FIVE

Quite a productive week, movie-wise, and having done this while having read everything I needed to read for the QUILTBAG discussion session yesterday — hell yeah, productive.

What I watched this week:

• Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
  
• Les Aventures extraordinaires d'Adèle Blanc-Sec
  Wow, this is actually really lovely! Also, Mme Blanc-Sec is not just smart and witty and brave, she's really gorgeous! <3 I hope there will be sequels to this, like maybe how Adèle manages to save herself from the Titanic before embarking on further adventures in South America or elsewhere in Europe.
  
  Failing live action sequels, I'm down with animations, or even just English translations of the comic series.

• Ne Le Dis À Personne
  I wish more thrillers were like this — taut and tense right until the denouement. My only grouse is that Cluzet looks too much older than Croze for them to have been childhood friends.
  
  Okay, also the Bruno character is very conveniently helpful. Maybe a little too convenient and helpful. The woman assassin perpetually in a crop top/sports bra is super creep. I actually breathed a little easier after Bruno shot her dead (although for a long moment I thought she was never going to die — even her expressionless walking away from being shot twice in the back was creepy).
  
  Kristin Scott Thomas as one half of a gorgeous lesbian couple — WIN. The same-sex couple thing is very matter-of-fact and not made into a big deal (in 2006!). This is also one way I wish more movies would be like Ne Le Dis À Personne too.

• The Matrix
  So I finally watched this (I've been putting it off for way too long) and I find it interesting though nowhere as thought-provoking as Waking Life. I guess I waited too long because the movie seems to be showing its age too. Also, there seems to be ... I dunno, not loop-holes in the plot, just ... things I didn't get. Like, why did it take so long for everybody to find Neo? Is the Matrix not all-knowing?
  
  Also, if you're aware that 'life' in the Matrix isn't 'reality', why would you not want to learn to bend and break physical laws above everything else? I mean, "there is no spoon" should've been the rebels' motto from the start and rebel leaders should be drumming that into all rebels' heads. Mind over matter, as it were.
  
  I'm ignoring the quibbles in my head (that nagged away as I was watching the movie) because HELLO CARRIE ANNE MOSS IN LATEX. Lord, Trinity is awesome (less awesome when she falls in love with Neo — COME ON. Girl, Switch is much hotter than Neo is!!). I'm dying to finish the Matrix trilogy now and I hope Trinity develops even more awesome control and mind-power. (Not reading Wiki for spoilers!)
  
  There is one thing that Agent Smith said that I agree with though: that we are Earth's cancer.
  
  Talking about Agent Smith — it's prolly just me, but the first time I see an actor in a movie, I tend to fixed the character they play on all the future characters they essay. In Hugo Weaving's case, the first time I saw him was in The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (the second movie I saw him in was Bedrooms and Hallways).
  
  So.
  
  Yes, I think of and see Mitzi (and Jeremy) every time he comes on screen. Wouldn't it be fabulous if Agent Smith were a less dour?

• Shor in the City
  I only watched this because of how much I like Go Goa Gone and it's not too bad, just a little uneven. True, I'd like to think karma is a bitch — and it's Ms Bitch to you — but not every character got bitch slapped by karma.
  
  Also, towards the end, I thought I finally saw Tusshar Kapoor play a character with whom I sympathize (when Tilak appeared to have died), but no ... Tilak lived. And for the better.
  
  I think the soundtrack for Shor in the City is pretty good too.

The soundtrack for Detective Byomkesh Bakshy was released sometime last week (I think?) and IT. IS. FUCKING. AWESOME. I liked 'Calcutta Kiss' when it first released on YouTube but OMG 'Chase in Chinatown' blew my socks off.

I'm so looking forward to that movie. The trailers released so far made me think of Guy Ritchie's Sherlock but I hope I'm wrong. SO EXCITE.

