Improvising versatility
Things I have been up to...
Wednesday, September 11, 2024
5 easy ways to shed weight | Bi(e)tter Health tip
Wednesday, August 21, 2024
Review of "Hereditary"
Hereditary comes across a movie which should be on your list if you are a Horror movie lover. I am writing this piece so you know already that I love horror movies a lot. To put into perspective, I have already watched 55 from Top 100 horror movies list from IMDB which would be close to 5500 hours of my life. 😀
Getting back to the movie, I watched this 2018 movie on Prime Video recently and it was really good in terms of concealing the antagonist or the demon in this case. Just after finishing the movie, I felt that I had watched an amalgamation of the “Wicker Man”, The Holy Mountain and a tincture of “The Shining”. If you read about those movies or watch them, you will realise what I am talking about.
I want to talk about the BEST parts in the movie which are really good and worth mentioning.
The SOUND DESIGN - Oh! I love the Sound Design in this movie. Very few horror movies bring out the right music to compliment the scenes of the movies. Lewis Goldstein and Tom Ryan have done a splendid job on this project. The sound design is eerie, contemporary, tribal and creepy, all at the same time. I really enjoyed it on the IEMs I used to watch the movie.
The SCRIPT - A very novel approach to horror movie making by mixing a lot of ingredients like paganism, slasher effects, brute force and dreams/nightmares. The unpredictability of people being killed is an icing on the cake and adds a modern and novel approach. There are occasions where the script brings out the emotional part of the characters within a family in a brutal way which is justified by the actors with all its merit. Bonus points on the miniature art concept and connecting it to real life. A scene which shows how the mother laments the death of her child by re-creating the miniature version of her accident, must be a brain child of a genius and vastly experienced writer. The suspense of hiding the main antagonist is also brilliant and the scriptwriter has done a tremendous job here.
The ACTING - All the Actors are Fantabulous. I think this is the first movie of Toni Collette which I have seen and I am already a Fan. She delivers emotions on the screen like a rainbow formed with mercury, transitioning effortlessly from one emotion to the other. Gabriel Brianne and Alex Wolf have been tremendous. This movie must have re-defined Alex’s career and he is on his way to do much larger projects. But one actor whose name I don’t know creates an impact in just one scene with his gaze (pictured below). Although, he comes for another single scene later in the movie too.
The EDITING, COLOR GRADING, SFX and all major aspects of filmmaking are top notch. They keep the audience hooked with the streamlined storytelling.
Needless to say, there are blips which they should have looked at. The VFX at places seems very outdated. For example, the scene when Annie’s jacket catches fire, the fire seems fake to normal eyes. Some decapitation scenes and bodies look glaringly artificial. Color grading at some places during the climax is too dark. They show a lot of symbols in the movie but there is almost no explanation of them. They seem purely referential which in a way shows that the director wants people to make assumptions. They don’t mention how the actual possession happened, only the means are shown. Probably, that can be an inspiration for another movie 😀
Tuesday, January 16, 2024
"Killer Soup" Review
Image Source : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killer_Soup
"It is a tale, told by an idiot, full of sounds and fury, signifying nothing." That's how the whole series ends.
How many times has a director been honest in summing up a story in one line at the end of the story. This is one such instance with the director feeding up a coagulated plot to the audience and summarizing the pain to the audience at the culmination of the story.
This review will be short and would save you the pain of dangling between ill placed cuss words and predictable sub plots which have been given the shape of accidents rather than intended homicide.
I was really disappointed with the plot and probably the writing. I have huge respect for people who write screenplay and stories and this in no way demeans the effort of writers of this one too. But I felt, that there has been a lot of patchwork in this story. Good editing has been able to streamline the story and bring some sense but overall the audience feels like they have landed in no man's land.
The performance of all the actors is really good (of course they are very good professionals) but the real let down happens on the writing part.
**SPOILERS AHEAD**
I mean one of the protagonists, Prabhakar, died in the initial part of the story and is replaced by an impostor and none of his near and dear ones have an inkling that he is not the same guy. NOT EVEN ONE. Really? Although I am not a professional writer but I feel that for a thriller to work well, the sense of doubt and confusion is the biggest weapon. One of the old Hindi movies, Baazigar, camouflaged it very well and had that tincture of confusion all the time. Although the audience knew the culprit but the story still kept the audience engaged and hooked.
