A Nudge, a wink and a nod!

We live in the age of influence (nope, this is not a post on alcoholism or drug abuse.  No, it’s not about my caffeine over-dependence.  Or my Red Bull addiction).  It’s not about influential events, or influential people.  It’s about how the influence is now coming in like a maelstrom, wrapping everything in.  People, events, products, everything wields influence.  And everything, therefore, is influenced.

It’s like an Ouroboros (don’t ask me what it means, I love throwing in a few fancy words every now and then.  It’s probably a cross between the Alpha Omega concept, Catch-22 phenomenon and Aum).  So we have self-referential humor, pat on the back jokes, pop culture references (forget classic references, movies, shows and music now reference current contemporary phenomenon, their dubious shelf life and longevity notwithstanding).

Remember that age old query where art imitates life or life imitates art? Well now it’s like Does life imitate art, which is influenced by art influenced by life, in turn influenced by some obscure art?  You see what I mean?  Too confusing.  We can’t be sure what we want and like is something that we actually want and like or something that we feel we want and like because it is projected that we want and like said thing.  We’ve dug ourselves into a hole and now we can’t get out.  Hell, we aren’t sure we want to get out (story of my life by the way).  I, personally think that we shall all fade out, like a snapshot of a snapshot of a snapshot till it’s just a jumble of obscure pixels (or go for that Copy of a Copy of a Copy dialogue from Fight Club, if you want to).  On that cheerful note, Happy New Year!

Subject: random, Object: nonsense

Subjectivity is a subject that has subjectively intrigued me, but I fear to speak about it since I feel my opinion would be too subjective to carry any import with anyone.  As simple as that, really.  

Today, aggregates and consensus are far becoming outdated concepts.  Products and offerings are coming up with niche, customization and personalization.  Everyone has an opinion, a different and intensely personal one on everything.  Well, to be fair, they always had it, but thanks to the lack of resources they mercifully kept the opinions to themselves (I know, I know.  The irony of me making this statement on a crappy weblog hasn’t escaped me).  But now it’s complete chaos.  A chaos most discernable, with the year-end Listomania.  Thousands of reviewers and bloggers come out with tons of “Best of” year-end lists.  And there are no definitive lists.  There are categories, and sub categories for everything – movies by genres, releases, budgets and awards, books by genres, author types, nationalities, music again by genres (man, this genre is a popular categorization method), indie/mainstream, artists, nationalities.  And yet, for all these varied categories, individual people still manage to come up with lists that are considerably different that the ones created by their counterparts.  And as you get more and more niche, into obscure categories, the difference becomes more marked.

The problem, then are these designated, and often, self-declared Opinion Makers, and experts.  The whole point of critiquing and reviewing things are to be able to communicate it to the masses.  Not everything has to be broken down into niche categories for select patrons (ironically, one of the fallouts of this is that “mass-appeal” itself, is becoming somewhat of a niche area).  They are too busy showing off their expertise and their understanding of “subtleties” and “nuances” to bother about who they are making it for, and who would even benefit from it.

The thing with opinion is, opinions these days are often confused with epiphanies and earth shattering discoveries.  The moment you have an opinion, you feel the urge to share it with the word.  And then indulge, ever so often, in pointless opinion wars with like-minded addled brained zealots (not to be confused with the opium wars of the 1800s, which, I also suspect contained a lot of addled brained zealots).  It’s like with the no. of choices you offer a person.  There is a sweet spot.  Anything beyond that and you end up discouraging anyone from even indulging.

It’s a kind of self-projection really.  The World According to Me.  Narcissism is the biggest by-product (or waste-product, if you will) of the Internet Age.  So that’s it.  My super subjective opinion of an obscure phenomenon to fulfil my narcissistic desire to contribute something worthless to this world in 2013.

Doom Generation times three - Dhoom 3 Review

So I finally saw Dhoom 3.  Because why not?  I’d seen the first two, and an Aamir Khan movie is always the event of the year (in some cases an event for two years).  I for one, don’t seem to get the flak the movie seems to be getting.

From the first post credit scene, the makers of the movie make it quite clear as to what kind of a movie this is supposed to be.  It is a deep, thoughtful and subtle social commentary disguised as a slick, over the top, masala thriller.  When Abhishek Bachchan punches and kicks a couple of goons through 2 brick walls and drives a standard issue non armor plated autorickshaw through three of them, it is clear that they are really drawing your attention to the issue of substandard quality of the building material used in the various buildings and structures in the housing societies of urban and downtown Bombay.

The action may shift back to Chicago, but here again, the social undertones gain a vice like grip and refuse to let go.  Yes, the sea is blue, the sidewalks are clean, the cars expensive, but life is not all hunky dory here.  Just because cops and robbers live in tastefully furnished sea facing penthouses and roam around in luxury bikes, their lives are not happy.

The darkness called Capitalism looks like a Kracken beneath the surface.  Bankers, their egos large enough to fill the Cadillacs filmed, oddly, at Ram Gopal Verma angles, go about hiring and firing cops – from Bombay no less – which can only mean they now control government institutions like the Chicago Police Department.  They sip tea in spotless white tea sets like the Queen of England rather than grab your average cuppa joe from the nearby Starbucks.  But pay attention, dear viewer, notice the brilliant juxtaposition of the paradox, if you will:  underneath all the pomp and show lies the true, crumbling façade of capitalism.  This powerful bank, that has withstood the test of time for years, will crumble and shutdown in the space of merely three robberies in three branches. 

Suck on that Bane from the Dark Knight – you should’ve hired Aamir Khan to pull off a few heists if you wanted Gotham to crumble.  For apart from bringing down banks with such well-timed and strategic heists, he also possesses a BMW bike that puts the Tumbler/Batmobile to shame.  It is souped-up, can traverse on multiple surface, can join with its twin to form a four wheeled ATV, has molecular distortion capable rubber that can transform into plastic as soon as its hit water, special treads to travel on metal wires over rooftops and so on… Zack Snyder, hope you’re taking notes.

The only place where the movie slightly falters in a delightful little segment on How to Befriend Autistics.  A wonderful segment in its own rights, but in the movie the makers, while struggling to juggle such a powerhouse plot, all the undertones, twists and the star cast probably and understandably got confused and thought they were actually shooting the sequel to Taare Zameen Par.

Aamir Khan brings the required intensity to such powerful and educative cinema, doling out smiles in measured quantities only when required and as appropriate to the role/roles.  He is good as the intense, vendetta driven clown thief, and great his more innocent minded, but equally brilliant and physically imposing autistic brother who his inconspicuously hidden away as one of the objects of the heists for half the movie…. Oh sorry, did I just give away a plot twist?? Well, you should’ve guessed the plot twist when the other reviewers mentioned The Prestige.  And if you’ve never seen The Prestige, I don’t care to be sensitive enough to care about maintaining the aura of suspense for you.  Stop reading this and go watch The Prestige first.  Abhishek Bachchan looks grim and serious, as a person should when he is being sidelined in his own movie franchise.  Alas, Uday Chopra does not die a grim and horrific death in the intitial chase sequences despite not bothering with a helmet.  Katrina Kaif balances the complicated dual roles of being the eye candy for the majority of the film, and the catalyst of the climax.  The climax, interestingly was shot at Hoover Dam, but inspite of all the ruckus going about, Optimus Prime does not show up from within is secret hideout to help out the cops – probably busy instructing the rest of the Autobots to never convert into a BMW grey bike at any cost.