monsanto - more monstrous than before

monsanto is scary.
the extent to which they will go to dominate world food production, thus annihilating anyone who stands in their path is documented beautifully in "the world according to monsanto".

read the review here and watch the video here.

monsanto's all pervasiveness in our lives is highlighted in april davila's daring 'month without monsanto'.

ananthoo and his friends are on a Monsanto-Quit India campaign.

watched peepli (live)

for a blog which has a tag on 'sainath', peepli (live) has nothing new to tell.
but it tells a familiar story in a very entertaining manner.
a story not so much on the farmer suicide issue as much as about the television media.
through most of the movie i was chuckling.
the news channels have been hilariously ripped apart for their TRP-crazed approach to journalism.

in general, this movie has given many urban residents/viewers a first look into the depressing life of debt-ridden farmers. and many of the oohs and aahs and ouches seem to be emanating from this crew. the final scenes segueing (always wanted to use this word) into credits stating "8 million farmers have quit farming from 1991 to 2001" attempt to re-remind the audience of the grimness underlying the story.
will it provoke them to dig deeper and ask some tough questions?
it will. at least as much as TZP and 3 Idiots got the very same crew to mull over the issue of school and college education.
which is - not much enough.

for movies to be both entertaining and seriously thought-provoking, go see anbe sivam and arai en 305il kadavul.
interestingly both these films flopped while peepli (live) is a hit.

watch this very space to see how many farmers quit farming between 2001 and 2011. it could be in excess of 25 million...

you can read brangan's and sukanya's reviews for their take.

2012 is watchable

am generally ok with doomsday scenarios as i believe that our depredations of the earth will, at some stage, come back to doom us.

2012 deals with such a scenario, albeit with a strong dash of mythology rather than aforementioned depredations.
i loved the SFX and the general scientific drift of the story, but could not stand the hero/family drama that linked the series of events.
somehow i could lose them in the overall plot just staring at the background where nature is going berserk.
and jimi mistry as the indian astro-physicist is quite appalling.

overall, i would recommend this movie as watchable.

tum mile mein kilometer

tum mile (तुम मिले) is a recently released hindi movie.
while google's transliterate cleverly and correctly make mile into मिले, it just makes me exceedingly curious on why would one want to write hindi titles/words with the same unphonetic structure that is english.

kamal - 50 years and counting

i grew up on kamal (and rajinikanth).
but kamal was always the main man.
from an inexplicable juvenile star-struck teenager to an explicable mature star-struck adult.
that's been one of the journeys that i continue to cherish.

more so, when i saw the celebrations of kamal's 50 years in cinema.
over 3 hours of people lavishing praise over praise on kamal (what else, one would say).
but nothing felt over-saccharine.
everyone (other than the nauseating anchors) behaved like a bunch of students saying their thank-yous to their fantastic teacher.
only that the teacher is still going to continue to teach them.

2 speeches just blew me away.
the last 2.
the penultimate was rajini's memorable anecdotes:

Rajinikanth in his speech referred to Kamal as “Kalai Ulagam Anna. Rajini added that he has enough material to speak on Kamal’s achievements for two days and in 1975 when he joined movies Kamal was already a very big star and could have easily overshadowed him in the 10 odd films they did together.

“ He never interfered with my character or tried to cut me down in any of the films we did together. Please note as a star he was much bigger than me and any director would have gladly chopped my role or refused to cast me, if Kamal had asked them. But after Ninaithale Inikkum, he called me and told me that it is better for my growth as a hero if we do not work together, and I gained by it,” was Rajinikanth’s simple straightforward explanation.

and so much more...

and kamal responds, like only he can.
first on the statuettes of his parents that his fans gift him:

i don't consider my parents as dead. they continue to live in my fans

and responding to rajini's anecdote, he brings forth their intimate friendship to the public eye.

