Why Do We....

I dont know if I should be putting this in a doc! Frankly because I am not sure how big this post is gonna turn out as I start writing this. I am not sure if I have ever written about what it is that makes me long for The Dark Knight Rises! Is it because it is the final film of this trilogy? Is it because it is a Nolan Film? Is it because it is a Batman film? Frankly, it's tough to put a finger on it! Why am I spending a small fortune to travel hundreds of miles to watch a film in IMAX? Is it because Nolan said it was the best format for viewing this? Is it because I have too much time and money on my hands to even think of doing this? I am being laughed at by my friends, by my colleagues, by everyone who thinks this is just a bit too much to be doing over "just a movie"! I wish I could explain what it is that drives me to do something so "OTT"! But I know they can never understand it! Because deep inside, more than anything else, I am still a child who loves being able to hold a comic and read it, to look at the screen with wonderstruck eyes and feel small again as the images take over, to be transported to another world for a few hours, to "willingly" "suspend my disbelief"!!

But that's just one part of the fascination! The other part has got a more adult-oriented vibe to it! After watching countless "Hollywood Blockbusters" and "big budget filmmaking" and hundreds of other less known obscure films from all over the world, be it indies or massive hits from foreign shores, I am of the belief that if there is one person who brings "QUALITY" to the Hollywood "mass product machinery" it is one man named Christopher Nolan! I am not going to even argue about contemporary directors like Fincher and Aronofsky, they are incredible directors in their own right! But Nolan has put out something that keeps on topping itself, one after the other! I do not know if I am a Nolanite, I do not know what makes one a Nolan-ite or a Whedon-ite! I do not go on message boards and bash people who do not like Nolan's films! I do not threaten critics who topple perfect scores! I do not even disagree with people when they argue against Nolan! I simply nod my head and say, "Oh well, different strokes for different folks!" I am a FAN! Nothing more, nothing less!

And that brings me to my next point, why would I be going on this journey. Why would I think that it is "worth" it! At this moment, I do not even have confirmed IMAX tickets! I might just end up not watching the movie at all on Friday! So what happens? I am going on this journey because about 20-30 odd people, strangers I have never met, are also doing so! I finally find out that I am not crazy as I think I am! And I have some people ( albeit a small group ) who are as crazy about it as I am! I am not "alone" ( if that makes any fucking sense)!!

And that brings me to my final point, the community! I have seen many people leave thank you notes and this was never intended to be one! I am not gonna be "thanking" the community per se for anything! My only point is this, I have grown up hearing about how the Star Wars generation grew up with their favourite movie trilogy, how it revolutionized sci-fi, how it gave birth to an entirely new nerd culture. I have heard people say the Lord of the Rings trilogy was the trilogy of their times, how it revolutionized historical and fantasy epics! This community for me has shown what "The Dark Knight" trilogy has given birth to, the age of comic book movies, how it has revolutionized the way we look at comicbookmovies in general! This is the trilogy of our times! This is why we have nearly 5000 odd members from different part of the world buzzing and sharing ideas, a community that generated it's own merchandise to give itself it's own identity ( albeit borrowed from a movie )! A community that has been referenced in hundreds of sites for all major news updates for the movie! We might not have an official insignia of Batman, we might not be financially backed by WB or DC, but we have made this community our own - the identity of which are comprised of people who have turned their entire houses into a Batcave to people who can come up with the most inane of speculations and then continue to debate about them, to a man who started a countdown to an event that was more than a year away to one guy who thought it would be nice to have a community about a film he was excited for!

The Official Dark Knight Rises Community, ladies and gentleman, is here! It's time is now and you were all here when it happened! This weekend the movie releases and 2 hours and 45 minutes later, it ends! But the community, my fellow members, is here to stay! The Fire has Risen, The Legend Ends, but the Community Begins!! ( okay i admit that was cheesy, but listening to a Hans Zimmer inspirational score will do that to you) :)

Inception: Thoughts

I generally start off my movie post headers with either a review or a discussion in the title. I am not sure if that's appropriate to say about Inception. Thoughts! Ideas! A single thread of inspiration! That's how all great things start right? As Arthur says in the movie, "True inspiration can never be faked!".

