tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-71688763441792479382024-03-14T02:54:30.658-07:00Got Groove?Automobile! I bow to theehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01997916979772623367noreply@blogger.comBlogger42125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7168876344179247938.post-19446814554735040882016-03-12T17:25:00.002-08:002017-04-17T22:28:24.133-07:00MacGuffins, Motifs and Mona Darling!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Tamasha: A celebratory take on storytelling</i></span><br />
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A few years ago, when I had tumult in my life, fighting societal conventions to get closer to the person I love, I saw Imtiaz Ali's "Rockstar", only to be devastated by its abstract beauty and passion. I ended up watching that film twice at the cinemas, <a href="http://gotgroove.blogspot.com/2012/09/beyond-reviewsrockstar.html" target="_blank">crying resplendently</a> each time. Cut to now, I'm in a far better place in life, having won some battles and lost some, yet close to people, places and ventures I love. Given that, Imtiaz's latest feature, 'Tamasha' has still managed to invoke those tears in me and a couple of days after watching the movie, I was still reeling over the afterglow of the several emotions and thoughts it has managed to stir up. However, this time, this afterglow is merely because of the film's accomplishment as a celebration of all things pertinent to storytelling. I can only imagine how it must have felt to people who could <a href="http://www.idreampost.com/tamasha-movie-review/" target="_blank">actually reflect</a> with the film's essential plot.<br />
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Tamasha, in my book, is undoubtedly Imtiaz Ali's most accomplished work. Its a natural yet scrupulously careful progression of his cinematic style, exploration of the concepts of modern love and the human narrative, experimentations in storytelling techniques, and collaborations with powerful artists. Given my understanding of his style of cinema, going in, I was pleasantly enthralled by the way each moment hit the right notes with me, often surprising and amusing me.<br />
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To start with, Tamasha works in four layers for me. On the core inner layer is the mish-mash of a plot that involves Ved (Ranbir Kapoor) and Tara (Deepika Padukone). I call it a mish-mash because one can almost half expect this plot from an Imtiaz Ali flick. A boy meets girl, typically in a situation that is unusual to either lives, which lets them be more of themselves. They explore the dynamics of their own personal selves and the company in unique ways and end up falling in love. And this love only lets them further explore their personal selves and face the inhibitions their lives have had a priori. The way the characters recognize and later, realize their love for each other is usually woven into the overall fabric of the plot in an illogical, flawed yet delightful manner. Almost like how adding a mosaic pattern to an otherwise monochrome garment shouldn't work, but almost always works in that weird way through which the splendid world of fashion thrives. In essence, the love story becomes sort of a <a href="http://www.openculture.com/2013/07/alfred-hitchcock-explains-the-plot-device-he-called-the-macguffin.html" target="_blank">MacGuffin</a>, a mere plot device that exists to push the larger points of the film forward.<br />
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Yet, this MacGuffin used here rises to have a rhapsodic presence and treatment in the film. The characters feel grounded in reality, despite their occasional surreal contexts. The arcs the characters follow feel very organic, and their inihibitions and enthusiasms for love and life feel accurate. This is where Imtiaz's writing feels the most subtle yet precise amongst the entirety of his work. And it is an absolute pleasure watching Ranbir Kapoor and Deepika Padukone drive these characters forward. Ranbir feels effortless throughout most parts, yet I missed the pain in his eyes that is so well portrayed in Rockstar. Maybe Ved is too bottled up to let his eyes emote. On a polar opposite there is Deepika, who does so much with her eyes that are worth insuring! On a personal note, I think Imtiaz should try and return to these actors as much as his position as a mainstream-auteur would let him. They make for great muses!<br />
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The second layer in Tamasha and the primary plot of the film, is the overall story of Ved, a guy who recognizes his love for storytelling and revels in it. All through his life, he seems to be eternally stuck between his innate urges to be imaginative and his conscious compulsions to conform to norms. And the aforementioned MacGuffin helps catalyze the shift from him being Ved to Don. Imtiaz writes and directs the juxtaposition of these two personas quite well. Even the dialogue ranges from Don's quips like 'Apna Haath Jagannadh' to Ved's generic comment about how the Continental place they have their first date at is amongst the top restaurants. There's so much in the script that can be dissected and appreciated here for its careful treatment, like how Ved starts agitating against Tara, as she manages to incite a catalysm in his persona. Or how in Corsica, he constantly muses about his life as Ved, sitting atop the lonely cliff or as he quips "Is duniya ka dil us duniya me nahi chaltha na Zohra bai". I'll respect brevity here as I talk about this otherwise prominent layer of the film. Ranbir shines again, often deliberate but exact in his personality alternations. <br />
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What happens to be a simple tale of a person realizing his inner self owing to his experiences, turns into a marvellous extravaganza in the third and most cunning layer of the film. It almost feels as if Imtiaz pulls a magical rabbit out of a hat that contains his love for the non-linear narrative and his admiration for the Indian cinematic style replete with song, dance and drama. He literally makes this film a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRVNqYmt3oE" target="_blank">Tamasha (a play)</a>. One that the audience of the play are invited to as the film begins and then, one that the viewers of the film are taken through as this play on-stage metaphorically takes over the entire film. This gives Imtiaz the much needed liberty to explore narrative styles. Something that he's particularly good at. Only, the various styles that would otherwise make a movie thematically discordant are justified in this film, as a play lends more freedom to the narrator than the cinematic medium could. Thus, what makes Rockstar an abstract art piece makes this film an exquisitely metaphorical play. Montages propel the tale forward as if a storyteller was summarizing the plot, several <a href="http://www.bigthoughtsfromasmallmind.com/2012/02/motifs-in-cinema-art-and-artistic.html" target="_blank">motifs</a> take centerstage and cutting into songs makes perfect sense as an imaginative technique. We see random Punjabi folk singers sing about a character that has resonance with Tara in Kolkata, an Auto Rickshaw driver's song hints at Ved's past, characters from mythologies come alive owing to little Ved's daydreams (Yash Sehgal is a pleasure to watch) and adult Ved and Tara appear in the montage over the Titles (even before their characters are introduced). There is a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/grooveishere/photos/a.346409195438124.82112.346071415471902/775431992535840/?type=3&theater" target="_blank">beauty</a> in using subtext, motifs and a blend of narrative methods as storytelling techniques and this film is essentially Imtiaz Ali finding a way to capture that beauty and making it an ode to the art of storytelling itself.<br />
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The final layer in the film is Ali's collaboration with respected and skilled artists and the product that is delivered. The film makes us stand up and take note of Ravi Varman's gorgeous cinematography, Grainy frames depicting Ved's imaginations, in a quirky coincidence, invoke thoughts of <a href="http://webneel.com/25-best-oil-paintings-raja-ravi-varma-18th-century-indian-traditional-paintings" target="_blank">Raja Ravi Varma</a>. Visuals of the streets of Corsica, the alleys of Delhi or the hills of Simla are all smartly lit, deftly tracked and painstakingly detailed. I'm very excited for Ravi Varman's upcoming <a href="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/entertainment/tamil/movies/news/Ravi-Varman-to-shoot-Mani-Ratnams-next/articleshow/48452845.cms" target="_blank">collaboration</a> with Mani Ratnam, the latter being specially known for his visual mastery. I wish I could explore into Irshad Kamil's work for this film, but I dont have any basic lyrical literacy to talk about Hindi. But I'd stop press to indulge the reader with some adulation for Rahman's soundtrack for the flick. Now, I'm usually a <a href="http://gotgroove.blogspot.com/2015/04/a-teary-invocation.html" target="_blank">sucker</a> for his music but I must admit I was faintly disappointed when the album for the film came out. Only to have both feet in my mouth as I watched the film, as the soundtrack works brilliantly with the narrative, each musical piece and section having a definite purpose and conjunction to what's happening on the screen. Beautiful music has always been his forte, but Rahman, over time, has seemingly developed a knack for narrative and he excels at it when he collaborates with Imtiaz. For instance, a slightly modulated version of the piano riffs from the interlude in 'Agar Tum Saath Ho' find place in the background during the scene where Tara sits by the pavement watching Don play soccer with random guys on the street. In fact, she isn't even watching him, but taking in his presence and being content with it. Or think about how Arijit Singh's dual octave rendition in this very track is a reflection of the two personalities dwelling within Ved. Probably ample anecdotes to explain why I'm terribly excited for '<a href="https://www.facebook.com/arrahman/photos/a.501914916719.273629.63441126719/10153386841201720/?type=1&theater" target="_blank">99 Songs</a>', a film being written and produced by Rahman.<br />
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It is not often that you watch a film, and for days after, keep going back to the many moments in it. Waiting eagerly to relive them, read about them and discuss them with fellow film enthusiasts. And more often than not, it is the art of storytelling and how able storytellers have mastered it that drive us in our adulation for these films. 'Tamasha' is a celebratory take on this very art.<br />
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P. S.: There's two uncanny tangents that this film has also made me muse about. One, my dad, who used to make up myriad tales of 'Aladdin and Genie' to tell a very young me as we spent sleepless nights when there was no power in the house. I guess my love for storytelling began when I was very young.<br />
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P. P. S: Piyush Mishra's dialogues in the opening scenes invoke a throwback to a caption the trailer of the film came out with - 'Why always the same story?'. It seemed like Imtiaz was doing a 'here's the answer yet here's the question' to all his critics who keep saying that he rehashes the same plot for all of his flicks. I'd always justified this by quoting Roger Ebert who said 'Its not what a movie is about, its how it is about it'. Here, Mishra asks - Brahma or Ibrahim or Abraham - its the same story everywhere. Across civilizations, cultures, borders and times. A conflict - a resolution. It is only us mere people who squabble over the details.<br />
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Shasank Aventador Nagavarapuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13642426560470370600noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7168876344179247938.post-74592881261990622542016-01-17T16:18:00.002-08:002016-01-17T16:18:40.186-08:00Blog-ette # 6: Zesty Infatuations<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<i><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Thoughts on "Premam"</span></i><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To get the 'not-so-good' out of the way, firstly, the heroines in the film, solve little more than the purpose of being plot pushers and dare I say it, even eye-candy to an extent. Though the performances by Madonna Sebastien, Sai Pallavi and Anupama Parameshwaran are ample, they fail to evoke a quality in their characters that feels grounded in reality. But I do see promise with each of these actors as they make denser movies with more character to bite. I say that because, the movie itself, secondly for my 'not-so-good' things, doesn't chew a lot in terms of depth in emotion or character development. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Premam majorly seems content with one objective. To explore, and celebrate the probably superficial yet definitely jubilant tryst of a guy falling head over heels for girls, at several stages of his formative life. If you've been through these phases in life, you'd surely recognize the exuberant joy, the fantastic enthusiasm, the adrenaline rush, and the pulsating pain involved. Premam is a suave, stylistic and thorough ode to this zesty infatuation a guy has for a girl. Writer-Director Alphonse Putharen, also in a Tarantino-esque cameo, employs himself thoroughly to this ode. I invoke Tarantino because, in terms of stylization and attention to environmental detail, if a young Tarantino had actually made a rom-com, this is how it would look. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This tale of fervors is insanely littered with little details, quirks and subtextual humor. For instance, the cafe that the lead runs towards the end of the film is called 'Agape', which is Greek for love, according to iMDB. Anand C. Chandran's camera quietly follows the charming narrative Alphonse takes us through. Rajesh Murugesan's rustic soundtrack comes with tremendous gusto and is given its worthy due. In recent times, I've seldom seen lip-sync songs done and blended into the overall narrative with so much appreciation for that art. Much can be said about the flick, but I have to doff my hat to Nivin Pauly's finely layered acting. He's grown so much as an actor who can anchor an entire film around him and he makes this pleasure ride all the more enjoyable.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As a teenager, trying to woo my first love (whom, I'm thankfully with, in Life), I had a great infatuation for this lady, writing her love notes, singing her songs, and putting out my most gentlemanly-flirtatious self, with the miniscule hope of winning her heart. Premam made me sit back and cherish all that naive unadulterated fun. </span><br />
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Shasank Aventador Nagavarapuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13642426560470370600noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7168876344179247938.post-10011096979711923302015-05-29T05:45:00.001-07:002017-04-18T09:15:34.431-07:00Bringing Down Broadway!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<i><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large; font-weight: normal;">Notes from the A.R.Rahman Intimate Concert in New York City</span></i></h4>
As we raced up the stairs at a non-descript Newark train station to catch the train that was audibly screeching to a halt on the platform above us, I was almost cursing myself and more so, my friend for being late. As we rushed our way through multiple subway stations and cluttered Manhattan streets, I told my friend jocularly that I'd push him in front of a car if I missed the first few performances. But then, that was the excitement for me, an A.R.Rahman music fanatic for life, for my first ARR concert, that too in an impressionable setting no less on one of the theaters on New York City's famed Broadway. Lining up outside the theater, it almost felt like we were at a temple on a pilgrimage. Only there were enough Pradas and Guccis to match the Sarees I guess.<br />
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So we get in, settle down and in a few minutes, the lights go off. Over the next couple of hours, 'bringing the house down' felt like a contest between the performers on the stage and the audience. But I've felt that over the years, that has become the essence of ARR's work. Packing so much into one little album, soundtrack, venture; And that is precisely what we saw as the lights went off and the stage lights came on. There he sat to the left, surrounded by a grand piano, a Roli seaboard, an ipad, a Macbook and a few other programming thingamajigs. He started off by a subtle Raaga invocation on the seaboard, followed by a prayer to the almighty in the form of a few lines of 'Maula' from Delhi 6. Haricharan joined in for the vocals only to stay back and remain a powerhouse for the rest of the evening.<br />
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But before that, I had to register the band; folks that I'd seen performing in stunning youtube videos and have been wanting to witness live. There was Keba on the guitars, the prodigal Mohini Dey on the bass, the jubilant Ranjit Barot on the drums, the sublime Anne Marie on the violin, lined up in the second row by a three folks on the keyboards for rhythms - Annette Philip, Karthikeya and Shiraz Uppal; flutist Naveen Kumar and a superb percussion guy whose name I was too busy to note when the credits rolled up.<br />
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You know there is going to be something special when you see three rhythm players! And yes there was! The set-list started by paying homage to where it all started - 'Chinni Chinni Asai', followed by 'Tu Hi Re' and another Mani Ratnam track I can't recollect now, given my miniscule memory for details. What I can remember was Haricharan and Jonita Gandhi's powerful vocals leading us from track to track effervescently. These two folks should seriously consider insuring their voices. But what else could I expect from two singers that Rahman has obsessed over for his soundtracks successively over the past few years. Concerts on every evening through different cities and their voices remained unfazed, the energy thousandfold, the pitching perfect. Even ARR struggled through his tracks, self admitting to his voice giving up after successive concerts.<br />
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But it didn't matter; what with so much else sublime going on, just like in a typical ARR track. There was ARR juggling between everything from an accordion to vocals to the Roli to a funkily tuned note on the piano. There was Keba juggling between leading guitar notes on the acoustic to very touching backing notes on electric guitars. Then there was Mohini awing everyone as her fingers slithered through the lenghty fretboard on the bass guitar.<br />
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And there were the best surprises of the evening, in no particular order, detailed here under: A filler piece from one of his OSTs ('Warriors of Heaven and Earth', I presume) that had an amazing crescendo with the drums, percussions, bass, violin and Annette Philip on the vocals doing a stand-off. Talk of Annette Philip (cue: Berklee College of Music) brings fond memories of the 'J' club element from the night - when Annette Philip caught unmitigated attention with her smooth vocals for the jazz number 'Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na'. I can't quite pinpoint on what grabbed me more - the Annette - piano - bass - violin standoff in the song's interlude or the ARR - Annette duet where Annette went 'full jazz diva' on us as she leaned on ARR's piano and looked him in the eye. (Yes, finally a saree clad Jazz diva - oh you wickedly beautiful almighty!) Then there was the subtle duet between Annette and ARR in an ode to my all time inspiration anthem, 'If I Rise'. Somewhere down the line, ARR and Ranjit went into 'Sheldon' mode by wearing wrist bands and ankle straps and playing music by waving arms and stomping their feet. And then into Rock-Jazz stratosphere as ARR extended 'Oh humdum/Endrendrum Punnagai' into a svelte afterlude standoff between the bass-drums-piano. But my moment of the night belonged to the time when Solange Merdinian guest appeared (the benefits of a concert in NYC meant terrific artists can descend down on you, unannounced) for the sublime 'My mind is a stranger without you'. As Solange and ARR played mellow with the vocals, the bass-drum-percussion arrangement left the theater spellbound.<br />
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Then there were the usual moments one expects from ARR's music. Arrangements in tracks that deserve album releases, but, sigh, wont get any. Just like the countless cues from the background scores he's composed. Then there was the extensive list of artist/programmer credits projected in the backdrop, set to 'Vandemataram', during the break before the encore. And the list of many euphoric moments goes on.<br />
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This diary-entry can go on, but before I start spoiling the wonder for further concert goers in this series, I'll stop here, go sit in a corner and reminisce last night. And ponder my options before I buy the JBL 'ARR' Raaga series headphones that Harman threw a discount coupon to, stuck to a few lucky seats in the theater! So long...<br />
