State of Mind

as kids we ask ourselves the question - what on earth are we born to do! Not of course with the curious, aspirational exaltation...but with that submissive, disillusioned desperation. Many years and many a moments of truth later we realise that there isn't much really. While the realisation sets a lot of us on the right path complete with fast cars, lovely women and other worldly vices, it chokes the last morsels of hope out of a lot of others. Most of these others then reach for superior altitudes, inferior intoxicants and ulterior habitat. It is the rest of these others however that are most severely compromised in the process. This lot is borne by contradictions. They just wont run hard enough nor quit.....

..Otherwise what's the point

If you are one blessed with a keen sense for cinema, and can tell a Hitchcock movie..even in the blind..you might as well cite and defend a couple of Directors with a more critically resplendent body of work and a superior story-telling faculty...than Martin Scorsese.
You'd stand a relatively better chance though, at naming a few actors Robert de Niro might loose out to, were acting flair and screen intensity being arbitrated.
Your chances however, would shoot, if the argument were to meander to "what's numero uno amongst movies" and you had to defend against Scorsese's 'Casino' staking claim. (sadly it's always been a lesser Scorsese classic)
And, nobody frankly would argue spiritedly in favour of De Niro's 'Ace Rothstein's' status in one of those "Cinema's most Curious Characters" debates. (hell, even Joe Pesci's 'Santoro' would stand a better chance')

But it so turns out that the not-so-cult opening lines by De Niro's 'Ace Rothstein' in Scorsese's 'Casino' would hold its own if it was all to boil down to "The most passionate romantic monologue in a gambling/gangster movie based on a semi-biographical book"
Sample this and marvel its verity..

  "When you love someone, you've gotta trust them. There's no other way. You've got to give them the key to everything that's yours.

...Otherwise, what's the point?..."

 Man....[at the expense of sounding cheesy]....isn't that definitive now.

So...You [yes the un-ubiquitous you] must be wondering...What is it about this morose-monday-morning that's got me all muddled and ...ammm mushy. Is it the soothing Bob Marley strumming...the insurmountable sleeplessness from last night...or is it just the hackneyed bloody rush! Its...that clarity which follows utter restlessness...and since it shouldn't be wasted on sounding silly and hypothetical...its a good time to be talking movies.
Now...being the moderate cinephile that I have turned into [although i hate the term...infact anything -phile] i should feel in-the-zone with near about any genre; but considering the modest stature of this blog and more so the current flavour of my hormonal cocktail...'romance' seems like a pretty bet.
There's this thing about romantic movies that make them unduly popular. So...while a crime fiction or a sci-fi or a westerner might be viscerally arousing...you can never in your existence hope to actually pull-off that heist ...date an alien or be the horse-riding-cigar-wielding-baddie-shooting son of a gun. But you should or should hope to...get your turn at sweeping your silly girl off her slippery feet and make her long and amm...moan.
So romance is the standard source for in-house heroism...which is exactly why romantic movies are so viciously escapist. They stretch the fantasy canvas just enough to contain it within the realm of your wishfulness.

But before I run out of bull-shit..let me get down to business..and let me do it the way Men like best - make a favourite five list. Here goes then

5. [these guys never thought somebody might want to count-down] Now pardon me if this post has coaxed any bated breaths...but the fact remains romantic movies are my last picks for when i feel the urge. Simply because they are populist and goofy and none of the great directors make any. Since i've seen too few...fifth up should be the many i haven't, the one's that are particularly popular with teenage girls and lovelorn boys... 'When Harry met Sally', 'Sleepless in Seattle', 'The Notebook', 'Pretty Woman', 'if Only', 'Notting Hill'....you get the idea...the kinds you develop a block for once you become presumptuous and begin to pick-n-choose your cinema. I'd also throw in a couple I've seen but that didn't make the cut...'The English Patient', which seemed lost between some beautiful lines, 'Serendipity', which was too fancy, 'Revolutionary Road', which was too unhappy and 'Jerry Maguire' which had Tom Cruise.

4. Okay...before you give up on the promise...there is the Richard Linklater's duo 'Before Sunrise' and 'Before Sunset'...the 'Dialogue Romance' that you'd instantly fall for. Yes, they are imaginatively shot and elaborately written but they are here because the idea is so stimulating and for a long time they would be my top picks, but....you grow out of it. The thought of unearthing your true-love out of the blue spending with them the time of your life and leaving it at that as memories to die with, without indulging in the mundane everyday... is poignant but its not very practical. All first steps are exciting but they are over-rated..boring to re-track and often lead to nowhere.
Did that even make sense!
Anyways i'm just glad that there apparently might be a third episode, wonder what it'd be called though. ['Before Midnight' would sound too zombie]

3. 'Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind' is a fascinating Charlie Kaufman story...and features a glum Jim Carrey performance and a 'tangerine' Kate Winslet hairdo. But its more a great movie than an extraordinary romance. So it has.. the human compulsion for companionship and one with that inexplicable connection... in a science fiction setup with numerous nuances thrown into what would make an exemplary piece of screen-writing. That's a movie for all seasons and moods.

