Just Joe

Watched 2 more movies in IFFT. 12 angry men, Peddler and Oruthi. I liked the first two. 12 angry men was good. Couldn’t grab some of the dialogues. Would have been better if they displayed sub-titles. Peddler (directed by Makhmalbuf – Iran) was a shock treatment. Too much realistic. There was a scene of cutting throat of a poor sheep. I think that is cruel. In Hollywood, they would give a disclaimer that no anomals were hurt during the shoot. But in this movie, I think they killed a sheep for real. But the movie would shake you. Makhmalbuff is a very talented director.

After I came back home, as my Internet connection was too slow, I watched another movie The Missing. Amazing performance by Cate Blanchett. There was Tommy Lee Jones and he was also good. Never seen him in such a role before.

Babu uncle introduced me to a book on screenplay. Screenplay written by Syd Field. I found some interesting facts about the screenplays from this book. I thought of sharing it with you.

—————————————————————–
The standard screenplay is approximately 120 pages long, or two hours long.it is measured at one page per minute. It does not matter whether your script is all dialogue, all action or both. The rule holds firm – One page of screenplay equals one minute of screen time. You have approximately 30 pages to setup your story.

The next time you go to a movie, find out how long it takes you to make a decision whether you like it or not. It takes about ten minutes. That’s ten pages of your screenplay. You’ve got to hook your reader immediately.

You have approximately ten pages to let the reader know WHO your MAIN CHARACTER is, WHAT the premise of the story is, and WHAT the situation is.

A “Plot Point” is an accident, or event, that hooks into the story and spins it around into another direction. This event usualy occurs between pages 25 and 27.
—————————————————————–

I wonder how many script writers follow these instructions, but if they would they can make good movies out of it, IF they have a good story and know-how of telling a story. Perhaps the ‘rules’ wouldn’t work well with the art cinema or parallel cinema, but the commercial cinema can give it a try.

IFFT (International Film Festival of Thrissur) is coming along well. It is quite satisfying compared to the last year. I could see some good movies like L’Amor, Khamosh Pani, Close-up, Sanchaaram, Private etc and waiting to see many others in the next days.

I saw parts of the controversial movie “The Last Temptation of Christ”. I didn’t see it to the end, because there was nothing interesting in it. The movie and the book were banned for a long time because of the controversial theme. So I just wanted to know what it is all about.

After watching it, I was thinking why is it difficult for us (or to Kazantzakis) to believe that a man can live without sex or family and fear? Especially for a historic person like Jesus? Just because some person cannot live without having sex or fear doesn’t mean that it is applied to all. I think I should find the book to read. Anyway, Kazantzakis dared to see Christ from a different angle. I do appreciate that.

Christ was not ever against moral ways of having sex. Then why wasn’t he married? Perhaps he knew that accomplishing his mission and a family life wouldn’t work together well. (We have a very good example of Mahatmaji’s family life). And I think that is why he even parted from his own mother by calling her ‘woman’.

But in the case of Catholic priests, the church should give them the choice of getting married or not. It would help to reduce the child abuse or immoral sex by some priests. It wasn’t so long since the news came out that Vatican is in a financial crisis because of the child abuse cases in the USA by some Catholic priests.

I read the review of “Da Vinci Code” in a weekly. I haven’t read the book yet. Some people keep asking me why I didn’t read the book.

Me: What’s in there?
It says Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene and he had a family.
So?
You should read that book. It is really something.
Have you read that book?
No, but I heard that…
You didn’t read that book and why should I?
I wanted to, but didn’t get time/chance. But you should…

For some people, quoting the names of such controversial books or movies is a chance to let us know that they ‘heard/read’ these books and that way they are true intellectuals (pseudo intellectuals, perhaps?).

PS: I found this book as a candle stand in a friend’s apartment. He said he wanted to, but couldn’t read it yet.

There is a film festival going on in Thrissur. IFFT (International Film Festival of Thrissur). Chechyamma brought me an entry pass. I met her in last year’s IFFT. The inaugural movie was about the Palestine-Israel conflict : Private. Directed by an Italian director Saverio Costanzo. It was about war, love, fear and a lot more. It was a very nice movie.

I went again in the evening to see another movie from Sweden, but it was really boring. Too much philosophical. And the audio wasn’t clear. So I went outside, took a walk and that’s when I found this man, looked like he came out of a mental asylum drawing on the wall with different color chalks, leaves (for green color) etc. There was a huge crowd watching him and they paid him well. Honestly, I never knew that the ordinary people appreciate art in this level. Artists from Kerala used to complain that Keralites can’t appreciate art and that is why they settle in places like New Delhi. It is true that normal people cannot appreciate the new age art. I cannot appreciate that kind of art.

The final result of his work is shown in the photoblog.

About the movie “Private”

Got this in a forwarded email.

You have received the ‘Toddy manthra’ which is very powerful.

After receiving this mathra you have to forward it and you will get benefits.
If you forward this to 5 people, you will receive a chilled beer by end of the day. Either some friends will offer you or some how u will get it for free.

