonists aren’t particularly likeable people, they don’t really seem to be in love at any point — just going along for the socially approved girlfriend/boyfriend ride because they’re too uptight to work on themselves first. In fact, at the end of the story I’m not convinced that they won’t be back to the doctor in a week demanding another erasure of each other, and I’m the sort of guy who’ll believe any leap of logic in a romantic film! Any good story features a concievable change in the protagonist’s character, and while it may seem that Joel does make that change at the very end, it seems more out of curiosity than any self-improvement; it doesn’t sell for me, it doesn’t hold water.
(end Spoilers)
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind has a lot worth watching; Kirsten Dunst, the special effects, and nobody in the cast puts in a bad performance. But it still feels like a missed opportunity. I wish I’d been able to hear about the concert.
This weekend, I suggest you go and see Shaun of the Dead, not just because it’s one of the best English language films released this year, but also because I command you to.
This Edgar Wright film stars Simon Pegg (who, along with the director, co-wrote Shaun…) as routine-ridden TV salesman Shaun, and no, unlike what the title suggests, he’s not dead, but pretty much everyone else is. Undead, I mean. Unlike other movies of the genre, the actual undead are not the focus of the movie, which is the main reason I like it. This isn’t some exercise in machismo and silicone enhanced breasts bursting from tight, sweat soaked t-shirts like most American horror movies; for once, the tagline for a movie reads right: “A Romantic Comedy. With Zombies.”
It’s not just a romantic comedy either; there’s some pretty emotional scenes in here, and only one gun (well, a few more show up at the end, but it doesn’t matter). This will sound screwy, but Shaun… is the closest we’ll get to a realistic account of what would happen if, indeed, shambling zombies did rise up and clog the streets. The characters are normal people, they behave in normal ways and come up with normal plans, and because of their utter lack of traditional heroics they end up being much more heroic. Simon Pegg, in particular, puts in a great performance, and the supporting cast (even the zombies!) are anything but cardboard cutouts.
But perhaps Shaun…‘s greatest achievement is its subtle messages about our own zombie society. To say more would be heading into spoiler territory, so I’ll just say this, to those who’ve seen it: That was one hell of an epilogue, huh? This part of the film will probably be lost on most viewers who just want to see blood and guts (and in that department it doesn’t disappoint, going for fewer gory scenes, but more effective ones).
So shamble to your nearest cineplex and see a guy in a white shirt take on hordes of gurgling undead armed only with a cricket bat (which, if you’ve ever held one, you’ll know is much more effective than those puny, light baseball bats). Don’t see it if lots of gore and violence puts you off, though. The equally excellent Ying Xiong might be a good alternative.
And remember, if you get cornered, bash ’em in the head, that seems to work out.
So I saw Spider-Man 2 the other day (and don’t worry, I know it isn’t out in India yet, so this review will be spoiler-free). It was much better than I thought it would be (and I thought it would be fantastic). I would go so far as to say that it’s the best movie based on a comic-book yet (although I’m keeping my fingers crossed for David Hayter’s Watchmen adaptation).
Spider-Man 2 is not a film for kids. Sure, you can take your kids along, and they’ll like the swinging in spandex super-hero shenanigans (lookit, I’m alliterating like Stan The Man), but this movie is best appreciated by people a lot older. While Spider-Man (1) was a great adaptation of a classic character, the sequel is very much its own beast; more mature, more true to itself. The humour, for one thing, is ten times more subtle, and ten times as effective. It’s a bit like Cyclops’s “Yellow Spandex” line in X-Men: it pokes fun at its roots as much as it pays tribute to them.
(By the way, the Yellow Spandex line will forever be forgotten once you see Spider-Man 2’s soon-to-be-classic Elevator Scene. Trust me.)
Plot wise, there are a few holes (the main “evil villain doomsday device” being one of them) but this is the first super-hero film to have less screen-time on the costume and more on the guy in it, and through some rather bold moves regarding the character’s secret identity, the movie breaks down the dicothomy between mild-mannered “alter ego” and masked super-guy (much like Watchmen did, especially with Rorschach and Dr. Manhattan). Peter Parker isn’t the guy who turns into a hero, he is the hero. In many ways, it’s the first super-hero movie of the Revisionist school (which Alan Moore’s Watchmen and Frank Miller’s Dark Knight Returns made popular — all super-hero comics for the past 20 years live in the shadow of them).
