Stanley Kubrick - The Greatest of all time. PERIOD.

"If it can be written, or thought, it can be filmed".

How many directors will accept this or boldly quote this? I bet, you can use your fingers to count. Crediting himself 16 titles with two documentaries and a short from the period 50 to 99 leaves you with only one word to his films, QUALITY. Though he had some trademark shots and characters in his movies, each and every film will leave us unwind multi-million nuances and benchmarks for the budding directors to learn from the Greatest.

The Killing, based on the novel Clean Break, film noir and may be first of a kind for a film noir to keep the plot simple and sweet with no fat on it. Even though it had non linear sequences, of course unique for its time, it's a very straightforward movie. The Heist plan is a Kubrick killer and trademark factor. It is indeed inspired many including the Tarantino who worshiped this movie.

Point to be noted is that this is the third movie of Kubrick and the first one which showed there is a man in the making. The Killing is certainly an exquisitely timed masterpiece and the first certified classic from Kubrick. Though, other Kubrick thriller over shadowed this movie, I want to highlight this movie as this is the first movie which I saw of Kubrick's direction that motivated me to start the journey and I completed and enjoyed Kubrick's journey.

As I mentioned earlier, though you will see some common trademark I must say in all his movies, the man almost touched and mastered all the genres. Can we call that as a classic entry in each genre? What about Dr Strangelove, the classic satire comedy? Or the real definition of horror in 'The Shining'? or Anti-war controversy in Full Metal Jacket, or a period drama touch in 'Barry Lyndon' or the famous, innovative, Sci-Fi in 2001 Space Odyssey or the classic film noir in 'The Killing' or or or I am bored with typing this OR. You name the rest and I will map the genre. This unique calibre has made him never to repeat. A dozen movies over the span of 50 odd years, the director distinguished him unique and never made any sequels.

The controversial 'Paths of Glory'. I would say the best of Kirk Douglas which was banned in France for its corrupt depiction on French authority. Probably one of the best controversial anti-war movies ever made. The usage of the artists is another feather in the cap for the master. And Paths of Glory is an evident example but let's also not forget our Jack for his attempt on the psychological horror The Shining.

Dr Strangelove: Or How I Learned to stop worrying and Love the Bomb! needs a certain mention when we speak about Kubrick. Simply one of the funniest and cleverest political satires ever made. Who else can take a serious subject like cold war and tell the story like a comedy? The clever and witty dialogues need some special mention here. I could recollect the Major King Kong statement 'Well boys, we got three engines out, we got more holes in us than a horse trader's mule, the radio is gone and we are leaking fuel and if we was flying any lower why we would need sleigh bell on this thing??? LOLS

The man who turned a dumb shit into a classic. Yes, I am speaking about Spartacus. It was Anthony Mann who should have taken Spartacus who fell out with Kirk approached the master to fix the product. In fact, Kubrick did not like the screenplay but eventually churned the cream into butter. It was this movie and the success of this movie gave Kubrick an artistic control for his future movies which he didn't get at this one though.

The famous Arthur Clarke said 'If you understand '2001', we failed'. Now mera favorite Space Odyssey. Many critics would have used the word roller coaster ride, breathtaking visuals, cinematic imaginary, etc., the same critics had they seen 2001 Space Odyssey wouldn't mind admitting that these words came from this movie. This sci-fi adventure is a brilliant meditation on existence of mankind in the never ending universe. There is no dialogue in the first 25 minutes nor in the last 23 minutes where the director let the audience to understand and read the movie. Another brilliant thing that Kubrick carefully moulds is that if you observer the space scenes, all you can hear is the film's music and no other sound or noise is heard in the space parallel with the fact.

What's it going to be then, eh? A Clockwork Orange, a movie that joins the list of movies that was banned in several countries for the controversy and horrific scenes. But certain movies will take some time to get appreciation which may not come timely. This one will fall under that cater. But the movie was primarily banned for the graphic violence becomes the least surprising aspect of the entire picture. Indefinitely a timeless classic.

