I trudge along the trampled path, beaten and broken
Hurt, crushed, ripped apart, I wander alone
I keep my pace but stagger on, unsure, uncaring
The world ceases to excite me, for I am made of stone.
I have been caught by the ruthless creature, one of the mind.
With cunning ease, strategic planning, it caught me by stealth.
It looked at me, piercing light, to all but my own thoughts I’m blind
For I have stared into the malicious eyes of a creature of death…
Boredom is its name, it smites its victims by scores,
And enjoys our pain as we slowly burn ourselves to ash,
It confounds my brain, drains my heart, squeezes out my soul
Takes away the remains of bone and throws it in the trash.
It makes the world seem worthless, for we have nothing to do anymore
We forget the taste of freedom and rot away in living hell
It destroys our essence, feasts on our bright-eyed curious cores,
It is the Devil itself, taunting us, forever ringing our knell.
Is it this beast that transforms good men, turns them forever bad?
Is it this madness that makes them drink, then rape their kin?
Murder people, destroy the earth- is it because their insanely sad?
Manipulated and ravaged by this demon of pure sin.
It makes me rage, burn with tears, yet I keep on my toes
For, quite near now, I hear its creep laughter ring
I am broken, fearful, terrified, yet I swallow down my woes,
Nothing to do, I rush straight into the mouth of the evil king.
Are you travelling around the world or sitting at home looking glum?
Have you created a new comic character to rival that of Superman?
Are you surfing on a beach, or are you sadly living in a van?
Are you an accomplished animator working on a project for Disney?
Have you got into drinking and have already lost a kidney?
Are you an environmental activist working to save the trees?
Or have you gone and joined yet another stupid IT company?
Have you made films as good as those by Nolan, Miller, Spielberg?
Are you in space and from above you’re looking at our blue earth?
Are you a mad scientist or a dreamy inventor?
Are you a teacher helping to make tomorrow a bit better?
Have you discovered something, like whether humans can fly?
Are you climbing a mountain and can almost touch the sky?
Have you lost your money, and you’re now in helpless strife?
Are you single, or do you actually have a wife?
Have you created the stuff of legends, inspired people that ‘they can’?
And maybe, just maybe, are you Batman?
Yes, I wonder what you’ve become
But I don’t care if your life’s in tatters.
I just hope you’re a good person,
For me, that’s all that matters.
I don’t normally watch Tamil movies because, in my opinion, they either drag out on and on, or they have an impeccably predictable storyline that goes like this: song, talk, fight, emotion, song, talk, fight, emotion- with few attempts at hopeless humor thrown in desperation. These kinds of movies sell, having appealed to the masses (and the older generation in my family i.e. anyone older than me) but I never appreciate them as movies, only as cheap ways of killing time.
However, I accompanied my family to the latest Tamil movie releasing on the big screen: ‘Uttama Villain’ starring an actor whom I now very much respect: Kamal Hassan, and directed by Ramesh Aravind.
The official ‘Uttama Villain’ poster
Hassan plays a film super star named Manoranjan, who is worshipped by his audience (kind of like Tamil film star Rajinikant today). He is referred to as the ‘king of entertainment’ (also like Rajinikant). By the way, Manoranjan means entertainment! Unfortunately however, he has been identified to have Class 4 brain cancer (not like Rajinikant, I hope), and, as his end is near, he wants to end his movie career with a bang. Rather than his audience shedding tears of anguish, with his last movie, he wants them to shed tears of laughter. He makes a comedy. Its name is Uttama Villain.
In order to do this, Manoranjan seeks the help of the director Margadarshi (meaning ‘the shower of the right path), who is played by the veteran highly esteemed late Tamil director K. Balachander, who was the one who actually introduced Kamal Hassan in the movie world. In a way, it mirrors the real life mentor-mentee relationship between actor and director!
K. Balachander
In brief, this is a movie within a movie. The larger pathos and sorrow of the real world looms above, while the quirkiness and vibrant nature of our imagination is depicted in the movie that Manoranjan creates. Although the film starts of a bit slow, and some music would have helped to ease the monotony in the beginning, the well-written script develops, adding layers of feeling as it progresses.
The songs are both catchy and enhance the depth of the scenes. The intriguing thing is that they aren’t the typical groovy songs we’ve come to associate with mainstream Tamil films. They are more traditional, more rooted in folklore, and strangely, especially for a kid like me, are more appealing.
