horoshima mon amour (french, 1959)

a french woman in hiroshima falls in love with a japanese man in an affair that lasts 24 hours. it seems to be heading for the inevitable end after 8 hours but the subsequent set of frames analyze the aloofness and the personal tragedy plaguing Elle. shot like visual poetry in b&w highlighting the loss in war because of the atomic bomb which acts like perfect backdrop to squeeze in the personal tragedy over tragedies of war. the cinematography and the 50s hiroshima nightlife and the psychoanalysis of the partners will linger. might have been an inspiration to modern films like lost in translation and before sunrise/sunset in terms of strangers meeting in a strange land. more so with lost in translation perhaps because of the personal lives of the characters being in shambles when they meet each other. on par with bergman and truffaut flicks of the heart and mind from this era, resnais adds one more. 8.5/10

ample make this bed

ample make this bed —
make this bed with awe —
in it wait till judgment break
excellent and fair.

be its mattress straight —
be its pillow round —
let no sunrise’ yellow noise
interrupt this ground –

emily dickinson

*sigh*

luck

think of corruption and bendable laws. when it goes your way, it seems quite harmless. when its the same thing that also serves you wars, potholed roads, wiretapping and censorship you throw a fit. am probably at a phase where luck is pretty favourable to me so one might wonder what i have to bitch and moan about. i simply don’t want to sit with a smug look on my face when i know it could have gone another way (sometimes simply because it can). is it unavoidable? the role that this mean little rodent called luck plays? next time the ball hits the net and flops into the other court meekly when the opponent is poised for a venomous forehand at the baseline and you get the point, offer to replay it.
(mellow contemplating mood sponsored by the smiths song please, please, please, let me get what i want playing in a loop)

just saw…

julie & julia - it was a delight watching this one. meryl streep can make a talented actress like amy adams look like a day 1 kindergartener. loved all the french food and the 50s france. based on a true story and a book by same name, its pretty nicely shot with lives of two women across 50 years side by side. stanley tucci was impressive as julia’s husband. where can i get bouef bourguignon in b’lore? 7.5/10

3 idiots -much ado abt pretty much nothing. the humor was good but otherwise just a crapload of “placed” scenes to milk emotions. a lot of rejected scenes from the munna bhai movies must have made it into this one. 6.0/10

avatar - judging by the sappy storyline, i wud give it a 5/10. the technology was quite brilliant deserving a 9+. all in all as a movie it failed to hold my attention. oh the climax action made it worth the wait tho. 6.5/10

a serious man - i love movies that don’t take themselves too seriously. coen bros make a lot of these comedies. this was incredibly funny most of the time. if you liked burn after reading, barton fink, napolean dynamite etc. brand of comedy, you will feel at home with this. 7.6/10

the hurt locker - 9 nominations? it was just another war movie. nothing unique, nor realistic, no characters, no story, no nothing. peeves me no end to see something like this getting the recognition it is getting.  7.2/10

up in the air - very unique script. extremely funny and manages to develop the characters well enough for you to care for them. clooney is quite awesome. we need more movies like this mr. reitman! 7.9/10

thank you for smoking - as good as up in the air and just as quirky in its subject matter from the same director. you will have to watch this if you liked up in the air. 7.9/10

sherlock holmes - hahahah. i was mighty impressed. holmes the superhero. holmes the bare-knuckle boxer. holmes the alcoholic. guy ritchie has definitely started a trend here. i wish he was making avatar the last airbender instead of shyamalan. 7.7/10

antichrist - shocking and gruesome for the heck of it? i dunno. saw it cuz of lars von trier and charlotte gainsbourg. without doubt the most gross movie ive seen in a long time. was very happy that it was over when it was over. its nice though that someone still keeps the art of making movies unfenced. 6.5/10

500 days of summer - refreshing and original. might redefine the romcom genre (hopefully). extremely good soundtrack.. like garden state, juno etc. good performances too. felt the same way i felt after watching ‘before sunrise’, my sassy girl and ‘annie hall’ for the first time. definitely a long time favourite. the soundtrack is worth a buy. 7.8/10

