I Know Its Okay

I woke up with a feeling of restlessness. The residues of my feelings in the past few days thudded heavily down into the colander that was breaking. It was me. It wouldn't stand, so I let them drop, one by one, back into my dreams and now in my disturbing wakefulness. I knew I had to let go, but the thoughts beat the strums of the guitar that was my mind and produced disturbing rhythms that resonated throughout my being. The music was getting louder. I couldn't stop the tempo. I searched frantically for the button that would shut it down, but I knew I failed every time I tried. Why should I try when I know it will be futile? I wondered if this was introspection. The waves of desparation lapped, kicked hard and coursed through my system. But then I also heard voices, and they grew steady by the minute.Those were voices I'd recognize even in my death.They came to me by their own will, and knocked down the disturbing walls I had forcefully put up. With that, there was another voice I recognized was my own. The voices urged me to face the waves. And so I did. They could wash me away, but I'd get back to the shore anyway. Then I'd kick the dust of past happenings off my clothes and start all over again. I'd move on. I'd traverse the rocky shores with the hope that the voices would always come for me, and I'd stand up against the waves with greater strength each time. I stood up, yawned, stretched myself and readied up for the day. The music stopped, and I was all right.

My Take -The Social Network

I log in to my Facebook account everyday with absolutely no strings attached - I know my login id and password, I key them in, click the login button and bingo, I'm connected to my friends! I realize that I've allowed FB to creep into my life unwittingly and now, it just won't go. But you know what, maybe its not a bad thing at all! After all, its the greatest technological innovation of this century and it's cool to be a part of it. The movie is such a fantastic take on its founder in terms of craft. Call it perspective, but I know people are pissed because it doesn't voice the opinions of all of the people directly and indirectly involved in it. Its probably Fincher's dramatization. All the same, its bloody brilliant! The switching back and forth between law suits and undergrad dorms is so perfectly timed and filmed. They're very fast-paced with a high momentum and energy level, so much so that I felt like I was on a breathless trail catching up on the story. There is not one wasted moment in the entire movie, not one frame devoted to any purpose other than enacting through a wonderful script the story of Facebook. But that's our hero, our focus of interest - THE social network! It is as if the characters, including Mark Zuckerberg do what they were doing to make possible its existence, to let it be. That's primarily the reason I completely enjoyed the movie. It felt like the SNS was an important piece of a jigsaw puzzle, and once Fincher figured out how to portray its inception, everything else fell into place. And that's probably why there may have been a considerable amount of deviation from reality, because when you get right down to it, is the story of a genius programmer who "tried hard to be an asshole" easy to tell? Fincher plays his cards with style and class. There's plenty of humor and wit in the right places, so the movie doesn't boil down to just a boring biography. It's almost like the script has a heart beating inside it, pumping oxygen to every syllable on it. When you have actors who can do full justice to the purpose of the script, you know you've got the audience hooked. Isn't that the beauty of a film? It has a language of its own, and the style of film makers and actors define its constructs. I like to think that I understand cinema as an art, not just a two-hour ride into fantasy-land with the time span between the start and end credits. On the contrary, its made by real people with real feelings. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross felt the movie throbbing with life, and scored music that perfectly matched its pace. They speak the same language as the movie. And so does everybody else involved in The Social Network. Its with the same language in mind that I write this, and I know it will surface in all of my brain cells each time I log in to Facebook.