Taken as an example of Revisionist storytelling, it’s first rate; the core issue the film deals with is the same that’s at the crux of every Spider-Man blurb (“With great power comes great responsibility”) but the idea is dissected and played out so well (and on so many levels) that it’s fascinating viewing even for jaded Revisionist fans like me. One wonders how Marvel even approved this script: if anything, it makes the already simplistic, one-note plotting in their comics look even worse. We all knew there was a great character in Spider-Man, we’d even seen flashes of it from time to time, but it took Sam Raimi and team to bring that character — that person — to screen, fully realised.
Of course, many a great plot is marred by dull performances, but Raimi pulls off the impossible by getting even better performances out of everyone involved. Of special note is Aunt May (Rosemary Harris), who in the books has usually been relegated to a frail, ineffectual old lady who’s forever the main symbol of Parker’s guilt. Spider-Man 2’s Aunt May is one of the strongest characters in the movie (and not just in the spiritual sense; she even gets to smack a villain). Alfred Molina (he’s English! I never knew) plays Doc Ock the way he plays most roles he’s given: very, very well, and all my fears of his charcter being less interesting than Willem Defoe’s Green Goblin have been dispelled.
Visually the film is sumptuous. The move to Cinemascope from 16:9 widescreen (which all of Sam Raimi’s previous films have been made in, I believe) really expands the canvas and makes those swinging scenes even more breath-taking. Bill Pope (The Matrix trilogy, as well as Raimi’s Army of Darkness and Darkman) does the cinematography and brings some real dynamism to the action, but more importantly the Peter Parker scenes are handled with intimacy and care. I’m not the biggest fan of American Cinematographers (too stagey, uniform palettes, always slaves to the 4:3 centre of the screen for making a good video pan-scan transfer) but Pope’s one of the best out there, and in Spider-Man 2 he proves that all those great shots in The Matrix trilogy weren’t only the Wachowski brothers’ doing.
Special effects are also a lot better than the first (which was, for lack of a better word, rubbery); the Doc Ock animations especially are top-notch. If Spider-Man looks a little less dynamic in action, it’s because now he’s actually animated like a human being, rather than the contortionist they tried last time, when all the animators seemed to have a heavy Todd McFarlane hangover.
If you can, do watch this film in a cinema with a good system (in India this means it’s time to fork out Multiplex money, kids), because it really enhances the experience. From Doc Ock’s tentacles (that really make your seat vibrate — at least in a good theatre) to the clinking of a million shards of shattered glass, every effect is pitch perfect and never over-blown. Danny Elfman’s score is probably good, and I say this because I don’t remember much of it (unlike the first, which had the biggest over-the-top soundtrack since the first Harry Potter movie); it’s not as pumped up and attention-grabbing as John Ottman’s X2 score, but it does its job well.
It’s rare that a movie completely exceeds your expectations, and even rarer that a big blockbuster does (the last one was Pirates of the Carribean), so watch and don’t worry that you’re laughing more than your kids.
Especially during that Elevator Scene.
The lime, chillies and piece of charcoal hanging from a string is a charm used to ward off evil/bring good luck (to a business, especially). You’ll find them hanging at the threshold of even the most modern and trendy shops, and also under the front bumpers of goods trucks. I have seen it in use in domestic situations as well, though not as often as a string of mango leaves and flowers (usually marigolds).
The word underneath it, Amul (pronounced “uh-moul”) literally means “priceless” — it’s also a brand of butter and dairy products, and hence its presence on a sign at the top of a shop.
~
You know that joke, “I went to a fight and a hockey game broke out”? Well, I went to a war movie and a Lakshya broke out.
Lakshya (which rather coldly translates as ‘target’ or ‘aim’ — and doesn’t convey the emotional resonance the sanskrit word has) is the second film from director Farhan Akhtar (Dil Chahta Hai), and his first film not written by him (it’s written by his father, uber-lyricist Javed Akhtar). It’s mostly set in 1999, during the Kargil war, in which ‘terrorists’ (the majority of which were plain-clothes Pakistani army) infiltrated Indian territory and, well, tried to fuck with us.
