My first short!

Well, they say, there is first time for everything.

Me and my friend (another crazy movie fanatic.. his name starts with O, guess guess..) were on-board a flight to India and decided to write a short as fast as we can. Although, he wrote an amazing one, mine was mehh..well, I will let you decide.

Our story is set on busy Mumbai streets that we all miss. It is about two individuals, who have their own problems and have nothing to do with each other. What happens next? Do they meet? Well, read on....

Life changed for Ganesh last year.

He was a mill worker, with wife and two kids. Wife never complained about anything. But, he knew, his earnings were just not enough. Mill was on the verge of shutting down. Kids were sent back from school as he could not pay fees. All the avenues of borrowing money were closed and he had nowhere to go. If there was anything, it was his confidence that he will get through these though times and rise up again. It was nothing new to him, he has done it before.

This confidence in himself, with which he could face any challenge, was shattered recently.

Soaked in sweat, breathing heavily, he kept walking. He held the bag close to his chest. He was waiting for this day for the whole one year. Now, there was some hope to recover. Skin pale, sagging, he was weaker than ever before. Once a while, he stopped to breathe. Images of children were flashing before him. “kuch khatam nahi hua abhi. Muze mere bachchon ko padhana hai, bada banana hai..jo muze nahin mila who unko milna chahiye. Main dilaunga unhe!”, he kept telling himself.

---

Life wasn't too different for Babu.

The day used to start and end on footpath. He was born there, it was his home. A small-time pickpocket, he used to get 10-12 rupees a day. “Maangke kuch nahi milta, chinna padta hai. Logon ke pass paani jaisa paisa hai. Ek do boonde girgayi toh kya hooa. Kisika khoon toh nahi kar raha hoo..”, Babu believed. He just didn’t see anything wrong in it. Earning money the honest way was too long of process. He had seen his family die trying the honest ways for years. He didn't believe in it anymore.

His life revolved around bunch of so called Bhai’s who used to dream of high rolling cars and big houses. In his dreams, life was going to change when he catches a big fish one day.

“Aaj koi bada haath maarna padega. ” he thought. Through the smoke his Bidi, he spotted a man holding a briefcase to his chest and walking fast. “Milgaya..lagta hai bahot maal hai bag main.”. He chucked the Bidi and ran towards him.

---

Babu snatched the bag from Ganesh and ran for his life. He did not look back. He didn’t care to check if someone was following him. The best thing to do was get out of there as soon as possible. After a few minutes, his curiosity for the bag forced him to stop at a recluse corner. It felt like a safe place.

“Bahot paisa nahito jhewar, kya hoga ismain? ”, Babu thought. After struggling for a bit, he managed to break it open. It was the moment he was waiting for.

“Saala fatela naseeb!”, he cursed the god and threw the bag away. There was no money or jewelry in the bag. The stuff in the plastic bag spread on the floor. There were injections and medicines and some papers. Just out of curiosity, Babu skimmed through those papers. It was a letter from Government of India.

“Mr.Ganesh, aapki darkhast manjoor hui hai. Appko Healthy-India fund for Poor Programme (HIFPP). Ki tarafse yeh dawaiyaan bheji jaa rahi hai.”

“Nahi yaar, saala public pakadke maaregi. Paagal mat ban. Aur waisebhi kahan dhoondhenga usko?”, a quick thought of returning the bag to the old man ran through Babu’s mind. The guilt of stealing from a poor guy and that too his medicines, was something that he didn’t want to live with.

“Jo bhi hoga dekha jaayega”, he decided to himself and went back to the same footpath in the hopes that he might just find that old man there. What he found was a crowd surrounding somebody.

“Arey margaya lagta hai? Pata nahi kahan kahan se chale aate hai. Daaru pi hogi aur kya?” One of the crowd members said. Babu made his way through the crowd.

It was Ganesh, the old man!! Babu felt the pressure on his shoulders.

“Agar yeh mar gaya hai toh, jail, torture, life toh khatam Babu! Satakle yahan se.” That’s all Babu could think of. He was just about run away, and somebody yelled.

“Arey bhaisahab, haath do. Saanse chal rahi hai. Jaldise inhe hospital le chalet hai”.

Babu helped getting Ganesh in the taxi. He quietly put the briefcase next to Ganesh. “Thank you bhai-sahab…aapne bachaliya..”, somebody held his hand as he was about to walk away. It was Ganesh.

“Maine aapko nahi, aapne muze bachaya bhaisaab!”, Babu wanted to say. Emotionless, he just looked at Ganesh but couldn’t say a word. Tears rolled down his eyes as he walked away.........

