The Pursuit of Happyness

Few movies I have loved as I have this one. The viewer may well forget that it is the same Will Smith from Independence Day. The story is a quintessential rags to riches story, without the riches; that is because the story ends as soon as the protagonist gets a job :)
The story is about Chris Gardner who had above-average intelligence, circumstances led him to a life as a salesman, living with his wife/ partner and his son; it's a true story of a guy by the same name. Troubles with his wife/ partner, difficulties accepting his situation, his reliance on an obsolete technology he is trying to sell, his experiences trying to make ends meet (quite literally) and his journey through a six-month unpaid internship forms the basis for this movie's story.
He loses a shoe when he is hit by a car as he is chasing a 'bum' who had stolen his portable bone density scanner.
He is forced to live in the restroom of a subway train station.
He arrives for a job interview with white paint on his face after being released from jail - the crime, unpaid parking tickets.

Will Smith played an outstanding part, unbelievably convincing and quite heartening. Favourite quotes (aah, I love them):
Christopher Gardner: It was right then that I started thinking about Thomas Jefferson on the Declaration of Independence and the part about our right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And I remember thinking how did he know to put the pursuit part in there? That maybe happiness is something that we can only pursue and maybe we can actually never have it. No matter what. How did he know that?

Christopher Gardner: This part of my life... this little part, is called happiness.

One of my all-time favourites.

Lord of the Rings

The most fantastic trilogy ever!

"Arise! Arise! Riders of Theoden! Swords shall be shattered, shields shall be splintered! A sword day!!!! A red day!!!! Ere the sun rises!!!!!!
Death!!!!!! Death!!!!!"

(Rohan Horn blowing)

This particular scene when the riders of Rohan have assembled on top of a hill, with the rising sun behind them and a sea of orcs before them. The horn blows, the music starts and the riders charge and whenever I have seen this scene (7 to 10 times up until now), I have had goosebumps. It may possibly go down in history as one of the best scenes ever.
The movie did not do justice to the book - they usually never do. But Peter Jackson did one of the best works ever. If one would ever read the book, it would be rather inconceivable to make a movie out of it, because the movie demands expenditure and grandeur. I am sad that I can't write much about the three movies; but the three movies are awesome.
People have generally rated The Return of the King (part 3) as the best, but for me The Fellowship of the Ring comes first.
The bridge of Khazad-dum, the Shire, the mystery surrounding the elves and the Black riders, the formation of the fellowship - everything gels so well as an introduction to an epic of our times.

The Resident Evil series

Fantastic! You see... there's something awesome about the combination of zombies (the living dead), hotties, guns and killing, stupidity and the sincerity that goes with the stupidity. I love the franchise and I am referring to the English movies.

The first one has been aired so often that it sets the stage for getting attracted to the series. The second was poor but it had Sienna Guillory (drool). The third one was cool - imagine, zombie crows! loving it :) and it had Ali Larter (the best hottie so far).
I saw the fourth one yesterday - Resident Evil Afterlife. Super cool :) It was made in 3d, but luckily I saw it at home in normal 2D.
Ali Larter again :) plus there is some confusion about what's happening with the Umbrella Corporation and there is a weird mutant type head honcho. Milla crash lands on the terrace of a building surrounded by zombies. Combine this with excellent shots and a 12 foot menace wielding a human sized axe. OMG. Brilliant stuff.

The Beatles!!

I was driving to work today and a song played and I heard myself singing along and tapping my foot (while driving) and just lost myself. It went on my BB status. And then I thought that I need to blog about these guys...

I feel fine, Can't buy me love!, All you need is love, Imagine, Help!, With a little help from my friends, Love me do, She loves you (yeah yeah yeah!!), Yesterday... and even after listing these songs, readers of this post will say.. "Hey! you missed out on "this" song..!!!"
The Beatles will be classic and timeless; when I heard "I feel fine" today morning I didn't realise that it had been released in 1964! That is 47 years ago!! Ridiculous eh??! The song feels like a 2011 release :)
There is humour and light-ness and flakiness and love and romance and joy and philosophy and sincerity in their songs. Lennon's voice is magnificent. Feel bad when people haven't heard songs like "What is life?" - this was sung by George Harrison, so Lennon fans tend not to like him :)
One can listen to The Beatles almost anytime and they can promise to make one think or make one forget thinking :) Cheeeeeerj!

Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!
Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!

Nick Drake

This is my second post about Nick Drake, the first one is here. I had to write about this (as I always do :P).
There is a song called 'Milk and Honey'. Nick sung this song which was originally by Jackson C. Frank in a 1965 album. Before he starts strumming his guitar and singing, Nick mumbles something so beautiful :D
"What could I do? What would be interesting?" But he says it more like... "Whattt-uh could-iii dooo-uh?" and when he says this, he is adorable or as my friend described it - orgasmic.
It is sad that he is no more.