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Shasank Aventador Nagavarapuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13642426560470370600noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7168876344179247938.post-78644691534942333942015-04-13T20:02:00.002-07:002015-04-14T06:53:43.927-07:00Raavan - A Masterpiece!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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"Somewhere down the line, I thought I'd done that kind of storytelling too many times. I thought it was time for me to concentrate only on what really fascinates me and not try to have a backstory which would conveniently put it on an easy-to-follow platform. I thought we're ready to move on to the next form of narration. I'm very happy that's the way the film turned out." - ManiRatnam on Raavan, as quoted to Bharadwaj Rangan for the book "Conversations with Mani Ratnam".<br />
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Many a times, as any debate on films would eventually lead to, I come across this set of questions - "What is a film? What makes up a film in the traditional sense of it? What should a film talk about? What should any non-descript viewer take back out of a film viewing experience?". Depending on the level at which you are obsessed with films, your keys to the answers to these questions would range from simple to outright perplexing. I'd like to believe that I lie a few miles beyond the level 'perplexed'; in that very direction. This probably comes from my belief in art as an unending and largely undiscovered realm, only hindered in extent by human convention. Now, at the risk of sounding insolent, let me ask you to consider that as a call for discretion, in that, I'm stating myself as a profound 'art-house' fan and so shall the nature of this blog be!<br />
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Continuing from these very question that I'd stated above, I must say I had this gut feeling through and through when I was watching Raavan; that it was absolutely different from what all Mani Ratnam had tried earlier. I only needed a hint to reaffirm this presumption. And just when I bought Mr.Rangan's book, I quickly flipped through to the last chapter on Raavan and read through to find this relieving statement. Relieving because it struck a tune of convergence with the thought I'd been harnessing for this movie all along. That it was a bold and audacious experiment at a new form of cinema. Like the quote says, Mani Ratnam was trying just that very thing with Raavan.<br />
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Cinema has traditionally been known as a mode of communication. A visual format to share information, to tell a story, fictional or real. Then, that's where the dividing line between video and cinema exists. Cross that line, and cinema has moved into a host of new territories, where it has managed to extract continuously evolving technical work, styles of narrative, script and dialogue and blend that with emotion and purport. To a major extent, it surely has remained a source of entertainment, a medium where a story unfolded for viewers who wanted a weekend getaway for 3 hours while they actually sat munching popcorn and sipping cola. However, parallel-y (so the appropriately named parallel cinema), cinema evolved as a transcendent form of art that constantly explored all that's prevalent around humanity - emotions, relations, life, science, art itself, and almost everything in the environment around us. This is exactly where Raavan finds its footing.<br />
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What grabbed me thoroughly into this flick is the narrative. Before Raavan, it was a while since Mani Ratnam made a flick, owing to health issues and all. Now, dare I stereotype him, but his earlier flicks had a strong plot, sometimes historically conventional yet fresh on the Indian cinematic context and this was augmented by tremendous technical support and well built screenplays. Yet, the plot was the key and the narrative was definitely a subset of the plot. With Raavan, there is a hint that he chose to prioritize narrative over the plot. And this narrative, he chose to fuse with the quotient of exploration that this flick was all about. The plot was only a subject point for the functioning of this narrative. It was just the correct sheet of canvas for the art-form it needs to support. There in precisely, this film subdues the conventionalities a plot carries with it, and decries, albeit subtly, the want of an ingenious and classic storyline or a specific thematic message to go along with. If I sound like I'm talking of abstract art, maybe that's what it should be called. An art form which is continuously and progressively transcendent and is in the search for a deeper meaning of itself as it spreads out in layers.<br />
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Yet charmingly, this flick consummates a project Mani had embarked on. Alongside Dalapathy, which was a story inspired around Karna from the Mahabharata, this flick completes Mani's duology of films inspired by the great Indian epics. As much as it is apparent from the title, Raavan has heavy influences from the epic Ramayana. Yet the title Raavan, is also linked to the essence of the character (more on this later), and isn't just there to hint the references to Ramayana. This is where much of the debate surrounding the flick has been sparked, as to how aptly has the flick managed to portray the epic. I must digress a step here to steer my blog clear of this argument. Now, over the centuries there have been a thousand iterations of the Ramayana, most of them drastically differing in their views and opinions of the three major characters of the epic, Rama, Seeta and Raavana. I'm mythologically incompetent to state any clear argument on this subject. As an art enthusiast, here I'm totally willing to give Mani Ratnam the benefit of having his freedom of expression maintain its mainstay in portraying his own version of the Ramayana. Anyways, I find it totally irrelevant to involve a question of validity of the movie's script with respect to the Ramayana while talking about Cinema.<br />
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The charming bit is, inspite of loosely basing the plot on the Ramayana, Mani chooses not to stick to any of these thousand versions of it and lets himself have a degree of liberty to play with the characters, their circumstances, their choices and their emotions. Again going by Bharadwaj’s book, he himself quotes these characters better be just left as Beera, Ragini and Dev instead of calling them Raavana, Sita and Ram. In a time when directors reiterate scene to scene like clockwork, when making sequels or films which are based on popular stories or novels, this shows Mani’s refreshing tendency to tinker with cinema, to amuse himself, his readiness to play and have fun. And when you are in a theatre eager to watch dynamic cinema, this becomes a stronghold that keeps you glued to the seat.<br />
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As I said, this flick is all about its narrative. This narrative probes deep into a singular element - what happens between the three lead characters as the plot unfolds. Its not just the chronology of events related to the characters but the emotions they go through, the moments they experience, the decisions they take and the situations that befall them.<br />
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The narrative has a strong conviction here. It does two things. One, it chooses to meticulously follow the three characters as time flows, what happens to them, how they react to it, initially and in the long run, and what again happens to them as they make their choices. On a subordinate level, it peels off layer after layer of each of these three characters going deeper and deeper as the plot spirals towards an enigmatic climax. Picture this as a spiral with 3 lines running consecutively till they meet at the center. This center is that climactic shot of Beera falling off into the abyss. I’d like to take that shot as the modus operandi for this film, the whole purpose of the film or infact, the truth that this film and its narrative have been trying to unravel by looking deep into the characters.<br />
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Picture it as one of those medieval paintings that appear in European history books, and looking at them from a standalone perspective, they represent a hefty moment in history, of triumph, joy, sorrow, ridicule or even irony, with all relevant characters involved juxtaposed within one frame. This climactic shot is where the three characters converge, even literally, in the film as well as where their ultimate emotions, eventualities and our journeys with them stand frozen. Mani Ratnam is said to have shot a lot more footage for this flick which he has left back on the editing table (a bit more on this shall be mused on in several parts of this blog), but I reckon it was a splendid idea to have chosen this particular climactic shot for the flick. Furthermore, an intelligent fusion of cinematic styles and techniques endow this narrative with a richness seldom seen in Indian Cinema (more on this later).<br />
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<span style="line-height: normal;"> Talk of the characters, this flick provides such a broad stage to sit down, understand, empathize and maybe even learn how to create characters. Beera proves to be the most complex of them all, probably etched that way by the passing of time. He is vigorous yet an interesting aura of calm surrounds him as seen in his introspective moments, when he’s simply musing with a shawl draped over his body. Apparently his position dictates that he is fear inducing and is respected yet he’s very amicable and friendly in a way that little kids could play with him on a Coracle. He has his frivolous and cunning methods by which he’s a surviving and terrifying renegade but he has this childlike nascence to him as he expresses his growing affection for Ragini. He’s deeply canny in the choices he makes, he’s notorious, compassionate, brutal and delicate. The metaphorical sense in being called Raavan, could probably be the reference to his multi dimensional character, alongside the active motif of him being a master at disguise.</span></div>
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<span style="line-height: normal;"> Ragini here embodies a splendid concept Cinema the world over has been celebrating; having a woman at the center of a plot! This has been such a splendid tool for many movie plots, more so in the Indian context, with all the contextual richness it brings to a plot. Raavan has Ragini as the operating cog not just for the plot but also for the narrative. We experience every moment through her senses, understand every emotion alongside her and are left in almost the same awestruck state as she is at the climax as Beera falls off the cliff. Ragini appears as the quintessential complete woman in the way we’d expect a woman to be in a traditional sense. She is staunchly rooted in conventional ethic, a benevolent, respectful and loving wife, yet in no way subdued, as she has the definite consciousness of her own self respect, personality and independence. This is seen in the way she doesn’t let herself be domineered by her abductors in various scenarios and makes sure her own personal space is kept intact. However, deep inside she still is vulnerable and lonely, a feeling we empathize as we come across her various apparitions. But, provoke her and she could prove to be fiery and feisty indeed as she jumps off the cliff before Beera can even point the gun at her; a moment that shatters Beera to the core.</span></div>
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<span style="line-height: normal;"> Now, the third vertex, Dev, turns out to be the most simplistic character of the trio. Also, the most conventional one. A straight-forward sincere cop for whom work tops the list of things he should dedicate himself to. Beyond the office hours, he’s just a simple guy who loves his beautiful wife. Yet, even for a simpleton, he keeps us awed as we notice how serious Dev gets when he takes things on a personal revenge note pushing harder and harder to find Beera, decrying his own personal boundaries.</span></div>
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<span style="line-height: normal;"> I’ll move onto my favorite bit of the flick. The thoughtful and fragile screenwriting garnished with a heady mix of invocative and occasionally edgy and raw cinematic styles and techniques. Proceeding chronologically, the first shot we see is of a man standing at a cliff overlooking a flowing stream. This is accompanied by that tribal shout out that we otherwise hear with the “Beera” track on the album. Dropping a pebble into the stream, he follows suit by taking a straight dive followed by a casual swim. This is interspersed by shots of Beera’s aides outwitting cops in several locations and attacking them. All through we hear a dholak in the background only to come back again to Beera playing it. This draws us into the middle of the tensed environ right at the beginning and announces the terror quotient involved, yet does it with an uncanny coolness which doesn’t take it over the top. This strangely direct yet definitely brutal way of onslaught and assault is depicted throughout the film as a natural tendency of the rebels, when they choke the troops’ trucks by pouring sugar in the tanks, when they attack and torture Jamuna’s fiancé and when they attack Dev’s camp in the forest in disguise, abducting Hemanth and then later shaving his head.</span></div>
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<span style="line-height: normal;"> Similar slickness in editing can be seen elsewhere in the flick, like the energetic introduction montage composed with sharp and classy visuals and a hip background score. The intensity of these action episodes is favorably assuaged by sections of classic Mani Ratnam style drama, replete with strong dialogue, subtle flow of emotion and innovative scripting. Of course the plethora of Mani Ratnam motifs are aplenty, the frame playing with colors, objects and lighting to hint at references. </span></div>
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<span style="line-height: normal;"> There’s that scene where Dev receives a picture of captive Ragini surrounded by the tribals and Dev mulls over her rescue while burning the faces of the tribals with the glowing edge of his cigarette one by one, hinting at his internal grudge and deliberation. Another mellow scene is the one in which Beera goes all out innocent confessional person in front of Ragini on the coracle being whirled around by playing kids. Beera’s monologue mixed with the kid’s words, the camera – constant while showing Ragini yet circling around with Beera (is that to show the respective mindsets they’re in, his in complete turmoil and her stationary yet drifting? – another Mani motif) and Rahman’s sublime score make for a cinematic treat. Another stifling scene is that rugged exchange of words between Beera and Ragini after the bridge collapses. Here, there is an underlying string of emotions, Beera, angry, sad (for Jamuna) yet with a slight inkling of foolish glee (for what he has done for Ragini) while Ragini is draught with an overbearing sense of concern for Dev that’s being overwhelmed slowly by her growing empathy for Beera. </span></div>
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<span style="line-height: normal;"> What’s stunning in the screenplay is the way it adopts a reflective philosophy towards certain moments and emotions. It slows down drastically and chooses to ponder over a few feelings, a few thoughts, and chooses to carry the audiences with it in this introspection. There in lies that narrative conviction I had earlier talked about. The brilliant episode around the “Behne De” track, right from the scene at the top when Beera’s aides hand him the gun to kill Ragini to the moments in the forest when Beera cant get his head off her jumping off the cliff, is just enchanting. Earlier in the flick, the title sequence stylistically carries over from that tribal war-cry at the start to the track ‘Beera’ accompanied by trippy visuals that inspire psychedelia in a fleeting hint to what one might expect from the movie. In the ‘Behne De’ episode, the shot of Ragini falling down the cliff, her unconscious body hanging through the trees before she makes the final splash into the stream beneath is replayed time and again, each time from a new perspective (hinting at a new state of mind of the observer, Beera). As we moves through this episode, we revisit Beera and Ragini undergoing two respective emotions that might have truly riveted them. Beera is fascinated by Ragini’s courage, her fiery essence and untarnished love for Dev. Ragini, on the other hand, is traumatized, distraught and is desperately seeking help, all this despite her pretense of courage. Both speak about these conditions, and also take us alongside their feelings through the narrative’s several close-up shots and dream like apparitions (another new aspect of the traditional Mani motif). I particularly like the way this episode sinks in slowly in pace, giving us time to muse along with Beera and Ragini (and occasionally with Dev too).</span></div>
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Time passes by and we are dropped right into the middle of the Beera-Ragini conflict, as the “Ranjha Ranjha” episode as I’d like to call it, where the melee of their mutual feelings of fascination, possible affection, hatred, anger and fury are depicted in that little choreographed fight between the two. The ensemble of cinematography, music, even choreography (notice how Beera never lays hands on her?) and scripting give this episode a new dynamic often not found in Mani’s movies.<br />
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Later, we come upon the episode after Beera narrates how Jamuna met her death, where Ragini begins to notice herself sympathizing with Beera and his tribe. Most of these emotions are handled by simple drama and dialogue set in classic circumstances, like the offhand conversation in the jungle near the big deity statue. Interestingly, the Behne De and Ranjha Ranjha dynamics aren’t employed here, an outcome possibly from the editing room, yet it somehow subtly hints that the emotion defined here is more of a flowing, gradual one as against the angst from earlier, which was sudden and upsetting to the two characters and needed more brooding over. With the later acceptance they garner for each other, they grow more vocal, less reluctant to be open and talking about it. Its more like the transition in you when you first fall in love and when you’ve taken love as a part of your life a couple of years after. <br />
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Likewise further scenes are handled deftly, like the revolving camera and aggressive dialogue when Beera and his brothers discuss options at hand, or the audacious scene with the fight on the bridge, burning et al. This particularly harks back to Mani’s obsession with audacity and set pieces and staying right on tradition, this scene is quite realistic in the taking. And the narrative is only left unconsummated without that epic climax, even in a metaphorical sense of the word, as the three characters meet what could possibly be their only destiny. For their lives and their emotions too. Beera falling off the cliff, Ragini frantically trying to grab his hand as she gasps and whispers his name while Rahman takes over with the scintillating “Jaa Udh Jaa Re, Ruth Beeth Gayi”; is just masterclass in Cinema.<br />
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I can hardly compliment enough the technical competence that went into making this flick. Santosh Sivan and V.Manikandan bring themselves in total gusto to this flick and truly deserve every bit of the plethora of accolades they’d garnered. The camera work, hand held, intense and in your face in some parts and flowing, panoramic and settled in other parts compliments the director’s eye to the tee. The canvasses they’d succeeded in setting up, be it a closed up shot of Ragini in the pit, her face bloodied and muddled and eyes murky and quivering, or a slow crane shot of the lush green misty valley are terrific. Sreekar Prasad is another guy who’s hardly acknowledged for what he brings to the package. His experience and skill brings that last edge of refinement (and sometimes a deliberate bluntness too!) to many a cinema, including this one. He’s a true behind-the-scenes master. Should I conclude this enumeration with an ode to the Maestro himself, A.R.Rahman! This album, though strikingly very simple and grounded, keeps every track fresh, musically rich and emotionally very apt. The compositional brilliance, the instrumental talent and every other accessory Rahman supplies needs no introduction. Yet, the background score is where he astoundingly reinvents himself. Tugging hard at the emotion in each scene, and letting one instrument (sometimes, just one vocal tone – the male humming and female vocals in Ranjha) take center stage for the score (like the Pianos and the Flutes), he has truly touched a new element in himself with this flick. So much so that the score has demanded the release of an E.P. despite this film’s commercial failure (not to forget mentioning that hasn’t prevented this flick from becoming a cult classic in Tamizh).<br />