9 - must admit i got this movie by mistake (instead of nine, i got 9). it was a good watch though. visually stunning fantasy ride set in an post-apocalyptic world. watch if you like totally offbeat animation and story. 7.3/10

ishqiya - dint understand the dialogues. they seemed to be funny because everyone was laughing. visually and aurally it was a treat. looked to me like a tribute to the old hollywood westerns and to butch cassidy and sundance kid to some extent. i will skip rating this till it comes on dvd and i can watch with subs.

men who stare at goats - what has gotten into clooney lately? he is excellent in pretty much any role he has been in. jeff bridges is awesome as always. men who stare at goats gives a hilarious view of the US army not all of which is fiction. must watch anti-war timepass movie. oh its a bbc production 7.0/10

paracetamol-tasting

i have been playing hide and seek with the germs for two days now. it all started with a stupid idea to have ice cream over the weekend. now i remember why i don’t eat ice-cream. ironically, i made the outrageous claim on the same day while eating that ice-cream to a friend that i don’t remember the last time i got sick. i thought these kinda stories were always made up. how cocky of me.  did i mention the physically exhausting badminton games i have started from this weekend (nothing to be proud of since i have lost 10-0 twice)? that deserves a separate post i guess. i could not sleep that night as i was very excited about my new baddy racquet and ended up practicing shots against my shadow in the night (the humiliating 10-0 was the next morning).
anyway its like playing a game of chess with the germs. the first move being a sore throat. i said ‘good move sir, here have some cough syrup.’. dull move yet, a proven one. immediate relief and a bit of jumping around followed. followed by an outing in the night in the cold winds for some tonic water with unmentionables and steaks and super cold fresh lime and a victory walk for 3 kms at midnight in the chill of the night. that night i swear i thought i would die. i could not explain what i was feeling. every muscle in the body was making its presence felt. i got cramps around my chest which i mistook for a stroke. i had sprayed some baygon since the mosquitoes were making mince-meat of me. i must have tasted some from the air. it tasted metallic. my stroke-fears went thru the roof followed by ‘am dying, am dying!’. all this at 4 am with a very high fever. i remembered this was just a chess game. took a crocin. was fit as a fiddle and went to play baddy again at 6:30 am. came back in pretty high spirits and slept for most of the day and woke up with a sore throat and a cold. the fever was still gone. body ache was at its peak. now it was time for a combiflam, fine combination of paracetamol 350mg and analgesic. it worked like a charm and i was jumping around too soon again. sore throat is a biotech (auto spell corrected bad word). it came back for more. some milk and turmeric sent it out again. mild fever and cold took over. today is another day and its baddy time with a bad cold. now the right weapon for the war seemed to be a sinarest. yes, feeling better already. its either checkmate or i surrender. :-/ in all this, i realized paracetamol-tasting could be an emerging art. why do we always talk about something being a dying art? here is something that is definitely emerging. ‘fine pill this one. good balance of paracetamol and the analgesics. a hint of caffeine as well! good job i must say’.

i wonder why even the muscles in my jaw pain when i speak after playing these baddy games. very strange. ok so happy bhogi everyone. ‘pazhayana kazhidhalum pudhiyana pugudhalum…’ is a saying in tamil used with this festival. translates to ‘getting rid of the old and entering the new’. on this day no morning flights can land in chennai because of the smog caused by the bonfires of the old thru out the city. oh well…

fahrenheit 451

in the distant future where minds are cocooned, firemen who doused flames once in the past burn books. fahrenheit 451 is the temperature at which paper burns, hence the title. literature, knowledge and information is kept away from the reach of people who are shackled without their knowledge with ‘entertainment’. desensitized people are after all very easy to control. a society sown with these seeds grows to self-destruct. like a classroom that bullies a boy because he is different, the people themselves make sure the ones that still read are burnt with their books. ray bradbury paints a very bleak future which is shockingly similar to the society we are in currently where the idiot box and its reality shows cheap thrills entertainment and local news pumps in paranoia day after day. the words come out of the book in a frenzy like bullets from a machine gun, strong and powerful. it feels like the tale you are reading had to be told in a hurry. turns out that the first draft of the book was written in 9 days with a typewriter rented for a dime for half hour by the poor writer then. this is a must read for everyone. its a celebration for books and reading and writing and knowledge and freewill. let me wrap this with one of my favorite passages from the book (every page has one atleast).

about mortality and individuality..

