the new AVATAR or is it?

So I watched Avatar..Finally..A week late after it hit the theaters....Following months of anticipation of what James Cameron's new offering would unleash...After viewing countless promos on tv and youtube.....After reading previews of why the movie was likely to succeed and why the movie was always destined to never recover its costs....And finally after listening to Cameron himself declare that he was going to change movie making forever...

Avatar is my favorite genre of movie..Fantasy...And though we have seen Star Trek before, this one is different...The name itself and the way the movie works is something every video gamer would love....And something every gamer would know...Its about making the connection....And somehow, somewhere blurring the lines of reality and make believe...Its when we become the sniper and our controllers the gun....Cameron has bravely gone where no man has before....except maybe the 300, though with a very limited budget..

But what really fascinates me is whether this one heralds the new era of movie making...As i listened to the actress, who plays the scientist, explain how the movie was shot, in an interview with John Stewart, I was thinking it was quite remarkable ....While watching the film however, I lost it...Pandora is a beautiful world...As all reviews I have read admits almost unequivocally....The effects are truly spectacular...But my untrained eye could not fathom the definitive results of the experience that Dr Grace was talking about in the interview...In a technical sense, maybe Avatar is the next gen in movies...But from a movie goer's perspective, is this one really the next Avatar?

I think where this movie fails me is the complete absence of characters that I could come back home with.....The princess does a good job but thats about it....Apart from Neyteri, the only one I can think of is the chic who flew the futuristic heli-bomer plane..But where are the rest?

The snarling general would have been a side kick in most movies...the guy who appeared in the series Friend's is just another guy....Neyteri's would be husband is disappointing...Why was he selected to lead the tribe in the first place?...Her shaman mother makes her presence feel to some extent....And the hero himself is not Worthy(ington) of registering in my mind during the train ride home...

So i love fantasies..and the locales and the battles and the effects have got so much to do it..But at the end of the day, to me its the characters..Why do I love Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Pirates of the Caribbean....What have I walked away with after watching those movies.?? Yes, I have loved the New Zealand locales, the Kraken and the quidditch games....But I still remember the Elv general who honors the treaty between men and elves, Professor Snape who seems to just jump right out of the novel and the dead monkey who survives everything...

After 3 hours, Avatar does not disappoint....Its wholesome entertainment and great viewing...But since I come from a land where popular cinema is compared to the benchmark set by 3 characters - Jai, Veeru and Gabbar (and maybe even Thakur and Sambha) - I cannot agree that this is the new Avatar of cinema...

We will have to wait some time more before characters are dead and only technical wizadry prevails...Or maybe we wont...Maybe this is the new Avatar..I doubt it though...Heres looking forward to the "Clash of the Titans" in May next year...Till then, let the cut scenes in video games prevail....

Cheers!!!

Frisking the Khan!!

5 months flying in and out of Chicago..and you lose your time to write..and what grand way to get back into the game than to scribble about King Khan....I watched Kaminey this weekend...and it seems there is no king in Bollywood these days.....the Shahid Kapur kid did almost too well....introduced as he was in the Zee lil champ show as the "youngest superstar in India" ...I think it is fair to call him a "kid"....but thats another story...

so the Khan was detained in Newark....and 30% in India , including some elected representatives, go up in arms.....what about the thousands of other Indians who land up in the US and have to go through the same mess...the Khan is not here on a diplomatic mission ..he is here for "fans"...and I would guess its not for free..this is business for him as it is for 80% of us who visit these shores..and so we go through immigration.....we read the "welcome" signs and we smile...and we turn off our internal clock and wait till it is over.....and majority of the people who get through that, send more dollars back to India than the Khan....and yet ..we have this hullaballoooooooo (did i get the spelling right??)about the Khan being detained....and yes...racial profiling and stuff....it is real....all of us know it...and we all know how complicated it is..just look at the kid who rained bullets on Mumbai..is he a Muslim or is he a terrorist..where do these lines blur..but thts go to do nothing with this post.......


Shahrukh, in my opinion, cannot be blamed for this...I mean the dude was modest enough to decide not to ask for an apology....I guess he must be used to be treated like royalty...and in a country where we have redefined being a "celebrity", he cannot be faulted...I guess....

Tempting as it is, I will refrain from commenting on US immigration/security measures.....I can comment...but in my opinion, I should not......The point I go through immigration is, I guess, because I have decided to come to this country.... and they have to ensure I am safe..not a deranged terrorist.which I may look like or my surname might suggest....That right cannot be denied....Should we do the same to them???..May be we should ....Or maybe we should let the generous Indian spirit prevail...

Couple of weeks back, I had read about President Kalam being frisked on a Continental Airlines flight ..I will never fly Continental again....unless its really the cheapest of the cheapest ( probability of which happening is rare, so I am safe..)) ) But i didnot write about it...But this time it is Shahrukh..As I had said earlier...We redefine "celebrity"...Heres for the King Khan...Hope next time, he gets out in less than 60 mins...

cheers!!!
:))

Bloody fantastic

So it took a 47 nearing 48 year old woman to get me to shrug off my lethargy and post once again.....when in my mind I had all but decided that it would be Coelho's "Winner stands alone" that would probably drive me back to writing silly once more...bloody fantastic..ain't it???

susan boyle flashed past me on one of my random tv channel switching spree...and a voice byte that she had garnered a million hits on you tube was enough to take me there....what I was expecting was an entertainment quotient similar to that provided by the seemingly dumb chinese american guy on american idol....

it was not to be...but it was definitely more entertaining..in a different kind of way..so much, that i actually muted a new episode of South park to hear her sing a second time....