Listen to Detective-Byomkesh-Bakshy-2015 on Saavn

The World Forgetting, By The World Forgot

I finally watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind earlier on Tuesday and it was, to my surprise, very much less confusing than I thought it would be.

I had only seen two other Kaufman-written films before (Being John Malkovich and Adaptation) but I somehow got the idea that his stories are mind-fuckingly confusing, like Lynch's but without the darkness and nightmarish atmosphere.

Eternal Sunshine I therefore found to be very lovely and sweet even as I thought it a little depressing — like the fact that even having memories wiped from their minds, people still do the very things they want to forget.

I mean, on the one hand, I guess the story shows how history is doomed to repeat itself if it isn't kept in mind or memory (which also means if one doesn't learn from it). On the other hand, what I got from the film is that life is pre-determined, predestined — you make the same decisions even when given another chance to start over ... because you're meant to.

My personal belief is that life unfolds along a path that is created from the choices you make — a choose-your-own-adventure, as it were. I'd be happy to be caught in a time loop if only to be able to learn about the myriad of ways my life could've/might've turned out, based on every single decision I make on any given day.

Also: ah, Pope. He seems to have the best lines about being forgotten by the world:

How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd ...

'Eloisa to Abelard'

Versus:

Thus let me live, unseen, unknown;
Thus unlamented let me die;
Steal from the world, and not a stone
          Tell where I lie.

'Ode on Solitude'

(Talking about poetry, hipsters with their rolled cuff pants and jeans never fail to recall poor ol' Prufrock: "I grow old … I grow old …/I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.")

Oh. My. Lord.

The only reason I'm rewatching Edge of Tomorrow just a few hours after my first viewing is Emily Blunt.

Because I can't forget Emily Blunt doing the chaturanga pose in the movie.

Because I can watch her chaturanga on loop.

And ... WISH GRANTED. (Hell yeah. Thank you so much, Internet!)

And wide-screen available here!

Actually Emily Blunt doing what she's doing has her own auto-complete and various similar suggestions in Google; I guess there must've been many a gay girl busy searching for the same thing when the movie first came out. We sure love them sexy toned/muscular arms.

I can't believe she was pregnant when she was shooting this movie. On the Graham Norton show interview, I remember her (and Cruise) saying how heavy and warm the suits were, so, kudos.

Also:

Swooning ... swooning ... swooned.

Weekend

I watched:

• The Lego Movie
  For some reason I'd thought this would be like Team America: World Police; it's not. I guess it's a cute flick for kids but it's just okay for me. My god, the message they just hit you over the head with. No subtly with this one ...
• The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013)
  I only watched this because Auntie Al's friend/client said I should — the movie will push me to get off my ass and travel, said he. The thing is, I never had daydreams like those of the titular character. If I were as bored as him at my job, my daydreams tend to run a little more morbid, like the double-decker bus in which I traveled skidding and toppling over because it cornered too quickly and too sharply, or the overhead extension on which I walked collapsing from structural faults.
  Still, I thought the scenes in Greenland, Iceland, and the Himalayas looked gorgeous. For some reason — perhaps having seen it in a book previously — the Iceland shore bit looked very familiar, exactly as I'd pictured it reading the sagas and about the geography of Iceland prior to 1400 CE.
  I don't think the movie has made me desperate to travel — in fact, as I was watching the movie, I'd thought how well seeing things at a distance (on screen, for instance) suited me. I still want to see Pangong Tso first hand and hopefully visit the medieval sites around the UK and Scandinavia while I can still walk, but it's not because of this particular movie.
• Edge of Tomorrow
  Okay, I like this more than Walter Mitty, that's for sure. One, I like stuff that fucks with time; two, I like explosive stuff. And, of course, Emily Blunt.
  EMILY BLUNT. <3
  THOSE ARMS. <3 <3
  OMG HELLO THERE. <3 <3 <3
  Also, the movie is fun and funny. The mimics were super creepy though. Ugh, so gross.
• Bhool Bhulaiya
  Bought this yesterday after the QUILTBAG discussion session (together with a replacement copy of Khosla Ka Ghosla). It's pretty decent given that it's a Priyadarshan movie and I don't have high expectations when it comes to Priyadarshan, Rohit Shetty, David Dhawan (etc.) works. I thought it was a good sign it opened with Paresh Rawal; on the other hand, the musical interludes all seemed very forced. It would've been better to just confine the music to the closing titles — I don't really mind watching Mr Khiladi lip-sync once the movie has ended.