“Everyone must leave something in the room or be left behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you’re there. It doesn’t matter what you do, he said, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that’s like you after you take your hands away. The difference between the man who just cuts lawns and a real gardener is in the touching, he said. The lawn-cutter might just as well not have been there at all; the gardener will be there a lifetime.”

just saw…

have not been watching movies much lately. this is over the last 2-3 months

the sting, 1973 - one of the best con movies of all time. it has robert redford and paul newman in it. need i say more? maybe paul newman’s 2nd best performance after cool hand luke. same director as butch cassidy and sundance kid as well. very difficult to find flaws in ths. classic. 8.4/10

in the loop, 2009 - well where do i start.. its a bbc production. its a political satirical comedy. its as funny as dr. strangelove in mocking war. ive seen it 4 times already. brilliant brit humor. must watch if you like brit comedies. remember to keep the subtitles on though. 8/10

go, 1999 - i hardly remember anything from this movie except it was total timepass. drug deals gone bad and amateurs trying to rip off pros and black comedy etc etc. like pulp fiction. am tired of these flicks. give it a shot if you are into that genre. 6.5/10

the international, 2009 - total timepass thriller. must watch for the shootout in the gallery. otherwise very so so. 6.5/10

event horizon, 1997 - timepass sci-fi. a spaceship has come from the future and blah blah. decent horror too. very similar to ’sphere’ i thought. 6.0/10

alien, 1979 - a timeless classic. arguably ridley scott’s best work. the thrills and the chills last for days. near perfect movie. its amazing the amount of work that has gone into making the spaceship as realistic as possible. check out the piping and cabling work in every frame. ridiculous effort has gone into this and it shows. the sets are important in a scifi (think 2001: a space odyssey) and this movie shows you why. 8.9/10

scoop, 2006 - must admit i saw this just for woody allen and scarlett johansson (in that order). one of the lesser funny woody flicks but funny nevertheless. woody as the magician splendini was hilarious. 7.0/10

the orphan, 2009 - pretty decent horror/thriller with a good twist ending. lots of gore as well if you are into that sort of thing :D. left me blood thirsty on an otherwise pleasant sunday. 7.1/10

yuke yuke nidome no shojo (go, go second time virgin), japanese 1969 - gorgeous b/w photography. almost entirely shot in a single apartment complex. a raped girl and a sexual abused boy on a spree exploring the bleak side of life. dark and freaky. 7.6/10

we - a documentary film on war and world politics based on the words of arundati roy. not sure how much of it is fact and how much propaganda. pretty good soundtrack surprisingly. havent checked on the sources so cant rate.

wake up sid, 2009 - decent timepass that wanted to take itself seriously but failed doing so. one thing i learned from wake up sid is that photography is the solution to india’s obsession with engineering and medicine. 6/10

ni na bian ji dian (what time is it there?), mandarin/french, 2001 - portrays urban loneliness in a heart wrenching series of frames. story of a mother who has lost her husband, a son who has sold his dead father’s watch and a girl who has traveled from taipei to paris who forges an instant connection with the guy who sells her a watch. very slow, surreal and dark. not for everyone. 7.9/10

this is it, 2009 -  it wasnt a total marketing gimmick and definitely wasn’t all a last ditch attempt to squeeze cash. watch it and pay your tributes to the man. 7/10

ajab preb ki gajab kahani, 2009 - crap. #@$@#$!%$ 1.0/10

district 9, 2009 - one of the decent sci-fi flicks of recent times. mainly due to the splendid acting from the lead. good concept and good execution. fluffy and sappy ending kinda killed it. 7.5/10

star trek, 2009 - should have been called ’star trek for newbies’. after watching having watched some startrek tos and startrek tng, this movie is a mockery of the franchise to make some quick money. sigh 7/10