The set design and the camera work are good. I saw some pretty unique and interesting shots in the movie (a mirror acted as a center and equally balanced the reflection of a character). The make-up is spot on, especially for the dances. The dialogues are a blend of both modern-day spoken Tamil, used in the main movie, and old Tamil, used in the movie that Manoranjan creates. The old Tamil may be a bit hard for those who are not fluent in the language to understand each word, but, thankfully, the gist of what is being said is made clear by their gestures and over-exuberant expressions.
The way humor has been used in the story is really cool- sometimes subtle, and sometimes in-your-face. And peculiarly, there is no slapstick comedy at all. The wit is only depicted through expressions, or emerges through dialogues. Its not dirty, its like a cartoon. It’s simple and clean.
And, let me just say this: Kamal Hassan is an incredible actor. He acts with finesse, he dances with grace (and an occasional wobble), and I’ve heard he sings too. He directs movies. He writes screenplays. He is a bucket-load of creative energy, so much so I wonder how his old body can carry such weight!
Kamal Hassan- in all his glory
I was initially a bit skeptical about there being three heroines (including Manoranjan’s wife) in the movie, two of whom being considerably younger than Kamal Hassan. I mean, can’t everyone agree that a romance between a sixty year old man and a twenty five year old woman looks a little… unnatural. Creepy, even. But, thankfully, the movie didn’t focus on this aspect as much as it did on the others. And the relationship between Manoranjan and his three women is one of love, not lust.
Overall, I feel this movie is a unique balance of humor and poignancy. We all know the real world is, most of the time, a hard, sorrowful place full of angst, bitterness, and the notion of every man for himself. But, if you look at the world through a new set of eyes, it can turn into something wonderful. Movies, films can help you achieve that. They can transport you to a different world. Be it Lord of the Rings or Die Hard or Big Hero 6, which thrill us. Blood Diamond or The Imitation Games, which touch our hearts. Inception, The Dark Knight, which make us think and marvel. Or Interstellar, which just confuses the hell out of us.
Be it of any language, movies are amazing. They provide people with an escape route from their own problems. ‘Uttama Villain’ showed us this happening on the screen. It’s one of the nuances that make the film remarkable.
But all said and done, it’s a Tamil movie. People are expecting mainstream mass-appeal, especially from a personality like Kamal Hassan. And gosh, I sure hope fanatics don’t drag this movie down.
Before I watched this movie, the phrase brought to mind images of my friend shouting this out while zapping me with a fake laser gun while playing ‘Space Cowboys’ when I was nine. After watching the movie, the images remain the same, except in place of my friend is the balding Bruce Willis. And I zap him.
Die Hard or Die Hair?
This movie is supposed to be one of the all time great action blockbusters, and, with my thirst for movies ever-growing, it was on my list of must watch movies.
For those who don’t know the plot- a terrorist gang led by Hans Gruber (played by Alan Rickman, for younger readers, Severus Snape from Harry Potter) takes over the Nagatomi Corporation building in L.A during a Christmas Eve party. Gruber and his henchman plan to steal 6oo million dollars from the Nagatomi high-tech safe, while pretending to be politically motivated to throw the authorities (who seem to have anger management issues and are incredibly easy to fool) off track. Being the psychopathic maniac that he is, he also plans to leave no hostage alive. All said and done, New York cop (who, after this movie, becomes the iconic, heroic yet bloody stupid New York cop) John McLane has come to visit his estranged wife Holly, who is incidentally one of the hostages. And so, this strange hero, who only knows how to speak in expletives, armed with his handgun, and an are-you-kidding-me-the-world-is-so-cruel attitude, with a complete disregard for local authorities, decides to take on the bad guys.
The official Die Hard poster
There is not a lot to say about this movie. The beginning is boring. Alan Rickman turns out to be a fairly formidable antagonist through great acting effort, while Bruce Willis struggles to do so, and manages slight grimaces throughout the film. Most of the dialogues are ineffably bad, while one became iconic (Yippee ki-Yay m*****f*****) . And, I’m not sure if this was a mistake in the movie or done deliberately, but McLane’s vest turns from white to military brown halfway into the movie!
Yet, if you move past this, i.e. if you struggle to move past this, the movie gains good pace. The plot may not have been spectacular or intricate, but it is well thought out. The action effects (the explosions, and the blood splattering when people get shot) are fancy and gritty. And, I may be wrong, but I think that this movie may have been the first of its kind to introduce African Americans as intelligent, thinking characters.
