Desicritics Category: Media: DVDs

Movie Review: Wall Street

Sandeep — Fri, 9 May 2008 15:18:11 EDT

The first time I watched Wall Street was when it was released in India. It bored me to death. Back then, my diet was crawling with action and horror flicks and plot-and-dialogue-heavy movies bored me. And now I'm in a frenzy of unearthing, watching and reviewing these selfsame movies.

Wall Street is simply a glossy, modern-day version of Crime and Punishment narrated rather well with the typical 1980s' Hollywood ingredients of high-tech gadgetry, skyscraper-culture, and some sleaze for good measure.

While it doesn't exactly qualify for a classic, it is a superlatively-told story worth watching a few times. High points of the movie include great performances by the protagonists, no-holds barred dialogue, and brilliant screenplay. The last attribute scores real well because it is difficult to sit through a dialogue-heavy film for over 2 hours unless the screenplay rivets you to your seat.

Wall Street is the familiar story of the seductive power of greed, and how its accompanying consequences play out in the minds and lives of different people. Set in the mid-1980s, Wall Street is about Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas), an unscrupulous corporate raider who manipulates stock holdings of entire corporations using every proverbial dirty trick in the book, and Bud Fox (Charlie Sheen), a struggling two-pence stock salesman in a stockbroking firm. Gordon Gekko has everything that Bud Fox wants, and idol-worships him for that reason. Gekko takes him under his tutelage, and introduces him to his world. At some point, when Gekko feels that he has sufficiently peeled off Fox's conscience, he entrusts him with greater "responsibilities." To his credit, Fox, fuelled by his rapid successes, takes greater, and thus riskier initiatives. As is wont, his unethical journey brings him to his own, very ethical father's company. Gekko backstabs Fox. The rest is about retribution, soul-searching and salvation.

Oliver Stone is both a skillful storyteller and a great extractor of performances. Charlie Sheen takes us along all the way till the end starting with his almost-naive ambition to tearful guilt. But Wall Street is Michael Douglas all the way, which deservedly won him the Oscar. Oliver Stone gives his character a sense of completeness, which is missing in Sheen's characterization. The Gekko in Gordon Gekko seems to have a parallel in the Gecko lizard, which emits foul-smelllng material and feces to ward off its enemies. Gordon Gekko's "business" premise is slime. He hits hard, ducks, manipulates, and breaks every rule of decency to get what he wants and to stay there. He involves Bud Fox in every dirty deal but ensures that his own back is protected if trouble erupts. With this kind of absolute author-backed characterization, Michael Douglas has won you completely, much before he begins his celebrated Greed, for want of a better word, is good speech. Oliver Stone manages to retain the latent violence in Gekko's character till the close of the movie when he decides to unleash it. Gekko punches Bud Fox with a ferocity that only matches the inherent evil in his character.

Because there's no such thing as a perfect film, I guess we need to mention the most obvious shortcomings. Like most well-made movies, Wall Street seems to be in a hurry to finish. Bud Fox's decision to punish Gordon Gekko for ruining his father's company is contrived. The sequence and pace of his actions just don't make sense because till then you are given to believe that Gekko is this all-knowing monster. How Bud's artificial engineering of the stock market escapes Gekko's attention is puzzling. The biggest let-down is Daryl Hannah. From seducing the naive Bud Fox to graduating to his almost-love interest, her character has zero relevance to the movie. Wall Street wouldn't exactly suffer a loss if her character wasn't created at all. Also, Wall Street could have done without getting too preachy: whether its Michael Douglas preaching about the goodness of greed or Sheen's father sermonizing about the virtues of ethical living.

Wall Street wins not only for its superior storytelling or the other aspects I've mentioned but also because it portrays conflict so well.

Movie Review: Little Children

Aspi — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 00:36:11 EST

In a series of intertwining scenes that make up the climax of writer-director Todd Field's movie, Little Children, Sarah Pierce (Kate Winslet) loses her daughter in a park at night. Frantic, she runs around looking for her and finally locates her, unmoving staring at a streetlight high above her, circling moths and all. She grabs her daughter, who never wishing to be confined in a car seat now scarcely protests at being put in one. And somewhere as her daughter's situation strikes Sarah's as metaphoric, she breaks down and sobs. Her daughter pats her on the head like you would little children and says "It's ok, Mom"

In Field's complex, layered Little Children Sarah joins three stay at home Moms every day in the park for play dates for her daughter. Enter Brad Adamson (Patrick Wilson) a stay at home Dad who brings his son to the same park. The women drool over Brad and one of them dares Sarah to get his phone number. Sarah does this and more - she elicits a hug from Brad that scandalizes the women.

