Desicritics Category: Media: DVDs

Wordfest 2009, Grahamstown Festival, English Museum, Performance Poetry, Pritish Nandy, and More

Amitabh Mitra — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 20:19:25 EDT

9th July early morning, Louis rings me up

‘I am on my way to your place’, I tell him on the phone as I drive down to his home on the beach front

Louis is waiting, with his guitar; he would be giving the musical background to my poetry today at the Wordfestival in Grahamstown. Louis Viljoen owns the Harp Recording Company. He produced my CD of love poetry, A Slow Train to Gwalior
We are off to Grahamstown.

Jan Hennop, Senior Journalist from Daily Dispatch, premier news daily of South Africa has compared my poetry to sweet Lassi in his Dispatch blog

Let’s hope, we keep up to his words.

First stop is Port Alfred.

I ask Louis about the picturesque river side chalets and people staying there. I have always wondered about these resident billionaires and their cardiac pathology. Politician Billy Nel told me that a new Public / Private Partnership hospital has been built recently here and if I would be interested in such a place. I am a trauma person, I told him and I think Port Alfred doesn’t have much trauma going on. People from all over come here to escape any trauma, momentary or long term that has been happening in their lives.

Next stop is Bathurst.

A small quaint town situated on the fringes of Sunshine Coast on the highway R 72. It is famous for the Big Pineapple as we pass by it. We are definitely in the pineapple country. The dogs here prefer eating pineapples. It is the hub of the largest pineapple growing areas in South Africa. The Bathurst Inn and Pig n Whistle Hotel here was established in 1832. I asked Louis about the farmers who frequent the pub sharing rum hazed evenings with ghosts of English settlers. There are many Antique shops and Artists Communes that seems to thrive on each other’s despondence.

The road from Bathurst to Grahamstown is bad. We encountered lots of potholes around. I asked Louis the reason for these holes being called pot holes and why they shouldn’t be renamed as poet holes and why I can’t be the Mayor of Ekhubeni or Cacadu Municipality. Louis keeps quiet. Suddenly I remember Art Garfunkel’s lyrics from Sounds of Silence-

And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon God they made.
And the sign flashed out its warning,
In the words that it was forming.
And the signs said, the words of the prophets
Are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls.
And whispered in the sounds of silence.

Louis an old rocker belongs to the times of KC and the Sunshine Band. I told him, ‘Louis we have been singing this number all along. This is a song of the early sixties. Have we ever thought about the words, its meaning and should we not sing since we cannot explain certain lyrics. Then, is there a necessity to explain one’s poetry even if it makes you feel happy after reading or listening to it’.

Louis wanted to jump out of the car.

My continuous bantering about contemporary poetry was getting too much coupled with the fact that the bad road from Bathurst to Grahamstown left much to think about in the physical and the spiritual state of our health. I had brought along my Anti-hypertensive tablets.

Grahamstown, finally, the great university town that compares itself to Oxford and Cambridge, still lives up to its heritage. Robert Mugabe prides himself as one of the alumni of Rhodes.

We drive down to Shoprite Checkers parking place. Nobody can get lost if one reaches this supermarket anywhere in South Africa. I ring up Debbie Landman. Debbie is the Librarian of the National English Literary Museum at Grahamstown.

We are lost in the maze of streets and people; there is an element of laughter everywhere. I get this terrible urge to live and study here. Louis wants to be in the centre of the town because of his belief that history confirmed that geography starts from the centre of the town.

Debbie is standing outside a wonderful old building that has a signboard, National English Literary Museum. Debbie and her group of friends have been archiving the South African literature here. Inside, we meet Lynne also a librarian and Crystal Warren, a researcher in this institute. Crystal is the editor of ‘New Coin’, a South African poetry journal which showcases the best of South African poetry. The journal is being published since many years. I told Crystal that I have the December 2008 issue of ‘New Coin’. Debbie showed me my file that has Hudson Views, Inyathi and all my other publications till this day. It is possible for any researcher to go through all my work published as a printed word or on the World Wide Web. It is a great feeling to be a part of this great institute.

