In search of the perfect Bollywood action/comedy script - Preface

For quite sometime, I have been thinking how the script of the perfect bollywood action-comedy film would turn out to be. I am talking wholesome entertainment - action, comedy, story-telling, interesting conversations,, characters with depth and above all kick-assiness. I have seen a fair amount of Bollywood movies till date and but it is difficult for me to point out movies that have really entertained me. That being said, Sholay stands out and I can see how it made an impact (perhaps, and still does) on the Indian movie scene. I can see how it must have changed the then established kick-assiness of movies. However, with the movies that I grew up with, this certainly got diluted as the theme became beaten to death over and over again.

Then, Dabangg happened. A movie with unmatched entertainment and a fitting title. Not often do we get to see a movie driven by conversations. If the dialogues were not witty, they were downright funny. If there was no action sequence, the dialogues brandished swords and slashed each other. Veteran and new actors in short roles gave fine wings to what was a Chulbul-e roller-coaster. Dabangg's review in itself deserves another post. There are definitely things I would have liked to improve in Dabangg but let us just agree for now that this was the closest to the perfect Bollywood script that I have been dreaming of.

What, then, would the perfect Bollywood script of my dreams have? Let me begin with a few prerequisites:

• Conversations: The dialogue needs to be the soul of the movie. It will be the thread that ties the entire movie together.
• Character development: Character definitions will deepen as the story progresses.
• Kick-assiness: There will be confident characters thrown all over who speak for themselves. There would be no attempt to hide flaws of characters.
• Action: There will be hard-core as well as light-hearted action.
• Comedy: This is a tricky area. Suffice to say, there will be less slapstick and more driven by dialogues and situations.

Some of the things which are definitely not pre-requisites:

• Point/theme: The movie won't necessarily have a point. People asking what the point of the movie will be given specific directions to hell.
• Songs: Songs, if included at all, will be purely to titillate or/and as a medium to display kickassiness.

These are purely guidelines and in no form become rules. The script will evolve by itself; the characters will draw themselves. If the script wants it, any of these guidelines can be thrown out of the window. 

No Smoking

(This post contains spoilers - a lot of them. Not that it should matter when you decide to watch the movie!)

"To be is to do"--Socrates.

"To do is to be"--Plato.

"Do be do be do"--Frank Sinatra

thus the movie began. And it had me enthralled from then and there! Two people had recommended it, which is my usual criterion for watching a movie. I was warned of the movie being a ‘mind-warp’ and was expecting a ‘Lost Highway’-ish style of David Lynch and so it turned out to be. It has every element to transform it into the next cult classic coming from Bollywood. The movie did make me go philosophical with the question – what the fuck?!! And so I did what I usually do after watching such movies – search the web for the answer(s) to my question.

The web, however, proved to be a disappointment. There were lesser posts about the movie per se than the Anurag Kashyap love hate war which included, among others, Anurag himself and some prominent critics in Bollywood. Khalid Mohammed’s review (??), in particular, was pure spite and entirely a tirade against the director, with little being said about the movie itself.

As the director himself admits, the movie is about arrogance. It depicts a clash between the arrogance of a narcissist on one hand and the arrogance of a society on the other. I would take it a step further and say that the movie underlines the arrogance of the director himself. It is by a director who doesn’t want to conform to rules, someone who loves his own work like a child, doesn’t care to churn out a run-of-the-mill masaaledaar Om Shanti Om. If not for anything else, Anurag needs to be applauded for that.

After watching it, the movie does fill you with questions. It seems to be replete with visual metaphors. What does ‘Hitler ki aulaad’ signify? The carpets shop? The eunuch giving him the coins? His two cut fingers? His wife and secretary looking the same? The bath-tub? Siberia?

There will be, as is with such movies, multiple answers and interpretations and not a single unified theory that can explain everything. Trying to understand the movie becomes as interesting as trying to decipher an interesting dream. However, we are not content by just dismissing it as just another dream, but are intent on trying to find a meaning, to fit the missing pieces in the puzzle and to discover the layers of reality underneath.

My interpretation –

K is having nightmares and going through a traumatic experience as he is being forced to quit smoking, something he does passionately. He tries to cope with his freedom being snatched from him and it is all a harrowing experience for him. He has forced himself to imagine extreme consequences to make him quit smoking and they continually haunt him in his nightmares. He tries to escape and goes to his Siberian dreams but is not able to escape entirely as his dreams turn to nightmares. Unable to cope with reality he returns to his nightmares and digs into it in search of an answer.

