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The Sands of Time

There are two things that piss me off about Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. One is the camera-angles that decide to act up at the worst of times and make me want to bash my keyboard and froth at the mouth. The second is the strange jumping move – you are stuck between two vertical walls, and you will have to make your way up to a ledge by multiple-jumping from one wall to the other. This move understandably gives me the heebie-jeebies everytime, and it’s very hard not to sob aloud when you fall to your death ONE FRIGGING JUMP AWAY from the top for the four hundred and thirty fifth time.

Or maybe I am just a bad gamer.

But it’s a great game, really. Like serioussam put it, when I was moaning away to him about my experiences with the camera-angles, the game glows, both in terms of eye-candy, storyline and gameplay. It makes my post-Half-Life-2 pains a thing of the past. ( I have this major hangup after playing a good game – it takes me about a month before I can even condescend to look at some other game – even if I do, I end up uninstalling the thing in disgust because of comparisons to the last game I played. This happened with Painkiller recently.) Ah, well, I am done with 33% of the game, and with a little bit of luck ( and loads of button-tapping) I should be done withit in a couple of days. After which, I shall torture my camera-addled third-person adventure gaming self by playing Prince of Persia: The Warrior Within.

Also, in related news, Princess Farah has replaced Alyx Vance in the “hottest game babe to bowl me over” category.

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RDB

Confirmed news of the Rang De Basanti music release came in at 1:30 PM, from Vasu, who informed me that Sudhir had bought the CD on the way to the office, in the morning.

On the way to Planet M, I told myself that there was a fair chance this might be the CD that breaks the 200 Rs price barrier, and I talked myself into agreeing that I would NOT buy it if it were so. Well, it wasn’t. 160 Rs, 10 songs. What makes me crack up is that I also saw the CD of Rajkumar Santoshi’s Family, on sale for the same price, along with a couple of songs from Khakee included. Would really like to know how well sales of that soundtrack fares…

First Impressions:

Current count: two listens. And counting.

Begins with a one-and-a-half-minute Punjabi track ‘Ik Onkar’ which is all vocals ( songer: Harshdeep Kaur). Neat mutitracking. The title track, by Daler Mehndi and Chitra comes next – though pretty catchy, I thought it a trifle too long. The banjo beginning was not a banjo after all – sounds like a very familiar (Korg?) sample. ‘Paathshaala’, both the normal and the remix version ( which guest-stars Blaaze) is the kind of dance song that you really cannot dance to. I sincerely hope Blaaze’s version stays on the album and does not appear in the film. Boys was the pinnacle of his career – let’s leave it at that. ‘Khalbali’ was the most interesting song – faux Middle-eastern percussion, faux Middle-eastern lilt to the singing, authentic Arabic lyrics/vocals by Rai singer Cheb Nacim ( Or is it some other Nacim? No idea, really), Rahman’s grating accent when he sings it being the only minus to the song. I shan’t let my occasional hatred for Madhushree’s voice taint my judgement of the song ‘Tu Bin Bataaye’, but it sounds run-of-the-mill, really. ( Which means I will consider this the favourite song of the album after about two weeks.) Naresh Iyer’s voice sounds fabulous on this song, though.

One good thing about the album is that it gets better, or seems to, at least, with every song. ‘Khoon Chalaa’ by Mohit Chauhan ( of Silk Route) is a soft ballad that would sound like a Silk Route number if you replace the violin with the recorder. Minimal percussion, orchestral strings, well-written lyrics. Two very acoustic guitar-driven songs round off the album – ‘Luka Chhupi’ by Lata Mangeshkar and ARR, which is decent. Would have been catchier with a different female voice, but I feel that about every Lata song nowadays, so nevermind. ‘Roobaru’ is radio-friendly 90’s alt rock. The much-hyped Aamir Khan number, called ‘Lalkaar’, is more of a poetry recital, sounds like ‘Unnodu Naan’ from Iruvar than anything else, the words being nearly the same as “Sarfaroshi ki Tamanna” from the Legend of Bhagat Singh.

How’s Rang De Basanti going to fare as far as the charts go? Not too much, I guess. Aashiq Banaaya Aapne will win the Filmfare Award for best music, probably best singer too, beating Salaam Namaste in a close race. Do I look like I fucking care?

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Continuing in the same obnoxious vein as yesterday…

Dear anonymous comicbooklover who reserved Scott McCloud’s Reinventing Comics at Bookworm and did not pick it up for a week,

I picked up the book yesterday, after waiting six days and thirteen hours. Be a little careful next time, you cannot afford to be so complacent in this dog-eat-zombie world of comics, you know.

Regards,
Beatzo.

P.S Thanks for giving me the added incentive to buy the Complete Calvin And Hobbes. That was the last copy Bookworm had, so…

P.P.S Yes, that Dark Horse TPB of Godzilla was the impulse buy of the day, and it was completely painless.

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Just to point out that I still rule.

I knew this would happen. Don’t ask me how, but I knew.

