Tag Movies

Shaken, not stirred

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New Research Ends Marvel Vs. DC Movie Debate, But Is It a Fair Fight?

HBO max is planning a great birthday gift for me next month. Finally the Jack Snyder version of the Justice league will be released. A movie that was destined to be one of best works ended up being reshot and contaminated due to a personal tragedy of his daughter passing away during the post production and the formula based calculations of the production house. Marvel makes a lot of money from their movies, they all have comedy, so let’s squeeze in some funny dialogues and punchlines here and there. Marvel seems to know the hit formula, let’s copy. Our director is not available, the film he made looks very dark and gloomy. Why not rope in the guy who made Avengers? Henry Cavill has already grown a mustache for Mission Impossible and is contractually obligated not to remove it? Let’s go ahead and shoot with a mustache, graphics team will take care of it. A movie before post production is just a bunch of scenes shot in random order. This movie was put together by people who had no idea of what the original film maker intended to convey.

This is why the Justice league felt so awkward and illogical. A movie whose titles start with a bitterly peimistic rendition of Leonard Cohen’s everybody knows cannot have silly things in it.

Every James Bond movie ever made, has the MI6 agent order a Martini. He is specific about how it is made. He wants it shaken, not stirred. Just like Monsieur Bond, I have a specific preference to the movies I watch. I prefer the ones that shake me to the ones that stir me with excitement. If they are exciting too, that is a plus but the minimum requirement is that they shake my brain into a thought process. From the movies like 12 Angry Men and The man from earth that shook my idea about what a film needs to be, to be engaging, to the animation features from Pixar before they were acquired by Disney, to the super hero movies of the present generation which are mostly guilty pleasures, I always find solace in the ones that have a deeper meaning and original thought in them.

For example, 12 Angry Men and The man from earth showed me the value of screenplay Both of them have a plot that can be explained in 20 seconds, have absolutely minimal background score, have no super stars, were shot on a shoe string budget in a single room. Christopher Nolan is the master of showmanship. His movies are a visual spectacle but your need to put all your grey cells to work to understand them. Compare that with Quinten Tarantino, who shoots the movies in the sequence of scenes, has clever dialogue, simple plots but complex characters. You learn something new in the movie every time you watch it. Then come the animated pieces of art from Pixar where they took you into their crazy thoughts of what if your toys came to life to what if your emotions are things living inside your head. Finally we come to the fast food equivalent of today’s cinema.

The mega assembly line of super hero movies coming out of the Marvel factory that churned 23 movies in last 11 years is the Coca cola of the mutant movies. Very successful, very popular but is it good for you? FYI, they have 11 more planned for release in next 3 years. Phew! that’s a lot of movies. When you compare the number or the money they make with the next one in line, the DC comics there is no comparison. But every couple of years a movie like the Watchmen, Dark Knight, Joker , Wonder woman and the now much anticipated (at-least by me) Batman come by which do not make a lot of money, do not grab a lot of awards but give you an idea of what a comic book based movie could be like.

I am not saying I hate Marvel. They do come up with occasional gems such as Logan and Deadpool. But since Disney has decided to become the British empire or in cinematic terms Mr Smith from matrix, everything from Pixar, Star wars and now comic book heros have been destoryed on the comveyor belt designed to mint money. Did you know that The Pirates of carribean was supposed to be a children’s movie? The director saw it differently and Disney released it as is because they had already spent the money and didn’t want to spend anymore reshooting it. It was a huge hit, then Disney started laying its eyes on making movies for Adults. This board room bureaucracy from Disney has nipped the creativity of so many artists and they are not stopping anytime soon. They started with taking moral oriented fables and tales from all across the world and modifying them into pop corn worthy material from which no child can learn anything, moved on to influencing girls into getting into abusive relationships. They spent the past decade spoiling more franchises and ruining the originality and imagination of film makers. Logan and Deadpool were not because of this bureaucracy, they were inspite of.

Tim Burton Quote: “Don’t worry about how you ‘should’ draw it. Just draw it the way you see it.

Now look at the works from DC. There are some stupid stuff. When it comes to new ideas, not every thing work. Who can forget green lantern, catwoman and George Clooney as Batman. The adaptations of the graphic novels Watchmen and V for Vendetta carried the idea and ideology of the books to the silver screen. So did count less batman adaptations. If Marvel owned Batman, would they have let Tim Burton give his weird take on it? Or would they have let Christopher Nolan make the epic saga, which only leaves you pondering if only Heath Ledger was alive and they could have gone ahead with the original script for part 3 or would they have approved one of the darkest movies ever ‘Joker’?

This is why I prefer DC. I see more passion in their screenplays and story lines. They are philosophical not genre driven. Watchmen shows how the lives of super heros in a practical world would be like, V for Vendetta shows the worst case scenario of a non-inclusive, xenophobic society, the History of violence shows you the life of a guy haunted by his past, so does Batman begins with a sumptuous load of the journey a person who set out for revenge but ends up becoming a vigilante, Womderwoman was a review of patriarchal society and hypocrisy of the human race, Dark knight returns was the take of finding courage in outrageous adversity. I’m not even going to get started on Dark Knight. It will take hours to explain the master piece.

Most of the initial movies in a franchise are brainchild of a writer, the sequels and prequels that follows are driven by the greed of studios. John wick and Mad max are exceptions. But that discussion is for another day. Just like a Vodka Martini that is shaken instead of just stirred shows the additional effort and passion that went into making it, DC offers the heart of some film maker much more often than Marvel does.