One of a few directors who innovated the music used in movies. The favourite Blue Danube in Space Odyssey and draft shift to Beethoven in Clockwork Orange. Certainly left many followers, inspiring the way music is used in movies.

The Shining. Someone ask a good film buff what according to him/her is a horror movie or put in different words, which movie will they quote as an example of an horror movie. If I had to hear a different movie other than The Shining, well, I am bowled there. The ominous opening shot that follows Jack's car on his journey to the mysterious hotel is simple a magnificent with the background score adding such a cliff to the start of a horror movie.

Kubrick joins the league of Hitchcock, Griffith and the almighty Kurosawa. Hope you got what I am referring to! Yes, Kubrick never won an Oscar and so as the other great talented directors whom were acknowledged by the Academy. Yet, I stand on the point saying that Oscar isn't lucky enough to get clenched by the magic hands.

Charlie Chaplin - The Genius

First of all, the idea behind this article is not to talk about the work done by the little master. As a matter of fact, I found an article in a local newspaper here in the UK which had a column allotted for the Great Dictator. After reading the column, I just had to recollect the movies, silent movies and stage dramas of Chaplin and I wanted to give a short jist about the genius with some good pictures (credited to the actual source sites).

More than 70 years since he last appeared on the screen, Charles Chaplin's Little Tramp remains a supreme icon not just of the movies but of the 20th century - still he is recognized and loved every part of the world. If there can be an explanation for his success, it's his capability to transmuting the anxieties and concerns of human life into comedy. Certainly, it would have had some reflections of his personal life experiences.

Chaplin was an orphan at the age of 3 when his parents were separated and he indeed grew up in extreme poverty. But at the age of 10, he became a professional performer. His interest was not only as an artist, but he soon started showing interest in every department in drama. For every Kamal hassan, there will be a K. Balachandar. Likewise for Chaplin, he met Mack Sennett, the famous Keystone studios which was the major production house during early 90s. It was him, how implanted the idea into Chaplin's mind that he must direct himself which will give him freedom to perform and think and innovate.



Chaplin mastered the craft of film with phenomenal speed, and after the first three months in pictures was to direct all his own films. The first four years in pictures saw him develop from the carefree knockabout of the keystone comedies, to introduce irony and sentiment, and to progress to the Mutual masterpieces that included The Pawnshop (1916), Easy Street (1917) and The Immigrant (1917). It was First National who gave the breakthrough for Chaplin and came Shoulder Arms (1918) where he transmuted the horrors of the First World War into comedy.

The time of the giants is the year 1919 where the four the giants of the Hollywood at that time formed something called United Artists. For those who are not aware about the giants, they are Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford and Griffith. Chaplin's first release through the company was 'A Woman of Paris (1921), a dramatic film designed to start Edna Purviance.


Those who had watched his comical drama in many television channels must have noticed the same heroine in almost all his movies/dramas. Yes, Edna Purviance, the most faithful lady whom Chaplin trusts a lot and there were some rumors as well involving them.

Arrival of the talking pictures, the year 1927. It was a big challenge to Chaplin than to most other directors. His wordless pantomime had won a universal audience, which would inevitably shrink if he now spoke in English. Chaplin's response was to continue making silent films. It was when 'City Lights' (1931) and Modern Times (1936) with the sound track used only for the sound effects and musical work came. In fact, the little master who had touched every department in film making had revealed his new avatar in musical department when he composed musical score for the movie 'Modern Times'.



In 'Modern Times', Chaplin brought the comic weapon to bear on burning issues of the day at that time particularly the industrialization and the confrontation. Then comes my favorite of them all 'The Great Dictator' where his targets were fascism and its leaders. In fact, he got some complaints from the critics that the comic sense was exceeding the boundary.



 He continued with 'Monsieur Verdoux' and 'Limelight' for The United Artists and did a few other movies for some British Production pictures and it was the Christmas day 1991 when our genius left the world leaving us with no such icon for his replacement. PERIOD.

