Something's Gotta Give 

Jack and Diane, no, not the Mellencamp song, this is Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton in Nancy Meyer's new movie Something's Gotta Give. Nancy Meyer's What Women Want was a better crowd puller than this, her latest offering. Although it is a romantic comedy, it is not everyman's cup of tea, thats what I felt while watching the movie.

We did laugh real hard in some parts and there ofcourse was the cool hunk Keanu Reeves and the beautiful Amanda Peet. I like Diane Keaton, so whatever comments I have about her acting will be positive unless she had deliberately trashed the film, which is not the case here. Jack Nicholson, what can one say?!!?? I don't usually like the characters he portrays, but he as always, has proved once again he's a master actor. Frances Macdormand plays a small side role as Keaton's sister, wonder why an actress as talented as she should do such no-role roles?

Overall not a bad movie, though there seems to be more people in my opposite camp than I have on my side. Well....thats my side of the story, you have the right to have yours.

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Zero Kelvin 

The first Stellan Skaarsgard movie I saw was Insomnia, the original 1997 Norwegian film at a film festival in Trivandrum a few years back. Needless to say the the Norwegian Insomnia was better than the Hollywood version, which was not that all that bad either considering it came from Hollywood. Zero Kelvin is two years older than Insomnia and tells the story of three Norwegian trappers stationed in the East of Greenland.

Gard Eisvold is a youngman in twenties Norway, a budding poet, who accepts a trapping job in the desolate and icy coast of Eastern Greenland. Skaarsgard plays the role of an experienced but foul mouthed trapper, with whom Eisvold ends up staying. The film capture the loneliness and the hardships men encounter in that icy wasteland, which reflect on their behaviour and lives. Skaarsgard is unrecognizable, he is the arrogant, unhygenic lumbering form of a man, for whom contact with other human beings is as difficult as it is for a Big Foot or Yeti. The film could be considered as an excellent study of human nature in the very hostile of climates.

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Govinda 

How come that the only Hindi movies I enjoy nowadays are Govinda's? Saw Govinda-Rani Mukherjee starrer Chalo Ishq Ladaye, a mindless comedy, no harm in that if you don't expect much. Afterall what do you expect from a Govinda movie other than being a total timepass.

I read some bad reviews about this film, what I don't understand is what were these reviewers looking for? Were they expecting a Shyam Benegal or Satyajit Ray movie? Come on, people, if you are looking for stellar performances and serious cinema, you are watching the wrong movie. The very name Govinda ensures that you can turn off your brain cells for the next two and half hours, sit back, relax and have some silly laughs while you are at it. This movie guarentees that and some of the dialogues (especially Gulshan Grover's in the first half) are really funny. Then there is the indomitable Grand Mama of Indian cinema, Zohra Sehgal as Govinda's daadi (grand mom), who's funny and convincing as the tight fisted autocratic daadi.

There was a time when I considered Govinda movies as total trash. Had Nostradamus told me that I'd be enjoying them sometime in the future (not that Nostradamus would waste himself on predictions like these...just to explain the gravity of the situation), I'd have asked him to pursue some other trade. Greeks were better oracles anyway, not Italians. Coming back to Chalo Ishq Ladaye, the other actors are ok, Rani is not bad, neither is Gulshan Grover and Kader Khan, Johnny Lever's role and his dialogues don't go well with the rest of the film, might have added him for that 'extra dash of comedy', only to spoil the broth. Not much of a story, nothing at all if you have already seen Hitchcock's 'Strangers On A Train', which I saw a couple of months back. All in all, a pure Govinda film, don't try to think and review the film, watch it and let go.

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Late Marriage 

Israelis are certainly noisier than Americans but they are a lot less noisier than Punjabis or Greeks, thats what this Israeli movie, Late Marriage taught me. On the DVD cover I read the film being compared to My Big Fat Greek Wedding and Monsoon Wedding. Although all three deal with the same subject of marriage and the family's need for the boy or the girl to find someone who'll fit in well with them, the Israeli movie lacks the tempo and exuberance of the Greek wedding or the Indian wedding.

Its about a 31 year old bachelor, named Zaza, who is pursuing his doctorate in humanities at Tel Aviv University and his family's plans on getting him settled with a nice girl of their choice. Meanwhile Zaza seems to have other ideas and is pursuing an affair with a divorcee who is elder to him by three years and also has a kid. Now you get the picture....the movie is about the whole extended family of Zaza plotting to trap him in an arranged marriage and what happens in the end is suspense, you better go watch the movie. It is different from the usual Hollywood mish-mash, but then that is expected of anything thats filmed outside Hollywood, right? Other than that, I don't think its much of a ground breaker or anything, its different, thats that.

