Movie Ramblings

I was sitting in a friend's room watching new movie trailers and I suddenly realized, "This is a good time to be alive!".

If you are a fan of rock music (like my younger brother is), you'd probably wish you had been around to witness first-hand the growth of rock 'n roll, and experience the headiness of knowing this was as good as it would ever get, in the 60's and early 70's. Anyone who's seen Almost Famous will probably flashback to those scenes to picture what I aim to convey.

I love movies, and I absolutely relish good-looking movies. People like me, who derive a special pleasure from watching movies with geat cinemaography, sets, lighting, camera work, have never had it so good.

My favourite type of look is dark, moody, tense. Here are some movies/scenes off the top of my head that I like primarily or partly for their visual merit:

1) the yellow-tinted Kaante with jerky shots (e.g. the last big scene when all the main players have drawn guns and the camera goes round the actors in circles)
2)nearly all of Sin City, Underworld etc.
3)the last slaughter scenes in Apocalypse Now - the movie is the most beautifully shot movie I have ever seen, and the scene when Charlie Sheen comes out of the lake covered in mud is God's own work
4)lots of rainy scenes - Chandrachud Singh lying and crying in the mud in Kya Kehna when he finds out Preity Zinta is pregnant, a drenched and drunk Ethan Hawke under Michelle Pfeiffer's balcony in Great Expectations, Raveena Tandon dancing on top of a building under construction in Mohra (that I devoted a post to in Bhoot), rain in LOTR, and newer movies like V for Vendetta and Ek Khiladi Ek Hasina (they both look good in the trailers).
5)the fabulous opening 5 minutes of black and white footage of the Nazi camps in X-Men
6)Yeh Duniya Agar Mil Bhi Jaaye in Guru Datt's Pyaasa - haven't watched the entire movie but would love to
7)the scene where Humprey Bogart is drunk in his bar after closing time in Casablanca - "Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world, she had to walk into mine."
8)Ardh Satya and other movies of that era that I have missed but feel very strongly I'll enjoy
9)Abhishek Bachchan telling his father he killed his brother in Sarkar - I was so unhappy after watching Sarkar because I thought RGV did all the hard work and still managed to not make a brilliant movie.

Some scenes speak so eloquently that they become the points around which the viewer stretches the entire movie. I remember my favourite movies as a jumbled montage of powerful scenes.
This extends to books and music as well.

I remember Harry Potter IV (the book - the movie didn't do this as well as I imagined it, in fact I wrote a detailed screenplay for this scene) for the scene when Dumbledore blasts the hell out of Crouch Jr. and shows just why he was so feared and respected among the magical community, and li'l Harry sees Dumby for more than just a benign grandfather-figure.

And I love so many songs for their little/long solos (Fade to Black, Fear of the Dark, Highway Star, November Rain) or for the inflexion points that make the song leap from temporary favourite to work-stopping involving (Layla's piano piece, With or Without You, Don't Cry, Jab Kisi Ki Taraf etc etc).

But good looks can only get a movie so far. Look at what happened to the two Matrix sequels.
What I really wanted to say was that I really love the trailers of many movies only to be disappointed with the complete product. And this is true for both the 'ollywoods.

I believe the movie industry in India is world-class or close when it comes to publicity - trailers, teasers, item numbers (look at the promotional video for Bluffmaster), or set design and aesthetics (Lagaan, Black, HDDCS etc.).
It is a joy to watch movie trailers of the better produced movies that most TV channels believe should receive top billing during the evening hours, and that MTV and V believe ought to be priority programming for the Generation-X/Y, whichever we are, and then a proportionate disappointment to watch the promise being betrayed in the complete movie.

Sadly, we lag far behind in terms of quality stories and screenplays, and even direction. I think we have actors who can match the best, if only they were put to test.
In fact, it is misleading to claim we 'lag behind' because Hollywood produces lots of rubbish too, and their rubbish takes many times more money to produce too, so at least we match their abysmal quality with fewer resources. However, Hollywood simply produces so many more movies and of such varied themes that India may never be able to match their range, even if we do match their best as we have earlier.

Not only are the majority of our movies severely limited in scope, most directors/producers manage to screw movies on themes that ought to be their strengths with equal consistency.

For example, I enjoyed DDLJ immensely - I found it witty, musical, unabashedly filmi and quintessentially Bollywood, and by extension Indian, in the values it espoused.
However I was very disappointed with the half that I saw of Mohabbatein by the same director - tired, cliched, soppy, and sweeter than a syrup-drenched jalebi. I didn't realize it then but that started the hero's journey towards metrosexuality and super-sensitivity that was perfected in Kal Ho Na Ho and cemented in other productions from the house of Johar/Chopra that must now make movies only for gays/giggly girls.