PS: I also thank DC for Anne Hathaway as cat woman. The most gorgeous portrayal of a female super hero I ever saw. Her image on the Batman bike has burnt a everlasting impression in my retina And then shattering it with Gal Gadot as wonder woman.

♪ The sound of Music ♫

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I have often used writing as a means to rant about my pet peeves, but the real joy in writing is to do it about something you like. Also, the social distancing and self isolation (due to Covid-19) has insulated me from a lot of frustrations. So, even though there are 8 other blogs in draft, I have decided to pour my heart out on a relatively recently discovered joy of mine.I say relatively because this recent thing first happened in 2014.

My taste of movies and music has been evolving with time (exponentially in the last 5 years) . Would you believe that I hated music as a kid? I would change the channel when ever there was a song on the television. Then, I was introduced to my uncle’s collection of old Hindi songs, the mix tapes that people used to get custom made instead of buying the entire cassette. This was the first music I ever liked. Fast forward to 2020, The analysis of my Apple music library for last 5 years looks like this….

Courtesy of analytics by https://music.patmurray.co/

17.5% of my plays come from 7 artists who make up just 0.56% of the total artists I listen to. What is more interesting is that 7 of the top 10 songs that I played the most featured as background scores in movies. Today I am going to try and explain how my taste in music has been shaped by movies. Heck, I took an Apple music subscription just because I was not finding enough sources to download or stream my specific tastes in music. So how did a music hating kid end up becoming obsessed with certain types of songs/genres? How did I evolve from Mukesh and Burman to Led Zeppelin and The Doors?

If you count the most listened music on the basis of total amount of time, the winner would be a song whose length is 10 mins and 29 seconds and was introduced to me by Quentin Tarantino in Kill Bill Volume 1.

In 2014, I watched the movie Guardians of the Galaxy. It kind of shattered the way I watched movies. Before I dive into what profound realization I had when I watched this movie, let me set the tone with a few examples. First watch the below trailer for the upcoming 3rd installment of the Kingsman franchise.

Now, watch it again – after I break it down for you. The trailer starts with a dialogue describing an upcoming war. Then, right when the the logo of the studio appears, a piano starts playing… Its the tune for the song ‘War pigs’ by Black Sabbath. Once Ralph Fiennes has introduced the logo of Kingsman on the shop front, the actual song kicks in. From then on, each and every cut in the video is synced with the instruments playing in the song. Every punch thrown, every fist thump, every explosion, everything. It doesn’t just stop there. Look at the lyrics of the song..

Generals gathered in their masses

Just like witches at black masses

Evil minds that plot destruction

Sorcerers of death’s construction

War pigs by Black Sabbath – 1970

The visuals in the trailer are exactly what the lyrics say. It feels like the song was written and composed explicitly for this trailer. Right?

Wrong!

The song was first released in 1970, some 50 years before Matthew Vaughn made this movie. You must be thinking that the film makers are getting too lazy to compose music. Again, Wrong! It is much easier to compose own music than find one existing song that suits all your needs among a gazillion songs available out there. If you look back at the trailers of the first and second installments of the movie, you see that the first one features Five to One by The Doors, a 1968 song that is neither in sync in terms of lyrics nor the tune, then the second one features remixed version of My Generation by The Who. Now the second movie trailer is cut in sync with the music but the lyrics only vaguely match the plot. So, what changed? Why was Mr. Vaughn so specific in choosing music this time? Was it just a coincidence that he found this song? Is there a new phenomenon that is catching up? Is it just me or has anyone else noticed this?

Now watch the trailer of another upcoming movie Wonder Woman 1984. Like Kingsman 3, this is also a prequel and the song that plays in the background is Blue Monday, by ‘New Order’. It establishes the time line (the song was released in 1983), it is in sync with the cuts and…. the trailer talks about a ‘New Era’ which basically is synonymous with New Order. This is becoming more and more common with Mission Impossible Fallout trailer featuring Friction by Imagine Dragons. The entire pace of editing is based on the rhythm of the song. Watch when the beat holds off for a moment to show Henry Cavill flexing his muscles before matching each punch and kick.

Now that you have seen enough examples of how non – diegetic sound enhances the viewing experience, you are ready to hear the amazing things in the movie Guardians of the galaxy. Well, only if you know what diegetic and non diegetic sounds are. To put it simply, each movie scene contains a lot of sounds. Any sounds the characters in the scene can hear are called diegetic sounds (e.g. foot steps, car honking, baby crying etc. ) and all the sounds that only audience can hear (background score) are called non-diegetic sounds.

Now that you got an idea, lets test your knowledge. Watch the below video and classify the kind of sound in the video….

Sorry, that was a trick question. The director makes you believe that the sound is non-diegetic only to reveal at the end that it is in fact diegetic.

Before we look at the more complex diegetic music, lets look at an example of the other form. Hans Zimmer has been the master of non-diegetic music for major part of his carer that spans for 44 years. Everyone is very familiar with the German’s work, but many don’t know him. Are you familiar with the theme music of ‘The Pirates of the Caribbean’? What about the songs from ‘The Lion King’ that bring out the child in you , every time you watch it? But for me his best work was in Dunkirk, where he manages to keep the sense of impending doom for about 2 hours continuously closely followed by the final scene of Dark Knight. The music gives me goose bumps every time I watch it.

Though composing great music needs a lot of talent and creativity, finding existing music for reuse also needs imagination. It requires one to be an encyclopedia of music.