His wife and his secretary, albeit the same person, (‘I’m your wife. I’m your secretary. Remember, tum nahi chahte the office mein kisi ko pata chale.’) depict different personas – one who is intent on making him stop smoking and thus, curb his freedom and the other who is not bothered by his smoking. But he is bent on seeing them as two different people. He sees it all as a conspiracy – the people who convinced him to quit smoking appear in his nightmares as members of a well-knit conspiracy.

His cut fingers signify his loss of freedom in another level. It shows how he is compelled to quit smoking. I further thought he could have actually lost his fingers and that could be the reason he is not able to smoke. But I’m not sure of this explanation myself.

His friend Abbas (who regained his fingers after referring K to the baba) and his doctor friend represent people who were forced to conform to societal norms, people who were forgiven their sins after ‘helping’ someone else. The movie in the end, shows the complete assimilation of K into the society when he, for want of redemption, tries to bring in another of his friend to follow his suit. At this point, the dividing line between retribution and redemption becomes blurry and curved – beyond recognition.

The baba is an epitome of the society, which in itself is much more arrogant than any arrogant person. The baba wants people to conform to his rules. His mistakes will be forgiven, he can’t be blamed. At the same time, he will be relentless when it comes to mistakes committed by individuals. If a person has committed a crime, a sin, he has to pay for it. The baba is unforgiving.

Hitler is one name for human arrogance and that’s why he repeatedly refers to the baba as Hitler ki aulaad (Baba: “Guru manta hun main usko”)

Siberia epitomizes his loss of freedom – the curfew and his inability to find cigarettes to smoke. It is a fear that he harbors constantly. Further, the bathtub in the snow connects his nightmares to reality. It is the place where he drops into ruminations and where his fears come alive as nightmares, and finally brings him back to reality.

P.S. Get the script of the movie here.

The Bird People in China

(this review is posted simultaneously at reelsuave. thanks to the editor, john, for his effort. visit reelsuave to discover some extraordinary cinema.)

“And again I slept thousands of times, but I have never seen a dream of myself flying.”

It is one of those movies you are scared of writing about lest you might end up robbing the reader of the joy of discovering the movie by himself. I strongly suggest that you go ahead and watch the movie in case you haven’t, before reading this.

The movie doesn’t fit into any genre. It almost seems like a fantasy but it is so real in parts; it is humorous indeed with genuine laugh-out-loud moments, and yet takes a look at life that leaves the viewer thinking a long time after the movie is over. Above all, it is a movie about the triumph of human belief. Buoyed by touches of exquisite humor, fantasy, love, innocence, hope and magic, the movie ushers in a new wave of cinematic experience. And to think that the director is mostly known for his mastery in depicting exaggerated violence, horror and bizarre sexual perversions, as in movies like “Ichi the killer”, and in the segment “Box” in “Three.. Extremes”, it is indeed a treat from director Takashi Miike.

The movie is about a Japanese businessman and a yakuza who end up in a small village in the depths of Yun Nan province of China, untouched by human civilization. While the first part of the movie details the journey of the two, the second shows the transformation underwent by the two after they reach the magical village. And magical it is, as the director succeeds in depicting – seemingly impossible incidents, but filled with such belief and innocence that you cannot but believe it yourself.

The movie is accompanied by enchanting visuals and a haunting soundtrack that weaves in seamlessly into the fabric of the movie. It helps in enduring the pleasant, magical aura of the entire movie. The actors are genuine and don’t make a single mistake that would otherwise distract the enraptured viewer. Before one realizes, the transformation of the characters is already complete. The end of the movie leaves the viewer unmovable, and yet reeling under an unfathomable force, floating with feet firmly on ground!

Make this journey and you will have reached a place you have never been to before!

Gunda II

If you are searching for the epitome of a pure Bollywood movie, go home and have a hot drink of coffee, or whatever you do when your search for the epitome of a pure Bollywood movie is over. For, I have here a movie that every bollywood movie strives to be, a movie that a Karan Johar or a Ram Gopal Verma can only dream of making, a movie that’s bound to leave every movie-goer’s every inch of the body taut, and itchy. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, let me present, without further ado, Gunda.

A lyrical masterpiece, the movie takes one through the atrocious underworld where villains commit heinous crimes behind the curtain of corrupt policemen and hypocritical politicians. “Cliché,” one might be tempted to dismiss. Wait, for Gunda has more to offer.