Forward it to 10 people and you’ll get a pint of Premium whisky 25 people you’ll get a full bottle super premium whisky

50 people you will get a full bottle scotch of normal brand

100 people & u get a full bottle Johnny walker Single malt

500 People will fetch you a Royal salute full.

But if you delete without forwar! ding you’ll suffer consequences. One of my friend deleted without forwarding and on the same day evening he vomited on the first peg.

PS: I have no intention to hurt any religios feelings. This is only for the funsake. And I hope you guys would take it in that sense only.

Got this link from Ganesh as a comment to yesterday’s post. The Christianity in the western countries is still against the communism. But it has been going around since a long time and there is nothing shocking. But the Kerala Christians are making news these days, especially the Latin Christians. They have made a press statement yesterday that they will support any party that cares for the community. Evidently it means that they won’t support Congress and will support CPM in the next elections. Christian communities, Muslims, Nair Hindus and Eazhava Hindus were with Congress party since a very long time. But now they have changed their minds.

Eazhava and Nair communities have joined hands and formed Hindu unity. They are likely to join hands with BJP pretty soon. And look who is the head of the Eazhava community? The liquor dealer king Vellappalli Natesan!!! (remember Sri Narayana Guru devan was against alcohol?) Muslim League is still with Congress, because they are not accepted in the Left Front (LDF). Otherwise, they would have parted. But the Muslim community showed their support to CPM by electing a CPM candidate with a huge majority. Now the Christians are joining hands with CPM too. Who said religion is poison??

The Kerala politics is full of these community politics. No matter what the religion is.

————————————

Google now enabled their instant messenger — Google Talk. Download and chat or talk using your Gmail ID.

————————————

My pics are being posted in my photo blog. And a Malayalam poem is posted in my Malayalam blog.

————————————

A friend of mine called yesterday in the morning and asked “I’ve been making missed calls to you for sometime. Why didn’t you call me back?” What I wanted to say is “If you really cared about me and wanted to talk to me, you wouldn’t make those calls missed. And I will never return your missed calls.” Instead I said “I wanted to call you back, but forgot as I was busy with some other stuff”.

As far as I know, there are two types of missed calls. One is to let you know that “I’m here”. A missed call back from you would be enough to make me happy and to know that you care. Second is to ask you “Call me back, so that I won’t lose my money”. This is the one that make me crazy. I just hate the people make such calls and I would try my best to avoid returning these calls. (It’s okay when someone says that “hey, I don’t have enough card balance in my cell, so could you please call me back now?”)

Any others felt the same way? How can you be a true friend when you want the other to waste their money so that you can say a ‘hi’??

I have some friends working in some MNCs and the company pays their phone bills. So I’ve been told that I just need to make a missed call to them so they would call me back. I do it very rarely. (yeah, honestly) I mean talking to them in the company expense.

I saw “Mangal Pandey” yesterday in the evening. I came to realize that there is nothing stronger than religious feeling. Not even patriotism or the “India” feeling. I think if the cartridge wasn’t greased with animal fat, he wouldn’t question his superiors. He would have kept serving the British Empire if this issue hadn’t come up. He questioned the British when his religious feelings were hurt, not because his fellow countrymen became slaves of the empire.

The good part of the movie was to see Rani in an exposing role. There was nothing for her to do in this male dominated movie. Amisha was gorgeous. Toby Stephens did a good job. Couldn’t bare his ‘Hinglish’ though. And I just don’t understand why a foreign friend? To show that Mangal beat him in the fights, so the crowd can cheer “wah! dekho, an Indian beat up a British!”? Is that what our patriotism is all about???

“Main Vari Vari” was a nice song. I liked the song very much. But ARR didn’t make any wonder with the other songs in this movie.

What we need is the movies like “Swades”. Something that teaches how we can become a part of building our own country. Something to inspire us to build a new India.

Read these also:
Times of India article — Mangal Pandey: A hero or a zero?
The Hindu article

By the way, I have started a photo blog and will be posting the pics there.

Here are the requested songs. IBH, I’m still trying to find the audio for “Hari varaasanam” I will definitely post it when I get it.

Priya’s request: [Then paandi cheemayile -- Ilayaraja + Kamal Hassan]

Kay’s request: [Dil Kyaa Karen -- Kishore Kumar]

Chechyamma’s request: [Kaa karoon Sajni -- K.J. Yesudas]

There was a concert yesterday (Friday) evening, in Regional Theatre. Songs of Salil Chowdhary in Bengali, Hindi and Malayalam languages. There were some very nice songs, but most of the singers were just average. There was a female singer from Bengal who is said to be the Junior Latha Mangeshkar award winner, but was dissapointing. But the event made me hum some good old tunes and that was great.

I have started a Malayalam blog. MalayaaNma.

Thanks to Sibu and his Varamozhi editor.

You will need to have any of the fonts from Varamozhi installed on your machine to read this blog properly. You might see some spelling errors if you are using FireFox. But this works well with Internet Explorer.