Now coming back to Guardians of the galaxy, the male lead carries an old walkman with a mix tape of songs called ‘Awesome mix’ (Hit songs of the 70’s). It is really awesome. The songs here are diegetic sound because the character in the movie always listens to it. I hadn’t paid it much attention when I saw the movie for the first time, but because I liked the songs so much, I went to tunefind.com, searched for each and every song and added them to my library. The words in one song made me think and made me watch the movie again, this time focusing only on the music in each scene. It was just amazing, each song made perfect sense to the visuals. The song that caused this Eureka moment was in fact an ultimate analogy to the male lead’s life.

My father married a pure Cherokee
My mother’s people were ashamed of me
The Indians said that I was white by law
The white man always called me “Indian squaw”

Half-breed, that’s all I ever heard
Half-breed, how I learned to hate the word
Half-breed, she’s no good, they warned
Both sides were against me since the day I was born

Half-breed by Blue swede – 1974

In 1988, following his mother’s death, a young Peter Quill is abducted from Earth by a group of alien thieves and smugglers. The movie starts twenty-six years later on an abandoned planet, where Quill steals a mysterious orb. He is a space pirate now, leading the life of a cast away.

The analogy between the story in the song and Peter Quill is not very obvious. One was an out cast because of being born to a mixed race couple, the other one is an out cast because of being born to once species and then being raised by another species. I would say, it’s a perfect analogy. How many hours of research went into finding the song? Wouldn’t it have been simpler to write a new song?

Side Note: Mad max fury road has an awesome score, but hanging a guitar player from the truck to make the sound diegetic felt a little underwhelming for such an innovative movie

Another example of excellent use of diegetic sound is in the Netflix series Stranger things. The story is set in the 80’s and the series is filled with awesome ways to incorporate music into a scene. Weather it is the scene where a handsome hunk arrives in his muscle car to the high school with music blazing on the car stereo or the song playing on the street when a girl runs away from home after a fight with her father (figure) or material girl playing in the mall when the girls go shopping……. The list is endless.

Such sound is sometimes used to do more than conveying an emotion or complementing a scene. In the opening scene of the Amazon prime series – Jack Ryan, 2 kids in Middle East are dancing to ‘Safety Dance’ when the American planes bomb the area and one of the sibling is killed. The surviving kid grows up to become a terrorist in the present time.

Now, the scene could have started with the text Lebanon, 1982. But the same was conveyed with a song released in that year. Of course you would need the information that the US was taking part in the Lebanon war during that year. It also helps portray an image that the Lebanese were more liberal folk during that time period and embraced the music and culture from the west unlike the general portrayal of them as a conservative bunch. It also gives a sense of justification for a kid to become a terrorist.

Quentin Tarantino is the master of both kinds of music. He is director and not a composer. He hasn’t written any music, he cannot play a single instrument. Yet in 8 of the 9 movies he made, he did not hire a music composer. He just reuses the existing songs. His knowledge of music is amazing, his head is like a library of old and new music and movies. Right from the use of music by a scarcely known (in the west) Japanese artist for one of the most important scenes in his film ( introduction of the villain), to a bad guy dancing to a song ‘Stuck in the middle with you’ before chopping off the ear of a person, when they are literally stuck in a warehouse hiding from cops, he understands the impact of music as a medium of expression. He actually starts writing his screenplay only after he has decided the music that would go with it.

Referring to the audio quality of songs like “The braying mule” in Django Unchained

I have saved best for the last. It is relatively easy to find music to suit a 3-4 minute trailer. May be that is why more and more film makers are doing it. One cannot make a feature length film which just features existing music with only industry or the finances to hire a large team to work for you, It needs passion. Tons of it. For a long time Quentin Tarantino had been my gold standard for music in films, but in 2017, Edgar wright blew the entire concept out of water with his movie ‘Baby Driver’. The 46 year old Englishman had just 5 films under his belt when he made this epic musical master piece. Though he had co-written screenplay for a couple of household movies like Spielberg’s The Adventures of Tintin and Marvel’s Ant-man, his best work till then has been the cult classic comedy Hot-Fuzz. The trailer and the movie do give you glimpses of Mr Wright’s understanding music ( In simpler words, you know that he knows his shit). But Baby Driver is a movie that changed the definition of background score for me.

It is the story of a young man who is dragged into the life of crime due to a mistake he did in his teens, who suffers from Tinntus, a condition that causes him to hear a continuous buzzing or ringing sound even when there is no external noise. To, drown it out we always listens to music (and we hear it). Such a nice premise to give the freedom to add diegetic music where ever the director wants. Below is the first scene in the movie that in sets the tone for whats to come later… This time focus on how music is used to create a unique visual experience.

I am not sure if you have observed, but every cut in the scene and every character movement is in sync with the music. The guy chewing gum, opening the car trunk, closing the trunk, people walking into the bank, car drifts and the scene length. Then comes the second scene in the movie….

This time the director does a one up. A simple task of getting coffee… shot with the words in the song written on walls with graffiti, the way music volume reduces when the character takes out on ear phone to order coffee, the way the guy scatters across the road when he sees a cop and the song says ‘Hitch, Hitchhike baby, across the floor’. Every time I watch this movie, I notice something new.

Watching movies so intently, has introduced me to tons of music from 70’s and 80’s. It has gradually changed the way I watch movies and also increased my appetite for old music. Listening to these songs makes me relive the wonderful cinematic moments. My driving time gets significantly reduced if my phone shuffle picks The Chase Begins or Brothers in Arms (If you know what I mean) .But Focusing on the lyrics made me distinguish art made with passion from art made for money. So people like Tarantino and Wright have spoilt me with their excellent tastes in music and turned me into a guy who is put off my the latest music trends.

