Clipboard Conversations: June 2004

Jun 30, 2004

Garrincha!

That was the answer to the last question in the last leg of the all India finals of the best television quiz in India. It happened to be answered by Abhinava Vidyalaya, Pune, a 20-pointer no less, and that decided who won the ESPN School Quiz for 2003-2004. Rohit Bahulekar and Rohit Chandrachud "majorly cracked it". Absolutely stunning achievement, given that no non-East Zone team had won this quiz till now, and it was one of the tightest contests I've ever seen.

PSBB, Nungambakkam from Chennai and Hartley's High School from Kolkata were awesome too, but the guys from Pune held on, and had their favourite soccer questions bailing them out when they needed it the most. All these kids are so amazing at the ages of 13/14/15 that I shudder to think what they'll be like in ten years time if they keep at it. All the rest of us should probably retire and save ourselves some embarrassment :-). The champs haven't yet responded to an invitation to the BCQC yet, but hope to see them soon and raise a toast to 'em.

Paint it Yellow

TOI-bashing is a legal bloodsport now, especially the gore-filled theatre of Pune Times of India slashing. Allow me to play that today. The last three editions of the PTOI have had a new feature - that of the off-the-record photo, that suggests at hidden liasons and vices in so-called stars. Yesterday, it was someone clicked with someone else and suggestive guesses being made, the day before it was someone clutching someone else's hand and being focussed on, today it was Tanuja smoking a cigarette. Who really cares what these people are doing in their lives? First it was PTOI clicking people at parties etc. Now they're supposedly shooting people at unguarded moments and posing it as an "exposé". Two things: either those people don't know they've been captured like that (or perhaps they're in cahoots with PTOI and are ok with the publicity) and secondly, how is it in anyway worth being printed?

I hate it when these media guys insidiously slip in such small features. In general, they claim that "this is what people want to read", and that improving sales are evidence of that. That's a very vague argument. No one seems to have proven a direct relation between this kind of content and the sales. But when such new features are introduced, I'd like to know what immediate effect PTOI claims it will have. Do people rush to buy the paper because some minor celebrity is shown doing something somewhere which may be worth some gossip, but only to a few? I cannot picture anyone going "oooh! Tanuja smokes, I have got to have that issue which broke this astounding story". She might do a lot of other things, who cares? The problem with such things are that they start off being minor, but to sustain it, the newspaper will keep pushing the boundaries, little by little. Then they will say that "but that's what people want to read". I'd like to meet someone who buys TOI in Pune mainly for that supplement.

We have never had a full-blown Hearstian kind of media coverage in India where you clearly know what to expect, which ends up forcing the newspapers to stop pretending to be a broadsheet along with casual gossip. In the US & UK, it seems like the lines are more clearly drawn and you pay for that you want. Here, you have to take everything, like it or not. It's not really "everything" anymore, as white is being slowly replaced by yellow.

I'm to blame in some respect; as a subscriber I never challenged my accustomed habit of reading the TOI all these years. Thoughts of disgust at such things are always tempered by an inertial feeling of "let me ignore it" and TOI "is like that only". For the first time, I'm really wondering why I'm paying for a five-page supplement, all pages of which have the same page number.

Jun 27, 2004

Faux News - VI

Faux News bulletin

(You know it's time if it's faux pas nine!)

Sledging row hits India's Child Genius
By our Entertainment correspondent

An unseemly row hit the game show India's Child Genius when a contestant was accused of indulging in "sledging". The show, leased from Fox, is a contest for intelligent children under the age of 15 and has several attractive cash prizes for the winners.

The ruckus blew during the shooting of a North Zone preliminary round, where a child Rickinder Nagrath (name changed) was allegedly seen clipping Rohit Saxena in the leg. He also said Rohit wouldn't know which button to press for the next answer since he barely knew the alphabet and called him a name during the first round. (This round sees all the 16 participants simultanously attempt questions.) This alleged behavior followed the question "For which country did Rodney Marsh play cricket?". Rohit Saxena claims that Rickinder did so to upset his (Rohit's) form (Rohit had amply demonstrated this by punching both fists in air after every previous question in obvious triumph at getting them right) and because he refused to let Rickinder peek over his shoulder.

Rickinder denies any such attempt at gamesmanship and says he was only talking to himself and the physical contact with Rohit was because of a nervous reaction. However, this paper has learnt from some of Rickinder's classmates that young Ricki isn't always averse to such tactics even in school. Ricki's father dismisses such talk as that of jealousy and the inability of certain kids to take good-natured banter.

