Movies

It Happened At Midnight

I never really liked the Harry Potter movies as much as I thought I would. I thought the first two were slavishly faithful to the books, Azkaban lost the stiff upper lip and balanced darkness and whimsy perfectly (probably because director Alfonso Cuaron wasn’t …British enough), while movies 4 onwards were examples of teal-and-orange-itis that film students of the future will study as a syndrome brought about by effect-heavy film budgets in the first decade of the 21st century.

It was not great cinema, not at all. But down the line, the Harry Potter movies did something not quite that unusual – they replaced the pastel-flavored imagery of Mary-Grand Pre, the watercolors and inks of Thomas Taylor and Cliff Wright in my mind, in our minds. For better or worse, Warner Brothers helped create the definitive mental picture of the Hogwarts class of ’98 and assorted environments in the HPverse.  Daniel Radcliffe was Harry Potter, gritted teeth and all, likewise Ms Watson, Mr Grint, Mr Rickman – oh hell yeah! – all of them became living versions of a fictional world. They grew up in real (or nearly real) time,  gaining Adam’s apples, cleavage and outstanding degrees of coolness ( I refer to Neville Longbottom. As a t-shirt I saw recently put it – and rightfully so – ‘Neville would have done it in 4 books.’).

With the exception of the Deathly Hallows Pt 1, however, I paid the piper his due, making biennial trips to the theater, regular, IMAX, 3D, whatever the producers chose to throw at me. Not great cinema, but a ritual that marked the passing of time, if you will. Now Deathly Hallows – I wanted to watch Pt 1 the same time as the second part came out, because of my unfortunate propensity to maintain a sense of continuity in whatever I consume ( blame it on comics, yes. And that is also why I am avoiding Breaking Bad as it begins its fourth season. I intend to see it in one marathon sitting, as the season concludes. Wish me luck.) But a cross-Atlantic flight entertainment system whispered temptation to my sleep-addled brain, and I gave in.

Deathly Hallows Pt 2 marks the end of one of the longest sequential narratives in cinema. Possible the longest with the same cast, if you do not count the Zatoichi films of Shintaro Katsu. (Correct me if I am wrong, ok?) I queued up for the last three books in the series, in a different city every time, with filter coffee and sambhar memories associated with each. And tears. Oh yeah, the last book made me cry, and at a very different point than what you would expect. And that is why the movie itself meant so much. I wanted to celebrate the event, and I am glad I could, with friends. The original plan was to hit the theater opposite my office on Friday afternoon, with as many people as possible. But Carmageddon loomed large, and we decided to watch it at midnight instead. People were beginning to queue from lunchtime on Thursday, most of them young boys and girls dressed as wizards and witches, with wands and scars and a whole lot of joie de vivre. I was a little more practical, having made up my mind to reach the theater not later than 10:00 PM. A brief moment of panic when I saw that the queue was no more, then the realization that people had been allowed in and could pick their own seats. Two hours of agonizing patience, more laughter, people trickling in, tubs of popcorn, The Dark Knight Rises trailer, and finally, the film. Two hours of it-all-ends-ing for a journey that lasted ten years. Applause. Cheering. Happiness. All was well.

But Neville would have still done it in 4 books.

                   

    

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AR Rahman, Life, Music

A most unexpected Rahman concert

The first, and only, AR Rahman concert I had been to was in Hyderabad, in 2003. It was the first time Rahman had ever toured, and expectations were high, the man himself had not sold out was at the top of his game, and I had all-access backstage passes. Since then, I’ve passed on every ARR concert that happened in the vicinity, partly because I could not really top the 2003 experience, and partly because there was not really anything new happening in any of the concerts – you could make out parts being badly lip-synched, there would be the mandatory Sivamani jam, garish background dancers, and a bunch of crowd-pleasing songs. Ho-hum.

But when Sasi told me about Rahman playing at the Hollywood Bowl in July, I was struck with that Rahmantic yearning again. And that’s how we landed up there this Sunday, with a bottle of wine, bags of popcorn, and a cumulative high after listening to ‘Jiya Se Jiya’ in the car. (the Hollywood Bowl allows you to bring your own food in, which was a pleasant surprise) As expected, the place was desi-ville, right from the parking lot to the crowded stands. (Which also meant there was a great deal of queue-bumping. Or queue-nonexistence.) A bhangra group, apparently a bunch of SoCal dancers called the Sher Foundation were performing at the entrance and inviting passers-by to join in, leading to much exhibition of left feet.