3 idiots, 2009 - the comedy was fun. way too much manipulative and drab and sappy otherwise. aamir khan shines on an otherwise pointless film. there is atleast 45 mins of rejected scenes from munna bhai. another film that seems to drive the point that photography is the next replacement for engineering and medicine. lol. too much masala and very formulaic. 6.5/10

glengarry glen ross, 1992 - one of the best talky movies. excellent cast with al pacino, kevin spacey etc. a script adapted from theater and shot very much in similar fashion shines in captivating the viewer from frame 1. a bunch of salesmen battling it out against each other in a dog eat dog scenario. very clever film with loads and loads of awesome dialogue. its like reading a book. 8.3/10

dorian gray, 2009 - based on the oscar wilde book. the movie is little too cinematic focusing on the horror element more. the guy playing dorian was too plastic and unconvincing. 6.6/10

the final destination 4, 2009 - yawn yawn yawn. ugh 3/10

surrogates, 2009 - cool concept for a scifi but repetitive human vs machine, technology, religion blah blah elements. some normal action. bruce willis kinda holds the movie a bit. good timepass beer movie 6/10

dear blog,

i might be having an affair with facebook. please dont feel bad. its not over between us. its just a fad and it will fade. when i have something more than smalltalk, i will ofcourse be back with you.

b

passing afternoon

recorded this couple of days back on first attempt. love the song and the lines. if the audio is missing, check theanalogkid.net

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There are times that walk from you like some passing afternoon
Summer warmed the open window of her honeymoon
And she chose a yard to burn but the ground remembers her
Wooden spoons, her children stir her Bougainvillea blooms

There are things that drift away like our endless, numbered days
Autumn blew the quilt right off the perfect bed she made
And she’s chosen to believe in the hymns her mother sings
Sunday pulls its children from their piles of fallen leaves

There are sailing ships that pass all our bodies in the grass
Springtime calls her children ’till she let’s them go at last
And she’s chosen where to be, though she’s lost her wedding ring
Somewhere near her misplaced jar of Bougainvillea seeds

There are things we can’t recall, blind as night that finds us all
Winter tucks her children in, her fragile china dolls
But my hands remember hers, rolling ’round the shaded ferns
Naked arms, her secrets still like songs I’d never learned

There are names across the sea, only now I do believe
Sometimes, with the windows closed, she’ll sit and think of me
But she’ll mend his tattered clothes and they’ll kiss as if they know
A baby sleeps in all our bones, so scared to be alone

–

sam beam

the president of maldives and his entire cabinet of ministers met underwater with scuba gear to highlight the threat of globalwarming. according to them entire maldives will be submerged by the end of the century. they used gesturing and whiteboards to communicate and signed a document to call for global cuts in carbon emissions.

the event got into the last page of ‘the hindu’. it might not even have made it into the times. had they considered enriching their uranium, maybe their words would have made it to the front pages of every paper and to the heads of those who matter.

the smell of cooum with sulphur and rain smells like sandalwood in my memory when i think of deepavalis (reminds me of ‘the smell of napalm in the morning’ from ‘apocalypse now’). missed chennai. as with every one of the last 10 deepavalis spent out of chennai in the last 10 years, i have always missed the magic. it would always rain in chennai when its deepavali. its some sorta jinx probably. …of trying to find a dry patch to burst your laxmi vedis and atom bombs and flower pots. had a nice time nevertheless with the apartment people bursting some crackers and lighting sparklers, pencils and wires and pretty fireworks trying to claim your space in the bangalore sky. maggie loved everything that would light up but not create too much noise. entertained a lot of guests at home and it was different and nice. what will probably remain in memory is the long walk i took today. skies lit up with fireworks. the fact that everyone is feeling the same makes my heart ebb. probably why i got goosebumps listening to those thousands in the grandstand erupt worse than a soccer crowd as barrichello took the pole in his home circuit of interlagos, sao paulo after more than 2.5 hours of stormy weather. dunno if it makes me a wuss when my eyes well up seeing hundreds of thousands vicariously behind someone bringing their dreams to the scorecard. festivals are so harsh and rude at times in that they are book-markers in memory. why should the swellness of the heart in longing be classified as bad anyway? another swell day lived as a human-being. good night.