The role of Arvind Shetty played by Sayaji Shinde looked all the over the place. I really couldn't make any sense of it. A dominant businessman in whole of Tamil Nadu doesn't seems dominating enough. There are not enough extras around him to show his power and his appearances felt very weak. His last words while dying is a WTF moment and is a testimony of the weak writing. Probably, this character is the weakest character and should have been used more aptly.
This series feels like it belongs to Konkana Sen. Heavily dominated by her presence and the story revolves around her character in many ways. But her character is confusing as well. She has a dream of getting her own restaurant and to get that she involves herself in multiple murders and insane situations. Her character is really mean and bitchy and reminds me of Lena Headley's performance in GoT. Sometimes I felt she is like the shrewd Mom in Law from yester years who would go to any length to torture the daughter in laws. A completely non-compromising selfish antagonist vouching for a dream and cooking "Paya killer soup" for all and sundry.
I dunno what to say about Inspector Hassan's character played by Nasser. An investigation officer who is laid back to start with but becomes curious in a case after the loss of a bright officer in the case. He hallucinates all the time about the officer giving him clues every now and then. A great addition to the plot would have been that Hassan was always high on mushrooms. Would have been logical and creatively connected to the plot too.
There are many many bloopers and everything doesn't add up to be a cohesive plot. I am sure the writing would have been reviewed by so many people and many stalwarts but I don't know how people were convinced on the same.
But I really liked the technicalities and performances. Almost everyone has justified their part and nothing more can be asked from the BTS team as well.
Two standout creative approaches in the series has been -
1. Intermingling of Tamil and Hindi languages and trying to bridge the divide. Perhaps, a series gives more opportunities to do the same and cater to larger audience. But this is important and really helps in improving and tailoring the minds of people watching the series.
2. The hallucinating character of Inspector Thuppali with a raincoat and persistent rainfall on him. A very creative approach to show how manifestations stick to people's mind in a particular way.
All in all, I really wanted to SOUP to play a more dominant role. Soup seems more notional and points to the "RAITA" in the family and of course the PLOT. The main character, SOUP, should have had more part to play but keeps begging for its place. As per the series, it is definitely DARK but not sure about COMEDY.
PS: This is just a small review of this series I saw. This is completely my independent opinion and outpour on the series. I really respect the effort people put in creating their vision into reality. I apologize if anything in this review causes concern or demeans anyone.
I wrote this small comment on Manoj Bajpayee sir's instagram as a very short review to bring out the comedy in the soup.
Sunday, May 15, 2022
The evergreen 'Dear Father'
I remember those days of the 90s when I was a teen and I developed interest in watching multilingual movies. During those days, Doordarshan used to run a regional language movie every Sunday from 2-5PM and this was available pan India. I have been watching movies in different languages since that time. This context is important as in today’s India language is no more relevant and with Internet and OTT available everywhere, the viewer can choose to watch what he wants.
Back to the point. I watched a Gujarati movie recently called ‘Dear Father’. I became a fan of Chetan Dhanani after watching the movie ‘Reva’ and I was looking forward to watching this movie. I was deeply impressed by his acting in Reva and I knew his performance would be impeccable in this one too.
The movie is about a small household of three people - father, son and daughter-in-law. A family where all the three members have different priorities in life and have a different perspective. The movie starts with a scene where the father has fallen from the flat in the apartment and has been seriously injured and admitted to the hospital. Subsequently, a police investigation starts into the incident and Paresh Rawal sir (who is playing dual roles of the father and the investigating officer) takes over the investigation of the incident.
I am not going to spill over the beans on how the movie moves forward but I would definitely like to mention a few aspects about the movie. The performances of all the actors are fabulous and top notch. I couldn’t stop myself getting flashbacks to Paresh sir’s many more previous movies like Hera Pheri but he has excelled in the role of this typical Gujarati dad. There were a few scenes in the movie which are hilarious and thought provoking as well. The father-son banter over the 25 years of nagging with the females of the family is so indigenously Indian. The dialogues seem to come directly from the Indian homes. When I say Indian, I mean all parts of India. I have seen these kinds of similar issues in a Kannada family, a Telugu family, a Marwadi family and so on and so forth.
