She fluttered her eyelashes at him seductively, pulled him by the collar and whispered into his ear, the words he had been longing to hear in a long long time: “Let’s have a baby.”
And they had their lil’ snack.
Archive For January, 2006
Review: Exorcism of Emily Rose
Scares. Without a doubt.
Cast: Laura Linney, Tom Wilkinson, Campbell Scott, Jennifer Carpenter
Director: Scott Derrickson
Genre: Horror/Thriller
Storyline: Did the devout 19-year old Emily Rose die because of
demonic possession or because she stopped medical treatment?
Bottomline: The perfect date movie
For every two dozen attempts Hollywood makes in manufacturing horror, it succeeds once or twice every year. ‘Exorcism of Emily Rose’ is among the rare horror flicks that succeed in spooking you out, even if it’s just a little.
Though based on the true story of Anneliese Michel, the epileptic German girl who died in 1976 believing she was possessed by demons, the movie dramatises and even heavily fictionalises incidents that, at least, momentarily make you believe that evil exists.
While the Church had declared that Anneliese was not really possessed as she believed, here the writer-director goes the extra yard to convince you about the supernatural.
But what is most fascinating about this horror yarn, apart from its super slick technical brilliance, is the intellectual content that’s rather hard to find in the genre.
If Robert Zemeckis’ ‘Contact’ was about the conflict of science versus religion, Derrickson’s tale here attempts to be a more balanced conflict between doubt and belief. Unlike Eleanor Arroway (Jodie Foster in Contact) who was an atheist, Erin Bruner (Laura Linney) here
is agnostic.
So when you see the whole story of Emily Rose through the eyes of an agnostic, you tend to get involved in the tale with the right mix of doubt and logic. You begin reading up on the true story of the ‘Exorcism of Anneliese Michel’. And, you begin to think of the possibilities. That is where ‘Exorcism of Emily Rose’ succeeds.
Apart from the doses of intrigue, there are moments guaranteed to scare you. College girls shrieked, held each other tightly and giggled at every jolt of horror unleashed upon them. The others tried hard to laugh out loud just to ensure that they don’t get sucked into the tale. The fake laugh in the audience is evidence that the movie does have a pretty neat scare quotient.
With the neat blend of horror, science, logic, scares and thrills, the movie is perfect for the date.
Watch her hold you tight. Put your arms around and enjoy.
(That last line was chopped at the desk because apparently, when I said ‘Enjoy,’ they thought I was talking about the girl … I meant the movie!)
Two terrible to endure!
I guess I’ve been away so long that I haven’t even posted my reviews online. Just dropped in to link my reviews of Zinda and Family, that appeared two Fridays ago.
Talking of which, I still can’t get over the idea of someone making a career of flicking flicks, frame to frame, line by line.
In fact, for the first half of the film, you can simply download the English subtitles for the Korean film Oldboy and watch them along with Zinda and they would perfectly sync in. The only reason he couldn’t reproduce it to that precision in the second half of the movie is because Oldboy involves incest.
A friend of mine tried justifying Gupta’s effort saying that the source (without the permission or consent of the original creator) does not matter as long as the end product is watchable.
That to me is like is stealing someone’s baby and claiming adoption. Nothing wrong with it at all, but do not say it is your baby — that’s insulting the kid and hiding your inability to produce one yourself.
(The above para has been altered to avoid more comments from my ‘holier-than-Thou’ readers)
Watch Oldboy, and you ll see why I say that Sanjay Gupta is a fucking thief.
The biggest assault on my senses was also having to watch Family during the same week. Strictly only for the producer Keshu Ramsay and his immediate family.
Done!
Yesterday was really special. Super special.
It marked the end of a journey that’s taken over six years. I would like to believe I’m done shooting for That Four Letter Word.
Yes, yesterday was the last day of shoot. Now I think I have every bit of footage I need (of course given the constraints of budget) to finish the movie.
I wanted to post a long, elaborate thanksgiving note but I guess I’ll save that for later. Too tired and maybe a little too early considering that we still need to finish the final cut of the edit and wrap up dubbing by the end of the month. Looks like I’ll have a movie on my hands by mid-February. And once its done, I might have to write a bible if I were to mention every single person who has contributed to get us here. I hope to do that too post premiere.
For now, I got to get back to work on the movie.