Gunda offers, among other things, flawless editing where scenes overlap, propelling the movie to new heights of alacrity. The two hour long movie leaves no scope for boredom to set in. The scenes, seemingly unconnected on the onset, knit together to form a larger canvas. Remember 21 Grams or Memento, anyone?

Gunda uses a powerful method hitherto rare in Hindi cinema. In many scenes, the actors face the audience while delivering a dialogue. Thus, while maintaining a realistic backdrop, the actors manage to address a larger audience, securing themselves a place in the larger canvas. One is reminded of the technique used by Fritz Lang in his movie, Metropolis.

The dialogues are replete with similes, metaphors and rhyme lending the movie a dialogic force. Viewing the movie thus becomes a lyrical journey.

Ah! The cast. Gunda boasts of such actors as the uber-versatile Mithun Chakraborty, who has acted in over 190 movies in roles as diverse as a Tamil coconut seller (Agneepath) to the Indian James Bond—Gunmaster G9 (Suraksha), and a pimp (Dalal) to Ramakrishna Paramhansa (Ramakrishna Paramhansa). Mukesh Rishi, remembered for his role as Inspector Salim in Sarfarosh proves why he is the coveted actor that he is. Not to forget Shakti Kapoor who proves his versatility in the role of a villain coping with gender confusion.

The protagonist is presented as a superhero in its subtlest form, not its essential Hollywood underwear-outside-the-pants counterpart. He is as human as any one of us, albeit equipped with superpowers that every hero would envy in superheroes.

The women, in the brief roles they get, form the crux on which the story revolves. One cannot but be impressed with their dynamic style, substance and vital statistics. The rape victims are quickly eliminated, thus saving the viewer from going through the tribulations that they would gave gone through.

The movie leaves a few questions unanswered, and some riddles that are bound to haunt one long after the movie is over. The repeated appearance of the airport as a backdrop makes one wonder if the director wants to depict something. Should we strive to 'take off' and escape all the dirt of this inhuman world, or try to clean it up ourselves?

Quotable quotes:

“Hum aise laashen bicha denge jaise kisi nanhe munhe bacche ke nunhi se pesaab tapakta hain—tap tap”

“Mera naam hai Ibu Hatela.
Maa meri churail ki beti.
Baap mera shaitaan ka chela.
Khaayega kela?”

“Kala dhanda karne walon ki maa, behn, beti ki zindagi ka koi bharosa nahi hota. Magar tune meri behn ka rape karke, bahut bura kiya. Bahut bura kiyAA..”

“Main hun jurm se nafrat karne wala.
Sarifon ke liye jyoti.Gundo ke liye jwala.”
“Tujhe banaakar main maut ka niwala,
teri seene mein kaat dunga main maut ka bhaala”

Gunda

“If it were not for Him, I’d have been an atheist.”
-God, on Mithun

"Dekh! Upar aasman mein! Ek pakshi hai…ek Hawaii jahaaz hai!.. Woh to Mithun hai!”

- Junta, on Mithun.

[Translated:
“Look! Up in the Sky! It's a Bird...It's a Plane... It's Mithun!”
- People, on Mithun ]

“On the number line of arbitness, Mithun is infinity.”
-Anonymous

“A guy who has acted in over 190 movies in a 30 year span has to be god.”
-Another Anonymous

“Mera naam hai Shankar – garibon ka dost, luteron ke dushman. Dikhne me bewada, daudne me ghoda, aur maarne me hathoda hun main.”
-Shankar, on himself.

“Dushmano ki laashon par bhangra karne wala kabhi langda nahin hota”
-Shankar

"Curiosity not only killed the cat, but threw it in the river with weights tied to it's feet.”
-Winston Churchill

“Hey, that’s my quote, you quote thief.”
-Terry Pratchett, on the above quote.

“Your quotes have got nothing to do with Mithun.”
-Oscar Wilde

“Include a quote of mine in your post da.”
-Talli

“For more quotes on Mithun, please contact the Guild of Mithun Quoters, P.O. Box 3 , Daryaganj, New Kotwali, New Delhi – 110 001.”
-the Guild of Mithun Quoters

“Ok, guys. Enough for now. I’m wrapping this up.”
-the author of this blog.

Movie marathon II : Koreans attack

These Korean movies are a revelation. Superb story-telling with some neat acting have made these movies make my list of all-time favorites. Not to forget the beautiful background score that underlines all of them.

Memories of murder (8/10)

You guessed it right. There’s a serial killer in the movie, but the movie is more about the investigators - two rural cops and a special detective from the capital - than the killer.