Chetan has been impeccable yet again with his performance. I think his strength is depicting emotions with versatility and owning the character. The character in Reva and the character in Dear Father are very different but you will realise that he fits right in. In the movie, he is the average husband who is getting pulled between his parents and his wife. Needless to say, this is the story of almost every husband in India. Trying to appease the parents and the wife is a mundane attempt all husbands make and fail. Chetan has clearly justified the role and fits right in.
The actress Manasi reminded me of so many Marwadi ladies in my family. The dichotomy of their lives to match the expectations of the family and also try to achieve their dreams. Manasi has nailed the role and the way she has portrayed the frustration of a contemporary Indian woman leaves an indelible mark on the audience.
I would like to appreciate the script and dialogue writers (Vivek Bele, Uttam Gada) of this movie. They have great insights into how Indian families run in today’s world. They have been able to bring out the originality of life in the script. How a major incident in the family connects the family back again. How a frustrated police officer relates himself to a case which he is investigating. The whole story has been intertwined in a lovely braid.
I had a couple of qualms from the movie which I would like to highlight. Since this was a traditional homely setup, I was quite surprised that the husband and wife scenes visiting their injured father was not shown quite often if it didn’t feel like they were too much concerned. The police officer role of Paresh sir approached very casually to the husband and wife, anytime and everytime. For example, in one scene, he entered their home without the permission of the family. But I guess, the writers can take the liberty of some creative freedom to connect the dots.
Overall I really enjoyed the movie. I kept that one minute scene between the father and son as my whatsapp status and I got so many replies from people asking for the name of the movie. So, do you see, language is not a barrier anymore. This movie took me back to the Malayalam movie “Android Kunjappan 2.0”, I watched last year. Funny how they are connected in subtle ways. They both evoke the right chords of connecting with your father and all the actors in both movies have done so much justice.
Thanks to OTT platforms, I think we will see a future envisioned by Chanakya of a unified Bharatvarsh.
Anand Bora
Sunday, January 24, 2021
सफेद
Thursday, January 14, 2021
Visionary Dream
Sounds as it may,
The dream makes a noise;
The grey matter and the signals-
The manifestation is far from advice.
The layers of my dream;
Is it a vision or a hallucination?
Or a 'deja vu' from life.
It's a world of emancipation.
Time is perplexed in the dream,
Space unwinds to infinity.
The dimensions converge and diverge concurrently,
A platform of happiness and adversity.
The 'focused' dream with open eyes;
The vision of a 'logical' life.
The fog between the real and the imaginary -
Your mind is caught in a strife.
Semantics flow in the river of imagination;
The iteration in a dream is a 'fractal'.
My friend, your physical self is your Karma -
Create a dream and you are immortal.
-Anand Bora
Friday, January 01, 2021
The B Positive 2020!
Sunday, December 27, 2020
My fantasy with Rain
The silence and moisture in the air,
Indication of her arrival.
I look at the sky and I see you;
May be my romance is in the medieval.
She eases onto my face,
the drop of life shines on me.
My breath is one with my eyes;
I chuckle as I see.
In few moments, she increases her tempo;
The bells in her anklet, sings in earthen flavor.
She permeates through my body in style-
Her onset is a divine's favor.
Her jaded locks of clouds,
And the nosering of partial sun.
Her touch cleanses my heart and soul,
The dance of the water goddess has just begun.
Anand Bora
Friday, September 11, 2020
Vibhishan kaun?
विभीषण कौन?
यहां की स्वास में हवा है,
यहां के जीवन में पानी है,
पर ये कौन धूर्त है, तुनीर में टूटा हुआ तीर है,
ये मेरा घर है, और घर में विभीषण कौन?
वो चुपके से आ गया है,
किसी की जेब में, किसी के हाथों मेें, किसी के सांसों में,
पर उसे किसी द्वारपाल ने नहीं रोका है,
फिर भी पूछते हो घर का विभीषण कौन?
मेरे गांव का चौराहा खाली पड़ा है,
ग्रामदेवी ने बताया कि साहूकार का लड़का विदेश से आया है,
अपने साथ वो यम के भैंसे को साथ लाया है,
उसे नहीं रोकने वाला विभीषण कौन?
असम्भव को किसने बांधा है,
मुनिया और उसके बाउजी ने लाखो डग दूरी तय की है,
ऐसी संभावना तो कल्पना से भी परे है,
अद्वितीय समाज में ये विभीषण कौन?
