This is my first movie review - which is sort of ironic given the post below. A great movie for me is one that pushes the imagination and emotions to its extreme edge such that one is consumed by the experience for days and takes quite some time to get it “out of the system”, so to speak. And every few years, there is always one such movie that is released by creative film makers around the world. The Dark Knight was one such; it took me 3 days of continuous viewing and many days of reading/ talking about it to find peace in the Joker’s outrageous sense of morality. Fight Club was another – a dark, stylish, post modern flick encapsulating our almost programmed participation in a litany of mind less races that have us confusing life for 'stuff'. At the very least, it was a story very crisply told, with great background music, great performances and great direction by David Fincher. His next, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button was quite disappointing in that it had not much to offer by way of story telling and was largely a cosmetic celebration of Brad Pitt’s beauty with some great background scores. Social Network is his next where he has finally replaced Brad Pitt with a fairly interesting ensemble cast and is right up his ally in that it begins at the same place of the story of a loner, who did not fit into society due to his many quirks and his spectacular journey of creating something extraordinary that changed the world as he knew it.
On the face of it, the Social Network is the story of Facebook and its Co-Founders Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg), Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield), Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake) and Dustin Moskovitz. It is also the story of the Winklevoz twins (both played Armie Hammer) who claim to have the original idea which was stolen and implemented by Zuckerberg before they could get around to it. However, the film and its script is much more than that. It is at once an introspective look at morality for our time and age and the real price of ambition. Like the Joker, it takes a dark look at the meaning of human interpersonal reactions albeit within the landscape of business, where money and recognition find weight in gold, corrupting innocent notions of right and wrong that are ingrained in simpler academic worlds. It is a fascinating tale of 2 founders of a path breaking idea; one the genius with the alternate vision – the lateral thinker, the game changer, uncontainable and free spirited, driven only by his creation and what it represents and stands for; and the other, the more restrained voice rooted in business reality looking to make economic sense within the architecture of his friend's creative world. The character etching is fascinating and the film never once passes judgment on the right or the wrong - it simply provides enough information for the viewer to work it within his framework of morality - and even if based on some distorted facts, it is largely representative of the world we live in where choices to do the “right” thing are only understood deep inside inside our consciousness where our hearts whisper it out to us with annoying clarity.
Eduardo Saverin was a consultant for the script and from the very beginning, it is almost impossible to not empathize with his character played by Andrew Garfield. He forms the moral compass, the heart and soul for the film as one of its most likable characters; someone who believed in and paid for a promised ride on a magical highway that would soar into the skies; yet found himself deserted mid way through the journey by the driver who found companionship in suspicious strangers along the way that better spoke his language and better painted his pictures.
Eisenberg is outstanding as Zuckerberg, his eyes and his body language convey the compulsions and isolation of a man at the top that is focused on the drive, on taking his paradigm shifting world view of the world forward, for developing it and ensuring all the values it encapsulated and stood for were never compromised along the way. In achieving this, the film highlights the many difficult personal choices he had to make and Eisenberg while giving the character the necessary geek persona also manages to convey the cold ruthlessness, obsessive and defensive character traits that constitute the backbone of his eventual decisions. Yet he is not completely contemptible, his eyes do reflect just that slightest hint of vulnerability and discomfort of understanding exactly what his actions constitute to his friendships, his defiance of money and moneyed peers make him almost heroic and his excitement at meeting Sean Parker, a man among the isolated few that understood his idiom make him endearing despite not wanting too. Rest of the ensemble cast put in solid performances including the Winklevoz twins and the character that plays Larry Summers who is exceptionally brilliant in his limited scenes.
The story is largely told using a juxtaposition of flashbacks on the creation of facebook and the current legal suits facing its founder from his friends and peers – a story where one does know the eventuality upfront but the unfolding of it is narrated almost like a thriller; a story where despite the geekdom in the dialogues, the film manages to have just enough heart and brilliant music to make it one of the more outstanding films of the past couple of years. It is a film of our times that captures the spirit of a generation that isn’t prepared to wait their turn or pay their dues and instead will make the opportunities for themselves or tear it away from the less ambitious. It’s like a gangster film where the young hoods prove themselves to the older wiseguys by doing something audacious despite breaking all sorts of codes of honour. It’s both admirable and threatening, exhilarating and terrifying. However, in this case, the antiheros aren’t left in jail or dead but are left to endlessly refresh a browser to see if an ex-girlfriend has accepted their friend request.