For his part, the host and director of the show, Siddhartha Basu, was quite surprised to see such events unfold in front of his eyes. "Never have I seen such a display on any of my shows in all my 20 years of TV broadcasting" said the veteran quizmaster. He also said that the incident had shaken him up a little, as he was only used to dealing with chirpy college students and usually dumbstruck Mastermind participants.

While most child psychologists will only point to the extreme pressure put on children to perform, especially when the stakes are high, some have hailed this phenomenon as the emergence of a true killer instinct in Indian children.

Click here for a free look at the earlier editions.

A knack for it

When English sportsmen and their teams lose (which is quite often, when you consider sports like football, tennis, cricket though the trend has been reversed somewhat in Test cricket and rugby), their post-match laments will almost inevitably contain the words "gutted" and "knackered". These are quite appropriate phrases and I quite fancy them, for they do convey exactly how someone can feel in these situations.

The England-Portugal Euro 2004 quarter-final left not only the players "knackered", but the audiences as well. The match simply refused to end, and each twist had a hairpin bend ahead to contend with. I rarely sit up till 3 a.m. for a football match, but this was extremely compelling. Somehow, history shows that if it can happen, it will happen to the English soccer team.

Jun 26, 2004

Page 0.33333 Personality

It has been said of the social circle of people like me that if it were any smaller, the theory of singularities could be explained away as emanating from the party life of one of us, thus causing both great consternation and relief among physicists. It has also been well observed that were I in a zoo (as hoped for in certain quarters), I would definitely not be in the cage labeled "party animal", simply because: (a) I don't throw parties (b) I don't know too many people who do (c) most of my friends follow (a) and (b). Thus we form an almost perfect closure of the set. Not that it really bothers me that much, for my idea of happiness doesn't depend on the number of invitations at hand.

But into the depths of each frog-in-the-well, some rain must fall and adding to the profusion of concocted metaphors, when it drips a little, it pours. For the last several weeks, I have been to a variety of social affairs. It seems to me that the period of May-June is usually one to usher in a series of arrivals and farewells, and changes in conditions. This year, a rash of product releases and picnics have also coincided with the same, leading to an steep increase in the number of paneer dishes consumed.

The reason for all this reflection is that a murmur has been oveheard from certain regions (principally across my cubicle wall) as to the possible augmentation of my Page Three Quotient. Hilarious though the suggestion was (as intended), it set me thinking. What if the local rag had clicked this writer at one of these events? What would the captions state? At the blah-blah show, JR and a couple of happening friends. Blue jeans are the flavour of the season, R shows off the latest from J's gallery. Ray sips a quiet drink by the poolside. JR chats up a PYT. That exercise in tabloid copywriting apart, in reality, the caption would most likely read: Dishevelled JR in off-ghaaN sweatshirt looks sleepy again while chatting to himself.

Why the title "Page 0.3333", the mathematically inclined among you dare to ask? Because I'm the inverse of a Page Three Personality.

Jun 22, 2004

Kamal and Marathi films

When Kamalhaasan speaks, I usually listen. The interviews are usually quite interesting and insightful. I don't grudge him what people think of as his arrogance. I consider that more of super-confidence. I don't care that sometimes he freaks out big time in his films. He is among the few who in doing that can actually push the boundaries of Indian filmmaking. So I listen whenever he has something to say.

Rediff has a two part interview: Link to Part 1 and Link to Part 2. In the second one, he has a very interesting take on an unlikely topic: Marathi cinema. To quote:

In fact, I am seriously thinking of doing a Marathi film.
Do you know Marathi?
I can manage. I didn't know Malayalam, Telugu or Hindi [earlier].
Marathi culture is a great culture which is as old and important as Tamil culture. It is a bigger state too. It is a pity they have given up all their culture to Hindi cinema. I don't know why they don't have the vernacular pride that Tamilians have. They should be producing 100 films a year.
I would love to act in a Marathi film, on my terms. I am not talking about money. It should be a good film.

I would agree with him broadly, as Marathi cinema hasn't touched the same heights that its literature and poetry have, to cite a few aspects. Good actors such as Vikram Gokhale, the late Mohan Gokhale, Amol Palekar and Atul Kulkarni have been gifted to the national scene, but not enough happens at home. I wonder what my Marathi friends have to say about the above quote.

While in the realms of imagination, it would be awesome to have a film made by Amol Palekar starring the great man!