Anyway, I need to read more. I've been reading chapters from Chris Hudson's Beyond the Singapore Girl for the discussion session and it makes me so angry that such a man exists, that such men exist. Racist, sexist, misogynist eugenicists — these people just win the genetic toilet, I guess.

I'mma borrow this book from work tomorrow.

Duhlization #542

This duhlization struck me during one of my bathroom breaks this morning: why I adore pothead-slackers — i.e. The Dude-ish characters.

It basically boils down to my erstwhile unconscious desire to be them. I want to be them, not the nervous, highly-strung, responsible 'straight' man (so to speak).

I mean, who the fuck would rather be

• Dante than Randal?
• Shaun than Ed?
• Harold than Kumar?
• T.S. than Brodie?
• anybody than The Dude/Scott Pilgrim/any Seth Rogen character?

... I gotta rewatch The Big Lebowski, damn.

Burning Bridges Revisited

So, this afternoon during my appraisal meeting with my manager, I said I haven't been on a proper vacation (which, in my books, means at least five to 10 consecutive days off) since 2013.

My manager said I should take my break before I burned out. I could only think: lady, that fucking horse was so long out of the bloody barn, both horse and barn are now fossil fuel.

So, the question about to burn or not to burn bridges is now pointless. I'm nothing if not self-destructive, and all that time I'd spent thinking about whether or not to burn bridges, I've managed to set myself aflame.

Whilst on the bridge.

Guess we're both burning now.

Disco inferno, I suppose.

Read(s) & Flicks of the Month: February

Read(s):

• The Brothers Cabal

Flicks:

• Dil Kabaddi
• Special 26
• Daawat-e-Ishq
• Happy Endings
• I Saw the Devil
• Shaadi Ke Side Effects
• Saheb Biwi Aur Gangster
• Saheb Biwi Aur Gangster Returns
• I Am
• Boss
• Barah Aana
• Sadda Adda
• Raajneeti
• hootha Hi Sahi
• Mithya
• Yeh Jaawani Hai Deewani
• Love Aaj Kal
• The Film Emotional Atyachar
• Om Shanti Om
• Fido
• Zombieland
• Dasvidnya

I have to start reading more (and the reading group articles don't count) — maybe I'll start by finishing the Cabal series. LOL, werebadgers, indeed!

Zombie Monday

Day off! (This was planning ahead — I gave myself a slightly extended weekend because I knew my weekend engagements/human interactions would drain me.)

So I decided the theme for today's flicks: zombies. Or, more specifically: ZOM COM!

I've never liked zombie flicks; movies like 28 Days Later and Dawn of the Dead give me the willies. I'm a coward and can't stand to watch horror movies. But zom com? That's a whole 'nother thing!

First movie this morning was rewatching Zombieland. Can't remember why I bought this in the first place but it took a couple of years from my purchase of the DVD to my watching it. The first time I watched it was last Thursday — and I like it very much! Lord, I would love to see Bill FUCKING Murray play a real zombie.

Second movie was Go Goa Gone (GGG) (which I'd bought on Saturday, together with Taxi and Fido). I was a little trepidatious about buying "India's first zom com" (the trailer I saw of SAK's terrible Russian accent didn't help either) but since I read that people who like Delhi Belly will like GGG, I picked it up.

MAN was I glad I did! What I wouldn't give to have Hardik meet Nitin — I'm pretty sure these two slackers will get on awesomely and they'll make a fine ass movie I'd watch the hell out of. (Also, Luv is basically Arup, but less mousy and with more hair.)

