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Today, aggregates and consensus are far becoming outdated concepts.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.

Koffee with Karan, aka PrabhaKARAN - Madras Cafe Review

Watching Madras Café reminded me of Breaking Bad.  Of all the possible movies and show, it reminded me of this one.  Breaking Bad’s long drawn scenes, often consisting of nothing more than a prolonged yet enthralling conversation between a few characters is quite the antithesis of this movie.

The scenes are short, crisp, never lasting more than a minute, usually lasting for half a minute.  The action jumps all over the place, which makes sense since the characters in this overarching theme are scattered at diverse locations.  It makes the ongoing at times tough to follow and makes the proceeding a teensy bit muddled at times, but it adds a sense of compelling urgency to the proceedings, which is one of the staples of a taut thriller.  And Madras Café is a taut thriller no doubt.

 A historic fiction of sorts, the majority of the events and watershed moments in the tense Sri Lankan conflicts are based on facts, with only the protagonist who acts as the lens through which we see the drama unfold, and the immediate conflict surrounding him being the fictionalized portion.  Which presents a very weird dilemma.  Unable to name the key elements, characters etc., the makers resort to fictionalized names, which sounds like a fair idea, but in some cases, let the entity go unnamed, referring to it by its title alone.  Which leads to some awkward phrasing, like referring to the “so very obviously Rajiv Gandhi” character as Ex-PM.  Barring these instances and a few incidences – at one point, a R&AW analyst, with a straight face and nary a hint of sarcasm explains that Kangaru means Kangaroo (mind = blown) – the dialogue is serviceable.

The action sequences and the scenes of mayhem and devastation are captured perfectly, neither shying away from the true horrors, not glorifying or glamourizing the violence and gore.  Shoojit Sircar continues his trend of casting off beat actors/personalities in key roles (quizmaster Siddharth Basu is quite a natural as the R&AW chief).  The acting overall is pitch perfect in line with the ongoings on screen with no scenery chewing and no limelight hogging histrionics being attempted here.

Ironically, one of the weakest elements here is the plot device used to capture the narrative, the very beginning and the ending of the movie (which occurs mostly in flashbacks).  Lacking an inspirational finish, they opt for John’s Abrahams voice ringing in the credits narrating Tagore’s “Where the Mind is Without Fear” (which isn’t too shabby).  Certainly worth watching, this one.  Oh, also, I was confused regarding one aspect i.e. the location of the eponymous Madras Café.  Was it Singapore or London? Oh well, maybe they have franchises (perhaps it’s a fictionalized version of Starbucks).

Movie Musings - Pacific Rim

Movies can be made from templates these days.  The characters, acts, set pieces are all templates.  In case of action blockbuster, the main purpose is to showcase the stylized action pieces.  In case of Pacific Rim, these pieces assume ginormous proportions and deliver orgasmic levels of gratifications to blockbuster fanboys and casual moviegoers alike.

  Pacific Rim could be any number of combinations of Independence Day, Godzilla, and numerous others that belong to the nameless, faceless horde that is the Summer Blockbuster.  Characters, plots and arcs are mixed and matched and one could easily substitute a scene from one into the other and get away with it.  I do not mention transformers here, since it does not have anything in the name of characters, arcs or plot points.  At least, not memorable ones.  You have the hero struggling with inner demons or with a past, you have a seemingly at odds yet ultimately ultra-compatible team/duo.  You have the geeky scientist providing comic relief and last minute Deus Ex Machina revelations.  And you have the token leader/speech giver who delivers the big speech right on cue at the beginning of the third act and who will ultimately step into the thick of action him/herself.

  In a way, Pacific Rim is akin to softcore pornographic films.  Plots, dialogues and stories are a means to get to the parts that one really wants to see.  And those bits are a treat to watch.   I saw the movie in IMAX 3D.  The post conversion on the 3d was one of the best I have seen.  The set up to the world is done in a quick voiceover, throwing in basic neurological study with Zen and psychological mumbo jumbo, giving us terms like Neural Handshake, Drafting, Neural Link etc.  The world is well threshed out enough to make you think this was adapted from a preexisting comic/manga or tv series source.  But this is one of those rare gems – a completely original summer blockbuster.  Well, original at least in terms of origin and superficial story trappings.

  So back to the set pieces.  It’s basically the dream mashup with Giant monsters battling Giant Robots with tons of destruction.  Even in the midst of these intense pieces, Guillermo Del Toro manages to find moments of absurd humor that you can’t help but laugh out loud at.  The robots, called Jaegers, piloted by humans, are brilliantly conceived, as is their weaponry.  Especially the two main ones, piloted by our chief protagonists – Gypsy Danger and Striker Eureka are vividly realized.  The monsters are a mix of various Japanese monsters and several dinosaurs (the reason for the dinosaur similarity is offhandedly explained in an easy to miss sentence – not that we cared).  All in all, this is worth checking out, just to marvel at sheer technology, on the biggest screen you can.  The one glaring letdown – the soundtrack could have been much much better.  Instead, while serviceable, it mostly feels like a Nintendo Game Track.