Year: 2009

on creating

I posted this a whiles back and I don’t think it’s gotten to me quite yet as much as it should. It’s good, so it’s worth re-quoting:

when you don’t create things, you become defined by yours tastes rather than your ability. your tastes only narrow and exclude people. so create.

_why

It’s interesting, this process of “creation”. It’s odd, this desire to create something. Something that is beyond me. It doesn’t have to be done alone, in fact it is probably better done in collaboration. Something that people love and something that I love. It doesn’t have to be big, it doesn’t have to have my name plastered over it. It just has to be. But I don’t know what that something is. No idea.

The other thing about creating is the concept of good and bad. The concern that what I create needs to be “good” sometimes prevents me from getting started at all. That is probably not a good thing. At the same time, I get started on a lot of not so good things too. So I suppose it balances out. But that’s the thing! To get started regardless of good or bad, regardless of how big or small. To just get started and to just create.

But creating is not good enough, because practise alone does not make “perfect”. There has to be a feedback loop of some sort. You create, pause, observe, listen, reflect, and recreate. And repeat. I think.

I need to get back into the flow and create stuff.

The Matrices

From 2004:

Note from now: I’d be interested in watching the last two movies again at some point to see if I still think the same.

Name: The Matrices
Directed and Written By: Andy Wachowski, Larry Wachowski
Type: Science Fiction, Action
Year: 1999-2003
Starring: Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Hugo Weaving.

Hmmm… what can I say?
This movie has become an icon for ages to come. “Witty” one-liners, never before seen action and computer graphics, wowing people off their seats.
That was the first movie.
Almost nobody got it until they saw it for the 4th time. That’s because people stopped paying attention to the story line and looked for the action more, because the story line is rather clear. Humans connected to massive computer which gives them an illusion of reality.

The first movie was good, but let’s not forget it has it’s share of cheese. Like the scene where Trinity (Carrie-Anne) kisses Neo (Keanu) in real life, and he wakes up from death in The Matrix. Cheese.

First movie gets an 8.5/10.

I held my judgement for Reloaded, I said to myself, “it’s the first part of a two part movie, so let’s not judge it yet”.
Then I saw Revolutions. I was disappointed. I think I hated the movie. It was horrible. The only part that was worth watching was when Neo is trapped in the train station, when we finally get to see some brown people. Other than that, Hugo Weaving who plays Agent Smith did a real good job in the two movies until it came to the last scene, which was royally screwed up by the Brothers.

The last two movies get a combined 3/10.

Possible Spoilers

Why is Trinity’s “residual self-image” so ugly?

When Neo fights Agent Smith in the second movie, and eventually flies away, why doesn’t Agent Smith fly after him? Seeing as he can fly freely in Revolutions.

Why haven’t the oh so smart machines figured out a way to get over the clouds and harness that solar energy?
Or why haven’t they machines made a mega fan that blows away these clouds? Surely that would be easier than destroying Zion every so often.

Why does Neo see Agent Smith with sunglasses when he goes blind?

Why does Neo say “There’s too many” while destroying the sentinals? When is “too many” too many for our The “I can can see when I’m blind” One.

Why didn’t the Oracle see her shell change coming?

Why can Sati (the Indian girl) control the Sun in the end of the movie? Is the martix going haywire? Why can’t Seraph control the trees in that case?

Why don’t the machines just use a powerful bomb to destroy zion? why do they have to only use bullets?

I can go on forever.

Overall series: 6.5/10

no strings attached: 1 year ago – the way around

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9

Samantha opened the door that now read “Fire Ex”, but everyone knew what it meant and everyone knew it wouldn’t set off the alarm. She found Harry to her right.

“Hey Sam, what’s up?”, said Harry, letting the ashes from his cigarette hit the ground.

“Don’t start with me! I’m furious right now. Harry, you can’t just mouth off like that in a meeting. You just can’t.”

“I think I just did.”

“Yeah, you did. We’re going to have to try real hard to dig out of this one. You’re making things difficult.”

“You know what? You’re right. I’m sorry.”

“Are you really?”

“Yeah, I am.”

“Good, and can you blow the smoke in that direction?”, said Samantha as she pointed away.

“Sorry.”

“I had a dream about you the other day”, said Samantha, in a calmer tone.

“Oh?”

“You were trapped, in chains.”

“Hah, doesn’t feel like a dream.”

“But then you got out. You broke out of the chains.”

“What do you think that means?”

“I don’t know. I think it means you’ll be fine. I think it means you’ll find a way.”

“I hope so”, Harry pulled a cigarette half way and held the pack out toward Samantha.

