WHISKEY MYSTICS AND MEN

The Top Twelve

2007-07-21T23:17:00.000+05:30

The Godfather I&II - Coppola made these timeless claasics that are more deeper than the story itself.Al Pacino as Michael has to be the most charismatic,handsome face on the screen ever.What more can I say about the movie that would not be synonymous with the 'obvious'!

Raging Bull - Undoubtedly scorsese's finest work . De-Niro gives of the great method acting performances of all time as the physically strong emotionally disturbed Jake La Motta.Be it the violent bull form the bronx eating his steak with anger all over his face or the fat old entertainer quoting marlon Brando in On the waterfront, every scene remains etched in your mind.

Apocalypse Now - coppola's adaptation of joseph conrad's heart of darkness this movie is quite a trip.Martin sheen's haunting voiceover,his drowning of the whiskey bottle with a streak of phsychedlic undercurrents and his encounters with Kurtz are an absolute delight.And what abt Kilgore ordering his crew to play Wagner as they destroy a vietnamese village.If you think it cant get much better than this watch Brando utter 'the horror'.Add to this stunning visuals and brilliant music.

Dr.Strangelove - A black comedy when a nuclear catastropphy awaits the world.Who else but Kubrick can conceive such plots!

Its a Wonderful Life - Such unadulterated human emotion on a 70mm screen.As Jimmy stewart comes back after his tryst with the angel you feel pangs of happiness striking your senses as though you were part of it.No wonder it inspired spielberg to make movies.

Once Upon a Time in America - Sergio Leone made those great westerns.Then he had a dream.He directed once upon a time in america.The violins of Beatles' yesterday in a sequence where Robert De-Niro reflects on the past,Deborah's theme and many more instances of Ennio Morricone's genius put a spell around you.

The Shawshank Redemption - Morgan Freeman's stunning Voiceover and the scene where andy dufrense looks at the sky greeted by a streak of lightning will have you spellbound for a long long time.

2001 A space odyssey - A mindblowing visual delight in every sense of the word.The dawn of man sequence and thejupiter and beyond the infinite sequence are a cinematic piece of art if ever there was one.The blue danube waltz plays on after the credits roll by and you know youve never watched something like this before.

Ran - King Lear is considered to be the purest of shakespeare's works.What more can you ask for when it is adapted on screen by the great Akira kurosawa.Legend has it that Kurosawa painted every scene on canvass before he set the camera in motion.The burning of the castle,the battle scenes and the image of the blind man with the flute helplessly standing over the edge of a cliff are testimony to kurosawas genius.

Sunset Boulevard - The most insane opening a movie could ever possibly have.A dead man floating in a pool of water recounts his rather tragic tale and what unfolds is a revelation of the rather unreal and fantasical world of movies and the fleeting and artificial lives of artistes.

Annie Hall - A riveting tale about relationships with exceptionally written lines and a novel approach totelling a simple tale . Woody allen and diane keaton play their roles to perfection.When alvy singer tells you the old Groucho marx joke in the beginning and the chicken and the egg story at the end you feel youve watched something special.Profound yet funny.

Arsenic and old lace - Comedies dont come much better.

2007-07-01T02:40:00.000+05:30

http://youtube.com/watch?v=V1Is3gplInU

At last the sun is shining!

Nuovo Cinema Paradiso

2007-03-05T22:15:00.000+05:30

"Life isnt like in the movies.Life is much harder"

Diarios de motocicleta

2006-12-29T21:29:00.000+05:30

"This isn't a tale of heroic feats. It's about two lives running parallel for a while, with common aspirations and similar dreams. What we had in common our restlessness, our impassioned spirits, and a love for the open road."

A hard day's night

2006-12-03T21:00:00.000+05:30

It's been a hard day's night,
And I've been working like a dog
It's been a hard day's night,
I should be sleeping like a log

Yellowwood

2006-12-01T21:13:00.000+05:30

An attempt at a nursery rhyme

There's going to be no rain no hail
Come lets go on a hiking trail
Paths galore across the dam
So lets pack some bread and jam

The sun he shone ever so bright
Barren trees they were quite a sight
Slippery courses winding and long
The woodpecker hummed a merry song

Silences broken by hunters' shots
The deers, they ran for safer spots
The water and the green, a picture of note
Wasnt it all a sweet silhouette?

Short and sweet and splendid was the hike
It was time to hit the nearest pike
The engines roared and uttered their cry
And there we were all home and dry!

