On the brink of phenomenon

Linking to a post on Vishesh's website which highlights some of the amazing growth stories and ridiculous projects that Dubai has, on its horizon. Epic!

Music Review: Jodhaa Akbar

The unique sound that results from the fusion of two distinct talents is a thing of wonder. R. D. Burman and Gulzar. Yash Chopra and Shiv-Hari. A R Rahman and Mani Ratnam. There's an aura that their music has, which emanates from their individual creativities, and the union of their mindsets and styles.

Rahman and Gowariker are two such minds. There's overstated grandeur and an element of "larger-than-life"-ness associated with a production like Jodhaa Akbar, which rests like an inverted pyramid on the needlepoint of simplicity. The music conveys this vision, grandly.

Azeem-O-Shaan Shahenshah has this trademark ARR percussive energy that kicks off the soundtrack. Listen to this on the highest subwoofer setting that your system can muster, and you can generate a 6.1 on the Richter. This marching song is both regal and powerful - a great start!

Jashn-E-Bahaaraa, the next track, is my personal favorite on the album. Sung brilliantly by Javed Ali, a Sonu soundalike with enough vocal variation to keep him distinct from his idol (unlike Rahul Vaidya who has conveniently disappeared ... or been made to? .. hmm).

This song is classic Rahman - seamless transition between chorus and verse, supported with beautiful interludes and a killer bass track. The quintessential, refreshing romantic track in his album that relaxes you the minute it starts. Like Ennavale in Kaadhalan, Ajooba in Jeans, Jaan-E-Bahara in Dil Ne Jise Apna Kaha, Roja Roja from Kadhalar Dinam, Khamosh Raat in Thakshak. The list is endless. Its funny that the opening notes are inspired by Imli Ka Boota from Saudagar, and the opening rhythms of the song sound curiously like Aisa Lagta Hai from Refugee. But Rahman adds so many of his own musical touches to a song/soundtrack, that the source of inspiration can, in no way, be attributed to its appeal.

The bassline, clap loop and tabla in Khwaja Mere Khwaja is beautiful. This song brings back memories of Piya Haji Ali from Fiza. This hopeful, prayer-like song has Rahman doing a very interesting opening qawwali-style khayaal, very unlike his usual vocal style. The progressive build of this song is very well done.

Inn Lamhon Ke Daaman Mein is a pretty song, but somehow not captivating at first listen. Kinda like O Ri Chori from Lagaan. Really sweet song, but a little plain. Probably a situational thing in the movie. The best part of the song for me, is Sonu's solo vocal interlude around 4:55. This song also hallmarks a popular technique Rahman uses. He has a sweet and melodic romantic ballad in a major chord, interrupted by choral, louder segments with higher energy, usually a minor chord, and he capitalizes on the sharp-edged transition between the two (Like Ishq Bina from Taal and more aptly, Bharat Humko from Roja).

Mann Mohanaa contains some of the most brilliant legato and staccato classical string ensemble sequences, coupled with great singing by Bela Shende (remember her from the classical track, Khaali Hai Tere Bin in Paheli, with Hariharan). Mann Mohanaa is the O Paalanhare of Jodhaa Akbar - albeit, much more evolved.

The kicker for me on this album is the flute version of Jashn-E-Bahaara. On a rainy day, I could listen to this on endless repeat, with an infinite supply of chai and namkeen.

The opening brass ensemble that one can hear in the teasers, which opens the album as well, is very reminiscent of Lagaan. And so is the overall sound of the album. With Jodhaa Akbar, their third album as a team, all of which were musically outstanding, it is evident that Rahman and Gowariker are out to create a musical character for their productions together.

In other news, doesn't Aishwarya look like a slice of heaven in the trailers of this movie?

Brevity : Underestimated

Ernest Hemingway was once asked to convey a story in 3 sentences, purportedly as part of a bet at a bar. He upped it a notch by saying it in 6 words. The famous shortest story went "For Sale. Baby Shoes. Never Used".

The point of fiction is to inspire emotions or thoughts in someone, which are an escape from everyday reality. The ability of a writer to execute this inspiration in not so many words is key. Hemingway's genius is subtly evident in that six word classified ad - as they make one think. A child who just passed away? A shopping trip gone wrong? There could be so much behind those six words, which he has left to our imagination. Flash fiction was born.

