So I had heard this song from Kal Ho Na Ho playing on the TV, with Shankar Mahadevan singing Kudi Ghooma to a Bhangra beat and Ehsaan Noorani’s guitar plays the riff of Roy Orbison’s classic Pretty Woman. Shucks, I thought, so much for originality, and this from fellow-Rahman-loving composers. My faith in Indian Film music dropped twenty three notches lower.

But hey, Kudi Ghooma was catchy.

When I checked out the cd of Kal Ho.., there was no song of that name! There was one called Pretty Woman, with Shankar Mahadevan and Ravi “Rags” Khote ( the same guy who did that atrocious rap in Lucky Lucky from Ratchagan) doing the honours. And the cd said “The song ‘Oh, Pretty Woman’ was originally composed by Roy Orbison.”

D-uh! I had heard Shankar Mahadevan saying ‘Kudi Ghooma’ instead of ‘Pretty Woman’.

Yes, the song is kind of a bhangra reinterpretation of the Roy Orbison number. Done very well, with a different tune leading to the main Kudi Ghooma…er….Pretty Woman chorus that we all know. There is a part in the middle which goes “Sone ka ang hai…” which is the same as “Pretty Woman, yeah yeah yeah, pretty woman, look my way”.

Now, a small hitch. Sony’s copy-protection technology on the Kal Ho Na Ho cd. Yesterday, my computer, running Windows 2k, does not recognise it, and neither did my colleague’s Linux box – it refused to mount the cd saying “unrecognised file system”. Gave it to my Systems Administrator, who calls me up five minutes later and says – “where do u want the mp3s stored?”. Whoa. Seems, you don’t even have to mount the cd on a Linux system. The default ripping software autodetects the cd and proceeds to grab the tracks.

Sony calls it “cutting-edge” security technology! Ha ha ha. Actually, Virgin’s was worse, when I put in my Fuzon cd in the computer, it said “This cd needs additional software to be played. Do you want to install it?” I clicked “no” and proceeded to rip the tracks pretty smoothly to my PC. Dumb!

Speaking of foul-mouthed, I watched From Dusk Till Dawn again last night. This was another gory movie I had forgotten about, watched it way back when I was in the third year. Tarantino’s dialogues, so the usual giggly bouncy feeling applied to this one too. Crazy script.

Some gory movies I need to see, and I can’t think of all of them together, so there are bound to be some more –
1) 28 Days Later.
2) Cabin Fever.
3) House of a Thousand Corpses.
4) I Spit On Your Grave.
4) Bad Taste: the sequels.
5) Cannibal Holocaust.
6) Anything else?

There was something I wanted to say about people getting drunk at office parties and chanting “Floyd-Floyd-play-Floyd-man”, and generally being very happy when somebody plays The Man Who Sold the World. I’ll skip the pleasantries and just say – “Fuck you.”

I wonder if there is some kind of Hell in which they alternately play Sultans of Swing, The Man Who Sold The World, Smoke on the Water, Hotel California, Another Prick-oops-Brick in the Wall and Light My Fire throughout eternity, and I wonder if these people will still be very happy listening to the same freakin’ songs over and over and over again, and if they will still sing along for the four million five hundred thousand two hundred and ninety seventh time…..

Ok, so I am turning into a musical snob. So friggin’ what?

Last evening I listened to Frank Zappa 101 ( that was how amazon.com descibed the Strictly Commercial album). I don’t know if this classifies me as a Zappa fan, but it was good, really. Weird, funny lyrics. ( Strange but true! I actually paid attention to the lyrics, they were that-kind-of-weird ). Then Suzanne Vega’s Retrospective album.Then Street Survivors by Lynyrd Skynyrd. Did I have a good time or what.

Books: The Shadow in the North by Philip Pullman: over and done in a night. I dunno why, but the Sally Lockhart trilogy seems a bit over-rated to me. For one thing, this does not exactly fall in the kiddie-adventure category ( there’s a bedroom scene somewhere near the end), and the events seem disjointed somehow…..you know what – if this weren’t set in Victorian London, this would be a proper Hardy Boys-Nancy Drew story, loads of “supporting” characters, coincidence after coincidence ( Only in the Hardy Boys’ world would we find Fenton Hardy after the same guy who dropped a red button in the park which Frank and Joe “happened” to find, and which leads them all to crack some international drug cartel) I will give Pullman credit, however, for killing off characters without much fanfare – one common ailment writers of series and trilogies suffer from is the inability to let go of favoured characters ( JK Rowling, anyone?). A satisfying read, but nothing memorable. I wonder if I should read book 3 soon enough and be done with it.

My Years With Apu: A Memoir by Satyajit Ray was good. Far shorter than it should have been, and an abrupt ending, which was kind of expected because it was a reconstruction of the first draft by his wife, rather than the final book itself. Seems the book was incomplete when Ray died. A brilliant insight into what went into the making of Pather Panchali, along with bits from Ray’s early life. To tell the truth, I haven’t watched any of Ray’s films, except for Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne, which I really enjoyed as a kid. Read the translation of Pather Panchali, but never seen the movie. I am still not sure whether I want to. Aparajito is more sparsely covered, and Apur Sansar comes to two pages.

The Hunger by Whitley Strieber. Vampire fiction. Supposed to be a cult book, yadda yadda yadda, but hasn’t grabbed me yet.

Or maybe it’s because of Return to Castle Wolfenstein. Burn, baby, burn!