We won.
Instead of being a broad, epic retelling of the actual events like J.P. Dutta’s LoC: Kargil (which had as many as 30 lead characters, not to mention their girlfriends and wives), Lakshya is a fictional account of a single soldier, Karan Shergill (Hrithik Roshan), in his pre-army days (where he’s an aimless urbanite) and during one mission of the Kargil war. It’s a coming of age story, much like Dil Chahta Hai; and also like DCH, it completely redefines its genre (for Hindi Mainstream Cinema, at least). It is, however, much more mature and subdued than DCH, and (perhaps its best quality) less filmi*.
Lakshya doesn’t follow any cinematic trend, or school; it’s simply Lakshya. The narrative takes its own time (the movie is over three hours long) but never seems slow; if anything, it seems to rush by too quickly. The battles scenes are not glorified at all; there’s no showdown between the hero and the main villain where they engage in a long, slow-motion fist-fight. The actual battle is a protracted, week long affair of attacks and retreats, lures and feints, and not a 20 minute gung-ho assault with a million men. The film isn’t about beating the bad guys and kicking sand in their face, it’s about reaching your goal, your lakshya. The love story between the hero and his sometimes girlfriend (Preity Zinta, playing a journalist) is not the usual cacophony of posturing and posing.
It’s a good story, well told, well acted, with lots of really good music (by Shankar/Ehsaan/Loy).
To say much more would ruin it, and so, if you can, do watch Lakshya. I think my brother said it best: “This is how war movies should be made.”
Oh, and I’ll ‘ruin it’ in the inevitable Post Mortem, which will be written after I’ve watched it again on DVD.
* Filmi: Indians use this term to define any unrealistic qualities of a film, i.e. the cinematic, dramatic stylization of events that happen in movies. I’ve seen the term ‘filmic’ being used by English-language reviewers, and while it’s close enough — like the word Lakshya — it doesn’t quite convey the emotion.
Well, Martha says text is good, so here’s some more (BTW, if I got my dates right, Happy Birthday Alex!).
The picture above is of one of the statues around the base of Flora Fountain in what is now called Hutatma Chowk. The picture quality is a bit less than satisfactory because back when this photo was taken (October 2003) the digital camera was set to “HQ” mode, which gave me around 140-160 2288×1712 pictures per 128MB card. It’s the default storage setting on the camera, so I let it be. Unfortunately these photos are JPEG compressed (probably 70-80%) done in-camera, which adds a bit of noise that isn’t apparent until you muck around with contrast and gamma settings.
Around January I switched it to SHQ mode, which is still JPEG, but probably 90% (the manual didn’t specify), so now I average around 70 pictures per 128MB card. The quality difference is discernible, and postworked images don’t suffer from that “digital camera look” characterized by aliasing, blue red and green noise dots, and sometimes a glowing edge on objects. Granted, the near filmic quality of the Olympus C4000 has much to do with image quality — I’ve seen raw dumped shots from other digital cameras of a similar level that don’t compare favourably.
So, long story short: if you’re getting a digital camera (for more than just “memory” shots like party and holiday snaps), make sure you set it up (most come with a “My Mode” for default personal settings) so that you have the maximum size/quality. You may get fewer photos per card, but they’ll be of a better quality. If you have one of those fancy higher capacity storage formats (plain old Smart Media here) you can even try TIFF, although they’re huge (only around 8-12 fit on 128MB), and take forever to write to the disk.
Heck, even if you are only going to use it for red-eye pics of inebriated, sweaty companions at social dos, bump up the quality and count their crows feet or decide if he’s wearing a Rolex or a Rolux.
Went out and watched Hum Tum yesterday, and it was nice enough. Whether it’s “inspired” by When Harry Met Sally is moot point for me since I haven’t seen that movie.