2. Now that you've bought into the concept of this list...its a good time to bring in a few that've never belonged in  a romantic-5 list. 'True Romance', 'Natural Born Killers' and 'Wild at Heart' are lurid, violent 'Hippie-Romance' movies. The first two are Quentin Tarantino's abandoned babies [while he was still the God] the other is a David Lynch's lowly film [he's a perverted poser in my books, otherwise]. These are tails of passion...of living it out with the love-of-your-life...of unbridled crazy-about-each-other-romance...the kinds you'd be considered shallow and indignant for mentioning too high on your list...but the ones you unabashedly wear on your sleeve. Yes they're loaded with the unreal and melodrama but they're absolute in romance. You wouldn't hope your love-life'd be that spectacular...but you'd wish your love is.
Ofcourse 'True Romance' stands out.

1. No.1 as you must've guessed by now is not 'Casablanca', which you could actually watch a million times... for Ingrid Bergman. I personally prefer its distant derivative [and i don't mean geographically] Sudhir Mishra's 'Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi', which you could equally well watch a zillion times for Chitrangada Singh. How else the two match-up is a separate can-of-worms...but what is the perspective they bring to this list? Tails of unrequited love is it! Human beings are inherently self destructive...and we're not even talking jihad or green-house or junk-food here. The tendency shines bright in the face of lost love and heart-breaks by-far outdo successful love-stories. So...what does all this mean? ..probably nothing. But these are good movies and 'Hazaaron..' is my favourite romance.

Okay...I see this is a mess....but thats just me.
I also see..I missed what Ace Rothstein goes on to say...

 "...And for a while, I believed, that's the kind of love I had."

Profound!

P.S. : if you plan to post a comment do mention your favourite romantic movies..if you do not plan to post a comment just mention your favourite romantic movies.

Captivity of Negativity

I had given up on blogging.
Just as I had given up on - wearing that Astro suit (i was persuaded into believing i might be a tad too brilliant for it), working for google (and what a loss to humanity must this be) and scoring on a certain variety of women(this one's as fresh as yesterday). Besides giving up on being an investment banker (yup the term still exists in dictionaries), dating an "in her thirties" Pamela Anderson (but boy, I'd kill for that date even when she's a corpse) and Quentin Tarantino.

But then this is such an age for giving up (yes i turned an inglourious 24). This is when you go helpless with crossing out and desperate with ticking in.

Thankfully though, blogging doesn't give up on you. Every now and then it throws up an amateur plagiarist, a self-proclaimed dumbass or a puny poet and you realize all the cool guys are outta business. Thats when you think up a smartass title for your next could've been a post, you germinate two earnest sentences before you give-in to your social networking obligations or ping that girl you've only just started stalking, that'll be it then for uptill the weekend.. the weekend that'd never be.
Unless ofcourse you happen to be travelling lucknow to delhi over the weekend, sitting besides a bearded crook of a guy and the only women in your compartment are either burqa clad or have sagging breasts.
If by divine inervention you've exhausted your laptop's battery, have just finished reading Jeremy Clarkson and can find the back of a ticket and a reynolds, well you've struck the right recipie for revival.

So, what'd you cook?
Its been ages since you've had views on anything terrestrial.
Being a single bachelor you've lived your life in those lunch table discussions restricted to cussing 'you've got more potential' bosses or 'we'd set you straight' proffs.
And, those coffee table deliberations ranging from your opposite sex preferences to opposite sex's appalling lack of preferences.
Besides those beer table arguments where the nation's greatest grouse is the now irreparable smart guys to passable girls ratio and where every unboyfriended girl epitomises whoredom.

Your favourite movie flavours has meagered to such solelessly remarkable flicks as Zombieland and District9 and you barely have a favorite tv show or sport anymore for either an overkill or want of them.
 Socio-Politico-Economical contemplations!...well, they've never been your sphere of influence. You may attempt musing on the past, cribbing about the present and going all hunky-dory for the future; but the Theory of Insignificance retorts you into retiring.
 Yes there've been long fantasy phone calls but they make up only or embarrassing phone bills unless you're yet to move on from that black swan of a relationship.


Your life then has arguably been irreverent and there are no holes you can hope to plug over a blog. You see right through the happyness illusion. Your spiritual and material lives are incoherently disconcerted.
You are, every bit of you, an Evidence of the 'Quarter-Life crisis'

So what'd you cook?
Bullshit!
But thats exactly what you've managed in the past hour...some pretty unimaginative bullshit.

P.S. - Feel the post touched something in you, perhaps so would this