Apur Sansar

Watching amores perros a second time, the feel and the intensity in the film is never lost. Watching a second time, I enjoyed some moments to an even greater depth. The screen romance of Gael Garcia and Vanessa Bauche is really nice. The hand held movement of the camera during their scenes has much impact. The lively feel in their life is excellently reflected. Alejandro's true class is evident when he shifts the atmosphere of the film to a more serious issue of love in the second story. He builds up every second of the section with such beauty. Even the tone takes varied shapes at the point. The final part belongs to Emilio Echevarria who plays El Chivo. His make up is top class. His expressions and body language is above perfect! His presence as fragments in other plots also creates much impact. Guillermo Arriaga Jordan's writing is still highly inspiring. Having known that he writes just a single draft, I'm even more impressed. (He writes from the beginning every time h...

On the 12th of July, a nursing home in New South Wales, Australia marked the death of the 108 year old woman, who gained much reputation as the the world's oldest blogger. Olive Riley, who is believed to the oldest blogger, had over 70 posts to her credit. She was said to have a wonderful memory and an amazing zest of life. She shared thoughts on modern life and experiences of her living through the two world wars. She was born on 20th October, 1899 in a town called Broken Hill. She had to take up various jobs in her long span of life, when she also raised three children. Mike Rubbo, a documentary filmmaker (who also happens to be the person filming her life) introduced this old woman to blogging. This exercise is also said to have kept the mind of this no more Riley very fresh. Visit the link below and see what Olive had to say when she lived. http://www.allaboutolive.com.au/

The writing that follows may look weird to many. But this is a small article on how I learned about two key words that are often linked with movies and prose. Plot and story are two words that I have used too many times in my writing and talking. It is quite surprising to me that I found it difficult to differentiate between the two when Malayalam filmmaker Jayaraj questioned me on this. Definitely he did have the right answer at hand. Many people in the film industry itself could not differentiate these two commonly used words, adds Jayaraj. I thought it would be interesting to share a write up on this in this space of mine as I have failed to watch a single movie for the past two days! The story or the narrative could be defined as something that tells the course of events. Plot could be defined as the logical structure which connects the course of events. Here goes an example given by E. M. Forster: The king died and then the queen died. This is a story. The plot of this story could...

Duel is not just an early work of Steven Spielberg but one of his best. ( Duel has been edited and re-edited to two versions and what follows is a writing on the 90 minute version rather than the 74 minute original. This version has a few additional scenes and more scope to write further!) Richard Matheson has written the screenplay of duel based upon on his own short story. Dennis Weaver playing David Mann is dragged into a duel by a 40 ton truck. The build up of the duel between the car driver and truck driver has been written excellently. When most of the additions have added sharpness to the movie one of them stands out. The telephone conversation between David and his wife seems to be distracting. As of the information I came across, this sequence was added since producer George Eckstein wanted to make the runtime of the movie to 90 minutes. The photography and make up for the truck has played a very significant part in the movie. The generation of evil character is portrayed w...

Layer Cake falls in the line of Guy Ritchie's Lock, Stock and two smoking barrels and Snatch . Mathew Vaughn directs this Craig movie which is more serious than the Guy Ritchie movies which has a tint of comedy to it. (Ritchie was the man chosen in the first place to direct this feature but dropped out later.) J. J. Connolly writes the screenplay of his own novel just as slick as it can be. Daniel Craig fits the bill as the man who plans to retire from the cocaine deals. The others in the cast also work effective. The cinematography and editing in the film works big time with director Vaughn. Ben Davis the director of photography creates striking imaginary with ease for a crime thriller of this sorts. John Harris' cutting on the table is top notch. The blend between the scenes is masterly for a movie on crime framework. Layer Cake is a riveting thriller set in the drug underworld of UK. Where fun and thrill in double crossing is surely well played. Also evident is the craft o...