Field very carefully goes about mapping the circumstances that contrive to ignite an affair between Sarah and Brad. His screenplay is solid, his staging of scenes is meticulous. Yet the story would have felt threadbare had it not been for a couple of actors.

First, Jackie Earle Haley shows up as Ronnie - a pedophile who is trying hard to be normal despite knowing he is fighting a losing battle. His story arc is tough and uncompromising and he does really well in this - eliciting our sense of horrified fascination instead of trying to squeeze us for empathy. This lends the movie a distinct edge and creates a fulcrum to hang the rest of the story (and large swathes of societal satire) to hang off. (Haley won an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his work here)

And then, Kate Winslet does a terrific job. She has mere on-screen moments to convince us that she would choose to scandalize her friends as she does in the early part of the film. Yet she manages to convey to us Sarah's sense of maladjustment among her friends, her possible contempt for them, her definite amusement at their daily talk, her sense of frustration at not being able to carve out a more intellectual and passionate life for herself. When the key moment arrives, you don't question the absurdity of it. (Winslet was nominated for a Best Actress Oscar)

Little Children is as much fun to watch as it is tough to sit through. While I didn't enjoy it's repulsion chic, I did get its necessity.

Also, I'm not a big fan of narration in movies: Wil Lyman's narration is supposed to invoke a sense of children's documentary in the movie - and despite an amusing interlude, where he imitates the voice over in HBO's Inside the NFL for a football game - it did nothing to change my mind about narration in big cinema.

DVD Review: RX for Survival- A Global Health Challenge

Blokesablogin — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 14:14:04 EST

Science and medicine have been fascinating areas for me as I come from a long line of healers. Our motto was simply prevention being better than cure and simple home remedies straight off the kitchen shelf.

The blood red DVD cover simply jumped out of the shelf and I watched 336 minutes of global health issues. I knew that Bill Gates had donated millions of dollars to the AIDS cause in Africa and I saw a glimpse of where the money was going. Merck, the other sponsor for the series, was low key except for pushing the fact that there is not much money in vaccine research these days.

I was shocked at the low budget of the WHO and the work they somehow contrive to do.

I was moved to tears while witnessing the individual initiatives that have made small and big differences in our world.

I was amazed at the tenacity of the human species.

I was awed by the commitment of scientists and social workers.

I am hopeful about the world coming together at the face of a global challenge.

Watch it. Learn about the issues facing the world today in the field of public health. A lot of which shares ground with education and simple economics and access to resources such as clean water and sanitation. It is about common sense and it costs nothing.

This PBS series has brought some level of awareness amidst the minds of Americans with a social conscience. Now, it is the turn of our financially affluent and/or community conscious, philanthropic desi community to take a look and do the needful.

Movie Review: Apocalypse Now

DeeptiA — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 00:02:55 EDT

(Spoiler Alert: This review will contain the story of the film)

There have been many movies made on the Vietnam War, covering a wide spectrum from comedies to gritty to outright patriotic, and many of them cover the angst and the horror of war; however, if you want to see a movie that does not cover the war as much as takes a look into what the horror of war can do to the human mind and spirit, Apocalypse Now is the movie to watch.

This movie is a movie that almost made the director, Francis Ford Coppola (director of the Godfather series), into a mad person. In fact, there is a documentary by his wife, Eleanor Coppola, called Heart of Darkness that describes the struggles in shooting this movie on location in the Philippines, and makes for a good companion to the movie DVD.

For Francis Ford Coppola, this movie was a mission for him, to the extent that when the financing for this movie dried up, he used the money he made from the Godfather movies as well as a loan in order to complete the movie. The movie was derived from Joseph Conrad's novella Heart of Darkness (1899), as well as drawing elements from Herr's "Dispatches" (1977). The movie starred 3 people in great roles along with a number of upcoming actors, with Martin Sheen, Marlon Brando and Robert Duvall. Coppola had to struggle with both Martin Sheen and Marlon Brando, with Martin being out of shape, and Marlon not even reading the novel that Coppola wanted him to read.

The movie went way over budget, with a cost of $ 31 million vs a budget of $13 million (and overcoming a typhoon and a near-fatal heart attack for Martin Sheen). The movie finally made good for Coppola, earning over $100 million, and earning respect at the Oscars as well. The film was nominated for eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor (Robert Duvall), Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Art Direction/Set Decoration, and Best Film Editing, but the film won only two awards: Best Cinematography (Vittorio Storaro) and Best Sound.
Enough about the circumstances. What was the movie about?

