Reel it in…

I think that whoever invented the projector needs to be thumped on the back, and then thumped again to make sure that the appreciation hasn’t gone unnoticed. Because, if it were not for the guy, my life would have been a little more of the boring mess that it is now.
Now, I remember my father giving me a lecture on movies when I was just a boy of 10. It was after he caught me sneaking into the house after watching one on teevee at a friend’s place. At a time when I should have been home doing my homework.
Well, my bad. But this is what he told me, in the sharpest tone he could muster: “Life’s not like cinema, you understand?! Out here, you don’t chance upon hidden treasure one fine day and live happily ever after! If you don’t study hard and come up with some good grades, you are going to rot and become worm-fodder… understand?! And worse still, you will never get a good wife!”
I’ll never get a good wife. My dad always did make me feel like one of those fair ladies from Pride and Prejudice.
But now, fifteen years later and just a few inches away from the ripe old age of 30, I beg to differ (Err.. no, not on the good wife bit). Movies, I think, more than mirror the life around us; sometimes they take us beyond in a way that even books can’t. If what they say about a picture speaking a thousand words is true, how would you rate something that has images flickering at three thousand (more-or-less, whatever) a second – making you bear witness to stuff that you could never have imagined even in your wildest dreams?
Really, only a movie has the power to bring a Black Friday-like tragedy, which – until then – has been nothing more than a headline on a newspaper,  right into the confines of your drawing room. Only a movie can bring an alien down on earth to befriend a group of misfit kids who like nothing better than to ride around on bicycles, and then make them sail through the night sky – creating a cute little silhouette on the moon. Only a movie can make you weep uncontrollably for someone who has been created just for the sake of a soppy movie script, or make you smile when a non-existent Eeshan’s painting finally makes it to the cover of his school magazine.
Well, now that I have already begun rambling, do let me go on about some of my favourite movies – drawn from the various genres of cinema. But this holds true for only this day, Thursday the 2nd of October. Because my preferences tend to change with the wind.

DRAMA

August Rush
Watched August Rush about a month ago. One way to put it (as some on IMDB actually did) is a “predictable piece of trash that gets increasingly soppy with every minute into it.” The other way to put it would be my way, which goes: “Wow, nice.”
Not that I didn’t find it predictable. Halfway through the movie (WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD!),  I knew that papa Louis, mama Lyla and kiddie Evan were all going to reunite at Central Park in an immensely feel-good climax. I knew he would manage to get away from that bad Robin Williams character, who wanted nothing better than to sell him to the highest bidder, and make it to his rightful place under the sun. I also knew that Lyla’s father would spill the beans in his dying hour and tell her how he had sent her child to an orphanage. It was predictable alright.
But August Rush is also one of the cutest movies I have seen till now. So it’s cliched, so it runs like a fairy tale … so what? Holes happen only when you pick them; let them be and they’ll let you be too.  And besides, the movie soundtrack is superb – second, probably, only to Once.
Hmm. I know I am getting a little preachy with my philosophy but, HAH! It’s my blog, ain’t it?

In the Name of the Father
The first thought that struck me when I saw the cover of this DVD was how much Daniel Day Lewis looked like Jim Morrison in his most famous pose (Yup, the one with him standing shirt-less with arms outstretched). So, idjit that I am, I rushed to IMDB and started a chatroom thread on how Day could have done a much better job than Val Kilmer as Jim in The Doors. And lo! I was promptly attacked by thousands of Kilmer fans who demanded to know how “IMDB could allow trolls to have a free run in their network” and “why idiots like these keep saying how one could have been better than the other” and rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle.
By the fourth day, they were getting really nasty, so I decided to stay off that particular forum for a while. No, I can’t take criticism. Not after it gets dirty, anyway.
Now, I really don’t know why Hollywood happens to be so sympathetic to the Irish Republican Army, but it’s really making me like them too. Look at any movie based on the subject – be it The Wind that Shakes the Barley or The Devil’s Own – and you’ll never find anything bad being said about them. Not that I’m complaining; to me, Cillian Murphy and Brad Pitt represent the IRA.
Well, getting back to the topic… In the Name of the Father happens to be one of my favourite movies a bit because of the movie, which is so good, and a lot because of Daniel Day, who is God.
Hmm. Still think he should have played Morrison.

Amores Perros
Gael Garcia Bernal, an ultra-hot Vanessa Bauche, lots of violence… what’s there not to like? Well, the Daniel y Valeria part did grate on my nerves a little, what with the poor crippled lady hobbling around the room shrieking ‘Ritchie Ritchie’ non-stop for days together, but I lightened up after realising that it was done intentionally to show us what the two were going through on account of the accident that links all the stories together. The Octavio y Susana part I liked the best.

But hey! Think it’s just stopped pouring outside, and maybe I should scram if I don’t want to touch base with soggy underwear. So, rest of this bull later?