Category: movies

Movies and thoughts

I find Bollywood movies thought-provoking. No, seriously. The thoughts that they provoke may not have anything to do with the movie itself, but provoke they do. This is in total contrast to, say, Spaghetti Westerns or James Bond movies, which are excellent tools for escapism. The good movies of the latter kind totally immerse you, have you completely detached from the real world, and are excellent tools to get you out of NED.

Maybe the thing with the Bollywood movies is that they don’t engage you enough. They don’t engage you enough in order for you to be immersed in them. And that leaves you with enough CPU time to start thinking of other things. Then, it is easier to empathise (in some form; maybe some 10% empathy if not more) with certain characters in certain Bollywood movies, which is impossible to do in case of characters such as James Bond or The Man With No Name. And this empathy will end up directing your spare CPU time to thinking about yourself.

Bollywood movies also have a lot of “slow moments”. Passages in the movie where nothing really happens, and this includes the songs. Passages where nothing enough happens, and which allows you to be able to switch off and devote your entire CPU time to the other thing that you are thinking of. Also, the language is generally easy enough that even if you were to miss a few dialogues (when lost in thought), you are able to catch up with the rest of the movie.

Maybe it has to do with the intent of the filmmakers. Whether they intend to make a gripping movie that will help the audience go off on an escapist trail, or whether they want to purposely keep the movie light so that it doesn’t demand much brain power from the audience. Or maybe it has to do with implementation. It may well be the case that someone wants to make a gripping movie, but does such a bad job of it that the minds in the audience start meandering. Or maybe the filmmakers try to make a movie where the audience sees the movie through the eyes of a certain character. But the problem with that is that in such cases, there is the chance that the viewer equates himself with this character, and starts thinking of the similarities and differences, and focuses on himself rather on the movie.

It also depends upon the intent of the viewer, as to what he is expecting when he goes to the movie. Does he want the movie to present him a mirror so that he can see himself in the characters? Mostly not, I think. Does he go for general entertainment? Mostly yes, I think. Does he go to the movie for some sort of an escapist experience so that he can momentarily be detached from his normal life? Maybe yes, which I think signifies a higher fraction compared to “mostly not”.

I don’t see too many movies. Even those that I see are those that have generally been certified as hits. i don’t normally see art-house kind of movies – which are perhaps actually made to be thought-provoking. The last three Hindi movies I’ve seen (approximately) are Jaane Tu… , Jab We Met and Rock On. I have no clue what the intent of each of these movies was, though I would imagine they were made for general entertainment. Each of them ended up holding a mirror to me, and made me ask myself lots of uncomfortable questions while watching. Maybe the last Hindi movie that involved me enough to distract me from myself was Omkara. I wonder which of these movies I should regard as being better – the one that held the mirror or the one that made me detached.

Rock On

Finally saw the movie today. Was quite ironic that they end it with a message that says “don’t download the music. buy the CD”. and I was watching it on a DVDRip whose torrent that I’d downloaded.

Overall, I liked the movie. People have cribbed about Farhan Akhtar’s singing, but I think it’s ok. He’s not a great singer, but if he was, it wouldn’t have come out as being  too authentic for a band that didnt’ end up doing too well. Better singing (say Shankar had sung it) might have helped boost record sales (ok I think the record actually sold quite well), but in the movie it wouldn’t have come out to be too authentic. And then yeah, not having a bass guitarist was a bit inauthentic, but they do partly make up for it during some intros – when the keyboardist is introduced as providing the bass also (maybe inspired by John Paul Jones).

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Tenure matching and jab we met

ok this is one of those lazy posts. Takes two earlier posts and finds a connection between them. This is the kind of stuff that bad professors do – take two old papers, find a link between them and publish a third paper. I do hope to become a prof one day, but I don’t hope to write such papers.

if you remember my review of Jab We Met (which I wrote about a month back), I had said that I hadn’t liked the ending. I had said that if I’d written the script, I’d’ve made Anshuman a stronger character, and made Geet marry him; and have Aditya walk away into the drizzle. I had said that this was because Aditya and Geet had added as much value as they could to each others’ lives.

