Never Before Has the Country Been Divided Like This!

It's actually true that post 2014, there has been polarization. The people of the country are divided like never before. The divide between Hindu nationalists and leftist-liberals is clear, complete, absolute and deeper than before.
Earlier I had a few of them liberals in my circle and we used to hang out together, have coffee, lunch and debate and discuss this and that. People had a few things to say about every subject and that at times happened to include history, politics and religion. But most were apolitical. We could leave aside those subjects and endlessly discuss how plastic Aishwarya Rai was, whether Chetan Bhagat's books had any substance and so on.

2014 changed all that.
The atmosphere was charged with politics. No one could be apolitical anymore. Everyone had to take a stand and be on one or the other side of the fence. Fence sitters had no choice but to become part of the national discourse.
In fact the fence had been shifted to the right so that even those who had been masquerading as neutral all these years by saying meaningless things like 'I am not judgmental’, ‘I don't want to hate’, ‘all are children of God' now found themselves to the left of the fence, and left of centre!
You get the point, if you are not with us, you are against us.

So weeks and months after Modi won, my liberal connections left my FB wall one by one - unable to stand my strong pro BJP views and Islamic exposé, or else, I blocked them off.
One of them left bang on May 14 when BJP won. When the whole country was euphoric over the end of ten years of UPA and Manmohan, this Malayali’s was worried that Modi may ban beef. Seeing that on my wall, I told him not to worry, he could use Kerala Muslims who had connections with Pakistan's ISI and import his beef from there. And that was the end of ten years of our friendship. Now you understand what kind of a divide 2014 created!

What contributed to the divide most, was the leftist-liberal's sense of entitlement. The years before 2014, they were allowed to have their views - against Babri demolition, against post Godhra, against RSS and we right wingers dared not breathe a word or a whisper opposing those views or we would be dismissed as fanatics and fundamentalists. After 2014, when right wingers found their leader and their voice and started to express their views, the leftists would have none of that! They cried intolerance, saffronization, division and polarization and what not! That's when we saw how entitled the leftists were and that the politeness, courtesies, tolerance, accommodation and adjustment we had been extending to them all our lives, they were not ready to extend to us. Not an inch, not a needle tip!
And that made us angry and indignant!

Now when I bump into some liberal here or there, I don't bring up the subject of politics, in fact I don't talk to them at all, and if they happen to be discussing their beef (pun intended) in a group, I leave the place. Because they are not worth my time. I dismiss them as pseudo seculars; as low IQ cowards who piggy back on political correctness and don't have the courage for the truth, nor the intelligence to have an opinion of their own other than the media manufactured ones kept on the shelves, and hence not worth talking to. And I'm sure they dismiss me too.
As they raise the pitch and oppose even national anthem and Vande Mataram, I am offended by their very existence, and they are perhaps offended by mine. So we are divided. To the extent we don't even want to have coffee or lunch together, because we just don't see the point of it all.

But then when doodh ka doodh and pani ka pani happens, when the unmixable oil and water are separated, then you don't call that division, do you???
You call that clarity you call that disillusionment. You call that the moment of truth. Awareness. End of confusion. You call that focus. Direction and purpose. You call it the end of pretence and meandering. End of fence sitting. End of leftist hegemony over viewpoints and opinions.
And that's what Modi has done. He has mobilized even the most existentialist apolitical commoner and made him part of the national discourse, part of history writing. Even the most bovine and asinine materialist who had been content all his life with eating sleeping drinking shopping and saving money, has now awakened and become passionate about the nation and its leaders, for the first time in his life.
The right wingers who had been sidelined and even oppressed by Nehru and his likes are now confident about their views and unapologetically voicing the same.
So like I have said before, most of the good and bad aren't unconditional. Division an polarization too, can be a good thing when they divide what must never be mixed up in the first place.

Snakeling of Andhra

This character Jaganmohan Reddy with a benign name and a smarmy saintly smile gives me the scare.
'God has done justice, I read the Bible everyday', he says to Rajdeep Sardesai, as he proceeds to explain how Chandrababu Naidu, who poached 23 MLAs and 3 MPs from his party is now left with exactly the same number of MLAs and MPs after the recent elections.
Does he realize that the same God crashed his father's chopper and dispatched him to his specially reserved place in hell for all those Christians he sent into Tirupati temple and all those churches he built on the Seven Hills that make Tirupati sacred? Historically, those who meddle with Tirupati Balaji's affairs or take even one rupee from his coffers meet with doom.

He goes on to admit that he prayed very hard to his God that BJP or any other party may not get more than 250 seats in the Lok Sabha elections so that they may need his support to form a government at the center and then he may make them dance to his tunes and get his Andhra state that special status they have been clamouring for.
He admitted that on national television! What a wretched diabolical fellow! I mean, he prayed hard for a hung Parliament!
His God obviously did not listen to him.