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This essay, which I’ll not like to call a review, is an elaborate comment on cinema and is amongst my first few (Read elsewhere, my piece on Rockstar) and is suitably on one of the finest examples of Indian Cinema I’d seen to date. To adjudge that, I can only think up these words of Mani Ratnam’s from the same interview with Bharadwaj, where he excellently translates what Cinema is all about.<br />
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"If the film holds you, you dont notice anything else. In some cases, a film could be magical and really poetic, and in such a case, you take in the film like any other viewer, but you also see a master at work. And maybe you'll see the movie again and again to really understand what he's done. The high you derive out of watching a good film is tremendous."</div>
Shasank Aventador Nagavarapuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13642426560470370600noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7168876344179247938.post-80386498641118858012015-04-03T17:41:00.002-07:002015-04-03T17:44:11.586-07:00A Teary Invocation<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>Crying in joy along Rahman's latest masterpiece....</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i> </i>It is not exactly a new thing. Rahman's tracks have always managed to bring a tear to my eyes, out of joy, wonder, sorrow or just pure inexplicable human emotion. This time, somehow, it felt different. It felt a little more honest. A little more innate. A little more divine. This time was with the song 'Malargal Kaettaen' from the OK Kanmani soundtrack that was launched a few hours ago. In the span of these few hours, I've listened to this track a bunch of times, each time resulting in the aforementioned teary implosion. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The composer has delivered tracks that have always been a source of solace and silent introspection to me for a long time. Sometimes, I come home, after a generically bad day at work, and plug randomly into one of his albums. Only to find a quaint sense of wonder and enthusiasm for life, which makes me go to bed with a smile on my face and begin the next day with the same mood. Sometimes, running through a random playlist, I find the one track I've listened to numerous times, only to find a hidden layer of violin or flute or string in there which elates my mood to an absolute superlative. And sometimes, its those tear-jerkers.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">With Malargal, I've been feeling a sense of divinity that is somehow unprecedented. The track itself feels like a nostalgic trip down all the many melodies Rahman has composed back in the 90s, that were heavily set on Carnatic Ragas and simple instrumental arrangements. Malargal follows the same pattern, with Chitra's voice mellifluously handling the proceedings while a subtle percussion, a synth note and naadaswaram background keep her company. But, the best part kicks in at the end, as Rahman joins her (singing Carnatic in possibly one of his very few such tracks) with a low set baritone that spells beatitude. I just can't help but find an upper echelon of calm, solitude and invocation with that duet. In a cultural analogy, I guess its probably like those few minutes of actual conversation, sans the ritual, one has with his deity at a temple. Or like that moment when one touches one's parents' feet. Or like the time when one holds a loved one's hand to insist an assurance of comfort and safety. Or like a kiss on the forehead of the better half. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is indeed well said that music has an extraordinary ability to touch human lives. This track is a fine example, as if art is your religion, this can surely be one of the prayer songs. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Here's a link to the track - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fndcB3s5n9s</span></div>
Shasank Aventador Nagavarapuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13642426560470370600noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7168876344179247938.post-25282173577469267402015-01-02T17:38:00.003-08:002015-01-02T17:38:39.395-08:00Blog-ette # 5: The year of the Heroine<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Trends in culture and social responses to them don't really tend to follow calendars and dates as much as eras and periods. Yet it's always a good thing to stop at the end of every calendar year, and purely for bookkeeping purposes, take notes on the emergent trends from the previous year however nascent or transient they might be. This thought brings me to the one particular trend I found myself surrounded by. In 2014, by chance or choice, I found myself championing strongly with the acting efforts of a few actresses, both in the honesty they bring to the table as an actor and the way they manage to embed their charm to the character's aura. As such, of the several things in Cinema that were part of new-found-land for me in 2014, the most prominent one was me becoming an ardent follower of a few actresses. Here are some reflections on these dames.<br />
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Scarlett Johannson - Film buffs and fan boys alike recognize the respectable career of Scar-Jo given her now admirable portfolio with its fine balance of mainstream cinema and indie/arthouse fore. She's garnered good attention with her work in The Other Boleyn Girl, Lost in Translation and other similar works and at the same time, has been an outright bedroom poster girl with outings like The Black Widow in Marvel's eponymous Avengers series. I must admit I'd overlooked all of this till this year, when she voiced the most enigmatic yet sexy computer in 'Her', portrayed an Angelina-esque action figure in 'Lucy', fiddled with indie stuff in 'Chef' and yet took time out to stun film buffs with her portrayal of the terrifying yet sexy alien character in 'Under The Skin'.<br />
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Amy Adams - I'm deeply haunted by the beauty in Amy's eyes. Her eyes seem to belong to a person that is naive and innocent yet has the wisdom of a lifetime. They have a moist teariness to them which might probably be due to a sparkle of enthusiasm as much as it could be due to pain. She brought all of these emotions to her celebrated role in 'American Hustle' but she outshines that character with her portrayal of a nerdy tom-boyish lady in 'Her' who is as casual as she is elegant. I'm not sure how much of a pun Tim Burton based his casting choices on when he chose her for his latest venture 'Big Eyes'<br />
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Rosamund Pike - Glenn Close, over time, has specialized in a certain niche of characters. Characters of powerful, slightly vulnerable, professional women who make love and life choices out of their own whims and might almost make the right template fits for the ideal independent woman. I have a feeling Rosamund Pike is soon becoming the Glenn Close of her generation. She oozes an undercurrent of sexuality and vulnerability, yet is in deft control of professionalism as a lawyer in 'Jack Reacher' while she absolutely strikes it out of the ball park in 'Gone Girl' vying quite well to be the best sexy villains of all time.<br />
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Marlee Matlin - The first of my chance finds this year, I thought Marlee Matlin stood her firm ground amidst intimidating cast in the TV drama 'The West Wing'. She brings a radiance to her character as a humble yet surefooted political consultant. An expiry date on Netflix's streaming line-up then forced me to watch 'Children of a Lesser God' which only refurbished my initial impressions of Marlee as an actress. She plays a deaf person (the actress is actually deaf, a factor which in no way diminishes her acting traits) in the film who is conflicted between finding herself, trusting love and blending socially with society. The portrayal is so emphatic, strong and confident that I'd ended up wanting to watch more of her.<br />
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Patricia Arquette - A friend of mine invited me to watch David Lynch's enigmatic 'Lost Highway' at his place, leading to my discovery of Patricia Arquette. She's stunning in the flick with a gloomy beauty and gravity to her two characters, essentially the same woman portrayed by two radiant skins. We followed this viewing up with 'True Romance' a couple of weeks later, which, for me, established that she was no one trick wonder. She portrays a naive and bubbly girl to the core in this flick only to surprise the viewer by deftly pulling off a gallant and bloody fist fight with a goon shot resplendent Tony Scott style. This culminated in me strongly vouching out for her when I later went to watch 'Boyhood' and the plethora of supporting actress nominations she's received world over speak for that outing.<br />
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Meryl Streep - I must confess I was never quite acknowledging of what a tremendous actress Meryl Streep is. Being cognizant of awards proceedings, her name pops up all the time but it hasn't really occurred that I'd actually seen her in a flick. Well, that changed with a viewing of 'Sophie's Choice'. She turns out such a delicate performance in the flick, as a Jew immigrant in New York city, still troubled by her past under the Nazis while she tries to move on in her life through a series of lovers. Seldom have I seen an actress play a part embedded by a fine thread that weaves together sensuality, vulnerability, grit and pain.<br />
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This exposition of female performances in cinema that have struck me with awe this past year explains the one trend that I guess underlined movies for me in 2014 - the year dedicated to celebrating some fine heroines in Cinema. It was only a poetic coincidence that Hindi cinema also churned out some delectable shows by actresses in movies like Queen, Highway, Haider and Hasee Toh Phasee. As 2015 progresses in movie-going for me, I'm keeping an eye out for girl-power.<br />
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Shasank Aventador Nagavarapuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13642426560470370600noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7168876344179247938.post-89090790600384160862015-01-01T19:01:00.002-08:002015-01-01T20:50:56.032-08:00Three phrase retrospectives: 2014<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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As I tweeted earlier, year ends are field days for bloggers, as retrospectives make terrific subjects for new blogs. Well, I'm jumping in on the bandwagon here. And in typical fashion, since this is my movie blog, here's my two pence on the films I got to watch this past year. Now, the list doesn't essentially include only those films that came out in 2014. I have a few flicks from 2013 that were amongst the prime Oscar contenders. Well, being in a university means that they've free screenings of the previous year's best films and I took the best advantage of that. Alongside these are the typical weekend films as in, the films and TV shows on Netflix. Since, that list is generally exhaustive owing to frequent couch movie marathons, I included those that caught my eye or rather stayed with me for some reason or the other. Of course, I have the occasional Hindi movie thrown in for good measure, which brings me to express utter disappointment when I say there was not one Telugu movie that I felt was worth spending my time on. So much for the second largest film industry in India.<br />
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Well, moving on to warmer thoughts, I tried giving in a twist to this rewind note. Well, reviews for films are scattered all over these days and a mighty lot of them are probably way better written than what I'd be able to fathom. For an immediate expression of what I personally felt after watching any movie, I'd probably need to start using Letterboxd, the time for which wasn't on my side so far. So that makes up for one new new year's resolution for me. So, what I did here is to just use three phrases to describe what I felt were three best/worst aspects of each of these movies. Here it goes then. The three phrase retrospective of 2014 -<br />
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Her : Scarlett Johannson's voice, finding love, humanity's social fabric<br />
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Omar : Human desperation in conflicted times, Love & War, gutsy Indie film making<br />
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Highway : Alia Bhatt surprises, Imtiaz goes Indie, Rahman goes Indie<br />
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The Great Beauty : Companion piece to 'La Dolce Vita', soundtrack, cinematography<br />
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12 Years a Slave : Steve McQueen's intriguing surrealism, Mike Fassbender's villainy antics, Brad Pitt's southern accent<br />
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True Romance : Patricia Arquette being sexy and ferocious, Tony Scott's camera antics, Tarantino's dialogue<br />
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Lost Highway : Patricia Arquette being sexy and enigmatic, David Lynch's mysterious artistry, screenplays that incite endless discussion<br />
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Dallas Buyer's Club : Matthew McConaughey elicits emotions, Jared Leto impresses, Alright alright alright!<br />
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Nymphomaniac 1 & 2 : Mindboggling screenwriting, sheer sense of awe, ballsy cast<br />
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Captain Phillips : Paul Greengrass proves versatility, classic 'based on a real story' thriller, stand offs between Tom Hanks and Barkhad Abdi<br />
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John Wick : Nonsensical action flick, A waste of Keanu Reeves' talent, unimpressive exercise in style<br />
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The Grand Budapest Hotel : Most fun had in ages, charming storytelling, gorgeous visuals<br />
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The Lunchbox : Sublime storytelling, Nawaz Siddiqui's naivete, Neemrat Kaur's elegance<br />
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The Hustler : Paul Newman outshines everything, standard classic movie dialogue, taut storytelling<br />
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Need for Speed : Best car stunts in some time, Aaron Paul disappoints, dull pacing for an action flick<br />
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Under the Skin : Scarlett Johansson's brooding appeal, indulgent camera work, screenplays that incite endless discussion<br />
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Tahilina Sky : Kings of Leon soundtracks, rustic storytelling, honest documentary<br />
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The Ice Storm : Makes one take Ang Lee seriously, Sigourney Weaver's eyes, Christina Ricci dazzles<br />
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Dedh Ishqiya : Soundtrack, bold screenwriting, impeccable cast<br />
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Five Easy Pieces : An interesting side of Jack Nicholson, a haunting ending shot, a great monologue<br />
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Das Boot : Brilliant filmmaking techniques, seldom seen side of WW2, gutsy direction<br />
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Sophie's Choice : Meryl Streep's show through and through, undercurrents of sensuality, undercurrents of subtle emotions<br />
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The Office : Steve Carrell, Rainn Wilson, great writing<br />
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Twin Peaks : David Lynch pushes enigmatic boundaries, female cast, Red lounge soundtrack<br />
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Children of a Lesser God : Undercurrents of passion, Marlee Matlin's striking presence, William Hurt's jocular senses<br />
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From Here to Eternity : Impeccable execution, Frank Sinatra's timing, sublime plot<br />
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Shadows and Fog : Mia Farrow's elegance, quirky conversations in unusual scenarios, dazzling cinematography<br />
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Roman Holiday : Typical Italian charm in characters, Audrey Hepburn's beauty, visuals of Rome<br />
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Little White Lies : Balance of grimness and humor in script, introspective tendencies, Marion Cotillard's show<br />
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The Day I Saw your Heart : Exposition of Melanie Laurent's talent, soundtrack, subtle take on human relations<br />
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Guess who's coming to dinner : Spencer Tracy's monologue, Katherine Hepburn's poise, dialogue<br />
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Found Memories : deliberate pacing of scenes, profundity amidst extreme vagueness, gorgeous visuals<br />
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Just a Sigh : Intimacy between characters, subtlety in narration, brooding camera work<br />
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Jack Reacher : Sheer unadulterated fun, gripping storytelling, undercurrent of passion between Tom and Rosamund<br />
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Neighbors : Great premise, awful execution, Seth Rogen's wasted talent<br />
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Godzilla : Bad male lead, great storytelling technique, wrong publicity technique<br />
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Restrepo/Korengal : Gutsy documentation, unique subject, thrilling premise<br />
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Snowpiercer : A plot that incites introspection, undercurrent of social comment, decently interesting execution<br />
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Life Itself : Roger Ebert tribute, dedicated documentation, good moments of resonance<br />
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Boyhood : Historical landmark in filmmaking, Patricia Arquette exuding warmth, soundtrack<br />
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Dawn of the Planet of the Apes : Overrated drudgery, decent screenplay, achieves nothing special<br />
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Gone Girl : Terrific soundtrack-narration interplay, great balance of wit and thrill, Rosamund Pike vying for being sexiest villain ever<br />
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Fury : Stunning war visuals, unique battle tank perspective, Shia Lebouf's poignant show<br />
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Interstellar : Great silence-soundtrack balance, stunning space visuals, typical Nolan screenwriting<br />
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PK : Typical Raju Hirani lecturing, surprisingly subtle antics by Aamir Khan, execution lets down script's ambitions<br />
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Breakfast at Tiffany's : Manhattan as a backdrop, Audrey Hepburn's elegance, undercurrents of introspective storytelling<br />
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Three phrase retrospectives shall return in 2016. And possibly with a letterboxd page attached to it. Till then, have a great year in Cinema experiences folks...</div>
Shasank Aventador Nagavarapuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13642426560470370600noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7168876344179247938.post-73759925119043424152014-03-01T16:05:00.001-08:002014-03-01T16:05:38.002-08:00Blog-ette #4: Of 'three-act' Screenplays , adaptations and thoughts on three flicks!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Back in December last year, shortly after watching "The Wolf of Wall Street" with a friend, I got into a thought-provoking conversation with him over dinner. Both of us were fresh off separate viewings of "American Hustle" and we couldn't help but compare notes about what we felt about the two movies; particularly with respect to their treatments and cinematic styles. My pal was clear in his choice when it comes to the two flicks. From a complete cinema experience stand-point, 'Hustle' took the cake for him. He felt it'd managed to drive a point home while 'Wolf' was a bit loose-ended; a feeling left without closure. Now, being a staunch Scorsese fan, I'd have expected myself to defend 'Wolf' against all odds, however, somehow, I couldn't. Rather, I was left questioning myself as to why that sense of closure was indeed missing with 'Wolf' and was rather totally present with 'Hustle' despite both of them, in my book, having been exceptionally written, and containing distinctive flavors their respective directors could only give them, with some brilliant performances by their casts. <br />