The investigators lives get consumed by the growing frustration in being unable to nab the killer, and they start pursuing their own tactics to do so. The pace of the movie helps in intensifying the emotions involved.

I can’t believe I laughed in the first half of the movie, and trust me, some scenes are quite funny. The way the story evolved is unimaginable and would leave you glued to ur seat till the end.

Based on a true case. (Apparently, the killer was never caught.)

Oldboy (7.5/10)

The movie everyone is talking about post-Zinda.

An ordinary guy is kidnapped and imprisoned for 15 years, making him wonder why and by whom he is being imprisoned. When he is released abruptly, the question why he is released becomes more important to him than why he was kidnapped. His past gets unraveled as he seeks to find the answers to his questions.

There are certain things that might put off a part of the audience, least among them being the violence that would make your bones creak. The story is shocking and the way it’s being told is no less so, perhaps exactly what the director wants.

Wonder if it’s the director’s fault or the actors’, but couldn’t help noticing a room for improvement in their acting, specially the guy who played the avenger. Oh, but didn’t the director get the Grand Prize of the jury at Cannes?

My sassy girl (8.3/10)

The name misled me, and I presumed it to be another cheap ‘sissy’ movie. (Remember ‘Sex is zero’?) And so, I watched it post-lunch in the weekend to help me in my afternoon nap. I was in for a surprise, and a mighty pleasant one at that.

An inept, awkward guy and a dominating, fist-yielding tomboy make an interesting leading couple. Their relationship, a different one at that, goes through ups and downs, drawing the viewers’ unwavering attention along with it. The storytelling is tight, and yet flows like a breeze. Each thread is woven to perfection to present the fabric that the movie is.

Based on a series of true stories posted by Ho-sik Kim on the Internet describing his relationship with his girlfriend, which were later transformed into a best-selling book.

Now, time for my 3-sentence reviews.

36 Quai des Orfèvres (French) (8/10). The two best actors of France come together to play two cops standing on diametrically opposite principles. The tug-of-war between the two protagonists, accentuated by some neat action sequences leaves u spellbound. If you found “Heat’’ boring, this is the movie to get you over your boredom.

Lord of war (7/10). A perfectly cynical Nicholas Cage will make u smirk, while the reality will stun u. A perfect portrayal of the anti-hero. “You know who's going to inherit the world? Arms dealers. Because everyone else is too busy killing each other.”

Monella (Italian) (6/10). This is my first movie of the genre – erotic comedy. The director had a tough job portraying nudity in a humorous vein, but pulls it off amazingly. With a pretty actress to boot.

Goodnight and good luck (8/10). The use of black and white documentary footages merges seamlessly with the movie. Worth watching for the speeches delivered by David Strathairn. Another directorial triumph for George Clooney after ‘Confessions of a Dangerous Mind’.

Broken flowers (7/10). Looks like an extension of Bill Murray’s character in Lost in Translation, with the same laid-back, lazy rendering. Surprised to find Sharon Stone in a truncated appearance. Good performances by all his ex-gfs in the movie.

Jawani diwani (0.5/10). One of the good things about watching a movie on comp – u can scroll through it. Saw this movie in less than 6 minutes. Yeah!!

Blue Velvet (6.5/10). David Lynch is the director, and that says more about the movie than anything else that follows. Less surreal than Mulholland Drive and Lost Highway. The hovering tension grips u throughout the movie.

Aeon flux (4/10). The movie would have looked good if it were animated. Points for Charlize’s attire. Otherwise forgettable.

Tidhanic. 13 minutes of laugh – that’s what the movie(???) will give u. When u have Leonardo and Kate Winslet delivering dialogues in Tamil, the hilarity consumes u. Loved the part where Rose’s fiancée says, “I love u daaaa.”, in the fundamental tam accent.

Zinda (7/10). A good movie if not taken in the shadow of Oldboy of which it is a carbon copy. Of course, the director had to do away with the taboo subject and in the process made a mess the ending. Commendable and wooden performances by Sanjay Dutt and john Abraham, respectively, delivered atop a superb background score.

Shattered glass (7.8/10). A powerful drama shedding light on the cut-throat world of journalism. Based on a true story, it portrays the meteoric rise of a young writer-journalist, and the consequent downfall when his deception got unearthed. U can’t help sympathize with him in the end even though u know he his guilty of having fabricated more than half of the 41 articles he wrote for ‘The New Republic’.