आक्रमण से जम्बूद्वीप का इतिहास भरा है,
परन्तु इस बार तो वो आंशिक कल्कि रूप में आया है,
शुद्धि और सुधार, दोनो का पाठ पढ़ाया है,
स्वयं से पूछो, इस विकराल विभीषण का रचाइया कौन?
आनंद
Saturday, July 18, 2020
Zindagi
You Happened!
You know what happened; I closed my eyes and magic happened.
She was there bathed in the sun, holding my hand-
Connected to my soul unto abyss;
And you know the spark happened.
She was deep into my eyes;
I am trying to find myself-
Only to realise my soul is not mine;
The inseparable had already happened.
The depth of our love isn't divine;
It transcends words and worlds.
She is melting in my arms-
Is this an illusion OR reality happened?
A breath, a kiss or a hug-
Ephemeral units to measure love;
You are the beat of my heart-
Neither I nor you, but the 'one' happened.
You know what happened; I closed my eyes and magic happened.
Friday, July 17, 2020
Translation of Sharab Cheez hi Aisi Hai by Pankaj Udhas & Dr Anjum
Ale, you are such a thing;
You are such a thing - CAN’T LEAVE YOU!
You are like my partner - CAN’T LEAVE YOU!
Ale, you are such a thing.
You are such a thing - CAN’T LEAVE YOU!
You are like my partner - CAN’T LEAVE YOU!
Ale, you are such a thing…
I have seen every item in the world change..
I have seen every item in the world change..
But it is absolutely the same - CAN’T LEAVE YOU!
But it is absolutely the same - CAN’T LEAVE YOU!
You are like my partner - CAN’T LEAVE YOU!
Ale, you are such a thing.
These heavy nights melt away because of it’s efforts..
These heavy nights melt away because of it’s efforts..
But it is like water - CAN’T LEAVE YOU!
But it is like water - CAN’T LEAVE YOU!
You are like my partner - CAN’T LEAVE YOU!
Ale, you are such a thing.
It is the treatment for broken hearts, Anjum.
It is the treatment for broken hearts, Anjum.
It is the treatment for broken hearts, Anjum.
What should I tell you, how it is? CAN’T LEAVE YOU!
You are like my partner - CAN’T LEAVE YOU!
Ale, you are such a thing. CAN’T LEAVE YOU!
Ale, you are such a thing. CAN’T LEAVE YOU!
Ale, you are such a thing. CAN’T LEAVE YOU!
---------------
Ale, you are such a thing;
You are such a thing - CAN’T LEAVE YOU!
You are like my partner - CAN’T LEAVE YOU!
Ale, you are such a thing.
You are such a thing - CAN’T LEAVE YOU!
You are like my partner - CAN’T LEAVE YOU!
Ale, you are such a thing…
I have seen every item in the world change..
I have seen every item in the world change..
But it is absolutely the same - CAN’T LEAVE YOU!
But it is absolutely the same - CAN’T LEAVE YOU!
You are like my partner - CAN’T LEAVE YOU!
Ale, you are such a thing.
Wherever you go but you come back here..
Wherever you go but you come back here..
Wherever you go but you come back here..
Wherever you go… but you come back here….
How is this road of my partner - CAN’T LEAVE YOU!
How is this road of my partner - CAN’T LEAVE YOU!
You are like my partner - CAN’T LEAVE YOU!
Ale, you are such a thing.
The confusion of waiting always stuck onto me;
The confusion of waiting always stuck onto me...
The confusion of waiting always stuck onto me…
It is like your ‘locks’ - CAN’T LEAVE YOU!
It is like your ‘locks’ - CAN’T LEAVE YOU!
You are like my partner - CAN’T LEAVE YOU!
Ale, you are such a thing.
How is this road of my partner - CAN’T LEAVE YOU!
Ale, you are such a thing. Ale, you are such a thing. Ale, you are such a thing.
Ale, you are such a thing.
Tuesday, June 16, 2020
Qualified - A philosophical tribute to SSR
Thursday, January 09, 2020
Re-start!
I had a fabulous start to the year as I made my first Artwork in quite sometime. Thanks to an inspirational pic posted by a friend on Instagram. Quite surprising that I can still do art is relatively lesser time which means I need to practise and do more.