Everything In Its Right Place

Been listening to Radiohead's Kid A, for quite a while. This, after a few pompous recommendations. Will admit I had not previously heard any music by Radiohead. Somehow, this one has had my fullest attention since the first listen.

Some of the incredibly appealing bits in the album feature the lead Thom Yorke playing the Ondes Martenot: a fairly niche instrument, originally invented to transmit radio signals at custom frequencies; whose variants are more popular than the archetype. Played with the usual array of electronica equipment, it makes for a deep aura to envelope the usual frequencies. In some places, to completely replace the conventional bass and create its own. Sometimes, eerie and funereal, sometimes not quite.

Apparently imported from Colin Greenwood's previous occupation as a software engineer were sounds squeezed out of 8-bit machinery. And noticeably, noises peculiar to the then spawn of video games: picture a horde of pixellated racing bikes accelerating at flag-off. All of this, to my surprise, made a revealingly great deal of musical sense, to a cosmetic effect that I had not previously imagined.

Underlying the synthetic sounds and the thicket of intertwined genres, are vocals, mostly faint and weightless. Upon a second listen or a fifth, they will show themselves to be individually profound, even in isolation; and seem to lead the numbers by themselves, above what is sometimes a deliberate din. Occasionally, they are cut-up and offer vague lyrics.

Everything In Its Right Place, which was originally considered for single release, opens with melancholic, ominous chords that are later joined by a feeble beat, and after, also an obscured human voice, which, after a riff or two, gives way to the first lyrics. The broken vocals and the instrumentals recur in a pattern that may well intend to channel the entrapment within urges that comes with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.

The National Anthem employs free-style jazz in a cacophony of many. A trumpet works up a mood of insanity and then degenerates into a nonsensical mode, which is at its best arbitrary, at its worst loud, and like the album's title, meaningless. For irony, the last few seconds in fact sound off a recording of Star-Spangled Banner, which seems to vanish from the air, as if annihilated one instrument at a time.

Optimistic, the only guitar-driven song in the album, is titled ironically, with the lyrics and the tune suggesting surrender. Idioteque is an energetic, guitar-less shout about a forthcoming apocalypse, presumably one of technology. Motion Picture Soundtrack, which has been hailed the most by the album's critics, brings the feel of black-and-white animated clips to the harp and a deep bass.

A song by the name Big Foot - The Kid A Theory, found on Youtube, is said to be something of a lost track of this album. Although it beats me as to why, since its two impressive riffs would have pitched it among their outstanding tracks.

How To Disappear Completely, which has my vote for the best track, reportedly comes from Thom Yorke's need for a break from concert schedules, and is themed on a desire to isolate oneself indiscriminately. An orchestra plays to dirge-like vocals and almost glorifies them, amid percussion and guitar, occasionally loud and off-tune.

It may not have moved the billions, but Kid A is right up my list of favorites. What could really draw you in is the spread of genres that arrive at the same place to make profound and unpredictable sense. While folks have moaned that it only makes gloominess look beautiful, I could use that as a compliment. It's a magnificent black monument that has raised the bars for originality and quality; most contemporary bands will have to make do in its shadow.

Godma

A: "So, religion."

B: "Pray, what be the reason to bring this nonsense up?"

A: "So that you congregation of agnosts and atheists may be illuminated. Thank God for religion."

B: "Huh. Shouldn't it be 'Thank religion for God'?"

A: "Aw, funny! I'm up for talking about your views. Through what you call acceptance-talking, you need to be shown the right way."

B: "Jeez, no. I have a gut-feeling you'll gut me."

A: "Being a follower, it is my duty to disseminate faith. I am God, speaking to you right now."

B: "You're talking in delusion and riddles."

A: "That's a lie!"

B: "That's a semantic syllepsis."

A: "Son, you need to diversify your intellect and understand God, for there will be light in your life."

B: "That was a metaphor."

A: "Good Lord!"

B: "Oxymoron."

A: " "Oh you, of little faith, why do you doubt me?" "

B: "Because you aren't for real and nor are you ever to be."

A: "Ah, however catchy that might sound .. "

B: " .. iambic pentameter, yes .. "

A: " .. you still want to leave earth for heaven."

B: "I'll get my DSLR. Is it outdoors, much?"

A: "You're missing the point. The point is you aren't a man of faith. And that we all, with His graces, need to rise above the dirt we were made from."

B: "Faith is not the point. The point is the point. The point is also that since we're all scum anyway, why bother?"

A: "Bother? With unfaltering belief, you shall see Him in every person and thing."

B: "Even that Willem Dafoe guy does not look like Jesus to me. Also, the fiscal growth forecast is bonkers."

A: "All you need is patience!"

B: "But patience was invented by Jews to annoy the Christians. Also, the Christians were invented by Jews to annoy themselves."

A: "Thus spake the atheist."