The concert began with a performance by Rhythms of Rajasthan, a folk singing troupe. Nobody really paid them much attention, people were still streaming in, it was not dark enough to see the screens, and there were no crunchy beats to make you get up and dance, yo. Karsh Kale was up next. He played an excellent 45-minute set, with some great singers joining him onstage, as well as a female violinist named Lili Haydn, who owned. Salim Merchant came onstage for a bit, jamming to his song ‘Shukran Allah’ from Kurbaan with Kale and his crew. Overall, a fantastic performance, and I was primed for the evening. But no ARR in sight, instead Sher Foundation and something called Bollywood Step Dance came onstage and did what every wannabe on every talent show on every TV channel does – dance to Bollywood songs. Omkara, Jab We Met, facepalm. Thankfully, this did not last too long.

The announcer came on stage, did his usual Rahman spiel. Mispronounced name, check. Slumdog Millionaire mention, check. Audience going wild, check. Random drunk Tamil dude screaming ‘thalaivar’ over and over again, check. Conductor Matt Dunkley walked in. The opening sequence to Enthiran played on the giant screen, and the crowd roared as Robonikanth sauntered into view. The music began to play, slowly building, and the choir launched into ‘Arima Arima’. But whoa, it was a version much different from the one on the soundtrack. I believe the precise moment I began to gape with disbelief was when ‘Arima’ became a rearranged ‘Puthiya Manithan’ . Because this was good, guys. This was not stick-to-the-crowd-pleasers Rahman I was expecting. The  Spirit of Unity tour in 2003 had the bombastic ‘Oruvan Oruvan’ from Muthu opening every show. The overture to that song is a magnificent orchestral piece that was tweaked a little, so that the meaty beats and SPB’s robust vocals that lead to the song became a bubbly hymn of anticipation, driving fanboys like yours truly delirious with happiness. This version of Enthiran evoked something quite like that. But I expected the singers to emerge any minute, destroying those few minutes of sonic adventurism that we were witnessing. I was wrong.

Rahman came onstage, talked a bit about how happy he was to be there. Said something funny about this not being a ‘rockstar event’. A brief speech about Roja, and he walked away. The orchestra struck up again, with a delicate reinterpretation of ‘Kaadhal Rojave’, with ARR regular Naveen on the solo flute. It was at this point I realized this was going to be much, much more than a regular concert.

Chances were high that something like this would suck. You know why? Because orchestral reinterpretations fall into two categories – gimmicky or wannabe. An outfit like Apocalyptica, once the novelty of hearing METALLICA-ON-CELLO-WOO-HOO wears off, is just a bunch of celloists scraping on their instruments as hard as possible to make them sound like badass Les Pauls. Off the top of my head, the only orchestral version I loved whole-heartedly, without coming back to it some time later and going ‘wha-huh, I enjoyed that?’ was Jon Lord’s Concerto For Group And Orchestra.  And please don’t say S&M. No, it does not hold up. Matt Dunkley, who was the conductor and arranger for the concert, has apparently worked with ARR since forever.

The choice of songs was superb. These were the underrated gems, the pieces that do not make it to your top 10 ARR lists. ‘Ayo Re Sakhi’ from Water, (which was nearly ruined by the female vocalist, a lady named Amrita. I will get to her in a minute) , pieces from Couples Retreat and 127 Hours.  ‘Mausam & Escape’ from Slumdog Millionaire was a frenzied piano/sitar duet, with sitarist Asad Khan joining Rahman on the keys, and a very unexpected choice for that soundtrack. The predictable inclusions – the theme from Warriors of Heaven and Earth and ‘Once Upon A Time in India’ from Lagaan, the Bombay theme. The most unpredictable one was a suite from The Rising, otherwise known as Mangal Pandey. I have to admit that the piece made me itch to go and revisit the OST, though I am not courageous enough to consider watching the film again. (Shudder!)

The one piece I could not recognize at all was ‘Changing Seasons’. Was it from Raavan? I have absolutely no clue, because my post-2009 ARRfu is weak. I do not remember seeing it anywhere before, even on promos.