Family Guy Presents: Stewie Griffin - The Untold Story (7.5/10). Stewie is the ultimate harami, perhaps second only to Eric Cartman (South Park). U will like this movie if u like this conversation:
Brian Griffin: This is the perfectly destroyed spider web.
Stewie Griffin: Where's the spider?
Brian Griffin: Knock, knock!
Stewie Griffin: Who's there?
Brian Griffin: I ate him!

12 Angry Men. (8.5/10). A jury room with 12 jurors inside will blow your mind away as they decide the fate of a boy accused of murdering his father. The 90 + something movie will drain ur emotions away as u are caught in the suspense built up in a simplistic set-up. Amazing.

Now, when do i get a ticket for Rang de basanti? :sigh:

Lord of War

Guns. One of the three g’s that have fascinated men over the ages - the other two being girls and games. It might be the image it conjures, or could be the way it gets stuck up in your throat and releases itself nasally when you pronounce the word.

I remember reading a thriller, the name and the author of which pass my memory right now, in which a politician was assassinated using a rubber bullet. The intricate detail to which the gun was made and the planning was done captivated me. It remains one of the best thrillers I have ever enjoyed. More relevantly, it made me fall in love with guns.

They keep recurring in my dreams. And I can’t give an apposite reason why.

I have heard gun-fire, real gun-fire; gun-fire that goes rattatatatat, with seemingly long pauses and short rats and tats in between. The incident took place half a kilometer away from my house, when an Assam Rifles convoy ‘retaliated’ to the explosion of a bomb. Those who had planted the bomb had run away. In the end, 18 civilians got killed by the one-sided gun-fire. No A.R. personnel received so much as a scratch.

For the first time, I didn’t find guns fun anymore.

Now, a pertinent question, why am I saying all these? There are two reasons-
1.I’m terribly bored to do anything else right now.
2.I just saw this movie, ‘Lord of War’.

The first needs no explanation.

As for the second, the movie (8.3/10) shows the plight of gun-runners and reveals an astonishing, though not really unknown, fact – the real culprits are those who make guns, and those who sell them. It shows a cynical and funny Nicholas Cage in his true elements. But in the same breath, shows the massacre of kids and women and gun-wielding teenagers. That’s not funny. Neither is the fact that the biggest gun-runners are the 5 so-called superpowers who are also the members of the U.N security council, who continue doing it with no repentance and reluctance.

As the protagonist says in the movie, “There are over 550 million firearms in worldwide circulation. That's one firearm for every twelve people on the planet. The only question is: How do we arm the other 11? ”

I don’t like guns anymore.

Waking Life

A metallic cold seeped through my skin as the muzzle pressed close to my chest, almost touching my ribs. That instant, fear gave me a strength – an infinite strength – that was adequate to displace the gun and make my escape. I ran for my life.

Passages, alleys, boulevards blurred past me as I ran, ran and ran. Perhaps, I would have run more had I not hit a dead end. The edge of a cliff, to be more precise. There was no way I could run back. I just could not do that. I had to decide, fast. Then it hit me – I could jump.

I jumped. I floated down like a feather, the winds carrying me tenderly in its arms. I experienced a holy moment – one that seemed to last for eternity. I was placed gently on the laps of a pool of water. Then, the moment came to an abrupt end as it dawned on me that I knew not how to swim.

But I just knew what to do. I decided to wake up.

*****

“And as one realized that one is a dream figure in someone else’s dream, that is self-realization.”
-Federico García Lorca

Lucid dreams are dreams where you are aware of the fact that you are dreaming. The movie “Waking life” (8.3/10) explains the phenomenon of lucid dreams pretty intelligibly. This guy gets trapped in a dream where he dreams and awakens in the dream itself, going on in an endless loop. It’s a case of false awakening, where one dreams of being awakened.

You can test if you are having a lucid dream by a few simple methods. Read some text, look away, and read it again, or look at your watch, and remember the time, look away and look back. In most dreams, the text or the time would have changed. Also, light switched don’t generally work and reflections on mirrors are blurred or distorted.

Lucid dreaming can be induced too. The knowing and thinking about it itself is a precursor to lucid dreaming. A concerted effort to experience it will certainly result in one, though the ability to control the dream may vary from individual to individual.