The movie took a army officer, smart, witty, decorated and a war hero, and now a deranged renegade Colonel named Walter E. Kurtz (Marlon Brando). In an shock to his system, he had administered vaccination to the children of a village, and then got called back when he was told that the VietCong had cut off the arm of every such child (that war was this brutal). This incident pushed him over the edge, and he moved out of the normal military chain, believing that the war has to be fought at this level. He sets up a small compound in a temple in the jungle, and sets up his own army that treats him like a god, and kills VietCong intelligence agents without mercy. It is decided that he needs to be taken out, executed, and the man who is selected to do it is also decided.

It is Army Captain Benjamin L. Willard (Martin Sheen), a man who has been inactive for several weeks now in Saigon, whiling away the time and at the starting point of a depression. He is informed by intelligence operatives that he will have to cross the border into Cambodia, and take Kurtz out. He is given a boat to go upstream into the river (representing the actual Mekong) and armed with a squad of 4 ill-fated soldiers, by-the-book Chief Phillips, a Navy boat commander; GM3 Lance B. Johnson, a tanned all-American California surfer, the Cajun Engineman, Jay "Chef" Hicks, and GM3 Bubba Tyrone, also known as "Mr. Clean", a 17-year-old from "some South Bronx shithole".

The PBR (Patrol Boat, River) has a landing zone from where they have to start, and it is here that they meet the 1st Squadron, 9th Cavalry (Aerial Reconnaissance) commanded by the eccentric Lt. Colonel William Kilgore (Robert Duvall was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor role). The Cavalry has just completed a mission over a target, and when they meet, Kilgore realizes that the starting point has a great beach with 6 foot waves ideal for surfing. It is estimated that they need to make the zone more friendly for starting the mission as well, and hence the Cavalry decides to attack the village located over there.
In an incredible scene, the helicopters attack with advance broadcasting of Wagner's 'Ride of the Valkyries' in order to weaken the villagers and the VC over there. The helicopters defeat the village causing mass mayhem, and then a giant napalm strike is used to destroy a forest just for greater safety. At this point, Kilgore goes from the scene, but not before uttering these dialogues, very famous indeed:

"Smell that? Do you smell that? Napalm, son. Nothing else in the world smells like that. I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know one time we had a hill bombed...for twelve hours. And when it was all over I walked up. We didn't find one of 'em. Not one stinkin' dink body. The smell. You know that gasoline smell. The whole hill. It smelled like...victory. Some day this war's gonna end."

And the boat starts upriver, with a number of incidents including a stop where there are 3 Playboy Playmates, an incident with a tiger, and on. The crew also loses 2 of their men as they approach the compound, and see sights of people who had attempted to get close to Kurtz. As they approach the compound, one of the crew stays back and is eventually killed, another mingles with the natives and Willard is caught and imprisoned. Kurtz lectures Willard (you get a feeling of the horror that must have been witnessed to hear him speak); Willard watches what happens over a number of days, essentially free.

In the final scene (somewhat controversial since a water buffalo was killed for this scene), Willard kills Kurtz with a machete and walks away. Kurtz utters his final words, "The horror... the horror," as he lies dying and these are the words that are repeated as the screen turns black. Coppola so wanted to make this film a black description of the brutalities of war that even the credits of the film are not scrolled.

Movie Review: North by Northwest

DeeptiA — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 08:37:50 EDT

(Warning: Spoilers and plot-line)

North by Northwest, released in 1959, is a gripping thriller, one of the most famous and successful of Alfred Hitchcock's movies. It was the 4th collaboration of Cary Grant with Alfred Hitchcock (the previous ones being Suspicion (1941), Notorious (1946), and To Catch a Thief (1955)). The movie also stars Oscar winner Eva Marie Saint as a blonde who is apparently one of the villains and instead is one of the helpful ones, a true love life partner for the hero.

The movie has some great elements, with the notion of a go-getter advertising man wrongly suspected of being a spy and being chased throughout the movie (to his utter bewilderment in the beginning and shocked acceptance as the movies moves on). There are two scenes in the movie which are acknowledged as true masterpieces, with the scene of the hero being harassed by a crop-duster in a wide open field being a much popular one, and the other being the scene on Mount Rushmore.

The movie was distributed by Metro Goldwyn Mayer and at a budget of $ 4 million. It was nominated for 3 Oscars (Film Editing (George Tomasini), Art Direction, and Original Screenplay (Ernest Lehman)); even though the film did not win any awards, it has been acknowledged to be amongst Hitchcock's best works and among the top 100 movies of all time.

