Pune Blog Camp 2: Reflections

Many folks asked me for an update on Pune’s Blog Camp, after the previous photo-post. How was the experience? Was it worth it? Who was there?

Not being diplomatic, I can say that the experience was an interesting one for me, with positives and negatives. I had never been to any blog camp, bar camp, or Tweetup before, so I did not have any expectations, and that probably helped.

There was an interesting discussion going on even before the blog camp in the comments to Navin Kabra’s PuneTech Why You Should Attend Pune Blog Camp post. At the other end of the spectrum, post-event, the insights from the camp led to Dhananjay Nene’s Why I was disappointed with Pune Blog Camp 2.

Some others have shared their experiences too. Sandeep has a largely positive thank you note at his blog The Mousetrap. Anant has a detailed write up on his blog, Rahul has an update on the Devil’s Workshop, Aniket has shared his awesome feeling about the camp at Melody in Dissonance, while Deep Ganatra raises an important concern about unintentional session-hijacking. Almost all of them have written about the various sessions that took place, so I will not repeat them. Nor will I remember the names of all the presenters! So I will just share a few of my thoughts. You can also read Pune Mirror and TOI’s coverage.

A word of thanks to the organizers is a must. Tarun Chandel led the tone of the camp beautifully, making people get comfortable with his opening presentation and stepping in to facilitate whenever he could. I think the facilitation needed more support – it seemed he was the only one intent on facilitating.

Meeting In Person

There were a few specific people I wanted to meet and that was one of my motivations for going to the camp. There were a few surprises too. I knew about sites like Wogma and Track.in, and it was good to meet online entrepreneurs Meetu Kabra and Arun Prabhudesai in person. I met fellow Twitter contacts like Amit Paranjape, an entrepreneur who shares myriad interests like me, who was busy with his Smartphone throughout the camp as I’d expected! Dhananjay Nene, a software architect, was another Twitter contact and meeting him personally was a surprise as he wasn’t as old as he looked in his avatar!

Friends in need are friends on Friendfeed. I recognized Sandeep Gautam instantly, even if we had only recently started following each other on Friendfeed. Sandeep writes on psychology and neuroscience while being into software development and poetry, at The Mousetrap. Sneha Gore has done a survey-based research into motivations of young bloggers which I found interesting, and meeting Pune Mirror’s Vishal was also good.

Negatives

• Despite what the self-analysis kit says, the camp was not centered around a theme or purpose. Blogging is a wide umbrella term for any camp to succeed without having a theme – SEO, journalism, the ubiquitous ‘musings’ – some theme is needed for greater audience-presenter harmony.
• Despite all the marketing-SEO focused presentations, the Golden Rule of SEO was not emphasized at all, or I missed it altogether. Content is king. Period.
• No talk of the future of blogging. Yongfook, author of the popular open-source self-hosted Lifestreaming application SweetCron has proclaimed The Blog is Dead. Wired magazine advised not to start a new blog, and to pull the plug if you already had one. ReadWriteWeb asked if the future of blogging is lifetreaming. I thought these topics will come up in a ‘blog camp’, but either they didn’t or I missed them.
• Sometimes, I felt disenchanted with the perspective of an SEO/Marketing oriented pro-blogger that looks at readers as pure numbers and statistics on a graph. Rather than a birds-eye view of traffic flowing on a freeway, I prefer seeking the company of people actually driving those cars – those who take the time to comment and share their ideas and opinions on my posts. But that’s just me.
• Despite the monetization related talks, there was no talk about writing. I take the blame for this. As a professional writer who is making money out of writing on a blog, and not looking at promotion, marketing, or SEO, I could have talked about how you can earn money as a blog writer without being keen on SEO.

Positives

• Meeting lots and lots of bloggers! And especially meeting the few I wrote about above.
• The passion and entrepreneurship of youth that I witnessed was inspiring. Young people in their 20s have .com domains and are discussing SEO. Wow. I actually felt out of place.
• Navin and Vishal’s presentation on what newspapers can learn from blogs and vice versa.
• Sandeep’s presentation on niche science blogging.
• Regional focus – Shantanu Oak talked about Devanagri spell-checking.
• Seeing lots and lots of newbie or wannabe bloggers.

