Winds From The East

Osiris83 I woke up with mist in my eyes and milky walls all around. It was gone, everything; they were gone, everyone; empty shelves, everywhere. All I could see were white curtains, dangling like puppets, flowing with the breeze in an acquainted yet unfamiliar way. I made my way out of the room, confused and began following the corridor which seemed endless. The challis curtains across the corridors shielded my view and slapped across my face. Unable to view what lied ahead I kept walking. At last I could feel it. As I felt the wind, I knew the end is near. I walked even faster. And there it was, an endless sea with a small island. I swam across the endless sea, against the tide. At times my mind asked me let go but the sight of the island kept me going. Fatigued yet determined I swam towards the island. All I could see was a white tree with someone or something staring away towards the endless ocean. I slowly succumbed to the voices in my mind and decided to let go....

Osiris83 Taare Zameen Par The good – For some odd reason I want to watch this movie again. Taare Zameen Par is a gem of a movie carrying one of the most enthralling performances by a child actor. Not to forget the other actors as well. The kid actually takes the entire movie on his own till the interval which is when Aamir Khan makes his entry.As the directorial debut of Aamir Khan the movie definitely lives upto the expectations. Its emotional to the core and if you don’t like it you are probably a soul-less bastard.TZP makes its way to my list of ‘favourite bollywood movies of 2007′. FYI, the list includes ‘Black Friday’ and ‘Bheja Fry’. The bad – I actually cannot nitpick anything (I just don’t want to) in the movie except that it could have used some more animation/claymation sequences which bring the kid’s delusions on the screen. The experience - I hate morning shows, especially on weekends. Also, I wasn’t expecting much from this movie because of the plethora of bollywood c...

Supriya Suri Studying in a French school and not knowing the language, I sat in the projection room waiting for the movie to begin and hoping SANS TOIT NI LOI will be played with English subtitles, and guess what lady lucky was on my side. And their started my short journey to see a journey of Mona (played by Sandrine bonnair) SANS TOIT NI LOI "Without roof or law" V A G A B O N D The middle path as the philosopher quipped is the path between freedom and loneliness, a path which Agnes Varda has preferred for herself in Cinema, known for her honesty and originality as a filmmaker. And her methodology and aesthetics which are deeply rooted in documentary realism and feminist issues. While a thin red line of social commentary cane be seen running through her movies. Vagabond is about Mona who wonders and withers from one place to another affecting the lives of people before her death due to Hypothermia. The interesting part is the way how the narrative flows and the st...

Osiris83 His Master's Voice I'm a sucker for comic flicks. Seriously, who isn't? Yeah, there are a few weirdoes, and I have the delight of knowing few of them. Suckers who need a reason to laugh. Anyway, that’s probably not the topic I'm going to write about. So here we go. Stay with me fellas, this is going to be insane, totally. Let’s see, since we started talking about the comedy genre lets continue with that. In 2000 Priyadarshan released a movie titled 'Hera Pheri'. A remake of the Tamil film 'Arangetra Velai' which was it a remake of the Mallu film 'Ramji Rao Speaking'. 'Hera Pheri' was a nice movie, no doubt, but the genre has slowly gone down the drain after that. There is shit-loads of new stuff released every year. First time you watch them 10 giggles + 2 laughs. Next time, 5 giggles + 1 laugh. The third time… Well! There is no reason to w...

Supriya Suri " We'll always have Paris Casablanca I haven't started eating blueberry pies like Norah Jones, but I finally managed to watch a Wong Kar Wai movie on the “Big Screen” . While in India one could watch WKW movies only on Bootleg copies or purchase an original DVD/ VCD of 2046, the only WKW movie distributed officially in India by 20 th Century Fox. Even before I left for Paris , my dream was to watch a WKW movie in the theatre, a dream unlinke the protagonist of WKW who keep wandering for destinations, but I finally found mine here in Paris . My Blueberry Nights is yet another movie about loss, love and meditation by the most stylish post-modern auteur to emerge from Hong Kong . This is WKW first foray in an English language domain, and sure the movie lives up to the brand name that has become WKW- lush, stylish and well composed visual and music which acts as a let motif throughout the movie, and characters who quote as they please from literature pre...

Osiris83 OM SHANTI OM The good – Deepika Padukone on the big screen. The Bad – Alright, I get it, they wanted to make a commercial movie. They have been masturbating over this fact during the previews and the commercials everywhere. But, god damn, there are better masala movies. The main problem in this movie is the fact that this is not a movie. Its a shameless, blatant, self publicizing advertisement for SRK. The guy is OLD, admit that. He looks absolutely ridiculous opposite Padukone. Secondly, the guy cannot do any comedy. The film simply ripped an IQ point from my head each time he acted funny and more than one IQ point when Arjun Rampal (the main antagonist) even tries to act. So finally, why the fuck did I watch this movie? Because I got free tickets for platinum seats. A velvet couch where someone twice my size can sit comfortably. Plus, free snacks, popcorn and a cold drink. Heck, I would have gone for the Himesh movie for this deal. JAB WE MET The good – 2 jokes....may...