Crystal takes us on a guided tour of the museum. There is an exhibition on African authors in the exhibition hall. A dehumidifier runs in the sanctum sanctorum of this place where alphabetically all records are kept. I saw bound copies of New Coin going back to many years kept in pristine condition. Crystal showed us the section of South African poets and writers who have been translated in foreign languages. She told us that they have been promised a new building. I saw the name of my poet friends Harry Owen and Rustum Kozain on a poster hanging there.

Malcolm Hacksley is the Director of the Institute and has the greatest responsibility of preserving South African Literary Heritage. A great person with a lot of humour, I may suggest to him that a state of the art printing press along with book binding facility should be attached to the NELM so that small time publishers like us can use this incorporation to the best of our ability. It won’t be a good idea to pay a commercial printer if we can pay NELM and get better results of our endeavours.

We leave the museum for St. Peters Building where I would be meeting Professor Chris Mann. The rendezvous is at the Writer’s restaurant on the first floor. Dr. Mann is a linguist and a Professor of Poetry at the Rhodes University in Grahamstown. He is an internationally renowned poet having received many awards and is the convenor of the Wordfest which is a part of the annual Grahamstown Arts Festival. The festival attracts participants and visitors from around the world.

The writer’s restaurant is bustling with activity. A crooner in the corner is playing his guitar blues. I find Dr Mann sitting with many friends, poets and writers. We are introduced by him to all his friends. He orders lunch for us. ‘Dr. Mitra and Mr. Viljeon are our guests for the festival’ he tells the chef. I feel honoured. The restaurant reminds me of many fruitful hours spent in the company of such great friends at the coffee house of Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi in the seventies. Somebody seems to be discussing Tariq Ali’s views on the fall of the Berlin Wall. Beautiful girls in feelings of disarray are in rapt discussion. Marxist interpretation of my love poetry, is that still possible in the present times, I had this fleeting thought. Moscow and Prague, days when poetry was just one long silence in love and socialism was all that mattered. I never knew its brittleness then.

Carol Leff is there. ‘Do you remember me’ she asks. ‘Definitely Carol’. She looks the same. I met at her home in the serene surroundings of Hogsback and later at a workshop on complimentary medicine that I had organised in 1999. Carol Leff is an Aromatherapist and a Poet. She works at the Institute of Study for English in Africa at Grahamstown. I had the pleasure of publishing her work in the print poetry journal, ‘A Hudson View’. She has my book, ‘Tonight, An Anthology of World Love Poetry’ which she had planned to use while introducing me. Unfortunately on that very day, she had lost her voice to some strange viruses of Grahamstown. I got to know, Mark Wilby, a documentary filmmaker who was also sitting there. Ingrid Anderson is a writer. She belongs to Natal and has been attending the festival since few days. She later wrote that she had liked my presentation.

Dr Mann has already organised students who are my hosts. They take care of everything from rehearsing the introduction to testing the clip mike and the film on the giant screen. They even printed my name and had put it outside the Lecture theatre.

Finally, it is 3.30 pm, students, visitors, writers and poets have started taking the seats. Dr. Mann arrives with Carol. A gentleman talks about me in the background. Reminds me of the silence at Ritu’s Boutique in Kolkata when Miss India Kavita Bhambani did the catwalk in the seventies.

I start talking, talking about poetry, art, music and life in general. I tell people that poetry is no longer a prisoner of confines, confines of class room of English literature, confines of the hallowed corridors of a university, confines of the colonial art of writing poetry but something much more than that. Poetry I believe belongs today to the man of the street. Its merging with art, music, theatre and films is as important as just the written word itself.

The screening of my poetry film clips starts. They are of duration of five minutes.

I start my performance poetry, love poetry extempore with the music of Louis Viljeon. Clapping all over, I feel happy. Finally I read a few poems from my books. It was nearly over. I asked Dr Mann. He asked me to recite another poem.

