Peek-a-boo: Midnight Cowboy

The proverbial 'gaon ka chhora' comes to Bombay, in search of glory and stardom. He believes that he has it in him to make it big in tinseltown. But life in the city is harsh. He struggles each day, in the walk of life. But in the end, everything turns out well...we've seen it in innumerable Hindi movies.

New York...the big apple. The Empire City. The City that never sleeps. The city of hope for millions of people who turn up on her shores in search of fame and money. Joe Buck (JonVoight) wants to make it big in this city of dreams. He is a male prostitute from Texas who believes that the women of New York would not be able to resist his charms and would be willing to pay for his services. In his struggle to survive, he befriends Ratso Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman), a tuberculosis-infected conman, who's dream is to move to Florida one day. Together, they eke through a living in the harsh, cruel and corrupted city.

Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman give excellent performances as the lead pair. The movie is a must watch. Midnight Cowboy portrays a realistic view of the harsh life on the streets of New York - the struggles of the ordinary man on the streets of an unforgiving city. And unlike the proverbial Hindi movie, there is no rags to riches story here. Not all clouds have a silver lining.

Till date, Midnight Cowboy remains the only X-rated movie to ever win an Academy Award for Best Picture.

Peek-a-boo: Shoot the Piano Player

'Shoot the Piano Player' is confusing, 'Shoot the Piano Player' is a muddle. But make no mistake, 'Shoot the Piano Player' is a classic.

Coming from the stables of the acclaimed director Francois Truffaut, 'Shoot the Piano Player' tells the story of a pianist, who gives up fame after his wife's suicide and leads a quiet life playing in a bar. But his brother's troubles in the world of crime soons pulls him into the same.

'Shoot...' takes us by surprise as it changes track from the slow and dragging facets of the pianist's life and unravels his mysterious past.

Peek-a-boo: Reservation Road

Returning from a school concert, Ethan Learner and his family stop for a breather at a gas station. A speeding SUV, while trying to avoid another car, fatally hits Ethan's young son Josh. Unable to come to terms with what he has done, Dwight Arno, driver of the SUV speeds away into the night. Frustrated with the local police's inability to find the perpertrator of the crime, Ethan decides to hire a lawyer to track down his son's killer and extract revenge. Ironically the lawyer turns out to be Dwight.

The lead cast is magnetic, with Joaquin Phoenix as Ethan and MarkRuffalo as Dwight squaring up against each other. These acting powerhouses are two of the most overlooked actors in Hollywood. Every time they come on the screen produces a memorable moment in the filem - especially the scene where Ethan tries to extract the truth out of Dwight as they visit the crime scene. However, the rest of the cast have not been given as much importance - Jennifer Connolly as Grace (Ethan's wife), and Mira Sorvino as Dwight's estranged wife Ruth. The deterioration in relationship between Ethan and Grace after the gruesome incident is left undeveloped, whereas Ruth's presence is reduced to a few handful scenes.

Coming from Terry George, the director of the aclaimed Hotel Rwanda, Reservation Road disappoints majorly. The culprit in the movie seems to be the screenplay. What was a powerful premise is weakened by the screenplay. The climax of the movie looks contrived, as if taken out of a cheap bollywood tearjerker. At 90 minutes, one feels that the movie could have been longer, and the unexplored relationships between the actors been explored more. It's true that Joaquin Phoenix and Mark Ruffalo light up the screen with their presence - the duo probably make up for the rest of the fallacies in the movie. But what promises to be a mouthwatering recipe turns out to be a half-cooked meal in the end.

Peek-a-boo: The Boy in Striped Pyjamas

Should i call it a war movie? or should I call it a horror movie? Not everybody ranted and raved about this movie. Some said that it was the most depressing movie of the year! I ventured to watch it, since the book had taken by breath away!

'The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas' tells a brutal story. Bruno cannot fathom the great horrors that happen around him. He is protected by the high walls of his father's large mansion (though not large enough in his eyes compared to their house in Berlin). He cannot image why his father left the cosy comforts of Berlin to come to the countryside. And neither can he fathom awhy the people in the neighbouring farm don't wear anything except striped pyjamas. His search for a playmate leads him to the huge barb-wire fence and the little figure who sits staring at it all the time. As their friendship blossoms across this barrier, the reader is swept into the maelstrom of its heartbreaking an inevitable ending. The stunning narration reads like a children's book, as if written to be read out to a kid tucked cosily under sheets, waiting for his bedtime story.