REPENTANCE - Episode 1

Episode I

The dawn cracked out to a gloomy day in Denver, North America and 28 year old Haritha sat beside the windowpane leisurely sipping coffee from her cup. Her palms wrap the coffee mug with extreme passion to get the cosy feeling tuning the external weather and her doldrums. Gazing at the landscape in front of her, she sits back thinking of the strong decision that she has taken to lay things in the right track. Tears occasionally roll down from her puffy eyes. What is running in her mind? She takes herself 5 years back to remember what made her take this verdict...

‘’Haritha was an Indian, born and brought up in Bangalore city. She was the daughter of Madhu and Keshav, a naval officer. She was the most loved one among all, since the couple made almost a decade’s wait to have her in their arms. Haritha was a very pleasant girl with an admirable character; she grew up with Ashwath who was younger to her by 3 years. She was a loving sister to her sibling and a very obedient daughter. People would always praise Keshav for his efforts in bringing up both children in an elegant way. She graduated from IIT, Bombay and was a consultant by profession.

‘’Madhu, I feel it’s high time we find a guy for Haritha, she’s getting older’’ said Keshav. ‘’Well....., I had always wanted to discuss this with you’’ Madhu replied in a stumpy tone. She kept moving her eyes around with her palms clasped. It felt as if she had been waiting for such a circumstance and there was an instinct from within pushing her to reveal whatever she knew. ‘’She has already made a pick and we aren’t left with a choice now’’ she finally conveyed this and exhaled as tears rolled through her cheeks. Keshav was stunned, he sprang up at once and said ‘’come on Madhu, that cannot happen, stop telling me these usual stories and be sensible, I just can’t tolerate such craziness in my own family’’.

Madhu knew what had happened with her daughter and so she tried to console her husband, but all in vain. He was not interested to listen. All that was running in Keshav’s mind was to get Haritha married to someone and send her off his house civilly.

During college days, Haritha developed an intense friendship with Vimal, a highly proficient boy, who studied with her. As days passed by, the accompaniment turned into acute companionship. Vimal was of her age and from a mediocre family. His dad was a bank employee and had struggled hard to get Vimal educated up to this height. College days had exhausted and it was time to bid adieu. Vimal and Haritha confessed to each other that it was time to focus on their career before sharing talks with families about their marriage. In order to proceed with this decision, they were certain not to make any kind of discussion and decided to wait until they got to see the fruits of success in their career. Shortly, Vimal got placed as a university lecturer in London.

Before even they got a chance to discuss with their parents, Keshav fixed up his daughter’s marriage with Aurav, a software engineer who worked in the US. Events that followed after the confession of her love affair were unstoppable and the marriage arrangements seemed to have happened within the wink of an eye. Haritha was pushed into a situation where Vimal couldn’t get back to India and take her along with him. They were deprived of time and she had no guts to open her mouth and discuss this with her dad. She had always hoped that it wouldn’t be a problem if Vimal had a good job and that was the main reason for making a long wait. Finally, the day came when the wedding between Haritha and Aurav took place as desired by Keshav.

23^rd of February 2003: It was getting dusky outside, and Keshav called out to his daughter, ‘’Dear, are you done with all your packing? Ensure you carry enough woollens, emergency medicines, and yes not to forget your certificates, and ...............................’’. Madhu interrupted ‘’Come on Keshav, She has them all safely packed, Aurav has already prepared a list of all the essentials’’.

‘’Listen Haritha, you got to be very careful as you’re going to lead a new life’’ this time Madhu intended to deliver some valuable advice to her daughter, ‘’ Aurav is a very good person and we wish to see you leading an idyllic life with him.’’ She held Haritha’s hand tight and said ‘’Hope is life and don’t bother yourself with your past’’. On hearing this, Haritha cried out and replied in a shrill tone, ‘’mumma, I have always tried to be honest with you, and all of you have cheated me by getting this marriage done’’.

It was time to leave and the final packing was done. All set to fly. Aurav and Haritha got blessings from both their parents and were about to step out of the house. Madhu wanted to share a few words with her son in law, ‘’Aurav, can you please come here?’’.He stepped into the room and said, ‘’You don’t have to worry about Haritha aunty, I will take care of her..Trust me’’. Madhu’s eyes were filled with tears as she bid adieu to her daughter.