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Saturday, November 13, 2010
The Movies!
I LOVEEEEEEEE the movies!!
I enjoy the whole shindig of movie watching – of popcorns, cola, crowds albeit that in an Indian context, it implies sshing other moviegoers who keep cellphones on chatting incessantly and other talkative sorts who don’t get that the rest of us paid good money to watch the film. I follow a typical movie routine – for English movies check IMDB, rottentomatoes for ratings, for hindi movies – check out Rajeev Masand’s and Raja Sen’s ratings (the sachharine sweet diabetic inducing Taran Adarsh and the rest are completely compromised in my opinion to the various industry camps). If they are good ratings, then I go check out the movie without reading any of the reviews. I hate reading reviews or discussing a movie before watching one – I’d rather to go into it with a complete blank canvas and be encompassed into the entirety of the audio visual ride the movie has set out for us. After the entire experience of the movie has been enjoyed, I come back and scan the net for every available piece of information about the movie – on rottentomatoes, imdb faqs, trivia, other reviews (nytimes), cast and director interviews, wiki on the production, making of movies etc etc….this (esp the review reading part where I love to see how others have experienced the movies, the parts I missed out or the reviewers didn’t get) is one of the greatest joys of the experience. Besides discussing it at length with Venkat, my friend and manic movie lover (by an order of magnitude) who has taken great pains to sensitise me to the various filmmakers, movements in film making and aspects of film making I had never thought of earlier (like camera angles or editing or the role of background music that is in the foreground sometimes, among the million other things); not to mention his timeless and priceless gift of pirated downloaded set of all time best 1000 movies (including IMDB top 500 movies of all time) to ensure I had a visual world to keep me sufficiently occupied while he left the country to see the world. And Vinu, who has an innate ability to quantify any subject matter, however abstruse to a crisp and precise rating on 5.
In some cases, if I don’t feel that I couldn’t capture the entirety of the movie in one viewing, I watch it again. And some times, again and again, 3 days in a row like the Dark Knight. Some of my all time favorite movies are The Fight Club, The Dark Knight, Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind, American Beauty, Shawshank Redemption, A Beautiful Mind and among Indian movies, a lot of the current bunch like Gulal, DevD, Peepli Live, Rang De Basanti, Jab we Met, Taare Zameen Par, Chak De, Sadma, Karthik Calling Karthik etc. Fight Club remains my all time favorite movie and its brilliant director, David Fincher, my all time favorite director - my best paintings have been inspired by Jack, its nameless protagonist which you can find here.
I also enjoy the business of movies and spend a lot of time talking to friends who are insiders, working in production or distribution houses. I check boxofficeindia.com every week, watch komal nahta on etc and bollywood business on zoom to know which film has made how much money. I would love to produce a film one day – there I said it. It is one of those things to do on my bucket list!
So here’s to more reviews of the many memorable movies ahead. I start with the first one, the social network, fittingly by David Fincher.