Looks like he will continue the good work of his father who converted people in the state to Christianity on war footing and doubled their numbers in ten years when Sonia barmaid was lording them all.
My colleague K who was from Banjara Hills, Hyderabad, told me in 2009 that her maid was from a slum nearby. Missionaries converted people routinely in that place. As part of the conversion ceremony, the slumdwellers were made to walk on photos of Hindu Gods so they would never be able to go back to those Gods after using up the rice or money that the church had given them, as incentives to convert.

When YSR's chopper crashed, K's sister S who also was my colleague in the same firm had jumped up with excitement saying 'Yeaaaay, hamara CM mar gaya'!

After the father died, Jagan was rumoured to have reembraced Hinduism, performed rituals and all, but only yesterday he told Rajdeep Sardesai in his interview that he reads the Bible everyday. So just like Rahul Gandhi had become Janeu Dhaari for some time, he too had put up a show, a publicity stunt. Now that elections are over, he no longer needs the pretence and boldly declares his loyalty to the church!

We need a regulation to criminalize faking Hinduism - we are a tolerant religion, the only one in fact, but that doesn’t mean you can abuse Hinduism, exploit it, and make slight of it.

This Jagan snake-ling is one fellow you want to watch out for.
If he spreads his missionary poison, I hope the God of Tirupati will send him to the mouth of tigers that roam the forests into which his father dropped from the skies!

If BJP decides to grant him special status, they must do it on the condition that he will arrange for the Ghar Wapsi of all those thousands of people who his father hijacked from Hinduism and threw at Sonia Gandhi's Vatican feet. Otherwise he can go fuck himself. We don't need his support.

Saap ke pet se sapola hi bahar nikalta hai.

If BJP looks the other way as he goes on converting more people, just because he is their ally, BJP will let down those of us who voted it to power solely to protect Hindu Dharma from the erosive Abrahamic cults. They must watch his interview in which he says he would support anyone who gave him ‘benefits’.
They must realize he is ideologically promiscuous, the kind who could be your ‘friends with benefits’, but never a devoted lover.

Modi 2.0. Let's Not Forget to Thank These People...

Meanwhile, my sincere and heartfelt thanks to all these joker villains for their cheap stunts. Each of your stunt dented your own credibility; the support you got exposed all the maggots and termites of our rotten system, as they came crawling out of the woodworks. In your desperation to bring down Modi, you strengthened him and drove the people of India to him…

1.Kanhaiya Kumar for Bharat Tere Tukde Honge; you proved what we have been saying for years, that our universities are besieged by leftists

2.Shehla Rashid for Azadi Tak Jung Rahegi; we saw what Kashmiri Muslims will do after Indian army has rescued them from flash floods

3.Hardik Patel for swine-mouthing Modi and demanding caste reservations – you were the worm that heckled an elephant and we learnt not to underestimate the worm

4.Jignesh Mevani for asking Modi to retire to the Himalayas – people were convinced that geriatric politicians were better than B Grade low class scoundrel youth leaders

5.Gauri Lankesh for asking people to send their used sanitary napkins to Modi - people could tell a rogue journalist when they saw one, and a very useful word ‘Presstitute’ was coined!

6.Girish Karnad for eating beef at town hall in Bangalore – self-proclaimed intellectuals are mostly perverts and loose cannons, you showed us

7.The Award Wapsi gang for being selective in your outrage – you committed hara-kiri and spared us the trouble of having to bury you. What more, an anti-award-wapsi gang was born, bringing together in unity, one sleeping Hindu after another!

8.Mani Shankar Iyer for going to Pakistan and asking them to remove Modi from power

9.Arvind Kejriwal for... oh, everything he did. Is this fellow Pappu’s brother from another father?

10.Sonia Gandhi for implicating Colonel Purohit in Malegaon blasts

11.Siddhu for hugging Pak Army Chief Bajwa

12.Rahul Gandhi for Rafale rumours and Chowkidar chor hai

13.Mamta Banerjee for simply being the mangy bitch and the ugly shrew that she is

14.B Grade Bollywood item girls for saying they were ashamed of being Hindu after the Kathua rape

15.Presstitutes for denying love jihad

16.Salman Khurshid for eating Biryani with Pakistanis

17.Swara Bhaskar for saying she felt like a vagina after watching Padmavati

18.Sonia Gandhi for harassing Sadhvi Prajna

19.Lutyen’s media for not reporting a word about the daily murder and rape of Hindus by Muslims – our threat perception became a confirmed reality

20.NGO’s for working against India’s development in cahoots with the Church and the West

21.Lowlifes of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh who gave power to Congress and scared the hell out of complacent Hindus and propelled them to get off their ass and go vote in 2019

22.Nitish Kumar for walking out of BJP haughtily and then doing a Ghar Wapsi – you made an example of yourself; those who oppose the BJP, politicians or commoners, have only Lallu Yadav’s stinking arms to run into

23.Joseph Vijay, Kamala Haasan, Prakash Rai - the jetsam and flotsam of the cinema world – you wasted national time and drew some like feathers from the dirty-smelly chicken pen, but most of us steered clear of your nuisance

24.Rahul Gandhi, for the twine thread he called Janeu. It was entertaining but we were warned of the wolf that was trying to be sheep