short tale - 17

half the class was up and it was time for coming up with creative excuses. “why haven’t you done your homework?” being the question and the time being monday morning 4th period before lunch. one of the disadvantages of sitting in the last row was that most of the excuses you are going to come up with are already taken.. sometimes just before your turn comes up leaving you very little time to come up with something new and hence credible. lamers would twist an excuse already offered like ‘fever miss’ with ‘fever and bad cough miss’ or a ‘had gone to my native place’ with ‘was out of station miss’. the ones with good foresight and foresight-less parents will ofcourse bunk the friday because there is always a lot of homework given on a friday. ‘was absent on friday miss’ will mostly be smirked at but was workable. ‘forgot to bring the homework notebook’ was a staple for the ones whose excuses never matured from the 3rd std to the 4th std. the class was being flushed out in hordes and it was soon to be the turn of the boys in the last row. the ones standing before were all gone and there was no cover to hide. they felt naked and exposed. they were mostly the creative lot when it came to things like this. one of them claimed that he had indeed finished his homework but somebody tore out the pages in envy during the interval break holding up the midsection of a notebook with 5 pages torn in haste. that was an excuse that definitely belonged maybe to the 9th or 10th std. “hey where is gaurav? isnt he joining us today for a drink?” one of the boys from the last row inquired to which another one replied “seems he is down with typhoid”. there was a momentary “oh” and very loud laughter followed. 20 years had passed.

salt

you know.. its like salt. no good by itself. most times nothing good without it. wont notice if its there just at the right amount. cant do with too much or with none of it. but once you learn what is the right amount, its all good from there. till you are forgetful and don’t know if you have added already or not.

just saw…

the proposal, 2009 - yet another rom com that had its moments but the climax might just have been copied from a few tamil movies. popcorn stuff. 6.2/10

pasanga, 2009 - surprisingly fresh and funny. the movie is about kids all throughout. it will remind you of your childhood in a real sweet way. might have gone overboard at times but totally excusable. 7.5/10

vennila kabadi kuzhu, 2009 - first half and the romantic angle was a bit of a drag but picks up very well in the second. story set in a small village with a few villagers aspiring to win a kabadi match. the rural setting and the story-telling and the performances were all commendable - 7.3/10

love aaj kal, 2009 - yawn. 5.0/10

sphere - decent sci-fi. have read the book very long back so it spoilt the fun for me. nice time pass otherwise. 6.0/10

sideways - ‘if anyone orders merlot, am leaving’. lol. funny and thoughtful movie. might not be for all. the wine-tasting and roadtrip combo was nice and both the characters were real, quirky and adorable. giamatti’s best probably. 8.0/10

saroja, 2009 - was hard to genre’ize this one. every tense moment was broken by something hilarious. just sit back and go with the flow. bad acting spoiled it for me in a lot of places but still very fresh and nice attempt. 6.5/10

man on wire, 2008 - 1974. wtc. a french man illegally put a wire across the twin towers and walked across it for 45 mins. documentary and brilliant one. daring feat of human achievement 8.5/10

the third man, 1949 - orsen welles shows up only after 45mins into the movie but still stuns with his performance. beautiful b/w photography. good thriller. 8.4/10

breakfast club, 1985 - the story of high school misfits. cult classic 80s movie. if you liked napolean dynamite, you will like this too. 7.2/10

martian child, 2007 - an adopted misfit of a kid thinks he is from mars. one of those good tv movies. 7.3/10

l’appartement, 1996 - re-watched this because it sounded very similar to wicker park which was recommended by a friend. extremely good storyline and editing. good performance by vincent cassel and monica bellucci. must watch. 8.3/10

wicker park, 2004 - very close to the original with a better soundtrack but a hollywood ending. set in new york instead of paris. 7.4/10

observe and report - ugh. gave me migraine. 1.5/10

chennai 600028, 2007 - very good timepass. good fun if you grew up in chennai and love gully cricket. 7.0/10

yaavarum nalam, 2009 - decent horror starring madhavan. has ripped off good scenes from atleast 10 different horror movies :). doesnt rely on gory images or horrible sound effects for horror. quite good watch. 7.4/10

state of play, 2009 - how many more of these should we have before you stop it all together? 7.0/10

hellboy, 2004 - good timepass. good visual effects. 7.1/10

rain man, 1988 - i thought tom cruise did an equally good job as dustin hoffman. true classic. 7.9/10

tape, 2001 - richard linklater’s tape is shot for its entire 1.5 hrs in a single room. claustrophobic psychology drama of three friends meeting after years dissecting their past. non-stop talky movie. not for all. very inspiring watch for indie filmmakers 7.5/10

unnaipol oruvan, 2009 - havent seen the original ‘a wednesday’ so dont know how it compares. found the acting below par in the first 30 mins from everyone. sound effects were very distracting. otherwise was pretty well done. script was very predictable but nicely done nevertheless. 7.3/10