So I thought let it be Pritish Nandy’s – Another performance work. Taking my cue Louis starts strumming the guitar -

'You were not the first girl I loved
Nor was I your first man
Yet when we first made love
Our bodies stammered on to a guiltless landscape…'

Movie Review: Oliver Stone's W.: An Unexpected Bush Biopic

Aditi Nadkarni — Tue, 12 May 2009 12:35:20 EDT

When I first saw trailers of W. I expected to see a hysterical and comedic reproduction of Dubya Bush's antics. I mentally prepared myself to see some similarities with Will Ferrel's SNL Bush and wondered in anticipation if it would have the famous Bushisms, all the numerous goof-ups and faux-pas recreated. I was in for quite a surprise. W. has none of these elements. It is a biographical account that is funny only if one finds humor in the fact that a guy who, at least in Stone's depiction, seemed like an every day alcoholic loser was elected a leader of the free world and had access to the nuclear codes. You can either chuckle or grimace at the enormity and futility of the war he led a nation into. W. is a film that makes one wonder if democracy is a tool of history, just a means to chronicle the kind of people we choose to lead us and and in George W. Bush's case an opportunity for history to record that this bitter joke was by the people, for the people and on the people.

It is truly difficult to see George W. Bush as a president of anything, much less a superpower. I mean this with no malice toward the man but it really is. I have watched him stutter through several speeches, make a complete ass of himself, provide free material for Comedy Central, commit social and political blunders and now I just cannot imagine him as a leader of anything. I think that the only reason he got away with leading a country into an unnecessary war is because the rest of his antics appealed to people's sense of humor and we all just learned to dismiss his colossal blunders as "Ah, is Dubya at it again? What did he do this time?". Jon Stewart put it well when he said, W. should not have been president, he should have been a mascot for the United States. Oliver Stone gently reminds us of the anger we were supposed to feel that got lost in our uncomfortable laughter.

It is a daunting task for a director to put together a film that provides some insight into the psyche of a man whom people have already judged and learned to dismiss. Stone manages to actually give us glimpses of the former president's life before the presidential years and events that may have resulted in his actions. These glimpses, mind you, don't justify any of the craziness of the Bush years but provide an almost neutral, by-stander like slideshow of all the episodes that from the director's point of view matter toward the outcome of this presidency. Towards the end, I was laughing but not in amusement. I was laughing in sheer incredulity and not at Bush but at the people who supported him and also at those that had to scaffold his place in history so their own would not collapse.

The choice of the cast was interesting. Josh Brolin as President Bush is less farcical than the real man himself and it is his restrained delivery of the role that turns the film from comedy to biography. In the public eye Vice President Cheney and his actions have been widely discussed, criticized, ridiculed and even defended by some, but the man is so covert in countenance that his thought process seems almost unfathomable. And hence in my opinion, Richard Dreyfuss as Dick Cheney was more than convincing. He was the Cheney of our imaginations.

Dubya's "Born again" religious status, his struggle with alcoholism, his relationship with his father, his sibling rivalry with Jeb Bush and the dynamic among members of the Bush administration were aspects of the former president's life that we never really gave much thought to in evaluating his judgment and intelligence during the presidency. We never, as part of a world with its eyes on a presidency, wondered what drove him into committing such public follies or what factors fueled the cronism of those years. Oddly enough despite his lack of action in response to Hurricane Katrina, he never struck me as an evil human being who wanted his actions to cause the political or economic devastation that they ultimately have in recent years. He mostly came across as funny and lost but never as sinister and scheming as his vice-president. W. always seemed like he was just this jolly guy who was filling in for the real president but was generally clueless about what the job involved; there was a part of us that felt sorry for him as we watched him stutter through press conferences and look like a deer caught in the headlights every time a tough question about the war came his way.

Stone takes us into that man's world, the world on the other side of the press conferences, into his office, his meetings and even into his home. There are some dull patches within the film as with any biography of a political figure. I did wonder if those patches were in the perception of the audience because we come in expecting to see either a wildly comedic entertainer about George W. Bush or an openly incriminatory biographical account of a man the world loves to deride.

