Month: June 2008

movies you should watch

After attempting to watch a number of movies that just didn’t work out, I barely watched any movies up until a few days ago.

This reminded about the good movies out there that people generally don’t watch because they’re not popular. I hate it when people make blanket statements about Bollywood films all being crap, as if Hollywood makes better movies. People just don’t watch the right films, and don’t stop watching the wrong films.

Iqbal – On the surface it seems like just another sports movie. Which it is. It seems to follow the same formula for the most part. But it’s filmed and paced very well. My favourite character was Khadija, played by Shweta Prasad. Shreyas Talpade was very good, but Shweta Prasad was fabulous! Wonderful acting all around. 9/10.

Khosla Ka Ghosla – I enjoyed this movie a lot. Loads of fun. Real people with real issues. Good songs as well, “Ab Kya Karenge Bhai” by Adnan Sami taking the cake. It’s extra good because the song applied to both the father and the son in the movie. This is one of those movies you know in the first 10 minutes that it’s going to be good. If nothing else, there is one particular scene that makes the movie worth watching. 9/10.

Ramji Londonwaley – Hahahahahhaa. Enough said. But I’ll say some more. The movie is rough around the edges, but still has a dreamy quality to it. There are multiple hilarious sequences, but then there are also sequences where you doubt the director’s abilities. Almost as if it was directed/edited by two different people. All in all, a very fun movie. 8/10.

Main, Meri Patni Aur Woh – Another fun movie. Rajpal Yadav actually having to act more than his usual roles, and he comes through. Good songs as well. 8/10.

Waisa Bhi Hota Hai Part II – Generally I would feel odd about a movie like this. Because it seems to have been heavily inspired by Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction and Guy Ritchie’s Snatch. But WBHHP2’s film makers come out and acknowledge their inspirations (the mention the Coen Brothers). All the parts that you need to see are in the same movie, so don’t worry about the part 2 tag. It’s a very well made film, with great performances by all the main actors. Prashant Narayanan was great in his role, but needs to appear in more movies. Sandhya Mridul (Rani Mukherjee’s sister in Saathiya) was great as well, I think she’s a very good actor. Arshad Warsi was hilarious. This really was a well made movie. 9/10.

Dor – Another one by Nagesh Kukunoor. Must watch. 10/10.

Kaun – I couldn’t walk away without throwing in a Ram Gopal Varma movie in here. I loved this movie because of the situation it was made under. Just three actors and one location. A great story that was very well directed. Manoj Bajpai has to be my favourite actor. 9/10.

There are a bunch of movies I’m missing here. But if there are any here you haven’t seen, then this is a good start.

neeli chatri – blue umbrella

The Blue Umbrella, directed by Vishal Bharadwaj, is too much fun.

How does one write the screenplay, compose the music and direct the movie? Fascinating!

I thought the cinematography was very interesting, although dizzying at times. But it plays part in the storytelling process, which I thought was masterful. That’s the aspect I enjoyed most about the movie. The way it tells this story. All this for an umbrella, haha, but the setup and the follow through were really well executed.

Pankaj Kapoor was brilliant. The kids could have been a bit better.

I enjoyed the movie a lot.

9/10

voices that rise

this one’s for you

these are the voices that rise
that come in on a tide
on top a wave
to make you cave
under the pressing weight
of your absurdities
can you hear
the voices that rise?

these are the voices that listen
even against the ticking clock
they sit down and talk
but when time runs out
they stand up and shout
when will you listen
and stop ignoring
the voices that rise?

it comes as no shock nor surprise
your attempts to criminalize dissent
your minds bent
upon keeping at bay
thoughts that resent
your illusions of progress.
this, reflected on the faces
of the cops that you rent
meant
to keep silent
the voices that rise.

lord knows it’s a shame
when you can’t hold fort
you run for the courts
manufacturing lies
that ruin lives
to serve the few
you bend what’s true
so fuck you
as you try and subdue
the voices that rise.

broken

i did, i knew it was coming. and the day has come.

my laptop screen has gone kaput.

now i must make one of the biggest decisions, perhaps the biggest decision, of my adult life.

mac or tablet pc?

update: i ordered the mac (upped the ram to 4GB). also got a itouch to go with it (100% rebate for students going to school this sept).

gulzar ke nazm

These are two interesting Gulzar poems.

The first one is “Maut”(Death) . It’s from Anand, my favourite movie, and it’s recited in my favourite scene in the movie.

maut

[direct audio link]
[audio:http://www.jaaduhai.com/tunes/adnan/bol5/kavita1.mp3]

maut tu ek kavita hai
mujhse ek kavita ka vaada hai, milegi mujhko

doobti nafzoon mein jab dard to neend aane lage
zard sa chehra liye chand ufak tak pohnche
din abhi paani mein ho, raat kinare ke kareeb
na andhera, na ujaala ho
na abhi raat, na din
jism jab khatm ho, aur rooh ko jab(*) saans aaye

mujhse ek kavita ka vaada hai, milegi mujhko

(*) The word “jab” is in the actual poem, however I left it out while reciting.

The second poem needs no introduction.

naam tera

[direct audio link]
[audio:http://www.jaaduhai.com/tunes/adnan/bol5/naamtera.mp3]

nazm uljhi hui hai seene mein
misre atke hue hain hothoon par

urte phirte hain titliyoon ki tarah
yeh(*) lafz kaagaz pe baithte hi nahin

kab se baitha hoon main jaanam
saade kaagaz pe likh ke naam tera

bas tera naam hi mukammal hai
is se behtar bhi nazm kya hogi
——

(*) “yeh” is actually not in the poem. It made it it a lot easier to recite with the “yeh”.