'Red State' (2011)

'Red State', listed in the 'horror' genre of most websites is more of a thriller and a what a bad ass one it is.

I was really intrigued by its title and its poster and then more so by this trailer(link below). I thought its just another horror-teen-slasher flick, but because of my new born love for horror films and the political nature of its title I watched it. (Streaming on Netflix)

Trailer:- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lq9PyqX6HQ8

The pace of the movie is fast, the 120 minutes felt like 90 or so and its got some true "edge of the seat" sequences. Its by no means an Oscar winner (which is not always a bad thing) and does not particularly have a character arc but I do not think it ever tried to achieve those things. Its a thrill ride helped along with some great performances by Melissa Leo and Michael Parks. Look out for a beautifully shot monologue which goes on forever building intensity and establishing the sickness of the antagonists.

I do not want to give out any details of the story except that its about an extremist catholic family church which collides with the real world one night.

Don't read the story, don't read any reviews, just go watch it.

P.S.:- Its written & directed by Kevin Smith, yes the one who made 'Clerks' and all the other comedies. He calls it his first "grown up" film :)

P.P.S.:- "I fucking love this movie!!!" --Quentin Tarantino about 'Red State'

Take a stand

Why did movies like Andaz apna apna, muskurahat, main azaad hoon, dil se, pinjar .... not perform well on box office? Thats the question everyone has. Everyone rightfully blames the audience for it and forget that they are a part of it. When we like a movie, we wait for others to ask a review; and our review is generally defensive "Dekh bahi, buri nahi hai .... one time watch toh hai..... story badhiya hai ...... mixed reviews hai ...."
Why is it that if the audience decides our opinions?
Do we really think that people will make opinions about us based on the opinions we give about the movies?
I recently watched Rockstar in a multiplex .... The reaction of audience wasn't good. Many people posted their facebook status as "Tera haq, tu hi rakh, teri movie WTF" and it got many likes, many laughs, few courageous souls defended and got laughed at too ... And then the people who dared to like the movie, posted reviews like "Amazing camerawork .... great songs .... Mohit chauhan and Rahman , what a combo...."
Why is it so difficult for us to really take a stand against the crowd? Which director in the history of bollywood has given the summary of the movie in the 1st 5 mins .... laid the right expectations and successfully portrayed it in the best possible manner....

We make statements "Hollywood is so much better, bollywood can never reach that level"
Here's a director that tries to match that level with a movie of Walk the line genre and as audience, we pull him down. The least we could do is appreciate the efforts and encourage such movies.


As audience, we blame SRK .... he is so stereotyped ..... Ham actor ....
But what did we do after watching Swades, Dil se, Chak de India ..... Few popular critics killed these movie with a not so good review and we were scared to voice an opinion ..... If we didn't take a stand then, we don't really have the right to criticize SRK for his bad selection of roles.

Anupam Kher, I believe is a legend. I often compare him with Robin Williams. Nobody can argue about their versatility. But as audience, we appreciated them in their comic roles; we expect them to be funny in any role. Have we forgotten Saraansh, Daddy, or Dr. Dang in Karma? I was so glad to see him back in a serious role in Wednesday. But am still waiting to see him back in more such roles.
I at times think about these people (actors, directors) ....

A three times national award winner Mithun does mass movies, specialist character actors like Prakash Raj and Nassar are shown as comic actors in bollywood, Paresh rawal gets immediate recognition in comic roles but we ignore his presence in movies like Paa.
As multiplex audience, we have, in small way discouraged these people from giving us good movies.
Then i think about Anurag Kashyap, Kamal Haasan, RGV , Aamir..... These are the people who are not bothered by commercial success. They have, and will continue to give good movies for selective audience ... Thats what makes me respect such people.

Let us all as movie lovers take a stand, be it against the crowd, if we really like a movie.
Bollywood will grow, if we grow up.

"Be", And There Was...

Let me start my first "filmy" blog post with a sentence that I have, in the past, used to describe myself. ad nauseum.

I love stories. 

Stories of any form, in any medium, when told by a master storyteller hold the power to transform lives. The art of story telling is fascinating and yet, there are some brilliant minds that seem to make it all feel so effortless. The tales they weave for us are so mesmerizing that we're blind to all the hard work that went into creating that effect. And this is more true for the movies than any medium. It also probably explains why movies bring out such strong opinions in us, the audience. As the moving images on screen hold us captive in a dark room for anywhere from 2 to 4 hours, we soak in the imagination of a human mind, so far beyond our reach, yet seeping into our sub-conscious, using all our audio and visual senses. 