Jun 21, 2004

Raghu Romeo

Raghu Romeo turned out to be pretty much the way I had imagined it would be. Catching it in the company of Samrat and his wife, the film was one of those good ones which don't have any momentous revelations to make, but just hope to tell a story of a person and tell it well.

Raghu (Vijay Raaz) lives in a dream, and sometimes (unwillingly) he has to go into the world of reality where no one can hope to understand anything that he does. But that fantasy is more real to him than the real world can ever be. Sweety (Sadiya Siddique) is the complete opposite; she knows what she wants, and she knows what she feels for Raghu. Add a doppelganger called Neetaji/Reshma (Maria Goretti, debut in films) and an unlikely assassin-in-shorts called Mario a.k.a Brother (Samrat conjecturing the origins are from "Mario Brothers") and you have a sweet tale that does not go sour. The film will appeal to the romantic in you, especially that streak that compels you to be silly even when you know what a limited role romance can really play in real life.

Raghu Romeo takes several digs at the patently inane world of the Indian TV soap, which I'm sure is Rajat Kapoor's way of expressing protest. The only TV interview I've seen that placid guy give was on CNBC's TrendMill, which was on the sets of some generic soap in which he was acting. Dressed in one of those made-for-TV Indian formals, he spoke of his small dream that he couldn't get anyone to distribute. The disconnect to the FTTI alumnus must have be galling, like some Renaissance artist painting houses, , but how else does an actor pay for his bread? Rajat Kapoor must've have held on to every silly dialogue he's had to speak for the purpose of slashing at in his script, with great effect. If I had to classify this film, I would put in that shelf holding films such as Chasm-e-Baddoor, where stories can be told leisurely and with a lot of love.

Vijay Raaz is a special talent, and proves once again that we have great actors to look forward to even if they would be classified by people as mere sidekicks to stars. Vijay Raaz will probably never win a popular "acting" award or be interviewed to the accompaniment of a glossy still, but in his heart, he'd know he is worth a 100 top billings. Sadiya Siddique and Saurabh Shukla (Mario) are excellent. Maria Goretti is an inspired piece of casting, for she pulls off both the synthetic Indian bahu and the bitchy, modern actress without slipping into VJ-mode. The rest of the cast (Vijay Patkar, Surekha Sikri, Virendra Saxena et al) give no cause for complaint. Saurabh Shukla's dialogues are a riot, especially in the four-person-mid-room-conference that is worth a repeat watch. The music (Pritam) and lyrics fit the mood of the film, with the memorable multi-genre musical piece all flitting by Raghu's world.

Rajat Kapoor in his directorial venture proves that sometimes all it takes to make a good film is to have a bunch of fine actors, a good script, befitting dialogues, appropriate music and common sense. Sure, not having item numbers or action sequences or special effects and having a running time of only 100 minutes makes it extraordinarily difficult to find distribution, but what the heck, the film is out now. Sure, people wonder what Raghu Romeo is, and why they shouldn't watch it on cable, and why they shouldn't go watch Hum Tum given a choice. Sure, people think what would be special about that "comedian" Vijay Raaz, and who the hell Saurabh Shukla is and isn't that the girl who used to be on MTV?

Don't watch Raghu Romeo out of charity. Don't expect the next generation in films from it. It is not extraordinary of course, but it is well-made.To those who think they know what clean entertainment is, give Raghu Romeo a shot (it is classified "A", but I really, really wonder why given some other films). Watch it to know that films aren't always about 70mm Digital Dolby, 38 cheerleaders, 3 fashion designers and a 20 crore budget. It is possible to dream (like Raghu and Rajat do), even if some dreams are best fantasised about than realised.

Music Blog

Ricky Chandarana has a blog devoted to all his favourite songs, filmi and non, so far all Hindi. It's called Sun-oh and so far, most from the list of songs that he discussed have been favourites of mine, and I guess of most people. I picked it off the ARR egroups, but his posts encompass SD, RD, S-E-L and ARR among others.

Great effort. Definitely worth a look.

Jun 18, 2004

"Delhi" Ganesh goes to Bombay

I used to be a neighbour of "Delhi" Ganesh", the popular Tamil character actor when I lived in Madras (that area was full of filmi people). For those who don't know who he is, or vaguely remember him, try the following memory jogs. For Tamil film watchers, he is easily recognisable as the Hindi speaking associate of Velu Nayakan in Nayakan. (He has several other memorable performances too, many of which have come in Kamal films). Of late (and this is what would help the non-Tamil audience), he's been spotted as the potential father-in-law of Virendra Sehwag in the Reliance Mobile ad saying "Yeh meyra mobile mai kyu nahin hai?".