Lessons

• Bloggers should be on Twitter if they want to expand visibility of their blog.
• Some folks try to make money out of blogging. The clever folks make money from bloggers.
• The ‘blogger elite’ usually doesn’t comment on each other’s blogs. They use Twitter to keep in touch with each other.
• I personally feel there should be disclaimers within the presentations on monetization, when a lot of impressionable young people are in the audience. I could sense that many such people got the feeling that one can easily make money out of blogging, if one is geeky enough and knows a few ‘secrets’.
• In a blog camp, the law of two feet is very important. I did it successfully – rather than being felt obliged to listen to sessions that I was not interested in, I preferred spending one-to-one time with people, which is what worked best for me.
• If I go to a blog camp again, I will present. In retrospect, I could have shared:
  • My experience with plagiarism
  • The intense debates on this blog surrounding female foeticide, right to free speech, whether poverty is the root cause of terrorism, the legal implications of blogging, and paranormal phenomena. How these thoughtful discussions with readers have enriched me is very precious to me as a blogger.
  • My experiences of blogging at Mutiny.in especially when defending the Indo-US Nuclear Deal. There are distinct differences between blogging on your personal blog and doing it on a high-visibility group blog.
  • As mentioned earlier, writing to earn money, which I think is a dream quite a few people might have.

A few days back, Asuph asked how one can reduce the page rank of one’s blog and I replied. I would have loved to see the reactions if this exchange had happened at the blog camp!

Thus, all in all, an interesting experience. Will I go to another camp? If it is not centered around a specific theme, definitely not. Else, depends on the theme!

A to Z of Films Meme (V)

You can now bookmark and browse the entire list of movies I’ve written about, and those recommended by you, here. After the meme is complete, those interested can also get it as an Excel spreadsheet.

V

Vertigo

Vertigo is one of Hitchcock’s most mesmerizing, haunting, and complex films I’ve seen. There are many layers at work simultaneously, and the more you probe, the more fascinating it becomes.

A short intro shows past events that led to ex-Detective John Ferguson developing an acute sense of vertigo. An old acquaintance Gavin asks John to tail his wife Madeliene, who he believes to be losing her mind, apparently possessed by the spirit of a woman, Carlotta. After a few days of watching her, they fall in love, but it is short-lived. During a visit to a church, John is unable to save Madeleine from falling from the church bell tower, because of his vertigo.

After recovering from his trauma, John happens to encounter Judy, who is an exact look-alike of Madeleine. While John attempts to control, shape, and model Judy to fit the image of his dream woman Madeleine, Judy starts to pity and care for him, and eventually falls in love. What John doesn’t know is that Judy is the real woman who played the role of Gavin’s wife in a murder plot.

When John suspects the truth, he takes Judy back to that church bell tower, and accuses her of being an accomplice in the murder. While doing so, we also see how John’s (the hero’s) attempt at re-making Judy into Madeleine was exactly the same as what Gavin (the villain) did. An emotionally shattering climax has John twice falling in and losing his love.

Two scenes in Vertigo represent great heights (no pun intended) in Hitchcock’s film-making. The first is to show John’s point-of-view when he looks down the square-shaped staircase of the church bell tower towards the bottom while pursuing Madeleine. This is a famous shot for its technical brilliance and innovativeness to achieve the mesmerizing effect of vertigo. Hitchcock pulls the camera back (reverse dolly-out) while forward zooming in with the lens. The effect is visually stunning.

The second is a more profound sequence after Judy reluctantly accedes to John’s obsession with remodeling her exactly like Madeleine. Her hotel room is bathed in green from a neon-light, and John is waiting for Judy who is getting ready in the bathroom. He is apprehensive as well as hopeful, yearning for his dream woman. When Judy appears, it is a dream-like sequence where she appears re-incarnated as Madeleine. (Her appearance is similar to how Madeleine had entered his bedroom in his apartment earlier in the film.) Judy yearns for his love and is desperate for it, even if it means she has to act like Madeleine. Both are slaves to an illusion created by a man, not even present in the room, to murder his wife.