The context: The comics quiz I did three days ago. There was one pretty straightforward question – “In comics, what is a ret-con?”. The question went to DD and Ochintya’s team, and as they were trying to explain the concept, I asked them to give me an example, which would make things easier for all of us. Their answer was that a ret-con is creating an established history for a known character – “RETroCONceptualizing” him/her, so to speak, and the example they gave was that of the Phantom, creating the histories of all the Phantoms much later after the character’s creation. Which was the wrong definition, and so the question passed to Udupa and Dibyo’s team, who said it was changing the history of a character, like Batman : Year One. I gave them points ( because I am a lenient quizmaster, and am fairly generous with points. ), and the next thing I know, the rest of the teams ( with the exception of al_lude and Co. who were trying to look as nonchalant as possible. Possibly because they were leading by quite a huge margin at that point.) are clamouring for my blood. Among the shouts, I could hear someone shrieking the words “Alan Moore” and “Swamp Thing” rather loudly, to which I responded, in true God Mode, with the words “Alan Moore’s version of Swamp Thing was not a ret-con. We can discuss this later, and that’s that”. Things cooled down, the quiz progressed, there was no rain of hellfire and brimstone.

So today I get a mail from Shakuni with an impassioned subject-line “Why Beatzo, Why?”, a mail in which he copy-pastes this segment from Wikipedia:

The term “retroactive continuity” was popularized by comic book writer Roy Thomas in his 1980s series All-Star Squadron, which featured the DC Comics superheroes of the 1940s. The earliest known use of the term is from Thomas’s letter column in All-Star Squadron #20 (April 1983), where Thomas wrote that he heard it at a convention. The term was shortened to “retcon” by Damian Cugley in 1988 on USENET to describe a development in the comic book Swamp Thing, in which Alan Moore reinterpreted the events of the title character’s origin. (See “Examples”, below.)

………

Alan Moore’s additional information about the Swamp Thing’s origins didn’t contradict or change any of the events depicted in the character’s previous appearances, but changed the underlying interpretation of them. This verges on making alterations to past continuity.

Hmm. Now I knew about the Roy Thomas origin of the word, and I had based this question off John Ostrander’s column in the first issue of Shazam: A New Beginning#1 by Ostrander and Tom Mandrake, one of those ret-conned series of the mid-eighties, in which Billy Batson’s origin is retold with minor variations. I honestly did not look at the Wikipedia entry, nor did I know that the term gained prominence through USENET; I had always figured it was a hardcore comicbook term, with none of the l33t-public intruding onto its origins. So I guess that was a boo-boo on my part.

BUT

Alan Moore’s additional information about the Swamp Thing’s origins didn’t contradict or change any of the events depicted in the character’s previous appearances, but changed the underlying interpretation of them. This verges on making alterations to past continuity.

Technically speaking, “verges on making alterations to past continuity” is NOT the same as “making alterations to past continuity” or, more specifically “adding new information to ‘historical’ material, or deliberately changing previously established facts in a work of serial fiction.” Moore did not change a word of what happened before, if I remember correctly, he just gave a different explanation for why things happened (which i won’t mention here because they are quite spoilerific) , and cleared up quite a bit of misunderstandings. Like that bit about Alex Olsen. So technically, I was not wrong, eh? Eh? Eh? So I still maintain that Dibyo and Udupa deserved their points, because they specifically said “changing the history of an established character”, and that ( war-dance) is (war- whoop) exactly (yodel) what ( yabadabadoo) a (tippity tappity tap) ret-con is. (Phew!)

We need to get a life, JK. Seriously. I could feel the pain of that ‘Why beatzo, Why?”, you know. Just in case you’re still peeved, I will burn a DVD for you. With oodles of stuff on it. I will even sign and number it, if you want. So smile, da.

P.S Please try and do Graphic Rampage next year. Or do a version in Chennai.

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Three favourite soundtrack composers

I am a big fan of soundtracks. Not just Indian soundtracks, all kinds. I am just awed by the fact that music can be used, in the hands of a skilled composer, to augment the impact of a scene in a film. I love the way music can be used as subtext in a barebones storyline. In fact, half the reason I end up hating a movie is when the accompanying soundtrack is crock. ( Perfect examples: the recent assembly-line productions of Ram Gopal Verma’s The Factory, which rely on over-the-top moodscapes to ruin half-baked storylines) Right now, there are three composers who are my personal Gods, people whose music make my day ( or night) anytime I listen to them.

On top is AR Rahman. Part of the reason why I like him, truth be told, is that I’ve grown up with his music. He was the nineties, for me, every year indelibly marked in my memory by a couple of Rahman albums. There really have not been too many Rahman soundtracks I cannot listen to at any given point of time, and there are few Rahman tunes I cannot recognise in the first seven seconds of the song playing within earshot. But yeah, his background scores are no great shakes – they are essentially reworked versions of his songs in that particular movie, played on a different instrument or in a different style, or a slower/faster tempo than the song itself. Very few Rahman-scored films of recent times had memorable scores, to be honest – the songs might be awesome, but that’s all you remember after you finish the film, the songs, and not the music. And I don’t think I was hallucinating when I heard the same snatch of music at the end of Swades and at a point in Mangal Pandey: The Rising. Of course I am a Rahman fan, you idjit, but faith that refuses to face the facts is not faith at all, as Albert Schweitzer once said and all that.

