Trailers and movies

I just realized this while making coffee at 5:30 in the morning to start off an early day: it is easier to make a good trailer for a bad movie than it is to make one for a good movie. The whole point is that those who make trailers are professionals and production values are always on the rise and it is obvious that there will be at least 2 minutes' worth of watchable material in every movie. Given that the trailer length is just about the same, the job of the trailer-maker is vastly simplified if the movie has not much more than that amount of watchable runtime - in that case he just needs to be a good editor snipping off precisely those good scenes to whet the audience's appetite. When the movie is significantly better, the purpose of the trailer is to present a good idea of the movie through a few scenes and this involves vastly more creative work.

What started off this train of thought? A couple of couple of hours spent at the movies in Chicago. The object was to visit the temple at Aurora for the good south Indian food available there and, that accomplished, we trooped to AMC-30, where Indian movies are screened, to catch Eklavya, the latest Vidhu Vinod Chopra-Amitabh offering. How many movies are they each involved in? Munnabhai-3, Cheeni Kam, Taalismaan apart from Eklavya and others. Anyway, it seemed a lot when we were watching the trailers.

The movie was a good 2 hours after we reached the theatre and so we actually settled in to watch Bridge to Terabithia in the meanwhile. A good movie and fantasy seems the killer genre these days but it left something to be desired. Of course that is what all good movies are about - to show us that better movies are possible. Entertaining nevertheless and well-made given the limited scope the story provides; though, as a friend remarked, not advisable for those who want to watch a 'fun' movie to pass the time as the movie dabbles equally in tragedy and fantasy/comedy. Aside: Zoey Deschanel has killer eyes and a killer bod - if only the sounds she makes from that nice throat of hers were more palatable!

The next movie on the double bill was Eklavya and, after the never-ending sequence of trailers - Cheeni Kam and the Ash-starring, feminism-spouting adaptation of a real-life story seem more than watchable, and Munnabhai seems risible enough, while Taalismaan reeks of Chandrakantha-meet-Tolkien a little too much and the slick silver and gray scenes in the trailer reminded me of nothing more than the pathetic Raiders of the last couple of seasons - the movie started off brilliantly. The initial scenes were just incredibly good, even with the rather lame rendering of Sonnet 18 by Boman Irani, the overdone hysterics of Raima Sen and the rather provocatively simple letter that Amitabh intones. Sharmila proves she is not the siren of the past any more with her wrinkled and puffed up cheeks pouting for Eklavya, and the murder that no doubt will out sets the ball rolling nicely.

The story to me seemed a rehash of some n tragedies of the past but the whole first part of the movie is worth watching for the beautiful cinematography. The colours and the contrasts and the racy scenes, the three little blackbirds on Vidya Balan's neck - the third movie of hers I am watching in the last couple of weeks but surely she was much more beautiful/attractive(!) in Parineeta than in all the rest of her offerings(!) - the almost glaucous eyes of the almost blind Amitabh, the furnishings and the lighting, Saif's somber mincing of his rather staid lines, a hundred other small things all to my liking. The movie itself develops out of control slowly like a child on a sugar-high and degenerates into the trademark meaningless dialogue-spouting nonsense we have come to expect of Amitabh movies, subsiding slowly into restful sleep - talk of crescendos and diminuendos - but on the whole, a movie well worth the 1h45m watch - when did I last see an English and a Hindi movie one after another, each competing for shorter runtime, I wonder. The flaws are numerous but I have realised that women with large eyes do not play madwomen in fear well - witness Jyothika's attempts in Chandramukhi and Raima's here. When their eyes widen if fear or anguish or general hysteria, it becomes rather painful to watch the whites of their eyes occupy a disproportionately huge fraction of face-space! Also, Saif might want to set his watch running the next time he sports a Rolex - it seemed to show 12:45 in each scene it exposed itself to the public view.

A long drive back home after midnight is not ideal in the Midwest cold and dark after an exerting day but all ends well and all is well, except that it is 6:30 and dark and I have an 8 o' clock class.

Whispers of Mortality

Dulce et decorum, the old man sneers in my ear
As I sit waiting at my window for the rain to stop:
She will not come today either.

Their faces stare soot-blackened with fear,
Asking when the next war will start and where,
So they can get out of miserable here.
A few quivering cigarettes in cupped, corroded palms
Trying to light themselves afire - we are all friends here.
That, there, was a school we all went to when we had the mind to -
Now we need to, each day.
Metal flying wheezes like an old consumptive.
I have never seen you alone, they say to me,
Where is your brother, your friend?

The bus stops every other mile and people get on
Walking on stilts, sweating happiness that makes him retch.
They stare politely at the withered stump and shake heads.
Jingle bells, jingle bells, he begins to hum, offending,
And they move off without shaking his disgusting hand.
The ruins are colourful today, he muses,
The sun becomes here; ours was a darker land.
Mother, mother, he cries, why did you bother?
They wouldn't let me play at pitch and toss again.
Head unbowed, bloody fool, go to your brother -
He will laugh heartily at your pain.
When the dust clears, he gets down in the middle of somewhere
Waiting for the doves to fly away before he can limp slowly home.

When proud man stoops to charity,
He mouths some utter inanity,
And sneaks away before his thanks
Can soil his wounded humanity.
Gun to temple, he blows to bits his pride,
And crawls back home simpering,
Happy to have lost the infernal hide
That kept him man from winter to spring.

Amor vincit omnia, he cries in my deaf ear
As I lie waiting in my bed for the darkness to lift:
She will not come tonight either.