The movie stars Cary Grant as a go-getter Madison Avenue advertising man, and one who in a coincidence, gets marked to be a non-existent CIA agent and who is then pursued by agents of a mysterious organization who believe that he is interfering in their plans to smuggle out a microfilm from the United States and want to find out what exactly what he knows.

George Kaplan is a man created (a false identity) by a US intelligence agency and with a story that he is going to stop the work of the mysterious foreign organization. One day, Roger Townhill, who is accustomed to creating all sorts of stories to sell products, gets up in a restaurant at the same time when the name of George Kaplan is taken and from that time, he is a caught up in a game of chase that he is not prepared for. However, he really does not have a choice: He is first caught and interrogated by the agents, and forced to have a large quantity of bourbon forced down his throat.

He manages to escape after a police chase, and when caught by the police, is seemingly drunk; imagine telling the police and judge that you are drunk because you were being chased by foreign agents who forced you to drink liquor, and imagine how easily you will be believed. This happens in the house of a diplomat, and when Townhill goes to confront him, he is escaped to find a different man. At this point, he is he well and truly in trouble, when a knife hits the diplomat and in a move from so many movies, Townhill removes the knife and it now seems that he is the killer.

He escapes and gets onto a train to Chicago, and finds that a train is a good way to get away from the police. On the train, he meets the blonde Eva Kendall. She saves him from the police, and they have a real interesting loaded conversation.
After getting off the train, he reaches a pre-arranged stop, but which is actually a trap. In a wide open place, he is attacked by the crop-dusting plane firing bullets at him. Eventually, after a series of adventures, he meets a Professor from the intelligence agencies who tells him about the true nature of George Kaplan, a fictional identity to save Eva. (The motif of the Professor is styled on the head of the actual intelligence agency).

Eventually, Townhill, chasing Eva to save her, is chased by the opposite agents across the face of Mount Rushmore; and in a final confrontation, they are saved by a police marksman who shoots the villain dead.

Movie Review: The Shawshank Redemption

DeeptiA — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 09:41:59 EDT

(Spoiler Alert! plot/story outline given away)

Sometimes you come across a movie that is really good, slow, but good. The Shawshank Redemption is an adaption of the novella Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption by Stephen King. The movie was an excellent example of story-telling, and was a movie that delineated that hope never dies. It had great performances by Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman, and the interactions between them was made the storyline such an elegant one. The movie did not set the box office on fire, but over the years, the direction and the storytelling has developed a cult following for this movie that has only made it grow in popularity and a strong following in the DVD market. One criticism of this movie has been the length of the movie (142 minutes), but even for that, the pace at which the story has been developed and presented seems just right. Many critics have nominated this movie to be among the list of top best movies of all time.

The movie essentially has 2 strong characters, with Tim Robbins playing the role of 'Andy Dufresne' and Morgan Freeman as 'Ellis Boyd "Red" Redding'. Tim Robbins plays the role of a banker whose wife and lover was killed and he is convicted on the basis of circumstantial evidence even while professing his innocence. He is sentenced to 2 consecutive life sentences in the notorious (and harsh) Shawshank prison in Maine. His introduction to prison life is unsettling, with getting a de-lousing and strong speeches from the Warden Samuel Norton and Chief Prison Guard Captain Byron Hadley. He also witnesses a prisoner breaking down and causing a major disturbance, leading to Captain Hadley beating the prisoner brutally (and the prisoner dying from these wounds later).

In the meantime, Red has been denied parole by the parole board, and in the prison yard, watches the arrival of new prisoners including Tim. Andy slowly develops friends in the prison and eventually becomes friends with Red himself, and Red has a reputation for being able to get things inside the prison. Andy asks for and gets a rock hammer, to be able to pursue him hobby of rock collecting. Andy is assigned to the prison laundry, and in one of the seamier sides of the prison, he is continually harassed by a group of inmates known as 'The Sisters'. They regularly harass and rape him.

Then Andy's luck changes, with Captain Hadley getting to know about his financial skills, and he wants Andy to setup a tax shelter for him. He starts to get some preferential treatment and gets assigned to a lighter service of the prison library. Andy's fame as a financial help spreads and he is now advising a number of other prisoners, guards and even the Warden. He is also allowed to setup his own team, and he selects Red to be on the team. In a reminder of the painful life of a ex-con, an old prisoner who has been granted parole (but has been in jail for so long that he no longer recognizes life outside the prison) has major difficulties in adjusting to life outside the prison, and eventually commits suicide.