Just wanted to share my relief and happiness at having completed the entire shoot, including patch work this time.
Finally! 🙂
Done
Yesterday was really special. Super special.
It marked the end of a journey that’s taken over six years. I would like to believe I’m done shooting for That Four Letter Word.
Yes, yesterday was the last day of shoot. Now I think I have every bit of footage I need (of course given the constraints of budget) to finish the movie.
I wanted to post a long, elaborate thanksgiving note but I guess I’ll save that for later. Too tired and maybe a little too early considering that we still need to finish the final cut of the edit and wrap up dubbing by the end of the month. Looks like I’ll have a movie on my hands by mid-February. And once its done, I might have to write a bible if I were to mention every single person who has contributed to get us here. I hope to do that too post premiere.
For now, I got to get back to work on the movie.
Just wanted to share my relief and happiness at having completed the entire shoot, including patch work this time.
Finally! 🙂
Click on the title of this post to see original post with comments.
New Year Special
In the latest He Says She Says column, Shonali and me have fought over New Year resolutions. Just to line to tell you guys that it has been updated on the blog.
Episode 13: New Year Resolutions!
She Says:
The clock struck twelve. The champagne popped open. The lights went out. Fireworks exploded. And then, people began to discuss their new years resolutions.
Someone talked of saving money. Someone else swore to turn vegan. Start exercising. Stop buying shoes. Start writing home. Stop getting drunk. Start helping out at an animal welfare centre. Stop complaining about work.
There’s something so profoundly inspiring about the New Year at midnight.
Are women are better at keeping new year’s resolutions that men?
Maybe.
Are women more likely to make New Year’s resolutions? Oh yeah.
Women always work on changing the way they are. While their male counterparts dunk their faces into the party punch, they’ll plan to work out and detox, start computer classes and learn driving.
If the men make resolutions they’re more likely to plot for cushier circumstances: a bigger car, heftier salary, more powerful job.
Women want all these things too. But when it comes to resolutions, they tend to focus on more personal things: writing more letters to friends, spending more time with their families, keeping a cat. They also realise that resolutions aren’t a wish list to Santa, and keep their goal realistic. Well, ok. Semi-realistic at least.
Now, nobody’s asking you to become one of those cloyingly cheerful types that hits the sack at 7 p.m. with dabs of anti-wrinkle cream under their eyes, so they can start their yoga at 4 a.m.
But making a resolution, and not necessarily a New Year’s R, is not always a bad thing. Those Mercs make their way to your garage eventually, if you work hard enough, and are smart enough.
But if you don’t at least attempt to make to work on yourself, you might just be the fat guy in a sloppy T-shirt that takes delivery of the vehicle.
Alone.
He Says:
There are two ways to spend a moment.
Either spend it instantly — fresh and live — celebrating every ounce of the present.
Or waste it designing, planning or figuring out the future.
Men do it the first way because they don’t feel the need to remind themselves to write letters to friends (when they can just call the bugger), spend time with families (duh? Isn’t that what they do when they are bumming around at home, when the woman is away shopping?) or to keep a cat (for what joy?).
What are resolutions anyways but a things-to-do for the future?
What if the biggest-thing-to-do is life itself?
What if the larger resolution is just to be happy!
The resolutions men make are just more attempts at the sky and reach the tree-top. Men do aim big, you know. They are more imaginative, they do want Santa to keep his job and keep the faith alive in this growingly cynical world.
Besides, men don’t wake up praying to God saying: Oh God, send me my Merc.
They wake up grinning about what they did last night and proceed to things that are right in front of them. They enjoy the present, savour it it to the fullest and live life moment-to-moment.
When one step at a time does take them places, why would they waste precious moments speculating how many steps it takes and then some more frequently comparing if they are as per schedule, in sync with earlier plans?
Yeah, it’s not the destination that matters for men. Or calculating how to get there. It’s the journey of taking different routes, driving different cars or just exploring the vibrant walks of life.
A fat guy in a sloppy T-shirt is a man at peace with himself. He can help himself to yet another beer without having the need to watch his paunch, eat a few more chocolates and make the buffet true value for money. And maybe some day, he would wake up for the walk to the gym.
And hey, not all those who are alone are lonely. The explorers that men are, some like to keep their baggage light.