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Now, keen observers and Scorsese fanatics (yours truly included) would notice the fact that David O.Russell has been infusing a hint or two of the classic Scorsese filmmaking cues into his flicks, albeit with his own distinctive touch. Fast and restless camera movements, heavy dialogue with multiple characters speaking simultaneously, et al. These were quite evident with David's last outing, "Silver Linings Playbook" and they had their fair share in 'Hustle' too! What all of this brings to the table are deeply probing character studies. Heedless to the scenario the flick is set in, (boxing in 'The Fighter'; romance between mentally instable people in 'Silver Linings'; 70s style crime setting in 'Hustle'), the audience is thrust into the world of the people shown in the flick - not the mere gravity of the situation they're in, but the effect it has on their emotions and reactions. This is innately a powerful way to get the viewers love the characters and begin to care for them; which eventually leads on to that sense of closure when the flick takes these characters to a happy ending. This is exactly where the differential factor between 'Hustle' and 'Wolf' lies; and I could discern it only after watching yet another flick devoid of a sense of closure for the aforementioned friend (and to an extent, me too) despite general reverence; '12 Years a Slave'; The factor? - adapted screenplays. <br />
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Come to think of it, all three aforementioned flicks have screenplays adapted from previous real life incidents expressed in books (in the case of 'Hustle', a much reported scam from yesteryears). Yet each flick is treated in a different shade. 'Hustle' is a script tailored to be a flick that falls into the 'heist' regime, originally to be directed by Ben Affleck, before David got on board. The characters are caricatures of their real life counterparts, with several idiosynchracies thrown and boy, are the cast adept at portraying them! One can not miss the evidence that the flick has the conventional 'three-act' structure, comprising 'scenario establishment'-'conflict escalation'-'resolution' in chronological order. It does have randomization of the events thrown in, with the supremely hilarious segment starting with Chris Bale meticulously arranging his coiffure leading onto past plot narration and then on to further events. Sensational scenes are abound, including the segment involving the meet with the mafia group from Miami (De Niro sneaks in a stylish part there) and the 'treat-to-watch' kiss scene between Amy and Jennifer. However, all that adds upto the third act, the much needed conclusion that drives characters to an ending, its condition notwithstanding. I'm guessing this is what brings that sense of closure to someone in the audience who's spent about 120 minutes empathizing with those on the screen. <br />
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However, when it comes to 'Wolf' and '12 years', the essence of developing the screenplay was always about fulfilling the compulsion to tell a story that someone read somewhere and found a sense of connection in. With 'Wolf', it was DeCaprio's persistent urge to get a story so deeply rooted in Caligula-esque decadence be filmed (by Scorsese, no less) and with '12 years', McQueen finds his voice in filming a 19th century novel about slavery. Both flicks stay true to their sources, with episodes largely derived from respective books. Although it is not pretty evident in 'Wolf', what with Scorsese employing his mastered techniques, there's a sense of first-person narrative effect in how the screenplay is paced and established. As if, the protagonist was narrating the entire thing over to you on a cold evening while seated by the fireplace, and while doing that, he is taking liberty in just mere accountance of the events that happened, whilst throwing special emphasis on certain events that had the deepest impact and invoked the strongest emotions out of him. In '12 years', the part on how he's captured is done away with in a montage of scenes, while the part where Lupita's character is tortured is recounted in intricate detail. The same effect is present in 'Wolf' where much of the profanity with the prostitutes is shot in montages but the one where DeCaprio struggles and crawls to his Lambo is exploited with great interest. <br />
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What this shows is how these two flicks are so fixated on telling the story true to how it might have happened in the real world, regardless of the effect the audience might carry over. They're content with letting the audiences carry a sense of discomfort away from the flick and then mull over it. (And most flicks usually contain that as their very essence). Often, what happens outside the theatre seldom has closures, there's always a moment of angst, a moment of redemption, but life as it is, goes on. Jordan Belfort is still out there, largely unpunished, and continuing to inspire people to be greedy. Solomon Northup could never bring his captors to stand on trial. Life; is like that. <br />
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Shasank Aventador Nagavarapuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13642426560470370600noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7168876344179247938.post-88810030797850354802014-01-31T12:47:00.002-08:002014-01-31T12:47:58.826-08:00Puri Jagannadh and The act of wasting a brilliant idea!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
It is a repetitive, overtly conventional and unadventurous world that we live in. More so, the realms of Telugu Cinema are just that and nothing else. That said, it takes more than a spark to come up with an idea for a ‘different’ Telugu movie. An idea that not only stands out amongst the rest by being honest and novel but also ends up being accepted and lauded by the multitude of Telugu Cinema audience. Well, briefly, it just takes plain guts to come up with such an idea and then, stick to it!<br />
I must admit the only director in Telugu Cinema who has managed to excite me the maximum number of times, well, almost with every new project he announces, is Puri Jagannadh. Before I sermon you with the reason and the subsequent rant that this blog is all about, first, let me get over with the customary trivia. Undoubtedly, Puri is amongst the most celebrated directors we have in Tollywood. He has both the privilege to be chosen as the director for the launchpad movies of A-List star’s offspring and the liberty to choose whichever A-List star he wants to work with next. He makes movies that draw impressive budgets, skilled technicians, glam-dolls from half way around the world to act and dance and above all, average (at the worst) to mammoth box office collections into the kittybag.<br />
Yet, talk about him is incomplete without reference to the list of the above mentioned novel and ballsy ideas he seems to effortlessly dish out. And going by the rate at which he’s doling out movies these past couple of years, that list sure feels endless. Precisely there-in lies my aforementioned admiration and simultaneous disdain for all things Puri Jagannadh. Let me lay it bare here that the thoughts expressed henceforth might only make sense on a parallel universe, one that is fundamentally based on auteurism and an enthusiasm for art, sublimity and subtleties of life and not in the current Telugu Cinema scenario. Hence, for all the acridity I spew out, Puri’s not to be blamed. Blame Telugu Cinema, as I did <a href="http://gotgroove.blogspot.com/2013/04/how-telugu-film-industry-can-make-you.html" target="_blank">here</a> or its audience, as I'm going to do in an upcoming blog.<br />
Yes; the Ideas! The reason why I get excited everytime Puri embarks on a new project is the conceptual idea the film is based on. More often than not, these ideas are about individuals facing a complex, interesting, traumatizing and life changing situation. They’re about challenging the absurd conventions our society is based on. They’re about studying remarkable characters with a magnifying lens. These ideas, they’re truly novel, brilliant and acute. Take "Badri", Puri’s debut film. A man plays a casual game with his childhood sweetheart where he has to make someone love him; and when he actually manages to do that, he finds himself torn between his childhood love and his new-found affection for the new girl. "Itlu Sravani Subrahmaniam" – Two people planning to die, meet by chance, spend a day together, commit suicide and survive only to find love in each other and a wishful life awaiting them. "Idiot" – The story of a reckless yet strikingly street smart character and the way he faces life. "Amma Nanna Oo Tamil Ammayi" – About how a guy born to a separated couple loses his mother whom he spent his entire life with, and has to go to his father, who he never knew. "Shivamani" – How a girl realizes that the guy she’s infatuated with had a daunting past love story and is strewn apart from his love and helps him find his past love. "Pokiri" – How an undercover cop deftly cleans out the mob plaguing his city. "Desamuduru" – The intriguing prospect of a monk falling in love with a stranger and the soul-search for the reason why one would choose austerity over life. "Bujjigadu" – A tongue in cheek tale of a rift between childhood pals turned lovers and how they get back together. "Neninthe" - A telescopic take on the nuances of the Telugu Film Industry and the lives of actors and technicians struggling to make it big in tinsel town. "Ek Niranjan" – On how a street-beggar can be more than just that by using his wit and helping cops out (cue: Salaam Bombay was based on something like this). "Bumper Offer" - The story of a guy who challenges to rip his love’s father off all his riches in retort to a monetary offer made by the latter. (An ode to Chiranjeevi’s “Challenge” hidden in there somewhere?) "Golimaar" - Of how a gangster hunting innocent cop who’s wrongly framed vows revenge and becomes a gangster himself. "Nenu Naa Rakshasi" - A psychological inquiry into the act of suicide, the story of a girl adamant on killing herself and the guy whose desperate to stop her. "Bbuddah….Hoga Terra Baap" - Another tongue in cheek expression of bringing back the best of a veteran celebrated actor to the frontline and revisiting everything that he has been so celebrated for. "BusinessMan" - The story of a guy who tries to reinvent the mob scene in Mumbai by introducing the concept of organized crime-corporate style. "Devudu Chesina Manushulu" - About two orphans and how life brings them together. "Cameraman Ganga Toh Rambabu" - The quintessential sarcastic note on the current media and political environment.<br />
When I write the above notes, the description for each flick inspires thoughts of great movies from around the world; those from the chapters of the sensitive French New Wave Cinema, the clinical American Political dramas, the pop cultural EuroTrash Cinema; the new age Indie Documentaries, etc. Now, in that parallel Universe I took the liberty of invoking earlier, the above mentioned ideas would have spawned some mesmerizing, strong and thoughtful flicks. Flicks that could have uplifted the spirit, ambition and purport of Telugu Cinema to a different notch altogether! Yet all Puri could do was have these rhapsodic ideas in the first place, and then take them and add in the quintessentially heavy mix of commercial formulaic ingredients to cook up so called “entertainers” overwrought with absurd logic, irritating screen acts and intolerable, and occasionally obscene, movie elements.<br />
As I indulge in my idyllic banter, there he is dishing out another movie based on yet another poignant idea. "Heart Attack", his latest venture which is out on screens as we speak, is about a guy who stalks a girl purely out of lust only to find initial rejection and subsequent unconditional love from the girl, who in turn is herself not ready for an emotional commitment despite her confessions to falling in love. Doesn't that sound like material coming out of an auteur? I bet it'd only be a few days time before my enthusiasm for this film is watered down by yet another 'typical Puri entertainer'.<br />
It’s another day’s (or <a href="http://gotgroove.blogspot.com/2013/04/how-telugu-film-industry-can-make-you.html" target="_blank">another blog</a> or two’s) story as to why these ideas did not get to be explored the way they could have been in the first place; if Puri was compelled to succumb to the Telugu Cinema scene or if it was just purely his vagabond cinematic instinct. As I recall, I can surely say Badri was, to date, his most honest effort; the movie still has oodles of freshness and appeal. And yet, I must credit him for his gusto in pulling off projects without compromising on their initiating ideas, the end result notwithstanding. Only, as a cinema enthusiast in the fundamental sense, and an admirer for Puri Jagannadh, how I wish those ideas kicked off the way they could have. How I wish there was that parallel Universe! <br />
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Shasank Aventador Nagavarapuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13642426560470370600noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7168876344179247938.post-12736436005797607842014-01-18T21:01:00.000-08:002014-02-20T15:00:54.195-08:00Blog-ette #3: Thoughts on 'Her'<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Warning: Might contain spoiler-ish notes, devoid of which, the point this article wants to make cant be driven home.<br />
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One of the most thought provoking movie scenes I've seen in recent times has absolutely no visual (yes, a blacked out screen), accompanied by the sound of a man and woman having sex, moaning in intimate passion as they climax. The man in question is a middle aged writer, Theodore Twombly (Joaquin Pheonix), and the woman, his advanced artificially intelligent operating system with a female voice and personality, Samantha (voiced seductively all over by Scarlett Johansson). The scene runs for about 15 seconds and would probably be one of those surreal moments one'd come upon in a theatre in absolute darkness, as Spike Jonze's "Her" pushes the viewer into a momentary limbo characterized by contemplation about the fascinating pretext of the movie alongside basking in the mounting passion between the protagonist and his OS. Even the way the scene is set up in the screenplay shows how much thought has gone into writing this script. Only, earlier, Theodore participates in a futile phone sex attempt which leaves him disgusted; whilst this unexpected passion gives Samantha a chance to feel her human self amid an increasing consciousness of feelings and emotions.<br />
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A deeply though-out script (which won the 2014 Golden Globe for Best Screenplay), executed with great fervor by Spike and aided in the process by a skillful ensemble of actors, a mellow soundtrack and gorgeous cinematography that brings a futuristic Los Angeles to life and makes you wish it really turned out that beautiful; "Her" would be that film, which, if you're watching with a loved one, would make you clasp hands by the time its done with you. The movie has three distinct yet overlapping paradigms carefully layered over each other. On one level, it talks of the innate nature and complications involved in the process of being human, on a second level, it subconsciously becomes a social critique on the increasingly isolated human social fabric, where humans would have stronger relations with their personal computers than the people around them and on a third level, it vaguely leaves with us a thought about the infinite extents to which human thought and philosophy can proceed provided our physical and mental limitations on the worldly realm don't exist.<br />
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The first level is what happens predominantly through the flick, as each character goes through an individual phase of joy, personal loss, redemption, self-admittance and other emotions and feelings, that characterize the essential human existence. Here's where the cast shines through. Amy Adams does a magical transformation from her raunchy yet vulnerable dame-self in 'American Hustle' into a cheerful and kid-like yet vulnerable two plaited tom-boyish game designer, Amy, who happens to be Theodore's only close friend. Olivia Wilde, in her limited screen time, comes through as a distraught yet sympathetically beautiful woman hopelessly looking for commitment from a blind date, who Theodore just hopes to have sex with for the night. The third woman we come across is Rooney Mara's turn in as Catherine, Theodore's soon-to-be ex-wife. Rooney is one of those few actresses currently working in tinsel town who have a slight physical frailty that adds up to a fragile depth and beauty to their characters. She turned this into a striking tenacity for her version of the famed Lisbeth Salander and here, she uses it to portray a woman whose voice and emotions have not been attended to in the past. And then we have one of the masters of underplay, Joaquin Phoenix, who turns in an act as touching as the letters Theodore writes for his clients. (He works as an author of letters in a company that you can pay to get a great letter written to your loved one, which I'm guessing, is another angle of the social critique I talked of).<br />
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The second layer, the social critique shows up subtly in places and frames, like the shots as Theodore rides the subway, where each person is shown to be talking to himself, or actually his personal computer through an ear-phone. It made me want to seriously look at what place social conversation, or in fact connection, is headed to in our increasingly self-involved lifestyles. The premise is quite similar to that note one can find on Facebook memes that shows a restaurant plaque shouting "We don't have wifi here, talk to each other at your tables". However, hope comes in the form of the OS talked of earlier and the intentions that would have designed something like that. Because even in a world with decreasingly relevant inter personal communication and fading relations, humans need and seek an interaction that's as close to human as it can get. We'd need the idle banter, the impromptu humor (of which, there is bundles sneaked into the script, making the film a breeze for non art-house audiences), the occasional sexual connect, heart break, introspection, understanding and perpetual love. That is where the third layer gracefully enters the scene, with Samantha slowly realizing what it is to be human, realizing and maintaining the essential nuances and finally using her ability to broach the infinite spaces lurking beyond the time-space continuum bounding actual humanity. Because, that's what we humans probably are, consistently in the search for those moments of joy, moments of self-realization, and the answers for our questions about life, its purport and our brief parts in it.<br />
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Shasank Aventador Nagavarapuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13642426560470370600noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7168876344179247938.post-42687526271239794012013-12-13T18:01:00.001-08:002013-12-13T18:03:09.850-08:00Telugu-thanam - 2<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
For starters, I'm glad that I get a chance to write another post with a title I used way back in <a href="http://gotgroove.blogspot.com/2009/10/telugu-thanam.html" target="_blank">2009</a>. Rather, it looks like I'm bringing an extension (or should I rather call it a sequel?) of the title with this one; and I hope I'd have to do it more often than not, in which case I plan to convert this as a separate label on my blog. For readers who do not understand Telugu, here's what the title says out loud - "Being Telugu". As this blog of mine essentially started out as a platform for throwing the spotlight on a few good songs that lie around us but are typically overlooked, the basic premise of this title was to throw a similar spotlight on such music in the Telugu music and film industry (particularly, the popular parts of the industry), where the focus has been to find songs that actually have profound Telugu literature and lyrics in them. I should probably rightly say, 'stumble upon', than 'find' as the chances of finding a well written Telugu song these days is poorer than finding drink-able water in the river 'Musi' in the midst of Hyderabad!<br />
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Well, the track in question, "Choosthunna", came out a couple of years ago, in 2011 to be precise, and I've been trying to write this post ever since I first heard it (Yes, I'm 'THAT' lazy at blogging). Its part of the soundtrack composed by Babu Shankar for the film "Mogudu", directed by one of the more impactful directors in the Telugu Cinema scene, Krishna Vamsi. I shall not talk about the 'impact' the movie actually had on its characters (pun intended), let alone the audiences. I digress here, and shall indulge myself with the song.<br />
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I can say two things primarily. One, no one can clearly and sufficiently summarize the importance marriage has for Indians, and of course, the Telugu people. The value it commands, the beauty it holds and just the sheer amount of excitement and change it brings to the average Indian life is astounding. Take that and two, make the venerable Sirivennela Seetaramasastry pen words for a song on that. The recipe is alluring enough already! (as alluring as Pulihora (Tamarind Rice) on a festive morning). Word on the street in the industry is if you have a hefty topic to make an allegory on, and you've Seetaramasastry writing the song, the composer is in for a difficult day at the studio!<br />