B: "You know, there's some symbolic self-defeat in those words because .. never mind. Stop poking my peace of mind."

A: "No, you listen! Slowly, you need to let go of your habits of drinking, smoking and playing cards. You must circumvent sin."

B: "You may not play poker but you certainly are one."

A: "So what, then, do you believe in?"

B: "Reasoning."

A: "Maybe your need to reason stems from your doubt, in other words, your lack of faith!"

B: "Yeah. It's like a unicorn, except you don't need to be high to see it."

A: "Child, your lack of faith is like this container of water .. "

B: "And lo, sauvignon blanc."

A: " .. [which] you must populate with only the purest .. "

B: " .. said Hitler to Goring .. "

A: " .. while discarding the unfit."

B: " .. as Darwin would agree."

A: "What?"

B: "Bose-Einstein condensates."

A: "I mean, remain equal with the universe, at the same time .. "

B: "You mean, like Kaldor-Hicks efficient?"

A: "Fuck off."

B: "Phnom-Penh."

Tarantino Unchained

"Alas, we must act as our own bartender."

In the tense moments of Django Unchained, there is a clock that is incessantly ticking in the background. Though it's not the only sight or sound in the scene, it's a rather interesting feature of it.

It has the kind of inevitability and rhythm that becomes apparent and registers more clearly when there's anxiety within but desperate calm on the outside. Not unlike in Chapter 1 of Inglourious Basterds . Or that moment in Kill Bill when the Bride ends O-Ren Ishii and the only thing that moves or sounds for a while is a bucket that plops periodically into a well. The dialogue may well be in medieval Gothic but the conspicuous tick-tock does its job of keeping the tension heightened very damn nicely. It's the detail Tarantino has used to keep his finger firmly lodged on even the reluctant viewer's pulse.

Simply put, Tarantino embodies the reason we end up dissociating from every person and problem we know while watching a film. The reason Tarantino merits a place among the biggest and the best is that he has crossed equivalent milestones and elicited an equal reverence, without engaging in anything on an intellectual level. That being lovable is a prominent portion of his film's anatomy (I don't mean this in a Karan Johar sense). That with Tarantino, there came a whole new manner of telling stories with people's quirks of mind, speech and deliberation.

Django Unchained relies on homages to sphagetti westerns, well brutalized white-black sentiments, street-smartness and one-upmanship, the business end of Texas, stylized violence, a soundtrack meant for pastiche and a heavy sense of Tarantino for its monumental success. And a pinch of German, it seems, was inevitable after Christoph Waltz's previous sensation. The plot has it that in 1858, a ruthless dentist-turned-bounty-hunter allies with a slave to aid him in his business, while promising to free his wife, Broomhilda, from a plantation owner and unite them both at the end of their agreed period. Right there is a nod to a German legend. Affairs get unsavoury when they plot to extricate her from her owner's plantation.

In this film and his previous, there has been a grand uplift in scale. With this have come the consequent delights - pernickety attention to detail and outline at once, opportunities for stunning, painting-like cinematography, and room to pack more-than-usual characters in. He has hinted that these two films may be part of a trilogy, in a loose sense. The common themes are apparent.

Much of the film's claim to brilliance comes from its outstanding supporting cast. Di Caprio plays Calvin Candie, the weirdly debonair plantation owner who is obsessed with Mandinko fights. Samuel Jackson, an old horse, on and off screen, alternates between Calvin's stooge and consigliere. Accents and lines fly all over the place; the actors themselves do not surface in the characters. With the exception of Christoph Waltz, who is aptly himself. Incomplete without his legendary upper-lip.

P.S : One can't help notice the names of some of Tarantino's characters. In keeping with either their peculiarities or his own. Django Freeman. Monsieur Calvin Candie. Bridget von Hammersmark. Beatrix Kiddo. Jimmie Dimmick. Esmeralda Villalobos. Technicalities of a greater act of parody. 

Legend ends. Toast !

It has ended. People may now get on with their personal and professional lives.

The cape-donning, high-flying, ass-kicking, but ultimately mortal vigilante has been laid to rest (so the rest of Gotham thinks) - only after being immortalized on screen - by the amazing Christopher Nolan. With great ability came an assumed responsibility. To blow up the roots (Chinese?) of the League of Shadows. To solemnize a joker who likes his jokes rather practical. To overcome a militant version of the Tea Party movement despite not being a black President. Which he lived up to, despite an obvious mid-life crisis !
(Read: "You can't deny he's got style, Minister.")

Applause !

Before Nolan, we may agree, the enterprise had the face of P.A. Sangma  (pronounced as 'loser'). I mean it was hopeless, left, right and centre. Until it was rescued from parodic depths by Heath Ledger, who later sadly went down an old American lane.  (Just another ledger that failed to remain intact in the context of the financial crisis, said an expert.)