When they embrace and kiss, the camera pans and revolves around them. Without any cut in the embracing sequence, Hitchcock alters the background as the scene revolves. It changes from the hotel room, to a livery stable where he had tried to cure Madeleine’s hallucinations, back to the hotel room. The hopelessness of the situation and the futility of desire is eloquently expressed as we experience the vast chasm between reality and illusion that always prevents any attempts to achieve happiness by distorting reality.

This sequence is a profound philosophical statement as well as the most psychologically revealing scene by Hitchcock. Earlier, feminists derided how Hitchcock used, feared, humiliated, and tried to control blond stereotypical women in all his films, but this changed over time. In ‘The Women Who Knew Too Much: Hitchcock and Feminist Theory’, Tania Modleski analyzes Hitchcock to be neither misogynist, nor sympathetic, but rather ambivalent towards women:

Throughout his work Hitchcock reveals a fascinated and fascinating tension, an oscillation, between attraction to the feminine… and a corresponding need to erect, sometimes brutally, a barrier to the femininity which is perceived as all-absorbing.

By withholding his films from circulation for rerelease many years later, Hitchcock showed a resemblance to his characters who exert influence even from their grave – like Carlotta and Madeleine in Vertigo. Some scholars contend that like his other films, Vertigo was influenced heavily by Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray.

Staying true to its title, the movie suggests the ‘falling’ concept in additional ways. Falling in love, and completely losing one’s self-control by giving in to obsession. The three levels of Carlotta-inhabiting-Madeleine-emulated-by-Judy forms a ‘vertigo of love’. And driving in the hilly streets of San Francisco, John is always shown driving downhill, never uphill. Also self-referential is the parallel of the car’s window-screen to widescreen cinema – just like us, John is a spectator. The distinctive red-green color schemes, and the long passages without dialogue beautifully held together by Bernard Hermann’s brilliant score that perfectly calibrates Hitchcock’s craft. A romance, a murder mystery, and a thriller, Vertigo is as complex and psychologically deep as Hitchcock himself.

Runner Up

Von Ryan’s Express

I saw Von Ryan’s Express as a very young kid on the big screen. Only the gist of the movie remained in my memories, not the specifics. Except the ending. An unforgettable ending.

When I watched it again a few years back, I enjoyed the movie again. Unlike true-story based WWII films, this is a purely fictional, action-adventure movie. It is not constrained by any moral statements about the futility of war, or any historical accounts to not deviate from, and hence is thoroughly entertaining.

American Colonel Ryan (Frank Sinatra) is forced to collaborate with a British Major Fincham (Trevor Howard) in an Italian POW camp when WWII is nearing an end with Allied forces causing the Germans to retreat. The Germans pack the POWs in a train headed back to Germany’s concentration camps, and Ryan schemes an escape plan that results in a series of hair-raising escapes and near-misses. Real trains on location were used except in the most difficult scenes, and the technical craft is impressive for its time.

The battle scene at high altitudes in the Italian alps, with their train pursued by German troops and planes is nail-biting, leading to that wonderful climax.

Noteworthy Mentions

I have heard that V For Vendetta is a good film, but I have not seen it.

Blog Camp Pune 2: Photo Post

Here are some photographs I managed to click at Blog Camp Pune 2 when I could disengage myself from the talks. Snaps are hosted on Flickr, please click to get higher resolutions. My thanks to all the ‘un’-organizers of the event for making this such a flawlessly smooth event!

 

 

 

 

 

Religion vs. Gender Equality & Feminism

How do religions treat women? How do emancipated women treat religion? A sequence of events recently has made my mind unquiet over this subject. Nita asked if Hinduism was coming of age, with people performing the sacred ‘thread ceremony’ on their daughters. The BJP found itself trapped in the maze of confusion surrounding Hindutva. And Sarkozy said that women wearing burqas were not welcome in France, as it was more a sign of women’s subservience rather than religion. The Rational Fool hailed Sarkozy’s statement, while I and Etlamatey pondered about individual women’s rights in the comments.

