'Why So Serious ??'

I must say that I was nothing short of dying to watch the movie when I went into the theater … I mean, the movie was everywhere – status messages, critics’ reviews, newspaper ads, radio contests. The fact that it shot to IMDB’s top spot in about three weeks of runtime, about Ledger being considered as a posthumous Oscar nominee, about Chris Nolan’s way of tackling an ensemble cast … everything made me visualize the experience of watching ‘The Dark Knight’ as something great, majestic. I must say, it was not disappointing on many accounts, in fact, on most of the accounts.

I should say that the fact that the title did not have any reference of Batman in it, was something of relevance, and I was only amazed at the way Chris Nolan treated his characters – giving the Joker, Harvey Dent, Batman, Alfred their own place in the script. In an ensemble cast, makers often end up being unable to give proper space to all the characters, The first thing that you realize when you think of it, is that you can remember prominent durations in the movie for all the actors – Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Aaron Eckhart, Michael Cain, Heath Ledger, Christian Bale. Yes, there were that many actors and they all were properly pitched in. That in itself is a big thing! Needless to say the individual performances were brilliant. Heath Ledger’s Joker is probably the most brilliant portrayal of a comic-book villain. A lot has already been said about his performance, which was in fact so brilliant, that he received standing ovations in my theatre (and that’s the first time I have seen a villain get that kind of praise). His brutal acts, his delivery of brilliant lines, that psychotic strain in his movements and conversation … he just perfected the Joker in the true sense of the cruel character that Kane and Finger created.

Looking at the other major character in the movie, Gotham City’s White Knight, DA Harvey Dent got another strong portrayal in Aaron Eckhart. Now this character was really critical, as Dent is not an out and out evil personality. His transformation to Two-Face was a result of an overwhelming shock and dilemma. Eckhart has brought that out so well, that in the end when you see the fall of the White Knight of Gotham, you feel something tingling inside you … you want to see more of him. Christian Bale as Batman might not have that intelligence in appearance, and that air about himself as George Clooney did, but his portrayal makes him look like a superhero without any powers, and he has been able to get to that mental dilemma of Batman quite well – two things that form an integral part of the character of Batman. Michael Cain is the best Alfred I have seen, and the lesser I say about an actor of his stature the better it is for me. As Commissioner Gordon, Gary Oldman completes the trio of good that fights the evil for Gotham, and he holds up his end well to complete the portrayal of the trio.

I could not help noticing the fact that, even though it was a Batman movie, Nolan has used batman as a link, to tie up all the major characters, and unlike in other Batman movies, we do not find the caped crusader appearing in every alternate scene, and not emerging victorious at the end (he ends the movie being chased by dogs … I mean that’s out of the box for a superhero movie). The movie was replete with brilliant moments. Apart from the ones where the major characters interplay, there is this one scene where the two ships carrying Gotham’s citizens and criminals are to be blown up (a part of a ‘social experiment’ by Joker). The city people believe the criminals are anyways gonna kill them … but they do not somehow detonate the remote. While on the criminals’ ship, one rugged toughie comes up, asks the police to hand him the remote so that he can finish off what should have been done long back, and throws off the remote into the river. The entire sequence formed a really memorable piece of cinema. Also, the concept of the victory of Evil in its battle against the Good by bringing the Best of the latter down and weakening it to prove a point … how effective a theme to drive a movie! The very essence of Joker’s psychotic cruelty was this, and eventually in the movie when Dent dies, Batman realizes how the Joker’s plan of proving a point by exposing the weak point of Gotham’s Good Forces was successful.

To say more about the technical details of the movie will not be proper for me, as the overall effects in the movie have been point perfect in my opinion. Who can not be overwhelmed by the scene where Batman flies across the skies to capture the mob head business tycoon. Who can not be struck by the scene where Alfred and Bruce Wayne walks down a long corridor, with the ceiling lights switching off as they walk down, and Alfred telling Bruce ‘But I did bloody tell you”. Amazing moments, brilliant performances, brilliant dialogues – everything adding up to produce a whole entity that is greater than the sum. I am gonna watch it again, and try collecting an HDTV softcopy when it comes out. It’s a brilliant piece of cinema, and a most brilliant exit for Heath Ledger. If I were on the panel, Ledger’s academy award would have been a certainty :D

Here’s to The Dark Knight, and all the other efforts that will follow from this same team.

