He never ceases to surprise you.

Actually, the first Tarantino film that I ever saw was Reservoir Dogs and that too was quite some while back. Then there was a brief hiatus before one day, I saw Pulp Fiction. While that was a Class Apart film (not just a Band Apart one), there were brief periods of slump that were pretty much evident. Not in style or panache, but in the general storyline. I’ll level with you – I never understood the Bruce Willis part of the movie. Like, it did not contribute, in my opinion, greatly to the script. It was a great piece of cinema no doubt, and there will always be times when I rewind and watch those sections per se, but then it is not what will draw me to the whole frame.

So after that there was even a bigger pause before I watched my third and Quentin Tarantino’s fourth film (which he proudly advertises on the credits) – Kill Bill Vol. 1.

Boy!

This movie is mad. The director is mad. The storyline is mad. The visual effects are mad. The whole one hour and forty six approximate minutes that you spend with the movie is mad. It gives you a high, if I may say so. And it is also addictive. Though you may have seen it umpteenth number of times, there will be that sudden urge to first just watch one scene and consequently, in the same session, the whole film. What can I say about this movie that is not unique? That is not stunning? That just mesmerises you?

Let me do what Tarantino did to his screenplay. Only thing – I’ll go in descending order of popular choice:

1. Performances: Uma Thurman. Period. How the hell did he even think of casting her (though actually, the character was a part of her creation, when you see at the end, “The Bride” developed by Q & U), and how the hell did she ever pull off madness of such gargantuan magnitude? Her performance was like watching poetry in motion, a complete package of collective disharmony and yet, a sheer solace of unity throughout the whole character. Her emotion of losing her child, her martial art capabilities, even her fluent Japanese, everything goes for her in this movie.

And it’s just not her. We also have Lucy Liu pulling off a fantastic performance as the Japanese Queenpin. Half of her close-ups focus on her eyes and she plays the whole message back and forth from right there. While these are the two basic tangents in this part of the movie, right before you end, you also have the legend put in a line himself – Michael Madsen, announcing his arrival and hooking us on for Vol. 2.

2. Camera/Editing: This is perhaps the only column that warrants no words for it. The name of the director alone guarantees epic novelties – be it the opening credit shots, the action sequences, and most importantly, the blue backdrop fight sequence between Black Mamba and a section of the Crazy 88 – simple, and yet effective.

3. Music: It says Original Music by The RZA and original it is. Seldom has a score been repeated. The maximum hits any score got was around 2-3. And the compositions were novel shots of complete genius. Whether it is the guitar and the whistle, the jazz rock stylized entrees, or simply the panpipe renditions by the legend himself, Zamfir, music has never blended in like this. The opening credit song (He shot me down, Bang, Bang by Nancy Sinatra) is perhaps the best credit sequence that I have ever seen for any movie. And also Zamfir’s The Great Shepherd for the closing credits was also mind blowing. You get to know this director simply from the music that he has played in this film.

4. Screenplay/Direction: To be very honest, there was a burning desire in me to finish those earlier columns as fast as I could and then come over here, to talk about Quentin Tarantino. But now that I am here, I have no words. What do I say? I never stopped once to note down a particular point! I never bothered to do that even on the nth time that I saw the movie. Nothing in this movie is chronologically arranged and yet, he just makes it the only possible way to be. The whole movie just oozes along. Without making you stop to think even for an itsy-bitsy minute. You feel you are a part of the whole drama, and you are receiving first hand information. You feel that this movie was made only for you and no one else has a clue. Black Beatrix/Kiddo/Mamba/The Bride/Mommy is telling you her story, to share it with you and with no one else. This is what Tarantino does for a living. He tells stories.

My response is same after each and every Quentin Tarantino movie – watch it. You'll be "QuERentinED".

Yuvvraazzzzzzzzzz!