25.Robert Vadra for the impunity with which you turned your rags into riches. Even a rabid leftist or liberal cannot take your side now

26.Burqa Dutt, Sagarika Ghost, Shekhar Gupta and other faces of the enemy inside that made our blood boil

27.Renuka Chaudhary for laughing like Shoorpanakha in the parliament

28.Amee Yajnik and Priyanka Chaturvedi for being the belligerent and shameless spokespersons of the Congress party on TV debates; you have no idea how many people you repelled…

29.Presstitutes for blowing out of proportion one stray Akhlaq and slighting the matter of cow slaughter

30.Pakistan for their heinous crimes that gave us opportunities for surgical strike and Balakot

31.Muslim appeasing parties who brought Rohingyas in hordes and showed us glimpses of Break India agenda

32.Owaisi brothers who reminded us of Aurangzeb

33.Kapil Sibal for asking Supreme Court to postpone Ram Mandir hearing, revealing the Congress party's true inclinations

34.Mahathugbandhan – all sound and fury, no significance, but that was a useful alert

35.Jayalalitha, simply for dying, and hence paving the way for DMK that would misrule TN and drive it's people to the feet of BJP

36.John Dayal, for being on the TV panels and reminding us of the clout of the poisonous missionaries

37.Sonia Gandhi for proclaiming in some media conclave ‘We will not let Modi return’; you sent a shiver down my spine and I’m sure many of us ran from pillar to post and got their Voter ID done.

38.Rajni Kamal Stalin and all Madrasis, for supporting the shutdown of Sterlite factory in TN, after the Kudankulam nuclear reactor. How toxic, local politics controlled by the Christian church could get, you showed us!

39.Mehbooba Mufti for taking the side of Burhan Wani

40.Supreme Court for the ban on Diwali fireworks; those of us who had given up crackers out of boredom, exploded a few this year! What more, we got chance to clamour for bloodless Eid

41.Supreme Court for forcing women into Shabarimala, while allowing mosques to keep women out; Hindu renaissance began in Kerala

42.Supreme Court, for all your anti-Hindu judgments that convinced us that even you cannot be trusted, BJP is our only resort

43.The Gandhi family for dynasty politics – as long as Pappu remains president of Congress, the party will lose election after election and we will realize a Congress Mukt Bharat sooner than you imagined possible

44.Mayawati for blaming the EVM – Dalit or no, you are truly backward

45.Stone pelters of Kashmir. AFSPA will stay there forever

46.Leftists and liberals for coming out of their closet and showing us who our children would become if they were fed secularism for breakfast

47.Muslims, Christians and Communists, for being united in your hatred for BJP – we learnt a thing or two about unity

48.The Congress party for Hafiz Saeed Ji and Masood Azhar Ji – the political discourse was no longer about development or religion, it was now about national security!

49.Leftists, liberals and the entire opposition for opposing the National Anthem and Vande Mataram. You rekindled the spirit of nationalism in us

50.The Khans of Bollywood who raved that India was intolerant and showed us that our tolerance was being wasted on the undeserving

51.The Kapoor-Khan Jodi for naming their child Taimur and proving Vivekananda’s words –‘Every Hindu converted is not just a Hindu less but an enemy more’!

52.All those pseudo secular connections who left my life and my wall – throwing out all that clutter and political correctness made room for bold nationalists and patriots in life!

Wah, kya kulhadi maara apne paon par! Vinash Kale Vipreet Buddhi indeed!
Thank you so much!

Two Weeks Notice (2002)

Watched ‘Two Weeks Notice’ (2002) on Netflix. (a movie in which Donald Trump has played the role of Trump! In some children's league party!)

I liked the story. Or rather, the paradigm of it. Ambitious builders razing down old buildings, even those that deserve to be preserved owing to their historical or cultural or architectural or social significance. And activists trying to save them.

Lucy (Sandra Bullock), is a lawyer who specializes in historic preservation and environmental law. A few lines of her passionate speech do the character sketching. Economic.
“When I think about how architecture can shape a community and turn strangers in to neighbours, how the right design for a park makes people feel secure, how a school building can be functional and beautiful so kids feel engaged instead of imprisoned.”

She meets the rich and spoilt George Wade (Hugh Grant) while protesting against his firm to protect Coney Island community center from his bulldozers, at a time when he was wanting to hire a lawyer.
He hires the reluctant Lucy. In course of time, he comes to depend on her advice not just on legal matters but also his personal choices.

The viewer is expected to believe that George (Hugh Grant) is a casanova, but he isn’t depicted to be one,.. he is shown indulging in some harmless flirtation but that's it.
Only after watching this movie I came to know of strip chess, because George and a woman are shown playing it. Even in that scene, Hugh Grant hardly looks casanova. More like a joker.

The traits and habits of Sandra bullock, intended to depict her as not dainty and ladylike, are agreeable - overeating, snoring, and other things.. but the scene of her struggling with pressure ‘to go', to do the big job, while in traffic, following some major overeating, and Hugh grant's carrying her to a motel having a toilet, was unnecessary, pointless, and characteristic of America's morbid fascination for the gross.