I started writing this to declare I was entralled by King Kong, and am now convinced that Peter Jackson is the film director to make a multiple-part Mahabharat that will be the greatest movies the world will ever see, and then I can die peacefully. If the Mahabharat TV series can be bettered, only Peter Jackson can do it.

I believe there are some abilities that some directors have almost by instinct, and others don't, that make some movies life-changing, and others intellectually stimulating or simply entertaining.

One of the most important is the intuitive ability to cast right.

Quentin Tarantino has it. All four of his movies I have seen (Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs, Kill Bill 1 and 2) have been cast perfectly. It is impossible to imagine any actor who could have fitted better as the character he/she played.

Peter Jackson has it. Naomi Watts was perfect. She was the right mixture of beauty, poignancy, courage and humour. Naomi Watts was, in KD's words, a heartbreaker. Nobody else would have done.
Adrien Brody was perfect. Somehow, someone who looked like a movie star would have ruined it.
Peter Jackson handled even the love scenes (the scene in which Naomi Watts catches the gaze of Adrien Brody while shooting on the ship is pure magic) so well that I'm convinced he's the one who can do it all - epics, love stories, human dramas, all combined. Hence Mahabharat, since it is one epic that combines politics, history and human drama into a story that has as many layers as your understanding of people allows you to unpeel, and requires the highest talent to be handled well.

Bryan Singer has it too. The X-Men movies are perfectly casted, as are the LOTR movies, except that I thought Viggo Mortensen's voice in the third movie was a little high considering he made two big speeches.
Hugh Jackman as Wolverine is perfect. Ian Mackellen is brilliant as both Gandalf and as Magneto. He would've made the perfect Dumbledore too, the right mixture of wit, underlying ruthlessness and kindness. But I'll let that pass because the Harry Potter movies have been improving with every subsequent movie, and the fourth was pretty good, partly due to the delectable Emma Watson who also acted very well.

Among Indian directors, Rakesh Roshan, Raj Kumar Santoshi, Karan Johar are some of the contemporary fillm directors who posess that elusive ability to make movies that appeal. Somehow, they make movies that communicate with the inherent Indianness in us, often perpetuating cliches and regressive or outmoded values but all the same, striking a chord.

A related point is that I think Hrithik Roshan is an ass. I inform people on the first ocassion I get what an ass I think he is and I think I might as well put it in print and speak to all my fans at once.
I think the above is the behind (joke) because he doesn't play to his strengths, and he does have a major strength. He is the best dancer the industry has ever seen. He killed them in KNPH, and he danced like a dream in the Home Trade ad that used to come on TV many years back, before Home Trade was exposed for the fraud it was.
I haven't seen Saturday Night Fever (although would love to, so please lend if you have it and earn my undying gratitude) and I don't recollect much of Disco Dancer, but I get a strong feeling that in the hands of a capable and shrewd director - read Rakesh Roshan since Duggu baba's has had a 100% success rate with Papa and a 0% rate with everyone else, which naturally says something about his lack of judgement rather than ability - a mixture of the two dance-driven movies can propel Hrithik once again to national heartthrob status.
I mean, no one dances like him and the dude tries to beat SRK at weeping in KKKG, or Ajay Devgan's nice-guy act in HDDCS with his own in the one with Esha Deol (why is Esha Deol still in the movies? and Tushar Kapoor too - they look like brother and sister to me, somehow).
He should be having dance-driven movies made for him, and instead is trying to fit into existing stereotypes. I wish I was his agent.
I'm certain Kkrish will be a big hit, whatever else it may/may not be. Rakesh Roshan knows his stuff. He's not brilliant, but effective.

Martin Scorcese, on the other hand, hasn't impressed in the 2.5 movies I have seen of his. But I will reserve judgement until I see Raging Bull and Taxi Driver.

Steven Spielberg too has a similar problem. Jurassic Park, Jaws, Indiana Jones etc are great. But his human dramas, though immaculately produced, directed and acted in, lack an undefinable quality that stop them from being truly touching.
For example, Schindler's List has to be his greatest in this genre (haven't seen Amistad, in case you think that is better), is a great movie, intellectually. The use of all black and white is an inspired choice, Ralph Fiennes is adequately chilling, and Ben Kingsley is good too, but the film just does not speak to the heart the way Titanic or Deewar do, and that's the crux of it really.

There's no logic to these things.
Like clothes with lycra, you either have it, or you don't.