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Click here for Episode 2

58th National Award - Is it justified?

I was at work this morning and my colleagues knew that I am a movie freak and one of them asked a close ended question 'Enna boss Aadukalam super la?' That's when I came to know that 58th National awards were announced and I was in complete shock on seeing Facebook pouring with wall posts that it's a clean sweep for Tamil Cinema.

That's something to feel proud being a Tamilian and all these years we were corned by the Bollywood cine industry, where the preference was primarily given to them be it whatsoever. But, I must say there was a slight increase in the attention to the south film industry in the past couple of years where we had seen Bala, Ilayaraja getting National awards which was long time due. But the key question that I had was about Aadukalam which was released in this year 2011 and obviously had censored last year bagged 4 prestigious awards which includes the main category of Director, actor and screenplay.

I had to refer sites in order to get the statistics as I am not regularly following movies being in a different country. A quick view on the deserving candidates movie wise, I could see very minimum numbers. The names include Angadi Theru, Madarasapattinam and Mynaa. Well, I must say Aadukalam is quite lucky have censored last year because as movie, Aadukalam is definitely a better production than the other possible contenders in Tamil Cinema. Now, let's try focusing on the buttering industry Bollywood. I am not a lover of Hindi films; hence, I had asked my friend to have a look at the list of movies released in 2010 and list the movies which is a worthy bet for National Award. Only two movies which he thought were Udaan and Peeply Live. Moving to the industry which is always a dark horse and wins the primary category hands down, Bengali industry, I have seen the movie Autograph which is a remarkable movie involving the plot of remaking the Master of director Ray's Nayak. That's definitely a worthy contender. And not to forget our closest state Malayalam industry, which had won the award for the best movie 'Adhaminde Magan Abu'. That again is a neat and clear winner. Just like how the award for the Best Actor was shared, I expected the same in the Director and screenplay category as well. The sad part is that if you search for this movie, all you get it the recent details on the National Award that it won and you can't even find the movie poster online.

Dhanush, a national award actor. 50-50 choice to accept to be honest. Leaving aside the tamil industry for the year 2010 as I earlier mentioned the term LUCK factor, there were arguably good performance in other industry. Paresh Rawal, Prasenjit Chatterjee and of course Salim Kumar had an edge over the performance of Dhanush in Aadukalam.

There is a balancing factor that 'Thenmerku Paruva kaatru' was recognized nationally. This movie went unnoticed by many and now you will see leechers and seeders hunting the movie from the torrent portal for sure. On the whole, it's a good sign and clever message to the nation that there is a fantastic talented industry in South when it comes to Film making.

Captain does it again and he's back again

Dropping the two key protagonists without any explainations is a risky thing but Rob Marshall was so confident with Jack Sparrow this time and he had cleverly picked Penelope to match the missing adventure. Also, he picked a different novel instead of the famous ones just for casting the characters to perfection. Even if had missed the previous series of the Pirates, Rob often brings back the memories and it's not a mandatory case that you must have watched the previous series.

To give the plot, Jack and Barbossa embark on a quest to find the elusive fountain of youth, only to discover that Blackbeard and his daughter are after it as well. [Ctrl+c from IMDb]. Jack is in London in search of a ship where he is pursued by the local authorities. There he joins Angelica, our Penelope, from the past without being sure whether it's love to find the fabled Fountain of youth. When she forces him aboard the ship of the Blackbeard, it's there the Captain finds himself on an unexpected adventure where Jack is in a dilemma whom to believe.

It was Depp all the way from the beginning but it was co-opted by the one-legged Barbossa who literally stole the show with his comical one liner and beautiful reaction. Blackbeard on the other hand has been very good enough to be a bad guy. Penelope is gorgeous, excellence screen presence but yet her accent sometimes just kicks us out of an English movie. But still people who love her will love her ;-)

Well, I forgot to say that I saw this movie in 3D. But I somehow feel that the 3D effect knocks the pace of the action sequences. I must try to catch the movie in normal 2D to see if that's the real reason or the factor. Hans background score is needless to mention his power pulling capability. You could see the same flow right from the part one without any diminishing factor.