As I drove back from the premiere show this morning, I found myself thinking, discussing, debating with myself on plot points, agreeing with some, disagreeing with others, till at some points I just threw out whole theories as to why certain things happened the way they did. My head hurt, trying to analyze what i had just witnessed. What was it about the movie? What were the ideas that I was debating about? Why was I still thinking about them? Why was it that at certain points I felt overwhelmed by the sheer impact of what I was witnessing onscreen? And then as I woke up from a deep afternoon slumber ( still dreaming about Inception.... ), I came to the conclusion that Christopher Nolan has perhaps created the most challenging narratives on screen. Memento lovers will still be scratching their heads after watching this one. If you thought Memento was complex, then this one will make it look as simple as a straight line ( which it was anything but ). The narrative complexities of Inception is so deep, that I possibly cannot form an opinion regarding whether it was good or bad or assign scores like other reviews just after one viewing. And trust me, you NEED to watch this a few times to truly begin to understand the nuances of this movie. Make no mistake though, Inception is not perfection, as much as you may hope it to be. I am pretty sure it still has it's flaws. But perhaps that's where the beauty lies about Inception. Its not in the perfection that you marvel at, but the imperfections in the edges that draws you into the movie, just as the imperfections impact the descending dream layers in a domino effect in the movie. Is this a masterpiece? Yes and No. Its a masterpiece in terms of storytelling and juggling of narrative structure. And no because I don't know if it can be heralded as one so early into it's public appreciation. Is this Nolan's best yet? I don't know. It could be. It very well is a culmination of Nolan's previous works. It's almost like Nolan had been learning all along for the past decade since he started film making and this is it's grandest scale portrayal. But I will tell you what it is though. It is perhaps the single most important film to be made in it's times - a movie so challenging in it's concept, so daringly original in it's take on a seemingly old theme and applying it so brilliantly on a summer blockbuster canvas, that it will forever go down as the riskiest venture taken by a director and a studio since probably Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange. I finally realize now why a number of trade publications have put forth this comparison since the reviews of Inception started pouring in. Even I wasn't conscious of the comparison than probably while typing the last line.

Well, those are my thoughts on the movie as a whole. If one had to pick apart and review the movie in a general term, then it's safe to say that this is the most cerebral summer blockbuster ever created. Acting is top notch. Leonardo DiCaprio and Joseph Gordon Levitt steal the show. All the supporting actors bring in their A-game which makes it a treat to watch as the dynamics of the characters rub off each other. Effects are mind-blowing and amazing. The zero-gravity action sequence in the hotel will go down as one of the most stunning action set pieces since the climactic battle between Neo and Agent Smith in the Matrix. And talk about editing, woww!! Just woww!! How they managed to edit 3-4 levels of parallel subconsciousness into one single narrative timeline that extends for nearly the entire climactic final hour will remain a mystery to me!

In short, my dear Sirs and Madames, Inception is the most baffling, challenging and yet the most powerfully moving film you will have witnessed in recent times. Oh, and in case you haven't noticed, I didn't even talk about the storyline of the film. That's because the joy of discovering Inception lies in the journey. Watch it, see it, experience it and keep on thinking about it!!