The story is set in Manhattan. I haven't done a chopper ride in new York, but this movie provides the experience.
As Lucy (Sandra bullock) remarks in the movie, God it is such a beautiful city!
The sky ride over new York skyline with ample views of the Chrysler, Empire state and wall Street skyscrapers was a real treat.
I had to note this down.. commentary between the two, while on their chopper, flying over Manhattan skies.
“My favorite building of all time (Chrysler Building)
Look, Nirosta steel, sunburst tower, gleaming gargoyles, all designed by a man called William van Alen, obsessed with beating his former partner, who was building the bank of Manhattan tower, at 927 feet, so van Alen announced the Chrysler building at 925 feet, and then surreptitiously assembled the 180 foot mast inside the tower and revealed it after the bank tower had been completed, thereby giving van Alen the tallest building in the world until of course the Empire state building.”

This song serves the movie well.

They paved paradise and put up a parking lot
With a pink hotel, a boutique and a swinging hot spot
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
Till it's gone?

Hey farmer, farmer put away the DDT
I don't care about spots on my apples
Leave me the birds and the bees
Don't it always seem to go...

Lines I noted..

“You need someone who can write a brief instead of removing yours”

“Keep your friends close and your enemies Closer..”

“You are the most selfish human being on the planet”
“That's silly, have you met everyone on the planet?”

“I think it's immoral that any human being should acquire that much wealth. I don't know how you sleep at night”
“I have a machine that simulates the sound of the ocean”

‘I have never seen you cry. Except when Bush won.’
‘Which Bush?’
‘Both of them, so may be you cried twice’

“Philosopher yogananda says, ‘only that which is the other gives us fully unto ourselves’ !”

“You are a cause! You make Gandhi look like a used car salesman.”

Learnt that ‘Groundbreaking’is the plain Jane version of our Bhoomi Pooja

Hugh grant's has a pathetic mouth but his British accent is so good to the ears.
And how did Sandra bullock become a star with a face and a button nose like that???

The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio (2005)

Watched the movie ‘The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio’ (2005) on Netflix.

It is based upon the memoir, ‘The prize winner of Defiance, Ohio : How my mother raised 10 kids on 25 words or less’, by Terry Ryan, one of Evelyn’s children.

If this movie weren’t based on true story, it would have been exasperatingly incredible and unrealistic.
Housewife Evelyn Ryan, helped support her husband, Kelly, and their 10 children by winning jingle-writing contests. Kelly failed to support his family in part due to apparent alcoholism. He had dreamed of becoming a singer but lost his singing voice in a car accident, and was often cruel and abusive. Though not mean.

Evelyn watches these contests on television and posts her couplets, little songs, one liners, etc., composed according to the requirement of the product and the contest, to a given address.

She wins a freezer, ice buckets, a washer, a trip to New York City, sleds, boots, a pony, a palm tree, a sports car!!!, a shopping spree in her local grocery store, ice crushers, a camera, dance shoes, a case of dog food, and so on…

Like I said, if it weren’t based on true story, it would have been impossible to watch her winning so many prizes, one after another, winning a household item or money just when she needed it the most, like when she had to pay the bills, or pay the mortgage of her home, or rent a new home and so on. It would have seemed like dumb predictable boring luck.
The actual jingles composed by her, presented in the movie, help the viewer appreciate the fact that it wasn’t just luck but her talent that won her prizes but then, the her winning so many of them when there were thousands of contestants, would have made it seem incredible, if it weren’t based on true story.

Not only is Evelyn shown to have been a talented woman but very wise.
When Kelly the husband turns violent, especially after alcohol in the evening, and gets abusive and damages property she has won, Evelyn just continues doing her chores or TV watching or talking to kids, calmly, just a few feet away, as if nothing has happened, allowing him to calm down all by himself, in his own time, and at times, even talks teasingly, persuasively and amusingly, managing to turn his sneer into a smile.

A patient, mature woman, she finds a way to reconcile every unfortunate incident with a meaningful purpose or outcome.
The milkman, for instance, arrives when the baby has soiled his little sister’s hands who was untrained in nappy changing and both kids need cleaning. The milkman cant wait long as he has a schedule to follow. When she finally reaches the door, she doesn’t have money to pay him though she definitely needs the milk for her children.
Just then, the mailman arrives and delivers some prize money which she uses for paying the milkman.
Evelyn then explains to her daughter, who is feeling guilty, that it was just as well that the baby soiled her hands, for, had she not been delayed, she would have reached the door on time, before the mailman was there with the money.

In an accident caused by the roughness of her husband, she collapses down spilling ten bottles of milk, with the broken glass bleeding her hands and half a gallon a milk soaking a garment on her hip. But the next day, she composes this jingle out of the episode.

Spilled milk?, don't cry, unless of course, it's hip high
I don't cry over milk, spilled or otherwise
I just wish I had spilled a smaller other size
Spilled milk can't be poured
If it's spreading across the floor
But no need for tears or sorrow
There is always more to spill tomorrow

Julianne Moore fits the role so perfectly.