Just take those old records off the shelf

I’ll sit and listen to ’em by myself

Today’s music ain’t got the same soul

I like that old time rock ‘n’ roll

Old Time Rock and Roll by Bob Seger – 1978

The numb and number

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Anesthesia with Amnesia

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That’s how it goes
Everybody knows

Written by Leonard Cohen & Sharon Robinson , 1988

I first heard the song “Every body knows” in opening credits of the movie Justice League. It was a song filled with pessimism. It made sense, the plot starts where Batman vs Superman ended. Superman is dead. All hope for mankind is dead along with it. 

(Side note: I have always found movies from DC comics to be light years ahead of Marvel in their quality. Marvel is a money making machine where as DC is a purists delight)

But the original song doesn’t have the same melancholy in it. It feels like Leonard Cohen and Sharon Robinson who wrote and composed it were being very pragmatic. Though the song was criticized for being bitterly pessimistic. But I disagree. It is one of the most realistic songs ever.

If you believe that everything in the world is fair, you are naive if I have to be gentle. Stupid if I have to be straightforward. But it may not be your fault. The people who are dealt with a good hand in life always make sure that the others don’t realize it. Just like the game of poker, if you want to win more money, you need others to feel safe at the very least and over confident & cocky at the very best.

There have been many ways to keep you distracted enough not to know your own plight. Mobile phones and social media have taken the baton now. Now a days, people treat their mobile phones like a drug addict treats his stash. They are obsessed and addicted to them. A single person or an organization cannot achieve this. It has to be a conscious nexus of various power centers.

Blackberry messenger, first introduced in 2005 was the pioneer in multi-media messaging and voice telephony over a data connection. They did it efficiently and securely. They respected privacy of their users. Then came the iPhone in 2007 followed by Android phones in 2010. Tons of applications started popping up. But 2G was slow and expensive which limited the use of these devices to serious users. In the next decade, the phones became cheaper along with the internet. 2G was replaced by 3G and 4G.

The cost of the infrastructure didn’t go down. The profit margins did not increase. The biggest change was the source of income. Till 2010, profit was made by selling mobile phones. Now the profit making starts after the purchase. Mind you most of the people use their phones because they are affordable on top of being addictive.

The society has somehow transformed into one where four of the five senses are mostly used for interaction with a mobile phone. Phones still don’t have an odour (yet). At least it is not mainstream yet. But the day is not far.

We are growing numb to the realities of the world. We are in a way becoming that is why we start seeing pragmatic people as pessimists. Deep down I believe “Every body knows” this, but they are just far too distracted to realize it.

The puppet show

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Illusion of choice

This blog started out as the episode 2 of my new ‘Over analyzed movies’ series. But once I started structuring the thoughts, it became more of a ‘Song’ review rather than a ‘Movie’ review. A few minutes later, it started evolving into the following….   Now, the song in question is the title track from the movie Rangasthalam. It is a movie about the lives of some people in a village by the name ‘Rangasthalam’. But the word literally means ‘the Stage’. The one used for theater kind, Not the Stage 1, Stage 2 kind. Now the lyrics of the song when translated to English (Translation cannot do justice to any piece of poetry, it can only be truly enjoyed in its original form) go something like…..

In Rangasthalam, we are all puppets of an invisible puppeteer. Then it goes on to describe how people in Rangasthalam are gullible and innocent etc.

The first time I heard this song, before watching the movie. I liked the philosophical side of the song as I Interpreted it as a play of words referring to the world as a stage and god as a puppeteer. But, once I completed watching the movie, I realized that it had a far more literal meaning in the context of the movie. As, every aspect of the people of Rangasthalam is actually controlled by the anti-hero of the movie. He is a landlord who casts his shadow over entire village with a pseudo-god like status.    Now, that was a clever use of words. Ones that have both metaphorical and actual meanings. In fact all great art does. Please mind that I am not referring to the tons of double-meaning-ed pieces of literature out there that replace obscene and vulgar words with the words that infer those things. I am talking about literature like ‘Animal farm’ which captures the idea of communism and social revolutions thought the story of animals in an actual animal farm. I am talking about the movies like I-Robot,  Inception, The true man show. I am talking about smash hits songs like London calling, Like a virgin and Summer of 69. The art which needs a lot of context to understand the true meaning.

If this was to be a movie review, then I have to stop here. But it isn’t. The song in question has always triggered a lot of after thoughts, every time I listened to it. Its is a metaphor that refers to all of us. Aren’t we all puppets? Or do you strongly believe that you are acting on your own free will on all decisions you make?  

Depending on the your financial and social/political might, you might just be a puppet or both a puppet and a puppeteer. There is a clear hierarchy in our society, the people who pull the strings also have their own masters. The logo of “The God Father” and the plot of the book is a perfect analogy of how a city is controlled by a single guy. May be the phrase “Pulling strings” also originates from the puppet show.

We are born into this world with the strings of Gender, Family, Religion & Region. To be more specific the cultural and habitual obligations that come with being born into a gender/family/religion/region. These obligations become a norm for us. The society adds more strings. Moral obligations, the expectations of your kin and society in general. The compulsion of education via schools with a predefined syllabus. The obligations of degrees, jobs, marriage, kids. Which major to pick in college, which domain to choose for a job, whom you marry, when you marry. Everything is either decided or influenced by someone else.

