Friday, March 09, 2007

The Show Must Go On Part - II

Well, well, well. It's been a year already.
I post this as a sequel to my post last year after the academy awards. In true filmi fashion. Compared to last year, I have been away from television and movies much longer this year. Guess that just happens to all of us as time passes by. But I have tried to watch atleast the big ones. If a lot of people like it, there should be something worth watching, shouldn't there?
I am too fussy about my movies. But come to think of it, I am too fussy about everything. More so when I am paying. It seemed o.k in college when I was blowing my dad's money to watch crappy movies for almost 5 days a week (The subhash ghai ham scene special "Taal" was watched first day, first show.Bought tickets in black !!!!). But I am working hard for my money now. I really do 60 hours a week for every penny. Although i don't actually sweat in the air conditioned offices, I think I deserve every single spare minute on my weekends. These days of absolute vanity are priceless, much more valuable than money. So when I spend 2 hours(sometimes 3, 3.5) on a day off to watch a 40 year old guy play a college dropout,dancing and singing wierd or a guy stopping bullets with sandboards, I feel like I have betrayed myself. I feel I have let down all the hard work put in the past week, wasted time and money and 3 hours of free time of my life which I can never reclaim. It's an irreversible crime in my books. My friends often ask me to take it light, it's just a movie. Yeah, maybe but give me back my 3 hours and erase memories of the fat parsi guy doing ninja-karate with another 40 year old. And that is supposed to be cool. But once in a while there is a good flick, which leaves you feeling entertained and coming back for more. How many bad flicks you bear for the one good movie is astounding. Sometimes i feel i just go to the movies to crib about them later, but once in a while a film comes along which makes it all worth it.
The Departed was one of them for me. I did not have the chance to watch much of the movies that were in contention for the academy awards this year. Babel,apocalypto,pan's labyrinth, dreamgirls, children of men,the last king of scotland, flags of our fathers,letters of Iowa Jima still remain to be seen( the last two only cos those are clint eastwood movies).They even had an Indian film,, water nominated for best foriegn film, which i did see and the less said about it is better. I could somehow grab a dvd of The departed and it was paisa vasool. The film won both best film and director and matin scorcese must have gone home a happy man.
Now, I have this funny thing about Martin scorcese's films. I fall asleep while watching them. Every single one of them. I know he's supposed to be one of the great filmmakers of our times, but then maybe I do not understand cinema. I really don't need to understand cinema, for the simple reason that I am not in the movie business. Does anyone know how a roller coaster works? You just get on it, take a ride, and get off. It's the same with movies for me. I simply need to be entertained. period. And i prefer movies to roller coasters. I went to see aviator with one of my friends, and she freaked out when she found me snoring in the cinema hall !!! I could not help it, I just dozed off. I watched taxi driver on cable. I fell off to sleep after half an hour. i woke up in some time, the movie was still on and I dozed off in another 10 minutes and woke up at about the end of the movie.
No hard feelings for martin scorcese. As i said earlier, maybe I do not understand films. So here I am sitting in my apartment on a week night with nothing to do. I cannot sleep and I have The Departed to watch in my comp. I take the odds and put it on trusting martin scorcese to put me to sleep again. Two hours later I am wide awake and I know martin scorcese has won the oscar(partly because they have been waiting to give him one for a long time). I am not going to write a film review, there are other people paid to do that. I feel I have watched the one good movie I get to watch in a year. That's all there is to it. paisa vasool !!!!

p.s :- I now know that if jack nicholson were to even fart on screen, I would stand up and applaud saying that was the best onscreen fart I have ever seen and nobody can do it like he does.