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Showing posts from 2013

Love and Friendship

Friendship is an aspect of life that’s not controlled by its beholders. Ideal friendships, well they are the things of past now. Many a times we have seen our parents or their parents talking about their old great friends and how amusingly they tell us about their bonding, the moments they spent together and we see a ‘priceless’ twinkle in their eyes…..that’s something which is missing from modern friendships. There are terms & phrases like ‘yaar tu to apna bhai hai’, ‘yaar tu to ghar ka aadmi hai’ which even today invoke something very beautiful inside our hearts but we all know that the feelings underneath them are ‘hollow’, they are just mere words, ‘emotionless’ and ‘impassive’. Well who am I to comment on such an indefinable ‘qualitative’ perspective? I’m one of you, those wretched creatures that are still in need of true, great friendships. Well I certainly can’t say that I haven’t got friends. I’ve got friends, plenty of them in fact, and some of them are real great. I s

Roger Ebert - A Final Goodbye to My Master

Today I'm bemoaning the death of one of the true champions of the movies, 'Roger Ebert', an iconic movie critic whose movie reviews have amused us and kept us at the edge of our seats with their 'reserved' sense of humor and tenacity to this day for the last 40 odd years. He was certainly my mentor as whenever I had to decide on a movie, I would simply go to his site and look out for his opinion. Though it may seem a very inappropriate and unethical decision for a young movie enthusiast (and a possible movie critic in future, who knows?) but I have believed in a theory that a man does need a opening somewhere. In my case, It was Roger. I learned a great deal from him. All my knowledge about the movies I owe to him for he was just brilliant, uncompromising in his movie reviews. His movie-reviews were for everyone and certainly not an intellectual bomb-thrower like that of an equally iconic 'Pauline Kael'. A champion of overlooked , indie movies who was equal

P.S. Hoffman & Joaquin Phoenix: The Master

My infatuation with the movies is well known but my involvement with the actors and their characters is even more heartwarming. There are innumerable movies that I saw simply because they featured my favorite actors, however they themselves were not great. Examples could be infinite, however for the sake of this article I'll have to produce something here. Anger Management for Jack Nicholson (boy, isn't he a legend?), Swing Vote for Kevin Costner, Snatch for Brad Pitt, Legends of the Fall (Brad Pitt), Leon: The Professional, Immortal Beloved, Bram Stroker's Dracula, State of Grace & Prick up your ears; all for Gary Oldman (mind you, he is a chameleon). Meanwhile, I started accumulating some of the finest performances by some of the legendary actors of all time. Very recently, as anyone who follows me regularly knows, I grew very much fond of the craft and artistry of Daniel Day-Lewis. He is a fine, fine actor whose study and impersonation of a character is often pictur

The Downfall of Australian Cricket

Finally the Australians were comprehensively beaten by India 3-0 with one more test to be played in Delhi. Being an ardent supporter of Indian cricket team, I'm as happy as they come. However, I'm more surprised and taken aback by the fall of Australian cricket from its grace than the rise of the Indians as a Phoenix. India are a pretty fragile competitor which on a given do can perform both its best and worse. It's only our expectations that always amp up the tempo for them. Michael Clarke knows he has got an inhuman task in his hand ahead of the Ashes and once again, he will have to assume the identity of the great 'Allan Border', a trobleshooter. So international cricket is ready for a huge turnaround, watch out for the exciting times ahead.

Film Essay: Dead Man Walking

There are some things in our lives that rejuvenate us, please us and make us happy. Along with them come the ugly, menacing occurrences that infuriate us. But for now, I’m concentrating on something which really makes my everyday a pleasant one and for those who knows me pretty closely, it should come as no surprise that ‘movies’ are that divine works of art that I worship and which in turn serve my noble purpose of entertaining myself. And God, didn’t I witness something ‘divine’ yesterday? ‘Dead Man Walking’ is a movie directed by Mr. Tim Robbins who is an accomplished actor in his own regard. The movie stars some of the finest actors of our cinematic age; viz. Sean Penn and Susan Sarandon, and mark my words, without the wizardry of these fine actors, this movie would have been far, far away from the iconic status that it’s enjoying today. As Roger Ebert, the world’s greatest movie critic, rightly commented, ‘this movie ennobles the art of moviemaking’ and yesterday after watching it

Daniel Day Lewis on his way to acting immortality

A few days ago, I wrote a piece on Daniel Day Lewis stellar performances in films like 'In the name of the father' and 'The last of the mohicans' and made a small mention of his revered performance in Speilberg's magnum opus 'Lincoln'. This year, as everyone knows, he is nominated for the 'best actor' oscar for his 'miraculous' performance in 'Lincoln' for playing the titular role of the movie. Last time, when I wrote that piece, frankly speaking, till that time, I hadn't watched his performance in 'Lincoln' and the reason behind my writing such good things about Lewis is just the credibility that he brings to the silver screen which leads one to believe that he must have delivered something legendary. Well stellar is too mild an 'adjective' to describe 'Lewis' performances anymore and should be stopped using by the critics in Daniel's context. This time around, he has literally 'galvanised' e