eeram, 2009 - crappy horror with unwanted romance and songs. avoid at all costs. 5.0/10

inglorious basterds, 2009 - will he ever break out of his paying tribute to movies within his movies? i wish QT will leave the story, script and dialogues to someone else and just concentrate on direction which he is good at. this movie caters wholly to the 18-25 crowd and holds very less for others. brad pitt was annoying with that accent. some of the action was overcooked. good entertainment otherwise. 7.5/10

zeitgeist, 2007 - re-watched 7.5/10

lost in translation, 2003 - loved each and every minute of this movie. one of those movies where the location itself plays a character (like paris in cleo de 5-7). i found it very inspired from agnes varda’s cleo de 5-7. scarlett pulls off a good character role which somehow reminded me of her role in match point. bill murray plays his to perfection as well. the direction of sofia coppola is worth a mention too. the climax could have lost a couple of mins which would have given it a different ending. must watch. 8.1/10

mulholland drive, 2001 - re-watched 9.0/10

heat, 1995 - re-watched 8.5/10

cube, 1997 - re-watched 7.8/10

a letter to three wives, 1949 - a ‘best friend’ of three women leaves city without notice and writes a letter to them saying she has left with one of their husbands without mentioning who. the invisible narrator (the friend) and the characters are loosely copied in desperate housewives which i couldnt stand beyond 2 episodes. this is a classic though. very funny and very innovative. whole story is made of three flashbacks. linda darnell steals the show totally. was a random choice and i was pleasantly surprised. 8.3/10

harvest

am the crop grabbed by the reaper’s hand
swirling wind sways my grains against the land;
fare-thee-well john, the scarecrow he seems so sad
trotting the marshes, jack the reaper felt so glad.

we’ll swing, sway free, till the sickle shears us down
fall in tufts, packed in sacks we’re sold in town.
some threshed and tortured, lost their veil in the flail
some sown back, “hello john”, lived to tell the tale.

short tale - 16

‘weather at the destination is a very pleasant 25 degrees. its a bright sunny day. local time is 7:30 am…’ went the announcement over the intercom. ‘we are about to make final approach to landing…’ it went on. i look out and see the green mountains and tropical rain-forests and an ocean glistening brightly in the morning sun.

‘i’m sitting in the dock of the bay..
watching the ships roll in
watching the tide roll away..
am sittin in the mornin sun
sittin till the evening come
i’m sitting on the dock of the bay…
wasting time…’

otis redding played on the intercom after the announcement as my eyes were stuck on the splendid sight outside of which i will soon be part of.

‘ok sir, we are done’ said the lady as the endoscope was retracted out of my nose and i opened my eyes to the now dark room. ‘think happy thoughts..’ she had said before spraying something into my nose i vaguely remembered.

why otis redding i contemplated. why the song he wrote 3 days before dying in a plane crash?

we need a comforting thought to put us to sleep at sundown and another thought or desire to wake us at dawn and keep us going and yet it is these same thoughts and objects that end up giving us sleepless nights and dreadful days. a paradox probably as old as the dawn of mankind.

sum < parts

want a great example of the parts being bigger than the sum? china apparently uses organs from executed prisoners for profit by donating them. 2/3rds china’s organ needs come from executed prisoners. so the living breathing sum was of no good but the parts were. nice. lets think for a bit here. if there existed a technology where you could wipe the evil out of one’s head, will that be accepted as a replacement for execution? would the human rights groups cry foul calling it the stealing of free will? or will the society accept a murderer in our midst because he is a certified good person now? or will a govt. like that of china fuel the human rights activists and the stir the society to continue executing and making profits? i wonder if logic will prevail or if our quest for vengeance of a crime or making profits out of every situation imaginable will still rule.