Lately, capitalism has added more strings. What you buy, where you buy, when you buy something is not exactly in your hands anymore. It is decided by tech giants running machine learning algorithms to dangle stuff that you don’t need and financial giants allow you to indulge with money you don’t have through credit cards, loans, EMIs and installments. Businesses try to put you on a leash by offering attractive memberships.

Elections campaign slogans and political manifestos are decided by data mining. The hastags that you add to the posts are not to search trends. Its is to judge the pulse of people from silly to serious things. Text processing engines burn millions of watts of electricity every day going through the non-sense called social media counting for and against count on each topic and then sell this information to companies that think that data doesn’t lie and machines can think better than us. then shove the outputs of these algorithms down our throats. 

Do you still think that you make your own decisions? Or did you start counting the number of puppet masters you have?

The underdog detective

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Over analyzed movie review – Episode 1

I like movies a lot. That is why I don’t watch many. 


Spoiler Alert: The following blog contains spoilers. Please stay away if you haven’t watched the movie.

Well to start with a gist, better get it from IMDB, “Agent Sai Srinivasa Athreya is an authentic humorous investigative thriller revolving around the adventures of a detective based out of Nellore.“

Now let me try it in my own words. It is a low budget comedy thriller that has a very good script and screenplay. An ambitious detective who watches loads of English detective films to learn his trade and operates from a shack in the middle of a vegetable market. He gets dragged into a very sophisticated criminal operation. He thinks that he is on the right path, so do we. He ends up being framed for a couple of murders and now has to clear his name while also find the real culprits.

Phew! Those were some long sentences. But to the topic of my interest. Why did it work?
Traditional movie goers in India prefer movies with big name stars to ones with a good script. So, how did this movie do as well as it did? Well a movie, irrespective of language will always do well if it manages to play with the emotions and instincts of the audience. 

In this movie, some of our basic instincts (not Michael Douglas’s) are played with. In any detective movie you expect the lead to solve the mystery. But casting a rookie as the film’s lead trigger’s the underdog effect. Let’s say you are watching a James Bond/Sherlock Holmes/Mission impossible, if the lead were to fall into any peril, you wouldn’t be concerned. How can any harm come to such a powerful character? (Same logic used in reverse to blow your minds again and again in Game of thrones) If you are not concerned or connected with the character, you wouldn’t be blissful when he wins. In this movie, the lead is not very powerful or well built. You wouldn’t expect him to win any fights. So, it makes him the underdog. In a neutral situation, one always roots for the underdog. So there is a connection established with the audience. Its always satisfying to see a deer escaping a tiger than a tiger devouring a deer or a tiger fighting another tiger.

Next, Us being Judgmental. Movies have always generalized bad people. Their appearance,body language, the facial expressions have always been stereotyped. But, How does a bad person look?  Here is a test for you. If you haven’t watched ‘The Usual Suspected’, play along. Look at the image below and find the culprit.


Before you answer, think again, this may or may not be a trick question. Watch the movie to know the answer. I will not reveal it. 
Another test if you are interested. Below is a poster of “Murder on Orient express”.The poster of the better version of 1974 was not very convenient for the task, so I am using the 2017 version. Who among the below is a cold blooded murderer?




Now coming back the topic of discussion. At no juncture in the movie, the audience get any information on who the bad guy(s) is/are. There is no attempt to mislead you either. They genuinely show characters in different situations. Besides appearances, People mistake attitude for character. So, for major part of the movie, our brains keep passing judgments on everyone we see on the screen.

Side note: This topic alone deserves a separate post. On how we assume ourselves to be the judge, jury and executioner for everyone.

Coming back to the movie. A detective movie is only good if the audience cannot figure out the mystery themselves. There are different ways the narrators achieve this. Some make the plot so complicated/illogical that its impossible to find the culprit. Others mislead you on purpose. But only a few master the screenplay of audience coming to their own conclusions and making sure they are wrong conclusions. 

So, this movie plays at 2 habits of ours. One always supporting the underdog and the other, us being judgmental about everything. This is why it hit the right cords.

Day dreaming!!!

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Ground control to Major Tom


Do you dream? 
May be it is a stupid question. Every one dreams. In fact, studies show that even animals dream. Now don’t confuse dreams with aspirations. Though the words are used interchangeably, there is a ton of difference. I’m talking about dreams where you see things and do stuff. Kind of hallucinations. 

Now, do you Day dream? Do you phase out often, even when in the company of people and when you are wide awake?

For the record, I think i’m one of the most qualified person to talk on this subject. I have day dreams in the middle of day dreaming. Not like the plot of Inception.My day dreams are sometimes interrupted by other day dreams. May be that is one reason why I almost never get bored. If you leave me alone for a couple of minutes or for that matter, if you talk to me about something that I’m not interested it, I my brain will jettison you and will wander off to my dreamland. It might sound weird and also dangerous but I can even drive while day dreaming. 

Now, I haven’t paid much attention to this phenomenon my entire life. I just assumed that there is some faulty wiring in my brain and there is nothing I can do about it. That was until I saw a movie. This movie has become my favourite. Actually favourite is not a word that would do justice to describe my liking to this movie. Its called “Secret life of Walter Mitty”. Its a remake of a 1947 movie with same title which in turn is an adaptation of a short story published in 1939. The story and the earlier adaptations are gentle comedies about a guy who ends up in awkward situations because of his habit of day dreaming.