Like I always do, I responded to my unquiet mind by thinking, scouring the net, and thinking some more. Here is a sampling of what I found:

• An American convert to Islam urges Muslims to fight against brutality of woman to preserve Islam’s image in the eyes of others
• A Hindu woman converted to Islam says Islam is not oppressive, unlike Hinduism
• A Hindu perspective explains how Abortion is Bad Karma
• Genocide of Women in Hinduism by Sita Agarwal
• Did the burqa bring about the ghunghat or the other way around? Read this.
• Did women have ‘fewer’ rights than men or ‘different’ in the context of Hinduism’s history? A heated debate ensued after Hindus started a campaign to change the content of sixth-grade school history textbooks in California.
• A Globe and Mail opinion piece discusses the reduction in church attendance among Canadian women and whether oppression of women by religious institutions is the main cause, while Tina disagrees in her blog post.
• How does Canadian society achieve gender equality rights enshrined in their Charter, which also protects the right to freedom of religion? The Star looks at the conflict of interests.
• Muslim-dominated Indonesia is a religious country where atheism is banned by law. Alarmed at the extent of oppression of women in their country, a group of Islamic and Christian leaders have released new manuscripts in an effort to use religion to achieve gender equality.
• BBC had an open debate on air on whether religion is an obstacle to gender equality. The extensive comments represent myriad opinions and differing perspectives on this issue. One example of a response to this debate is by Sally, who says that faith is an integral part of her, and suggests women work within their faiths for change.

In the above list, I have not listed any pro-atheist source, and strived to include Hinduism related articles. Referencing articles on Hinduism and gender equality or feminism is difficult for three reasons. One, the global discussion has centered on Islam, and the English-speaking Internet population is largely Christian.

Two, Hinduism is unique in its flexible and diverse interpretations. While all religions are intentionally scripted so as to offer multiple contradictory interpretations, Hinduism wins this ambiguity race by claiming to be ‘all-inclusive’. Devout religious folks from other religions do argue (as seen in the above examples) that the oppression of women is a misinterpretation and misuse of their ‘true’ religion. But Hindus can’t be surpassed in this respect: not only are there multiple contradictory interpretations of Hinduism, even these contradictions can be claimed to be embraced by it. I think it would be a safe bet to say that for every principle supposedly propounded by Hinduism, a contradictory principle can be found within Hinduism. People would not call me a mathematician if I did not follow mathematics, but they will call me a Hindu even if I did not follow it.

Third, for a religion that has existed for centuries, and is said to be flexible and evolving, it is impossible to differentiate religious practices from social customs and traditions. Do Hindu women wear the mangalsutra or bangles because of religion or tradition? Widow burning or sati is widely described in the world as a Hindu practice, but naturally, there are arguments and differing opinions about it.

For atheists like me, the issue is very simple. Religion has been used as an instrument of gender inequality, specifically, in the oppression of women. Removing religion from the picture removes religious and theological justifications for patriarchy, as Austin argues. Sally says that in the absence of religion, men will find other ways to oppress women, hence religion as such is not an obstacle. Indeed, many factors contribute to gender inequality, one of them being economic prosperity, as this chart shows.

However, there still exists a strong correlation between the extent of ‘organic atheism’ (as opposed to ‘coerced atheism’ like in communist countries) in a country and its overall gender equation. Both the 2004 and 2006 rankings of the Gender Empowerment Measure, which is part of the the UNDP’s Human Development Report, show that the top ten nations with the highest gender equality are all strongly organic atheistic nations, while the bottom ten are all highly religious countries with insignificant number of atheists. But, as Phil Zuckerman points out in the The Cambridge Companion to Atheism, the causal relationship is in reverse: overall societal health causes widespread atheism, not the other way around.

It is impossible to argue against faith and belief, so I do not venture much into such debates. I prefer not challenging other people’s beliefs as long as they do not interfere with my life. What I find perplexing is how even emancipated women prefer to remain within their religious faiths and struggle against oppression, rather than choosing to discard religion? If faith and belief are important, and hence atheism and agnosticism are rejected, why are other forms of theism not popular?