I enjoy the whole shindig of movie watching – of popcorns, cola, crowds albeit that in an Indian context, it implies sshing other moviegoers who keep cellphones on chatting incessantly and other talkative sorts who don’t get that the rest of us paid good money to watch the film. I follow a typical movie routine – for English movies check IMDB, rottentomatoes for ratings, for hindi movies – check out Rajeev Masand’s and Raja Sen’s ratings (the sachharine sweet diabetic inducing Taran Adarsh and the rest are completely compromised in my opinion to the various industry camps). If they are good ratings, then I go check out the movie without reading any of the reviews. I hate reading reviews or discussing a movie before watching one – I’d rather to go into it with a complete blank canvas and be encompassed into the entirety of the audio visual ride the movie has set out for us. After the entire experience of the movie has been enjoyed, I come back and scan the net for every available piece of information about the movie – on rottentomatoes, imdb faqs, trivia, other reviews (nytimes), cast and director interviews, wiki on the production, making of movies etc etc….this (esp the review reading part where I love to see how others have experienced the movies, the parts I missed out or the reviewers didn’t get) is one of the greatest joys of the experience. Besides discussing it at length with Venkat, my friend and manic movie lover (by an order of magnitude) who has taken great pains to sensitise me to the various filmmakers, movements in film making and aspects of film making I had never thought of earlier (like camera angles or editing or the role of background music that is in the foreground sometimes, among the million other things); not to mention his timeless and priceless gift of pirated downloaded set of all time best 1000 movies (including IMDB top 500 movies of all time) to ensure I had a visual world to keep me sufficiently occupied while he left the country to see the world. And Vinu, who has an innate ability to quantify any subject matter, however abstruse to a crisp and precise rating on 5.
In some cases, if I don’t feel that I couldn’t capture the entirety of the movie in one viewing, I watch it again. And some times, again and again, 3 days in a row like the Dark Knight. Some of my all time favorite movies are The Fight Club, The Dark Knight, Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind, American Beauty, Shawshank Redemption, A Beautiful Mind and among Indian movies, a lot of the current bunch like Gulal, DevD, Peepli Live, Rang De Basanti, Jab we Met, Taare Zameen Par, Chak De, Sadma, Karthik Calling Karthik etc. Fight Club remains my all time favorite movie and its brilliant director, David Fincher, my all time favorite director - my best paintings have been inspired by Jack, its nameless protagonist which you can find here.
I also enjoy the business of movies and spend a lot of time talking to friends who are insiders, working in production or distribution houses. I check boxofficeindia.com every week, watch komal nahta on etc and bollywood business on zoom to know which film has made how much money. I would love to produce a film one day – there I said it. It is one of those things to do on my bucket list!
So here’s to more reviews of the many memorable movies ahead. I start with the first one, the social network, fittingly by David Fincher.
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Drawing...
Found this amazing letter on drawing on the web..
Dear ....
Think less. Draw more.
When you draw a thing, see it just as that. Not a head, not perspective, not crosshatching, just pure observation as if you’ve never seen it before. The more preconceptions you bring to the drawing, the shittier it will be.
Clear your mind, and start drawing what you see. Start anywhere. I tend to start in the upper left hand corner because I am right handed. I move across observing, recording, until I get to the lower left hand corner. Then I am done.
If my subject is sufficiently complex, this will take me a half hour or more. I go as slowly as I can stand to go. But I don’t know how long it is usually; my left-brain has no sense of time.
As I draw, I avoid evaluation. I avoid thinking of the purpose of the drawing. I avoid commenting on what I am drawing, even in the quality of the line. I am empty and the drawing fills me up. Drawing is meditation, not production. Drawing is entirely in the present with no attempt to create context.
Do not think about style. Add shadows as you see them. But better to avoid shadows all together and stay engaged with the contours of things. When you have done that for months, even years, then add shadows and crosshatching (My pal, d.price has been drawing for a dozen years. Only on his trip to New York last week did he decide to start concentrating on the effects of light. He still almost never uses color). For now, none of that is important. What matters is to see deeply and let your hand respond.
And if you start at huge length before you draw, you risk becoming bored, or forming mental notes, theories, ideas about what you are seeing. The reason to let your hand and pen take over is to shut the hell up, silence the internal voice, the endless chattering of the mind, the distractions, the pointless pontificating that insists on meaning for the meaningless. The moment does not need meaning or context. It just is.
Drawing is about reaching for pure being. Not making pretty pictures to put in frames and on websites. The world doesn’t need more pictures. It needs peace and connection. It needs people who can accept reality and don’t feel compelled to control their environments. If you can look at a boot, at a rotting apple, at car’s worn tire, at an old man’s foot, and see it for what it is, without value or judgement, can see the beauty and particularity of the thing, you will find peace. You will avoid being covetous. You will be happy with what you have. You will accept others more readily, will see the sunshine on a cloudy day.