So, now, if you look at it in terms of tenure matching, things will become clearer. Both of them had their own problems, which needed solutions. And neither of them had a problem for which the solution involved marriage. Ok wait. Geet did have a marriage problem. She wanted to marry Anshuman, and needed to find an efficient way of eloping with him and marrying him. So looking at it from the scope sense, all she needed was someone to guide her in her efforts to do the same.

Aditya’s problems, too, weren’t something for which marriage was an obvious solution. He had put extreme NED at work, and was on the verge of killing himself. All he needed was someone to guide him out of NED. Someone to show him that life can be beautiful, and happy, and that he shouldn’t take any extreme steps.

Looking at the movie from this context, it is clear that marriage between Geet and Aditya wasn’t warranted. Ok it might have been a “no-so-bad extension” but it wasn’t required. It wasn’t a solution that fit in any way with the problems that they were facing in their lives. Which is why the ending stuck out like a sore thumb (and that excess song-and-dance and loudness and all that contributed in no measure) .

Ok now I realize that I shouldn’t be analysing Bollywood movies from a logical standpoint. but still…

Dreams, daydreams, movie scripts and Jab We Met

The last time a relationship I’d invested considerable time and energy in didn’t happen, my mother told me that it had to do with my dreams. And my daydreams. And the “movie scripts” that I would often make up and tell her. Most of these would have a similar ending. The boy and the girl will end up deciding they will just be friends. And to move on in life. Typically, the movie scripts would end with one of them walking away into the drizzle. Or both of them walking away in opposite directions in the drizzle. It was because of the kind of scripts I would “write”, my mother would say, that similar things were happening to me in life.

Two and a half years down the line, I don’t seem to have changed. I still feel the same about a number of scripts. I don’t daydream anymore, at least not as much as I used to a few months or years ago. I don’t write movie scripts for fun any more. If I think I have an idea for a movie script, I start thinking about it from a commercial aspect. And end up ruining it. And though I continue to dream, and dream heavily, I don’t seem to remember too many of them. However, I’m sure that this kind of script still occurs once in a while in my dream.

I was reminded of this when I was watching Jab We Met earlier this evening. I thought it was a fantastic movie. Though Shahid Kapoor was playing a Lala, I could fully identify with his character. The first half, or maybe three fourths, was brilliant. The way his initial exchanges with Kareena Kapoor have been written is awesome. The entire bit starting from the time he walks away from his car till he is back in his company was compelling. At that point, the movie held so much promise that I was kicking myself for not having watched it for almost a year after its release. (rest of the post below the post. spoilers are there)

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Need stuff

I got a new laptop last weekend. And missed out on a great opportunity on Sunday in Bombay when I met Monkee, Mukka, Madness, etc. to get stuff. Now i’m in gurgaon and don’t know how to get stuff.

I basically need music and movies. Movies of all hues, in all languages (as long as there are subtitles for all non-English, non-Hindi and non-Kannada languages). Music – classic rock for bread and butter. Instrumental carnatic classical. Indian rock (downloaded Avial; too strong). Trance. Anything else you might htink i might like.

As it stands now i wont’ be going out of gurgaon for a month (except for the odd trip to delhi). So stuff should be procurable here. if you know any way in which you have some stuff i may like, and may  be able to give it to me, let me know. put a comment here nad we can figure out.

When I went to watch a Hindi movie

So on Wednesday I watched a Hindi movie in a theatre after a gap of a year and three months. The previous time too, Ashwin was with me, though the rest of the personnel were disjoint. Anuroop also joined us this time, before he embarks on a mission to sell phones in the seven hills. I had seen Baradwaj Rangan’s positive review of Jaane tu ya jaane na and wanted to see it. And given that there was no other half-decent movie around, we decided to go.

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