The low points –

  • Almost no connection between the content of the video clips and the piece being conducted at the moment. Imagine watching an action sequence with a romantic theme playing in the background, and you will understand what I mean.
  • The multiple anti-British themes (and their corresponding videos) got a little tedious. Thankfully, no pieces from Bose: The Forgotten Hero.
  • The choice of ‘Jai Ho’ as the closing song. While I get it, it’s the most recognized Rahman song in Hollywoodland, familiar enough for even the random drunk woman sitting next to me to wake up and cheer. But you have a Philharmonic orchestra and start off with programmed beats and a bunch of under-trained vocalists to substitute for Sukhwinder Singh’s power-packed vocals. Seriously?
  • The terrible, terrible female vocalist, who had no business sharing a stage with the Man, or anywhere near a microphone. She sounded nervous at first, a little out of breath, when singing the Water song, but one can only forgive so much. Her voice was grating enough to suck away all the joy out of ‘Jai Ho’. I missed you, Tanvi Shah. You may be the only Indian woman who can say ‘Salut, baila baila!’ without making me giggle.

And now to wait for an official CD release.

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Movies, Myself

Which movie?

No, this is not a quiz question. This is actually pretty embarrassing, but I am kind of in need of some pop culture help here.

So there was this Scandinavian film that I saw a few years ago. I say ‘Scandinavian’ because, among other things, I do not remember which language it was. What I remember is the storyline – ‘normal’ girl has issues, her boyfriend gets arrested, and she needs to find a job. She gets one at the local comic-book shop, and meets a quirky bunch of people there. The rest of the story follows a somewhat-predictable pattern, where she slowly becomes friends with her weird, RPG-loving co-workers. She hangs out with them, and role-plays with them in the evenings – and this is the cool part, the in-game story (where everyone is a stock RPG character, a warrior, a thief and so on) and the actual, real-world story kind of happen in parallel. It gets more interesting when the girl’s asshole boyfriend escapes from prison and comes to find her.

I enjoyed the movie quite a bit. Sure, it was cheesy at times and the fantasy sequences were not multi-million SFX events, but it was fun and made me laugh, and hey, it was set in a comicbook store. What’s not to like?

Now the embarrassing part – this is a movie I’ve recommended to other people before, and when I was trying to recollect the name recently, my mind went completely, totally blank. I know that the name of the film was the name of the comic-book shop, but no, the actual name eludes me. It drove me completely nuts last week. And the worst thing is, forgetting the name of this movie is only a small fragment in the grand scheme of things. I have this sneaking suspicion that I am beginning to lose my memory, slowly. Like my neurons are beginning to realize that they cannot spark and retrieve information when I need them to. It shows in the oddest of instances – like when my boss was talking about River Tam from Serenity, and forgot the name of the actress, and I realized I had too. I knew that she had acted in Dollhouse and The Big Bang Theory, hell, I even knew which episode of TBBT she appeared in, but I. Could. Not. Remember. Her. Name. (Summer Glau. It came to me a few hours later) Then the other day, I could not remember the Cornelia Funke book that I hated, about the father and daughter who bring stories to life. I remembered the Funke book that was not part of this series (The Thief Lord) and I even remembered the other Funke book that I had not read (Dragon Rider), and probably never will because I did not like her writing anyway. I had to Google for the answer, which was Inkheart.

There are three conclusions I draw from this:

  • I am getting old. My brain cells realize this and are slowly committing harakiri. I like that mental image, actually. Billions and billions of microscopic katana in my head slicing through axons (axii?) in I-am-too-old-for-this-shit bursts.
  • I think I am all set to become an unreliable narrator. I have a valid excuse.
  • This space intentionally left blank. I forgot what I had to say. (See? SEE?)
Post-script: Somewhere in the middle of writing this post, the name of the movie just popped in my head. And it was the audible, life-affirming sort of pop, like when you suddenly swallow and the buzzing in your ear goes away and everything sounds so much clearer. It does not do anything about my feeling of losing-it-all, but whew. I know what the name is. Yes, that defeats the whole purpose of this post, but hey, what’s a nice redundant post between friends, huh?
As you were, folks. Keep calm and carry on.
Post post-script: The name of the film, for those of you interested, is Astrópía. It’s Icelandic. Here’s a link to the trailer. The US release of the film, according to IMDB is Dorks and Damsels. Pardon me while I vomit all over my keyboard.
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Life, Weirdness

A Neil Gaiman Evening

You would be surprised at how fast I managed to jump and book tickets when Neil Gaiman tweeted about his upcoming American Gods tour, sometime last month. And the minute I clicked on the ‘confirm payment’ button, the site refused to load. A few moments of panic when I thought everybody in LA was booking tickets at the same time, Indian Railways tatkal style, and hastily opened another browser, ready to buy another set of tickets. But the Paypal email confirming the purchase came in, and I knew I was good.