Avatar, in my eyes

The "Unscripted" conversation between Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldana has the latter quoting Avatar as "a little small movie directed by this little small director called James Cameron and it has like a whole bunch of crazy kids running around in blue suits." Now lady, if that isn't the understatement of the millenium! Avatar is an exemplary work of art that makes you wonder what just hit you those three hours, if it was one of those dreams you'd hate to wake up from, because they're so damned bloody wonderful and stepping out of them is so darned difficult. But yes, Avatar was a dream; the sheer, no-holds-barred imagination of one man at the helm of affairs, who has gone all out on a venture that kept the world waiting for it's show up in hushed speculations and bated breath. Avatar shows you, how, with a vision to achieve greatly and the patience to concoct the thing of your dreams into stark reality will pay off even if it takes a lot of time to do that. It is a spectacular, magnificient display of creativity translated into breathtaking visuals. Simply, simply wonderful! Pandora is a place straight out of paradise city, amazingly, beautifully, fantastically brought to life, that drew me into the movie, into the world of the Na'vi, their love and reverence for Nature and its bounties, so immaculate in detail and splendid in portrayal. The creation is a generous helping from the cup that held James Cameron and his team's ingenuity and craftsmanship, brimming in its richness and spilling out on the canvas of Avatar, making it the one of greatest milestones in the history of cinema. Avatar is a splendour of sorts, an elaborate work of art that bejewels the tapestry of Hollywood and world cinema, a feet that will be remembered and written, spoken about in awe for years to come, an accomplishment that deserves honours for what the makers toiled years together and a motion picture marvel that defies de facto standards and limitations. I was completely absorbed into the movie, mesmerized and dumbstruck at the grandiose visuals, and at the mammoth efforts put in by the makers to produce an epic of this nature. To create and conceptualize Pandora from the scratch, its animals and plants, the elements that make up the core of the movie and picturize that with the help of technology is no easy deal. The result is light years beyond cool. My favorite scene is the night life of Pandora and I remember being stuck with an expression that mirrored that of Jake's when he witnessed it first. The vegetation lights up, emitting radiance that perfectly contrasts the dark in soft colours and penetrate pockets of space that burst their lustrous contents out to dazzle the place. And Jake's first flight too! His first ride on the banshee destined for him is a sight to behold. Neytiri joins him half way through the ride, and boy oh boy, was it real or was I seeing things?! For once, even the wildest of my dreams seemed diminutively outlandish. The scene marks Jake's acceptance into the Na'vi brotherhood and his ability to be one among them. Both of them are seen flying the freakish creatures that soar the skies, swoop up and down, lending the scene a sense of feverish excitement, which, brings me to the music. James Horner has created a score that's perfect for the movie, reflects it's moods, tessellates a dimension into it that captures the very essence of Avatar and gives you a sense of being in the movie. It echoes Jake's and Neytiri's enthusiasm and happiness as they look at each other, riding their winged friends bound to them, notching up the gusto in mega leaps and bounds. Be it the gathering of the clans or fighting Quatrich and his army, or the theme song, J.H oozes magic in his sound, splashing the colours and grandeur of Avatar in magnanimous proportions and giving it life, oxygen and an abstract structure that compounds the appeal of the entire package. My favorite is Climbing up Iknimaya- The Path to Heaven, a three-minute track that amalgamates instrumental music with the chorused chanting of tribal sounds. The music and visuals form this complex artwork so firmly interconnected in their being, grasping it's threads and matting them in spell-binding virtuosity. This one will have it's audience gasping in profound awe of the superb imagery and stupendous special effects, for this is not just cinema, but art. Not just a passing fad, but a stupefying labyrinth of artistic conception resolutely ingrained in it's core strength- creativity at it's supreme pinnacle.

MaGiC FrOM ThE MuGgLE

I've been toying with the idea of this blog for quite sometime, but there's this thing to writing I can never really understand. You know your neurons are done convincing you to realize you have something to write about, and you're on pins and needles about letting the process happen. The characteristic verve swings in and you're onto to it; oh yes! The ride is about to begin! And then it doesn't take long for the anticlimax to set in because of that stupid block somewhere in your system. Aw, search me! The thing that pumped up the excitement is blown up in smoke, and here I am at the very same point, not because I've come one full circle but because I haven't started at all. But I'm happy I decided to write about this after all. When I think about it, even thinking about writing makes me happy. There's this guy I've been wanting to write about since forever, and I haven't the foggiest as to why I let that thought gather considerble dust all the while. Not that nobody has, because A.R.Rahman has been around for ages and he gives writers, wannabe writers, journalists and the press guys that definitive push to put in writing his just out album, award or a concert. I grew up listening to his albums, and I'd ascribe my almost zilch knowledge of other kinds of music to him. There's something about his music that words cannot explain, primarily because it's elusive, and more so because it keeps growing on you indefinitely. Each time I listen to his songs I get this elated feeling that escapes me before I can define it. I haven't come across anything as evasive as his music, one that reveals a different colour and layer from it's depths each time you go back to it. I don't distinguish his songs from melody or foot tapping or whatever; to me they're all the same, crafted and branded with the most delectable sound that makes me so freaking ecstatic. I've always felt there was never an evolution for him, because he started off with one of his career's best. There are some albums of his that have sadly not been given the due recognition and appreciation they ought to have received, and some of them are my favorites- Tehzeeb, Meenaxi, Bose-The Forgotten Hero, The Legend of Bhagat Singh, Yuvraaj and so many more. His music is of the kind that gives a damn for mundane conventions, takes listeners to rapturous highs and promises to never drift an inch off them until it is satiated with the repetitive plays it so rightfully deserves. I can imagine this grandmother vehemently scoffing at contemporaries, and passionately clinging on to the music from the 90's and the coupla decades that followed, unwilling to let go because the magic simply refused to fade away and it's tag enduringly carried the name A.R.Rahman. When that time comes, I'd still keep searching those words I am at a loss for, right now.