However, the shopping spree, that Evelyn won as prize in a contest, looks cheap. The only time, that she falls from grace, in my eyes.
She has made a meticulous list of things she will need; she has eleven minutes to fill her cart with as much as can, the assistants at the store are ready, and she is shown running down the aisles, as if for life, pushing the cart before her, plunging things into it from the shelves and then bringing a cartload back home.
Even today, the scramble for freebies and discounts in America is disgraceful. During thanksgiving, Americans standing and sleeping in queues night long, is a definite fall from dignity and grace. And greed of vulgar proportions.

Anyway, there is dignity when she arrives home and no scrambling at the dining table that is loaded with all the goodies from the shopping; she tries to persuade her kids, saying “US army research has shown a relationship between intelligence and the willingness to eat unfamiliar foods”

As seen in some frames, she has very freckled skin, on her arms and I don’t know why the make up artist made no effort to cover it. Was it part of the role she was playing? Or something else?

The children too influenced by her, compose their own lines now and then.
Row row row your boat
Gently down the stream…
Thrown your dad overboard
And listen to him scream…

The story is set in 1956. A period in which...

…Evelyn is shown watching a beauty contest on television.
MC: “This is a presidential election year. If a qualified woman were running for president, how would you feel about voting for her and why?”
Participant: “If the men candidates running were qualified, I feel I would vote against her, my reasons being, women are very high strung and emotional people. They aren't knowledgeable…”

…After the drunken violence of the husband, the father from the parish visits Evelyn and advises her to ‘try harder to make him a better home’.

…Evelyn has ten kids!

…Milkman would deliver milk to homes in bottles everyday. Not everyone had fridge, so milk had to be delivered daily.

…Women plead with milkmen for credit, assuring him he will be paid back, which Evelyn does routinely.

…Telephone calls were answered like this.
“Is this Mrs Ryan?”
“Yes, this is She”

Evelyn and her husband address each other as Mom and Dad.

Here are some more from her genius. Even her diary entries were poetic, out of beauty of sheer habit.

In Dallas, Texas,
It was the first time that I ate
A meal I didn't have to cook,
On a plate that I didn't have to wash.
Or soaked in a tub
That I didn't have to scrub
Or slept in a bed that I didn't have to make

Every time I pass the church,
I stop and make a visit.
So when I am carried in feet first
God won't say, who is it

Interesting trivia from the movie.
"Queen Elizabeth, they say, invented ladies stockings"

#westerncinema

Clueless (1995)

Watched the movie 'Clueless' (1995) on Netflix.

This is a charming movie that I could watch again.

It’s about Cher, a sixteen year old college girl in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, born to a rich dad and adorably full of herself, full of ideas about how others should live their lives, and about how she tries to help other people, mostly classmates, live their lives the way she thinks they should live, only to be surprised when things don’t pan out according to her plan.

Josh (Paul Rudd), Cher’s step brother, who is in love with her, is very endearing. All the while she ignores him and even tries to avoid him, he watches her with mature patience and understanding, just being there for her whenever she is in need. After being done with her futile chasing and wandering, Cher realizes that Josh is the one she is in love with. His love is requited at the end of the movie in a satisfactory climax (I mean the climax of the movie).

I realized that Aisha, the Hindi film, where Sonam Kapoor played Aisha, was ‘inspired’ by this movie. Suffice it to say, I wouldn’t watch it twice. Though it was one of the better Bollywood films.

Only Alicia Silverstone, with her angelic face could have fitted in the role. Anybody else would have evoked feelings other than adoration. I think.

It is loosely based on Jane Austen's 1815 novel Emma (I havent read it yet), updating the setting to modern-day Beverly Hills. The film's director, Heckerling studied real Beverly Hills high school students to get the lingo and feel for how real teens in the 1990s talked. The quote "as if!" came from Heckerling's study of these teens. I didn’t know it was a quote, and also that it came from Beverly Hills.

Cher plots to get her school teachers, Mr. Hall and Miss Geist, interested in each other, since they are both single and hence perhaps give the students a tough time and their falling in love should soften them. Their actually falling for Cher's tricks is very Bollywood like.

I was taken by surprise by the scene of father and stepbrother Josh rebuking Cher for a dress she is wearing while just about to head out to a party, ‘that looks like underwear, wear something on top of that’.
I didn't know that in America, there were any rules about ‘proper dressing’ other than those dictated by fashion. I thought ‘modesty’ was non existent in America, in the modern times at least.

This is epic! Cher, when asked for money by this guy, takes it from her blouse and gives it to him! I thought that was a typical Indian lower middle class Behenji thing.

A sixteen year old mocks at another sixteen year old for being virgin and for failing in driving test. ‘Why I am taking advice from a virgin who cannot drive’
This kind of peer pressure, characteristic of the western society, is both pitiable and dark.

‘I am only 16. This is California, not Kentucky.’ (marriages don’t happen at such an early age, unless you are in the bible belt?)