Zombieland

Alas. This be a movie that will fade away, but it be so precious :'(
It is an outstanding creation and I say it with a lot of sincerity. The humour associated with 'monster' movies has been dry and repetitive; the humour in this movie is phenomenal. Casting Jesse Eisenberg of "The Social Network" fame was brilliant.
Rules of surviving in zombieland. For example, "Do Cardio, it's the fatties who go first." One needs to be really high to come up with statements such as this.
Enticing zombies with a eukele? Using chainsaws? Having a fetish for twinkies? A zombie in a bikini? Cute little zombie girls?
Woody Harrelson (one might remember him as the zonked dude from 2012) and Abigail (from Little Miss Sunshine) have outstanding roles, especially Woody. As I write this, I am laughing.

"Gotta enjoy the little things"

Tagore's Speeches

The past is important and reading from the past brings us closer. Tagore had thoughts and these thoughts gave rise to speeches around the world. I am currently reading Speeches by Tagore in the book called "Race Conflict and other Speeches". An excerpt from a speech titled Women's Place in the World:

"A man's interest in his fellow beings becomes real when he finds in them some special form of usefulness or striking gift of powers, but a woman feels interest in her fellow-beings because they are human, not because of some particular purpose they can serve, uncommon talent which they may possess. Her exuberance of vital interest is spontaneously expressive; it makes her speech, her laughter, her movement, graceful and picturesque: for the note of gracefulness is in this harmony with all our surrounding interests."

...

"Woman has her natural power that penetrates through the surface to the heart of things, where in the mystery of life dwells an eternal source of interest; and therefore her love has not necessarily to wait for the excitation of surprising qualities. God has sent woman not merely to explore or exploit but to love the world which is a world of ordinary things and events. She is not in the world of fairy tale where the fair woman sleeps for ages till she is touched by the magic wand. In God's world women have their magic wands everywhere, which keep their hearts awake, and these are not the golden wands of wealth nor the iron rods of power.
Of late, with the help of science, civilization has been growing increasingly impersonal in character, so that the full reality of the individual is more and more ignored."

_________________________________________

Tagore wrote well and thought better. It's important for us to look back at what he wrote and from what I have read thus far, this essay has struck me most.

Udaan

My heart screamt when the father burnt Rohan's book of literary creations; that is how powerful the movie was. It feels good to know that Indian cinema is changing because it shows that Indian sensibilities are changing.
Udaan is a story of a boy who hasn't known the love of a family, but his life is alright because he has been living in a boarding school in Shimla. Things change when he is expelled from school and has to start living with his 'evil' father, Ronit Roy. Ronit Roy has played an outstanding character of a man who has married twice, carries a lot of emotional baggage from his past (possibly because of his own father) and has certain odd rules to how life ought to be lived and what his roles are as a father.
Ram Kapoor plays a fantastic role of Ronit's younger brother who seems to be living a great life with his own wife and a nice bungalow. He isn't rich but he lives a content life.
Rohan (the protagonist, played by Rajat Barmecha) is a great pick for his role; I have doubts about his acting abilities - then again, he's quite young.
The story is weaved wonderfully with Rohan's old friends from his school, his new 'friends' in Jamshedpur, where he moved to, Rohan's half brother, Arjun, whom I believe to be a fantastic actor and o so lovable.
Udaan paints a realistic picture of what life can be in a tier-2 city of India, where even an educated family has to sail through hardships.

This movie made me go back to my childhood and made me grateful for the wonderful life I have lived so far. This story can be a true one; the beauty lies in how well it has been picturised. The musical score and the direction gel. Well done Mr. Vikramaditya Motwane, you are a force to reckon with and thank you for writing and directing this story.

Sigur Rós

The western classical music of today. This is the genre to which Sigur Ros fits.
I have 4 albums by them and I don't understand a single song; however, it is one of my preferred artists when driving or when sitting at home. I can listen to them when I am writing and even when I am reading. I have tried listening to true 'western classical' but cannot find the same temperament.
Sigur Ros is a true treasure of today. Today, with its loud music, independent styles, bold lyrics and unsoulful but excellent melodies, is a fantastic petri dish for various forms of music and expressions - in that clutter (even though I haven't heard as much music as I would like to) Sigur Ros stands out as being fiercely independent.
The capitalism of today has its merits - Rehman chose (or so I think) a song by Sigur Ros for the soundtrack of the movie '127 hours'. May be it's going to bring them more recognition, but that is the magic of music isn't it?
To fall in love with a band, an artist or a group that many don't know of, dislike or are ignorant of.

Into the Wild

Chris / Alex McCandless wrote well.

"The very basic core of a man's living spirit is hit passion for adventure.
The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun."

"You are wrong if you think Joy emanates only or principally from human relationships. God has placed it all around us. It is in everything and anything we might experience."