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The IMax Effect of North American Landscape 

There is a picture of rural America (by America I mean the North American continent, I am yet to travel to the Southern part of this continent) in my mind....the horizon kissing expanse of yellow fields with a red barn thrown in, a couple of horses grazing on the green patch by the road, an old Chevy pickup, rattling down the dust road leading away from the house hidden behind the towering oaks, it's been a long time since I saw that scene in real life. While we were in San Ramon, we used to drive the back roads into real California country, that is the piece of Californian land which had not yet fallen into the hands of greedy real estate companies looking for another piece of 'prime land' for development.

For a first time visitor, the beauty of American landscape is like seeing a movie at an IMAX movie theater after having watched 35mm movies all your life. Especially for a person like me, coming from Indian subcontinent where the scale of the landscape is mostly intimate, like the narrow twisting green lagoon corridors of Kerala or the mughal gardens of Kashmir and Himachal which miniaturize paradise in a few precious terraced acres, of course I am enthralled by those landscapes too. They epitomize another kind of beauty, of home. I am surprised 'cause Europe is s'posed to be beautiful, not America. America is the place where the modern has gone berserk, atleast that was what I thought.

American geography was a revelation of sorts in a big way, literally, the scale here is monumental. Right now, sitting with my laptop at my dining table, I can see the snow covered road leading away from our balcony, cutting across an urban corridor lined on each side with drooping conifers as if its aiming straight at the mountains pasted like a tableau near the horizon and here I am, sitting in the middle of downtown Anchorage.

We used to go for long bike rides through the farm country which lay behind the urban facade of San Francisco's East Bay, which is punctuated by rolling hills and valleys, with farms on the hills dotted with hundreds of black n white cows and an occasional park or preserve. It was the vastness of the land that enchanted me, the idea that owning a hundred acre farm does not exactly make you the biggest farmer around, chances are that you'd be the smallest one. Like the 'grande' helpings you get at restaurants across the country, everything about this nation adheres to the slogan 'think big' and I have a suspicion that it was Nature who started it that way. With its wide-screen version of the world, the physical scenery of United States is something the glossy coffee table books cannot give full justice to.

In Alaska, the American landscape is presented in the grandest of all grand scales. Forget about you the fact you are in United States, it is 'specially easier if you can comfortably turn a blind eye to the the well maintained highway which led you till this last frontier. My friends who pride themselves to be real Alaskans warn me not to consider any place accessible by road as a part of real Alaska. The great wilderness of Alaska they say, lies beyond the reach of the ordinary motorist like you and me. For me who has just started learning the Alaskan primer, even the places I can access on four wheels leave me speechless, mountains that start straight off from sea, the white vastness of the endless tundra in the winter, pristine forests bursting off in all colors imaginable during the spring, golden hues of the fall, every season it is like being in a new place, and I'd have hardly ventured out of my own backyard.

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A White Christmas 

It has been ages since I posted anything other than a book or a film review. But with more than 36 inches (3 feet) of snow in the last 3-4 days and still showing no signs of stopping I guess its time I wrote something about the Alaskan snow. This year we are sure gonna have a white Christmas. The picture here (if you can see anything in it) is taken from my balcony looking out to the driveway approaching the apartment, which used to be forty feet wide ;-), now with all the snow pushed on to the sides and invisible cars which are buried under snow (which the owners have not cared to check upon since the last three days), the road is hardly 20 ft wide.The snow pile seen on the bottom right corner of the photo, is the snow that has piled up on our balcony railing in the last 3 days. Only last week did I clean the whole balcony off snow, not because my cleaning instincts were awakened, but I had this sudden creative urge to build a snowman. It isn't worth mentioning that half an hour of my snowman building efforts ended when all I could come up was a mound of knee high snow, which did not remotely resemble any snowman I had ever seen. That being said, it doesn't mean that such small setbacks make me not like the snow, I love snow. Coming from a place which sits almost right smack on the equator, snow used to be a distant dream while growing up. It took twenty one years of my life to see and feel the wonder of snow for the first time, in a small town in the Himalayan foothills. Alaska is a long way off from Himalayas, but the white wonderland of enchantment is the same wherever you go.

I had people tell me how they hated the long and snowy Alaskan nights of December and January. Maybe because they have been here all their lives and I guess that kind of familiarity might breed contempt. For a newcomer like me, five months of winter is like living in a totally new place. Gone are the days of hiking, camping, fishing and other summer fun things, and in comes the days of skiing. With three world class ski resorts right here in town, what else could you ask for but ski all your free time away. Tomorrow you might not find the time or might not be in the right place, who knows. Coming to think of it, we are usually the only skiers on the slopes these days, seems like alpine skiing has given way to snow boarding in a big way, everywhere you see youngsters tagging along snowboards in psychedelic colors.

