A Raja snubs Shobhaa De

The Social Network - review

Seen it twice.

The Social Network(TSN) is a rare film. Not often does one walk into the darkness of a cinema hall with some great expectation that the director(David Fincher) has build with films like Fight Club, Seven, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and the film happens to be several notches up your expectation barometer and leaves you asking for more by the end of it.

TSN is very well written and it excels in structure, and the dialogues are clear while being snappy. I haven’t seen so many people laugh at the clever dialogues. Aaron Sorkin deserves full marks. I finished reading the script last night. Aaron Sorkin will certainly make it to the final five at Oscars next year. Will be happy if he wins.

Now with a great script director David Fincher extracts some great performances from the cast. Jessey Eisenberg who plays protagonist Mark Zukerberg -the founder of Facebook- who is surefooted while dealing with any tech/geeky thing and socially fragile especially with women. He is cut above the rest. Andrew Garfield too did a great job who plays Eduardo Saverin -only friend of Mark Zukerberg at Harvard. Justin Timberlake too delivers a memorable performance while playing street smart Sean Parker -the founder of Napster- who knows Silicon Valley inside out, he also serves as the catalyst in the film. Armie Hammer does well as he portrays the identical Winklevoss twins. Brenda Song, other too do well with their roles.

You might have heard it elsewhere and I’ll reiterate; TSN is an adaptation of the book titled ‘The Accidental Billionaire’. Film breaks in the middle of a conversation where Mark and his girlfriend Erica(a Boston University student) are there for a dinner date. There are no traces of romance in the conversation where Mark expresses his concern over doing something substantial to grab attention of Final Clubs at Harvard. However Mark screws up the conversation big time and Erica breaks up with her right there. He gets back to his fraternity (Kirkland) dorm, gets intoxicated and blogs shit about Erica simultaneously. Then he goes on to creates FaceMash dot com, a site that compares two girls at a time. FaceMash gathers significant attention across Harvard which eventually leads to collapse of Harvard’s network in few hours.

Mark gets 6 month academic probation for FaceMash episode, attention of Winklevoss brothers and unpopularity among the girls on campus. Andrew Garfield says “How can you get all the girls to hate us, man”. The Winklevoss brothers and Narendra ask Mark to write code for a website idea called ‘The Harvard Connection’. Mark agrees to do so. However, he keeps them in dark as he begins coding for it, he actually improves the idea hell lot. Eduardo(his only friend) arranges the money for servers. The narrative is non-linear as it jumps back and forth from a hearing where the Winklevoss brothers and Eduardo sue him over Facebook ownership rights. The story unfolds as characters reveal what happened four years back when the attorneys on both sides pose questions. In short we track the invention and evolution of Facebook, now a multibillion entity. Facebook grabs Sean Parker’s attention in California, then he convinces Mark to come to Cali. calling it the place to be. Mark at different times keeps different people in dark, even stabs in the back of his best friend Eduardo. A couple of dialogues

Mark: He was my best friend.

We see empty chair.

Attorney: And your best friend is suing you for 600 million dollars.

TSN is not just about invention and evolution of Facebook, it also provides great insights to human nature through the characters and situations. It’s almost like a thriller that rivets you to screen. I never thought a film about Facebook’s invention could be so gripping.

Film is brilliantly shot. Especially this rowing competition sequence between Harvard Rowing team and Hollandia Rowing team, some are calling it “A perfect scene”. Production design and lighting are trademark Fincher. The music adds to the tension, a technique extensively used by Kubrick in The Shining. I wonder if I should use the word “Masterpiece” for this David Fincher’s effort, as many people (including renowned critics) have used. It for sure is a brilliant film; test of time will answer its Masterpiece contention. A must watch in theatres.

Aaron Sorkin (writer) makes a brief appearance as an NY ad executive where he questions Eduardo about the snoring sound that Mark makes during a meeting. Mark Zukerberg’s dialogues are smart throughout the film and few people laugh at them loudly like it’s an exclusive joke that only they understood. This was a bit annoying few times. Few also complain that Jessey Eisenberg delivered his lines too fast and are difficult to understand occasionally.

10/10 can't see a reason to deduct points.

Kudos Fincher and team.

Udaan and Peepli Live

So, finally after decades of monotonous formula, now cliched, masala films Indian Film Industry(IFI) there seems to be some room for indie/parallel/hat-ke films. The ratification comes from the commercial success of films like Peepli Live, Bheja Fry, Udaan and rest.

I recently saw Udaan and Peepli Live. Had heard some great reviews about both. One went Cannes the other went to Sundance. Both reputed festivals. Thumbs up for the creative team behind these films.

Both films are rich in content, the characters have an arc, the stories have depth, the dialogue are polished, the conflicts are strong and clear, acting is superb. Udaan on one hand is character driven and explores the journey of a boy becoming a man and breaking free from control of his oppressive father. Call it budget constrains, but the cast went well with the characters. Shot in Jamshedpur Udaan also showed there is world beyond Bombay, Delhi, NY, London and Sydney. I would like to see such good films go mainstream with a least 500 prints release. Our(Indian) perception of cinema is terribly wrong and often displays our ignorance in great proportions when good films aren't able to break even. The actors need not always be cute/good looking sporting six-pac abs 22inch biceps and overact. This may also be due to the reason that we have been fed such cinema for so long that we have stopped to acknowledge anything that doesn't have a Khan, Kapoor, Khaana tag on it. sad but true, it is, as Metallica put it.

Peepli Live on other hand is more on masala side. It isn't exceptional but deals with a subject that mainstream cinema is often shy of touching. The sarcasm is brilliant and the characters are crafted well. The free flowing use of curse words adds to the realism.

You gotta see these two.

peace!