The changed fortune of Andy is much clearer now when he is again assaulted by 'The Sisters', but now the others beat up these leader of this group so badly that Andy is never threatened again. Things keep on progressing, and the Warden now has Andy to setup a new identity so that the Warden can benefit from the work that he is making the prisoners do. Things change when a new prisoner, Tommy joins and mentions that he knows of facts that would prove that Andy was innocent. The Warden is fearful of Andy getting out and revealing his financial planning, and shows his truly evil nature. He gets Captain Hadley to kill Tommy and pushes Andy into solitary confinement for 2 months, at the end of which Andy emerges a seemingly broken man.

This is where the story finally gets revealed. Andy vanishes, having escaped from the prison after digging a tunnel for 19 years. He takes the identity of the man he had created for the warden, and gets the Warden and Captain implicated for their scam He eventually goes to Mexico where Red joins him once he is freed on parole.

Moser Baer's Cheap Movie CD/DVDs

enidhi — Sat, 15 Sep 2007 00:29:09 EDT

If you wish to watch a movie on your computer or Home theatre, what do you do?
Option 1: Buy an original VCD/DVD from a branded showroom by paying several hundred rupees (Legal high quality content but expensive)
Option 2: Buy a pirated VCD/DVD for say 50-100 Rupees or less (illegal, quality may not be good, but pretty cheap)
Option 3: Rent a VCD/DVD for Rs.15-30 approx (Usually good quality, Watch and return it (some people make a copy of it though))

Since cost is primary concern for most middle class people, many of us will be tempted to go for option 2 or 3 which directly or indirectly promotes piracy, when multiple illegal copies of a movie are made.

Are you aware (if you've seen their ads on TV) that original VCDs and DVDs can be purchased at the cost of pirated ones? Moser Baer India (BSE:MOSR, a leading digital media manufacturer) has taken an initiative in this regard wherein they sell Full movie VCDs Rs 28 onwards and DVDs Rs 34 onwards.

What? Tell me more...

Hindi and regional language film VCDs are priced at Rs 28, English movie VCDs are priced at Rs 49, DVDs priced at Rs 34 onwards (Regional Languages-Rs 34, English: Rs 69). The price is so aggressive that it is at par with option 2 and 3 listed above. For the price of a pirated one you get original one. Even if you thought of taking a VCD on rent and making a copy using your DVD writer, it still makes more sense to buy original one.

Where do I get them?

All leading music stores, departmental stores like Big Bazaar, even some stationary shops sell these cheap VCDs and DVDs. To buy online or for exact address of outlets checkout Moserbaer Home entertainment website.

Is it profitable for Moser Bear to do this?

Yes. Moser Baer has its own manufacturing unit for digital media (CDRs and DVDRs etc) so the cost of CD/DVD for them is negligible (Blank CDRs retail at around Rs 6 onwards while DVDRs retail at Rs 15 onwards. Manufacturing cost should be around 20% of that amount). The movies they sell are usually old ones which do not have much demand as such, so it makes profitable sense to sell them with very low margin.

Advantages for buyers:

1. Satisfaction of buying a legal copy
2. Good quality video, with casings (Rs 28 VCDs come in pouch while rest come in jewel case/boxes) and colour labels. CD case free if you buy 10+ VCDs online
3. No dent on pocket. Price at par with pirated or rented movies
4. Not only Hindi and English movies, but also video items (movies as well as several other videos ) in several regional languages (Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam etc) are also available)
5. Current offer: Free shipping and Free CD case for purchase of 20+ Units

Other things one should know:

1. No refund, No exchange, No guarantee. Few may be of bad quality or may not play properly if faulty. You need to take that risk.
2. Latest movies may not be available like this. Only those which are few years old are sold this way (if the movie is good and if you've not watched it yet it is still worth collecting it.) (Note: Some exceptions may be there: for example, Apne and ek chalis ki last local, Hindi movies few months old but weren't a success at box office, are already available with MB. Newer movies are priced few rupees higher.
3. All movies will have Moser Baer watermark on them.
4. DVD-R is capable of storing more than just 1 movie, but only one movie is available per DVD.(No additional videos as well, say the making of the movie) (They could have clubbed 2-3 movies and sold for few rupees extra (It would be really convenient to have Home Alone 1, 2 and 3 or Spiderman 1 2 and 3 etc in a single disc instead of half a dozen of them)