This is from the book "Into the Wild" and the above quotes are Alex's own.
The last quote he negates before death when he notes:

"And so it turned out that only a life similar to life of those around us, merging with it without a ripple, is genuine life, and that an unshared happiness is not happiness... And this was most vexing of all. HAPPINESS ONLY REAL WHEN SHARED."

Did he have to go through his ordeal to realise this? Could he have been one of the very few who actually realised this? I ask because most of us don't know the other possibility, of living without society and love.


The book is quite excellent. It's not as glorious as the movie but is sobering. Jon Krakauer is the author and he expressed his compassion for the kid in the introduction/ foreword. There are two chapters which I really liked. One in which Jon talks of other weirdos/ loners/ pursuers and the other when he describes his youth and his journey to Alaska to conquer Devil's Thumb. Fantastic stuff.
I enjoyed the part where when he came back to the town and recited his tale to the town folk, they didn't seem to care :)
I relished the part where he compared his ... well... this is the statement (He was 23 years old then):
"At that stage of my youth, death remained as abstract a concept as non-Euclidean geometry or marriage."

This book and books like this make one realise how shallow a city-dweller's journey can be. Yes.

127 Hours

Too many spoilers. Read at will.

My eyes were wet twice during the movie; first during the flooding scene and the next actually made me flinch, when the family of 3 start running towards Aron (James Franco).
The movie itself didn't impress me for the first half but Danny Boyle did something brilliant towards the second. Cropping three scenes into once frame, the music, Sigur Ros and AR Rehman and Jame Franco outdid himself.
During the first half I liked James but not too much, during the second he blew me away. I loved the flashbacks, the dreams/ hallucinations, Rehman's background score. I knew, like many others that he makes it out alive but the movie still gripped me.
It will definitely be a memorable movie. Cheers to Aron Ralston and the spirit within us all.

Special mention to the flashbacks and hallucinations. Absolutely brilliant.

There are odd things I liked about the movie:
The fact that none of the girls were pretty.
The masturbation scene. Some would be humoured by it and I thought it completely natural - momentary pleasure can be wonderful.
The way Aron ran off after saying goodbye to the girls towards the beginning of the movie.
The flashback when he chose not to receive his mother's phone call.
The premonition of him with his son.
The way Aron kisses the hooks when he approaches the cliff after he had sawed off his hand.
How swiftly the canyon flooded, how easily he freed himself and how believably he made it to his girlfriend's house just for the audience to understand that it's some sort of a dream.
The ants on his face.
How the audience is forced to gasp when he drops his bottle of water.

Cannot forget how the family of three ran towards him :) - That scene just gnawed at me from my insides. Something so animalistic about how they ran to help Aron.

The Matrix

It's 2011 and I'm watching a movie that was released in 1999. This movie is still cool.
"C'mon - Stop trying to hit me and hit me!"
"Everybody falls the first time."
Some of the dialogues are embedded.
In 1999, the world did not have Google. Internet was a novelty. America was free of terrorism. India was still a 'bad-land'. People didn't care about China.
The Wachowski brothers decided to market the idea of the world being a dream in which we are stuck. This idea may have influenced people the world over. This movie, I want to believe, somehow made people become independent.. in their thoughts and actions.
The movie - Cool. That's it. Stunningly intelligent in the nuances planted at certain junctures. Great effects, fantastic direction, crisp, great story and rather excellent acting by Laurence Fishburne and Keanu Reeves.
I wonder if it will retain its coolness 20 years from now :)

The best quote of all : "There is no spoon."

Into the Wild

I'm appalled at myself for not having written about this movie. It has been one of the most influential movies in my life - and that is the reason you should watch it.
It is based on a true story based on that of Christopher McCandless. A man, disillusioned, curious and gaining consciousness decided to leave society - to a degree. He met random people on his journeys with his eventual goal of going to Alaska, or as he said it "Alaskalaska"

It's difficult to not let my emotion cloud this 'review' but I shall try. Emile Hirsch, Sean Penn and Eddie Vedder created magic. The music and the lyrics breathes life into dull patches and gets the viewer interested in trying to understand this creature called 'Alexander Supertramp'.

One issue with the progress of society, especially over the last 100 years, has been the influx of people, technology, communication, capitalism and a bull-headed focus on getting ahead. Christopher saw what was happening around him and disliked the materialism that surrounded him and just wanted to go away from all these accepted rituals of daily life.
MGMT's song, Time to Pretend, was written well -
" Yeah it's overwhelming, but what else can we do? Get jobs in offices and wake up for the morning commute... We're fated to pretend."

People who don't like the movie have said, ' Ya.. it's about this guy who goes to Alaska right?'
People who like the movie sound like Jeff Bridges and say, ' Just watch the movie man'


Special thanks to Eddie Vedder for moaning and groaning through his simple, hearty lyrics that instantly makes me question our society.

Just watch the movie man.