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Thankfully in this case, Shankar carries it off with elegance as he infuses intense melody for the vocal tracks with very subtle instrumentals. The percussion base doesn't tread the traditional Tabla line, with those much exploited tempos and rather maintains a slightly funky electronic-techno note and a faster tempo, with a slight riff on the Tabla playing along constantly. A humble thrum of a guitar keeps company somewhere at the back, but violin takes precedence and majorly has its own duet with the vocals through the song. I absolutely love the way, the violin notes don't exactly follow the same tune as the vocals, but have their own intensity which complements the vocals; which Karthik (the by-default singer for a good song in Telugu these days?) renders with his nonchalant efficiency.<br />
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I would probably need a couple or more Ph.Ds in Telugu literature before I can fully be able to comment on the way Seetaramasastry writes. However, what catches my attention is the way this song talks more about how the groom's beginning to feel about the bride and his marriage (which is probably demanded by the film's script), than just generally line up accolades to the process of wedding itself. That lends a more human touch to the entire song, in a way where the groom says that he is just submerged with wonder and curiosity, for the bride and what she's bringing into his life. The words that say that he's finding himself, or a new reflection of his in the bride just drive the point home. The, there are the stanzas, one, talking about the panache she has in the way she's decked up for the wedding and the second, talking about what he would do with her in his life. Each line has a strong motif to a classic element of the Telugu culture, yet figuratively, all these motifs delicately apply themselves back to our average lives. All this talk just makes me go back to school and sit in one of my Telugu classes. (And I'm so glad I got a shot at learning the language academically, while I could).<br />
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I'll leave you, fellow language enthusiasts, music lovers and Telugu folks, on that note with a suggestion to go check out the song when you can and if possible, dig up and read the lyrics. I'm sure it'll leave you a smile on the face no less. Meanwhile, I'm off to the usual ranting on the pathetic state of Telugu cinema, its music and literature, with the meager hope of reviving and writing a sequel to this title again! </div>
Shasank Aventador Nagavarapuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13642426560470370600noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7168876344179247938.post-88432915960301519902013-09-27T20:21:00.002-07:002013-09-27T20:21:28.240-07:00Blog-ette #2: Of a diluted purist and a style quotient: Trivikram Srinivas and Pawan Kalyan...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
This is about two people (out of five) from the Telugu film fraternity who happen to be the only folks to have stirred my deepest instincts for cinema. The two in question would be director Trivikram Srinivas and actor Pawan Kalyan. The other three are actors Prakaash Raaj, Mahesh Babu and Brahmanandam. I must mention, there's no particular order in which I list them here, for I marked each of them for their respective talents and subtleties. I'd deliberately timed this post with that of the release of another venture in the partnership of Trivikram and Pawan, "Atharintiki Daaredi", which like much of Pawan's earlier work is garnering a 'confluence of extremities'-'love-hate' response from people who've watched it and bothered to review - they outright choose to be on either of the banks and not in the middle. Reviews, comments and a rigorous critique - I leave out of the scope of this post and would like to conveniently walk down memory lane with the works of Trivikram and Pawan, to mark the occasion per se. <div>
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I remember being a 'Star Movies-HBO' kid in high school, consistently hating Indian Cinema for not being Hollywood, and then watching "Athadu". This one movie made me completely banish my fondled hatred for Telugu Cinema, stand up and take notice, of an emerging set of actors, film makers and technicians that could really make a difference. Trivikram's screenplay and dialogue for the flick were terrific, Mahesh's action an absolute coming-of-age act and the movie in totality, a riot to watch. Upon later viewings I began to appreciate the dynamism of Guhan's cinematography, some of the motifs Trivikram has cleverly snuck in, and how Manisharma's music deftly complements the mood in every scene. The scene where Nandu jumps on the train is skillfully ripped off from the English movie, "U.S.Marshals", and yet, the one where Nandu enters a dead Parthu's house and later confesses his love for Puri are absolute scorchers in originality. Repeat viewings meant I was sealed a fan of Trivikram. That meant revisiting some older flicks which he wrote scripts and screenplays for ("Manmadhudu", "Nuvve Nuvve") and enjoying them to the core. I disliked "Jalsa" initially, only to go back and watch it, and appreciate the so many fine details he has explicitly sprinkled all over that script. Then came "Khaleja", a movie I avow is probably, his finest, most heartfelt work and is probably among the few movies that a Telugu film maker and his crew have made with the utmost passion for staying true to spirit, undeterred by hindrances. All of this culminated in me, booking the tickets for the first day's show to "Julayi", and dragging a sick( I mean, ill, actually!) and cursing cousin along to the show. Might I say, I was having goosebumps in the way the movie unfolded right till the moment the blatant "Dark Knight" rip off started! The scene in which Kota Srinivas Rao's character discusses the robbery plan with Sonu Sood's gang marks polished and classy film making. Then the rip offs, flimsy editing and wanton commercialism ditch sensibility and Trivikram's charm for banality and boredom. I was very disappointed. Trivikram has always been a beta version of Mani Ratnam, a filmmaker who stood by traditional Indian Cinema conventionalities (songs, 'commercial' elements that woo audiences, etc) and yet tried his hand in infusing originality with each and every element of the film. With "Julaayi", I was worried that given "Khaleja"s rejection by the audiences, if he has finally bitten the Box-Office bug(?)</div>
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For generations of cinema goers, other than what it usually is, cinema also meant one thing. A gateway to a dreamy world of fashion, style, exotic locations, mean machines, colors one has never seen, graphics one has seldom imagined - briefly, production design that wows. I'd say Indian Cinema has fared decently on this front moving from one stage to the other via salient transitional points - actors who gracefully brought in new styles, directors with vision, etc. The primary thing I'd always liked about Pawan Kalyan was that he has been one such salient point, not once, but consistently through his career. Way before the current crop of actors woke up to the glamour of cinema and that needed for it, and before older actors realized the need for extensive makeovers, Pawan was changing the scene, credit probably going to some or the other extent to the plethora of technicians working on his projects. What's notable is how effortlessly he does that. GAP hoodies, custom made trousers and shirts, rap songs and hip hop, college hangouts, Harleys, Ninjas, RD350s and KTMs, funky character names, fashionable home environs, the works. Naturally, the industry and other actors followed suit, but none fit into these moulds as smoothly as he did. He even went ahead and directed a flick, "Johnny", one which I much like and would place among the finest Telugu flicks ever. More on that, plus talk about his other movies to be followed in another post. </div>
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For now, I'm just holding mixed emotions - of hope, anxiety, curiosity for "Atharintiki Daredi" and all the future works of these two focal points of the Telugu film industry. Rumour has it, they plan to partner in on a production house that can nurture new talent. Wonder what wonders that can churn out!</div>
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Shasank Aventador Nagavarapuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13642426560470370600noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7168876344179247938.post-88933911935558532892013-09-19T08:43:00.000-07:002013-09-19T08:44:26.603-07:00Blog-ette #1 : Of the sands, seas and screenplays!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Ardent followers of alternative Tamizh cinema (one which is thankfully on the rise), would agree with me on the fact that there's been an inclination towards the sea and stories related to it among movie makers in recent times. There was the hugely anticipated 'Kadal', a Mani Ratnam film that came after a significant gap from the highly revered director. Before that, there was this much appreciated effort called 'Neer Paravai' which further upped the ante on the new strident independent film scene in India. And quite recently, there was 'Maryan', a piece of work from the ace music video director Bharat Bala, who erstwhile gave us pseudo-anthems like A.R.Rahman's 'Vande Mataram' which got hooked onto our TV screens for the better part of a decade or two.<br />
Now having earlier seen 'Kadal' and falling head over heels for the many subtle nuances of it (which to my disappointment, a majority of the cinema audiences and even enthusiasts ignored), I got down to watching 'Maryan' with much curiosity over what this incredible talented director would bring to the table, coupled as he was with A.R.Rahman for the music (more on the album later) and Marc Koninckx (credited for several International projects, Bertolucci's infamous Stealing Beauty being one of them) for the visuals on the project. I must confess, through out the length of 'Maryan', I couldn't help but constantly have the feeling that this was a poorly written script. Now before I get cried foul at, I would say I'm definitely one from the school that believes a movie is more about what it does to a script than about the script itself. And on that ground, this movie scores high. It collaborates immensely with the euphoric soundtrack Rahman gave it on the music videos and the musical interludes scattered all over the film and the cinematography empathizes rightly with the emotions in the scenes, closing up on faces when its needed to, staying back when the atmosphere around the characters needs more attention. There's good potential with the subject too, basing itself on what is a true story. The people who've been through this must have had a terrible time, considering the fact that an ordinary fisherman's life is no less dramatic. However, everything that's happening with the film felt it was put there to just let it happen, not giving time for the characters to actually live through the scene, feel the dialogue and then say it, and sing, dance, make love, or even cry by living through the moment and not because that's what is expected of them to do. This is where the screenplay faltered in my sense, not taking the liberty to explore something real and gritty and just ticking off points on a checklist. There could have been huge 'drama' in the way a guy and a girl fall in love, enjoy courtship, the guy loses a friend, makes harsh decisions with life, gets trapped in a far off world and struggles hard to get back home. And the subtle moments of all of these scenarios have been skipped. Add to this the flimsy editing which just jumps from scene to scene and stackpiles them rather than creating a cherishable pace.<br />
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It did get better for me as the story progressed, with the scene with cheetahs (certainly a premonition for Maryan) being a nice touch (but which did feel a bit hurried again) and the one where Panimalar cries and consistently bangs her head against the wall, with her dad sitting next to her, absolutely helpless. The latter one shows true horrific grief, one almost suicidal. That's the kind of scripting prowess that this film demanded in many moments and didnt really get. Dare I say, it does show a certain inexperience on Bharat Bala's part with respect to scripting, screenplays and editing and that a full scale drama requires just more depth added to the audacity of a dazzling music video. (I've not seen his previous films and hence, I'm open to question on this statement though, lest I decree something inordinate). What this film made me, was it kept me going back to the finer details of 'Kadal's screenplay (what with all its flaws carried on by being cut-short) , the way young Thomas meets Father Sam and cries out into the tape recorder, how Sam plays this later to Bea when she meets him for the first time with Thomas, and I could go on listing. It probably only shows just how much more work has been put into that screenplay.<br />
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Talking of OSTs, notice how through the thick and thin, 'Maryan''s music sounds to be sort of a more raw-ish and unplugged version of that of 'Kadal''s (reflected boldly in the differences and similarities between 'Nenjukulle' and 'Innum Konjam Neram'.) Ironically, I felt Kadal was more of an unplugged film in its entirety and Maryan having a more 'conventional' feel. I so wish these movies actually released on a Director's cut, with all the left over bits from the editing room, when they come to the DVD stores!</div>
Shasank Aventador Nagavarapuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13642426560470370600noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7168876344179247938.post-29945699396705533732013-09-19T07:24:00.002-07:002013-09-19T07:24:42.848-07:00Blog-ette Diaries<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Okay, for those of you entirely bemused with the title and the bizarre word that I've coined in there, I've taken this going after the so called -ettes- that habit our world, kitchenette, scooterette, snippet, the likes. So, as the title suggests, this is a mini (or maybe, micro even) blog post. Something to fill in the humongous gaps on the timeline between my otherwise exploratory (and exhaustive) muses on cinema and music. And I'm hoping to keep these quite frequent - random yet good weighted thoughts that come along as I wade through the depths of music and cinema. Hope these keep you stimulated (or at the least, entertained!). Read along....and of course, do scribble a few words underneath. </div>
Shasank Aventador Nagavarapuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13642426560470370600noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7168876344179247938.post-32617832783976251002013-04-21T06:41:00.004-07:002013-04-21T06:41:39.869-07:00How the Telugu Film Industry can make you rich?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div id="internal-source-marker_0.049587768888823824" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">“Eureka!” I screamed as I hit upon this novel idea. A little effort by the right parties in question and the Telugu Film Industry can become the absolute specimen of a business model that can never fail. Telugu Cinema can see itself reach new monetary heights, break bigger records (a thing it seems to have a huge penchant for, so much so that every cinema-maker in his most moderate worth is claiming to have broken a record, even if that record was relevant only to the street he lived on!) and fans of Telugu Cinema can rejoice on seeing their favorite stars and “surprise”, their bank accounts ascend their stardom! Yes, dear audiences of TFI (that fond acronym we have given to the Telugu Film Industry), your beloved film industry can make you rich!</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This is how it could go. And it’s actually quite simple. Every last purveyor of quality cinema has given up hopes on the TFI to be making good, adventurous and above all, new cinema;. Good, as that kills the demand for it. Also, the TFI itself has finally figured out the right schematics to churn out spectacularly run-of-the-mill and preposterously identical ‘formula’ films that have what it takes to be launched in thousands of theatres, be watched by lakhs of fans and garner crores in terms of money. So much so that all it takes for the TFI is to take the same mediocre plotpoints & screenplay (heck in some cases even most of the technicians remain the same) and change the leading faces of either gender on the film poster and Voila, you’ve a new blockbuster. Its almost like the bundles of Maruti Altos being spewed off the factories in Gurgaon everyday only to be swept off the showroom floors within hours, except only the Alto is a good car to reckon with. If these schematics make you think on the lines of a good stock to invest in that’ll never let you down at the nifty, my dear friend, you’re very very close to my idea. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">There’s a nascent theme doing the rounds on the independent film circuit in Hollywood and elsewhere. Its called Crowd Sourcing and it involves letting people invest in percentages into a film that one is going to make. The entire budget for the film (which isn’t usually huge, since most of these projects are Indie efforts) is pooled in from investors who’re usually anybody from a hardcore film enthusiast to a layman interested in a profitable business venture. Based on however the film does on the commercial scene, the revenues are shared back with the investors. Now, take this concept and overlay it onto the present TFI scenario with all the formulaic sure-shot blockbusters juxtaposed with a little tinkering in the form of basic stock market economics. What if a certain portion of the financial liability (say 50%) that goes into making one of these Telugu films is split into stocks and sold off to potential investors through a public issue. Prospective investors (okay, fans of the stars in the flick, and every other crazy movie lover, the kind which isn’t exactly rare in TFI) would buy these stocks as it suits them and this money shall then go into producing the flick along with the usual production budgets. Advantage: Puffed up budgets leading to more grandiosity in the so called ‘formulae‘ that contribute to these flicks’ success. As these flicks are going to be inflating the box-offices anyways, the revenues are going to be multifold of the initial production budget. Now putting basic stock marketing sense into the picture, every stock holder gets back a percentage wise share of the film’s revenues pertaining to what he bought the stocks for. Presto! There you have a profit!</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">All we need is to set up an organization that handles stocks of films in production and the crowd sourcing and profit sharing activities. Given the sheer number of people involved in the film making business and the rate at which this number manifests itself by the day, this isn’t a very daunting task. Secondly, this idea works in more ways than one can imagine. For one, writer-directors can finally let go of the myth that they are actually working on Cinema and realize for good that they’re just working cogs of a business mechanism, given the entire profit making hoopla that shall fill the air. Also, our stars can finally renounce any pretense of working for cinema and happily call themselves businessmen. Cinema goers who have braved the consequences of Telugu cinema’s banality can finally justify the worth of the typical exorbitant multiplex ticket by buying stocks in the films that they’d planned to watch. At a more advanced stage in this concept, stocks can be classified into departmental stocks, say, acting, music, special effects etc. So based on the number of stocks and the rates at which they go out, audiences can themselves decide if they want four actresses against their favorite star in the next flick or exactly which law of physics they’re expecting their star to defy. Filmmakers can safely ditch their publicity budgets as the stockholders shall make sure they drag themselves and their entire family trees to watch the movies. Stockholders can form a rapid action team to contribute profusely to the hapless anti-piracy movement currently active. Fan clubs can have access to special stock prices, stock holders can have free passes to audio release functions and free tickets to first day ‘benefit’ shows. Heck, the stock holders can be exempted from paying entertainment tax. Bless me, see how novel and noble my idea gets as I unfold it!</span></span><br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-cQym0t_QdAw/UXPsWEo2UwI/AAAAAAAAHlY/UtI2Lje0MUU/s1600/Tollywood.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-cQym0t_QdAw/UXPsWEo2UwI/AAAAAAAAHlY/UtI2Lje0MUU/s320/Tollywood.jpg" width="226" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Thence I propose! “Crowd-sourced stock-marketed Telugu Cinema” or in short "The Tollywood Mutual Fund" – a plan that’s gonna herald a new era for Telugu Cinema; and in doing so, shall actually benefit the worn out community that the TFI audience is, by making them rich! </span></span></div>