One of the most annoying and frustrating things is to watch the cursor blink and blink in MS Word. As if it's mocking you .. Come, Come Fucker, write something, and let’s see if you got what it takes to fill blank pages with verse. Besides I’m sure writing and procrastinating go hand in hand, unless given a deadline writing certainly is one of the most frustrating and relaxing jobs in the world. I’m sure everyone one of us must have confronted with the question; “What to write”. Why is it always so difficult to pen down our own thoughts on anything. Like I always think I have so much to write, but each day I do my best to avoid writing. Though at least writing as an art form does achieves what it sets out to achieve and stands above cinema in it’s testament for freedom of expression. Even if you are never published in your lifetime, you do have chances of being read or even achieving immortality – Kafka. On the other hand, As Andrei Tarkovsky once said, "Cinema can never be ...

Osiris 83 It’s really weird when the blurring between reality and dreams starts fading away. Life is no longer in the binary mode, where everything can be classified as either real or imaginary. It’s ridiculously insane as if someone planted some memories into your fucking brain and you have no idea whether those events actually happened or it’s just something you are making up. Something similar was happening to me. I couldn’t exactly recall but there were certain events which happened in the night and I was unable to recall the sequence of these events. Drinking coffee in the balcony and trying to find some meaning in the strange patterns I observe, be it clouds or the floor tiles, is something which gives me a natural high. The patterns mean nothing just like life. There is no sense of connection between any two patterns/events in life. It’s just bland. Thinkers have spent eons finding the purpose of our lives. Pessimists would say maybe life has no purpose at all, ...

...out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more; it is a tale Told by an idiot, Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. (Macbeth) One of my most memorable moments while playing a video game has been standing on the quiet beautiful green hill in Dragon Quest 8 and observing the sun set and the sun rise, watching the moon and the star shining brightly in the sky, and the cool breeze blowing made me feel alive, and I could feel the morning dew, and the smell of fresh grass gave me a sense of living. I like journeys, it could be in any form - literature, music, video games, cinema and life. Each of them has a special quality attached to it. Playing Dragon Quest 8 for over two years and just taking in things slowly and letting it slip and sink made the whole journey amazing. I still haven’t completed the game and it doesn’t bother me a bit, for me it's the journ...

The title may sound like Fritz Lang's M, but it is no where related to the great film maker’s masterpiece. So, then, who is P, you may ask? He is a man, no greater than a man, no greater than other, but no other is greater than he. Moreover, unlike Orsen Welles mystery Rosebud, P is lot cooler and alive in flesh and blood. Perhaps to better illustrate and explain the man, the one person he resembles not in size but in his contribution to cinema is Henri Langlois. Though both their path’s and their methodology are different, but one thing that binds them is their passion and love for the medium. I bumped into P in a very peculiar fashion; I was wandering around in search for Ozu and his works, after having read the Tokyo Story review by Roger Ebert. It was way back during my 12 th standard board exams, while the rest of my classmates were busy studying Physics. I was busy reading film reviews and articles between those thick science books. No wonder I barely managed to p...

OMG! Wikipedia is gone! I’ll flunks my exams! I really love this quote on the Wikipedia website which is asking people for donations. Somewhere down the line it’s very true that the online encyclopedia has become a cultural phenomenon with CUT/COPY and PASTE. Now, I don’t have a clue how much teachers, lecturers abroad look into the thesis or practical work submitted by the students. But as far as our Indian colleges and schools are concerned, no one is bothered. First of all, I have failed to understand the value of giving assignments to students in colleges here, as none of the assignments are ever read by the teachers, because they all know that the source from where the student is doing such hard work is the Internet. No wonder, even prestigious universities in India, such as the IITs, and JNU ever feature in the top universities list in the world. The problem does not lie with the student, but with the overall teaching methodology of our Indian Universities, and the way they opera...

The blank page is a true mirror of a man - it makes you think, think and think. And think more. Similarly, the first step, the first day, the first kiss, is always scary, yet there is something very special about it. So what do these two lines have to do with the rest of my post - absolutely nothing? It was just the first thought, and as Jack Kerouac said: “The first thought is always the best thought”. Then Hell yeah! It’s always confusing determining what to write in your first post, as a matter of fact each day on the blog, but like all seers of art say- Write what you know. Now I had tried starting and maintaining a blog couple of years back, but it’s easy to take off, but hard to keep the plane in flight, sooner or later most blogs come crashing down the runaway. And so did my first every foray into blogging. Since the last disaster, I have always thought (everyone who is smitten by the net bug, carries this desire in his heart, to start a blog - someday), Now after nearly three-...