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.

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.

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.

My Blueberry Nights

One of those movies which remain hidden. Could easily see this movie again :) Was sincere, painful, sweet and romantic. Once again, the direction stood out. Once again, time was utilized as it should be... slowly. Norah Jones did a pretty good job, wonder if she might take up acting as a career. The best scenes in the movie? Jude Law reaching out across the table towards a sleeping Norah, especially in the last scene of the movie. Indescribable. A must watch scene :)

I enjoyed seeing Norah miserable when her boyfriend decided to cheat on her and dump her. Enjoyed seeing Jude's ex-girlfriend (may be?) come back to him just for a goodbye. Enjoyed the cameos by Natalie Portman and Rachel Weisz (her story). Take chances my friend.

Taxi Driver

The character was so flawed, from the very beginning, and everything went astray from the first half of the movie onwards. The end seemed rather poor but served its purpose well. Robert De Niro was fabulous without a doubt; but the real gem lay in the character that was created by the writer and shape given to it by Martin Scorsese. A particular part of the movie stood out:
This is when Robert meets the secret service agent and Robert acts like, or is, a complete moron, similar to a village idiot; he was very convincing - It reminded me of real idiots who mouth inane sentences and people at the receiving end tend to have monologues running through their minds. Also, the length of that encounter did not seem to serve a real purpose, which stuck out for me.