I love this dad. I wish I had one like that. Look how proud he is of his daughter. And how supportive.
‘Dad I like this boy and he likes someone else’
‘How could that be??!!’
‘I don't know but I feel wretched’
‘This boy is a complete moron, you are the most beautiful girl in Beverly hills; I don't want you with a stupid fellow like that’
‘He is a do-gooder types,… my after school commitments are not good enough’
‘Who said that? Who takes care of the little things at home? Who makes sure daddy eats right?’
‘Really?’
‘Yes(smiling), now get back to work’

Interesting lines that I noted, below.

‘Daddy is a litigator. He gets 500 dollars per hour for fighting with people. But he fights with me for free because I am his daughter.’

“Street slang is an increasingly valid form of expression. Most feminine pronouns do have mocking but not necessarily misogynistic undertone”

‘I want to do something good for humanity.’
‘How about sterilization?’

‘He said you gave him a toothache.’
‘How did I?’
‘You are so sweet.’

‘Play suck any blow’

‘Is she pretty?
‘No, she is a Monet
‘What's a Monet?
‘It's a painting. From far away, it's okay, but up close, it's a big mess
I didn’t know this was the perception about Monet among people.

‘Do you see any positive changes in her?’
‘Under your tutelage, she is exploring the challenging world of bare midriffs’

‘I can't believe I am taking advice from someone who watches cartoons’

‘I needed a complete makeover. Except this time, I'd make over my soul’

I learnt some cool new phrases and colloquial.
Are you being ‘Couch commando’? so saying, Cher takes the remote away from her step brother sittting next to her.
Are you suffering from ‘Buyer's remorse’? asks Cher’s friend in the mall, seeing her sullen face
There is a serious ‘babe draught’ in the place where he lives
Looking at this shoddily dressed new girl in college, they remark ‘Fashion victim or ensembly challenged?’
‘Hymenally challenged’, perhaps, says this girl of a classmate who is still a virgin at sixteen.
‘I was riding the crimson wave, I had to haul ass to the ladies (room)’ says a girl referring to her monthly period
‘Post adolescent idealistic phase’says Cher sarcastically of Josh, her step brother who watches her cluelessness with understanding and patience, trying to correct her now and then.
‘Hey, granola breath’ says someone addressing a classmate whose breath smells always of granola
‘You are a snob and a half’
‘He is a cake boy. Gay’ says Dionne’s boyfriend of this cute guy in class Cher is interested in.
‘To go postal’ is to go crazy
Ralph - vomit; I feel like ralphing
‘Icky’ means repulsive, distasteful
Montage is the same as collage
‘Damsel in distress’ act
I have been going down a shame spiral
Footsie - play footsie with someone
Ditz - you think I am just a ditz with a credit card?

New words.
Infomercials - a long commercial that informs or instructs, especially in an original and entertaining manner
Brown nose - to curry favor; behave obsequiously
Space cadet - a person who appears to be in his or her own world or out of touch with reality
Joint custody (of children of divorce)

I liked the words of this song.
If I could see into your heart
Then I would know just where to start
Cause I am lost, and I need to be found
Crazy as it sounds, I need you around
If I could stand, to be on my own
Then I would probably, Just leave you alone
But I am going to feel this way
Till I am 6 feet underground
Crazy
I need
Turning...
Tossing and turning
My love is burning me down
If I could change one thing in this world
I'd change your mind and make you my girl
Because I am lost I need to be found

#westerncinema

Catch Me If You Can (2002)

Watched 'Catch Me If You Can' (2002) on Netflix.

Its based on the true story of Frank Abagnale (Leonardo Di Caprio) who, well by his 19th birthday, has embezzled millions of dollars through forged checks, and through posing as a pilot, doctor and a lawyer.

Tom Hanks plays Carl Hanratty, a cop out to get the bad guy, but quite fatherly, trying to help the guy because he is just a child.

The movie should have focused a bit more on the methods of the fraudster, that’s where all the spice is and that’s the most challenging part of movie making; but there are just a few scenes showing him removing company logos from souvenirs and sticking them on bank checks after which he is shown making his millions rather easily. I mean, you have to believe it without seeing it.

The movie is credible because it's set in the 1960's.
When information was confined to one file in one place. Not easily available, not shared. When the guy you were looking for was standing right before you but you could not identify him before you hadn’t seen his picture. Because his only picture that was a passport size black and white was on an old newspaper in the possession of his mother who lived in a different city.
I mean, the forged medical certificate of Frank is accepted by the hospital, without cross verification with the university. Today it would be impossible.
The movie would be laughable today. In the age of Google and smart phones and universal connectivity.
But the irony of it is, fraud has gotten bigger and better than ever before. New loopholes appear faster than you can close the older ones.

The most remarkable thing about the movie is the viewing lens.
It seems unjust and unfair.
A fraudster is depicted as this smart charming fellow cleverly eluding the nuisance of a cop.
The choice of Leo for the role was the first wrong step. He is a popular star and hence endears himself to the audience - despite being a felon who has swindled millions of dollars.
All along the movie it is the bad guy whose side you take and that's not right.
It's called glamorization of evil. Trite but that’s alright.
To keep the balance, the story should have shown the plight of an old couple who had lost all their life savings to this unthinking unscrupulous cheat.