Glorious beginnings

2006-10-28T08:03:00.000+05:30

RAGING BULL- De niro shadow boxes and its time for clenched fists when he says 'i remember those cheers,they still ring in my ears'.And those lines get more subtle,shakespeare and beautiful .One of the most powerful beginnings,has to be.

APOCALYPSE NOW-Morrison's beautiful voice sings 'the end' as helicopter blades dissolve into fan blades.How much better can it get?

RESERVOIR DOGS-The lesser the said the better.

THE KILLING-This is a personal favourite.As the narrator describes the unique method of betting that Marvin Unger employs in the race track you get the feeling that you are in for a beauty.Maybe this is the first time Kubrick told the world 'Ladies and gentlemen,here I come'.

FIGHT CLUB- People are always asking me if i know Tyler Durden!!

THE GOOD,THE BAD AND THE UGLY-When "The Good" flashes on the screen in that weird font a good twenty minutes would have elapsed.Now is that a beginning??Bloody hell it is.

THE SOUND OF MUSIC-After a brilliant shot of nature the protagonist stretches her arms and sings 'the hills are alive with the sound of music' with delirious joy.

SAVING PRIVATE RYAN-The most unbelievable simulation of a real battlefield.Mind boggling the word I am looking for?

SNATCH-This again is a personal favourite.'My name is Turkish.Funny for an Englishman I know'.Uninterrupted fun all the way.

Is there any glaring omission??Huh....How can I forget the rain falling in RASHOMON.

I am a rock

2006-09-18T05:12:00.000+05:30

I have my books And my poetry to protect me;
I am shielded in my armor,
Hiding in my room, safe within my womb.
I touch no one and no one touches me

2006-09-17T10:00:00.000+05:30

I'll have to confess I hate those introductions you need to make in front of all these daunting audiences that stare at you like hawks.Your adrenaline flows and as a result the sound vibrations are mitigated when they pass through the throat and all that scientific stuff.You become too self conceited and impose more strain on the bean bag that grapples with sensitive subjects like 'how do i start','What do i say','How trivial' and things like that.Its also one of those situations thats tailor made for plastic smiles and cultivated accents.

I know its corny and all but I am not like one of those blokes who run a marathon when confronted with such an ordeal.Stutter or stammer(Mind you i cant even take the help of those kindred spirits) i face these situations like a cat on a cold tin roof!And after a spirited but messy display on one such occasion a friend came up to me and said as a true friend would of course 'why dont you work on your elevator pitch maite?'.Well,'If you really want to hear about it.......'.You get it right?!

Academia,Here I come

2006-09-10T22:11:00.000+05:30

2006-09-04T05:56:00.000+05:30

At last my drowsy eyes found something interesting.It was an article in 'the sportstar'.A comparison between warne and muralitharan.Part of the arguement rested upon the statistical heights these two spinners would scale and all that.It was then I started reflecting.Does it really matter at all?

Sport is more than mere numbers.For whenever i see warne bowl it gives me an instant thrill.An inexplicable,intangible feeling.The statistician though would appreciate the number of wickets Murlali's elbows would have fetched him before he decides to give them a rest.And in all probablity that would be elbows ahead of warney's numbers!The S would do it with the same passion with which he would count sachin's 'match winning hundreds' and shahid afridi's record breaking sixes.What a futile exercise.

Those whove watched warne tweak a legbreak and sachin play a cover drive in its true spirit would never fall for the arguement.The purity of such expression should never be reduced to a statistical travesty.

An ageing dennis lillee with his tail up, last ball of the day dismantling the stumps of Viv Richards in the centenary test;Tendulkar fighting agonizing pain and a great Pakistani attack on a hot summer's day in Chennai;Steve waugh running alongside the bowler to put aus into the senifinals; -quantify these for me.For these are moments that form the very backbone of sport.And individuals who stand up to these moments day in and day out regardless of the results and the numbers for they have inherent in them those 'unquantifiable instincts' are streets ahead of the rest.

Richie benaud summed it up perfectly in one of his million stints in the com box.He was going through the all time list of highest wickettakers.A visibly moved Benaud then said 'Oh,The name dennis doesnt find a space even in page two of the list.But take my word for it,he was an abbsoluute classicc'And that to me summarizes the essence of the issue.It instills the faith that sport is not a game of numbers and results.It also restores my faith in that 'unquantifiable instinct' that separates the tendulkars from the dravids,the warnes from the muralis,the lillies from the mcgraths,and the gods from the men.