Imagine: two dudes with shaggy but beautiful curls (hairband optional) spending time on the couch, drinking, belching, farting, smoking (I can see Nitin as a Dude-ish pothead), eating, slacking, arguing about movies, and who should get up to get the door, fetch the remote control, etc. Yeah, I'd watch that.

I didn't really like the bit of moralizing at the end of GGG but it wasn't too terrible. Sure, don't do hard drugs but surely a bit of weed now and then isn't going to be the end of the world, right? Also, wasn't coke used to stop the zombies? Mixed messages, people ...

Anyway, the soundtrack's good too. 'Khoon Choosle Monday' is now my theme song for every Monday I have to be at work.

Rewatching Shaun of the Dead now, trying to figure out whether or not GGG borrowed anything else from Shaun, apart from the let's-pretend-we're-zombies-to-blend-in thing. (To be fair to GGG though, the character who suggested that also did say he got that from a movie.)

After Shaun, I think I'll rewatch either Fido or GGG.

Ah yes. Watching movies in my underwear and drinking cold coffee. This is my kinda Monday.

GIRLY MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!

(That GGG opened with this old favorite already makes it winner!)

I Hate Anxiety

So even though I read both 'Burnt Norton', part of 'East Coker', and 'The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock' before turning in, it was a night of restlessness.

I felt like I kept waking up and falling back into the same dream. Not so much a dream but less terrifying than a nightmare, but still completely anxiety-inducing.

There weren't any marker I can remember that pointed to the dream location as Welly but I was certain I was in Welly ... because dream logic.

In the dream, there were infected people who behaved like zombies but I know they weren't out to eat my face and brains. For example, one infected person kept reaching towards me, but all it wanted was to touch noses with me so it can transfer the red dot on its nose to me. But because my dream logic told me that when I got touched by an infected person the infection would pass to me, I was anxious to not be touched.

Basically, until I hear my weekend alarm ('Mr E's Beautiful Blues'), that was my dream. It was very tiring. Anxiety is tiring. Sigh.

Anyway, here's the one thing that saved me from my dream:

Just gotta keep telling myself, "Goddamn right it's a beautiful day."

A Week Of Beginnings

Two things began this week — my beginner Hindi classes and my QUILTBAG reading and discussion group. Quite a coincidence that both keep me very close to my favorite place here, outside of my home and the Studio.

I found the first Hindi class a little boring and weird. A little boring because I learned nothing really new — or, nothing I didn't see in my copy of Snell's Teach Yourself Hindi. It's also a little weird because I can never understand how people learn a new language without first learning about the grammar and syntax of the language; I mean, I'm not a fucking parrot.

It's a good thing I already know a bit of Hindi syntax and grammar (and am practicing my reading of the Devanagari script now — thank you people who tweet using the Devanagari script). Vocabulary I'm not very fussed about because it's really easy to pick up words from all the movies I watch, the songs to which I listen, and the lyrics (and their English translations) I read.

I adore languages and find them fascinating. I don't see myself as a casual learner so repeating set phrases in class isn't exactly how I'd envision a language-learning class would run.

The QUILTBAG reading and discussion group was much better. Listening to everybody's thoughts on sex, gender, and sexuality was wonderful because I remembered the many years I'd pondered over these issues and how I finally just gave up, sick and weary of going around in circles, like the dog chasing its own tail.

I also sorta 'realized' my desperate rejection of certain markers of femininity and what I thought of as "'stereotypical' girly stuff" wasn't entirely inexplicable. Sergio once told me (prolly apropos of nothing, as was his wont) it was okay for me to like 'girly' things like accessories and make-up (etc.) — because those things would not made me ditzy or stupid.

On hindsight, perhaps he was hinting for me to do better on the look-more-like-other-PAs front. Or maybe he was trying to give me the permission to do and like the things he thought I didn't allow myself to do/like. Well, in any case, he was only half right.