The baddie transformed in the end alright and helped the FBI catch hundreds of fraudsters, but to depict him as a charming hero right from the beginning was a flaw in the lens.
It would have taken more talent to depict him as the criminal that he was, evoking resentment from the audience and then change that resentment to sympathy towards the end, as the boy transformed to a lawful citizen.

That apart…

Leonardo looks so young, so boyish in the movie. He plays a sixteen year old. I don't know if he really looked that young then or it is thanks to the make up artist. I love that look of his, especially his hairdo.
Perhaps they made him lose weight for that role.

A nice analogy.
“Two little mice fell in a bucket of cream. The first mouse quickly gave up and drowned. The second mouse wouldn't quit. He struggled so hard, that eventually he churned that cream into butter and crawled out”

The past is incredible. For being so far removed from the present.
A story of the 1960’s. Frank’s dad opened a checking account and put 25 dollars in it for his sixteenth birthday.
Frank, is asked if he is Lutheran. When he reveals to Brenda(Amy Adams) he is not, she is devastated.

New words learnt
1.Deadhead
- a person who attends a performance, sports event, etc., or travels on a train, airplane, etc., without having paid for a ticket, especially a person using a complimentary ticket or free pass.
- a train, railroad car, airplane, truck, or other commercial vehicle while operating empty, as when returning to a terminal.

2.Paperhanger - a person who passes worthless checks

#westerncinema

Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961)

Watched 'Breakfast at Tiffany's' (1961) on Netflix.

It’s the story of Holly Golightly (Audrey Hepburn), her life as a socialite, her naive ways, her pursuit of rich successful men, and her eventual choice of the not-so-successful writer Paul Varjak (George Peppard).

The movie is very light. So light that it is superficial. The woman is a socialite, attending parties, and such, so there must be superficiality, but showing parts of her personal life and the workings of her mind behind her make up would have helped to make the movie touch the audience in some way.

You go through the whole movie without ever being touched by it slightly, even once. I wouldn’t call that a great formula.
It ends with moral victory and that's a redeeming factor.

Holly (Audrey Hepburn) is endearing because of her naivete. If not for it, perhaps she would have come across as a gold digger, quite repulsive.

The tone in which the actors deliver their lines makes it seem more like theatre than cinema.

The movie has been deemed ‘culturally, aesthetically, historically significant’ and that’s a good reason why you may want to watch it.

The Japanese owner is a caricature with buck teeth, and thick spectacles. Running into walls, doors, just about everything, providing comic relief. Typical of the movies of those times - when humour was usually crass.

Women in parties are shown smoking using a long stick with the cigarette at the far end.

The social etiquette seems queer.

Paul touches his cold glass of drink to the bare back of a woman in the party he doesn't even know.

Another man lifts up a woman and seats her on his shoulders with one leg dangling on each side of his face.

Another woman has what looks like a watch tied around her ankle.

Holly and Paul with their limited means look for something below ten dollars to purchase at Tiffany’s, a Jewlry store in New York, and are offered “a sterling silver telephone dialler for 6.75 including federal tax”

So there used to be ‘telephone diallers’, and as other utilitarian objects, they were made stylish and fancy, such as ‘sterling silver telephone dialler’ and they cost 6.75 dollars in those times.

An interior designer was called the Decorator.

New York taxis weren't yellow.

Holly is shown whistling like a man, for a taxi. Perhaps it was an attempt to show how naive she was.

There is frequent mention of the powder room and Holly’s getting paid 50 dollars by men for the powder room, I am not sure what that means.

Holly is allowed to visit a convict Sally Tomato in his prison every week to provide conversation or light talk and gets paid a 100 dollars by his lawyer.

The actors are shown eating ‘Cracker Jack’ and pocketing the little prize that came with it. Paul chooses to have his cracker jack prize, a ring, engraved, as a present for Holly.

Cracker Jack is an American brand of snack consisting of molasses-flavored, caramel-coated popcorn and peanuts, well known for being packaged with a prize of trivial value inside. Some food historians consider it the first junk food.

All of these, characteristic of that time period, not prevalent today, are what make the movie culturally, aesthetically and historically significant, I presume.

Paul is ‘kept’ by his ‘decorator’, Emily, a rich older woman. When Paul, finding himself in love with Holly, tells her towards the end of the movie, he has another woman on his mind, she says,

“She would have to be someone rich, someone who could help you.”
To which Paul answers “Curiously enough, she is a girl who can't help anyone, not even herself. I can help her and it's a nice feeling for a change”
So true, while we like to receive help, care, presents and love from other people, we have a deep seated psychological need to be needed, to be of value, to be of use to someone - so I thought. The scene of this conversation depicts that truth very well.

I noted these lines for they seemed interesting.

“You could always tell what kind of a person a man thinks you really are by the earrings he gives you”

“People in New York never get to know their neighbours”

“That's the trouble. It's a mistake you always made trying to love a wild thing.

You mustn't give your heart to a wild thing. The more you do, the stronger they get.