Brevity is an oft underestimated talent. One sentence, if conceptualized thoughtfully and used tastefully, could stand for a thousand paragraphs. Not just in the world of script writing or song writing, but even in the social world; in conversation. Somewhere down this generation's traversal of time, we have stopped to study the impact of our words. Switching between TCM and NBC highlights a significant and heightened modification in what was/is considered to be intense articulation. Even in our new-found fascination for dark and sarcastic humor.

"like ... uhh .... that's what i'm saying ... uhhh ... man .... this whole .... new.... uhh .... political... thing. ... you know ... uhh .. its pretty f***ed up, isn't it?"

Wow, is that because of the writer's strike, or are you actually one of those intellectually defunct organisms?

In other news, shout out to "Global Shanti" for a "W"onderful "W"eekend. Cafe Boulud was tres classy et magnifique, as was SM and the candid conversations between martinis. Here's to expensive dorm rooms and summer!

Miluju tebe

Eureka! The line that Marketa Irglova says in Czech when Glen asks her if she still loves her husband. And it means "I love you". I realize that this is the n-th reference to Once on this blog. Contrary to public opinion, I do have a life beyond this movie.

Currently Consuming

Gregory David Roberts'
Shantaram

What a read!

What a game!

Superbowl XLII. Nothing short of nailbiting towards the finish, there! Especially with all the dramatics. Its manic to be in New York today, as the Giants swept that victory from under the Pats! Ridiculousness!

Commercials were gloriously lackluster; you can catch them here if you missed 'em. I loved Audi's spin on the Godfather horse's head scene. A lesser known favorite was E*Trade's Talking Baby, and an oomph-honorable mention to the Victoria's Secret Valentine Spot, which was sensually simple.

We all walk in different shoes

Watch this one through to the end. One heck of a smooth campaign.

Chiseled Golden Men

Dem Oscar nominations are sure dreary this time around. Last few years have been rather colorful, with controversial and alternative flicks like Departed, Crash, Brokeback Mountain et al.

However, this time around, the bleaker ones (No Country for Old Men..., There Will Be Blood .... Atonement ..... god, it sounds like badly rhymed Edgar Allen Poe on depressants) seem to have dominated, with the exception of Juno (yay!). Granted that 2007's been a rather horrid year in terms of good quality commercial cinema, and most of the really good films have been foreign and indie, but have the Oscars not got it right this time? Hmmm, lets see.

Not glad

• First of all, where the hell is A Mighty Heart? At the very least, Angelina Jolie deserved a nomination for one of the most well-delivered, challenging performances of the year
• C'mon! Tom Hanks deserved a nom for CWW!
• Once??
  
• Denzel for American Gangster?
  
• 300? (for Visual Effects)
• Once?? Going twice!!
  
• Namesake (maybe asking for too much with regards the last one, but at least a nom for Best Original Score - Nitin Sawhney outdid himself on this one).
  

Glad

• Philip Seymour Hoffman nominated for Charlie Wilson, and Ellen Page for Juno!
• Cate Blanchett making history with nominations in BOTH the Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress category - wow!
• Falling Slowly (Once) nominated in the Best Song category - I absolutely cannot wait to see this one performed live at the ceremony!

Too early for predictions. I've revved up my Netflix queue to watch (and in some cases, rewatch) most of these flicks prior to the ceremony, and will have detailed thoughts up there. Michael Clayton is back in theaters, so that's good. But all in all, a tad bit disappointed with the overall selection theme, this year, vis-a-vis last year. Almost funereal.

In other news, Cloverfield rocked! Its a 9/11-hysteria-flick-meets-Blair Witch-Project! An absolute edge-of-your-seat-er must-see in terms of realism! And a serious study in movie marketing - loved the hype on this one, especially the fake newscasts on the oil rig (Geniusness!). *Vroom* Mini-Spoiler Alert. Did anybody see the thing fall into the ocean in the last scene?

And people, with regards shows like Moment of Truth. *Sigh*. I mean, is this what this country has come to? To resort to get innocent people up on screen, treat them like criminals with polygraph tests, and make them embarrass themselves by bringing out skeletons out of their personal closets in front of the whole television-watching world. I mean, its one thing to win half a million dollars, and another thing to have to spend it on alimony checks after the freaking show.