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Shasank Aventador Nagavarapuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13642426560470370600noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7168876344179247938.post-31138556206494735652012-09-19T09:05:00.002-07:002015-02-27T17:49:14.059-08:00beyond reviews.......Rockstar!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;">"Beyond the conceptual right and wrong, in a field far far away; I'll see you there love!" - Rumi</span></h2>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;">in short.........an experience I was completely enthralled with, so much so to the pinnacles of elation, that I was yelling expletives in the theatre......an experience I was afraid to go through again, coz I believe I'd breakdown and cry......an experience 4 which I'd prostrate b4 Imtiaz Ali, AR'God'R and Ranbir.........Rockstar! Now if that can make up for a satisfying review which might make atleast a few others want to watch the movie in an appreciative sense, then I'll proceed with discussing the finer nuances of this film and not 'review' it as such......</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;">.....to briefly enumerate my reasons for writing this blog, this movie is quite probably a symbol of an epitome of directorial creativity that Indian cinema can accost. It is an amalgamation of the finest in the trades of music, production design, editing, cinematography, script writing, narrative, montage cuts, character studies and the art of equipping cinema with those unsaid yet emphatic emotions. This movie was quite possibly a very dear work for Imtiaz Ali, who is an ace at portraying the finer nuances of love and the eccentricities involving present day relationships. This movie has one of the finest OSTs ever rendered by Academy and Grammy award winning composer A.R.Rahman. Above all, many viewers (particularly, self assumed critics who repeatedly panned it) completely missed the point with this flick. Though I'd not avow that I'd stood in the shoes of Imtiaz while understanding this film, I did manage, from my chosen vantage point, to be mesmerized by this cinematic experience and here I wish to ponder all about it verbally!</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;"> There is a quote headlining this blog. Though I slightly altered the way its translated to fit the context of my blog, that quote can nevertheless stand to be the pilot essence of this movie. That and a few other hues embrace this film and make it enticing, and yet definitely a bit bemusing to comprehend. Possibly this is where many people took away all the wrong messages from this film. People thought its a movie about a frustrated rock star who dresses like a character from an Arabian nights fable and dooms his career due to his insolence. As an outcry, let me bandy that this film is not merely a biographical account but rather it is a discourse on the juxtaposition of enigmas that any simple human experiences as a part of his life. These enigmas include love, liberty, freedom, intimacy, loneliness, ambition, success, anger, vengeance, peace and above all, self realization! Embedded in the representation of all these emotions inside a character in this movie, as a supporting layer, is a subtle yet catechismic hint to Rumi's quote. Maybe it simply tugs at one's heart saying, lets just leave whats right and wrong for a moment; lets not justify; lets just converse with one's innerself and one's only primary love; in a field alien to everything else in this world! On this afterthought in the movie, those several enigmas I mentioned earlier are impinged, fighting for space of their own, just like they do in anybody's life. First there is love, a feeling that is definitely like no other, and the moments of being close to that one person, the moments of being alone yearning for their hands to be in yours', the moments of loneliness, and the flashflood of memories that consistently haunt a heart in love. This flick is a portrait for love; And Liberty, the priciest possession for any human, and its celebration in the petty little things that we do to spice up life. And anger, which is actually second to none! This flick betokens the anger that we have hidden behind our affected mirth; anger towards a life that has bounded us owing to its cession to predefined directions and orders; anger towards ourselves for not grabbing the right to take life into our hands when chance presented itself. And finally, ambition; and the pinnacle of a human's capacity in his quest to beeline to his destiny.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;"> Imtiaz might have chosen to tell this through an artist's life because I believe, typically artists can achieve thoughts and emotions that are a notch or two above what we mere mortals can fathom! When an artist is out there in his realm, creating work </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;">out of mere vacuum </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;">that shall be remembered for centuries , he is conversing with divinity in its absolute sense. Thence, when an artist lands out of that elevated mood into the conventional world, he turns out a misfit and either absorbs himself in the finer nuances of life like love or contends persistently with the boundaries that life may exert upon him. The resulting omnipresent intensity in an artists life has been Imtiaz' basic tool in his attempt to capture on cinema, the essence I dwelled upon previously.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;"> Technically speaking, when you turn an imagination into cinema, you first capture that into a frame. Then these frames are run with time according to a specific logic called as the plot and a structure called as the screenplay, music, dialogues and other technical work is blended in, and a motion picture is generated.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;">Yet, each one of these frames depicts in its own language, a point of time, an emotion, a premise, plot and particularly, a definitive moment! It is customary in conventional cinema to have the plot define the sequence of these frames. Worse still, in certain diffusive cases of Indian Cinema, a character or the actor playing that character is the defining fulcrum for this sequence of frames, a practice we understand to be "Heroism". Generally, there's a simple way to look at this; assuming you have a Point A to Paint B tale you wish to talk about, you shoot a few scenes, cut and paste them together in a sequence, and there, you have your movie. But when the elements you have at hand are emotional debates, musical sojourns, romantic escapades</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;"> and essentially a majority of illusions that life throws at us, that too, an artists life no less, this very premise shatters the credibility of a conventional style of making cinema. One may try break the above premise into several cinematic moments but when the moments, the whole lot of them, are deep and intense, it gets
extremely difficult to run these moments (& frames) subsequently,
linearly and chronologically.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;"> Thus, Imtiaz chooses a very ingenious style of breaking his entire concept into episodes, one for each vertex of the essence that I spoke of earlier. Then instead of employing a linear framework, he chooses to cut, interpolate and extrapolate between various moments of the protagonist's life that appeal to the concerned vertex and fuse them into scintillating montages, quite frequently aided by the haunting OST, where each track is dedicated to one of these specific vertices. Again, these episodes rarely follow chronology and are abstractly juggled along the movie's timeline. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;">Also, seldom has music, deft editing and striking imagery come
together so aptly as they have in Rockstar to make the numerous
montages. These montages sprawled across at several parts of the movie, are the very essence of Imtiaz' narrative for Rockstar as they embody for each episode, what it wishes to say, cut across time, space and general cinematic convention. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;">Here sense doesn't take centerstage. Emotion does! </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;"> If the montages garner the movie with a sublimity, it is the music that effectively gives these montages their innate beauty. Infact, the film's music is in itself an alter ego to Imtiaz' concept. One might wonder if, in usual fashion, Imtiaz sketched out the kind of music he needed and then commissioned the same to ARR or for a change, based on a simple set of ideas, ARR made the music and then, the entire flick was shot around the OST to justify what each track tried to tell. The way the movie's shot and the music complement each other like a perfect rainy sunday afternoon and a cup of warm green tea on the porch. It is factual that out of the many albums Oscar & Grammy bagging Rahman composes for, largely in south India, hardly do directors tend to meet up to what visual spectacles one comes to expect of the movie based on the album. Mani Ratnam, a scion of Modern Indian cinema, who regularly partners with Rahman, is the only other guy who's been adept at taking the albums with enough grandeur to the silver screen. About the album itself, much has been said and done, with it raking up almost every other music award that has been conceived in 2011, and I needn't dwell on much here save for saying that its another heady mix of genres like Rock, Ethnic Bhangra, Blues, Sufi, Opera and the occasional Rahman riff raff that transcends a genre or two in an experimental sense. However, I'd like to contend the several arguments that the so-called 'critics' meted out debasing the movie's album saying it were not "Rock" enough for a film titled 'Rockstar' and that ARR was not the ideal guy to get a Rock album out of! Now that I've already established the way the OST bolsters this flick's narration, I only have to reiterate myself that the album was essentially composed to go with the various episodes in the plot and to not be a Rock/Punk/Metal album that you can pick off the shelves. This album is about a lifetime; not the discography of an emerging street Rock band. Further, spare me the eloquence of going gaga all over about Rahman's achievements. He is truly a musician who has taken the rulebook and shattered its very roots. His gargantuan trophy cabinet notwithstanding, Rahman has collaborations with people of the magnitude of Hans Zimmer, Mick Jagger, Dave Stewart, Dido and has composed for several 'ceremonies', the recent examples being the 2012 Academy Awards OST and the 2012 London Olympics opening (which was incidentally directed by Danny Boyle, another of Rahman's cinematic partners). Not only does Rahman have the zest for music to have begun and successfully run till date, the KM Music Conservatory, the only one of its kind in India, but also he still retains the prodigious enthusiasm to sample new instruments and artists with every new album. The Rockstar album sees a collaboration with ace guitarist Orianthi for "Sadda Haq", whose CV spells out works with the likes of Michael Jackson, Van Halen, Joe Satriani, David Garrett, etc. In any case, the psechedelic rock reminiscent bass notes from "Jo Bhi Main" or the incredible leads from "Naadaan Parindey" are 'Rock' enough to qwell anti-rock allegations.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;"> The third major figure after Imtiaz & ARR in the making of this flick definitely has to be Ranbir Kapoor. An actor, whose increasingly being known for his choice of scripts and his gradual yet remarkable acquisition of mature acting skills, Ranbir portrays Janardhan/Jordan to the T with transcending body language, dialogue and expression as the plot takes the character through several highs and lows. Credit should go to the way he'd let Imtiaz employ him in the different tinctures that he envisioned. One interesting fact is that Ranbir allegedly learnt to play the guitar so that he may not fake and falter with the movements of his fingers on the fretboard in the several close-up shots of Jordan's concerts that the script demands. Take that for a dedicated artist! As Barfi, Ranbir's next film receives much critical acclaim currently, more so for his action, I think its time I extol him as one of the pivots around which modern Indian Cinema shall turn around.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;"> Now let me move on from the zigzag screenplay and the editing, to the little details that make up a great narrative and boy, is this flick filled with them. Often, the greatest directors don't churn out blockbusters or movies that defy earthly logic and aim for a larger than life experience. They deal with humane subjects that form a part of anybody's everyday life, yet their directorial charm lies in the little details and events that help in connecting the audiences to the characters and moments on the screen. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;"> Look at the nifty way Imtiaz chose to cut from a concert in Verona with a distraught Jordan to the Janardhan of Hindu College, Delhi auditioning for a petty chance, the character is in his element in either frame, with the guitar and his ballad and only diffracted by time and its wrath on the artists' soul. And then, in a recapitulating tone, Imtiaz returns to the same moment in Verona at the end, aided by montages to juxtapose these two moments.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;">In this frame below, a very fast paced montage is halted and the camera pans melodiously as the words "Phir Se Udh Chala" (I've taken flight again) go by. Emphatically fitting, as the director wants the audience to take a moment off from the song and actually reverberate in Jordan's feeling of flying high in love; in the imagination of a past moment with Heer. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;">I saw a promo for the track "Kun Faaya Kun" and this image stuck in my mind ever since. As a worn out, and nomadic Janardhan calls out for a direction in his life, and suddenly finds it through music and the name of God, can the portrayal be any better than this frame where he looks out to the sky for a rendezvous with God? Does this happen to us? </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;">Little details rejuvenate this movie. Be it the "Rock for Peace" logo on Jordan's helmet as he rides with Heer in complete tranquility;</span><br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-QMtUa9MIEgU/UFnpOApKwuI/AAAAAAAAHLY/7OhuEaSE9Rg/s1600/vlcsnap-2012-09-19-18h57m23s66.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-QMtUa9MIEgU/UFnpOApKwuI/AAAAAAAAHLY/7OhuEaSE9Rg/s200/vlcsnap-2012-09-19-18h57m23s66.png" height="85" width="200" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;">or the duel between two people judging what's right in Love in a deserted Prague at dawn, shown with much ambiguity in this masked camera angle; </span><br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-JnQ6r0MSnuw/UFnpiQ1YxzI/AAAAAAAAHLg/H09ma2kzoTw/s1600/vlcsnap-2012-09-19-19h05m06s131.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-JnQ6r0MSnuw/UFnpiQ1YxzI/AAAAAAAAHLg/H09ma2kzoTw/s200/vlcsnap-2012-09-19-19h05m06s131.png" height="85" width="200" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;"> </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;">or the little talk Jordan gives about a flock of birds in angst in the middle of "Sadda Haq";</span><br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-oRlHZH-R7VA/UFnqHx4hH5I/AAAAAAAAHLo/UwDrIZnQ0uc/s1600/vlcsnap-2012-09-19-19h05m50s91.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-oRlHZH-R7VA/UFnqHx4hH5I/AAAAAAAAHLo/UwDrIZnQ0uc/s200/vlcsnap-2012-09-19-19h05m50s91.png" height="85" width="200" /></a></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;"> or how blithe he's found singing amidst sex workers; who might actually be reflecting his anguish and quest for peace; </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;">or how Heer revels in the complacency of having conceived Jordan's seed inside herself; as if her life is complete then;</span><br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KpxkmTKg29g/UFnq9pKiOnI/AAAAAAAAHL4/-tcaMPj751w/s1600/vlcsnap-2012-09-19-19h09m08s32.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KpxkmTKg29g/UFnq9pKiOnI/AAAAAAAAHL4/-tcaMPj751w/s200/vlcsnap-2012-09-19-19h09m08s32.png" height="85" width="200" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;">or Jordan's cliched yet quintessential middle fingered reply to the shackles the world has for him;</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;">or Jordan's reckoning of himself; his music; his life as he his guitar's engulfed in flames, and him bedraggled in a tub; </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;">or the final rendezvous with Heer's spirit, which one might wonder could be the real solace his soul could have ever wanted. I have a second perceptive for this frame out of sheer haplessly romanticized optimism. May be it was not Heer's spirit. Maybe, she sprang back to life and this is just Jordan's psychic revelation of the same fact. Maybe, they lived happily ever after; In my take, the answer is left for the viewer, whatever he may choose it to be!</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;"> On a footnote, Imtiaz collated supreme technical excellence rendered by the best from the Industry (cinematography, editing, etc) and some deeply influential artistic work produced by truly gifted artists (the literature, for instance) for his masterpiece. He took a strong essence; one which is equally bemused and wise; one which is absurdly simple and strikingly complex; and portrayed it with supreme gusto, aided by phenomenal work from A.R.Rahman and Ranbir Kapoor. Rockstar, in my opinion, shall remain among the greatest of films I've watched, one which has managed to truly shatter me. A film that was hugely mistaken by public opinion and an art work that needs to be seriously reconsidered. In the diminutive experience I've had in life, I've had the fortune to fall in love, endured angst and pain, faced the questions about Life that are so reflected in Rockstar! Yet, Life goes on mellow and I can be more than happy someone out there stepped forward to make this movie and I thank the makers for that!</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;"> P.S. - Irrelevant as it sound here, but I digress a little to dedicate this blog to the plethora of artists that have left us to an eternal space waiting for them elsewhere. That includes the mighty 27 club, artists who could not see a 28th year on Earth, giants like Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain, Jimi Hendrix, Amy Winehouse; and others whom we have so much adored alike, Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson, etc. Maybe for the divinity in their art, their ecstatic self reverberance when they're in their element performing, for their immense courage in questioning the confinement of our civilization and for their sense of infinite liberty, this world, physically, was too constrained for them. Maybe they just had to spread their wings and take flight! </span></div>
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Shasank Aventador Nagavarapuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13642426560470370600noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7168876344179247938.post-2320423662523064782012-08-31T08:39:00.004-07:002012-08-31T08:43:29.856-07:00Directors you ought to know: Guy Ritchie<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">British filmmakers have
always had a special place in Hollywood. From Nolan's intellect to Boyle's
narrative, each Brit filmmaker has had a unique way of making a mark for
UK on the screen. In the same league I would like to write about one of my
favorites - goes by the name Guy Ritchie.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Ritchie started off with
a bang. "Lock, stock and 2 smoking barrels" and "Snatch." Ritchie's movies are known
for their fast-paced, action packed rollercoaster rides. Having a central
focus on crime capers, Ritchie makes deft use of character-central shots (how
the camera is never off-set from the character but is central to the viewer), his indulgence
on flash cuts and tight controlled zooms. There have been some vague
similarities between his and Tarantino's style - His apparent indulgence
to weave out the story with quirky pacy editing have enthralled movie goers
both the regular viewer and critic alike. Movies with the legendary dry and
witty Brit humor - essentially in a sense that is NOT too loud but not
subtle either, but very appealing to the movie-watcher, like a connoisseur
able to enjoy a sip of centuries old wine every time he looks at the
scene. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">If L2SB was about four
friends having to pay off half a million pounds to avoid facing a mob boss's
wrath, Snatch follows two parallel plots -that of a huge diamond - the
subject of a heist and the other one following a upcoming boxing promoter
trying to stamp his ground in unlicensed boxing. Both these movies have well
defined characters of depth, with interweaving storylines combined with
Ritchie's whiplash kind of storytelling. Whilst L2SB had a relatively
unknown cast (Jason Statham was a newcomer in late 90s), Snatch had an ensemble
cast and did most of its part right, essentially hitting the right notes,
albeit drawing a heavy influence from the former. Both the movies have
well etched gangsters with struggling protagonists alongwith a right proportion
of dull-witted criminals adding to the humor.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">If there is one
essential thing that is a huge characteristic of Ritchie movies - it has to be
the unique camera and editing. STYLE has to be Ritchie's middle name. All
characters in his movies have sufficient style and substance, and Ritchie
relies on his kinky sense of narrative to seamlessly blend in different
parallel plots together with the help of concocting stylized editing.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">I would like to bring
forth how effectively he has used music and editing to bring out an analogy.