Tharoor Modi banter

An Amazing Person of a Man

Like films there are genres of people. Few are always exited about nothing, few are perpetually sad for specific reason, few are always confused, some are born nasty and so do they die -nasty. They just have this thing attached to them. And then they become that thing. This post is a promise that I made to myself for no specific reason during the course of interaction with this gentleman. I don't know his name. So the gentleman in contention had amazing attached to his personality and years later the day of discovery came and on expected lines he may have discovered he had become amazing. It just takes time and consistent effort to reach there. Trust me.

If I’m not exceptionally wrong the day was of Makar Sankranti of previous year. It’s afternoon time and by choice we (family) were sleeping (there’s no substitute to afternoon sleep. Like sprinkling Saffron on Biryani). And there’s knock on the door. Upon inspection from the door peephole I woke parents up, as I don’t deal with people not-of my age much. But not to my respite I was asked to socialize. :D

I brought in the tea and snacks and paid absolutely no attention the gentleman. By the way he physically was tall by Indian standards lot of hair (salt and pepper) left on his head for his age. Never tucks in his shirt and usually folds up his sleeves a couple of times. Common man so to say he is. His family structure is rather complex to his simple appearance. Being eldest son among four(or 5) to a army man takes some guts. I'm not sure of number of brother he has but there are quite a lot. I can count four of them. So let us assume 4 for convenience. I think, with I qualify of being called neighbor.

As said I wasn't really attentive towards conversation happening there. But when it turned to politics I was all ears for that. All I remember of that conversation are a few lines. One of them that instantly stunned me was this:

"Either Congress will win or it will not win"

Form the point of view of Congress or any other political outfit there are only two possibilities. Either it may win or it may not win. What's the point in stating the obvious. It not much different from saying either the upper side will be heads or tails in the case of a coin being tossed. His political affiliation was right wing folks. Later in the conversation he mentioned few more things but, nothing matches the mentioned.

Any conversation would be incomplete if you don't ask the young fella of family what he/she is doing at present. So did he and there was a mention of CAT on my side. He happened to be one of those kind of people who don't mind exaggerating things and stretching them. He dismissed my IIM pursuit as not-worth instantly. However, his opinion could possibly draw similarity some what like Manmohan Singh playing Rajeev Masand.

"There's an IIM at Banjar Hills na? Let us go and talk to people out there someday."

There's no IIM its an IIPM. Now if you have some idea of b-schools in India you know the irony in his statement. Then he suggested me a mantra that would help me in achieving my goals, plus a stone of some karat rating. Then he said..

"You can actually do MBA from Mississippi University. You can get the certificate."

The thing with it was it was some b-grade univ. having a affiliation to another c-grade Indian college. Then he asked me why didn't I apply to few universities in Australia.

"Why don't you apply to some universities in Australia? I send that Sharma's son there few months back." Like he paid for his fees and flight ticket. I said, most good universities take people who have prior work-experience.

"What is there in that? I can get you a 3 years work-ex certificate. What is there in that?"

"Hmm"

"Not only that, If you want to marry tell me. What is there in that? I will fix your marriage. What is there in that?"

Making "What is there in that?" his person favorite line. And repeating it for the fourth time. I was bewildered at the tangents that conversation was shaping into. There were moments when everybody present(including him) knew he was exaggerating. But everyone listened. Much later in the conversation came the real deal, he sought a favor from my parents.

Varudu (Bridegroom)

Sometimes -but rarely- it happens that while watching a film you feel that silently farting is an easier job than watching the film. Yesterday was one such happy moment for me. Of course the cosmos was in full light of it. The film is called Varudu. A even rare eventuality is when a person close to the actor playing protagonist is present in close vicinity. The cacaphony post exit doors was missing. I overheard a guy from a group of six -as he was the only person who spoke-saying "Speechless". It verymuch sums up the film for you.

The director seems to be in a complex hangover of MI-series, Spiderman and X-men, in that particular order. First the hero makes entry in Tom Cruise style bike riding, then flies/jumps like Tobey McGuire (Kobe Bryant, Shaq, Kevin Garnett are no match for him) and finally he kicks the balls out of villan in Hugh Jackman style. The director also made efforts to arrange the final fight on two colling towers (usually seen in nuclear/thermal power stations) as it was in Wolverine, so that you don't keep scratching your head and other body parts and say "Where did I see this?" I had few expectations till the Act-1 as the story has some scope. Probably it could have been Tollywood's first Coming-of-age flick.

A rather unusual outcome from this farty-flick was that its opponent/villan was finely developed and was a match for the hero. The song's aren't great and interrupt the flow of film all the time. Editor deserves a pat err.. kick on his you know where. Production designer, dude where are you? There were as many flaws as one can rememeber. The story has two marriage scenes in one place but, in the second scene the set suddenly comes up with two huge chimneys near them. And when the time of final fight comes miles of flower farms disappear only to form barren land with few large rocks. Hero and villan refuse to die time and again the final fight. May be they had said to each other "Hey, we are not common folks, we can take a lot of time to die. Or not die at all."

I also assume that the hero underwent training in bomb exposal(not disposal) squad as he fixes up a bomb in villans car in no time.

Despite all the ranting there was a good element, audience was deprived of Sneha Ullal's acting. She appears in the very first scene and you kind of expect her to be hero's love interest. But it never happens, an A+ to casting director for this. Such films offer enormous scope for fun for group goers. You get the licence to create nuisance in theatre and get claps for that. I kept my composure throught out the film but when the fight sequence on cooling towers came, I booed and wistled, not caring for social obligations and the civic sense thursted on me.

In our lingo such flicks are termed "STINKERS"

Alice in Blunderland - Arun Shourie

When Mr.Shourie said.. Rajnath Singh is like Alice in Blunderland..