Which actor in the world will be so honest and straight forward in his talk? There were stars before us but they were never as friendly as we were, and we have proved that two top actors can be healthy rivals. Rajinikanth will always remain my best friend forever.

and he remained dry eyed through his speech at the end of which he goes down on his knees and prostrates in front of the entire audience.
WOW level.

signing off,
unabashed mega fan of kamal

bollywood expert on the expressway

a certain Mr. S Khan plies his taxi up and down the mumbai-pune route.
this is his drive for basic sustenance.

i had the good fortune of using his services on both legs of my pune trip yesterday.
we got warmed up on the way to pune when he played some very nice classic songs.

on the return, since he had run out of cassettes (yes there are people who still use them), i created a playlist of around 30 songs and played them from my laptop.

this got his juices flowing and for the next 2.5 hours, i was amazed by his bollywood bhakti:
1. for almost every song, he knew the movie, the producer, the director, the lyricist, the story writer and for some even the year of release!
2. i even tested him with a very old song from shehnai (aana meri jaan sunday ke sunday). he guessed from the tune and rhythm that it was by C Ramachandra. on which, i said, gotcha! the singer was a certain chitalkar as recorded in my playlist. turns out that they are the same :-)

some exciting tidbits from the exchange:
1. dil hai ki maanta nahin is a remake of chori chori. raja hindustani is a remake of jab jab phool khile. these 2 are well known facts. but he also insisted that lagaan is fully inspired by naya daur.
2. his four most respected bollywood people/families are: naushad, majrooh sultanpuri, rafi and pran. his criteria were simpicity, how they treated others (including rivals) and how they raised their kids. here is a great piece on naushad and rafi combo.
3. zeenat aman's father was a co-writer of mughal-e-azam.
4. kishore kumar and lata mangeshkar almost formed a coterie/monopoly in the late 70s and early 80s not allowing new singers to breakthrough.
5. hrishikesh mukherjee could not afford kishore kumar for rajesh khanna in anand and hence plumped for manna dey to come up with the classic - zindagi kaisi hai paheli.

2.5 hours which made my month.

11th hour

saw the 11th hour (T1H) last evening.
in combination with the inconvenient truth (TIC), this movie raises much needed awareness on imminent and important issues around human existence.

while TIC was about one man's mission, T1H serenades a bunch of great experts to talk about their specific understanding of the issues facing the earth.

3 particulars notable and striking points were made by:

1. Oren Lyons - "And in time, it (the earth) will regenerate, and all the lakes will be pristine. The rivers, the waters, the mountains, everything will be green again. It will be peaceful. There may not be people, but the earth will regenerate. And you know why? Because the earth has all the time in the world. And we don’t. So I think that’s where we’re at right now."(emphasis mine)
2. David Suzuki - "I see a world in the future in which we understand that all life is related to us and we treat that life with great humility and respect. I see us as well as social creatures, and when I began to look back and say, 'what is the fundamental bottom line for us as social creatures?'...I couldn't believe it because it seemed so hippy dippy, but it was Love. Love is the force that makes us fully human."
3. Paul Hawken - " We need to be slower; we need to be smarter. Slow means disengaging from consumerism as the main avenue of experience. It doesn’t reject any consumption, but it says, “We’re not going to live our lives mediated by stuff sold out there in the market. We’re not going to base our identities and our meaning on what we buy. Instead of the long commute, the bigger car, the bigger house, let’s enjoy the local produce and have time to ourselves. Let’s understand that things are thieves of time because the more things you have, the more time you have to spend working to pay for them, the more your life is chained to a rhythm of perpetual purchase.
Being smart means reintroducing a term from before the Industrial Revolution—frugality. Frugality does not mean poverty or deprivation. It means the wise use of resources."

i liked T1H's approach to portray the immense potential and challenges that we face as a species and how solutions are well within our reach and the call for individual, collective and political action.
do watch.

obligatory slumdog post

slumdog millionaire has given mumbai's tourism industry a shot in the arm.

15 years or so ago, the Indians became the focus of the beauty industry and promptly Sush and Ash walk away with the Universe and World titles.
i feel slumdog is a receipient of in a very similar lines - the entertainment industry.

for the record - i saw the movie and would have walked out in the middle if not for the fancy money i spent.
but, my liking it or not is not relevant.

i think ARRahman deserves all the accolades that come his way.
his talent coupled with his humility will be inspirations for me. he beautifully said in his acceptance speech - Ella pughazhum iraivanukke (எல்லா புகழும் இரைவனுக்கே) - God is the one who deserves all the fame.
lovely sentiment.

rest i dont want to waste any breath.