“No”, said Samantha, with a slightly irritated look on her face, “You know I quit a while ago.”

a word, a call

From Haroon Moghul:

Remember, when you call or write media, the need of the hour is a ceasefire. All life is sacred, and civilians cannot and must not be targeted on either side. Condemnation that is one-sided is fundamentally flawed; respectfully, the conflict has causes and solutions, but right now, the first step is a cessation of violence. A three-hour ceasefire is not a ceasefire, it is buying time to keep up an onslaught that cannot distinguish between combatant and non-combatant, as Gaza is a severely crowded and remarkably tiny strip of land.

Find out, and just call/email.

Postal Code:

 

no strings attached: 3 years ago – the way up

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9

It was another late night at the office for Harry, another tight project.

“You know why I’m here, right?” said Samantha, as she walked up to Harry’s desk.

“Yeah.”

“So you know what to do.”

“I don’t want to.”

“That’s nice, and I want a second season of Firefly, but that’s not going to happen. But this, you can make this happen. All you have to do is add the analysis to the proposal and they’ll probably approve it.”

“I shouldn’t have to. That’s time wasted doing analysis that should be obvious.”

“Listen kiddo, I’m on your side here. You give a little, you get a little. Hell, you might even get a lot. You just have to make the extra effort, even if it obvious to you. You don’t make the effort, you get nothing. I assure you that.”

“Okay.”

“So you know what to do. Don’t make me come back here.”

Steve Steeples was the man to convince at the proposal presentation.

“Hmmm… yeah, I think it’s doable. Great analysis Harry,” said Steve, everyone in the room started to loosen their grips on the chairs and slowly emptied the room.

Samantha approached Harry with a smirk on her face.

“You can say it, say ‘I told you so’” said Harry.

“I won’t,” replied Samantha.

“They’re all idiots anyway.”

music and reading

I’m finding now that I’ve stopped listening to music while I’m reading on the subway and this allows me to concentrate and read more.

Oddly enough, I think this is something that would apply to other situations. That if you listen to music because you think it makes you more productive in what you’re doing, it probably doesn’t. Unless you’re exercising or jogging, but if you’re doing something that requires using your brain, thinking and reflecting, then music doesn’t help all that much.

Or so it seems.

no strings attached: 5 years ago – the way in

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9

There was no street car in the distance; a daily occurrence of absence. Harry was getting impatient as he fiddled with his token. It was his last token from the batch. The winter weather was making him all the more anxious.

A sense of relief could be felt in the air when the street car did approach. All the frowns of the waiting commuters had been normalized to nothingness. Harry lost his grip on the token as he walked towards the street car. The token found its way down the gutter. The perfect start to a perfect day, Harry thought, and momentarily considered going back home. He started to fiddle with his change while climbing the steps of the street car and stood there as he counted for a while. The commuters’ nothingness quickly converted to frowns again as they pushed and slipped past Harry to get the empty seats. Eventually, the change was counted and deposited into the box. There were no seats left for Harry.

“Hi, it’s my first day here,” said Harry to the receptionist.

“Okay, what’s your first name?” said the receptionist, he had already started to peruse the new employee list.

“That’s odd, you have the list sorted by first name instead of last? My name is Bond. Harry Bond,” Harry took a deep breath after looking at the receptionist’s blank stare, “No, that’s not my real name. Uh, the name is Harry.”

“Okay… Harry… Harry… Harry… there you are! You’re to report to Sam and you’ll get your intro session when you two meet. Take the elevators to the third floor, it’ll be the third door to your right. It’s a shared office, so just ask for Sam.”

“Thanks,” Harry smiled, his toes had warmed up.

Harry walked into the shared office and up to one of the desks.

“Hi. I’m looking for Sam,” said Harry.

“Oh, you’re the new guy. Harry, right?” said John, “Sam’s not here right now. Probably taking a smoke break. You know what? You should just go there. You can get your office tour on the way back up. Go back down to the first floor, and look for the fire exit door with the ‘t’ a bit torn off. Don’t worry, it won’t set off an alarm. You should find Sam right there.”

He looked right and then left as soon as he opened the door with the ‘t’ a bit torn off. Out of the corner of his eye he spotted smoke.

“You… are… Sam…” said Harry, pausing slightly after each word.

“Is that a question or a statement?” said Sam.

“No, it’s just… I thought that… you would be…”

“A guy? You were expecting a guy?”

“No, I thought you would be… shorter.”

“Hah, a clever one. You must be Harry,” Sam extended her right hand for a handshake, “That was a statement, not a question. I’m Samantha.”

“Right, of course, Samantha,” Harry was slightly embarrassed.