Kudos to Stone for incorporating into a biography his own perspective. For it is challenging, I believe, to provide a personal perspective of a life so publicly scrutinized. It may not be a historically accurate account since none of us will ever know what went on behind the closed doors of the Oval Office but it sure is a unique one that in the most fascinating manner has the ability to engage Bush detractors and supporters alike.

Bollywood's Coming Of Age

Aditi Nadkarni — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 00:11:43 EST

It all started with my having given up on contemporary Hindi films. I was hopeful after Taare Zameen Par and after watching Race one depressing Sunday afternoon I didn't see the cinematic revolution I had expected. I had also figured out after a Netflixcapade that Chak De India, the last Hindi film I watched with much enthusiasm seemed a lot like the English film called Miracle, except of course Miracle was based on a true story. Having absorbed this, I went into mourning, restricting my Hindi film doses to watching for the second, third or fourth time, classics like Masoom, Katha, Ijazzat and Mandi on YouTube.

And then one day a new name, Nishikanth Kamath, stirred my faith alive with Mumbai Meri Jaan. I laughed and cried and celebrated the filmmaker who finally found Paresh Rawal a role he was worthy of. The very next day, in A Wednesday, Naseeruddhin Shah and Anupam Kher held my attention until the very last scene. I didn't yawn or fast-forward through songs. I sat, eyes glued to the screen, silently applauding two of my favorite actors who thankfully did not settle by spending their greying film years as strict fathers, the perennial villains in desi love stories. The pace was electrifying, the story original and the characters real.

In Welcome To Sajjanpur, Shyam Benegal delighted me further with a simple yet delectable rural comedy that addressed relevant social issues. A modest cast, generous dashes of humor and Shreyas Talpade's acting genius made this film a wholesome and fun watch. Madhur Bhandarkar's style of juxtaposing the real with the glamorous worked in Fashion and I was surprised to find out that the very pretty Priyanka Chopra can, if she tried, act well. More recently, in Dasvidaniya, Vinay Pathak brought a common man character to life. I soaked in this bittersweet and touchingly crafted film, directed by debutante Shashant Shah that has the potential to change how Bombay's middle class views life and relationships. I fell in love with the awkward, bespectacled and podgy protagonist.

Rock On! had me pondering about several things; about what might have happened to Indus Creed, the rock group of the 80s, about what had happened to my dreams of learning to play the guitar some day and most importantly about why I hadn't noticed earlier how very good-looking Farhan Akhtar was! It is always more of a success when one sees new faces in a Hindi film these days and realizes that it is talent being showcased and not merely a family business being passed on cause some star-kid didn't do too well at school.

In EMI, a lighthearted comic plot captured the complicated love-hate relationship between the new and altered Indian middle class and the banks that strive with relentless schemes to catch up with them. Sanjay Dutt is a natural at playing the quintessential bhai and has practically raised the standards for anyone else wanting to play a GGG (gentle-goofy-goonda) character. It was refreshing to see among other things, a more composed and consequently more sexier Urmila Matondkar in a character very different from the over-the-top hysterical damsel that Ram Gopa Verma has had her play in the past.

I saw more. I saw Johnny Gaddar, Manorama Six Feet Under and am browsing sites to see if the seemingly funny Loins Of Punjab is out yet. I am waiting for the likes of Nana Patekar, Atul Kulkarni, Manoj Bajpai to make good while these crazy times of unique plots and talented performances roll.

In the past few weeks I have watched film after film and am wide-eyed at the maverick years of cinema that the Hindi film industry is witnessing. In short, every film was unique and I imagined what the big banners might be doing. Were they scratching their heads wondering what happened to the time when the proclaimed stars and starlets would come out and claim the box office for themselves as the small budget filmmakers took home the consolation prize and maybe a Filmfare Critics' Award? Or maybe they are coming up with a formula to match the present times and create a package that has what today's film buffs need. Maybe they will learn to tap into the free advertising offered by the blogosphere where the new, the creative and the original are spoken about and exalted. Ek Vivaah Aisa Bhi tells us that the Barjatyas stubbornly choose to remain in the past and manufacture wedding videos in place of cinema. Aditya Chopra's Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi did not have a gripping story in with the times and Shahrukh's charm could not make up for the lack of chemistry between the two leading stars. None of the bigger stars have yet ventured into the emerging genre of films which may be a blessing for upcoming actors. Maybe this is their channel into tinseltown.