Before the release of the final part, understandably, I had several invalid questions. Will Commissioner Gordon finally smile ? Was Harvey Dent really Agent Smith with a bad hairdo ? (If so, then did the avada kedavra actually work on Rachel Dawes ?) Most had their heads ostrich-ed into the ground to keep from spoilers. Which meant staying off the internet for good.

In response to almost none of the aforementioned, the movie began by showing a Wayne who had been badly out of action. And had taken too many things too seriously. Such as the expanse of his Wayne fortunes and his connection with a dead woman (And somehow, the phrase 'break a leg'). And no, Gordon was extremely sullen. Critics may also note that this is the first Batman film where both the Batman and the villain are thoroughly unclear in speech. Particularly when they talk to each other. However, the impressive script more than makes up for this irritating drawback, so much so that the director can smugly get away by saying the choice of guttural voices was intentional.

Now there are people who think the Mayan calendar would end soon since Nolan let them down, but let's face it : Individually, The Dark Knight Rises is a superb film. Naturally, it had its share of flaws but the only thing many found particularly wrong with was that it had a mind-blowing prequel and one simply can't hold this up against the sequel. Here's what I think of it :

First, the creative effort behind Bane really stole the show. When one starts off with the Joker as a precedent, one learns that one can't get far enough to cross the Bridge of Expectations, but I was quite surprised by how well they pulled it off. I agree the mask covered most of the face, but it left out a famously potent asset of a villain : the eyes. Agreed, there was mostly the task of muscle-display to be done, but they also sculpted a distinct body-language for him. His lines were hardly clichéd and mostly tough. He too, like Batman, is self-made, burned with purpose and lives out of shadows. So far so good, but here's the shocker : he isn't the mastermind, silly. (Read: "It was you, Charlie.") Had it not been for this quixotic power-shift in the end, which knocked the wind off his screen presence, he would have had a much exalted status. (Batman doesn't kill his enemies, or something like that.)

Second, what was the Miranda Tate doing in the film ? Please don't get me wrong here; I have a massive crush on Marion Cotillard. But apart from trivialising Bane and somehow remotely representing Ras Al Ghul's legacy (in a manner that hasn't been established) by just being his daughter, she doesn't measure up to much at all. Bane himself could have well taken up the latter. And leave the reactor-work to Mr. Fox, I say !

(Food for thought : If Tate escaped the Pit when she was a little kid and when Bane was already an adult, Bane should have been a bit old in the film's story since Tate was an adult !)

Third, the supporting cast did a terrific job. Mostly because it consisted Morgan Freeman, Gary Oldman, Michael Caine and Joseph Gordon Levitt. (Read: "And yes, Mr. Wayne, it comes in black.")

Fourth: Don't kill me, but I think Nolan ended up selling The Dark Knight a bit too much to himself. Hence the strings were typically tied to end the series with a touch of legend, following The Dark Knight. (As seen in the heightened drama, the firing of Alfred, and some apocalyptic lines, which need not necessarily have been there.) He rises alright, but he didn't have to be immersed in such deep shit in the first place, because it's a bit uncharacteristic and a bit unrealistic. Just saying.

Hey, I'm a fan. I may have winced at odd instances - such as Bane talking like James Stewart on crack and Batman travelling half the planet (on foot?) to reach Gotham from Jodhpur in a few hours - but the film's not a let-down. After all, the insane road rages are, if anything, better this time. And, the passing of the torch to Robin (?) was stylishly done. However, it certainly is a could-have-been-better.

Ads

For the first couple of weeks of the vacation, most of my head was vulnerable to ennui thanks to the abundant boredom summer had to offer. I managed to survive a couple of days until I was asked by a friend of mine to join him in an internship in an ad-making firm. So here's some of the juvenile work I pulled off in about a day as part of my portfolio (who was I kidding ?), to submit in an interview that I would never give :

(make sure you click on the images for the original resolution)

Predictions - Oscars 2011.

I could be grossly wrong, but this might just be the big year for The King's Speech at the Oscars.

This, of course, is just a safe bet I have made bearing the conventional indicators in mind. The only major competition could come from Fincher's The Social Network, which swept the Golden Globes earlier this year. The Coens' True Grit surprised me for two reasons -

Movie Review : Traffic (2000)

The opening sequence of Traffic pretty much sets up the psychological tenors for the rest of the movie. Javier Rodriguez Rodriguez (Benicio Del Toro) and Manolo Sanchez (Jacob Vargas), two Mexican State Police officers, ambush and arrest a truck driver who not only offers to 'buy a permit' for illegally traversing a private road along the border but is found with kilos of coke stashed in the back of the rusted truck. Minutes after the arrest, however, Javier's van finds itself surrounded by an intimidating convoy of SUVs. The convoy is led by General Salazar(Thomas Milian), a top-ranked Mexican official, whose men assume charge of the temporary prisoners and have their weapons trained on Javier, while Salazar approaches the helpless van, leans over and inquires :