Kya Baat Hai v2.0 ... :D

There is this big banner in front of our apartment here which is making an endearing call for students to join their institute ... by saying this ...

"Failed Class X/XII ???
No Academic Qualification ???
Join Graduation Directly !!!
_____ University"

One needs to appreciate stuff like these :D

Retro does Speak ...

It's been quite sometime since my last post came up, and today's post is gonna be about the reason for this long time-gap. I had been, for the last couple of weeks, keeping myself a bit busy with something called 'Retrospeakt '08' (refer picture for clarifications). It was a project that a group of ex-students from my school (M.P Birla Foundation H.S School) took up -- forming an alumni association, and organizing it's first ever re-union.

Now for the non MPB'ites -- our school ex students had always expressed the desire for getting an Alumni association going, but that desire has been 'Garfielded' (if you know what I mean :P ). So for this (and some other reasons) somehow the mobilization of all the 14 batches of pass outs had not happened all this while. A couple of months ago ... some enthusiastic people said 'Enough is enough' and decided to take it up on themselves to set the ball rolling. Along came a widely networked campaign for the alumni association -- Orkut, Facebook, Gmail, Gtalk, Yahoo ... you name it, they were in the list. A database was created (yours truly stepped in to the action :) ), and thereafter, contacts started pouring in. After meetings and discussions, an association was finally formed, and the first re-union was conceived. So far so good.

It was end of May when I got to see what was going on in full detail, and the re-union was planned for 29th of June -- in a scale that really needed quite a lot of planning and labor. In came a truly strenuous week of incessant toil -- sponsors, publicity, legal agenda, event planning, fund-raising from alumni ... a huge list. From my little experience, I knew how hard it was going to be for all of us but everyone seemed to be positive about it. What followed thereafter was a series of obstacles that showed how Murphy's law does rule over everything. Sponsors decided to be procrastinating their replies, some said yes but thereafter said 'We are sorry', one ex-student decided to jump in with his contributions only to tell that we have to run the entire event as per his whims (we obviously called him off), it started raining and the school grounds (the planned venue) was out of bounds so we had to shift it inside the hall, people were not very forthcoming with contributions, the media people started behaving as they always do (in fact even worse than they always do) -- in total ... the work of a team of 15 was being done by 5 and we had to see it all go astray every morning. Some things did click however, and the day of the event arrived.


They say honest effort pays all the time. What we saw on 29th was nothing less than testimony to this old adage. Ex-students came in huge numbers, the total amount collected as donations was thousands of bucks greater than the collection throughout June, the good old assembly hall was decked up beyond recognition, people ate to their heart's content, good music, gathering, great fun -- in short an evening to remember.


So what if the badges on our shirts read "Alumini Association", so what if sponsors chose not to pay us because we "had no promise as a group", so what if people had not been forthcoming till the very end, so what if the teachers whom we loved and invited chose not to come, so what if a section of the ex-students did not believe that the people working for the event were not "good enough" -- for all of these, The M.P Birla Alumni Association has it's own legal registration as an independent body, we've got fixed agenda and policies (and they look really stud, believe me), we have our own logo and header, we have our own magazine, we have even our own website ready for launch, and we had hundreds of ex-students say "Dude ... an evening to remember".

On a personal front, it was after a really long time that I got to meet my school friends, it was the first time I saw my brother dance on stage (he does it well indeed), it was yet another successful stint for me at organizing an event, it was yet another magazine that I helped bring out -- but most of all it was a simply brilliant feeling to stand in front of the stage that day, swaying to the music played by one of my friends, and feeling at home at the very place you kinda stopped calling home about 4 years ago.

Here's to "The M.P Birla Alumni Association" and to "Retrospeakt".