But in my opinion, Ben stiller’s modern take on this short story was not only mind blowing experience for me but also something that is very up close and personal to me. No, I don’t stalk my female colleagues on online dating platforms. I also day dream a lot. Now there are 2 phases of life to Walter Mitty in this movie. One is the person who is lot in dreams and the other is where he eventually comes of of this phase. This transition is what amazed me. 

If you haven’t watched the movie, I’d suggest you do before you read my take on the movie. Its always good to get your own perspective because once you read mine, you”ll not be able you form your own unbiased opinion. 

The story socially awkward boy who dreamed to travel the world with a Mohawk, skate board and a backpack is thrown into the daily churn of life because of his father’s untimely demise and has to take the responsibility of the entire family. The boy who grows up to be a man who has come to a acceptance that there is nothing he can do but get along with a boring life and a boring job. How does one get a release from such situation? Day dreaming. Just like most ‘night’ dreams are related to things that we want to do and be. He dreams about cracking a wise ass joke on his boss. He dreams about flooring his office crush with an cool romantic avatar. He dreams about having a super hero style fight with the people who make fun of him. He dreams about anything and everything. Now, what else could he do? 

But due to circumstances, he has to start off on a journey that turns out to be a crazy wild ride. He travels to Greenland, Iceland and Afghanistan. He gets to jump of a helicopter into freezing water and fights off sharks. Slowly during this journey, the frequency of his day dreaming decreases to finally vanish one day. His innermost, most important desire for travel and adventure fulfilled accidentally, now he has no need to dream. He was a self content man. Anyone who gets to do the stuff he truly craves for doesn’t need to imagine himself doing this same stuff. Right?

After this I realised why I day dream so much. In this politically correct world with the social obligations and status quo, I have no way to be myself. So, I resort to day dreaming where I can murder the asshole who cuts me off on the road, slap the coworker who takes credit for others work, have a conversation that I actually wanted to have rather than the one I just had but couldn’t truly express my feeling in, flirt with the girl I like.

The problem I have now is that almost all of these dreams I have can never come true. This is because I can associate my brain activity with another movie also. Its called Split.
There a guy has a multiple personality disorder. He has 23 different personalities. Thankfully, I don’t have this condition (as far as I know). But I sure do have so many personalities in my dreams.


Dystopian destiny

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Civilization or C-Evil-ization?



What is common between the movies in the above collage? Take a guess. May be the title will give a clue! Not the movie title, I’m talking about the title of blog.

Before I tell you what I meant, lets look at some more movies. Have you seen “You’ve got mail?”, a nice romantic movie, very popular no doubt, you wouldn’t bat an eye lid on the plot. Its very genuine. But it wasn’t when the movie was made. Movies main plot is something that you would call Online dating today. It was completely unheard of in 1998.

So, this movie predicted something that we see today. It predicted future. Now let me rush through a list of movies that spoke of concepts that were total fiction when they were made.
Jim carrey’s The cable guy talks about Online gaming and Smart TVs. Air plane part II shows full body scanners in air ports, Minority report shows personalized advertising, Total recall shows TV’s on public transport & self driving cars/ Back to the future features flat screen TVs, Video conferencing and wearable technology. War games introduced us to cyber war fare. Blade runner said digital bill boards are possible. The true man show is about reality television (the writers can sue the Kardashian’s for copy wright infringement). The running man is about a reality show where contestants had to do dangerous tasks. 2001 A space oddessy gave us the first glimpse of virtual assistants. Smart phones, Virtual reality, Robots, Digital snooping, Identity theft, Smart homes, Face transplants, Nuclear meltdowns were all part of movies even before we had a name for such a thing.

You might write it off saying its all about technology and technological advances were bound to happen. You can also strike me down that there is a whole bunch of stuff that did not become a reality. But that’s exactly what a prediction means. It may happen. It’s not a guess. A prediction is an educated guess. Sort of the one you make at half time of a game. 

Now getting back to the photo collage at the top.At the heart of every plot is the message, Human species is on path to self-destruct. They are not the dystopian dreams of a writer, they are the the result of a prediction that some people made looking at where the human race is heading. The central theme of every movie is problems that arise out of over population of Humans.


Also, there has been an increasing trend where the villain is a guy meaning good. He takes the decision that the only way to save earth is by eliminating significant amount of human beings. So, he is actually trying to be the hero for future generations but we brand him as a bad guy just because we don’t like his modus operandi.

Look at V for vendetta, its based on a book, it is about futuristic Britain. A politician uses fear mongering and comes into power, then systematically establishes an authoritarian regime. Then there is a revolution to over throw him. I think we are seeing the first phases of this movie plot already in action. 

Before humans walked the earth, the only way there could be destruction was through Nature. Humans call them natural disasters. But there is an important thing to note here. They are not disasters to nature. They are occurrences in nature that prove disastrous to Humans. Well, Flora and Fauna also perish. But what ever happened in Nature was for the greater good. You might call it suffering short time loss for a long term gain. Even when a global scale extinction events like the an asteroid struck to wipe out the dinosaurs or an ice age or magnetic reversal of poles occurred, Earth and Nature have always found a way to restore balance and make Earth a hospitable place. But this took a lot of time. I mean a lots & lots of time. 



But since Humans have become so called ‘Civilized’, the magnitude of destruction we have caused is unreal. Its even more unsettling that majority was done in the last 100 years. Earth is been in a non-molten state since at least 3.8 billion years. At least that is oldest rock ever found till date. Fossil records state that life has been on earth for at least 3.5 billion years. Humans have existed for about 200,000 years. The first vaccine was invented in 1796 and now we are in 2018. Humans couldn’t disturb the harmony of the eco system for 199778 years that is until we found a way to cheat Nature’s fix for everything. Nature always balances the scale by allowing only the strongest to survive, even the population strongest of the species was controlled using disease. Once humans found a way to bypass this, the population exploded. 