Second in the list, not because of quality – let me assure you that I am not comparing any of these three composers in any way, other than the fact that they make my earth move – is Ennio Morricone. I have been introduced really late to his music. Believe me, chances are – you haven’t heard Ennio Morricone’s music yet, true Morricone music, that is. Because, in the sixties and the seventies, when Morricone was composing kick-ass stuff, certain unscrupulous hacks in America, like Henry Mancini or Mantovani (that’s right, I know I should not call them such derisive terms, but it’s just their covers stunted my musical education. They have also done some good stuff in their days) did some lame-ass cover versions of his soundtracks, and just to show that people have lousy musical taste, these cover versions sold really well, and I suspect made their way up the Billboard Charts too. The cover versions didn’t sound bad, just watered-down. Insipid music that did not have a tenth of the energy that the original Morricone versions did. What was so unique about Ennio Morricone’s original compositions? I could rave about his quirky use of instruments, or the completely loony themes he came up with. A solitary twanging guitar, a wailing harmonica, the sound of a jew’s harp, shrieking human voices – Morricone did not need the grandeur of a string orchestra to come up with the soundscapes needed for a brutal desert shoot-out or a blood-splattered night. Or for that matter, a tenderly-shot love scene.It’s not like he never used string orchestras either,;he did, and very beautifully too, in later day classics ( Wolf, Once Upon a Time In America, Cinema Paradiso). This man made the most memorable oboe piece in cinematic history – ‘Gabriel’s Oboe’, from The Mission. He’s composed nearly six hundred soundtracks so far, and has managed to repeat himself in only two of them. Pure genius, I say.

Of late, I have stumbled upon ( not by chance, to be honest) Morricone’s scores for Italian Giallo movies – Dario Argento’s Cat O’Nine Tails, for example, and Mario Bava’s Danger Diabolik. Awesome, goosepimply scores. I have much to thank Kill Bill for, and rediscovering Ennio Morricone is one of the reasons.

Third in the list is a lady whose music I heard people raving about so freaking much that I nearly went berserk trying to get hold of her stuff. Yoko Kanno is her name, and she’s a Japanese composer who has done music for anime titles like Cowboy Bebop, Macross Plus, Earth Girl Arjuna, and Ghost in the Shell; Standalone Complex. There’s one thing I need to make clear about Ms Kanno – you can never, EVER slot her into a genre, or even in two, or ten, or fifty seven. Absolutely no-no-No. Fine, so you listen to ‘Tank’, the theme music for Cowboy Bebop, and go “Ah, a Jazz-oriented composer, reminds me of brass bands of the forties.”, and then you hear ‘Live in Baghdad’ off the same album, a song that can give Judas Priest a complex, it sounds so eighties hair metal.Right, so the next song happens to be ‘Fantasie Sign’, a song that begins like an Edith Piafish French ballad, leading to a 180 bpm Jungle beat that kicks your teeth out of shape if you have your speakers loud enough. Of course, there is ‘Bindy’, a faux-middle-eastern piece where an alto saxophone tries to sound really hard like a shehnai, and very nearly succeeds; followed by ‘Forever Broke’, which is a slide-guitar piece you might hear Johnny Winter playing on a really, really bluesy day.

Right. So maybe I went overboard trying to describe how hard Yoko Kanno’s music cannnot really be described to anyone, you have to listen to it to figure out how much it rocks. And this is just one album, from out of a possible 7 albums accompanying Cowboy Bebop, with all its music as diverse as the genres from which this anime borrows its themes from. And then you have to listen to the rest of her work, each more audacious than the other. “Audacious without being pretentious” is the term I’ve heard someone use with regards to Yoko Kanno’s body of work, and it strikes me as the perfect term to describe her.

To buy or not to buy?

I am seriously waiting for the music of Rang De Basanti to be released. Music by AR Rahman, of course. It’s due sometime this week, and I really need to hear something more than the single line ( and that infectious banjo loop that plays along with it) on TV. The music of Water ( also by Rahman, and one that he called “the best work he has done so far” in an interview sometime back) has released on all the online radio stations, but I am not listening to it until the CD comes out.

Also tempted to buy Bluffmaster, even though I already have Trickbaby’s album. Two Ranjit Barot albums have also come out – Pooja Bhatt’s Holiday, the songs sound pretty decent, and another one called Brides Wanted that I saw last night in Planet M. But the 145-150 Rs tag on each of these CDs puts me off, I don’t want to buy Hindi movie soundtracks just for a good track or two, and then two months later, find prices slashed to half.

Heard Susheela Raman’s Music For Crocodiles playing at Habitat, and nearly ended up buying it. Saw the 445 Rs price tag and took the easy way out – ran home and listened to Love Trap(her previous album) for three days. That lady has a sexy voice, and she does some awesome music.

Also saw Trilok Gurtu’s latest album Broken Rhythms, it has Huun Huur Tu and Gary Moore guest-starring on some tracks. Temptations, temptations….

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