The Screwed-Up-Life-Portrayed-Effectively-On-Celluloid Pie

Fox Searchlight has been on a roll in terms of their alternative yet viable commercially genre, or as I like to call it Alt-Via-Com (Note to self: a good way to bide away time during recessive times is to come up with innovative, catchy yet utterly useless acronyms). Last year there was Water, Namesake, Once and Juno - all classics in their own right. And a bright little movie that may have gone unnoticed - Waitress. Like Once, it was a delightful hit at Sundance, as well.

And despite what the trailer may look like, its not a traditional romantic comedy, or RomCom (see? - I know, that's not an original one, but you get my drift). And although I'm not particularly fond of Keri Russell and her permanent knotted-eyebrow, frowny-face, she comes across fresh and warranted in this well-baked pie movie - a simple story of a depressed waitress in a Southern Country small town pie-diner. Do watch!

In other news, hoorah for Ellen Page and Juno for their well-deserved Oscar nominations - Juno was a true breath of fresh air from the comparatively darker films that have dominated this year's nominees. More on this soon.

Once

Its finally out on DVD, and a must-see for true music aficionados. Felt that my one-liner in a previous blog post about this breakout Sundance indie flick, didn't do it justice. Once was the simplest, quirkiest film I have seen. Until you watch it, you could never imagine that a movie like this could keep you hooked with enrapt attention for 85 minutes. The biggest star of the movie is, without a doubt, the music.

Irish Glen Hansard and Czech Marketa Irglova create an emotional and spirited sound, which have a goosebump-inspiring, magnetic ability to be enchanting. The piano/guitar gives it a very early Coldplay feel, but much more heartfelt and amateur and "real". My favorites are "The Hill", "When your mind's made up", and of course, "Falling Slowly". The dreamy scene in the music shop which shows the birth of this song, is an example of classic cinema. I must have seen that sequence at least 5 times, because it was one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen.

The movie is free of cosmetics, and extremely raw, which adds to its appeal. Highly, highly recommended, as is the soundtrack, which you should get only after watching the movie.

What Once really makes me perceive, is that there is a very small subset of emotions that an audience requires to be captivated - its a movie that gives hope to artists, musicians and film-makers on so many levels. The chemistry between Hansard and Irglova is bittersweet and charming. Once is a movie that makes you .. believe.

Echo of Love

Was pointed to check out a song by Uzbek pop singer, Iroda Dilroz, called "Sevgi Sadosi", the translation of which is the title of this post (hmm, aren't I mysteriously nifty, today?).

Dilroz, being a hardcore Rahmaniac, has adapted Saathiya's "Aye Udi Udi" into a rather catchy number. Wonder if I like it just because I've heard the original. Its difficult to displace my frame of reference now, but this is a really nice rehash.



Moreover, while we're on the topic of the legend himself, his music is finding its way into mainstream Hollywood, in more ways than one, especially after the opening credits of Inside Man featured "Chaiyya Chaiyya". A poignant sequence of "Lord of War" was supported by the strains of the eternal Theme track of 'Bombay'. Check it out below:




Was also told that a remix version of "Ae Ajnabi" played for a few seconds in an episode of Entourage. Now that is extreme randomness. But all in all, it definitely points to the fact that he is as mainstream as it gets.

You're so money, don't even know it!

On a day like today...

.. the recession special at Gray's ($3.50 for 2 hot dogs and a drink) doesn't really seem that bad.

PS - Thanks a million for the kind words of appreciation, folks. You should be hearing more exciting info about forthcoming projects, very shortly. Watch this space! :-)

In other news, if you haven't yet, watch Once. Its the most heartwarming movie you'll ever see.
As Spielberg put it best, "A little movie called Once gave me enough inspiration to last the rest of the year. And the soundtrack - heavenly!

The proof is in the math, though. Production Cost: $160,000. Gross Revenues: $14 million.

A Few Moments with the Maestro



A clip from Sahara One's recent broadcast of the A R Rahman North America Talent Hunt which was conducted in July 2007. Don't know if I mentioned this on the blogosphere earlier, but I was one of the 20 finalists, picked from about 4,000 audio clips that were submitted for this contest, which finally picked winners who got to sing with Rahman at his concert tour.

Rock the Vote!

You know what really grinds my gears?

People who use the line, "I wanna say". Know what I mean? As in, "I was at the theater at ... uhh, .. i wanna say .. uhh .. 9 PM?".

