I wish I could be there ...

There are some times when I wish I would kill to be there for something ... I saw this, and I felt that I want to be there so bad !!! :D ... don't you ????

On Movies ... (pt 2)

So it seems I am a bit late for my second part to the previous post. If you however see what I have to say, then you will realize that perhaps the delay has landed me up in a perfect timing for today’s ‘few lines of blog-a-doodly’ (yeah … that’s a term I coined and it has been ‘CopyLefted’)

So yet another major entertainment awards have been announced – the BAFTA. And Mickey Rourke went ahead to win the ‘Best Actor’ award for ‘The Wrestler’. I would indeed like to think that the jury did take my word for his performance after my last post – sadly though, not everything that you would like to happen does end up happening.

Take for instance the movie that has been rocking all of the major awards this year – ‘Slumdog Millionaire’. This movie is a perfect example of ‘not everything you want to happen does end up happening’ law of mine (well … not mine actually ... but whatever) stated above.

Now I must say that it was an absolute delight – the movie. I thoroughly enjoyed Danny Boyle’s work – just as much as I enjoyed watching what he did with ‘Trainspotting’. The movie had an enchanting storytelling brought to life by all the performances and the cleverly designed sequences. It is indeed a story about hope and spirit – and these themes do make for some wonderful stories. When I watched it, I did not feel that everyone else would like the movie just as much – and so when the awards juries started showing the movie all their attention, I have been kind of ecstatic in a way. Rehman might just go on to become another Indian to win an Oscar – he has bagged two prestigious awards already. The movie might go on to become an Academy Awards biggie – and it’s a movie that tells a story about India. I got to see Hindi entertainment industry people on screen, and I felt upbeat about Bollywood finally getting that slight attention from the awards juries and the critics. In as much as it is a Hollywood production – the elements of Bollywood in it are so evident, that I have a firm belief that had the movie been in Hindi, it would have been nothing short of a Bollywood blockbuster. There are critics who have already made similar statements about the movie as well. In all fairness, I believe the people behind the movie have done a stellar job in doing so many things together – showing that movies are still meant for absolute entertainment, giving people from the Hindi film industry a chance to work with a quality Hollywood production, allowing Bollywood to get it’s share of attention, and in being able to do whatever they had started out to do in such a brilliant manner.

In as much as it made me happy when I watched the movie in a theater here at Berkeley – I felt a strange reaction within me when a friend of mine, whom I had recommended the movie, asked me ‘Is this what India looks like?’

I didn’t know what to say. The movie has indeed done its job, but in the process has left an oddly constructed image of India in the minds of some of the global audience. Imagine one moment of the movie where you saw something really really upbeat about the country … and you will be left with only about one or two. I don’t see this as a problem. Frankly, our country does have these issues, and we need to deal with them – such depictions can only be all the more effective in pointing this out loud and clear. But at the same time, there have been other movies which have depicted other sides of the Indian Spirit and the ‘India-Story’. What happened to all of those? I choose to be realistic and practical – but for a few moments even I was driven in to believing that the world actually likes the ‘poor India’ depiction better than ‘strong and steady India’. That is however only the minor unhappiness.

The other, and probably the most important issue, that made me slightly unhappy is about the movie ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ being at its core an entertaining narrative – much of which has been styled in a typical Bollywood fashion. However, this is not the first time the Indian entertainment style has been presented to the world. There have been so many quality and classy Indian movies which have been presented in front of the global audience and the award committees – and while the former did accept it with spirit, the latter have never quite found it so appealing. My question is, now that a Hollywood production house decided to package the same entertainment with English dialogues – doesn’t it seem a bit odd that all the awards juries are gaping at awe at it?

If you look at some of the modern day Bollywood productions – the so-called changing face of the industry – movies like Rang De Basanti, Swades, or Taare Zameen Par, you will kind of get what I am trying to hint at. My heart was filled with sadness when Rang De Basanti could not make it to at least the final round – I mean what a movie it was!! The movie, the message, and the performances – they all will affect you and make you feel so angry and disturbed when you watch it. Such a movie was not good enough for the Indian Film Industry to be noticed amongst the juries and critics in world entertainment. And now that you have a differently packaged ‘Bollywood flick’, everyone is amazed at the product. In my opinion movies like RDB and others deserve to get this attention – not because the Indian Industry is hungry for awards from international guilds, but because it is only from this that they will finally get the holistic exposure to the world entertainment spectrum that they need. This will definitely help improve the Industry, and provide for more entertainment for the world – because everyone knows that audiences all around the globe have been receiving the entertainment package we have to offer pretty well so far.

So much for opinions. Just as I said – everything that you wish could happen does not happen. I do wish ‘Slumdog’ gets the deserved awards and attention, but I do also wish India and Indian cinema get a lot more, and a lot different, reception from the world. Guess both won’t happen in one go – maybe one step at a time.

Till then … please God help Rehman and Slumdog… shine at the Academy Awards. The former is a genius who deserves nothing less, and the latter is a fine piece of work that deserves all the due accolades too. 

On Movies and All That Jazz ...