I remember seeing an interview of his in which he explained the "Delhi" moniker. IIRC, he used to work in the capital and was thus differentiated in the Tamil theatre circuit (where no doubt you could trip over a Ganesh in every makeup room). He's made good use of the Hindi he picked up there. His latest career move has come out of this very skill and the resultant Reliance ad: he's doing a Hindi film (news report in The Hindu) with the likes of Sanjay Dutt. Good for all concerned as the role he's playing is a Tamilian cabinet minister, so the Hindi utterances will be authentic. We need more such cross-pollination of actors.

(I wonder if the report has south-indian-ified (as happens many a time) the name of the film from "Dus" to "Dhus"!)

Jun 17, 2004

Jun 16, 2004

Dum' Chums

Since I'm in no benevolent mood right now, let me spew some venom at Hum Tum (don't worry, I didn't pay for it):

* Ok, it really is no When Harry Met Sally (as if I'd deluded myself that in the first place), but it is *so not* WHMS. The good thing about WHMS was the generalizations about the sexes were the personal theories of only the Crystal and Ryan characters. When Dumb Chum does the same, it comes off as if almost everyone believes that life was strictly binary. At least it seemed to me that way. Maybe I'm just biased.

* Ishaa Koppikar should consider a turn as an unintentional comedienne if many more of her films are banned and panned. She can't play drunks (not can Saif Ali Khan as he was soon to display) and she's the most unpious bride-on-wedding-day I've ever seen (not even Uma Thurman dressed like that in Kill Bill)

* Abhishek Bachchan seems to have inherited the wonderful ability of pulling off the most trite of dialogues from daddy dear. Give him more decent roles please. Rishi Kapoor actually acted! (helped by a great in-joke in the dialogues). Well done sir.

* I'm glad I wouldn't have paid for that film (the only blemish on my record is LOC).

* I'm glad this is a hit, so that we can stop the charade that the audience tastes on the whole have changed or that they can differentiate.

* What awful BGMs! But one great scene involving the main guys. Ok, we know you would get together. It wasn't a state secret. Too many typos in the film. Best part: it's only about 2 hours long. Hooray!

Jun 11, 2004

'dis is the problem

Having considered for almost each day of the last several years, that partly or in full, my life sucked beyond imagination, I was considerably pleased (if in a sad way) to learn that such a feeling is almost universal and I wasn't really alone. It seems like this "dissatisfaction" or "discontent" is rife and part of almost everyone's daily existence, almost as routine, as significant and sometimes as unobtrusive as the involuntary act of breathing.

I don't know why I was surprised to know that most people share these inner gnawings, the feeling that something isn't quite there and whether there's still a long way to go (which presupposes that there is some hope ahead for us). For I'm not uncommon. Perhaps it is those that we idolize who we use to self-delude - they are so talented, so perfect, so full of innate strength and determination that fate bows to them in the end and fairy tales change plotlines midway in deference to their magnetism. It would be better for us to hope to emulate those who've fought inspite of, those who didn't have much of it but stole it in some Promethean triumph and even those who fell flat in a ditch while shooting at a star. Worship the former but follow the latter.

It is really remarkable, this dissatisfaction. Like so much around us, it seems unlikely to have been borne out out of chance. Your choice of faith in the matter of how things came into being doesn't matter here, your god or your neo-darwinian alternate could perhaps one day explain the need for the countless minor skirmishes, of the conflicting wills of people who want much of the same, like thousands of contestants loose in a mega musical-chairs melee, or tiny spheroids in a pinball game looking for their slots. For much of this discontent derives from questions such as "where is my own little groove" or even "is there such a thing as my own place". Even if you tell us that there aren't any such things as destiny or even a egoistic pre-ordained place for us, we couldn't be deceived by it, even if it be the truth.

If you were being positive about it, perhaps it is this restlessness that drives everything around us. If it weren't for this Brownian motion, perhaps we wouldn't dare to throw fatalistic dice, or juggle four burning torches, or peer beyond the horizons. I would've personally preferred to visit each slot one by one and see if that was the groove for me, but sadly that doesn't happen. Sometimes it gets very random as if DNA left his Improbability Drive running. It takes a lot of guts to let go of the safe toeholds and jump off. Will you land on your feet? Only cats seem to be blessed with the certainty of this (and they can also see in the dark AND have nine lives to pick off from, so it's clearly a lopsided competition - no wonder they have such contempt for us!). Entropic stagnation, anybody?