Finally, there are stories in Bollywood! The Indian film director is acknowledging the growing intellect of the masses and catering to it instead of recycling the girl-meets-boy plots. The mother in Dasvidaniya, the child in Taare Zameen Par and the friend in Rock On! all remind us that the "pyaar" they sing about so much in Bollywood has more faces than the two that will sing, dance, hold hands, kiss and eventually marry.

Recently, in speaking of Slumdog Millionaire, Mr.Bachchan on his blog acknowledged the age-long tryst between the commercial and art film industries in India. Films have always been viewed on those lines. What is artful and realistic was assumed not to be of commercial value since commercialism feeds on escapism. But the movies I have been watching lately have the triumphs and fantasy that escapism offers and the realistic depiction of earthy stories that art films showcase. One could call them crossover films; a genre that brings together the popularity of commercial cinema and the delicate craftsmanship of art films. What was parallel cinema, not too long ago, is now intersecting and becoming one with popular cinema. A new day has dawned in Bollywood!

DVD Review: Remember the Titans

Cine Cynic — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 05:39:12 EDT

"Based on a true story" is one note that tunes our minds to suspend disbelief more willingly than we normally would. We have come to accept that truth is stranger than fiction, at least when books are written or movies made about them. As an outsider from a different place and time, I have no idea how true Boaz Yakin's Remember the Titans remains to the original events. The reality may have been harsher, definitely less cheesier.

In 1971, Alexandria, Virginia, blacks and whites still referred each other as "they" in public and worse indoors. It was easy to distrust a fellow human based on his or her appearance. A new court order, to everybody's dislike, forcefully desegregates the T.C. Williams High School. I like the movie already. There are wonderful movies like Paul Haggis' Crash, but they are set in a period where racism has already been acknowledged as incorrect, at least politically, unlike here.

Herman Boone (Denzel Washington), a black, is hired as head coach for the school's football team to replace Bill Yoast (Will Patton). The onus is on him to show what a coach, black or white, is to his team and the town. One "mistake" might get him fired; it had happened before. Yoast doesn't want to play second fiddle, but reluctantly complies to overlook the future of the white football team that was under him. Two football coaches and two teams. One black, one white each. To win as one team is their goal. The team comes together by the end of the camp, but there are more conflicts, some of them appearing only after a previous one had been overcome and with a potential to erase their previous achievements.

What is fascinating to see is not how Boone inspires and bonds the team, nor how Yoast sacrifices his cherished dream for the sake of the greater good. The young, adrenaline-filled players quickly realize that they are on the brink of changing history. They learn what it is to be human, "to trust the soul of a man rather than the looks of him." Here is where Remember the Titans succeeds in giving us hope. Gerry Bertier, the captain of the team, e.g., willingly loses his girlfriend, his old best friend, his mom, and his community to stand up for his newly-learnt principles. He wins them all back again, and it is not very surprising.

People distrust another race only because of a misplaced fear of the unknown, because of how they have been brought up. Another wonderful example is Sheryl Yoast, the assistant coach's nine and a half years old daughter. She is the first to change, from telling Boone that "the coach is busy" to telling the players, "Y'all are acting like a bunch of sissies!" She does what the adults she looks up to do. Hayden Panettiere steals every scene she is in with this character.

At the end of the movie, I am the little man jumping out of his seat clapping. I rate it above Shimit Amin's Chak De! India. With very well-crafted characters in a formulaic genre, this movie deals with a greater issue that cripples mankind to this day.

Remember the Titans was released eight years before today.

Movie Reviews: Trade and Human Trafficking

Kim — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 20:41:20 EDT

By coincidence, I happened to watch two movies dealing with the same subject in two days. One a video rental, the other, a Lifetime miniseries on Hallmark. Both deal with the subject of women and young children being kidnapped and sold in a modern day form of slavery.