Seems HBO is airing these Japanese horror movies every wednesday this month. One of them happens to be Hideo Nakata’s Ringu in its original Japanese version. The other ones – Dark Water( also by HN), Ju-On: The Grudge, The Ring O Birthday – I haven’t heard of. I came to know of this yesterday, when I was randomly switching channels at Mons’ place.

Definitely one of the times I regret not having a TV at home. And the patience to sit through a movie on TV, even if it were there.

I still wait for the day they ( either Star Movies or HBO) screen Ghost in the Shell or Ninja Scroll. Which reminds me, I still have to see Nausicaa:Valley of the Wind and Laputa: Castle in the Sky. Got both videos in IIM Calcutta.

I am still undecided about whether to go for a second viewing of The Matrix:Revolutions. The first time was in the multiplex screen, and I would definitely like to go for the Imax version. It’s the 180-rupees tag that gives me pause. is it worth 180 rupees and three more hours of my time?

Been doing quite a bit of celeb-spotting recently. After the show of Revolutions, we were about to cross the road and board an auto when Sni points out that the guy standing behind us is Nagesh Kukunoor. The Man himself, trying hard to cover his face! Talked for sometime, almost invited him to Trivium. He said he was shooting in Hyd for two weeks, presumably the sequel to Hyderabad Blues. Nice chap. Brushed away my ahem-ahem compliments ( “I think you are God” etc ) very modestly. Am proud of my self-control, I didn’t ask him for a piece of his shirt or anything.

Then, Sunday evening, we come back from Warangal and decide to have dinner at the Shoppers’ Stop food-court. I was ordering pizza, and Mons, who went off to get the drinks comes close and says “mumble mumble Ramgopal Verma mumble mumble.” What??? “Pssst. Look behind you.” D-uh. It was him. RGV. Sitting and eating at a table. Tried very hard for the next fifteen minutes not to look. ( I mean, it’s got to be irritating, being stared at when you’re eating ) and then he left.

Started two books yesterday, one being William Buck, and the other The Complete Maus by Art Spiegelman. Coincidence of the week: vrikodhara had very graciously flicked the first volume of Maus for me from @bleep@ three years ago. This monday morning, he asks me if I had the second volume yet. “No”, I replied. Two hours later, we were at MR Book stall, where I saw The Complete Maus. Scary!

Also bought a hardcover edition of First Blood by David Morrell.

Trivium (and some of my juniors) got a mention in the Hindu.
This is a great site for Japanese movie reviews.
This is where the early draft of Kill Bill can be found.

PS: Mons insists that it was she who identified Kukunoor and not Sni. Who be I to take rightful credit away from where it’s due? ;-)

PPS: The post-script was a little flippant. I did some research, and it was Mons who had identified NK, and not Sni, so full points to you, Mons.

The week has been pretty good so far. I finished The Witching Hour on Monday, and watched Kill Bill. Then on Tuesday, I watched Finding Nemo again, and then came back home and watched Kill Bill . Then yesterday, in the office, I sent a mass-mail to people with the Kill Bill script attached, and asked them to read it, and I read it myself all over again. At night, Mons came over and we ordered pizza and watched Kill Bill.

Hmm. I think I will go home tonight and watch it again.

Ok, I admit it. This is as geeky as I can get. I sympathize with rulinian now, I understand how Pirates of the Carribean must have affected her. However, my lj-user icons won’t change. Am too lazy to use Photoshop in the office.

Kill Bill, in its concept, execution and all the assorted homages, makes me feel like this is the ultimate comic-book. Coming from me, that’s a big compliment, I know. This is one of the few times I have watched a movie after reading the script, and not been disappointed at all. Not a single shot, a single camera angle made me feel like – “jeez, gimme the equipment and I can do better than this”. Not a single moment have I sitten back and thought – “bah, I know which way this is going.” Even though I have read the script already.

Right, so the first Matrix affected me. Sholay does it everytime, So does Lagaan. ( and yes, vrikodhara, Titanic gets my monkey everytime, too.) But forgoshsakes, I didn’t fall in love with cricket, or I didn’t wanna learn Kung-fu after any of these movies. Kill Bill has given me this incredible zest about learning Japanese ( trust me, there are loads of lines in Japanese, especially Sonny Chiba’s “The one that kills”-monologue.) It makes me want to go and buy all the Hong Kong and Italian B-movies mentioned in all the websites (and the script itself) and spend the rest of my life memorizing the dialogues from every single one of them.

So this is about you-know-who coming back from the dead and killing you-know-who and four others. Pretty simple storyline, you think. Bull! I have been racking my brains to figure out which literary sources have followed this non-linear-and-yet-linear form of moviemaking, and though the Tarzan novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs comes to mind, it’s still not the only one. Maybe From Hell: The Graphic Novel was kinda like it. Maybe.

So far, Peter Jackson’s Braindead was the only movie which had made me grin at shots of exploding geysers of blood and decapitated bodies. Ah! The sound of a Hattori Hanzo sword as it rips through Armani suits and other assorted body parts…. I wonder how it will sound in DTS.

“Wiggle your big toe”
“Revenge is never a straight line. It’s a forest.”
“Bitch. You can stop right there.”
“If on your journey, you should encounter God, God will be cut.”
“I am Buck. And I’m here to fuck.”
“You’re Buck, right? And you’re here to fuck. Right?”

Tarantino, you prick. Make these voices go away.

Tonight I am gonna start reading William Buck’s Ramayana. In Ram We Trust.