Now, in any eco-system if the population of a particular species explodes, then the species in the lower level get decimated, then this over populated species starves to death. This way in some time, the natural order is restored. No Humans are different, we don’t just feed on what is available, we grow our own food. Including the live stock used for meat consumption. We not only just eat when required, we store for future needs. This means the rate at which we consume natural resources is faster than at the rate they are replenished. For eg: it takes more millions of years for nature to create crude oil, we now process in days and consume it in minutes. If you look at the relative time taken to produce and consume hydrocarbons, the model we follow is not at all sustainable. So is the carbon foot print we add to earth.

Just at some of the statistics below on deforestation and CO2 emissions 



All this data points to only one result. There are more movie predictions that are about to come true. We may not be alive to see it, but I’m sure someone in future will look at movies like 2012 & Day after tomorrow and think. Man, they said that this would happen decades ago. Wish someone cared.




The secret formula

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An embarrassing truth that Google told me…


The Formula of Indian cinema. Very complex and very simple at the same time.
(A x (H)³ x (Hn)² x (D)² + (CT) + (M) + (I)³) / (S)¹⁰
This is the formula to make a successful Indian movie. I know, it needs some explanation, else it makes no sense. This is a bold claim to make and the explanation may incur the wrath of a lot of people.

In India, an astounding number of movies are released every year. Bollywood takes the top honours. It alone makes more than double the number of movies made in Hollywood. Closely followed by Kollywood (Tamil) and Tollywood(Telugu). The 2nd and 3rd positions are debatable, so lets say both Tamil and Telugu movie industries occupy 2nd spot. You have some background information now.

I was born in Andhra Pradesh, so naturally was exposed to their favourite pass time. The movies. Going to movies is something most Indians like, but Telugu people have a special place in heart for Movies and Actors. I started with watching only Telugu movies, then expanded my horizons to Hindi, English and now even watch Korean. So why do Indians love movies so much? What do they look for in a movie? Like always when I have a question, Google answers. But this time it was different. I did not ask google, I stumbled upon the answer accidentally.

First, let me take you a little off topic. Do you know what PageRank is? Its a patented algorithm by google. It determines the order of search results. Suppose you search for this blog ‘ConfusedPrimate blogspot’, you are instead shown another blog called ‘Confused-Primate’(This is when I realised my idea was not original, I was not alone and there is another equally confused primate somewhere). Why did this happen? This is because that blog had more visitors than mine, so its rank is higher. Every time a user searches something and then picks a result, its rank is enhanced. Google thinks that it is the appropriate result. By now you might be wondering what the hell does it have to do with Telugu cinema or in fact any cinema. I’m coming to the point. Click the next links (I promise they wont install any malware masked as anti-virus into your device)
Google shows the most clicked images first. Sholay is one of the most famous Hindi movie ever made, it grabs the 1st spot. Fair enough. But what about Telugu and Tamil links? Repeat the exercise with just words Hindi, Telugu and Tamil. I stumbled upon this hilarious and very embarrassing discovery (I’m a Telugu speaker.. remember?)  when I was trying to find an Image which has Telugu written in Telugu. This gives you a rough Idea of what majority of the audience look for in Telugu and Tamil cinema. Right?

Now that you have a new perspective, let us dive back into the topic. Indian cinema and Indian film makers are a different breed. Every successful film maker in India knows “The Formula”. To understand a formula one needs to know the meaning of all the variables in it. I’ll list out various variables of a Telugu cinema and then later apply the same formula to other language films with minor changes to the variables. This formula applies to 9/10 major productions.

The Hero(H)

The Protagonist of a movie. Usually has the same body language, expressions, dance moves in every movie.
The qualifications of a great Hero are 
– being the son, grand son, nephew or just hanging somewhere in the family tree of an established Hero.
– Having a God father who is a big name in Indian cinema(not Vito Corleone kind – though there are rumours that in Bollywood it can be big  help to be in good books of Don Corleone)
– being the son, grand son, nephew or just hanging somewhere in the family tree of an established Politician.
– being the son, grand son, nephew or just hanging somewhere in the family tree of a successful business man.
– Things like acting skills, dedication, commitment, versatility are optional. 

Sounds like Nepotism. Yes, it is. There is another level to it as well. If a Hero who meets the required qualifications is hideous, then he has an option to undergo a number of expensive facial alteration surgeries to make his face look bearable.

The Villain(V)

Is one or more of the following. Cruel looking, Ugly, Weirdly dressed, very good physique.
Is generally the actor with most acting skills in a movie. A big baddie is used to enhance Hero’s reputation. 
Since it is common movie knowledge that Hero > Villain. Size does matter. The bigger the better it is for the Hero.

The Heroine(Hn)

A scantly dressed girl who either woos the Hero or is wooed by him. Is Lusted by the Villain or his son. Appears on screen before a song or to instigate a fight. Usual selection process includes being nominated by the Hero or the Director. Should be fair skinned. Should not speak Telugu. Should be open to skin show if the character demands(it always does). Another general observation is that, if there is a new Heroine in town, then all the prominent Hero’s see to it that they make at least a couple of films with her. Sometimes to manage the heavy work load 2 or even 3 heroines can be part of a movie. But the job description remains same.
If you have any more doubts about the selection process of a Heroine in Telugu movies, please drop an email to Ms Radhika Apte. She would be more than happy to help you out.