Hum Tum is another solid romantic comedy/drama (emphasis on the comedy this time) from Yash Raj films; I think pretty much all the films they’ve made in the past decade have been romances of some kind, although they seem to be branching out with Dhoom (Supari doesn’t count for me because they only acted as distributor in the Maharashtra territory, as far as I know). We know pretty much what the expect from Yash Raj films by now: high production values, designer clothes, great cinematography, foreign locations, good music, happy endings.
This film is no exception. But that’s a good thing. The plot is pretty standard in that it’s Boy Meets Girl (in this case Saif Ali Khan meets Rani Mukherji), Girl Hates Boy, Comedy Ensues, but it’s paced in a very non-standard way. There’s a lot of moving around in this film, since it takes place over eight or nine years. There are handy reminders in the form of little animated doodles giving the place (usually the city’s most famous landmark, like the Eiffel Tower or the Gateway of India) and the time passed (in years).
The manner in which the story unfolds works more for than against the movie, as you do indeed sense the passage of time, but it never seems fragmented. The costumes and hair help immensely in this, as each character’s look changes subtly over consecultive periods, but just enough to keep it noticable. They still wear clothes last seen in a Punjabi Discotheque, but we’ve come to expect over the top clothes from our films. Besides, if you saw 99% of Hindi films today you’d think that this country of one billion and countless enthnic cultures and sub-cultures is populated solely by Punjabis so it is understandable that all these celluloid Punjabis would wear clothes that only Punjabis would.
Shava, etc.
What strikes you about the story is that the relationship between the protagonists builds up gradually, and is very natural. There’s no “time compression” like other Hindi films where the protags are expected to fall in love by the one-third mark so that they can shove in a love song, and then bide time quietly until the intermission cliffhanger. in Hum Tum there is no moment where the two fall in love; before you know it, they just are which, other than being realistic, is a welcome touch.
The conflict, of course, arises from the fact that the two are about as similar as vada pav and lobster thermidore. In the first half Rani Mukherji’s character is a bit annoying in that she’s overly dismissive of everything, but having met many, many girls who are exactly like her I can at least attest to her character’s realism. Of course, Saif Ali Khan’s character is also a bit obnoxious (a quality Punjabi Hindi film protagonists just have to possess, it seems), but he is much more open and straightforward about himself. Post intermission both characters sober up and act like normal people, thankfully, and this is where much of the movie’s best writing and plotting is.
A bunch of animated bits are sprinkled throughout the film, featuring two characters that the hero — a cartoonist by profession — draws for a living. These are by far the weakest parts of the film, both writing-wise and especially animation wise (luckily there are only a couple post-interval). Some animations are just sub-par, and even the parts that are decent are not even as good as most Hanna Barbera work from the 1960s. Most people will say “Oh, but it’s very good for Indians” but just because we have a pitiful animation scene doesn’t mean that we are incapable of creating top quality, international level stuff, or that we shouldn’t aspire to do so.
Kunal Kohli directs this, his second feature film. He’s much better this time around. His last, Mujhse Dosti Karoge!, was good in parts — funny ,even — and painfully melodramatic the rest of the time. Hum Tum is, by contrast, funnier, not melodramatic even when it has every chance to be, and the dramatic bits pack in emotional bits usually only reserved for ‘realistic’ cinema.
Really, the drama bits (especially Saif and Rani in the women’s bathroom bit) are surprisingly honest and straightforward; no long wailing BG score or rivers of tears, or dialogue more convoluted than legalese. Literally nothing feels stretched in this film, which is a rarity in mainstream Hindi cinema today.
Newsflash: Saif Ali Khan can do serious roles! The man who was branded a hulka-phulka (lightweight) actor from before he even started films, and then turned into a comedy specialist post Dil Chahta Hai, turns in a surprisingly good performance. He’s good in the comedic bits, no doubt, but his serious scenes are very understated and intense without seeming cold. Lookit, our actors are learning how to act without screaming and scowling! What’s next, Ashutosh Rana playing a mime?
Rani Mukherhi is… sigh. What’s left to be said about her? Great comedic actress. Great dramatic actress. Can dance the pants off God. Gorgeous. She was in Kal Ho Naa Ho for exactly five seconds and suddenly made the movie worth watching. All my bad memories of Chalte Chalte and that Govinda movie where he acts like a mute have been erased. Or balanced off, anyway (Chalte Chalte… *shudder*)
So. On the whole, a good movie. It doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but nor does it just buff and polish it. Well worth your 50-60 rupees, and maybe even Multiplex rates.