Which category was he?

2006-08-28T08:07:00.000+05:30

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5617967923170823460&q=legends+of+cricket&hl=en

There are great batsmen,great bowlers,great fielders,great allrounders and then there's Sir Garfield Sobers.

The man with the magic hand

2006-08-27T02:14:00.000+05:30


Definition of beauty.Legend has it that the aussie close in fielders instilled the 'fear of god' into the mind of batsmen:)

Once upon a time in the west......

2006-05-24T07:55:00.000+05:30

Eyes of fury

2006-05-23T09:58:00.000+05:30

How good is great?

2006-02-07T22:58:00.000+05:30

We were discussing it in the bar.It wasnt for the first time.Its a question thats plagued the doubters and the believers,the fans and the detractors,the average watchers and the connosieurs.Where does Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar stand among the echelon of batting greats?

We were trying to find out the answer to that question.Make no mistake.This wasnt some defence attorney vs public prosecutor showdown.Nor was it some judgmental ritual.I hope u get the point.That elusive classic that ought to define his batsmanship came up. Have we just missed it in 'yet another match-losing' shadow? was the counter.Were we in the right debating this in the firstplace and all followed.It was an engaging discussion all throughout.Funny enough and as expected no one won the arguement and no answers surfaced.But there was the common thread that was the underlying assumption on which we based our arguements.The undeniable brilliance that radiated from that willow.In other words we were conscious of the fact that he was the greatest diamond that ever shined in Indian sport.

A week later a tabloid runs a headline 'Tendulkar or Endulkar'.A 24hr news channel organizes a nation wide poll.The man on the street jokes 'Everytime he makes a hundred we lose'.The self-proclaimed hardliner wants him out.And the person who never played tennis-ball cricket laughs when he gets hit on the helmet.Oh the unfathomable darkness of these minds.And when i put our discussion in perspective with this bucketfull of nonsense i thought i had hit upon the answer to that question.And then he played that off drive.My God the genius of that!

Contest what?

2006-01-17T09:25:00.000+05:30

"Cricket is a contest between bat and ball and mind"-Cliche

Im not going to touch upon detail.Like how the importance of 'not losing' takes the spirit and charm out of the game and all.For i'll have to start from the era of Garfield sobers who once declared an innings because he thought the match was heading for a boring climax and eventually ended up on the losing side.Then i'll also have tell you about Greg's 'under-arm ball'. And if i go on its gonna consume a lot of space.Now what on earth am i getting at?

Oh yes.On a hazy winter's morning in comsopolitan Lahore with hundred odd people in the stands they were playing a cricket match.It was dubbed the 'mother of all contests'

Elsewhere in another continent in front of a full house at the GABBA they were playing a cricket match.It was a 'contest' and thank god for that!

The real Pink

2005-12-25T22:03:00.000+05:30

It was, it can be said the mother of all ironies.The year was 1975 and Roger waters was penning the lyrics for 'Shine on you crazy diamond' when a bald ,bulky figure walked into their studios.He bore a vague resemblance to someone they once knew.An obstinate silence followed.And as they slowly came to grips with the moment they all shuddered .Waters(as he later confessed) was in f__kin tears.Nick Mason likewise.The barely recognizable figure then picked up a guitar.Someone had to break the stalemate.Rick Wright was the man.He walked up to the "stranger" and said 'Sorry Syd the guitar's already done'

Thirty years have drifted past.And since that fateful day the same old question seems to be doing the rounds in music circles.They all ask 'Where the bloody hell is Syd?'

Eera Vizhi Kaaviyangal

2005-12-24T07:10:00.000+05:30

"Let music be the food of love.Play on.Give me excess of it"

I still get goose pimples when i listen to that prelude.If ever one cud make a guitar cry or maybe a case of the guitar making u cry.And then that deep penetrating voice flows like a vibrant stream...It goes through a million peaks and troughs before it unwinds.Thats when u start to reaalize 'oh what the hell...i cant have 'just' two minutes of this'.Probably its the Pink Floyd equivalent of telling u that "The time is gone...the song is over...thought id something more to say".Call it MUSICALABSTRACTION....MELANCHOLY...MUSIC THAT TRANSCENDS...whatever... im not exaggerating one bit.