the village trip

the merciless, unfeeling sun bears down hot around here. it has always been like this. the trees are there in large numbers but somehow they were greener then. everything was greener then. what would seem to be a never-ending walk as a kid is just a few strides even in a stringent gait since the mind is busy shoveling the past than pay attention to the heat or the legs. a few people who were last seen playing underarm cricket are old enough to be playing with a cricket ball now and are in the middle least worried of the unforgiving heat. i hardly recognized anybody. i moved on anxious to see what would be left of the constant subject of my childhood scribblings in the last pages of class work notebooks and drawing sheets. the well was still there, very imperfect with age and caving in threatening to end its own life any day now. the two coconut trees were still there but not in their old vigor. one of them still bore some coconuts. the mango tree by the well is gone. it has been gone for 12 years now but i still check lest it should appear magically. it dint and i moved on. the old bridge over the river where the old and wise would sit in the evenings showed up in the distance. i have fished in this same river as a kid. fished with nothing more than thatha’s dhoti. we caught some fish that we intended to keep as pets though i do vaguely remember asking my grandma to drop some in the curry she was making when i returned home which she ofcourse refused. i dont remember how old i was then but i think i was maybe just a foot tall. i remember how my shadow used to look on the ground as i ran around pretending to ride a bike. the bridge had half fallen into the now dry river. it must have been an accident. that old bridge was too strong to cave in so soon.
after the bridge came the houses. i will have to cross atleast a 20 before i reach home. normally i would be met with peering eyes and questioning glances of the old people who sit outside their houses. someone would gather their voice to ask if i was so-and-so’s grandson to which i will reply with a ‘aama thatha’ or ‘aama paati’ and move on anxious to reach home. today there were none. it was too hot a day for sitting outside so i slid through the streets comfortably. i reached home to see a joyous and excited granny since she did not know i was visiting and the surprise had worked quite well. what followed was an hour or so of non-stop talk which was mostly one-sided from my granma who had suddenly become energetic and animated like a kid who got her favorite toy as a gift. she was so full of expression describing the snake she saw in the bathroom the week before which by her description could have made an anaconda slithering away for cover. for someone who had spent 70 years in the village, granma was odd when it came to her fear of snakes, mice, frogs and cockroaches. the talk then ranged from the fights she has with grandpa over the pettiest of matters (to one of which grandpa had jokingly replied saying he would wrap a frog in paper and put it along with the shopped groceries the next time she fought with him which i found very cute), to who had died/was dying since my last visit, to what plants she currently had in our huge garden and what crops were growing in our farms. i was ofcourse enjoying my lunch while listening. thanks to the new datacard, i was able to stay there and work for a week watching chicks hatch out of their eggs, watching a therukoothu (street play) and do a million other village stuff. now am back but hoping i get to go there again… soon.

checkpoint

you would save as soon as you finished a difficult manoeuvre, or in levels that you would love to play again just because they are fun, or just before making a risky move. remember those platform video games that will offer you only three save slots? imagine if life gave you an option to have 3 check points that you could restore your life from at any point. what points would they be? i think mine will be when i was about 6-7 yrs old, when i was 18 and any point in 2009.

some stuff i recorded recently (with my phone). if the audio files are missing, please visit theanalogkid.net

ok so am learning guitar for just a little over an year so this will be extremely amateurish.

radiohead’s exit music. one of my favoritest songs of all time. tried a bit of falsetto too in the end need to improve a bit on the strumming too i think. kinda difficult song.

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dylan’s i’m not there. strumming was pretty easy in this, so i cud kinda do better vocals.

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dylan’s times they are a-changin’. think the phone only picked up the guitar parts well.

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coldplay’s dont panic. i thot the guitar part came out very well but as usual i screwed up the vocals.

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i must accept i don’t watch hindi movies much and in the very few that i have managed to, am surprised by the huge percentage of them set abroad with the protagonist sometimes returning home or some such. swades, kal ho na ho, dostana, dil chahta hai, delhi 6 etc. come to mind. is it impossible to make an indian who has never left the country interesting or something? avoid love aaj kal at all costs. the formula has run dry and we don’t want more patronizing pieces of garbage. please move on.

just saw…

supersize me, 2004 - this a real fun documentary analyzing our fast food habits and the greedy McD. this came out at a time when McD was being swamped with lawsuits by people who thought McD made them obese. like any evil corporation they had good lawyers who wanted proof that McD can actually do that. so morgan spurlock (the director) goes on a month long McD binge where he eats and drinks only what is sold in McD. what happens then is very interesting and should be watched. this movie actually achieved its target my getting McD to remove the supersize option from its menus. hats off to the director. 8.2/10

donnie brasco, 1997 - how do you know who you are? can you a be a cop at heart because you wear the uniform? interesting movie with good performances from al pacino and johnny depp based on a true story. 7.7/10