Someone's clearly spinning the roulette, but what makes it infuriating is that sometimes we can choose the number we want to stop at. For a race that's only known about quantum mechanics for less than a hundred years (which, at the risk of overestimation only about a percent of the world's population can comprehend), perhaps it just is too much to get a measure of why things are the way they are. Let alone a puny post on a forlorn page of an obscure blog hosted by a popular service on magnetic material in an undisclosed city on a large mass of land on a green-blue planet circulating around a large, unregarded lump of hydrogen and what-not (yes, yes, we're getting there thanks to popular demand) at the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy. (That reminds me, I've got to purchase a digital watch - what a neat idea!)

Of course, this is written in a mood that reeks of candy-floss (industrial strength) philosophy that pessimists may scoff at, but let me inform you, my dear mush-massacring-mercenaries, that it's meant to be in an air of steely optimism. Perhaps you should have visited me three weeks ago - you could've jumped off the white cliffs with me... (and he ruins it by resorting to cheap, symbolic allusions.)

Jun 6, 2004

Faux News - V

Faux News bulletin

(You know it's time if it's faux pas nine!)

Michael Schumacher's Indian connection - Exclusive scoop!
By our Motorsport correspondent

Reigning Formula One champion Michael Schumacher owes a great deal of his success, especially in recent times, to an Indian. This astonishing revelation can now be made public, thanks to the intrepid reporting of this reporter in ferreting out one of the most closely held secrets in the game.

In an exclusive story privy only to this paper, a source close to the Ferrari team and the Schumacher camp has confirmed what until now was considered just another rumour in the gossip-filled world of Formula One racing where every strategem and tactic is desperately held on to. It had been widely reported that the Schumacher camp had on its rolls, an unknown figure only known as Otto Drifer thought to be a German national. But this paper has learnt that this shadowy figure is actually an Indian by the name of Adhav Baba from the Western Provinces of India. Little is known about him in public, but it is reliably known that he was a former driver himself (of a small public transport mechanism popular in most Indian towns) and is now a religious and spiritual figure. His personal secretary, Mr. Rick Shaw, declined any comments on any of these startling exposés.

Mr. Otto Drifer alias Adhav Baba was hired by Team Schumacher in the wake of the close season last year. The fragile nerves of the champion were a matter of concern for them. The reputation of the master from India had reached their ears and it was a matter of time before he had been recruited to make the key difference. In a secretive operation, Adhav Baba apparently feigned a trip to his guru in Bajajnagar, Himalayas and took on the pseudonym Otto Drifer to blend into the European team.

Our source described a set of key suggestions made by the "Zen" master. First a circular sheet of a secret combination of metals, very much resembling the common Compact Disk, was given to Schumacher and was hung just below the steering wheel. This divine disk is supposed to harness the alpha and omega forces extant in nature and focus their latent radiant powers on the driver. A secret mantra whose meaning remains obscure (apparently in a local dialect of an Indian language) was painted on the backside of the car (in scarlet so as to render it invisible to the others). The mantra reads "ILGNAS-FO-KNAB-OT-DETACEHTOPYH" and is to be written from right to left in order to unleash the appropriate occult forces. This had been employed at the European Grand Prix after the loss at Monaco where apparently Schumacher had forgotten to carry a photo of a spiritual-meter (a cuboid, black in colour and bearing the name of what is considered to be a holy place for driving "ravivarpeth").

In addition to this, Mr. Drifer taught the driver some manouevres of overtaking and sharp braking which needed to be accompanied by loud gutteral sounds aimed at the other drivers. It is being said that the champion's increased aggressiveness on the track is a result of these personal tuitions.

A decision to extend Mr. Drifer's stint at the Ferrari HQ has run into trouble after the team refused to accede to his demand to change the car colours to a combination of black-and-yellow which "are the proven cosmic colours of motion and momentum". Since Team boss Montezumulo is taking over as chairman of FIAT, this decision now has been put on hold.

With inputs from our correspondents in Turin and Pune. This scoop was sponsored by Kwality Ice Cream.

Jest like that!

Overheard in the highest echelons of the US Govt. in Washington: "I'm tellin' ya, we need more Asians around here. It seems like it's a good time to be Asian. First that Fantasia wins the American Idol contest and now Anastasia wins the French Open!"

Contributed by Faux Muddler

Click here for a free look at the earlier editions.

Interrobang re-awakes

Apologies for the lack of any relevant activity on the Quiz Blog. Fresh updates are up on it, and several more will follow very soon.