Dev D and The freedom of Sexuality

We live in a world where three letters can make life or destroy life, ravage someone's pride or create someone's dignity, sell a tennis ball or buy a jetliner. You might be wondering what these three letters can be (or for the fast thinkers, you might have figured it out already). The letters are S, E and X. Put together it forms a word that is powerful than the most lethal weapons on the planet. It can bring the most powerful to their knees and put other meager beings on a higher pedestal of things. So why do we feel the need to keep it under wraps? This is a question that has bothered me ever since I was of the "ripe" (it's ripe, not right, guys) age. Talking about it is as taboo as watching anything about it. Learning about it is regarded as falling off "grace" (what??), while practising it is like comitting the ultimate sin. "There is a time for all that, beta", the elder and the "wise" tell you. And you at your most impressionable age you keep on pondering about what is it about the "time" that everyone keep referring to? The fun starts when you start knowing that there never was a time about it in the first place and all and everyone you know are "screwing" ( sorry for the pun, but couldn't help it) behind you yet keep a straight face when asked about it. You though, are left thinking if the elders are better off without this knowledge or you are damned to have been left behind in the rat race.

Fine, so not everyone gets to have sex before the "time". But one can surely talk about it, right? I mean what's wrong in people talking about sex and porn? It's not like you were here without it. I can understand the point of the time being sacred, but if "it" in itself was sacred, then shouldn't talking about it be considered as holy? Why the hell is talking about sex considered vulgar and obscene? And where is the line we draw that demarcates what is obscene and what is knowledgable? If I were to be discussing about my sexual experiences (or inexperiences for that matter) with my friends why would it be considered as obscene or vulgar? Half of us have questions about it while we never get to ask anyone about it. And what is it about porn that gives everyone the hijibees? Heck, even 12-year olds are watching porn these days. Now that isn't really a healthy age to watch porn, I admit, but if everyone was watching it, why should it be a taboo? India doesn't even have a specefic law that deals with pornography as such. It has an "obscenity" Act, which in itself is a joke. It's cyber laws are so weak that it took a certain "Savita Bhabhi" to make the legal system wake up and take notice of the glaring loopholes that are exploited to distribute content on the net. My questions stem from a certain conversation that I was having with a friend of mine the other day. It was about a relatively "unknown" movie called "Dev D", a movie that went on to become one of the most profitable and critically acclaimed movies of the past year. Now this friend of mine regarded this movie to be vulgar while I consider it to be brilliant. Now I am not going to defend this movie with all my might just to prove someone else wrong. But I did want to know what was it about this movie that is considered as vulgar? There aren't any skin shots in the movie, no boob shots, no bareback shots. I can't even recall if there was any lip-to-lip kisses in the movie (correct me if I am wrong in any of these). Then the answer came about the scene in the field which shows a simulated sex scene. At this point I would like to point out that I fully accept the fact that the movie is not suitable for family viewing and parts of it might be considered as vulgar if it was watched with family; elders and the "wise" in tow. Now my point is that when I watched this movie in a packed theater surrounded by atleast a few hundred couples no one raised any objection to the scene, in fact people seemed to be enjoying what they saw - boys and girls alike. A movie doesn't become one of the most profitable movies of the year if only testosterone-charged males watch it. I know girls who went out in groups to watch Dev D although not many seemed to have a higher opinion of it. To most female folks I have known, the reactions ranged from "Hmm, it was ok" to "Cheee, how can you make a film like that?" which is weird when you consider that the same people and the "family" will go out in droves and ceetee-bajao Aamir khan smooching Kareena Kapoor and "enjoy" it. Dev D asked a very imp question in my opinion, it was about whether both the sexes enjoy "intimacy" as much as the other one. And the answer to it even if some of us wish to close our eyes and be silent about it is yes. Physical intimacy is craved for by both sexes equally and I suppose this is a point which makes a lot of people uncomfortable simply because it starts raising a lot of uncomfortable questions about the so-called social myth that exists in Indian society regarding this issue. One sex has to be docile while the other needs to be aggressive to keep the balance of the myth in check. Another important question it raised was about the level to which sex can be displayed as a socially-acceptable commodity in the entertainment sector. For all the talk about " Sex and SRK selling in bollywood", sex is still promoted on a passive-agressive scale to sell products. In-your-face sexuality has always been frowned upon in Indian society and this is another area where it broke barriers by promoting an aggressive sex-and-drug laced and alcohol-fuelled re-imagining of Saratchandra's beloved classic. Anyway, to make a long discussion short, the point of keeping sex as a topic confined to the bedroom really doesn't make sense as long as the so-called barriers keep falling down everyday in an ever-changing and a sex-fuelled youth underbelly of the Indian society. Maybe we are a couple of dicks after all. ;P

