Boy doesn't he look like a film maker,thats Jean Luc Goddard,one of the greatest in the French New Wave cinema.

And I am stuck here with mid-sems now,haven't seen any of his work :(

Thought of applying to FTII yesterday :P.

Patton!

I finally managed to see Patton and I knew I won't be able to write a review for the movie even before the first half was completed. I don't know why but I haven't been able to review movies which touched me;movies like Ran,Pather Panchali,Nuovo Cinema Paradiso and now Patton. Yesterday during my NMIMS gd,quoted Ingmar Bergman.Here's the quote

Film as dream, film as music. No form of art goes beyond ordinary consciousness as film does, straight to our emotions, deep into the twilight room of the soul.

Variant translation: Film as dream, film as music. No art passes our conscience in the way film does, and goes directly to our feelings, deep down into the dark rooms of our souls.

I think in some way I am experiencing,what he thought.

About Patton only thing I would say is, that George C Scott is brilliant,I loved him in Dr.Strangelove and he has exceeded my expectations in this one.

Although George S Patton might kick me for this or might smile in acknowledgment but I guess its good to keep your mouth shut,when you are not good at it.

Eklavya

I was never through with giving stars to movies,never understood them and those reviews in times.Anyways I just saw Eklavya,here's a small review.Eklavya by the way is a character in the Mahabharata.

Shot in all splendor and awe of Udaipurit is a treat to eyes,with modern film making techniques and some graphics adding the final touch .Good editing and some great cinematography make movie the technically very sound,but the catch in movie making is that scripts and plots are its basic foundation and eklavya's script is pretty trite for that matter.

But Vidhu Vinod Chopra is not a man you could just write off so easily, he definitely is a brave filmmaker I would say. There are two brilliant scenes in the movie which I'd would like to talk about, although as I had already mentioned the movie itself is quite a treat to the eyes. There's a scene where Eklavya shows his magic with accuracy,when throws his dagger to cut a tinkle bell tied to pigeon's legs without hurting the pigeon and catches it when it falls back,doing all this while he is blind-folded.Pigeons have long been in Chopra's movies,may be from parinda.

The second one is the dark scene where Eklavya avenges the death of his Rana and there's absolute darkness in the hall for three minutes,experimentation like that is definitely commendable.Of course finally just one song is a great relief,a transition I hope to see in more hindi movies.

I am not too gung-ho about Amitabh's performance,I was watching Toshiro Mifune's acting in Rashomon again today before I went for the movie,though it would be incongruous to compare the two performances, I would say I don't find anybody in our industry who can come up with a performance like that. Amitabh surely sets high standards in Indian film industry but after watching so much of world cinema,I don't rate this one as something out of this world.

As for eklavya I would say go see it once,the shots look good on big screen,but dont expect too much out of the script.

By the way just for sake of mentioning, now that I have started devoting pretty less time to blogging and as writing is not something that comes to me naturally I know my posts wont make any great pieces of literary work. If blogging is to serve purpose , it would be to help me refine and collect my thoughts and probably serve a future reference to me,of what I have done in my life.


Just came across this weird but brilliant photograph by Philippe Halsman based on painting by Salvador Dali.This photograph was in someway an inspiration for the poster of silence of the lambs.The butterfly in the posters for the movie appears to have a human skull at its center. However, upon close inspection, this "skull" turns out to be at least three naked women (clearly seven in some versions of the poster),much similar the photograph by Halsman.Another great photograph by him is portrait of Einstein looking very sad and this one of Monroe jumping, from his famous series on celebrities.

Movies that I saw recently

Here are the some of the movies that I saw recently

1. Sunset Blvd: Gloria Swanson is amazing,this will surely barge in my all time favorites list soon,the opening shot is amazing and ofcourse Gloria,just can't help talking about her,pity she missed an oscar.
2. Nuovo Cinema Paradiso: Young toto is wonderful,touchy and emotional storyline.Great movie and an awesome soundtrack
3. Water: Some real heart wrenching scenes
4. Pan's Labyrinth: Good movie,but fantasy is surely not my cup of tea,but reality and fantasy are nicely inter wined in the movie
5.Hero: I like japanese action more,those jaw dropping,newton defying stunts just don't impress me much.Movie scores very well on color theme effects, direction and the scale and aura of the some shots.

I will surely write more about Sunset Blvd one of these days,just not in the mood to write much.

Currently reading "What should I do with my life",by Po Bronson.