My experience: I bought three Moser Baer VCDs and 1 DVD recently from Big Bazaar (Ameerpet Hyderabad). VCDs were quite good, but I am not happy with picture quality in the DVD I bought (This might be a selective case and may not be applicable to all DVD movies. The movie was very very old and probably no DVDs were in existence that time. Maybe the movie was stored in DVD directly from a VHS or CD)

This is an attempt by Moser Baer to focus on sales volume and gain profit, which is beneficial for both consumers who want genuine content at reasonable price and for companies who do not want to loose their market to piracy industry. I remember Lahari Recordings in Karnataka were selling original audio cassettes for Rs 20 once upon a time. These moves, if become popular among masses, should help eradicate video piracy and save entertainment industry. A pirated DVD (containing 3-4 latest movies) gets sold for around Rs 40 (negotiable) at Burma Bazaar Chennai (and at similar places in other cities), hence there's still a competition for Moser Baer. I hope people change their mind and shift towards MB.

Movie Review: Unforgiven - A Classic Western

DeeptiA — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 00:02:39 EDT

Westerns in the American movie world have typically of the sphagetti western type popularized by Clint Eastwood, and for those who remember, by John Wayne earlier. After all, how many would not remember 'For a fistfull of dollars', 'High Noon', 'Once upon a time in the West', and so on. The westerns in movies portray a picture that is vastly different from the one portrayed in Unforgiven in many respects.

Traditional westerns have mostly portrayed the west as a desolate place, with the gunslinger as a loner, treading along on his trusty steed; sometimes fighting the villain, sometimes fighting Indians, or it can be the cowboy working on a ranch or trying to setup something on his own in a big ranch. The hero is typically a good man from the heart, shooting from the hip, and wearing a certain set of clothes including a Stetson hat (large), spurs, bandanna (many of them), buckskins, a rifle or maybe a revolver. Many times the setting happen in a location that can be mountainous and arid at the same time, or in a desert like situation with sage rolling on the ground. A saloon forms a distinct part of the landscape, and a sheriff is an important part of the locality, with people being deputized when required. Here also you will hear the term 'posse'.

This entire vision had been under revision for some time with facts, studies and movies trying to debunk the romance involved in this mission. And then came this movie, Unforgiven (1992) which cleared away the whole vision, instead portraying people as normal people. So a gunfighter is essentially a mercenary (who will kill women and children for money), a sheriff is a person who does not implement fairness and is not above implementing his beliefs for implementing law, where women do not have an equal role; essentially it is a sordid tale. You have an aspiring gunslinger who finds out that life is more sordid than he expected, and you have a journalist who will do anything for a story.
Unforgiven was such a stark movie and so impressed people that it won a variety of Academy Awards. It was nominated for 9 awards and won 4 of them:
1. Best Picture for Clint Eastwood
2. Best Director for Clint Eastwood
3. Best Editing for Joel Cox
4. Best Actor in a supporting role for Gene Hackman

Violence is not glorified in any way, and even the anti-hero (Clint Eastwood) is not portrayed as a heroic figure, instead he is a retired former gunslinger (who was reformed after marriage), and is now supporting 2 children (his wife has died) by running a pig farm and gets back to being an active gunslinger because he needs the money.

The movie starts with a prostitute being attacked by a cowboy when she makes fun of his under-developed organ, and he, in a rage, slashes her face with a knife. The sheriff, Little Bill Daggett (Gene Hackman), a former gunfighter himself, comes and dispenses justice; he fines the cowboy and his friend and then, pays the money to the saloon owner and the pimp since they suffered damage to their goods; the prostitute does not get anything and the cowboy is not punished in any way.

The women of the saloon are outraged at this display of injustice and collect $1000 for whoever bounty hunter will kill the 2 cowboys and spread this information far and wide. People respond to this, with a newbie gunfighter, The Kid recruiting William Munny (Eastwood) to try and collect this money. Munny is a retired gunslinger, mercenary, and bandit, so he does not have a very reputable past life.

Munny also takes the help of Ned Logan (Morgan Freeman) to help in this mission, and they set off to kill the 2 cowboys.

Another person is also approaching for the sake of getting this money, English Bob (Richard Harris). He arrives with his own biographer to write a book about him called 'The Duke of Death'. However, the sheriff has not taken kindly to the thought of bounty hunters arriving in his town to kill the cowboys and beats up English Bob and jails him, whereupon the biographer switched sides. He is a fan of the Great Western, and the sheriff seems to be a good representative of the lot. Further, there is a local ordinance that prohibits guns, and hence the sheriff is empowered to arrest anybody who carries guns.