Right now, I feel somewhat unsettled and very wrung out. It's prolly just the full moon and my impending period (UGH), and nothing to do with the session.

Can't believe I'm actually playing my hitherto unopened copy of Barfi as a source of comfort now but I guess it makes sense. 'Barfi' has been my go-to happy song (and weekday alarm ringtone) for awhile now.

Also: I guess I need some poetry tonight. Carol Ann Duffy, maybe. Or 'Prufrock'. Or The Four Quartets.

Because I am merely human, and "human kind / Cannot bear very much reality".

Weekend

In addition to watching Om Shanti Om on Saturday, I watched Phas Gaye Re Obama on Sunday. Actually, I started on Sona Spa on Saturday and tried to continue watching it on Sunday but, after the synapse-connection scene (OMG SO FUCKING DUMB), just couldn't sit through the rest of it.

Phas Gaye was smart and funny! I might've watched bits of it before as I got a sense of déjà vu during certain scenes.

My senior librarian also lent me Fido which I watched on Saturday. It's the sweetest and most non-scary movie with zombies. And Billy Connolly as the titular Fido, a zombie! NICE!

Shameless & Cheap

So they finally screened Om Shanti Om on the free-to-view channel today, saving me the mistake of buying the DVD and subsequent regret. (Thank you very muchly, Vasantham.)

Om is shameless and cheap. Actually, mostly just the 'Deewangi Deewangi' bit. I get — perhaps irrationally — fucking pissed off whenever old films are referenced, especially old films that aren't particularly good. Gawd, you drag all those 90s actors out, make them do a bit of a jig —like a trained monkey — all of five fucking seconds of screen time then they're nowhere to be seen.

No, I did get that the song was a post-awards function (aka The Great Circle Jerk) party/celebration thing. I still find that shameless and cheap. Way to draw attention to your not-too-great film.

The time I momentarily forgot that ostentatious gaudiness of stars from a bygone era in Indian cinema (although, to be fair, people like Dharmendra and Mithun Chakraborty are still in films, and Shabana Azmi is and will never be bygone) was when I saw Urmi! And Tabu! Urmi and Tabu in the same screen! Yay! Two of my favorite actors!

I don't know why I seem to have gone off SRK. That's sad ... because he's an actor I now assume will ruin a good film by just appearing in it (like Billu, which I'd put off watching for just that very reason).

Mental note to avoid all SRK, Farah Khan, Sajid Khan, and SRK+Farah Khan movies in the future.

Also, I'mma call Deepika Padukone 'Dimples' from now on. Lord, what adorable ones she has!

Sick Day

So .. joy. My 'pop' in the chest during aerial yoga on Sunday manifested in pain just about dinner last night with circus/pole friends (especially two who just happened to be in town at the same time). It was so bad that I could only breathe very shallowly (which caused breathlessness) and couldn't cough, laugh, sneeze, etc.

Anyway, this gave me a sick day today. (Doc said the pulled pectoral muscle took a couple of days to inflame ... joy.)

Started the day with Dasvidanya which is sweet. Didn't have to cry because I didn't have to watch Amar die. The movie really just drove home the point that I must start living ... who knows how many years I have left?

Followed that with the two masala rom-coms I bought last year — Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani and Love Aaj Kal. The morals of both these movies are the same: you never leave a girl like Deepika Padukone; you'll always want to be back in her life. And why not? She's smart, talented, compassionate, and pretty.

Can't remember why I bought Jaawani in the first place. I should have liked it more since I like most of the cast and they're mostly very competent actors, but I think it's kinda a dumb movie. But it was fun during the show to go, "Hey, Evelyn Sharma and Nitin (i.e. Kunaal Roy Kapur) were in Nautanki Saala together!" / "Hey, Menaka and Nitin from Delhi Belly (pity they didn't share scenes; I've always thought Menaka and Nitin together would be like a house on fire)!", etc.