SARS backwards is SRAS

So I’ve been talking about either writing a screenplay of some sort, or filming something for years. I haven’t really done anything to accomplish either. I read Robert Rodriguez’s book and am almost with with a book on writing screenplays. I’m far from writing any stories with any real plot or character development. But I’ve also had short movie clip ideas as well.

I guess I’ll flush out the concepts here, starting with the basic idea. Then expand it into a screenplay type script (this will be good practise for the final screenplay I’ll write someday =) ). Then get a few monkeys together and act it out. Of course it will suck because it’s the first time. But I’d rather do something that sucks than do nothing that sucks. Plus a lot of folk have experience doing stuff like this, and we’ll get their help. Most of what I post on this blog is unedited and unrevised. So this will follow that tradition.

“SARS backwards is SRAS” is an idea I’ve had since SARS hit Toronto. Half the people I’ve told this to have said it’s too risky or it’s bad taste. The other half have liked it. I like it. So I’ll describe it here. I’ve actually typed up half of this in screenplay format, so hopefully soon I’ll complete it.

Here we go. I’ve used the character’s name as descriptions, I’ll change that once we have a better idea.

Scene 1

WhiteMan is in this apartment/room. Lights are off, and the only light source is the television. The daily news is on. The reporter is talking about SARS and how people are trying to keep safe. “Some have taken to masks to protect themselves from SARS. Please remember to keep your hands clean.”

Scene 2
WhiteMan is in hardware store checking out masks. He purchases one (or a set).

Scene 3
Outside the hardware store. WhiteMan opens the mask packing and tries it on. He gets in his car and drives off.

Scene 4
WhiteMan is at work (or school). He’s got the mask around his neck. He’s approaches a group of 5 (or 6) people who are already discussing something. There are two Chinese people in this group and one white person (who is WhiteMan’s friend, WhiteFriend).

WhiteMan joins the discussion. When he’s talking to the non-Chinese people, his mask stays hanging off his neck. But when he talks to the chinese people, he puts on his mask. Anytime he faces the non-Chinese people, his pulls his mask off and around his neck again.

The awkwardness is felt in the air. WhiteFriend pulls WhiteMan from the group and says, “What’s wrong with you? If you’re afraid of SARS, then just keep the mask on all the time!”

WhiteMan with a confused look says, “What?? No. That’d just be rude!”

THE END.

We don’t really need a screenplay like script to do this. We need people and a camera. One white male (WhiteMan), another white male or female (WhiteFriend), two visibly Chinese people and the other 3 people are of other races. Three locations, home, hardware store and school/work.

If you’re interested, we should talk. It’s summer and something should be done.

I’ll post the other short movie ideas soon.

friend

i had spent the day
friendless, lonely and sad,
a stranger to myself.

after drowning the day
on the sea shore,
i walked back
to my empty house
on the deserted street.

the moment
i opened the door,
the book on my table
flipped its pages
and said:
friend,
where were you
for so long?

  • gulzar (trans. das)

generally aamir’s the one who posts poems. when i read this, i figured he’d like this one. so here it is aamir, this one’s for you. =)

search is where it’s at

The new Firefox 3 browser is out! You should go download it.

It has a slightly new look and feel, it also uses a lot less memory. I really like how when you’re on a page where you enter a password, it doesn’t popup a window anymore asking you if you want to remember your password. Instead it will continue to the next page, and ask you in a bar if you want to remember the password. This makes things flow smoother and faster. I’ll find out the other changes/features as I use the browser more and more.

The most noticeable change is the address bar, it now uses search to show you the most relevant URL. This means you can type in any portion of a URL and the address bar will show you the matching URLs. In fact, you can even type on the title of a page (that’s not part of the URL) and it will still show you the proper URL matches. This is great for moments where you don’t remember the exact domain name or URL but remember only portions of it. The ability to search is awesome.

This takes us to Google Desktop. This program indexes all the files on your computer and even the web pages you’ve visited. So now, if you forget the domain name and URL, but you remember some of the content on the page, Google Desktop will search amongst the pages that you’ve visited. If you download a file and forget where you saved it, or you forget the exact name, no problem. Just press the CTRL button twice, the search prompt makes itself available, type in your search query and you’re good to go.

You know how when you’ve installed hundreds of programs on your computer and Window’s Start Menu becomes huge! Well now, instead of looking through the menu to launch your program, you can just search for it. This makes life a lot easier.

Addendum
Google Desktop also indexes your email (Gmail email). Which means that you can search for your email even when you’re not connected to the intertubes. It doesn’t index Gtalk though.
End Addendum

Some of you may be concerned about Google indexing everything that’s on your computer and then transferring that data to their grand central database. This is a valid concern, though they say that they don’t do this. But Google already knows everything. Google knows what you want (because you use Google to search for it), Google knows who you talk to (because you use Gmail and Gtalk), Google also knows what you say to the people you talk to, Google knows where you live (because you use Google Maps), Google knows what data you pull in (because you use Google Reader), Google knows what you’re doing on the certain day (because you use Google Calendar), Google knows what videos you watch (because you use Google’s YouTube), Google even knows what blog posts you have in draft mode (because you use Google’s Blogger (though WordPress has but a huge dent here, but Google still has all of those indexed in their search anyway)). Google just knows. Google knows. Google.

Try out Google Desktop (which interestingly and surprisingly comes in Linux and Mac versions as well), it will make things faster to look for. Just give in… to Google. You already have.