Some niggles (i.e. stuff that really doesn’t matter):
– Parts of the film are digitally scanned (especially stuff with overlays, animation etc). The contrast on these are off (i.e. they’re dull), so the same scene in the beginning and in a digitally processed flashback sequence look noticable different. Yash Raj usually do a bang-up job on their postwork, but not so this time. Most people won’t notice, but I did.
– Is Rani Mukherji using some kind of space-age instant drying mehendi?
– Does every cartoonist squeal and bounce around when they draw their characters on paper napkins? Trust me, folks, it’s nowhere as exciting in real life (and if we did laugh a lot when doodling, it would make the lines shaky).
– Jimmy Shergill’s shirt when he goes to pick up Rani at the airport: now I’d love to see the fractal formula and seed for that.
– Abhishek Bachchan gets to be married to Rani Mukherji a lot in movies these days. Lucky littlegrumblegrumblegrumble.
When I go to the theatre I’m usually as interested in the previews of upcoming films as I am interested in the movie itself; we got a good selection of stuff I hadn’t seen before:
Deewar: Let’s Bring Our Heroes Home
They’ve been showing the thirty second teaser for this for what seems like forever (it played before the last two movies I saw), and while it looks sufficiently dusty and green and stuff on celluloid I’m only somewhat interested in it. The more detailed looks I’ve seen on TV have done little to increase my enthusiasm. Sure, I’ll watch it, but maybe not in theatres. Of course, I’ve been seeing trailers for months now, and I vaguely remember a May release date that has obviously passed by now.
Kyon? Ho Gaya Naa…
As with Deewar, this film’s teaser has also been shown the last two times I went to see a movie. On the whole it seems like your typical romantic movie, with Amitabh (He’s in EVERYTHING! Not that I’m complaining…) acting as some kind of ‘sutradhaar’ or something. You know, the wise/crafty/muysterious character who gets the two young’uns together. They’ve started showing a song trailer on TV, and it’s this weird pastiche of Russian Cossack style music (you know, the stereotypical music they show burly guys squatting and ‘kicking’ to).
The song (by Shankar Ehsaan Loy, sung by Shankar) is catchy enough, though whether it will be welcomed by finicky Indian tastes remains to be seen. It follows the usual “Guy says don’t fall in love”/”Girl says fall in love” routine, so I suppose the characters should follow these stereotypes at the start of the film. Hopefully they’ll be more than just that. Posters with Amitabh in a decidedly djinn-like pose are unexpected, and interesting. Worth a look when it comes out, I suppose. Hideous title graphic, though. Looks like the front of a soup can, or worse, a dot com startup.
Gayab
I think Ram Gopal Varma should just rename The Factory to “Prime Focus’s Bitch”. So now Gayab is presented by RGV as a “Factory Product” in association with Prime Focus, otherwise known as that blue building in the suburbs with all the hash smoking media types waiting out front. The titles in the trailer are very nice at the beginning, then go totally mediocre during the actual stuff. The special effects are quite good (those “empty shirt” animations Prabhudeva did 10 years ago still get the job done, but Prime Focus’s postwork consoles spiffy it up and make it blend better). The one discernable 3D overlay (a floating TV remote) was a bit iffy.
The film itself seems like yet another Ram Gopal Varma “irritating” movie; it appears to be cut from much the same cloth as Darna Mana Hai (same director too, Prawaal Raman). One wonders if it originated as one of the stories in DMH. Tusshar Kapoor looks somewhat uncomfortable as the nerdy protagonist, Antara Mali is just Antara Mali, but not quite as disturbingly emotive as in Main Madhuri Dixit Banna Chahti Hoon!. Whether Tusshar manages to pull off the Nobody turned Magically Enhanced Madman role as well as Aaftab Shivdasani did in his segment in DMH remains to be seen (come to think of it, the plots seem very similar, right down to the musclebound boyfriend and abusive parents). Might catch it on DVD, just because there is actually a good actor somewhere in Tusshar.