Too good, in fact. As the date grew closer, tickets were still available – strange for an author whose rock-star status sold out venues weeks ahead of appearances. I tried to get people in office interested, but no one was really interested, and Tuesday evening is not really a good day to go attend a show, I guess. So what happened was that I landed up in front of Saban theatre at 6 PM, for an 8 PM show, expecting to breezily pick up tickets.

Ah. O-o-o-kay.

Apparently it was a Neil Gaiman show after all. Go LA!

So I stood in line, reading Black Lagoon and listening to the ladies behind me talk about what a good time they had at previous appearances, and occasionally looking at the sun setting through the buildings across Wilshire Boulevard. And of course the line kept getting longer and longer behind me, even as I inched closer to the entrance.

 

And then I was in, carrying both my tickets, after the lady at the counter made me repeat my name thrice and then proceeded to serve other people in the line because she could not find my tickets. Yes, tickets in plural, because I had thought there would be someone I could go with and had booked two $15 tickets instead of one $35 ticket that would have gotten me a signed copy of American Gods as well. But you know what? I have multiple copies of the book back in India, from the first edition hardcover that was procured for 100 Rs at Best Book Stall sometime around 2002, multiple paperback editions, one of the them the preferred-text version, different covers, the whole shebang. None of the above stopped me from regretting the lack of a $35 ticket as I walked in and saw the lovely copies on sale. Signed stuff always get me good, I tell you. I bought myself a signed hardcover of Neverwhere, which I had a tattered copy of, and which I have not read in quite a long time.

As I went in, it struck me that seats numbered AA101 and AA102 could mean one of two things – I am either somewhere at the back, or way near the front. As it turned out, it was the latter. FRONT ROW SEATS, fuck yeah!

And nobody was in yet, of course. Except for two lonely chairs and a few over-excited nerds.

Soon it was 8, and people were still trickling in. Someone came out and announced that while Neil and Patton were backstage and ready, they were still selling tickets and would wait for some more time. C’est la vie. I did not want to waste the extra ticket I had, and randomly asked a lady sitting at the back if she wanted to sit in the front row. As it turns out, she was having a bad day – long drive, husband did not join her because of work, and she had an early morning event to attend the next day. Yup, she was totally up for a seat up front. And she was a children’s librarian, so I was fairly sure Neil Gaiman would approve. We talked about Joe Hill, His Dark Materials, and Lemony Snicket, and the awesome experience of reading Graveyard Book and Jungle Book back to back. She recommended I check out Hunger Games, and I asked her to try the Bartimaeus Trilogy and Chew.

And then Neil Gaiman waved to us from the corner of the stage, which made the fangirls squeal, and Twitter’s servers to momentarily groan from the flush of tweets that emanated from every mobile device in the vicinity.

At this point of time, I should probably remember to tell you that when I left the house that morning, I was running about 4 minutes late. Which meant that in order to catch the bus that left Admiralty and Palawan at exactly 8:07 AM, I would have to walk at the rate of a DJ Yoda album, and not, as was my usual music-to-walk-to-the-bus-stand-of-choice, the Tune Yards. Which also meant that when, about 2 minutes out of the door, when I felt my pocket to check for my phone and realized that it wasn’t there, I silently cursed my stupidity, but made no move to head back to pick it up. Remember this somewhat insignificant detail for later, all right? All right.

So it was time. The hall was nearly full. There were people even on the balcony, as the somewhat surprised Saban theatre remarked, which was not a common occurrence for an author appearance. Patton Oswalt came in, and began to sing Harry Belafonte songs with a Mid-western accent.

Uh, no, not really.

Oswalt was funny. Made fun of his own geek credentials (“This is like asking the world’s biggest Gaiman stalker to play twenty questions”), made fun of everyone in the hall, and then called the Man in Black out. Yeah baby!