But then winter is not all fun either. You need to change your summer tires to winter tires, the ones with studs (tires fitted with spikes/studs for use in winter). Its comparitively better if you have a four wheel drive vehicle instead of a two wheel drive, that explains the overpopulation of trucks and SUVs on Alaskan roads and also how a puny person like me ended up driving a truck. On an ordinary day with moderate snow shower, there are atleast three to four dozen distress calls from drivers sliding off the roads, getting trapped in snow or getting into minor accidents, all because of snow. Well...we try to drive safe, but then you can never say. We are glad our homes are heated, so its always the warm tropics inside, even if its sub zero temperatures outside (currently it is -15 deg celsius outside), but don't be too cosy either, thats what a recent accident taught us. Earlier this month five members of a family died in their home, right here in town, by carbon monoxide poisoning, all because of a defective / blocked vent. After that incident Costco ran out of CO monitoring systems, as people started buying them like crazy. Now it seems like snow blowers are also out of stock, as people have given up snow showelling since its getting them nowhere with this huge pile up of snow around and have turned to snow blowers.

For those who are scared of cold and snow, let me tell you something. Alaskan winter is not the worst winter I have ever experienced in my life, that coveted title goes to a winter, a couple of years back in New Delhi. Zero degree celsius, brick and cement houses (can't imagine the state of people who live in slums in this kind of climate), no central heating (I didn't even have one of those handy portable heaters), all I had was a woollen blanket in a house that was chilled to the core of its foundation. Here, in climate controlled environs, unless you are a real outdoor enthusiast, all that you can feel and see of the changing seasons is thru' your window - either your living room window or your car's. All the rest could be summed up as minor inconveniences - like tredging 20 feet thru' snow to reach the department store entrance from your car or getting some kind of pollen allergy when flowers start bloomin' in spring, the rest is all the same, unless you go out and live every season differently.

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The Five People You Meet in Heaven 

A beautiful story. I read it in one go, could be an excellent book to take on those intercontinental flights or one of those long non-stop journeys. This book is written by Mitch Albom, who is better known for his earlier novel, Tuesdays with Morrey, which has been made into a film. I haven't read Tuesdays with Morrey, but Five People... is definitely a keeper.

It explores a new concept of heaven (or afterlife?), according to which, the protagonist of the novel, Eddie - ordinary of all ordinary mortals, meets five people in the so-called Heaven. More than a place this Heaven is a state of being, state of consciousness and everyone will meet their five chosen people in heaven. The five people Eddie meets in heaven are varied as a group can be, some are total strangers, some are acquaintances and one is his wife.

If there is a book that can make you cry, not in desperate sorrow, but in quiet contemplation, this is it. For all those, like me, who have not yet been 'saved' enough to forget that we are just a mass of organic compounds, bound to decay, insignificant as the withering plant in your balcony which you have forgotten to water, Five People You Meet in Heaven is salvation, atleast during the hours you are reading it.

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Bicyle Thief, The 

Vittorio De Sica's acclaimed masterpeice , The Bicycle Thief brought back memories of old Satyajit Ray films, black and white films of another era which were touted a class apart. Ofcourse, they were, they reminded us of a not so colorful world we inhabit daily, but nonetheless poignant and sanguine. Bicycle thief is set in post war Italy where people are struggling to make ends meet, not at all confirming to the glorious picture of Europe that people from developing countries might have of it.

The hero of the film lands a job, after a long wait, whose requirement is that he should have bicyle, which he procures after repaying the loan he has taken on the bicycle. As luck would have it on the first day of the job itself the bicycle gets stolen and the movie follows his search for the bicycle and its thief on the very next day thru' the streets of the city, with his young son.

The young boy who follows his father in his search has been portrayed as a silent observer and witness of all the events, at once the viewer is the man and the boy. Lamberto Maggiorani, who plays the main character of the man who loses his bicycle is brilliant inspite of being a non actor. The child actor Enzo Staiola was casted right from the streets to play the character of the little boy, it is as if he is the character. The movie won the best foreign film Oscar in 1949. By some coincidence or similarity this film reminds me a lot of Bimal Roy's Do Bhiga Zameen.