Flow - movie on water crisis

today's daily good led me onto this interesting movie - Flow.
talks about the water crisis.
the trailer is here.

i expect that it features the stories from india - plachimada, mehdiganj, kala dera, etc.

on this same note read this nat geo article on 'bottled water vs tap water' and the accompanying smashing photo.

swept away by development

remember 'swades'-starring shah rukh khan. it was a real life story.
the place where the micro-dam was built to generate electricity was scheduled for submergence under the sardar sarovar project and it has met its fate.

this is a fantastic piece of coverage, by madhukar.

the last post on dasavatharaam

this is the third (and certainly the last) on the same topic in a week.
this could be either:
1. kamal's genius OR
2. overworked high IQ brain of a true fan.

he (true fan) has explained the 10 avtaars and their connection to the avtaars of vishnu. i am inclined to believe in no.1.

either which way, it is close to genius.

btw - the net is going just ballistic over dsvthrm, dunno about the box-office.

dasavathaaram - review

well, well and well.
first day last show happened.
just after i had finished writing about it here, i landed up at the swankiest theater in mumbai and easily got 2 tickets.
felt wonderful at the start to be surrounded by fellow tams.

ok, here are some other reviews.
1. rediff raves repetitively.
2. a disappointed fan writes.
3. the hindu is congratulatory.

i had a above average experience with the film and more later on some details.
i think overall, the film will perform badly as it is certainly nowhere close to the hype created.

the things i liked:
1. the premise of the script and the story: very well written story and concepts and linkages between the different characters and events.
2. kamal is certainly outstanding as each of the 10 avtaars. especially his voice modulation is brilliant. that some of them were really unnecessary comes later.
3. casting - it was good to see a lot of earlier generation actors and actresses in action. the surprise packet is certainly mallika sherawat. short and spunky role she does. kamal does little justice when he says - "she is there for the same reason she is there in other movies"
4. one of the beauties of kamal's writing, is the subtle gems he places in scenes and dialogues. lots of that here, especially in the role of an dalit activist, who takes on the sand mafia (those who illegally dredge river-beds and are creating a environmental disaster). the climax has his japanese character screaming tsunami!!
5. the last climax special effects of the tsunami was spectacular.

some sore points:
1. the heroine, as in, asin, is asinine. screechy and high pitched and cringe-worthy.
2. too long. at least 30 mins of chases and fights and violence could have been deleted. the editor seems to have gone to sleep doing his job.
3. the direction was really not there. the super-hit maker k s ravikumar should have done a much better job. kamal-worship reeks right through his efforts.
4. make up quality was sub-par. the overdone-noses (i should know!!) really gave it away. i think the earlier efforts in indian (hindustani)/avvai shanmugi (chachi 420) were far superior.
5. 1 role too many. the afghan (khalif ullah) was certainly completely unnecessary.

overall i would end by saying that i could watch it one more time. to understand some of the subtle messages better. hoping that enough viewer feedback will flow by that time for the editor to do some snipping.

dasavathaaram releases today

one of the frenziest movie releases in recent times - dasavathaaram - releases today.
kamal will always be my all time no. 1 favourite and in spite of his earlier hyped movies, i remain a true bhakth.
the pre-release digest. with links to tons of articles, interviews and total gushing adulation.
rediff has an entire section.

planning to watch it asap.

will you kill yourself

saawariya is the most anticipated movie of the year.
i am certain that it is likely to be constipating.

while it means a well intentioned "beloved/darling" in hindi, it means "will you kill yourself" in tamil.
ouchie.

black + google = blackle

search now has a super cool page from, who else...google.
go to blackle for a new search experience (visually only).

and the logic is here.
this is one thing which is brilliant and not at the same time.

in sivaji-the boss, rajini becomes fair when the heroine says his black colour is a mismatch. and he goes "oru koodai sunlight, oru koodai moonlight, idhudhane yen white" (one basket of sunlight and one basket of moonlight equals my white).
while the mathematics is suspect, the concept is colour transformation and the song is one rocking hip hop number.

and google goes the other way from white to black. just as rocking :-)

summa athirathu illa.
more later on this !!

love is god

saw a fantastic tamil movie - anbe sivam - over the weekend.

it is an outstanding movie from all aspects.

the lyrics here i share are something which seared me. given in tamil and my interpretation.

aatthigam paesum adiyaarkellaam sivamae anbaagum,
aatthigam vaesum nallavarukkoe anbae sivamaagum

siva (god) means love to the siva bhakts (adiyaar) who chant his name (believers)
love mean siva (god) to the 'saints'/good men (nallavar) who discard/disregard religion (agnostics)

there is a real parallel in my mind to gandhi's definition of truth. when everyone said
'god is truth', he said 'truth is god' (satya hi eashwar hai).