And then these 3 - the Kid, Munny and Logan arrive in town and enter the saloon where while Munny waits downstairs, the other 2 go up to enjoy the prostitutes. And then the sheriff, Little Bill discovers that Munny is carrying a gun; given the reason, he beats Munny pretty viciously in front of everybody in the saloon. However, he escapes with his life and The Kid and Logan take him out of town and nurse him to a recovery with the help of the prostitutes.

Once Munny is recovered, they start tracking the cowboys down, and kill one of them. The murder shakes Logan up and he wants to leave; so the Kid and Munny continue and kill the other cowboy where he had hidden. One of the points of the movie is that murder is not something that you can do and then be casual; it affects both Logan and the Kid, since both renounce killing after that. The Kid no longer wants to become a gunslinger.

Logan in the meantime has been caught by the sheriff who is beating him to get information, and in the process he kills Logan; his dead body in a sheriff is then put for display just outside the saloon as a reminder that wild west justice can be harsh. When Munny gets his reward money, he is also told about the death of Logan and that puts him in a fury. He had given up drinking, but now drinks whiskey again and prepared to confront the sheriff.

In the meantime, the sheriff has setup a posse in the saloon to pursue Munny and the Kid, but then Munny arrives. He holds up everybody with a shotgun and then shoots the saloon owner who is unarmed; when told that this was not a done thing (after all, the correct thing was to shoot somebody when they also had a weapon), he retaliates that this was bound to happen ever since Logan was killed and his body displayed outside the saloon. In the ensuing gun fight, he is more skilled, and kills 3 posse members, and wounds the sheriff. And then when he hears the sheriff re-loading, he disarms him and then kills him.

But the point is, there is no heroism in this scene; Munny kills people after disarming them, or when they don't have a gun as well. In addition, even when leaving, he threatens all sorts of threats against anybody who would come after him, including threatening to kill their families.

If you are a western fan, then you should watch this movie; it is a decidedly different sort of movie. Further, this movie is a classic; part of any good DVD collection.

Ruskin Bond - The Teller of Tales

Shantanu Dutta — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 07:06:14 EDT

After watching the delightful movie Blue Umbrella, a children’s film which is multi-layered and subtle, and is as much a fable for adults as a story for children, I went back to my library to look over the works of Ruskin Bond and read them all over again. In the olden days, you had folk tales and story tellers who told and retold them till they became a part of the racial memory of a people. That is what Ruskin Bond is - what R.K.Narayan was to the mythical Malgudi, Bond is to the people and geography of the Doon valley whose delicate scent, moods and simple innocence he has captured in practically in all his works.

In Bond’s works, it is difficult to guess where autobiography ends and story begins or the other way around. After reading about a White House Hotel and an eccentric Col. Wilkie who lived there, on one of my trips to Dehradun , I tracked it down and stayed a couple of nights there for an incredibly cheap price. Although an ordinary hotel and nothing more in terms of what it had to offer, having read about it and had it described it so vividly, it felt like staying in a heritage hotel, which of course it was in a way, except that the White House hadn’t found deep pocketed partners to restore it and price it out of range of the ordinary traveler.

Many of the Ruskin Bond stories are set in the Landour Cantonment in the upper reaches of Mussoorie. Landour and the adjoining Sister’s Bazaar a little higher up are by now places that I have visited and enjoyed innumerable times. Till today in Mussoorie’s concrete jungle, they retain a sylvan character – unspoilt, unsoiled and tranquil, though it is difficult to say how long they will stay that way. It may be sufficient to say that while only a few may be fortunate enough to actually go there and savor the charms of the place in the manner of a connoisseur, books like Rain in the Mountains and The Room on the Roof will forever preserve the idyllic silence and serenity of the Garhwal Himalayas and the excitement, fear and sense of adventure associated with their exploration.

Apart from the hills, another of Ruskin Bond’s abiding fascinations is the Indian Railway system, particularly the noise , cacophony and the unique culture that each railway station seems to spontaneously generate and sustain. Which is why perhaps, Penguin asked him sift through and edit the Book of Indian Railway Stories, a captivating collection evoking all the smells, sounds and odor of the small town railway station. Considering that some of the stories are a century old, it does seem that in many parts of India, the clock has stopped ticking as indeed Bond observes in his book Time Stops at Shamli.

The Blue Umbrella is a great example of Ruskin Bond’s ability to present with much simplicity, the intricacy of life. With just an old man and a little girl and a few minor characters, he reveals before us the whole picture of emotions that make us human – joy, pain, anger, disappointment, and hurt and all the tragedies and celebrations that make life what it is. With his simple characters and enduring charm, Ruskin Bond captures in the manner of the black and white camera of Henri Cartier-Bresson, images and stories that will surely outlive us.