For instance, in a scene from the blockbuster 'Snatch' , a couple of goons
chase a man whom they catch eventually, while in another parallel sequence
a rabbit is seen escaping the clutches of 2 rabid dogs - all this quite
enjoyably constructed making it for a fine viewing experience. Whilst many
such sequences have their own saucy appeal, the beauty of Ritchie's movies
lie in their originality, like a blast of fresh British panache reminiscent of
quirky unconventional cinema.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">So why do you have to
watch Guy Ritchie's movies ? Let me get this straight. Ritchie's movies
are far from serious. It is not just another crime drama and far far away
from the Michael Mann types. Sure, you may never see say - Al Pacino or
DeNiro in a Ritchie movie, but if you are looking for something far away from
the usual, say have a simple </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">plot but mix it up with
a slew of characters having style-induced depth to them alongwith saucy
editing, cockeneyed slang and sarcastic Brit humor, then you will
definitely NOT be disappointed.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">The last 2 Sherlock
series have a bit of commercialization, in a sense when you have a big studio
to back you up, you get talented actors like Downey Jr. and Jude Law you
better deliver the goods. Ritchie's movies have moved away from the sense
of direction redolent of his first two, and it is as good if not better. Ritchie's
reliance on editing as well as giving huge importance to well-defined
one-on-ones between the 2 central characters have their own charm with Downey
effectively carrying out witty conversations with his own characteristic sense
of nonchalant humor. Ritchie's sense of direction have combined well with
Downey's acting and Sherlock has turned out into an enjoyable viewing experience,
something I doubt any other director would have brought out so effectively,
given that the conventional comic book Sherlock Holmes was a detective par
excellence and the sense of mystery has been brought out wonderfully in
the movies, which I am sure any Holmes fan would agree with me.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">On a finishing note, Guy
Ritchie is a director a serious cinema lover ought to know about, and L2SB and
Snatch are right up there followed by RocknRolla and now the Sherlock
Series. In short, his movies are worth every single Mb on your HDD.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;"> - Prash</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Prash's musings can be found on "Distorted Pandemonium" @ prashslash.wordpress.com </span></div>
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Shasank Aventador Nagavarapuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13642426560470370600noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7168876344179247938.post-38977509357199896292012-08-31T08:31:00.001-07:002012-08-31T08:31:49.479-07:00Guest Blogging!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Well behold a new "Got Groove"!......in my attempt to make this page go absolutely viral and pull in more enthusiast's to the healthy debate on movies and music that this page is essentially prevalent for, a Facebook page by the same name has been born; and so is the new-look Got Groove! In a nifty collage I pay a solemn tribute to the amazing directors of yore who have brought forward cinematic masterpieces over the time in ways mere moviegoers have not fathomed to be possible. The list is never ending, yet I tried to encompass a decent breadth of an enumeration while I'm at it. Updates shall be thrown in timely and so has been a simple Indian twist which you'll find on close observation! Apart from this, there's a new feature that might put this page truly on the mainstream. Guest Blogging! In a series called "Directors you ought to know", let me introduce my dear friend and avid movie aficionado, Prashant Rajan a.k.a Lee a.k.a Prash, as he goes gaga over Guy Ritchie's work! That shall be the next post on GotGroove. Hope you'll like it as I shall bring forth more from him and several such bloggers abound. Enjoy the reads and bookmark this page for more! </div>
Shasank Aventador Nagavarapuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13642426560470370600noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7168876344179247938.post-3513150983936196592012-06-07T10:09:00.002-07:002012-06-07T10:09:21.046-07:00Super Song Thaman!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
..........as I write this, a track from one of Thaman's latest "Love Failure" called "Intezaare" is playing in my headphones. Headphones, yes, emphasize that....thats because if you have to truly appreciate Thaman's work, you need to dwell deep into the music, with a hint of focus and a pinch of musical know-how! Putting on a pair of good headfones is the best way to do that. A taste for melody & classy beats surely helps!<br />
If a bit of gyaan wouldn't offend, let me quote from Wiki that Thaman has practically worked under all the music composers that contemporary Telugu Cinema has come to know. The late Chakravarty garu, the Maestro Ilayaraja, DSP, Chakri, Keeravani, Raj-Koti.... the works. A major addition to his training came under Manisharma, a composer much known for his grip on various instrumentations and expert sound engineering, for a good part of 6 years! I have googled this info before beginning this blog, only to add some solidarity to my impression of Thaman. With that much experience, one can surely be pardoned for expecting him to deliver some amazing music. And deliver, he does, in absolute profundity!<br />
Of late, Thaman has become a household name in both the Tamizh and Telugu Film industries for scoring the soundtracks of big and quality productions. He has shot to sudden and stupendous popularity! Typically in the Telugu Film Industry, this has happened time and again. Earlier there were Raj-Koti & Keeravani who dominated the soundcharts. Then, the modern & perfect mix of classy and massy beats of Manisharma took over for a good span of time(More on this in my other blog about Manisharma). DSP proved his mettle in melody for quite sometime before mainstream demand sadly turned his lore into run-of-the-mill and bane. Chakri has always filled in the gaps and has also been dominant to an extent but his music is far from what I usually favour. However, the trend of one major composer being indomitable has been intact. Sadly, that often led to the glitter in their very compositions fading off. Thankfully Thaman proved to be the odd one out to be cracking this cliche!<br />
Not to my surprise, many among the audiences, who usually overlook the finer nuances of music making, have dished out Thaman's music to be repetitive & monochromatic. Often acronyms like Same Song Thaman(for S.S.Thaman) have been attached to his name. Many a sophisticated aspects of his music are completely ignored and in general, the music is underrated. "Too classy" is what some pretentious music critics claim. I beg to differ though and that, alongside a general appreciation for his work, is the reason for this blog here. Let me indulge you more into the finer rivulets that make up the beautiful slipstream that his music is!<br />
A practice now common with major mainstream composers is an aversion to the use of musical instruments as they were. Compositions of recent times have gained a flavour of techno-gadgetry as most of the sounds, even those of fundamentally bespoke instruments, are usually created using electronic instruments, or the electronic iterations of the bespoke instruments. Furthermore, a myriad varieties of modern electronic instruments are invented every other day & are put to use by composers, technicians, sound engineers, DJs, etc. To a major extent, this trend has led to music being repetitive and banal, with the sounds often redundant. A lack of simple yet charming melody and any whiff of sophisticated arrangements is another repulsive factor here. However, this is absolutely the tricky & 'turn-around' point of Thaman's music. What's interesting is the way he uses these very electronic gadgetry to create fresh and new sounds that are truly enjoyable. Essentially, all such electronic experimentation in his music is perfectly timed and corresponds with the other elements to give a wholesomely good effect. This has always been apparent with his tracks right from Kick's 'Dhim Thana' to the recent Ishtam's 'Yenmelu Indru'.<br />
To complement these electronic sounds, Thaman usually employs brilliant sound engineering methods and musical arrangements that portray an acquired taste. Well constructed bass is always a given while the rhythms in the undertones (through keyboards or otherwise) are always special, subtle in places to emphasize the ambience of the song while predominant in other occasions to announce an onslaught of gorgeous melody! Striking examples of this are the tracks 'Dhinaku Dhin' from Mirapakay or 'Guruvaram/Adaragottu' from Dookudu. In alignment with the aforementioned electronic trickery and deft mastery over sound engineering, Thaman establishes an astounding foundation of layers for his compositions. Indeed some soul sprinkling there, as a framework is now left open for the main vocals, the melody and the bolstering instrumentation to take over.<br />
Talk of instruments is not consummate here if a word or two is not shared about Thaman's work on percussions. While he does excel in his placement of pieces extracted from instruments of different types, ranging; from all of the stringed entities to all of the keyboarded entities, from all of the percussions to all of the blow horns; it is his daring experimentation with percussions, both native and foreign that adds a dynamic tinge to his music. This is particularly remarkable when he does fast paced & mass numbers! 'Chandamama' from BusinessMan is textbook material for percussional music with some aspirant experiments there while mass/club tracks like 'Kalasala' from Osthe or 'Tension' from Dookudu are engrossing foot tapping numbers. What bemuses me is how he manages to make mass numbers so sing-worthy which is quite the rarety when it comes to music. Typically, another notable feature is that he lets the instruments garner a certain humble clarity that is simply classy and beautiful. Certainly, this is best observed in songs like 'Yevaro' from Bodygaurd or as earlier mentioned, 'Intezaare' from KSY/Love Failure. To instate it simply, there is no noise!<br />
Yet in many cases, riffs-raffs as are inspired from the genres of hip-hop, electronic & lounge music exist to give the overall sound a distorted effect. However, what stands out is all the applications essentially cohere together. Each song has ONE distinct sound. Now, the final layer that permeates in is the 'vocals' bit, that is often flooded with voices rendered by the best energetic youngsters in the music industry, who've all made their mark with distinct and enjoyable voices. Case in point here is that the vocals carry with them a simple melody which is always catchy. Always hum-able and always plainly beautiful, so much so as to make you wonder where all that solemn melody vanished years ago only to reappear with Thaman's work! Reason enough to keep the playlist repeating, eh?<br />
With whatever nano-levels of musical know-how I could garner, and relying heavily on the 'classy' taste of music I presume I've acquired, this is my contention against the argument debasing Thaman's music. A musician should focus on enjoying himself with his work rather than look at the commercial levels of achievement it has gathered. Thaman definitely feels like the boy who stayed back in the chemistry lab just to have fun with the acids & bases (and possibly, and rather quite ignorantly, blow himself up!) not because the teacher (here, the producers) imposed him to.<br />
Thankfully today though, demand for his music persists as movie makers, with an eye for quality, exist. Much is owed to the experience & understanding of these people with respect to music. I can happily say I'm not alone in the camp then! Here's to the melody, the beat & the occasional electronic riff-raff then, Thaman!<br />
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</div>Shasank Aventador Nagavarapuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13642426560470370600noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7168876344179247938.post-81852881057311880802012-04-01T00:25:00.000-07:002012-04-01T00:25:14.094-07:002011's finest - The finer colors in Bollywood's Canvas!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
........Well, to be fairly honest, a significant amount of work at college and a significant amount of laziness at work have put me away from being the keen movie enthusiast that I'd been......that and a dearth for theatres or mismatch in launch timings with my schedules and I'd left myself quite some catching up to do with the releases in Indian Cinema, specially from the *olly-woods of Telugu & Tamil for a major part of 2011........however, scouring through my memory, I managed to put up a list of the better Hindi ones of 2011, that have quite helped in retaining Indian Cinema's coming of age scene. Shortly, 2011 did manage to stage a platform for a lot of well scripted hyperlink movies, a genre I have a soft spot for, however, to dwell more into details, the list, not particularly in chronological order, is as follows....<br />
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<li><i>Shaitaan</i> - well now, it has become customary(thankfully) for the small cult of fresh & inspiring movie makers that has been founded & propagated by Anurag Kashyap and to a major extent now, produced by him, to shell out one properly good movie every year. It includes cast that has been spawned by him onto one of his earlier ventures, all talented newbies in the film fraternity, exceptional cinematography with principles imported from some of the finest from around the world, catchy OSTs that just rejuvenate an already well planned and scripted storyline! It is indeed ironic of me to begin the list with this Bejoy Nambiar directed venture, which I've not yet seen, but from what all I've garnered through reviews, tweets and promos, this is definitely one worthy addition to that cult!</li>
<li><i>Delhi Belly</i> - if not to generate a stylish cult following, trying in his own way to produce quality cinema and garnering huge applaud from a wider audiences for his efforts in return is Aamir Khan. So much so that it almost tempts me to plead the Bachchans, & the other mighty Khans to learn a thing or two from him & his tastes. Albeit for a sense of 'acceptability' that his brigade has shown so far, this year Aamir Khan productions has gone the whole hog and started experimenting with cinema for the good of, well, cinema itself! This one stands out to be one of the best dark sarcastic comedies I've ever witnessed in Indian Cinema, with svelte dialogue(yes, expletives included), acerbic yet rib tickling screenplay & some of the most striking cinematographic trysts you would come across! With a tongue in cheek-ish OST too, I cant recollect another classy sarcastic hindi comedy where I was losing my bowels out of sheer laughter!</li>
<li><i>Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara</i> - well this one was a cliche, albeit one that you dont find in the Indian Cinema front. A classic well shot romantic comedy 'travelogue'. It has all the ingredients going for it.....Spain, 3 childhood friends meeting, before one of them's getting married, for a long time re-union, some adventure sports, classic cars, 2 beautiful women who walk into the story, lots of tango and senoritas, d legendary tomantina & the bull run! It also has all the spot-on cinematic ingredients, Zoya Akhtar's deft direction & screenplay, Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy's beautiful OST, marvellous cinematography that Spain, in every inch and ounce, deserves, some crisp editing, dialogue & a stereotypical(albeit nice) storyline. For starters, for a class-movie-starved Indian cinematic scene, this brilliantly works & it worked! What also tugged at my heart more is a slightly superior notch in subtlety when it came to some of the screenplay, some of the OST's integration, (specially when characters had to overcome their fears, apprehensions & rediscover themselves...the splendour of the scenes only emphasized by Javed Akhtar's poetry) & amazing renditions by Farhan Akhtar & Hrithik Roshan</li>
<li><i>Saheb, Biwi Aur Gangster</i> - what grabbed me with this sinister tale of love, betrayal, revenge & caprice is the casting. Somehow, it struck a unique chord with the set of people on board for this project that it just embellishes the dialogue, screenplay and above all, the performances, more so, to be in fine tune with the story & the director's vision. Randeep Hooda, the quintessential crook is the only cliche among the lead trio, where Mahie Gill and Jimmy Shergill bring in a very fresh wickedness to the whole scene, that I've seldom enjoyed elsewhere. The movie is unrefined by a slight margin yet boasts of good cinematography and has the novelty of pristine wild locations & dialogue!</li>
<li><i>Shor in the City</i> - To begin with a humble disclaimer, despite this being made by a set of young brilliant asst.directors from the Telugu Film Industry who happened to mesmerize me through an erstwhile Telugu hit, I impartially liked this film for its content and some very intriguing screenplay. The domineering screenplay, closely aided by brilliant cinematography and decent background score take this quintessential hyperlink drama to a sizzling level. In scenes like, when they prevent a kid from grabbing an exposed bomb or when the NRI grabs his chance to shoot the goons who've been pesking him, you are left gasping aloud, for they have been shot with utmost intensity. It does have underlying implications of dark humour, & is very much a tantalizing drama!</li>
<li><i>Not Another Love Story </i>- RGV, a real crime-love story that recently came into light, Bollywood & the casting couch; & dead bodies cut into 'several' pieces! The perfect recipe for a classic Indo-noir thriller! Of late, it has become customary 'not' to expect a good movie from the RGV camp but if you look at it closely, those directed by himself have been truly scorchers for RGV & thriller fanatics in common(more on this in my other blog about RGV!) Interestingly, RGV tries experimenting with some other touches in this flick like montages, freeze frame shots & dark eroticism. As a final touch, trust Mahie Gill (who is seemingly becoming a noir favourite of mine) to oomph up things in just the right amount! </li>
<li><i>Rockstar</i> - there was noir, there was sarcastic comedy, there was good drama & there were hyperlink movies! As an outcry to all the finely established genres that Bollywood tried embracing last year(with much success too), Imtiaz Ali, gave us this! Perplexing, intriguing, fascinating, charming & bedazzling to me, I was so impressed that I'd scripted a blog as an ode to this flick. So I'll save the accolades for elsewhere and briefly enumerate what all you should be watching this movie for! - Ranbir Kapoor, the music, the montages, production designing, the jagged screenplay, cinematography & above all, the intensity. The sheer intensity! Perfectly helps if you've loved (and lost too!)</li>
<li><i>That Girl In Yellow Boots</i> - to be honest, I had humongous expectations for this one, which also falls into the erstwhile mentioned Anurag Kashyap genre of Indian films, what with its astounding critical acclaim at the Sundance Film Festival, Anurag's passionate homework & his dedicated casting of his wife & now, an acquired actor, Kalki. However, I surmise poor financing is the issue, the movie was a bit low on production values. Interestingly, the movie utilizes that to a raw-unfinished effect that emphasizes the undertone of an edgy intriguing thriller with a shocking revelation at the very end. Everything else appends to this rawness, shaky yet focused cinematography, flimsy dialogue & an OST derived from the forgotten hinterlands of India. In her silence, desperate and longing gazes, restlessness and patience in equal measures, Kalki revels and is a treat to watch. All the other unrefined bits, I surmise, are intentional!</li>
<li><i>Dhobighat(Mumbai Diaries)</i> - For purist cinema goers & drama lovers who look for characters that aren't shallow and a plot that is layered with connections, hyperlinks & intimations, this is pop-corn material! A slow, sublime drama basing itself on a set of beautifully portrayed characters(much credit goes to the careful casting & the actors themselves) and nicely timed screenplay make it a riveting watch. Another good part is the way B/W & color cinematography(which also happens to be textbook purist material) are interspersed; it helps in layering the different stories vertically thus letting one comprehend and empathize with them well. Kiran Rao's debut venture is truly very thoughtful, sophisticated and pleasant! And yep, this comes from the Aamir Khan camp, and with that,another note of appreciation has to go to the only Khan of bollywood who's dedicated to quality cinema, the way it should be!</li>
<li><i>7 Khoon Maaf</i> - I dont want to be stereotyping a very nascent revolution of good movies in Bollywood already, but variety and similarity has me in a helpless state. As for this one, it falls into the Vishal Bhardwaj genre of cinema, which has over the time(okay, since d last 6-7 years) proved its worth. This is a man of miracle and exceptional talent. And very obviously, true love for cinema. Based on an acclaimed Ruskin Bond novel, this one is a lesson in cinema making! Every little element is so carefully crafted & tailored, that you can only draw comparisons with the finest of works on canvas. The details in the movie, both apparent & non-apparent technical stuff, are meticulously thought out & the exquisite brocade of them is polished with sophistication. Another exceptional point being Vishal's composition which is so befitting. Brilliant visuals, brilliant screenplay, terrific storytelling & Priyanka Chopra's (in my book, after Aishwarya, the best female actor Bollywood has) best performance till date sum it up! Unfortunately it also happens to be a highly forgotten and overlooked film.</li>
</ul>
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The lesser favourites - </div>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><i>I Am</i> - I am yet to watch this acclaimed hyperlink film which took the National Award for best feature film of 2011. Its a sociological drama, involving well written characters & storytelling,with some proven actors on the cast. Going by the early reviews & the award it bagged, it should be a treat to watch!</li>
<li><i>No One Killed Jessica</i> - This one is a thrilling drama, based on d facts of a horrific crime committed in the national capital. Some of the performances in the film are worth noting for, while other good details like d cinematography make it a good watch. The director has lost to the temptation of adding a lot of emotional drama to the flick thus, in my book, slightly condensing the film's snob value. Vidya Balan, the acquired actor, who has proven time and again with her choices that she's a person of taste, delivers well in this, quite contrary to Rani Mukherji.</li>
<li>Tanu Weds Manu - Well before you cry foul, let me agree that this is just another plain jane romantic comedy with an abused story & Kangana Ranaut's over acting antics. Yet for the delicate use of dialogue, screenplay, cinematography and a very compelling OST, it stands out of the crowd as a peaceful watch. And Madhavan is truly adorable as he revels in that innocent character!</li>
<li>The Dirty Picture - Given Ekta Kapoor's other offerings in this year, I was hugely dissappointed with the unrefined way this movie has been treated. It had Vidya Balan bravely taking up a role others wouldnt even ponder, & a sizzling dialogue that left audiences crackling in theatres, yet a level of sophistication was much desired. However, Milan Luthria's interesting narration style, where he consummates the story perfectly at the end in the dialogue, (also seen in Once Upon a Time in Mumbaai) remains!</li>