“Would you like one?” Samantha held up her packet of smokes.

“No, I don’t smoke.”

“Yeah, I know. It’s an awful thing. I’m trying to quit myself,” said Samantha, as she threw the cigarette butt into the bin, “Come on, let me show you around.”

slumdog millionaire

Slumdog Millionaire (2008)

So one day I was cruising IMDB and saw “Slumdog Millionaire” under Mahesh Manjrekar’s name. Then I noticed that Irfan Khan and Anil Kapoor were in the movie too. People, this is not some castaway cast. These people are fairly accomplished actors/directors. So seeing them together in a non-Bollywood movie was very intriguing.

Then a whiles later I saw the trailer. The part that caught me most in the trailer was when Anil Kapoor was dancing on the Millionaire set. So I wanted to see the movie.

I can kinda see why people like it so much, but not really. I may talk about specific incidents in the movie, so don’t read on if you don’t like spoilers.

Let me start off with the good. I loved the start of the movie (minus the shit scene, I didn’t ‘love’ the shit scene, but it got the reaction it was looking for), the camera angles and editing on the chase scene were fantastic! And I generally liked how Boyle filmed Mumbai. I really liked the child actors in the first part of the movie, and I realize now that this was aided by the fact that they spoke in Hindi. Their responses to some of the things were great. Conductor as he throws out the kids: “Baap ki train samjha kya?”, kid responds: “To phir tere baap ki train hai kya rey?”. Or something like that.

The ‘beggar master’ bit reminded me of A Fine Balance.

The filming style of the childhood days was reminiscent of City of God. But let us not fool ourselves, these are two very different films.

The storytelling wasn’t very clear. Initially I thought that Jamal’s older brother was just a friend or some such, this is so odd considering he keep saying “I’m the bigger brother” for the rest of the movie.

I would have preferred it if the entire movie were in Hindi. The British style accents did bother me, maybe they picked them up from the tourists at the Taj Mahal. Hah. Or maybe they shouldn’t have used Hindi at all, and gone totally in English. When you use both, you ought to maintain a realistic sense when one or the other would be used. So while it makes good sense to use English in the call-centre and the game show, it doesn’t make sense to use it in the police station while you’re dumping the head of the kid into a bucket of water. If I was doing that, I’d use Hindi.

I find it odd that Mashesh Manjrekar never ages. He’s seen in a car in the chasing scene. Then Salim goes to find him after killing the ‘beggar-master’ and then he’s seen again when all the kids are grown up. He never ages.

Also, if I killed the leader of a competing gang, when I join your gang, I want to be one of the top dawgs.

I find the whole Jamal and Salim relationship to be out of whack. He kicked him out of the hotel room and then recognized his voice years later when he call him from a call-centre? Ummm… no.

And then instead of calling up your brother (who’s kidnapped the girl you love) you give his phone number to the Millionaire people. Because, you know, that whole kidnapping thing won’t matter when you’re on live television.

Can you really tell a producer of your show that you fed the contestant a question and get away that easy, “it’s my show after all”. Actually no, it’s not your show, you’re an employee.

I wouldn’t have answered the last question, I’d take the money. But that’s okay.

So why would you wait at the train station sitting all sad like after you’ve won loads of money and you made up with Latika over live television? He could have bought a cell phone, and then called her, because he knows she has his brother’s phone. And it’s the only number our Slumdog Millionaire knows (except that he remembers everything else like lochs and the like, but doesn’t know any other phone numbers given that he works in a call-centre).

Why did Salim make a bed of money in the bathroom and die in it? He could have run away with Latika, got on a plane to another city/country and be done with the thing. Not like the goons can’t find Jamal and Latika later on.

I was disappointed by how short the dancing moment with Anil Kapoor was, but I enjoyed the dance at the end.

But in general, the characters, I didn’t feel were developed enough for me to care about them, specially Latika. Was also disappointed at the characters of Anil Kapoor, Irfan Khan and Manjrekar.

6.5/10

ghajini

Ghajini (2008)

I was actually interested to see how an Indianized version of Memento would turn out.

The start of Ghajini was totally disappointing. Everything from the camera angles, to the exaggerated fighting to the overacting. I stopped watching at about the 17 minute mark after the film turned into a 3 minute expose of Aamir Khan’s body. I can’t stand movies that treat the audience as stupid, this movie seemed to be one of them.

Another thing that annoys me is when people don’t credit “inspiration”. You just have to come out and say, “inspired by Christopher Nolan’s Memento”. Please, please, please treat the audience as if they have intelligence. Thank you.

If someone did see the movie, and if it somehow magically turns out to be good, please let me know.