However, 'The Boy...' as a movie disappoints. To me it would perhaps qualify as one of the weakest screenplay adaptations of a book. It's perhaps futile to expect such a narrative to be efficiently transferred on to the silver screen, but the emotions of the little child is lost in the screenplay. Asa Butterfield as Bruno just about passes muster. The innocence of little Bruno that one comes to imagine in the book is not completely conveyed through the eyes of Butterfield. Both David Thewlis and Vera Farmiga have excelled in their parts. But Farmiga paints a picture of an aristocratic lady, who seems to want to ignore what happens outside, rather than that of the anguished mother who is concerned and wants to protect her children from the actions of her husband, and Thewlis is good, but not as menacing as he is presented in the book. The most lovable character is little Shmuel, the little Jewish boy, and the best moments in the movie are those little conversations he has with Bruno across the fence. They are bound together in their solitude, but neither of them can comprehend the other's world.

The second world war was one of the darkest periods of the last century - a time in which unimaginable horrors were enacted. 'The Boy...' makes muted and veiled references to these horrors, completely staying away from the graphic depiction of them. There is not a single shot fired, nor are there bloodied bodies falling like flies. Even as the screenplay takes us through the comfortabl life of the aristocratic soldier's family one cannot but shudder at the thought of what goes on outside that cocoon of comfort. Perhaps it is this foreboding sense of doom that really gives "The Boy..." its magnetic appeal. It is indeed depressing. The movie IS depressing. If you do not want to spend the rest of your weekend with a heavy heart, stay away from this movie on a Friday night. It's sure to make you cry.

As for me, perhaps I should not have read the book first...I would then have cried more.

The cruelest month...

The concerts don't inspire me. And neither do i have music classes to fill my time. Ideas for T-shirts have dried up. The new-found interest in movie piracy doesn't enthuse me anymore. But I won't hunt for new hobbies. There are enough of them. 

Senseless wandering... Pune seems just a blur, and Rajasthan seems to have happened in another year. Two long weekends came and went, and i was shut up in office, desperately trying to work. The heat saps all my energy - i can't lift my camera. The precious springtime, when the trees of Bangalore bloom to their fullest was lost without a single photograph - thanks to the sweltering heat...breeding lilacs out of the dead land, mixing memory with desire, fear in a handful of dust, my cousin's sled, coffee in the Hofgarten, summer coming over the Starnbergersee and dull roots stirring in the spring rain.

Rain? What rain? There's no rain on this scorched earth!

Somebody asked me where ginger was. I woke from the daydream and pointed up the road. And then, I stepped into a Bangalore local Volvo bus for the first time in my life!

Anybody who reads this might roll over with laughter. These things have been in existence for years now...and here i am, never to have stepped into one. Am i a Neanderthal, a lesser life form, or one of those precious creatures who think it below their dignity to step into one of the local transport vehicles? Perhaps the answer might be evident in the fact that i live in a locality that is shunned by Volvo buses. So why bother hunting one down? After all, i have my Vishalu...

Nevertheless, on that Saturday I stepped into one, headed for MG Road. I queried the conductor about the destination, and he gave me a look that asked "are you stupid?" Some of the finely dresses ladies sitting in the front seemed to concur with his opinion. This lesser life form decided to head to the back, and disappear amongst the empty seats. The ride seemed to be just like one of those European bus rides (stop sniggering!) except for the fact that in Europe, you don't get to hear "Aaye ho meri zindagi mein" thrice, "Do dil mil rahe hai" twice and "Dil ne yeh kaha hai dil se" four times. I guess Nadeem-Shravan cassettes still have a sale thanks to the Volvo drivers. Ever since then, i have been listening to songs from the nineties.

T. S. Eliot was right...April is the cruelest month!

Goonight Bill. Goonight Lou. Goonight May. Goonight. Ta ta. Goonight. Goonight. Good night, ladies, good night, sweet ladies, good night, good night. 

Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.

Shantih...shantih...shantih