Love is a similarly dumb movie. It's not the fault of the scriptwriters; it's prolly the genre's fault. I do like rom-coms, but I guess they can't all be like 10 Things I Hate About You, Clueless, Easy A, or Scott Pilgrim vs The World.

Last movie of the day was The Film Emotional Atyachar (Vinay Pathak+Ranvir Shorey again!). It might've taken me three days (not consecutively) to finish watching this because it wasn't very engaging. I think the fact that Kalki Koechlin was in it made me finish watching. The denouement was a bit ... I dunno, like Raajneeti, I suppose. The body count just kept going up; the ones who didn't die you don't particularly root for either because they aren't sympathetic characters.

So many movies, so little time. Fuck, this is a terrible habit/compulsion I've developed ...

Saheb aur Biwi ROCK

Off work today, so after I went to the doctor's to learn of my second blood test results (still way bad, but at least 50% better than the first time) and have my pulse taken yet again (still too fast), I headed to Little India.

Spent hours browsing the selection at Mustafa, I only bought Saheb Biwi Aur Gangster at the same shop I got Wake Up Sid and Tanu Weds Manu. I'm 90% sure the copy I bought is an original this time and I'm glad, because they have older titles I've never been able to find at Mustafa's (like, A Wednesday!, Break Ke Baad, Straight, etc.).

I feel like such a model of restraint. One DVD only!

Watched Saheb as soon as I got home. IT WAS GOOD (and so was the music). And kinda sexy too because like most women I'm a sucker for a man in power like the Saheb.

Has the back story to the first wife's suicide ever been told, or why he and Madhavi are married at all? I thought Madhavi would be less unhinged in this first story, but no ... she's already in her downward spiral here.

Is it weird that I like these two movies because they made me slightly anxious the whole time I was watching them? Anxious because I know something bad would happen, but I don't know when or how it will happen.

I was so tightly wound up at the scene where Madhavi thought it was the Saheb at the door and confessed her affair with Babloo when it was in fact Babloo at the door. I paused it so many times before I could actually watch Madhavi get to the door, never mind her confession.

Maybe my liking for the Saheb movies is like how people get attracted to the person they are with during times of high stress and anxiety. Never thought I'd feel this way, but the anxiety I had while watching the movie is kinda addictive. As soon as the movie ended, I was desperate to either rewatch it or follow it up with Saheb ... Returns.

But no, I didn't. Instead, I watched I Am (yes! Finally found a copy at Mustafa!) and Mithya. I like both films, I think.

I Am is less 'heavy' than I'd expected, but the 'Omar' story made me sad. Fuck that Penal Code 377; I wish they'd get rid of 377A here too. Again, just because something is made legal doesn't mean you have to do it, but that also means just because you don't want to do it you have to make sure everybody else not does it. THAT'S JUST SELFISH.

The 'Megha' story is a little educational for me too since I really had zero clue about the forced exodus of Kashmiri Pandits. Why can't we be happy with what we have and all just try to fucking get along? =(

Mithya is fairly entertaining. I'm just sad that VK and Sonam didn't get a happy ending (it was a little funny that VK died because the Sahay family needed a complete corpse for closure — but I'd rather have a happy ending).

It seems to me like these 'indie' flicks (yeah, I know they're not really independent but I don't know what they're called) seem to star a lot of the same faces — or is it just the ones I've seen? Actors(-writers/directors) like Ranvir Shorey, Vinay Pathak, Rajat Kapoor, Sanjay Mishra, Saurabh Shukla, Gul Panag, Arjun Mathur, etc. seem to work together on many projects. Are they all in the same theater troupe or something?

In any case, the movies they do are a breath of fresh air to the glitzy gaudiness of 'Bollywood' and thankfully not as dark and heavy as the Anurag Kashyap and (previously) RGV, etc. flicks.

Anyway, not a bad way to spend a Monday at all!