cube, 1997 - if you like movies like contact, dark city, gattaca, this is a must watch. a decent sci-fi after a very long time. cheap sets, decent acting, whole movie is shot with a small set of ppl in a closed environment (the cube). 7.8/10

cléo de 5 à 7 (cleo from 5 to 7), 1962 - discovered agnes varda recently. movie tells the story of cleo between 5pm - 7pm mostly in real time. cleo, a french singer refuses to collect her medical results in the fear that she might have cancer. the camera follows her fluidly through paris in buses, streets, cars and houses. excellent direction. proper new wave film - 8/10

das leben der anderen (the lives of others), 2006 - reviewed this already. 8.9/10

tystnaden (the silence), 1963 - it should have been so shocking to see this in 1963. like most bergman films dealing with relationships and interactions between family members, this one deals with emotional interactions between two aging sisters, one still capable of picking a man whose language she doesn’t even speak in a strange town and the other stuck in her lofty ideals. not an approachable bergman film and not for the faint at heart. very surreal and very strange. 8.2/10

cet obscur objet du désir (that obscure object of desire), 1977 - the subject is human obsession on that elusive object. the director uses two actresses who look different blatantly for a single role (when the story doesnt need you to) which i think is a great innovation since it highlights the subtle differences in characters of the role very well. loved the way the movie started where a man throws a bucket of water on a woman on the platform (the why, you will eventually understand) as the train pulls away and settles to tell the story to a group of strangers in the train which runs as a narrative for the movie. very good watch. 8.4/10

rope, 1948 - i had not even heard of this hitchcock gem before. i started obsessing with movies that use a small set of characters and are set in a closed space throughout the runtime of the film after watching the cube. rope is an excellent thriller the whole of which is set in an apartment and the entire runtime of 90 mins looks as if it was shot in a single take. some of these old hitchcock films tell you why he is to movies what ‘the beatles’ are to music. 7.8/10

nothing, 2003 - brilliant idea and kinda shoddy execution. two people who wake up to find that the whole world has vanished and its just them left. all that is left is a white ‘nothing’. extremely funny in places. 7.3/10

garden state, 2004 - everyone must watch this movie. i am totally totally biased you know why? the soundtrack of this movie is probably the best soundtrack in _any_ movie i’ve seen. written, directed and acted by zach braff who am starting to think cant act for nuts. natalie portman was great though. 7.6/10

napoleon dynamite, 2004 - dont movies always show characters who are interesting in some way? how will it be they were all boring misfits? this is quite a brave movie and i enjoyed it thoroughly. i might not have a couple of years back but this was really hilarious for me this time. if you liked ‘burn after reading’ or any of those other coen brothers comedies, you will most definitely enjoy this. 7.2/10

the wild blue yonder, 2005 - so aliens live among us and we cant differentiate them. the movie is narrated by one from andromeda. a lot of zero gravity shots thanks to nasa and a lot of under the ice antarctic shots to show andromeda and some interesting math and science and you have a freaky werner herzog flick. 7.0/10

kontroll, 2003 - a hungarian film shot totally underground. this is part of my obsession for claustrophobic movies. watch it late night when you are in the mood for a weird dark movie and a thriller like one of those david lynch movies. 7.3/10

the curly one wants it straight, the straight one gets it curled,

the wavy one is worried she’s.. not on either side,

the bald one wears a wig and wonders what’s goin on;

the shaved one she’s coolest with her pierced lips and tongue.

why is it that the wii-motes, mp3 players and cellphones run out of energy when you desperately need them while you always have surplus that accumulates in unwanted places? sometimes i wish i can feed some dosa and tomato chutney to my wii-mote and get on with it. :-/

yesterday i was on an online board discussing symbolisms in luis bunuel’s ‘that obscure object of desire’. the thread was hot with instances that seemed to show more about the poster’s character than bunuel or the movie’s. someone linked to a transcript of an interview of bunuel who seemed to claim he did not intend any symbolisms at all in the movie. people still defended their thoughts to ‘trust the art and not the artist’. i felt it could be anything since its after all fiction, and subjective to what the director went through at the time of making the movie. i stood by the ripe symbolisms that i saw that made me get into conversations with random people in the first place. it somehow reminded me of the conversations that maamis in madipakkam will have after an episode of metti oli.