After having watched Yuvvraaj, you obviously cannot expect a ‘review’ out of me. I have better things to do – like sleep, or analyze the colour of the sky, or even hear birds chirp! But a review is certainly out of the question. However, I was putting down a few questions while I was watching the movie (but of course, only up to a point, as soon I got bored just writing rather than stare at Katrina Kaif). So, here are the questions that I wanted to ask myself, the world at large, animals, everyone... Take a look:

1. Does Subhash Ghai ever know why he is making a movie, or more importantly what he is making?
2. Why do Ghai characters always live in palaces?
3. Why does a sports motorbike have to be kept inside the bedroom?
4. Why does anyone ever hire Salman Khan?
5. Czech cops speak fluent English – actually a hint of the Queen’s English!
6. You take A R Rahman and don’t even use his specialization, Western Classical, though your picture is set within the same theme? Why not rope in Himesh Reshammiya? Karz chukao!
7. Why Beethoven’s 5th? Why the cello? Why the trouble?
8. Higher notes play on the left side of the piano and the lower ones on the right?
9. Salman belongs to the Prague Orchestra, but goes to his City of Music in Austria where the whole story continues?
10. Why, must Salman where dark glasses indoors?
11. If an NRI can’t speak proper Hindi, then why can’t she just speak in English?
12. Indian man asks question in English, foreigner replies in Hindi?
13. Rainman? Really? (Take this on the regular Chandler note)

Choreographers and Kabir Lal, well done!

Ludwig Van Kubrick – A Clockwork Orange Review

The basic crux of the whole matter – the new good Christian is suicidal, dreads Beethoven’s 9th and has the inability to make the moral choice – though the empire, the structure dismisses that as a mere “subtlety of course!”

What does A Clockwork Orange talk about? Nothing and everything really! That is the whole darned beauty of it. And it does so with an odd panache, an acute sense of drama – so typically Beethoven. The movements rise and fall, they mingle, they deafen, they soothe and they cause an overwhelming catharsis – that, my friends, is the beauty of it all.

Is it a tribute to Beethoven also, by the by? Not a tribute, an inspirational drive perhaps, a reinforcement of the great master, in the way he did it the best. In style!

It pulls together everything from society – the swaying politician, well-meaning, yet twisted; the crazed mental scientists, proper intent at heart, but drowned in their own self-belief; cruel police officers, both good and the very bad; holy ministers, who scare people to raise belief in the Almighty, and yet demand that everyone deserves a choice; even fragile parents, torn between parental affection and societal implications of certain actions ruled by the mind rather than the heart – and the new Christian, the new human being, Alex (Malcolm McDowell).

Before Alex the demon breaks into the old lady’s house at the start of it all, he tells her, “I understand ma’am, with so many scoundrels going about, you never know whom to trust and whom not to” – something that we all understand and appreciate more often than not. And yet, when the ‘repaired’ Alex gets back, he sees the new lodger in his room in his parent’s house declare how he would never leave them to the hands of a sycophant. Now, does he want the room, or does he really care? Alex’s earlier quote comes ringing back and we see the same aspect from two different corners of the room. If the sun sets at one point, it also rises at the other. Cruel, evil world!

And this is a story that cannot be told. Actually it can be told, but it is Alex’s narration that has to be seen. Exactly, just not heard, but also seen. That is where Stanley Kubrick comes in. And he is a director that can never be spoken about; he only has to be seen. His vision is all that there ever is to anything that he makes. Be it 2001: A Space Odyssey or The Shining to name a few, it is what he does from behind the camera that is awe-inspiring. A piece of advice though – if you intent to watch this film, then either do it with the subtitles on, or if that irritates you, plug on your headphones to your computer. The dialogues may sell themselves off once in a while, due to the intermingled use of the Cockney accent. Not the director’s problem – we just have to get used to it.

But look at it in today’s context – petty thieves have now given way to dastardly terrorists. That is now the new word for evil on the streets. Therefore, if the sciences can come out with some method of completely altering someone’s criminal reflex at the cost of his moral decision making power, would that really be of much concern to the world at large? And even so, how would we know when it is being used for justice and when for petty ego gains?

Truly, such a complicated film of the 70s becomes so simplistic today.

Music to the eyes and inspiration for the ears – it all works like Clockwork!