More often than not, I’m aware of the fact that I am dreaming while still dreaming. It seems to give me a chance to do stuff which I cannot do normally, in my real life. For instance, I can swim in my dreams, or take some steps in thin air which I am otherwise not capable of doing. And sometimes, when you are in trouble in a dream, or on the verge of having a nightmare, you can ask yourself if u are in a dream and snap out of it. I haven’t really explored the possibilities, but plan to whenever I have such dreams. One problem I have, though, is my inability to recall my dreams.

One aspect of this is having a déjà vu in dreams. A sequence of events which u know has happened before in a previous dream, but never in ur real life. There are even some people u have never met in real life, but keep bumping to in ur dreams. This is freaky.

Dreaming is something I have always loved to indulge in, perhaps concurrent with my desire to sleep. Maybe, it is time to take it a bit seriously. This line from the movie ‘Waking Life’ sums up my feelings fairly accurately.

"They say dreaming is dead, no one does it anymore. It’s not dead. It’s just that it’s being forgotten. I am trying to change all that. By dreaming everyday."

Movie Marathon

It’s fun watching movies. And it’s more fun watching three movies at one go. Scouring the insti LAN for movies is fun too. But not so much as watching them.

This weekend, we decided to have a movie marathon. And I was the eventual winner (there was no one left in the end but me).

We started off with Heist(7) - a movie about gold and greed. Cross, double-cross, twists, turns and a powerful cast with the likes of Gene Hackman, Danny DeVito and Delroy Lindo make the movie worth watching. U will love the way Gene makes everyone a ..er..what’s the euphemism for a chutiya?

"What makes the world go 'round?"
"Gold."
"Thought it was love."
"Yes, it is love. Love of gold."

The next two movies were Before Sunset(8.5) and Before Sunrise(8). And this is where my fellow runners decided to call it quits. Now, one thing. I don’t like watching romantic comedies unless
a. it has Julia Roberts in the lead
b. it has a scene where the guy carries the girl away in a flying saucer.

As u see, I have to settle for the former most of the time.

I have always put off watching these two movies thinking they would be romantic comedies but was i to be surprised!! I started off with Before Sunset (a sequel to the other one). The movie captures the conversation between a guy and a girl as they stroll around the city - Paris - for a few hours before the guy leaves in a flight. For more than an hour in the 80 minute- movie, they talk about their experiences, their interests, their lives, environment and anything under the sun.

The two had first met nine years ago in a train in the movie Before Sunrise. Here, they spend a night at Vienna and here too, they talk, talk and talk.

I like movies with a beautiful ending - like a good novel or a game of chess - and the open endings are brilliant in both the movies. Though, the one in Before Sunset is better – as if their lives stop there, a moment in time. The characters are fuller, too, in Before Sunset.

I haven’t seen Ethan Hawke deliver a better performance in any of his other films, and Julie Delby impresses with a mature yet cute performance. I won’t be surprised to find people fall in love with the two characters.

Here are the 3-sentence reviews of some of the movies I watched/ rewatched this month.

The Hidden Fortress(8.3). Another Akira Kurosawa classic, it portrays royalty, loyalty, greed, treason in their finest and ugliest forms – all with a dash of humor. The movie apparently is the inspiration for the star wars. You will love the movie for the characters in it.

Maine Pyar Kyun Kiya(0.5). I laboured myself into watching 10 minutes of the film. It became too taxing and I gave up. This is the third sentence.

Yakeen(5). I’m sure the story of this movie must have been flicked from a Hollywood one, though I cant point out which. A good story loses way due to a crappy direction and acting. Watch it for Arjun Rampal if u have to.

Stealth.(6) A robotic stealth plane develops a mind of its own. Hey, don’t ask me for more. I was too busy trying to cross a score of 1300 in snake (which I couldn’t, finally).

Oh Brother where art thou(8.5). Inspired by Homer’s Odyssey, the movie narrates the story of three convicts who escape from the jail in search of a ‘treasure’. As the blind seer says, “You will find a fortune, though it will not be the one you seek. But first... first you must travel a long and difficult road, a road fraught with peril.” The musical score is one of the best I have heard.

Kung-fu Hustle(7.5). A movie watchable just for the characters. The dancing axe-gang leader, the barber with an exhibiting ass, the screaming land-lady, the mute candy-seller, and the rest make it worthwhile. All with a brilliant graphics and exquisite humor.

Schindler’s List(9). Liam Neeson should have beaten Tom Hanks (who got it for Philadelphia) to the Oscars for this one. Loved the scene where Schindler drops the ring given him in the end. Compelling performances by Kingsley and Fiennes too.

Man, a good half an hour wasted (or utilized?) for this post. Gotta run do some work now!!