Life is a wonderful business, though fools blow up London tube stations and sell each other crap and waste time with gossip about movie stars. If you can draw, you will always have a place to go that is beautiful and honest and true. As you sit in an airport you will find pleasure in the folds of a crumpled lunch bag. As you bide your time in a doctor’s waiting room, you will find peace in the arrangement of the shadows on the wall. Even without putting ink on paper, you will be able to slip in to Drawing Mind.
The point is not what your lines look like or how accurate your crosshatching might be.
The point is not the drawings on the page or the pages in the book.
The point is not the opinions of others who love/hate/ignore those lines you made on the page.
The point is not the money you make selling your work to galleries or publishers.
The point of practicing your craft is not to rise in the rankings of those who draw. It’s not to have your style dominate (sorry, Dan!).
The point is to more easily gain access to the moment, to the deeper more peaceful recesses of your Self.
The point is to live as well and as fully as you can today, right now, whether your pen is in your hand or not.
The point is to See and to Be.
Dear ....
Think less. Draw more.
When you draw a thing, see it just as that. Not a head, not perspective, not crosshatching, just pure observation as if you’ve never seen it before. The more preconceptions you bring to the drawing, the shittier it will be.
Clear your mind, and start drawing what you see. Start anywhere. I tend to start in the upper left hand corner because I am right handed. I move across observing, recording, until I get to the lower left hand corner. Then I am done.
If my subject is sufficiently complex, this will take me a half hour or more. I go as slowly as I can stand to go. But I don’t know how long it is usually; my left-brain has no sense of time.
As I draw, I avoid evaluation. I avoid thinking of the purpose of the drawing. I avoid commenting on what I am drawing, even in the quality of the line. I am empty and the drawing fills me up. Drawing is meditation, not production. Drawing is entirely in the present with no attempt to create context.
Do not think about style. Add shadows as you see them. But better to avoid shadows all together and stay engaged with the contours of things. When you have done that for months, even years, then add shadows and crosshatching (My pal, d.price has been drawing for a dozen years. Only on his trip to New York last week did he decide to start concentrating on the effects of light. He still almost never uses color). For now, none of that is important. What matters is to see deeply and let your hand respond.
And if you start at huge length before you draw, you risk becoming bored, or forming mental notes, theories, ideas about what you are seeing. The reason to let your hand and pen take over is to shut the hell up, silence the internal voice, the endless chattering of the mind, the distractions, the pointless pontificating that insists on meaning for the meaningless. The moment does not need meaning or context. It just is.
Drawing is about reaching for pure being. Not making pretty pictures to put in frames and on websites. The world doesn’t need more pictures. It needs peace and connection. It needs people who can accept reality and don’t feel compelled to control their environments. If you can look at a boot, at a rotting apple, at car’s worn tire, at an old man’s foot, and see it for what it is, without value or judgement, can see the beauty and particularity of the thing, you will find peace. You will avoid being covetous. You will be happy with what you have. You will accept others more readily, will see the sunshine on a cloudy day.
Life is a wonderful business, though fools blow up London tube stations and sell each other crap and waste time with gossip about movie stars. If you can draw, you will always have a place to go that is beautiful and honest and true. As you sit in an airport you will find pleasure in the folds of a crumpled lunch bag. As you bide your time in a doctor’s waiting room, you will find peace in the arrangement of the shadows on the wall. Even without putting ink on paper, you will be able to slip in to Drawing Mind.
The point is not what your lines look like or how accurate your crosshatching might be.
The point is not the drawings on the page or the pages in the book.
The point is not the opinions of others who love/hate/ignore those lines you made on the page.
The point is not the money you make selling your work to galleries or publishers.
The point of practicing your craft is not to rise in the rankings of those who draw. It’s not to have your style dominate (sorry, Dan!).
The point is to more easily gain access to the moment, to the deeper more peaceful recesses of your Self.
The point is to live as well and as fully as you can today, right now, whether your pen is in your hand or not.
The point is to See and to Be.
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