What followed was what, in certain circles, would be termed as ‘total paisa vasool’. Questions were asked and answered, there were observations made about what constitutes weird in America. Neil talked about making an appearance in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where the venue was a 15 minute walk from the hotel, but the old lady driving his limousine managed to transform the drive into a 45-minute one, because she chose to make up her own directions, and he saw a nuclear submarine in a park. He talked of the time he listened to a critic’s complaint about how Violent Cases was an overpriced book and asked the publishers to lower the price, and no one really noticed the price-cut. He spoke about the origins of American Gods, and how he jump-started a bit of myth himself, by coming up with a Slavic goddess who has, since then, gone on to have her own Wikipedia page and numerous citations. His book apparently had its origins during a sleep-deprived tour of Iceland, where he wondered if the Norse gods travelled to America along with the Vikings. He typed out a one page summary for his publisher with a working title, which in turn became the fully-fleshed out cover image with the exact logo typeset that would become the cover of the book later on. And, on a comment from Patton Oswalt, he proceeded to do an impersonation of Bjork. Let me say that again – Neil Gaiman did an impersonation of Bjork. Heads around the Saban theatre proceeded to explode, your truly included.

Neil Gaiman, in case you did not know already, hypnotizes his audience. His comic timing is immaculate, the humor just dry enough, the punchlines enhanced by the charming British accent. When he read the first short bit from American Gods, about the origins of the Easter and a waitress who has a very vague understanding of the word ‘pagan’, his voice took on the rough tones of Wednesday, and changed to the somewhat clueless waitresses, and you did not even realize it was just one person. Yes, I have never heard any of Gaiman’s audiobooks and narrations, probably because I always knew I had to see him live. And I was completely, utterly blown away. The actual reading became a very entertaining cast version of the Bilquis sequence in Gods, a portion that involves sex, prayer and …umm….stuff that should not really happen during sex, unless you’re having sex with a goddess. I have a video. Neil, who played the narrator, was flawless. Zelda Williams, the lady who played Bilquis, cracked up multiple times and I do not blame her. Patton Oswalt takes his reading very seriously. The photograph you see is shaking because I was laughing just as hard as everyone else.

Then there were a bunch of audience questions that Patton Oswalt asked Gaiman on their behalf (questions had to be mailed in prior to the event). I had sent in a question about the nature of franchises in today’s popular culture, the need for prequels, sequels and spinoffs and about an author’s role in determining when a story should be a standalone thing and when it needs to be fleshed out even more. The reason behind my question was to find out if the TV series deal (Playtone is producing a six season TV series on American Gods ) made Gaiman want to write the planned sequel, or whether it was always meant to be. My question wasn’t asked, but a lot of good ones were, and Gaiman shared a lot of coming-soon news – like his collaboration with Stephen Merritt of Magnetic Fields, his upcoming children’s book about a panda who sneezes, called Chu’s Day (the name itself makes me smile), his attempt to interpret Journey to The West, the Chinese epic, which seems to have become a movie script, and lots, lots of other things. There is a very detailed transcript of the question and answer session right here, if you are interested.

And so, the evening came to an end, and everyone went home, except for the lucky few who got to go backstage and hang around with Neil. I wasn’t one of them. My primary concern was to catch bus # 105 to Fairfax and Apple, and from there, grab the connecting bus to Washington and Palawan, and reach home as soon as possible.

Except, it was 10:45, and when I reached the Fairfax and Apple, it was 11:15. The last bus to Washington had already left, at 11.

That was when my unfortunate decision to not pick up my phone in the morning came back to bite me where it hurt. I did not have anyone’s number, not even the regular cab company that I normally call in those unforeseen situations where I’m short of time and there’s no bus in sight. So I began walking. Thankfully, there was a gas station nearby, and when I asked the salesman there if he could call a cab, he agreed. “Ten minutes”, he said, and I bought a Coke can from him out of gratitude, and waited for my ride home.

It came. It was not a cab. It was an old lady in an SUV, who said – “you hoppa in. Where you wanna go?” and I asked her, like every money-loving Indian boy should, if she had a meter. “No problem-a. I go by the mileage. You pay 1.75 per mile, just like cab.” Well, who was I to complain? I hoppa-ed in, and the lady proceeded to drive me home, at a steady speed of 25 miles an hour. Turns out she was the salesman’s mother (I would have never guessed!) and she had just bought the car, and really liked driving it. Her husband had wanted to come drive me home, but she insisted on doing it herself.

It was, you will agree, a very appropriate end to the evening.

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