Lakshya
Now this I’m going to go see in the next week or so. When I first saw Lakshya‘s TV teaser I went “Huh?” because it looked nothing like the deep meditation on a soldier’s life I’d been hearing about; it looked like an out-take from Dil Chahta Hai. Subsequent trailers have made me warm to it, and yesterday I caught one of the “army” trailers on TV before heading for the cinema, where the Theatrical trailer was shown. My Dad complained that there weren’t enough of the songs in it (the songs are very good — Shankar Ehsaan Loy again), but I disagree; the trailer finally concentrated on what the movie is actually about, which is what we’ve been hearing ever since the project was announced. I usually don’t like war movies, but I’ll watch Lakshya because it doesn’t seem like one. Sure, there are soldiers and there are battlefields, but nothing in the trailer suggested that it was anything like the usual armed forces movies we are used to in India.
Preity Zinta was conspicuously sparse in the trailer (I counted two appearances) as was Amitabh (just one), but that was only because the trailer (and the movie, I think) is fully focussed on Hrithik Roshan; it’s nice to see that someone out there isn’t making everything with a cast of a dozen stars with equal screen time in mind.
(on a similar note, Hum Tum‘s promos also only highlighted the two leads, despite the fact that there are at least four other famous actors in it, albeit in supporting roles)
Hrithik Roshan, even in the trailer, shows a newfound depth and believability in his acting. Oddly enough, he had it in his first film (Kaho Naa.. Pyaar Hai) and then became an over-ther-top caricature for the next two years until Koi… Mil Gaya. It’s nice to see that the new (or rather old) Hrithik Roshan is here to stay. And if I can fend off the hordes of Arab and Pakistani women that flock to see his films in the first week, I’ll be watching Lakshya very soon.
Dhoom
So, on the surface it looks like The Fast and the Furious meets Torque by way of Amar Akbar Anthony. I’d still watch it over either of the two American movies. There’s something about a Hindi movie that makes it seem appealing no matter what it’s about (Hey, I actually watched all of Yaadein). Besides, it’s got Abhishek Bachcan shooting things on a bike, so what’s not to like?
Dev
Eh… Nope. Not going to see this one. Not even on DVD. I saw Govind Nihalani’s last film, Thakshak, and while I don’t like gangster moview it was worth watching for the good jobs done by Ajay Devgan, Tabu and Rahul Bose. Dev has a stellar cast of good actors, but I just don’t like riot movies. I don’t like “atrocity” movies in general, no matter how socially relevant or “must see” they are supposed to be (If you say “The Passion of the Christ” I will say “The Life of Brian“, if you say “Saving Private Ryan” I will say, “Allo Allo“>). Now I can stand violence, I can even enjoy it sometimes (grinned right through From Dusk Till Dawn). One of the reasons I hated Hindi movies growing up is that from the eighties up until the mid nineties pretty much every movie had some elements of abusive, hateful violence. I don’t pay money to go watch a bunch of people gang rape women (I won’t even watch it for free), even if it is on screen for just half a second. Yes, yes, it goes on in the world, I know, but this is entertainment, and I’ll watch what I choose to, not what people say I should.
None of you told me to watch Shark Skin Man Peach Hip Girl, or The Adventures of Mark Twain or The Bird People of China, or to read The Man from Charisma or Bikini Planet.
But I did.
And look at me now. :hehe:
Vishal
Screenwriting is fun. It’s also frustrating as hell, and I haven’t quite learned to do it at a stretch like regular fiction writing. Right now Samir and I average around five pages of text (equivalent to about 5 minutes of screen-time in the page-a-minute format) before we have to get off the chair and just walk around the house for 5 minutes.
The screenwriting we’re doing now involves many firsts. Number One, it’s the first time we’re screenwriting. One day we said “Okay” and after the plot was outlined we started.
It scares the living crap out of you. No matter how many books you read on the subject nothing can quite prepare you for your first hour of screen-writing. Add in the fact that we had never, ever written in this format before — not even a ten second animation script — and the prospect of writing even a 25 minute episode makes you question your sanity quite a bit. Writing a 2 hour movie is a nightmare.