</ul>
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There you have it....my take on the finest Bollywood movies from last year! Apologies for going over the word limits in certain areas; accolades were surely required. I might have surely missed out a flick or two. Do feel free to append them in your comments, alongside whatever ranting that you might feel like doing. Here's to more from this year & here's to the mere gut of a film maker in a challenging Bollywood to make a good film that he believes in, against all odds!<ul style="text-align: left;">
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P.S: Forgive the over-usage of the word hyperlink. A vocab rookie that I am, I've yet to discover a synonym for the word. Basically these hyperlink films have a set of stories interspersed with each other, each having a connection to the other, yet individual in nature. They usually make for the best of dramas!</div>
</div>Shasank Aventador Nagavarapuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13642426560470370600noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7168876344179247938.post-11364441054432158432011-09-14T07:43:00.000-07:002011-09-14T07:43:17.820-07:00Anthems for Nostalgia!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">As the title says, this little post is surely about those anthems that take you down a road filled with memories from the past, and faint tinges of the flavours from many a reminisces of moments gone by that you'd better have frozen and brought back time and again.....be it for the pain they had that taught u things, the sorrow they brought that strengthened you or the joy they carried that you grope for in every moment now....ever wanted to capture these memories in HD and play them again on your tab.....how amazing would that be!....well, mayn't be "bio-technically" possible for now, but if you would ask for a sublime song that might stir up such an HD panorama in your imagination, then I have a little list for you that might just be right . Here it goes -<br />
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<div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><i style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Enativo Ragalu</i> - <i style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Golconda High School</i><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">/</span><i style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Kalyani Malik</i> - This sublime track, which actually talks of nostalgia with its lovely lyrics, is a definite tread down the road to some childhood memories.....specially, the title line-up in the beginning sequence in the movie being so well shot.........watch it, more so, if you love telugu movies!</li>
</ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><i style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The Drugs Dont Work</i><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"> </span>- <i><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The Verve</span> -<span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></span></i><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">one of the classic numbers of 90s Alternative Rock, falls amongst the greats by RadioHead and others from the 90s scene.....this one, with a mellowy violin base in the background and Richard Ashcroft's voice backed up by some subtle string and drumwork is definitely a good treat!</span></li>
<li><i><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Darling Pretty</span></i> - <span style="font-size: small;"><i><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Mark Knopfler/Dire Straits</span></i></span> - possibly among the greatest rock songs of all time, think rock and melody and this one's surely gonna tick all the right boxes, a myriad set of instruments, strings work being the most titillating, its as beautiful as it says, "its time to go home...". As they say, going home is always beautiful!</li>
<li><i><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Wish You Were Here</span></i> - <i><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Pink Floyd</span></i> - one of my frnds always said, tis song is a perfect respite at d end of a tiring day at work, it takes you to the best moment in the past and induces psychedelia like no other.....in short, inner peace! Well, I reckon, he's right to the core. About the musical jugglery involved in this track?...well, its usual Pink Floyd. Enuf Said!</li>
</ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><i><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Midnight Bottle</span></i> - <i><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Colbie Caillat </span></i>-this one for sure, is about that beautiful night you spent with some vine, on a beach, in the arms of your loved one, which you'd want to go back to like right now. Colbie masters her usual country music notes, a humdrum guitar note and her charming voice for company. Worth shedding a tiny tear with, for that special someone.</li>
<li><i><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Winds of Change</span></i> - <i><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Scorpions</span></i> - that was the best of times, that was the worst of times......this one can perfectly reflect that transition period in your life, which taught you a lot, which had a lot of joy and pain to offer, and which made you what you are today! And yeah, just to spice it all up, throw an amazingly awkward moment shared with some friends! d Best bit abt this song being that enchanting whistle followed by typical enjoyable classic scorpions' stuff!</li>
<li><i><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Mustafa Mustafa</span></i> - <i style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">ARR/Kaadhal Desam</i> - this for most contemporary Indian music afficianados, is the quintessential college-graduation nostalgic song....with very apt lyrics, and soundtrack ranging 4m pure vocal artistry to subtle instrumentation gimmickry to college band gala-ness and ARR's mellowy voice to complete the package.</li>
<li><i><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Lazarus</span></i> - <i style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Porcupine Tree/Weird Anxiety</i> - This is a personal addition 4m one f my experiences - as the hotshot band of my college performed an acoustic version of this on the day of graduation - albeit the actual one shoots a few notches higher with an amazing piano note to keep consistent company to the already truly uplifting vocal tone thats indeed a revelation......one of Ptree's finest indeed!</li>
</ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><i><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Say Hello, Wave GoodBye</span></i> - <i><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">David Grey</span></i> - Another personal addition of mine as it takes me back to a very quick and short, yet a memorable vacation spent back home with my favorite cousins.....this track was perfectly the ode to that time.....subtle, floating in the air only more so with David's emphatic voice and all topped up with a hidden layer of sublime emotions!</li>
</ul>so there you have it, a list that might evoke some emotions and memorabilia.....have a nice cup of coffee or a nicely subtle cocktail for company, on a breezy sunny morning at your porch or at the neighborhood friendly favorite pub on a pleasant evening, respectively?........this list might be the perfect company.......works for me!<br />
<ul style="text-align: left;"></ul></div></div>Shasank Aventador Nagavarapuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13642426560470370600noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7168876344179247938.post-89414384408449399412011-07-29T07:09:00.000-07:002011-07-29T07:09:02.206-07:00Y "Jootha Hi Sahi" works for me!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"> <style type="text/css">
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<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> <span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">More often than not, I'm quite unabashedly the one standing out of the crowd trying to salvage some actually, really good movie or song from astute calumny from the brigade of so-called film reviewer fraternity, atleast that lying within the Indian hinterland. This has led me to lose much prevalent respect for almost all of the Indian Movie Journos save for a very few who still take pleasure in watching and writing about a movie like a purist.</span></div><div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace; margin-bottom: 0in;"> A movie, however bad it might be, takes struggle and effort in its fabrication and usually, save for very exemplary cases, there is atleast one or two aspects of the movie that deserve appreciation. This is a fact seldom realized by the aforementioned fraternity. And hence, I no longer follow them. I decided to invest my quality time rather in watching bits and pieces of another movie than wasting my time on reviews. Save for those by Roger Ebert. And maybe other such greats whom I'm yet to read. Thats because, Ebert leads me onto finding newer movies that nobody else would have even thought of suggesting audiences and thus keeps me engaged onto more, usually, better movies. Which other reviewer of present day would suggest me a F&*k film called “Emmannuelle” just for its colour and other technical jugglery which in fact is amazing! More on Ebert later.</div><div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace; margin-bottom: 0in;"> Albeit a bit verbose than required, the above prologue leads me onto my current slandering of the reviewers in protection of one more recent favourite of mine, Jootha Hi Sahi. A run of the mill, rom-com to many, who casually miss the quaintly subtler and rib tickling yet pleasing aspects of this beautiful romance that for me, beats any loud and brash Dabangg-y flick anyday! When was the last time we saw such a finely crafted romance in Bollywood that also somehow manages to cover up on all other technical aspects? I cant recollect for one, save for Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na, which coincidentally happens to be from the same production house and has most of the crew from the movie on discussion here. </div><div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-7bKc7wQz9xI/TjK-vRn9VQI/AAAAAAAAFvM/mFH6DRyZib8/s1600/220px-Jhoota_Hi_Sahi.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-7bKc7wQz9xI/TjK-vRn9VQI/AAAAAAAAFvM/mFH6DRyZib8/s320/220px-Jhoota_Hi_Sahi.jpg" width="220" /></a></div><div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace; margin-bottom: 0in;"> </div><div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace; margin-bottom: 0in;"> For starters, the movie uses London to such an appeasing effect. London, like many European cities, like Munich, Berlin, Madrid, etc somehow, has this unique way of blending ancient and modern cultures to contrive a certain charm that exudes melancholy, romance and a lot of other emotions just within the spatial ambience. Interestingly, throwing in an Indian Community, an antique Indian book shop run by a knowledgeable guy who stammers in front of beautiful women, a bitchy girlfriend, a girl with a broken heart looking for respite, falsely in the form of death and later on finding it through a friend on telephone, a crazy neighbourhood with a pregnant Pakistani girl and her Japanese boyfriend, and delicate splattering of gay men struggling to find right matches and we have one of the most originally designed characters in Hindi Cinema since Raj and Simran.</div><div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace; margin-bottom: 0in;"> Add on London with all its charm, and we have a slightly cliched yet quite enjoyable stage to deal with. From there on, we have the plain and simple, yet appealing story that portrays all the nuances of a vulnerable guy and girl, who dont think they're good enough for their love interests trying to woo each other and finally finding themselves in each other's arms. There is subtle humour amidst all this, some truly original script and dialogue, which adroitly stays away from the cliché and screenplay that lends for some really fine moments to sit back and actually relish. For instance, isn't the beginning where the protagonist's apartment is introduced amidst classic London neighbourhoods and a Tissot Billboard overlooking, the stuff of classic and artistic cinema? Add to that adept editing and cinematography ensure, whats written on paper has been shown well.</div><div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace; margin-bottom: 0in;"> Particular mention goes to the writer and lead actress Pakhi who has scripted the movie as well as rendered the much needed “beauty in trouble” character to Mishka, in the film. Its indeed refreshing to see an actress so naturally beautiful amidst all the scimpily clad red carpet brigade and then, talented to an amusing effect indeed.</div><div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace; margin-bottom: 0in;"> However, there is nothing really ground breaking about all this, but a much needed vacation with laid back chairs and delicious gourmet in your ancestral home isn't ground breaking either. I hope you get the drift!</div><div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace; margin-bottom: 0in;"> Whats benchmark setting, though, is the OST of the film and the way it has been used in the film. Between gorgeous frames, like the one that kicks off the song Hello Hello or the one that intoduces the aforementioned apartment, and apt screenplay, the OST, in usual A.R.Rahman fashion, adds a subtle charm to where-ever its employed. A deeper literary comment is needed to critique the OST professionally but all one can say is finding the finer aspects of the music is quite a revelation to the ardent music lover. </div><div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace; margin-bottom: 0in;"> I could be a staunch ARR follower yet I've hated to bits certain other movies that he composed music for. My following for the Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na team notwithstanding, for all its subtle yet sparkling bits, for its amazing OST, the quaint yet involving script and screenplay that in situations, one can empathise with, and the lovely characterization and the essential fact that its a romantic comedy (disclaimer alert: I'm not the girly guy who has a penchant for all things that girls like), Jootha Hi Sahi works for me. And as such, any movie with atleast a couple of aspects to watch out for, works for me!</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div></div>Shasank Aventador Nagavarapuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13642426560470370600noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7168876344179247938.post-39792485186610399832011-03-26T12:33:00.000-07:002011-03-26T12:33:38.542-07:00Hipsters!!!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">....dont be baffled by the title as this is no ode to the hippies with those Volkswagen Minibuses and "No War" logos...but actually a listing showing a few pretty cool and funky hip-hop and R &B numbers that have failed to bore me even if it was the gazillionth time I listened to them......<br />
<ul style="text-align: left;"><li><i>Marylin Monroe - ARR</i> - quite technically tailored by ARR with very good melody, nice hip-hop bits, and a very melancholic female voice in the backgrounds!</li>
<li><i>Senorita - Justin Timberlake</i> - much of Timberlake's work has a lot of appreciation, but this one has some of his original Memphis feel where he's still a kid jamming in little pubs and making the local ladies go gaga over his voice, specially the spanish-mexican women from the video.</li>
<li><i>Iragai Pole/Yevan Di Unna Petham - Yuvan Shankar Raja</i> - quite freshly since Yuvan has been trying some proper hip hop numbers and when he found the right tune to match both these wonderful numbers....one, juvenile and the second, menacing!</li>
<li><i>Empire State of Mind - JayZ/Alicia Keys - with a perfect percussion set-up and the charming voice of Alicia comprehending Jay-Z's stylishly scripted raps.....and a befitting dedication to the city of stars and starlets and indeed, the concrete jungle where dreams come true...NYC!</i></li>
<li><i>Umbrella - Rihanna/JayZ - </i>begins with an amazing clash of the cymbals and then takes on with a subtly cool humdrum beat and Rihanna's electric voice....definitely, the limelight shot for Rihanna.........closely followed by her other hits like Disturbia/Hard for supercoolness!</li>
</ul>everytime I feel like Partying or even simply pumping certain energy levels up....my Bose Headfones come out and I put on some of these numbers! You could go ahead and try that too. Dont forget to debate me or add your own spec favourites to that list! Here's to the Bass then.......<br />
<ul style="text-align: left;"></ul></div>Shasank Aventador Nagavarapuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13642426560470370600noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7168876344179247938.post-40264618978927868872011-01-07T23:19:00.000-08:002011-01-07T23:19:44.638-08:00Indian Cinema: and it's coming of age!!!scene #1 - in the backgrounds....the composer going at full force on the entire keyset of the piano from one end to the other......a hero and a heroine (atleast thts wht d protagonists are familiar as) running in utter slow motion and when they meet the camera zooms past to show a pair of flowers shaking hither and thither.......<br />
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scene #2 - a female chorus in the background yelling 'aaa' in stratospherical tones.....clouds and thunders in the sky going berserk as if it were armageddon....clashing waves.....a hurt hero(usually with a gazillion bullets shelled into his abdomen) fighting against the uber-powerful antagonist who never fails to die in the end....and a bunch of the hero's folks praying for him at the nearest temple in full commitment...<br />
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.....till quite sometime, this was what the Indian cinema offered...save for quite a few number of examples that earn deep respects given the age of their making and their being fabulous (read - director specific or actor specific) ........however, of late, with no specific time-line moment depicting this, Indian cinema changed for good. Slowly adapting to better standards of technical work, art and dialogue as well as styles of depiction either by pure original creation or inspiration from the ubiquitous Hollywood or other cinema arenas.....Indian cinema indeed arrived.<br />
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However, this significantly caught my eye particularly in 2010, with either me acquiring a taste in cinema or the arrival of certain examples that proved this fact.<br />
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The holy examples being Vinaithaandi Varuvaaya, Raavan, Udaan, Khaleja, Prasthaanam, Orange, Rakta Charithra 1 & 2, Vedam, et al.....cumulatively for the way they handle simple, rebellious, fundamental and controversial subjects with utmost care, bravery, commitment and finesse......a few highlights on these masterpieces<br />
<ul><li><b><i>VTV</i></b> - for the really delicate subject and the way Gautam Menon handles it, specifically the songs, the picturesque frames, the amazing music score, and the entire beauty of it being a foslan anthem!</li>
<li><b><i>Raavan</i></b> - for the sheer intensity portrayed by Abhishek and Aishwarya Rai Bacchan, Vikram and the other cast, besides fabulous frames, the close quarters photography and the haunting end</li>
<li><b><i>Udaan</i></b> - the photography that apes a clogged yet focused style, the OST and for a certain moment when the underdog bloke takes a strike against his suppressive dad.</li>
<li><b><i>Khaleja</i></b> - for the honest representation of a very intellectual subject with decent mix of commercial fun and amazing artwork that redefines traditions, the cinematography that feels like its a smooth ballet run, the catchy dialogue and Mahesh's well versed attempt at reinventing himself.</li>
<li><b><i>Prasthaanam</i></b> - if there's one thing thats mesmerising about this film, its DevaKatta's terrific dialogue work while a grown up Sarvanand also impresses well besides Sai Kumar in his best self.</li>
<li><b><i>Orange</i></b> - again a delicate and intellectual subject handled very impressively, and the way this movie with its class and art catches you the second time u watch it around, nice OST too.</li>
<li><b><i>RC 1 & 2</i></b> - for sheer thrills, a Tarantino/Robert Rodrigues-ishh crime drama, the sheer guts of RGV in making it, brilliantly thought-out frames and a brilliant combo in Vivek and Surya!</li>
<li><b><i>Vedam</i></b> - one more very interesting subject, specially watchable for some delectable frames, screenplay and hugely mature work by M.M.Kreem and Arjun, Manoj and Anushka </li>
</ul>...well..there might be a few more very purist-oriented movies that depicted the sheer coming of age of Indian Cinema....my apologies If I've missed out any......(specially coz Indian Cinema includes other genres like Bengali, Marathi, Malayali films et al which I fail to catch coz of language constraincy, but speculation is rife that every year, these so-called genres also belt out impressive stuff)....an interesting yet sad fact being that the general audience in India hasn't yet acquired quite a sophisticated taste, albeit not much complain to be laid on them as they're used to it and are seldom provided better stuff, thus resulting in the sad fact that most of these masterpieces do bad (read: terribly bad) at the Box Office and another shocking fact being that most critic reviews are lobbied for commercial advantage.<br />
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.....Nevertheless, as long as stubborn technicians remain who stick to what they do and believe in good art, good, quality Indian Cinema is here to stay!Shasank Aventador Nagavarapuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13642426560470370600noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7168876344179247938.post-6395751863214342372010-11-28T11:24:00.000-08:002010-11-29T00:24:22.799-08:00Songs for the Season -Winter 2010!!!well....winter's back folks....like it does every annum....with all the blues and hues tht usually come only when winter does.....but the better part is, doesn't it mark the arrival of the romance in the air and the ambience......?......here are some romantic notes to revel in that mood -<br /><ul><li>"I'll melt with you" - Nouvelle Vague - found this on the Mr. & Mrs. Smith Soundtrack......a very beautiful note by a band that 'beautifies' covers of songs by other artists....the original one was by a certain English band.</li><li>"I've been waiting" - A.R.Rahman - ARR pays tribute to the Thames and d magical London winter......with this lovely ballad.......an amazing Jazz number....</li><li>"Pyro" - Kings of Leon - the guitar beat is itself enuf to take you floating elsewer......Nevadan Rock at its pinnacle.......</li><li>"Manhattan" - G3 - love...and how can one miss out Manhattan?....the guitar trio groove up a scintillating note that's melodious and yet, very true to the island's nature...quite hip!</li><li>"Engeyum Kaadhal" - Harris Jayaraj - a bit pop, a bit countrylike....yet essentially a Harris melody........particularly likeable is the nice opera-tic rendition of female vocals right after the first stanza.....</li></ul><p>If you live in a city with a great skyline and an enjoyable waterfront, a cool winter evening with the lights galore and your loved one by the side at the waterfront, with one of these tunes to fill the ambience......is just like Perfect!</p><p>Stay Romantic.....!</p>Shasank Aventador Nagavarapuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13642426560470370600noreply@blogger.com2