An Apology

I would like to start this post off by first apologizing to a few people who had been following my blog previously for the long interlude. I guess I just kinda tuned out of all this for a while. Anyways, now that I am back, I promise to more than make up for my lack of commitment towards Mr. Lassig! I hope you guys will enjoy the following posts as much as I enjoy posting them! Some of these posts might be construed as controversial so.... well, you've been warned!

Unreal Tournament

There was once upon a time when the Big Fat Indian Wedding used to be regarded as the yardstick to measure the opulence of the Indian mindset. Not now, not anymore! These days it’s measured in terms of TRP (target rating point, for the uninitiated). With everything from weddings to birthdays, love to heartbreaks, sex to rock n’ roll, Indian TV is on a roll (no puns intended).

This post is not about critiquing the current state of Indian television, sad though as it is. Instead, it is my attempt to understand the specific mindset which drives this entire industry in pushing its products further and further into the risqué, and increasingly ludicrous. Let’s start off with the self-proclaimed “baap” of “reality shows” – ROADIES. MTV surely hit the jackpot years ago when it brought a show of emotions and “mardaangi” on steroids at a time when saas and bahus ruled and rued about the dead and mundane. While Roadies initially succeeded because it pioneered an era of hard-hitting concept marketing and aggressive packaging, it unwittingly opened the floodgates to a market which is currently ruled by sappy tear-jerkers and “maa-baap ki galis”, a pit in which the show itself has found itself in increasingly in the past few years, the irony being that it was brought along initially to do exactly the opposite. But anyways, who are we kidding? Whose fault is it if a little part of us giggles in glee as we see our favourite contestant or host “bajao”-ing the other contestants all the while mouthing the choicest of abuses. Hey, it’s cool right? And in recent years, the show has tried to diversify it’s reportoire, by “weeding” out the “fake” and the “weak”. Huh, what? Contestants go through a “tough” selection procedure and grilling (read TRP-boosting) interviews to finally make it to the top. But guess what, I am a fan of all that and much much more. I am a self-proclaimed ROADIE buff, but even I can’t deny the ludicrousness of it all. Now, moving on from Roadies, we have other “spectacular” shows like Bigg Boss which is entirely built around the concept of voyeurism. Tell me, since when did watching a person 24X7 start getting appealing ? The biggest problem of it all lies not in the voyeurism, but in the scripted reality that these shows and channels sell to the audience. Is the audience really that dumb to not know what’s real and what’s fake? Voyeurism is an inherent part of human nature and so I won’t deny it’s lurid attraction. But when reality is sold scripted, how do you accept it as an audience? And finally, I thought love and marriage is held as the most sanctimonious and private in anyone’s life. Then how do you participate or rather allow someone to intrude into that personal space and let it be sold as a commodity? As a viewer, I am mortified at the repercussions of such an intrusion and how it affects the audiences’ mentality. These days, you have reality shows trying to test d fidelity of couples. Ohh yes, what a brilliant plan, isn’t it? The “creative” head who thought of that must have gotten a raise and is drawing a 6-figure salary, at peace with his own personal life. But does he care to see how his concept is playing havoc with the lives of so many young couples? Love in these days is already fragile. Why commercialize on it’s fallibility and weaken it’s strength? The critiques might hit me with the argument, ohh it’s just entertainment. But then my question is, if this is entertainment, then doesn’t it point out to us as a viewer that maybe there is something wrong with the concept of entertainment as a whole. With all the “maardangi’ and “DADAGIRI” on display, why can’t they make a reality show which shows these daredevils take on the religious and political fanatics and put them on one-on-one fights or Hell-in-a-Cell matches? Hey, I would pay good money to see such shows! And also since all the concepts of reality shows seem imported from the west, how about borrowing concepts from shows like “The Amazing Race” or “Wipeout” which is reality entertainment in it’s finest? I guess the “creative” heads are really what they say they are – CREATIVE! Hell, so if I got an MBA and got myself a job at an entertainment channel, who knows maybe my dreams of Roadies fighting Rowdies might be a reality!