This weekend was pretty much a ‘movie-weekend’ for me, much in the lines of IITM days when we used to lap up movies after movies whenever we got time. I got to watch three movies, and I had so many thoughts bubbling within me after the three movies, that I couldn’t stop myself from scribbling them down the moment I got some time.

The first of these was the latest Bollywood release “Luck By Chance”. For a family that has been related to the Hindi Film Industry for such a long time, and in such multifaceted roles, it was only expected that their take on the ‘Inside Story’ of the industry will be very genuine and refreshingly different. To say that the movie did not disappoint me would in fact be an understatement. I was actually in a way very happy that I got to see such a progressive angle from Bollywood in commercial movies. The way the movie ends with Farhan and Konkona’s characters poised at such a critical emotional “see-saw” of a position, and the way the movie starts – with that brilliant song picturizing all the real workforces of the Industry who work so hard and yet are never given the credit for playing an important role in the process of making a blockbuster hit – if you are an avid movie watcher, you could easily identify such moments from the movie which are quite different in essence and presentation than any other run of the mill commercial movie.  The characters were all so vibrant, and all the views of ‘Bollywood from within Bollywood’ were really brilliantly constructed and presented – and it goes to show in reality that show business in India is really that larger than life, and it really can change everything for you completely if you are associated with it, in whatever capacity may it be. The movie appeals to our senses in so many ways and at so many levels -- for example; in the way the huge dance sequence is depicted, in the emotional outbursts from a successful producer and a yesteryear’s successful actress narrating their experiences, in the way a guy can actually forget his friends and his love once the showbiz success gets to him, in the way the so called ‘Stars’ think about their work. There is a scene in the movie when Hrithik Roshan (playing Zafar Khan, the ruling heart-throb) drives into a street in a car and some urchins run towards his car, just to have a glimpse of their hero. That is in a way the summary of what Zoya Akhtar’s attempt succeeds at sending across – the fact that our very own Bollywood superstars are indeed no different from us and they too have their own issues in life, virtues, vice, the good and the bad. These people are just the mix of everything that the common man is – save for the fact that they have been lucky to be able to make it that big. In my opinion this movie is a good and pleasant example that Bollywood is indeed changing, and maybe we can expect much more from it in the days to come.

Even before I had recovered from ‘Luck By Chance’, I went in for another movie – this time a Hollywood release called ‘The Wrestler’. If the former left me happy, the latter left me overwhelmed as I left the theater. All I could be amazed at was that in so many ways ‘The Wrestler’ as a movie transcends into the level of a masterpiece. The acting by the three major characters, especially Mickey Rourke as the wrestling circuit’s very own hero ‘The Ram’, was absolutely brilliant, and as many have said so far – Rourke’s own experiences of being a sportsman helped him achieve that combination that made the movie such an awesome experience. For fans of the WWE, like I was as a kid, the superstars and their high-flying showdowns, those memorable punchlines, the entry music and the roaring crowds – these have always had such a special place. However, we all have sometime or the other wondered what must be the real picture behind all these. ‘The Wrestler’ shows it all – and just like ‘Luck By Chance’, this movie is in some ways about all that goes in to making our superheroes what they are. There are quite a few sequences of wrestling shows where the camera shows how the shows are done, and how all these injuries and high flying actions happen – and trust me, you will be affected so much that you will fail to observe that you have been right on the edge of your seat. There were moments when my friends and me simply couldn’t stop from crying out “Oh &^$^%$$” in the theaters. And then, when you see the fall of the legendary Randy Robinson, your heart goes out for the old man who struggles to cope with the realization that no matter how much of a superstar one is, the real world is always going to treat you a lot differently. He realizes that he might be a superstar, but once out of the ring, he is not quite wanted to be a part of things – things that he wishes to be a part of. You realize why he decides to get back to the ring, and your mind gets heavy as you see Randy ‘The Ram’ high flying for one last time – and then, just when you thought there’s more … the movie ends. There are two scenes in the movie which I think I can never forget. The first one is when Randy gets a meager job at a Deli counter, and has to get into the counter from behind a curtained corridor. As he walks down, from the background you hear the loud roaring of the crowd, his name being announced, his entry theme, and then just as he crosses the curtain – there are the common noises of customers lining up at the Deli. The second, and one of the best moments of cinema I have seen, is when Pam runs to Randy just as he is about to make the comeback-match entry, and Randy says that he needs to return to the ring because the only place he can get hurt is the world outside the ring, not inside it. When you come to this moment in the movie, just try and rewind to all those moments on screen when you see the wrestling matches and the injuries that they inflict – the man says that is not pain enough to topple him, but what the world outside has to offer, that’s just too much for him to take.

Deep within, I hope Mickey Rourke’s performance gets awarded at the Oscars, just in the same way that I do for Heath Ledger. The movie deserves to be rewarded for the brilliant storytelling that it has done – something that every movie should be looking to do.

P.S: And for all music lovers like me (on second thoughts, Rock and Metal lovers) – you guys will end up enjoying the movie all the more. Watch out for classic stuff like ‘Bang Your head’, ‘Sweet Child of Mine’, and ‘Balls to the Wall’ …

Speaking about Oscars … I just can’t stop wishing ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ all the best, but there is something more to that as well.

Too long a read eh? Well, then ‘Slumdog …’ comes up on the second part of this post.