Dude, if you "wanna say" 9 PM, then why don't you just say it? Wait a minute, you ARE saying it. Then what's with the "I wanna say" crap that you prelude it with. It sounds affected and annoying - and wherever you picked it up from, it isn't making you sound as cool as you think it is. If you're not sure about something, you could say "approximately", "nearly" or "I'm just plain daft", don't fake it up with "uhh I wanna say ...". You sound like Big Moose, dumb and delirious.

And that's what really grinds my gears. Tom?

Wizard!

What would you call Juno? Reality? Sarcasm? A Tragicomedy? How about a Realisarcitragicomedy? And no, I'm not trying to play on those ever-so-annoying AT&T ads.

(I need a phone that works where I work. A place called ThisAdsSoBadlyScriptedThatImGonnaThrowUp)

Although the movie starts out with dialogue that seems almost read out of cue cards, because we are unable to relate to the film's format or visualize its end goal. But as we get to understand Juno's character better (and believe me, it doesn't take long), this movie is like real life, bent and wound, swung around a tree, and rammed with a baseball bat.

A chunky constitutent of the film's charm is Ellen Page, and how in-sync she is with the challengingly devised character. Juno is clearly unlike anything we have seen on screen before. She has more attitude and spunk than Pulp Fiction and the Kill Bill trilogy put-together, and for a teenager, she has comebacks to make the Bronx blush. She's Punky Brewster on acid.

And to add to all that, she has one hell of a complicated life. And Juno is an unpretentious, voyeur's-eye view of it. Simplistically speaking, I'm glad someone made a well-scripted, funny, and bittersweet TEEN movie that doesn't oversimplify or patronize one of the most complex periods of our lives. Juno's bound to sweep up the globes.

In other news, I love Ankasa pillows.

We f***ed up the endgame!

I had never heard of Charlie Wilson, prior to the hype generated by the movie, leave alone understood the primary role that he played in the end of the Cold War. I was aware of the wicked quadrangular interplay between US-Pakistan-Afghanistan and Russia, but the key strategic role of the womanizing Texan senator was somewhat baffling.

Charlie Wilson's War is a movie about forgotten glory. And more importantly, its a movie that makes you aghast at the irony that the US has historically created, staffed and fortified its enemies, prior to launching an offensive war on them. It does not dilute the cruciality that Charlie had in terms of allocating mammoth budgets to the initiative, nor does it overplay it by giving him a messiah-like status.

As you watch Tom Hanks slip deeper into the character of Wilson, one starts to realize that he is by far one of the greatest actors of our time. From Philadelphia, to Forrest Gump. From Saving Private Ryan, to Castaway. From Sleepless in Seattle, to The Terminal. Hanks defines versatility that legends are made of. Julia Roberts was unbelievably droll - completely not with it. Philip Seymour Hoffman - brilliant as always. Om Puri as ex-Pakistani president, Zia-Ul-Haq was interesting and adequate.

CWW is the kind of non-documentary that makes you rethink the mental image that you have of the past, and truly makes it leap out of the pages of your history books, and become a real story that is capable of being perceived, especially in light of the events of the last few years. The highlight of the movie are the last few definitive scenes, where Charlie strives to bring his epic work to closure. Its clear that he wanted America to seal the open wound that was post-war Afghanistan by building the foundation blocks of education and a non-corrupt political system. But its clear that this never happened. The well-equipped, military-trained country slipped into the ranks of religious fanaticism, causing the birth of the Taliban, and the mushrooming of Jihadist organizations that had a multiplier effect across the Middle East over the years, coming back to bite the US in the a$$ less than 2 decades later.

As Wilson puts it simply yet sadly in the ominous closing quote of the movie, before fade-to-black,

"These things happened. They were glorious and they changed the world".

"And then we went, and we f***ed up the endgame".

So, turning 27

.. today, isn't all that its steamed up to be.

As I'm short of words, I'll turn the baton to Vishesh, who shares this potent quote which he requested me to post on RevEv on this day. So here goes.

27

When I think about years gone by,
and what I'd still just like to do.
I pray to our Lord above,
to grant these things that I pursue.

But I keep adding to my story,
another chapter to proclaim.
For everything I'm doing now,
I don't do it for acclaim.

For I've paid my life long dues,
and now its time to play.
Just so long as I remember
to thank God when I pray.

Ahem ... thanks. I think?

In other news, Viva Capricorn!

God I love this show...

'08

its gonna be one heck of a year!