And when we walk away, we spend just as much time in wonder, discussing every character nuance, every blink-and-you-miss-it plot point. How did it happen? Why did he do that? What did she mean by that? Fictional characters, hitherto unbeknownst to us, are suddenly scrutinized in great detail and then either loved or hated.

All because someone, somewhere, thought of a story that wanted to be told.

"Be, and there was."

Kun Faayakun...

A few hours ago, I watched a movie that is right now keeping me up because I simply have to talk about it. Rockstar, by Imtiaz Ali, is not a movie that lets its audience off easily. There is so much pain and passion that it seems impossible to not be deeply invested in the protagonist, the immensely flawed yet extremely vulnerable artiste-musician, who is on a search for what it takes to make music.

It is not my intention to review the movie in this post. I'm sure there will be, and probably already are, a dozen reviews out there, each by a far more qualified reviewer. What I really want to talk about is my awe for the writer and the beauty of his writing. The movie, even at a story level, is not without its flaws. Indeed there were people I watched it with, who, quite simply put, just hated it entirely. Yet Ali's love and deep understanding for his Jordan is undeniable. In fact, I felt it was often to the detriment of the development of the other characters in the story. I cannot help but wonder - What does it take, as a writer, to be so involved with your character, in all his blatant faults, that every lapel pin added to his costume  in your mind has a back story for it? 

** Spoiler Alert! **

In my opinion (for what it's worth), Rockstar is a character study, trying to masquerade as a love story. If I were to break it down, to me, a love story needs an equal involvement from the writer in both his/her lead characters. Imtiaz Ali seemingly chose to ignore his Heer almost entirely. So much so, that almost from the very first line of dialogue she delivers you wonder why he didn't even care enough to cast someone, anyone else in place of Nargis Fakhri. For the next three hours she continues to make you cringe and wince every time she is on screen and you wonder why Jordan doesn't see her like you do. By the end of the movie you realize you know very little about her and what's worse, you don't really care. Not even when she dies. The Heer that Jordan sees remains unearthed by the writer, represented only by a shadow of the girl he must actually love, portrayed ineffectively by just another pretty face. Jordan goes through a spectrum of life changing experiences and as his audience you see every bit of his many layers. Yet the girl, instrumental in bringing about almost all of those experiences, is sadly neglected. 

From his past works, knowing Imtiaz Ali to be a consummate story teller, it's hard to believe he intended it to be a stilted one-sided story of one man and his love for a girl. So I wonder, as a writer, how wonderful it must be to find a character so strong in himself that his every other association feels incidental to the story. To know his every mood, every habit. To breathe life into him, almost as if you were his God and his entire world wouldn't exist if you, the writer, didn't conjure it up in your minds eye. 

Or is the writer, in reality, a slave to his characters and stories, unable to rest until they are told as the character wants them to be told? Maybe the philosophy of "Be, and there was.." is actually intended for the story teller and not the story. Maybe it is the story that gives birth to the writer and not the reverse. 

If that is in fact true, then this meandering post of incoherent thoughts is testament to the fact that the writer in me is still waiting to be born... waiting for that one character to fill my mind with his/her world and maybe, in doing so, captivate the minds of all who wander toward me, as my audience.

Imtiaz Ali, I envy you.

The Superheroes Phenomenon

If you thought this post was about the superhero movies then read on because its not. This post is about the reel and real, larger than life, 'Super' heroes in hindi cinema.

Heroes who achieve 'super stardom' are worshiped in India and I mean literally. Some even have their own temples and idols. While it does not take much for some of these actors (if you can call them that) to reach out to people in order to make their films work there are some who ought to be lecturers in business schools to demonstrate how to market a product, a job that they do day in and day out, market themselves.

These superstars have been around in every generation in the Indian cinema. The ones in the current generation, with phenomenal star power (as we call it in Bollywood), that come to mind instantly are Rajnikanth, the three khans, Salman, Shahrukh and Aamir, and until very recently Akshay Kumar. Of all the above, as per me, only Aamir is the one who has proved time and again that he has solid acting skills to back up his stardom. I am not saying the others cant act, but according to me their acting skills are not directly proportional to their popularity. Each one has their own fan base who might even fight among themselves to prove that one is greater than the other.

Once Aamir Khan so rightly said about Salman in a game show, "I am only an actor but Salman is a superstar". Salman Khan probably has the craziest loyalists around in the country. It does not matter that only some years back the guy was involved in a hit and run. But if you leave his non filmy life out, even then it does not explain his stardom. Sure, he has the looks. But what is it about him that makes his films, as shitty as they are, break BO records after BO records. One might answer in one word, promotions. But that can be counter argued with the example of his last release, Bodyguard, where he was not even able to promote his film due to illness.