The format of screenwriting is pretty tried and tested at this point, and since most books outline the system preferred by American movie studios, there’s a lengthy list of guidelines to the format. Our first draft was slavish to this format, but we’ve deviated a bit, both because of the subject matter involved as well as the fact that *looks around* we’re not American.
There is a tendency in your first draft to be very, very dry with your descriptions, especially if you know that the screenplay is intended for someone else (i.e you aren’t producing it yourself). Style consciously needs to be kept in check (so pretty much everything I learned writing Savant went out the window). This is supposed to be easier to pitch to a studio, so that the director can read it and put in the style himself. Writer style Bad, Director style Good, or something. Since we aren’t really pitching this through the traditional American studio system (hell, if they read the script in America I’ll probably be put on the Most Wanted Terrorist list) we decided to loosen up a little and get some style in. Hopefully said style and mood will percolate somewhat to the eventual director. With stuff I know I’ll be doing myself I tend to be much more descriptive and, paradoxically, much more abstract, since I can tell myself things in two words that I’d need whole paragraphs to explain properly. Terms like “Ping Moment,” “Amit Reaction” and “Duu Kyaa? Expression” are common.
I have to thank Warren Ellis for this change. Some time ago he put a link up to extracts from his comic-book scripts, and I was surprised at how, compared to them, the saleable American Movie Script seemed like a stripped carcass. Comic scripts are more intimate, more hands on, more conversational. I love them. And so the way we script changed somewhat. It’s still a far cry from the level of detail and mood in a comic script, but close enough. Don’t want to scare everyone away.
One of the first errors made in screenwriting is the over-use of the Present Continuous Tense. People are always waiting and drinking and walking while talking and shooting and sitting. I usually end up going through the script again and changing — damn, there I am doing it again. I go through the script and change things to make them more succinct.
Vishal types away on the keyboard. He leans back and rubs the pain in his upper back. A grimace stretches across his face and all the way down his spine. The weight of the world shifts. He continues typing.
Just because it’s a screenplay doesn’t mean you can get away with Talking Head syndrome, though. It may be easy to say, “Oh, the actors will take care of it,” but do you really want some sweaty man in a track-suit gesturing with his hands when you distinctly imagined the character keeping his palms flat by his side, neck rocking left and right intermittently?
Firsts, Number Two; this is the first time I’m collaborating with Samir on writing. He doesn’t like to type. Neither do I, but I do okay. He writes good dialogue, I’m all thumbs. He’s much more evil and funny than I am.
Number three; this is the first time we’re writing Hindi. It’s more fun than you would believe. We’re still writing in the English language (we’re more comfortable in it and work faster, besides, working with Hindi fonts on a computer is quite literally like learning the language anew), but dialogue is in Hindi. Dialogue was and is my biggest worry. I can hack decent English dialogue, but Hindi is another matter entirely (this is the reason all Hindi movies have separate “Screenplay” and “Dialogue” credits). Right now the dialogue is pretty good. It’s realistic enough, funny enough, and it gets the job done without sounding like some kind of 17th century Urdu court transcript.
This is one of the main problems with Hindi movies, especially old ones. Since most of the dialogue writers were and are Urdu lyric writers or urdu writers of some sort, their dialogues would suddenly go from (the English equivalent of) “Dude! Her ass is totally hot!” to “Mine Sir hath brought a mountain — heavy with stones and grasses verdant — of Shame(!) upon mine family, and verily shall I avenge them and their unborn sons with swift and painful work of hand and blade!”
The above is not an exaggeration. Things like that still happen (see the climax of Kuch Naa Kaho). Us being about as proficient in Urdu as any other two Good Kaafir Hindu boys, well, our dialogue is okay. It’s contemporary without being to hip (i.e. we haven’t degenerated to starting and ending every other line with “yaar” like some films *cough*Darna Mana Hai*cough*), and it isn’t flowery. Sometimes we even manage a good dialogue joke.
This is also the first time, ever, that I’m not writing speculative fiction. No magic, no warp drives. Despite this the scripts are getting more surreal by the page, but that is only because Samir and my own weirdness multiply by a factor or 34.8 when brought together. There’s some strange shit happening here, folks. I didn’t even think I was capable of such stuff.