I have no clue about voice quality, baritones or any other terminology related to singing...And for the most part, I could not comprehend in its entirety the lines she sung...But there she was...from a place she called a 'collection of villages" and oblivious to the cynicism of the audience...It was like Braveheart just before Gibson made that stirring speech...But in a real life situation (with may be a few clipped edits..its still as close to reality as you can get..;))

But bloody fantastic???....I guess we all like to favor the underdog...And we are surprised and share in the joy when David takes down Goliath..Or maybe its just me drunk..But discounting the David factor, what I thought fantastic was the total belying of expectations, the turnaround and the short span of time it took for the perception to change...That's very interesting to me...When David fought Goliath, my assumption is that, somewhere in his mind Goliath must have been careful that the little guy could turn things around..With Susan, there was no warning.....And what had seemed silly posturing before the moment , seemed like sublime, unadulterated belief after the moment had passed.....

I will probably remember Susan Boyle as the "old english village lady" who turned Joharis window on its head..And for 7 minutes provided entertainment that touched my heart...And then came up with the two words that described it all..."Bloody fantastic"....

Cheers!!!

:))

The Last Over & The Decisive Tackle

So I am watching the the second 20-20 international between India and New Zealand..And suddenly out of the blue, its down to the last 2 overs and finally down to the last over.....Since Dhoni and Praveen Kumar made us world champions,we have all gone with the captain's instinct in these tight situations....And as Irfan Pathan bowled those first three balls,I could not help but think that Dhoni was talismanic (yeah I know he could have brought on Sehwag or the other Pathan, but then he is Dhoni..;))...

But more importantly, I was also left thinking about all the other last over games that I had been a part of ....All of us, as amateur sportsmen, must have gone through those moments...Whether its gully cricket (that i have never played- does gully cricket exist outside Mumbai?) or something in college or university circuits...How did we do in that last over...Whether batting or bowling or maybe even captaining a side..?? Do we still look back at those memories with an all knowing smile of things well done or with a hesitant smirk of having missed out on the glory? Or has those memories become too inconsequential to even merit remembrance?


Years ago when I was part of my college team in football/soccer (playing in defense), I came across that "decisive tackle" in a football/soccer match....Man-marking a guy twice my size and skill, I did pretty well for about 15 minutes..til I heard a dear friend(and a team-mate) shout at me to bring the guy down..but before i reacted, the goal had been scored..that was my "last over"....Beaten clean and fair in skills, I could have still brought that other guy down before he had a chance to take a shot...with maybe a penalty as a result..but that at least would have stopped the flow and given us a greater chance...I failed to do it...and like Mel Gibson believed in his Braveheart speech, I can give anything in my life to get out of bed now and go back for another chance to stop that marauding striker from taking a look at goal.....That chance, in reality, will never come.....But I cannot but try and look at opportunities to find redemption....Maybe it will come at a friendly game in the park or maybe even bowling to my fridge at home (which right now looks the more plausible situation)....

Bottom line, i think, we will never be done with our "last over" or that "decisive tackle"...There will be too many memories that will keep us hooked as another final over drama unfolds on television...Or another EPL match take the turn for the unexpected....Unless we were never on the wrong side of the final over or never failed to make that perfect tackle...

We will be there....And some self of us will be there right on the pitch....Somehow wanting to get out and do that final over right..Or get that tackle in place before its too late...Maybe its not true for for all of us...But for all the rest of us, who have played amateur sports with more than what our hearts and body could offer, I would be surprised if there was no last over that we would not want to re-bowl or make that tackle that we did not....

Here's bowling to my fridge...

Cheers!!!

;))

Every Slumdog has his day

So it finally comes to pass...Bhanu Athaiya will no longer be a loner..she has company....and Slumdog Millionaire takes it place in the pantheon of great Indian cinema...the only disconcerting fact being that it is a Hollywood film based on an Indian novel and therefore requiring locations in India,Indian artistes and the Indian touch....kind of like Gandhi I presume....An Oscar sweep and Bhanu Athaiya is part of it....No fanfare then...But no, this time it is different....Even political parties have gone to the extent of stating that this is an example of "Achieving India"..versus "Shining India"...Which I think would have been validated had Lagaan won the award...Bad timing for "shining India" , I guess...

I was kind of surprised when one of the early morning e-mails I read was from a close friend who wrote that he was happy because of SM ....and then there was another colleague who had changed his YM icon to "Slumdog sweeps Oscars"...I had somehow begin to believe that IIM grads were far removed from the world....It was nice to see people connected and reacting to mundane events..But not until I had seen Asif Mandvi in the John Stewart show late that night, that I realized the significance of the event...And what the world made of it....And what Indians made of it...

Make no mistake...I cannot, for the life of me, distinguish bad cinema from good or great.....But having watched Bollywood offerings of all kind so religiously over the past 10 years or so, I know for a fact that I have seen Slumdog before....Not at the Oscars winning everything and anything in sight.....But in much more humbler settings....

So why should we not celebrate Slumdog.....Its after all based in India....And it has Indian artistes....And AR Rahman , we all know, deserves an Oscar with or without Slumdog......

Theres no reason why we should not...As long as we remember that this is not India arriving and conquering at the Oscars.....This is a Danny Boyle film....And this is a beautiful story that has been so enchantingly captured on screen... This is Bollywood from an outsiders point of view...A point of view that moves us to accept that view as our own....

We will be outsourcing movies to India in the future....Thats Colbert take on the Oscars that I hear right now as I type...That day has passed Colbert by long ago....But the real outsourcing deal will have to wait...We are not there yet...That does not mean we cannot celebrate a British film based on an Indian novel and showcasing Indian talent.....We should...As long as we know what we are celebrating, I guess...

As that song goes...Jai Ho....