Movie Review: Madhumati - A Great Movie With Some Wonderful Music

DeeptiA — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 00:00:42 EDT

In the 1950's, the pairing of Dilip Kumar and Vyjanthimala starred in a number of extremely successful movies, many of them classics. Some of them were: Bimal Roy's Devdas, B.R.Chopra's Naya Daur, Nitin Bose's Ganga Jamuna, and Bimal Roy's Madhumati. Madhumati was released in 1958, and won a number of awards for that year:

Filmfare Awards for Best Movie, Best Director (Bimal Roy), Best Actress (Vyjayanthimala), Best Music Director (Salil Choudhury), Best Supporting Actor (Johnny Walker), Best Art Direction, Best Female Playback (Lata Mangeshkar singing "aa ja re pardesiya"), Best Editing (Hrishikesh Mukherjee), and Best Dialogue (Rajinder Singh Bedi). With these number of awards, you can imagine what an impact the movie had.

And the surprising part about all this was that the movie was probably the most commercial movie that Bimal Roy had ever made. It was without doubt one of the most commerically successful movies that Bimal Roy had made, but Bimal Roy was more famous for making his social upliftment movie, with the most famous being Bandini, Sujata, Devdas, Do Bigha Zameen. Just a look at some of these movies can show you that these were some of the movies that made the 1950's the era of socially hard-hitting movies; where some of the romance of India's independence had gone away to be replaced by a much harder look at the state of India's society.

The movie had all the elements of a movie that was made for commercial success, it had a villain that you could hate from the depths of your heart Ugranaryan (Pran), a comic star (Johnny Walker), a dashing young hero who pines away for his departed love (Dilip Kumar), some incredible songs, a story dealing with reincarnation, with revenge and a person looking exactly like a twin (if you put all these elements into a modern movie, you can make a movie exactly like the movies you make today). The difference, and what makes this movie an incredible movie, is the direction of Bimal Roy.

The movie has an incredible look and feel, and it helps that the lead cast of Dilip Kumar, Vyjanthimala and Pran gave some very good performances. Bimal Roy gives this film a spooky look with some effective use of fogs, mist and a storyline that dances between the real world and the supernatural.

Imagine a horror movie where 2 friends are stuck in the middle of nowhere in a storm after their car breaks down. They approach an old haveli (mansion) and decide to spend the night over there, and the door opens on its own; but wait, this is where the horror story ends. Inside, Dilip Kumar suddenly starts remembering what has happened in his previous birth, and it is connected to this place. A voice starts sounding all around him, "Aaja re pardesi, Main to kab se khadi is paar". And then he starts recounting the story of his previous life.

And so the story goes, .. Dilip Kumar starts working as the manager of a timber firm, and his boss is Pran. The two don't get along well, since Dilip Kumar is not as respectful of what Pran wants. In the same area lives Vyjanthimala, innocent in the true sense. She is totally care-free, one with nature, close to birds, and also incredibly beautiful. They fall in love, although Madhumati (Vyjanthimala) is also desired by Pran, and since Pran does not like Anand (Dilip Kumar), he has an added interest in getting her to himself. In the meantime, Anand has met her father and assured him that he will marry Madhumati.

And then the pivotal theme, where Anand and Madhumati's father have to go out of the village, and then Pran traps Madhumati in the haveli. She is trying to run, but cannot get out, and then runs into a corridor, and ... then the scene ends. When Anand comes back, he confronts Pran, but does not get anything other than a beating. When wandering as a tragic lost lover, he comes across Madhavi, an exact double of Madhumati. She is a friendly sort, and when he lays out his story, she agrees to help him in getting revenge and getting Pran arrested.

So, they lay out a plan where Madhavi will approach Pran in the form of Madhumati, with the feeling that this will scare Pran into admitting his mis-deeds and get punishment. Plan goes spectacularly well, and Madhavi scares Pran into admitting his deeds (and it is also revealed that Madhumati had committed suicide to save her honor). And then the twist, at this point Madhavi comes and says that she got late, so who was the Madhavi who made Pran confess ?
The music of this film was great, so am attaching the songs below:

Madhumati - Suhana Safar

Madhumati - Jungle mein more nacha

Madhumati - Aaja re pardesi

Madhumati - Dil tadap tadap

Madhumati - Bichhwa

Madhumati - Zulmi sang aankh ladi

Madhumati - Ghadi ghadi mora dil