Even if it wasn’t a comedy, even if it wasn’t in Hindi, it would be as strange. You could tell me to write a Pakistani Family Drama and I would make it strange… okay, so if I wrote a Pakistani Family Drama it would not be a Pakistani Family Drama because nothing — nothing — in the universe could make me write something as depressing as most Pakistani Family Dramas. If I write a Pakistani Family Drama half the Pakistani audience will die of spontaneous joy. The rest will call for a fatwa.
And no, I’m not giving the script away. Nor am I going to give the title away. I’ll just say that it involves quite a few B.E.S.T. Buses.
Vishal
If it’s 12 pm, it must be time for the talk shows.
Lebanese daily talk shows are, as one would expect, very indicative of their culture. They always have more than one female host, the maximum (including guest hosts) can go anywhere up to the dozen mark for a two hour thing. Subjects are usually restricted to make-up, Make Up, fashion (where the studio is, apparently, contractually obligated to have one of the hosts model everything), nutrition (low fat, she said LOW FAT!) and ornamental plant decoration. The chef usually prepares something bizarre that could only be made in Lebanon. One of them (and this I kid you not) somehow finds a way to make almost all his dishes bone-white. Not clear or of a whitish, roux quality — I’m talking chalk soup.
Egyptian talk shows chuck the cooking and fashion tips and nutrition entirely, and just invite over one of the hundreds of greying socio-political literati that Egypt has birthed post WW2. They come over, talk incessantly for two hours without cracking a sweat or a smile, and the host tries not to fall asleep (I’m sure what the guys are saying must be pretty interesting on the whole, but hosts are just like that). This sort of show is what the Lebanese have in the late night 9-12 slot, when all their people are back at home, snug in their leather couches, and feel the need to get right chuffed about culture and current affairs.
Emarati and Kuwaiti shows tend to be similar to Lebanese shows, except there’s always only one host (female), the chef pops up throughout the thing and cooks (if you’re Kuwaiti) something Western European involving Filo Pastry and (if you’re Emarati) Big Pieces of Meat.
Emarati shows also tend to call in doctors and ‘specialists’ from the numerous ‘specialist’ hospitals that litter this country, and with them thise fine men and women of science bring charts, diagrams and the latest, hi-res digital snaps of a foul looking pox, or fungal tooth rot or other green decaying stuff on the flesh.
The hostess nods, smiles her well-practiced, top teeth only smile and informs everyone that after the break some delicious Big Pieces of Meat will be cooked.
Cut to Commercial.
V
India good. Monsoon good. Amit’s computer just slightly less messed up than owner. Will revert to Rorshach-speak for sake of terse coolness hereforth.
Hurm.
Puny Amit protests to my summation of his life.
Nevermore, I smite him with a large sarcastic remark. Whee.
Saw Bhoot last week. Apparently it killed someone. On a side note, met Dolly the other day at a *trendy* (READ: Overpriced and horrible product) Bandra cafe and spotted the ghost herself (Barkha Madan) sitting at the next table. Looks kinda cute in real life.
Darna Mana Hai comes out in July. Promos now elaborate on the stories. Run of the mill Twilight Zone stuff. Man who can stop time. Man picks up hitch-hiker who starts talking about ghosts… gee, if that doesn’t end with one of them being a ghost I’ll be very, very surprised. Perhaps Urmila will show up and kill everyone.
Main Prem Ki Diwani Hoon has some really crappy print ads. “Two Prems, One Diwani” — No shit. Promos now include one with Kareena Kapoor trying ridiculously hard to steer a yacht in ishtyle, and hence looking like she’s playing pinball with coral reefs. Still, slight improvement over the bicycle skills she displayed in Yaadein. For this we are thankful.
Interesting developments in game-ville. I especially like the part about how you can “successfully suck the blood from these points, you can also help the “victim” to ease their defective physical conditions”
Tales of Symphonia looks awesome. Too bad I don’t have the necessary hardware for it.
XP is the devil’s OS.
Hurm.
Puny Amit defends XP. Exuse me, chores to attend to at 2:45 in the morning on a rainy night.
V