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Salaam Bombay 

Fifteen years, thats a long time to abstain from watching a great movie from your own country, made by one of the greatest directors, that too a woman, why did I do this unpardonable crime? I saw a bit of it once, at one of my friend's houses in Ahmedabad, five years back, didn't give it more than a fleeting glance since we had a seminar presentation the next day. Yesterday I got the opportunity again, what more could I say, salaam Bombay! salaam Mira Nair! for giving us this gem of a movie, salaam to all the people who worked behind and in this film, one of the best movies, in any language I have ever watched.

Salaam Bombay is one of the few movies, that unleashed a mass movement in India, a movement for the betterment of lives of street children, in Bomaby. You can catch that at Salaamstreetkids.org The other similar movie I can remember is Roland Joffe's City of Joy, which led to the creation of City of Joy trust by Dominique Lapierre for the underpriveleged in Calcutta. For a little more than two hours, you are made to realize how lucky you are, lounging in the sofa infront of the TV or munching pop corn at the movie hall, you will be glad you are not one of those street kids whose life epitomises the meaning of struggle every next second, yet they are happy, they are innocent and they are real. The director Mira Nair, selected real street kids for the roles, in addition to a few character actors like Raghuvir Yadav, Nana Patekar and Anita Kanwar. When one of the street kids in an interview done fifteen years later says that 99% of the movie is true to life in the streets of Mumbai, you will know this is as real as it gets. Salaam Bombay is one of the movies that will awaken that altruistic streak in everyone of us, the moment we are done with the movie, we are bundles of enthusiasm, we burst with goodness, we are faced with the blessed idea that we have to contribute something to the betterment of humanity. Well, if you feel that way, don't let that feeling die a natural death after a couple of hours, act on it, it is actually true when they say, 'you can make a difference'.

The DVD I saw included interviews with the main actors and technicians who worked in the film in 1988, a segment in the lines of "Where are they now?'. Shafiq Sayid, the protangonist has gone from a street kid to a national award winning child star to a nobody and to being an assisstant cameraman settled and leading a peaceful life with a wife and two kids in Bangalore. Another street kid (Kira in the movie) was adopted by Salaam Bombay's camera woman Sandy Sissel and is now Bernard Sissel, living in LA - talk about chances in a billion. Mira Nair, ofcourse as everyone know went on to become one of the acclaimed directors in world cinema. I have watched all the movies made by her, except the documentaries, but this one, her first one, I'd say, is by far the best.

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Qayamat 

Watched a mainstream Hindi movie after a considerable interval which made me realize I had been nurturing an impossible notion that commercial Hindi films were indeed getting better. I could not have been more wrong, considering the fact that Qayamat had a good run in most Indian cities.

The movie blatantly steals from a bunch of Hollywood movies, falls shamelessly short of each one of them . I had completely forgotten how Hindi movies jump into the song-dance routine at the batting of an eyelid, this movie has given me a whack on the head and jolted me into the harsher (or should I say sweeter syrupier mushier) realities of Bollywood entertainment. Lately I had seen a couple of low budget Bollywood flicks, yes.. they made a string of those sometime back with aspiring teen actors and to say the truth they were much better than this star studded action flick. Arbaaz Khan and Sanjay Kapoor are pathetic as villians, who told them to be villians all you needed was a wide mouthed villianous laugh?!?? The saving grace of the movie is Ajay Devgan who inspite of having found himself in the middle of a bad script and shoddy direction has proved that he is one of the best actors Bollywood has churned out in the recent past.

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Down With Love 

A romantic comedy set in the sixties, starring Rene Zellweger and Ewan Mcgregor. I like both of them, there is no serious stuff in here, no lessons learnt, although the movie does repeat once in a while that its underlying theme is the battle of the sexes, its a fun battle and McGregor has cool sixtyishname - Catcher Block !!!

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Amelie 

I saw Amelie sometime back, liked it, then forgot all about it. Its like a funny feel good Disney animation with a Made in France tag and real life characters. The style of narration is quite refreshing, so is the camera and lighting. The actress who played Amelie, Audrey Taotou lives being Amelie, you know the kind, even if you see her 50 years later on a street, you'll recognize her and you'll call her by name(Amelie, ofcourse), as if she has always been your next door neighbor. The film is red and green, very holidayish colors, and yeah, thinking about it - its a good movie to watch during the holidays.

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Barbershop 

A pure entertainer, for a change its from the African Amercian perspective. Ice Cube is the owner of the barbershop which is in the south side of Chicago and it could be called the neighborhood community center. The whole movie takes place in a day, from dawn to dusk, which starts off like any other day for the local barbershop. Fortunes fluctuate, minds change, decisions are remade and finally everything turns out just perfect. Good timepass.

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