Trade is a movie seen from the eyes of a Mexican teenager following the trail of his 13 year old sister and her kidnappers across the border. Human Trafficking mostly follows from the point of view of an NYPD agent working with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

In both movies, the women are brought from all over the world into Mexico and then into the US by walking across the Mexican border.

Both show Mexican cops hand in glove with the traders. In both movies there is a scene where the Mexican cops get to "sample the merchandise" when it is being en route.

In Trade, the group is caught by the border police in the US and placed in detention until they can be sent back to Mexico. And the American officials simply turn away when one of the women tries to explain that they have been kidnapped.

Both movies are very realistic without being sensational or titillating. The horrors the girls and children (little boys and girls) face are unimaginable.

In Human Trafficking an entire set of young children is sequestered in a container and sent on a ship bound for Saudi Arabia on a 10 day journey from Mexico when their pimp gets news that the cops are about to raid his den.

Trade introduces two new child actors who are absolutely brilliant in their roles. Kevin Kline is the only well known actor in that movie and is in more of a supporting role.

Human Trafficking has a star cast of Donald Sutherland, Mira Sorvino and Robert Carlyle (the Scottish guy from Full Monty) who turns out an amazingly chilly performance as a Eastern European Sex Trade boss.

The entire situation of Human Trafficking is summed up absolutely eloquently in Mira Sorvino's press statement at the end of that movie.

Worth a watch for the realistic view of a universal problem. As Sorvino says, "It could be your daughter, your sister, your best friend next."

Movie Review: The Gold Rush (1925)

DeeptiA — Fri, 1 Aug 2008 06:55:56 EDT

I had the chance to watch this classic Charlie Chaplin movie recently on TV, and was pretty impressed, hence writing about it. As you move along this old-movie review, you will find the story start to show up, so you can stop reading at any point further if you don't want the whole storyline.

The Gold Rush is a silent-era movie released in 1925. As with many Chaplin movies, the movie was written and directed by him, and starred him in the lead role. It was another of the 'Little Tramp' roles. As per Charlie Chaplin, The Gold Rush was a movie that he wanted to be remembered by. The movie also starred Mack Swain, Tom Murray, Henry Bergman, Malcolm Waite, and Georgia Hale. Georgia Hale got the role by chance, since Lita Grey was originally selected for the role, but Lita then got married to Charlie Chaplin in 1924, and hence was no longer to be the lead lady for the role. However, ironically, during the making of the film, Charlie's marriage to Grey collapsed, and Hale (who had idolized Chaplin from the beginning) was much more intimate with her leading man by the end of the movie.

The movie was a huge commercial success, earning more than $4 million at that time. In 1942, Chaplin took the movie into the talkie space, re-releasing the movie with a musical score (that was nominated for an Academy Award), adding a personal narration in his own voice, and doing some more editing to reduce the length of the movie by a few minutes.

Chaplin's previous movie A Women of Paris, had failed, and Chaplin was looking to see how he could recoup from that. He wanted to make a great movie, something that he would be remembered for. And then he came on the stories of some of the tragedies of the Great Alaskan Gold Rush; with tales of hardship, struggle and tragedy. The movies takes The Tramp in the Yukon, along with many others like him, heading over the Chilkoot Pass (some spectacular shooting on Hollywood sets). He gets stuck in a remote cabin with little supplies, along with another prospector and an escaped fugitive.

In this setting occurs one of the most iconic scenes from the silent film era - the eating of a leather boot by a starving man. Another iconic shot from the movie is of the cabin tottering on the edge of a cliff while the inhabitants struggle to get out. You also have the betrayal of The Tramp and the other prospector by the fugitive (who in turn meets his end at the hands of an avalanche).

The Tramp becomes very rich after finding gold. Once he reaches the town, The Tramp thinks that he is falling for a dance-hall girl (Hale), but why would she notice him ? She initially snubs him, but they have a happy ending. The movie is now considered an iconic movie, and is surely worth watching.

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.