This is John McLane’s epic jump off the roof- one of the really cool action sequences…
Overall, as the movie progressed, I grew to like John McLane. He was foolish, dumb, sassy, expressionless and incorrigibly jumping into danger, but he was a cool guy. The film made me root for the hero and hate the bad guy, without the protagonist-antagonist contradictions in today’s ‘modern’ movies (kind of like your typical Tamil movie!). When the villain died a fitting death, I was scared to bits at the magnitude (he falls from a thirty storey building), but there was a sick satisfaction bubbling at the surface. (A little known fact: for his death scene, Alan Rickman agreed to fall onto an airbag 25 feet below on the count of three. Except the director and the stunt director, cruel as they were, thought they would get a better reaction if they dropped him on the count of ‘one’. Hence, the amazing expression of terror on his face!)
In conclusion, Die Hard is how any ‘good guy saves the day’ movie should be. No wonder it received exceptional reviews from critics.The movie isn’t as slick as modern action movies, but it is nice- a nice bumbling mess of mayhem, in which McLane refuses to give up and be killed – a diehard survivor.
The much-anticipated ‘Avengers- Age of Ultron’ is finally here, leaving kids screaming with joy, comic fans screaming with approval, and parents screaming like kids. That’s a lot of screaming… but then, there’s a lot going on in the movie.
Director Joss Whedon, who sent the Marvel fan base rocketing with the previous Avengers movie, attempts to, and succeeds to do it again. The movie reunites the previous cast of Robert Downey Jr. as the beloved, classy Iron Man, Chris Evans as good Ol’ Captain America, Chris Hemsworth as Thor –the god of lightning and old English, Scarlet Johansson as Black Widow- the spy who fights aliens alongside gods (did she sign up for that?), Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye, who shoots arrows and does practically nothing else, and Mark Ruffalo- who, when ‘goes green’, doesn’t attempt to save the environment but instead destroys it.
The reunion of the earth’s Mightiest heroes
This movie smashes the characters we love, headlong into another set of characters, whom we grow to love; namely Quick Silver, the Scarlet Witch, and the Vision, each displaying greater powers than the other. And then, as the title conveniently conveys, there is Ultron himself. Created to be an artificially intelligent program by Tony Stark in order to ensure world peace, the outcome is inevitably obvious. Ultron has his own version of peace in which the human race is forced to evolve or be sent into extinction, and in which a new race of robots take over the world. He can’t tell the difference between saving the world and destroying it, and it is up to the Avengers to stop him from doing so.
Ultron is a formidable foe. He is a program, so he can access every nook and cranny of the Internet, as well as send his essence into other robots. He binds his robot body with vibranium- in comic lore, the strongest metal in the world. But, when brought to life by the voice of James Spader… ooh, he just becomes downright sinister.
That dialogue will give me the creeps for all eternity…
Avengers 2 also possess some pretty intense action sequences, with stunning CGI and super slow motion too. The great thing about this is that all the characters have a slice of time to shine (by bashing the bad guys), even heroes such as Hawkeye who didn’t get much attention in the earlier film. The bad thing about this is that it leaves the audience so enthralled and thrilled that their hoots of glee continue even after the scene is over. Along with the usual snide remarks and the rib-tickling banter between characters, typical of what we’ve seen so far of Joss Whedon, it establishes itself as good entertainment.
But, is it a good movie?
Well, in my opinion, as a standalone film, its not that great. It merely serves as a build up towards the forthcoming movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and serves as connection points to what will happen then. With too many references to the future, for example, we already know that in this movie the characters will emerge virtually unscathed (all of them…?), and this ultimately decreases Ultron’s potential as a villain. We also end up dreaming about what is yet to come, rather then seeing what is happening right in front of us. Kind of like how I dream about the end of chemistry during chemistry class.
Furthermore, it serves more as a comic book movie than a superhero action blockbuster, which is great for fans (myself included) that notice the Easter eggs littered around. However, what about the casual moviegoers just looking for a piece of good action and humor? They’ll get their fair bit of enjoyment I’m sure, but when they go home, if the only thing they remember is the Hulk smashing Iron Man, we may well wonder what the hype was all about.
You should notice that I said ‘may’. That’s because I hope that not all the people who go to the cinemas are ignorant about the true meaning of AWESOME!!!!
All said and done, it’s an Avengers movie, people. It may not have been as globally endearing as the previous one, but it’ll scoop up buckets of fans (not to mention cash) for its epic action, punch lines, and Ultron himself.
You have to like an Avengers movie. I know I did. After all, they are the Earth’s mightiest Heroes.
I recently saw the new Fast and Furious movie in the theatre.
Although I had originally planned not to, as in my opinion, all there were to the earlier issues of the franchise were fast cars and clichéd dialogues, this movie’s trailer was simply too cool to miss. It showed us that other than the terrifically loud sound of the revving of an engine, we would also be exposed to mindless, impossible action sequences. Hats off to the team that put the trailer together; they sure know how to attract us stupid teenage boys!