Until they are strong enough to run into the woods, fly into a tree, then to higher trees and then the sky”

“She is amusingly and superficially talented but deeply and importantly, no”.

“It would be tacky to wear diamonds before I am forty”

“He is too prim and cautious to be my ideal”

“There are certain shades of limelight that can wreck a girl's complexion”

#westerncinema

Sleepless in Seattle (1993)

Watched 'Sleepless in Seattle' (1993) on Netflix.

Tom Hanks is a widower, whose eight year old son goes live on radio one day and wishes for a new wife for his father. Among many many women who upon listening to this on radio write to him wishing to date him is Meg Ryan from the other coast.
She has never seen him, met him, spoken to him but feels connected strongly enough to make attempts to meet him inspite of being engaged to a man she likes.

The story is about how the two finally meet through a series of coincidences and conscious efforts.

I would not have been able to appreciate this movie if I had not myself experienced a similar feeling of being connected with someone living in a faraway land who I had never seen nor met before. This was last year.

Given how much I love New York and the Empire State building, this movie was a treat. It showed empire state in all its glory, even with heart shaped red lighting on valentine's day - something I may never see in real life. The last scene is shot on the observation deck and brought a flood of memories.

Initially it's a bit slow but gets interesting later.

Meg Ryan was likeable. But Tom Hanks - I didn't like his face in this film.

The movie could have been made more realistic if kid were ten or twelve instead of eight. For not only does the kid find a match for his dad but also travels all alone from Seattle to New York by airplane and then through taxi and foot from the airport to the Empire state and all...

I noted these beautiful lines.

"People who loved once are far more likely to love again"

"Winter must be cold for those who have no warm memories... We have already missed the spring..."

During dinner date. Really funny.
"Do you have kids?
No.
Do you want to have mine?"

This is super funny because it comes from an 8 year old boy persuading his daddy to take interest in Annie.
"Dad, I was talking to Jessica about reincarnation. You knew annie in another life...
I know this because I am young and pure and in touch with cosmic forces"

#westerncinema

And oh, exactly 11 years ago, the October 21st weekend, which was a long weekend in the US, Barbara McPherson, my colleague, had taken me to her home in Seattle. we had toured some scenic places around, and I had stood there on top of the Space Needle! Its serendipitous that I should have chosen this post, this movie summary for posting today.

Crazy Stupid Love (2011)

Watched 'Crazy Stupid Love' (2011) on Netflix.

This is an entertaining movie.

There is a long married couple that is breaking up, a casanova who suddenly find himself becoming serious about a girl, a teenage boy in love with his adolescent baby sitter, the adolescent baby sitter in love with a middle aged man, a woman who has cheated on her husband of long, but still loves him.

The threads remain separate for a long time, and then suddenly they all converge and during the scene of the scuffle, you will find yourself laughing aloud, and falling off your chair.

There is a flaw in the script, in the opening scene itself, which you will perceive only later in the movie.
Emily (Julianne Moore) asks for divorce, following a one day fling with David, her coworker. Cal (played by Steve Carell) agrees without a word but right from that point on she misses him, and wants to keep him somehow.

When David reaches out to her, she shows no particular interest.
If Emily wasn't in love with David, and if this thing just happened between them incidentally, why would she ask Cal for a divorce? That was an overkill.

The script should have shown their separation to have been a consequence only of her confession to Cal about her fling with David. That's it. Her asking for divorce is inconsistent with the story that follows. Just doesn't fit in.

As the couple drives home, his wife refuses to stop explaining her decision to part ways, in spite of his insistence that she shup up. Cal drops off the moving car after. It is something I have so often thought about while being seated on the window seat and imagining my imaginary fears. I have never seen such a scene before, of a man opening the car door and rolling off. Its the first of its kind.

Jacob Palmer (Ryan Gosling) though a casanova doesn’t evoke disgust or disapproval because he is sincere about what he is doing. Though he is using little tricks, he is only using them to charm the ladies, he isn’t creepy.
“You are wearing that dress as if you were doing it a favour” is one such charming thing he says to Hannah (Emma Stone) while trying to woo her.

I can so relate to Jacob, the casanova, becoming serious about Hannah. During my days in Jain college that was full of flirtatious young boys and girls, I had heard someone remark that these same guys are the ones capable of becoming very serious when they find the right one. I think its true.

In western movies, the sight of children that are not children enough is a painful one.
A 13 year old boy falling in love with a 17 year old girl would be perfectly alright if it were shown to be puppy love or calf love. Just an emotional thing.
But no, even at 13, the boy doesn't know to love with only his heart; he is shown doing adult things like touching himself while looking at the girl's photo and even discussing it with the girl later. Disturbing. Gross.

A 17 year old girl falling in love with a middle aged man too is understandable. But taking naked photographs of herself for showing them to the man is gross, something you would expect from a woman soliciting, not from someone in love. Kind of coquettish, slutty. The cherry on top, in the last scene, she hands these photographs to the little kid in love with her, as a present, to ‘get him through high school’!

#westerncinema