The current -fix-ation

The only major hurdle in my imminent entry into state politics is choosing what sort of centrifix to choose. [Centrifix : "addition of -fix in the middle" :: prefix : "addition of -fix before" :: suffix : "addition of -fix after".] For you see, to be a hit in local political circles, you have got to have an imposing centrifix so that your supporters can call you by first name without being afraid of offending you.

Let's look at the alternatives. There's -rao- as in Sharadrao, -bhai- as in Sureshbhai. There's also the superior air of the -saheb- as in Balasaheb (unless of course Prabodhankar T. christened the young Bal that way in the first place). Females have the options of -tai- as in Vandanatai or -behn- as in Anandibehn. But are these centrifixes really me, I wonder? The problem is, if I don't choose one in time, some misguided sycophant will make a decision and given the prevalence of community stereotyping in these matters, I will be bestowed with -anna- (or even worse -thambii- (the horror!)) and be reduced to looking for votes only in Rasta Peth or Matunga for the rest of my career. It's better in TN, where something as dashing as "ILaya Itihaasa Veeran" may come my way (did you know that you have to register these titles with the TN State History of Incredible Titles and Bombastically Uplifting Lofty Labels (T.N.S.H.I.T.B.U.L.L.)? That applies to all, filmstars, politicians, musicians alike. This is a democracy after all).

Probably the best would be to go in for an international import, such as -van- or -de la-. Who would know here?

(If anyone's wondering why the sudden urge to enter raajniitii, that's because it's provably the easiest route to getting a Doctorate in Humanities. I'm disgusted with the inflationary prices in the leaked question paper market and moreover, they don't give the answers anyway, so what's the point?)

A little bit of this, that and more

The benefits of an evening shower (I mean rain, nothing personal) are that strange things happen when the setting sun throws in its colour palette. Yesterday evening, an orange glow suffused everything outside, a thick coat mixed with the odd mauve. It was as if someone just turned on one of those commonly known tungsten filament light bulbs, albeit a giant one. Or maybe it was ol' Thomas Alva showing off up there again. Ok, but you also made about 2,344,589 bad ones, so stop blowing your gramophone!

On the other hand, the Splashability Quotient of everything went up by many a power. Those motorbikes with unprotected rears are suddenly spouting their own theories of how a water-fountain operates.

******** Heartbreak Henman did it again, only this time for a change at Roland Garros. Since even Phil Mickelson won a Major last year, we'll still hope for good old Tim. Most of all, I'd like him to win a Slam for the sake of his wife Lucy. She is my most favourite entourage person, you know, the wife|girlfriend|partner (reflecting changing preferences, of course) to whom the camera cuts to on 15-40 needing a second serve to stay in the match. Actually, more often than that. There's something about the Henmans, even his parents. They're ... so British if you know what I mean. ******** Great to see tentative trailers of Raghu Romeo on TV. Means that Rajat Kapoor has found a distributor. The film was a winner of a major award at a Mumbai festival last year and Vijay Raaz as Raghu Romeo would be worth a look. ******** Sun TV has a new series (started about 3 weeks ago) that's quite a departure from their usual programming mix. Each week features a look at a classic film that in some way influenced Tamil Cinema. Andha Naal (That Day) was the choice this time. This was quite a bold experiment as it had no songs, featured upcoming star Sivaji Ganesan in a negative role and inspired by Rashomon, had a screenplay and story of merit. ******** Finally caught a complete episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm that features Seinfeld co-creator Larry David. Directed by veteran Andy Ackerman (Frasier, Seinfeld), the writing as usual is sharp and observational. The camera settings aren't fixed and the dialogues seem ad-libbed (not sure if it is significantly impromptu or cleverly designed that way), all ensuring that it looks ultra-realistic and natural. Larry David is all that I thought he'd be: cynical, individualistic and acerbic, which allied with the plausible situations, comes out to be quite funny (but all this is based on just one episode).

Jun 1, 2004

Flyball

Damn! It's June already. 5 months in the year swooped by. Someone's turned the chrono-accelerator on again!

Convergent Cinema

Outlook Magazine has a collection of articles on a theme called Convergent Cinema discussing the current hype about whether Bollywood is actually doing fresh plots and better cinema. There are some detailed observations on different aspects and interviews with the people who seem to be at the forefront of these efforts (the links at the end of the lead article and the set of links on the right sidebar of the article).

But the most telling pages for me were Anurag Kashyap's "Alternate View" in which you can get a glimpse of the anguish that guy has experienced over the last few years.

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