The Director(D)

The director of the movie is very important. In fact the first decisions of making a movie involve choosing a Hero and a Director. More often than not, One of them approaches the other and proposes to make a movie. Hang on, you are wondering where the story/plot is. Its not that important. It can be decided later. Please hold back your questions, they will be answered later in the post. Every director has a specific style of film making. Spielberg is expert in making you smile even in a war themed movie. Tarantino is an expert in showing even violence artistically. Scorsese will make you hang on to the edge of your seat.
We are here to talk about Telugu movies, so why all this Hollywood information? Its just for an example.
The idea of romance in the bald head of The greatest Telugu director of all time( in terms of commercial success) is to hit Heroine’s various body parts with fruits (That’s right) and capture it in various slow motion angles or to drench the Heroine in water and other edible fluids. There are also some modern successful directors but each knows only a single way to make the movie. So they search for Combinations. If a Hero and a director make a successful movie, then the combination is repeated until the audience forget which movie they are watching. 

The Producer(P)

The least respected guy in the entire crew. Responsible for paying bills, takes care of expenses incurred by Hero and Heroine’s extended family also – during the course of making the movie. 

The comedy track (CT)

This has one or more actors making a fool out of themselves or being fooled by the Hero. Generally includes receiving multiple slaps, kicks and other forms of insults from the Hero and other characters. 

The Music Director(M)

The guy who takes advantage of the fact that there are no copyright laws to Music and makes ‘Copying is my birth Right’ his life’s motto. All his songs generally sound similar. Would have learnt Indian traditional music in childhood, but never uses it.

The Item girl(I)

One of the most Important cogs in the wheel called a movie. Not to be mistaken to a Heroine. Though both are scantly dressed girls whose sole purpose in a movie is to ‘Shake it on the floor’ with the Hero. There is a clear distinction. Item girl appears in only one song. Can be easily identified by the quantity of attire. It will be significantly less than the Heroine.

The Lyricist

More than one is involved. Each has a special skill to write a particular kind of song. Should be an expert in making Subversion and Perversion the central themes of songs. The level of perversion required depends on the director.

The Cinematographer(C)

The guy who captures everything on camera. Though the job seems straight forward, Telugu cinematographer needs to have some special qualities. Unfortunately if a Hero is bad at dancing, he has to make a special effort to make this fact go unnoticed by the audience. This is generally done by shaking the camera when the hero is performing his dance moves. Another important skill required is to make short people look tall and tall people look short. Most Telugu heroes are average in height and if the Heroine is taller than the hero (Her beauty and other attributes would have made the Hero recommend her in spite of the dreaded height factor), they need to put this skill into action.

The Choreographer(D)

The guy with most restrictions in the crew. He has to compose his dance within the physical, psychological and medical limitations of the Hero. 

Last and definitely the least -Story writer(S)

Finally, the story. Once all the above crew is selected. The turn of story writer. The is a sub formula for the story. 
It needs to have :
– an Introduction fight for Hero followed by a song, 
– Heroine wooed by Hero(If some one else did the same things to Hero’s sister, then it would be considered molestation)
– Hero’s path crossing with that of villain (The writer has the license to make it either funny or action packed)
– an Interval bang (this is where you are told that everything you saw till now is a lie, The Hero is a demi-god sent to earth to rescue mankind from the villain who is son of the satan)
– Cat and mouse game between Hero and Villain.
– The inappropriate Item song
– The grand climax where villain traps the hero and comes up with a convoluted way to kill him. The hero escapes and kills the villain.

They have an option to do the same as music director and calmly copy the plot of a successful movie in some foreign language or come up with a narrative that includes all the above requirements and interlace it with 4-5 songs for Heroines to be able to do justice to their remuneration.

The Audience(A)

** Audience here refers to only the male variety.
Audience are categorised into 3 categories based on socio-economic back grounds. 
A class, B class and C class. A class are the ones who are middle to high class. Who frown upon any vulgarity mostly because they are afraid they will not be called A class if they don’t.
B class are there to watch Fights, Heroine and Item girl. C class just watch different body parts Heroine and Item girl in songs or steamy sequences.

Just like cloud software, most Telugu audience watch movies in Subscription based model. The subscription is often to a Hero, but can some times be to Heroine and Director.
There are different kinds of subscribers.
– Default: These become subscribers by birth. Being born in same locality/village/town/district/community/caste as the Hero will make you a default subscriber. They watch each and every movie of this Hero, more than once. They stop all their regular life activities to promote these movies in every thinkable way.
– Common: These are casual movie goers who watch every movie ever made. They are subscribed to all heroes.
– Sincere: These are very similar to Default subscribers but the reason for subscription is very different. They sign up to the subscription plan because they like one or more characteristics of the Hero.


Now the formula again
(A x (H)³ x (Hn)² x (D)² + (CT) +  (M) + (I)³) / (S)¹⁰
Here A is a variable constant whose value depends on the subscription model

In Tamil movies, 
Heroine – need not be fair, but needs to be voluptuous. Hero doesn’t need surgeries.
In Hindi movies,
The plot is always set in a foreign country. 

So, Is there only one way to make an Indian movie? Definitely not. Just like the periodic table, life is full of exceptions. Over the years, there was some amazing work done in Indian cinema. But it gets crowded out by the Formula movies.

There you go. It was a lot of typing but my mind is at peace now. Knowledge is enhances by sharing. I hope to have enlightened you.
The formula might look very complex but it is very simple once you understand it. Right?