The trailer filled my whole body with adrenaline, and my brain with disbelief, and so, I sauntered into the theatre, my body tingling with anticipation. Thankfully, the nonsensical movie did not disappoint.
Fast and Furious 7, directed by James Wan and starring Vin Diesel (the deepest voice ever), Jason Stratham (a British killer), Dwayne Johnson (one word- BIG), and the late Paul Walker (who ironically died in a high-speed car accident), is basically a revenge story. Stratham is the ‘big, bad bro’ of the villain of the previous movie. He wants revenge against the Toretto crew (sorry, family) for murdering his brother, and resolves to hunt them down, one by one. He is supposed to be a shadow, yet practically everyone knows who he is. The rest is pretty simple- the crew, in order to ensure their family’s survival, must in turn stop him. They must go for, as Dom (Vin Diesel) calls it- one last ride.
But enough about the story. The action is what makes the movie.
Two cars, going full pelt, slam into each other, and the drivers, apparently unscathed, engage themselves in a fierce street fight, while drones and missiles are firing through the city. A man, in order to save his colleague from a grenade explosion, falls approximately ten storeys from a building onto a car, and only receives a broken arm. In a few scenes later, he breaks his arm cast by flexing his bicep!
Paul Walker practically defies physics by sprinting up a truck as it falls down a cliff, upon which he leaps onto a speeding car. Cars, with their drivers inside, of course, are dropped from a plane, in order to make a quick entrance into a foreign land.
Oh, and Vin Diesel drives a $3.4 million red Lykan Hypersport, supposedly one of only seven others in the world, off a skyscraper. Twice. Although, I must admit, this scene was absolutely spectacular, and sent the entire theatre into a stunned silence, save the frantic thumping of our hearts in our chests.
(This action scene has been said to be the most plausible stunt in the entire movie, and may actually be doable. For more information go to http://www.vulture.com/2015/04/could-furious-7s-skyscraper-jump-really-happen.html )
The car is fearlessly driven off the skyscraper. Fearless, only due to the CGI.
The idiots face-dive from mountains, crash into each other, smash, bash and wallop one another with a decent amount of loud action sound effects, yet, the baffling thing is they show absolutely zilch signs of injury. Dwayne Johnson drives a van off a bridge onto a missile, and there is not a single scratch, nor an expression of pain on his face. It makes the rest of us who cry out upon stubbing our toe on the side of the bed look bad!
Furthermore, they perform these unbelievable feats with a steady stream of clichéd action dialogues and comical quips- ‘Never mess with a man’s family’, ‘Time to release the beast!’, ‘Daddy’s gotta go to work’, ‘Where’s the cavalry? I AM the cavalry!’ and so on.
Amid all the hair-raising action, the movie also manages to bid farewell to the late Paul Walker, in a remarkable and bittersweet way, which is surprisingly touching. Coupled with the themes of love and the need to protect one’s family, it actually manages to evolve into an action movie with an emotional trump card.
99% Action, 1% Emotion, that is.
Fast and Furious 7 is an exhilarating car race all the way.
This blog was born from me being bored out of my wits. It wasn’t a waste of time (I hope) because I actually had nothing to do with my time in the first place.
I hope that upon reading whatever I write here, be it about movies, or stories, or pictures, or adventures, you, the reader, manage to feel like it has not been a complete waste of your time, and you actually enjoy it. Or if you have no clue what to do, like me… read it anyway, because seriously, you have nothing to lose!
I have seen in movies and read in books (at least, those all which I have seen or read fully) that in every good introduction, there has to be some jazz and style, which invites and excites the watchers and readers to the point when they are certain that they must complete whatever they have ventured to watch or read. So, without further ado…(queue smooth, snazzy music)
“My name is Rohit, but you can just call me agreatguy. What I’m about to tell you is incredibly confidential, and if word of this reaches the wrong ears, there will be serious consequences. This here is a top secret, covert operation which goes by the name of ‘eventhegreatgetbored’, a blog whose mission is to prevent great guys such as myself from boredom at your, great reader’s, expense.” Queue dramatic Mission Impossible music here. “Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to read the blog.”
Read it, and remember with uncomfortable clarity, how bored you were once, a long time ago. Read it and marvel at the delicate balance of humour and poignancy of a bored kid’s writing. Or read it, and wonder why you are listening to him blabber in the first place.
Its your choice.
Just remember, in the mind of a kid, or an adult, or anyone for that matter, the whole world is their oyster.
In the mind of a bored kid, they are inside the oyster. And they just don’t know the whole world is around them.
And with those sparkling pearls of wisdom, let the journey begin.
eventhegreatgetbored 