Tag: movies

  • Fairytale Endings

    We hurried, after all it was not everyday that we could listen to a Lord. We didn’t make it early enough because there was already quite a crowd in attendance, most of whom were not pleased to see latecomers trying to squeeze their way in between. The lord came on time, and had his audience spellbound with his anecdotes and immense sense of humour. He promised to autograph every book that his audience had brought, but there was a twist in the tale. The peasants at Landmark wouldn’t let us near unless we’d made a purchase then and there. So we left, with the satisfaction that we at least got to see him.

    But that wasn’t the only reason we left early, we had one more audience left, a Prince, no less – Prince Caspian. There’s a reason why i was eagerly waiting for this film. Unlike the modern day children’s tales of magic, this one is absolutely fairytale. Good and evil are clearly defined and there are no greys in between. It takes you back to a time when you would believe in talking animals, magic, witches, wise kings and all the folk who appear in fairytales in all their innocence. Its a completely different world, and as i read somewhere, some things have to be believed to be seen.

    until next time, back to reality

  • The price of fear

    1989… Rs.15… Bees Saal Baad
    2006… Rs.170… Darna Zaroori Hain

    until next time, there’s a reason to be afraid

  • Life Talkies

    Have not been watching a lot of movies recently, at least not as much as i am used to watching…. a part of it is because that there are not many good movies coming out, especially in the two languages that i watch,malayalam and hindi.. english has always been second priority.. read lots of english books and no books at all in the other two, so i guess it fits like a puzzle…
    it is something a lot of people have been lamenting upon – the drastic decrease in the quality of movies that are being churned out… though i do argue that some of the ‘Factory’ products as well as some of the ‘multiplex’ targeted movies in bollywood are good stuff.. but even thats not happening in the malayalam movie scene…
    have heard a lot of arguments on the movies’ influence on life, and vice versa, on which of these is actually true.. to cite a common example,are more people becoming part of the underworld because of the increasing number of movies being made on them, or is just a case of reel life being taken from real life…what i am wondering about is, can the lack of meaningful cinema be due to the fact that life per se has become less meaningful now.. if reel was copying real, then the superficiality of the current way of existence would automatically make movies frivolous and time pass, and nothing more deep than say, a face pack (oops, wrong example?).. on the other hand, if real was copying reel, then these movies would make us even more superficial than we are now… thankfully, movies aren’t all pervasive…

    until next time, screen yourself…

  • Am I Doing Something – about it…..?

    A topic i had wanted to write on since i saw ‘phir milenge’..(when i saw ‘philadelphia’, i wasnt blogging)….
    for a long time, i had maintained that awareness kills fear..the child’s fear of the dark, for example – once it realises that there is nothing in the dark that causes harm, it loses the fear.although there are a lot of things which dont fall under this categorisation, those, i believe,are things that we dont have complete info about..
    AIDS – a phenomenon that is perhaps mankind’s greatest threat ever, because even awareness isnot moving people away from its most usual modes of transmission, and it can strike you by no fault of yours – blood transfusion, infected syringes, certain organ transplants etc. but, it definitely cannot be transmitted by borrowing clothes from an HIV person, sharing of utensils, drinking from the same glass with the person with HIV/AIDS, shaking of hands, embracing,or even kissing an infected person…. yes, i know all of this, all of us who are aware of the disease know this…
    but inspite of this awareness, i am not sure if i could bring myself to share clothes with an HIV infected person, to hug him, to maybe even sit close to him ..
    it is certainly not lack of awareness thats causing this fear.. is it because i am also aware ofmy mortality but unaware of what lies ahead of me after death? will it take that awareness to get over a fear of something i know about? i, for one,hope not, and the day i get over this fear, i will be a happy man….

  • Bloggywood

    Bollywood – where dreams come true, where talent, if it exists, will definitely getrevealed, where fantasies are lived out, where passion finds a way of expression…(for that matter, any ‘ollywood’ – B, H, K…)
    in the beginning, almost every movie made had a fresh storyline which made people see it. then we had formula movies, which tried to recreate the same magic as its successful predecessor, most failed, coz people could see the same thing only so many times… the search for keeping viewers happy continued.. for some time, fresh faces were the mantra, and love stories were churned out like there was no tomorrow (maybe there wasnt).but then even love could only keep interest that long..
    action, romance, mystery, sex …a time when every idea has been thrashed out , thrashed in, and thrashed inside out… then the varied treatments began… “its the same story, but my treatment is different”…. somewhere in between there was also the “for the first time in bollywood” wave, which included phirang heroes and heroines, and special effects… we also had, maybe still have movies made for the niche audience…the cross over movies…’grey’ heroes and heroines, literally and otherwise..none of this making much of a difference…..every time a fresh face is launched with reasonable fanfare, there is an interest, but itisnt sustained… there are not enough viewers, except for very rare cases…
    but yup, you are right, bollywood and the other woods still go on, movies are being made, we still watch them, but the standard of movies has reached rock bottom, and is still digging (that would explain the underworld involvement 😉 ),the chances of watching a good movie are infinitesimally small… the consolation is that there are still some who experiment, and make movies about stuffthey believe in, and that belief many a time makes the movie a success… but they are too few to change the general phenomenon………..
    Blogs- where dreams come true, where talent, if it exists, will definitely get revealed, where fantasies are lived out, where passion finds a way of expression…(rediffblogs, blogspot, blogdrive…..)
    in the beginning……………
    do we see bloggywood happening?
    until next time, keep believing, keep blogging….