These guys owe their fame to all the loyalists that they have around the country. They some how connect with the public which I have still not been able to decode. The following is a real life incident which I have experienced. I was out to watch a Sallu movie around 7-8 years back. People were queued up outside waiting for the gates to open. One smart ass guy said out loud, 'Salman Khan just cant act'. Moments later, he was slapped across his face by a fan. I should have been alarmed but it was hilarious that the fan took it so personally upon himself to redeem his hero.

Not surprisingly enough, these movies, which may be fun to watch sometimes, rake in hard core money. The loser in this case are the creative small time actors/ directors who make a gem of a movie but lose the Friday battle with a Salman or a Shahrukh who may have shelled out a mediocre film at best. In the recent past many such movies have lost out which is sad. People have not even heard about movies like I am Kalam or Shaitan or Soundtrack but every one knows about Ready or Bodyguard.

The one thing to learn from these guys is how to market yourself. Recently SRK spent money like water to promote his magnum opus Ra.One. To give him his due, it did have state of the art CGI and he did a great effort in bringing hollywood style technology to Indian cinema. Ra One was marketted heavily and that helped create enormous excitement to watch the movie. Although this can have an adverse effect, like raising expectations, but thats a risk for a normal actor/ producer, not for SRK. Aamir is another superstar who is brilliant at marketting his films. He has these ingenious different ways of marketting the movies which hit the right spot of creating awareness and excitement. This atleast kicks off the film strongly which might help even if it is a mediocre film. This is something which other filmmakers should definitely learn.

Finally, as spiderman's uncle used to say, "With great power comes greater responsibility", these superstars should use their powers responsibly. They should realize that they can generate massive mass hysteria among their fans. They should avoid misuse of people's trusts. Maybe even help small time film makers by promoting their films (something which Salman already does). But more than ever they should not promote their bad habits publicly which their fans will try to emulate. As far as I am concerned I am still trying to find answers to this mystery of mass popularity.

'Kaminey': Moments that stayed with me...

Cruising at 80 miles/hr on the 101 freeway at 1:47 am in Los Angeles on a Sunday morning listening to the Kaminey soundtrack after watching it just 24 hours back. Sigh, just beautiful, there is something so relaxing about driving, its like the whole world leaves me alone, my body goes into auto-pilot and I let my mind go...

Kaminey: as the music takes me back through the film...

The shot where Charlie stands between 2 local trains screaming in opposite directions, with his voice over "ye life badi kutti cheez hai"

The shot where Charlie innocently dances in heavy rain "Fider man, Fider man...!" near the rail tracks. Mumbai never looked so larger than life

I am a sucker for chase sequences; there is one very beautifully shot in a hotel. Action like it should be. Nobody was flying, hero was not all powerful, the bad guys weren't all stupid,even gravity & physics were not disregarded and it was still gritty; Loved the way the camera moves, drags the viewer into the action. Brilliant!

Priyanka Chopra, just loved her character, loved her dialogues, loved everything she did in the movie. Starting when she reveals to Guddu that shes pregnant, 15 minutes that follow is probably the best on screen romance I have seen in Hindi cinema recently. She screams at him in marathi "jzaa mug!!" (go to hell!) and then starts to storm off, and then turns around in 3 seconds and runs back. :) Lovely

Bhope's side-kick who has been sent to beat the couple up, says to Bhope on the phone "bhau, par bade pyaare lag rahe the dono..."; beautiful, the goon has a heart :)

Amol Gupte as 'Bhope Bhau', almost everything he says and does is memorable. He plays this racist, cold-hearted, selfish leader. Its so hard to believe that this is the same man who wrote the sensitive 'Taare Zameen par'. My favorite scene is when he breaks into Charlie's house. "Kya tum teen bhai hote toh mooch ukhad lete meri?" lol

Shahid Kapoor's Guddu character stammers uncontrollably in Police remand because he is so scared during interrogation. The cop asks him to sing his answers and it works. :)

Finally the heart-wrenching title track, shown with a very gloomy, cloudy Mumbai slum close to the railway track as the background. I have lived in Mumbai, and this is one of those sights that almost everyone who lives in the city has learned to ignore in their minds, because its too heart breaking to acknowledge. "Meri arzoo kamini, mere khwaab bhi kaminey, ek dil se dosti thi, yeh huzoor bhi kaminey"; Gulzar saab, take a bow...

There are many more as I will discover when I watch it again and again in the future. I have started a new journey with this Classic. Maqbool and Omkara are still going strong.... :)

--Onkar