Who's the idiot, really?

Hmm. First off, I wanna make it abundantly clear that this is in no way a review of the all-reverential movie called " 3 Idiots" aka " the largest grossing hindi movie of the past year". This post is just a small rant about some of the things that I felt was wrong with a movie I had a lot of expectations for and with all the audience hype and hoopla, (including my friends'), my expectations expectantly rose only to find myself slammed against a tirade of cliched old hammed-up jokes and some good old potty ( or is it piss?? ) humor.

First off, what's up with the fake heart-attack? I mean that scene has been done to death in so many movies before that I don't even know where to begin. Couldn't the "writers" and the "director" put in a little more intelligence and originality in the opening sequence, but ohhh, this is the idiocy we are talking about. Seems to me the writer fell too much in love with his "original" title. Ok, I am willing to forgive the first sequence. After all this is just the beginning. I am pretty sure things are gonna get better soon. And of course it does, we see sharman joshi without his pants, now ain't that funny? I am pretty sure the audience is roaring in laughter while I begrudgingly begin to accept the fact that maybe I am watching the wrong movie after all. The movie then progresses in a slow but steady pace to introduce the main characters in the movie. There is a part of me which begins to like this movie for what it is - good ol' timepass. Ohh sorry, did anyone say message?? I am sorry if I come across as visual or hearing impaired 'coz sorry, I haven't found a message yet. Ohh it's about the education system, yeah right! So did anyone find the education system changed or cleansed by the time the movie ended?? No.. 'coz the only message that came out of it was that if you're a fuckin' genius who assumes a false identity to study in one of the most premier "engineering" college in the country, you get to be the hero and kiss the girl in the moneyshot of the entire movie. That's rite fellas, that's the only message that you are getting out of this movie. The other message, about "following your heart" is probably the only place where the movie redeems itself to some extent in my eyes. And yet, if I were to still expect that this movie might have salvaged itself from the abysmal depths that the director seemed hellbent in casting it to, he throws it right in a shithole so deep that even cleansing it with holy water will never redeem this movie for me ever again. Are you really wondering what that shithole is? How about sucking a baby out of the womb by a home-made vacuum cleaner? Hey, that's intelligent stuff rite? I mean isn't the guy a fucking genius? He saves the day for the entire film and family and not only gets the "astronomical" pen ( wtf was all that about? ), but he also gets the audience ceetees. By this time though, even I am clapping and ceetee-bajaoing in disbelief, my eyes watered from laughing uncontrollably through what is perhaps the most tense sequence of the movie. But behold, the director still has an ace up his sleeve. He has ...............

................... Mr. ................. "Fongsuk Wangdu"!!!!! Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat???? Who the fuck?? This shit is real. In a twist that can literally make Hitchcock turn in his grave, the director presents us with yet another revelation about how to give the audience their money's worth even while completely insulting their intelligence.

Okk! Enough of the rant, I guess I have said more than enough about the idiocy. Now, an interesting point. I actually LIKED this movie. I found it to be VERY ENTERTAINING. So why the rant?? Well, I am kinda pissed off at some people for saying that THIS is the BEST movie of the past year. Really, guys? Would you really in your sane mind say that? I can understand fans. But why be a fanatic? I am a fan of Hrithik Roshan and I have found most of his movies to be shit. They are just good eye-candy! Why can't some people just plain admit that this movie was baaaad yet entertaining! That's an argument I am willing to accept. But please don't come about singing paeans for this movie. My eyes literally get wet when I find people praising this movie. Enough of the idiocy, please!

Trailer Watch : Avatar International Trailer