Besides, it’s more fun driving a different Merc everyday, just to go see the face of the loser — the loser who just spent half a fortune to stick to one Merc just to drive his pampered wife to work and back, with an annoying cat in the backseat. The loser who will probably spend the rest of his life writing letters to friends.
Bound.
Statement of Purpose 2006
Having skateboarded through life all these years, today I stand at this point where I have less than 400 days to go before I turn 30.
Year-ends make for great introspection. That time of the year when you get nostalgic. You get together with buddies, think about the New years you spent together, things you resolved about and the hyper-enthusiasm with which you fondly once used to welcome the New Year with.
This year, when we saw two drunk men on a motorcycle scream “Happy New Year” to each other, we couldn’t understand what the revelry and happiness was all about. That, clearly, was a sign. We were getting old. We were asking questions, questioning the very purpose of celebration.
Because, there are no answers to such questions. You just celebrate. It’s that simple.
These men were happy about something. Happy about nothing in particular, but life in general. For them, it was the beginning of a new chapter of their lives. They, like most of us, truly believed that life had something beautiful in store for them. It was that psychological device that helped them put their past behind and start afresh.
As a kid, you never questioned that. You never questioned your existence. Never questioned purpose. It was all as simple as: I want to be a pilot and fly planes. Or I want to be a doctor and save lives. Or I want to be an engineer and build homes. Or I want to join the army. Or be a journalist. Or, to speak for the current generation, be a CEO or a COO of a software/IT/BPO multi-national company.
But is succeeding in being what you choose to be the very purpose of existence?
I’m not sure.
Because, from where I stand today, I have done reasonably well for myself as a journalist and not bad for a struggling filmmaker, managing to shoot my first film, twice, irrespective of the limitations and challenges it faced. I also know have a rough roadmap of what I want to do, what I call a vision statement. But is that “vision statement” the purpose of my life?
I really do not know.
Though it may sound too early to talk about a “vision statement” when I’m still hardly famous and have a long way to go, I do like to dream aloud, just to give it some shape and clarity.
I want to finish That Four Letter Word this year and sell it for what it’s worth. I want to pay and repay every single person who has been a part of this project the first time and the second.
I want to market it good enough to produce my second film. I want to begin work on a Hindi film though I already have my second film script ready to shoot. That would help avoid being slotted as a low-budget/independent/English/ digital/ filmmaker. Also to break predictability.
But the biggest reason behind my Hindi film is to say something that I have always wanted to say: A statement of purpose for movies. My love-letter to movies. It has to be on film, it needs to have that larger than life feel and a story that will hopefully move and encourage people to dream. It is my tribute to movies, a call for fresh thought, an effort to bring honesty onto celluloid and an experiment that hopes to prove exactly what the movie will try to say. Bringing honesty into films. On and off the screen.
If that experiment works, as I hope it to, I want to build that non-profit organisation that will produce every original filmmaker’s first movie. Anyone who has a script with a story never ever told before can walk in and get his movie funded and also avail the pool of actors, scriptwriters and technicians enrolled with the foundation — people committed to doing good cinema, even if they are going to be paid peanuts.
I just want to make one film every year or two, just making films that really are screaming to be made. I’m sure I would be happier spending the rest of my life doing that part that inspires what movies are made of: Life, itself.
At this point, let me “cut back” from the vision statement to the original idea behind the post: the purpose. So is a vision statement good enough to be the statement of purpose for life?
Again, I do not think so. Because, it is rather difficult to determine the purpose. But I intend to find it.
And the only way to find it, I guess, is to live it. Though space, through time and with people who occupy that time and space with you.
Given that we explore time by default, I want to explore space. I want to travel around the world, learn a little more about it, understand people but more than all that, I just want someone to share it all with.
This year, I intend to find a companion for that exciting journey, however long or short, happy or sad, sober or adventurous, it may be. I want someone to fight with, someone to talk to, someone to sleep with, someone to wake up with every morning and be truly happy that THAT someone is just the same person. I want that someone who would stick through this little adventure and I figure the only way I would find her would be by willing to stick myself. I have always been commitment-phobic, I have always wanted to be free.
But this year, I do not want to be free anymore. I want to share. Because, now I figure, life becomes larger when you share it with someone you really love. I’m right here, right now, waiting for her.
Actually, I can’t wait to be with her anymore.
MADRAS INK. 