There is a very less chance to be disappointed if you are fan of POC and Jack.

Vaanam

I had no big expectation on this movie and I didn't know that this one is a remake, neither I have seen Vedham, nor I heard the song Evandi Unna Pethaan prior watching this movie and lastly, I never knew that this is the story of some 5 different people how they were forced to meet in the end.

It's actually a good experience to watch a movie without knowing or having any expectation so that you needn't blame it on the expectation factor. Well, having said about the pre movie facts, the screenplay revealed the story will run in 5 directions with 5 set of characters. It was evident with the motto/situation/requirement/ambition of the individuals in the movie. Situation demanded the old man and the mother to sell the kidney in order to save the boy. Dream led Bharath to do a live-in-concert. Requirement made Simbhu to snatch the jewel. A new life plan made a prostitute to come out. So these coinciding contributors reveals the gist of the movie.

This gives a relief that Simbhu is not major lead in the movie, so one can start having some expectation that there will not be too much dump on Simbhu which can go in either way, VTV was an exception though ;). But still he made a little contribution with the opening scene by having his traditional punch 'Evalo mela ponaalum vida maateengale' and unnecessary pulling of Ajith and Vijay. Well, that end straight there. Then comes a combo Simbhu-Santhanam who will keep the audience engaged.

The journey of the other characters run pretty parallel and the combo will turn into a trio pack with the inclusion of VTV Ganesh. That's when the pace shifts gear and moves swiftly. We had seen them as a combo in VTV but with inclusion of Santhanam, it will never let the audience down.

The main lead characters had contributed equally good. The old man was a perfect choice for the character. The movie should have a heroine!!! Yes, Vaanam too had one. But it's mere waste of money and could have invested on alternate plans. She was neither hot nor worthy candidate :P and I also felt Prakash Raj was a bit over acting to his role.

Yuvan never disappoints Simbhu. Two songs that will eventually become chart busters of the year 'Evan di unna pethan' and 'No Money Honey' has been placed well to match the pace of the screenplay. But, they could have made Bharath's introduction song as the title song which could have minimized irritation.

The director was quite good throughout the movie but in the climax after a tragedy, he made the audience laugh with some dumb scene of mathematical calculation which all of a sudden turned a villian!


A Worthy watch

Azhagar Samiyin Kudhirai

It's been so long since I had watched a 'keep it short and silly' movie. Recollecting such movie is...well forget it! Suseendran, the director of Vennila Kabadi Kuzhu and Naan Mahan Alla, shows some versatility in the genres. It's a good show by an upcoming director not to fall in the same league. In fact, though Vennila Kabadi Kuzhu was good, I was disappointed with the climax as I felt it was forced tragedy. And I had some similar expectation in ASK as well. But I never expected the climax to be so simple and especially the antagonist.

 I can try to make the story much simpler in two lines. A village follows the traditional way of celebrating a festival for rain, God's vaaganam is stolen, a connector comes into the picture via the Protagonist, Climax with a neat finish. Ain't that simple? But I bet you, to make such simpler plot is not that easy because it leaves to the audience's taste. One may hate or love such movies. I mean, it can make someone to feel very bore or it can make someone to glue.

Suseendran has described the characters cleverly depicting them with an introduction and of course following a traditional village life characters. You will have an absolutely nothing president, smart young literate men, love between different caste, mamool Inspector is alone an exception here.

Protagonist, appu kutty, is a smart choice for the character Azhagar Samy and I am very surprised to see Saranya accepting to be pair for appu kutty. Appu Kutty has done his part very well utilizing to the fullest what he can. In fact, the entire casting has been really apt except for the annoying Samiyaar part.

Though the director kept everything simple and smart; including the flashback of Appu Kutty who wanted to get the horse desperately back to his place, the Background score elevates the movie in several places. The scene were Appu Kutty sees Saranya and walks out to talk to the horse, the background score in that place gives us a feel of what the character wants to convey. Photography is another thing which gives a feel green to the movie.

Job neatly done! Go for it!