In the end, I think I differ from Sarkozy: if women choose to be subservient, let them be. It is their right. Men should not trample over that right, though they can trample over such women, if they wish.

Update 30th June: A few significant articles I found since writing this post:

• Few public figures have taken this topic head on. Cherie Booth, wife of ex-PM Tony Blair, gave a speech almost two years ago: Religion no excuse for gender inequality. Like many other ‘feminists’ I mentioned, she however suggests using religion as a weapon in the fight for women’s rights.
• God is merciful, but only if you’re a man. An excellent piece in The Observer that asks the exact same questions I did, and offers the exact same answer Rational Fool did in the comments – Stockholm Syndrome.
• Wherever religion and its patriarchs rule, women’s lives are in danger, an Opinion piece.
• Why Women Need Freedom From Religion, from the Freedom From Religion Foundation.

(All cartoons are from www.atheistcartoons.com)

A to Z of Films Meme (U)

The list of recommended films combining my posts and your comments (excluding this post), now totals 216 films. I wrote about 5 ways to catalog movies online at MakeUseOf.com. If you have any preferences, do let me know. We can always get a spreadsheet download from any of those sites.

U

Unforgiven

Clint Eastwood’s homage to Sergio Leone and Don Siegel, Unforgiven is an ethically complex movie that is considered by some to be the last word on Westerns. It is also an anti-Western, in that it debunks the myths and reveals the ugly realities behind the genre.

William Munny (Eastwood) is a farmer with two kids who was once a professional killer. For money, he finds his old partner Ned (Freeman) to team up with a new kid on the block for bounty killing. The bounty is offered by a group of prostitutes in a town whose Sheriff is Little Bill, a man who lives the law, but is obscenely brutal in dispensing justice. Little Bill will not allow anyone to claim a reward for killing. In a nutshell, this is the plot setup that leads to an explosive climax. But it is an injustice to the movie to put it in a nutshell.

The traditional villain is turned into a sympathetic hero, the harsh and brutal upholder of the law becomes the villain. The characterizations are complex, and the first-rate acting performances deliver on Eastwood’s vision. Munny walks away unharmed in the end, and he is the one we root for the most, but we are not entirely comfortable doing so. This is not a feel-good movie, rather it’s a meditation on age, courage, cowardice, shame, guilt, and the price of violence.

Eastwood is a remarkably versatile director. Here he was producer, director, and star. Unforgiven is considered as his distancing himself from his ‘Dirty Harry’ persona. Unforgiven, one of the greatest Westerns, was ironically made at a time when Westerns reached their lowest level of popularity. Eastwood uses the genre not to make another Western, but to study human nature. In my opinion, it is the perfect elegy to the genre.

Runner Up

The Untouchables 

Brian De Palma’s The Untouchables is a thoroughly enjoyable Chicago mob crime thriller. Robert De Niro’s over-the-top performance as Al Capone shines, Kevin Costner is low-key as the lead cop, Sean Connery is brilliant as Jimmy Malone.

The production design is top-notch, recreating 1930s Chicago replete with period costumes, vintage automobiles, great sets and royal border police on horseback. Art direction is clever, with luxuriant red ambient in all of Capone’s scenes and dreary in others. Mamet’s screenplay provides every ingredient for a sumptuous adventure recipe with a delightful garnishing of excellent dialogue, while Ennio Morricone’s score provides the perfect backdrop.

A breathtaking sequence on the steps of Chicago’s railway station is inspired by Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin, beautifully framed with some POV shots, woven together in De Palma’s unmistakable style. The only weak points are the shallow character of the hero and the over-emphasis on his home life, apart from which, this is a exhilarating thriller movie.

Noteworthy Mentions

I did not like The Usual Suspects, a very popular film, and I have not seen and have no idea about Umraao Jaan. My noteworthy mentions are:

• The Unbearable Lightness of Being, expecting comments stating that the book is better than the movie, I still recommend Kaufmann’s adaptation of Kundera’s ‘unfilmable’ novel. Master cinematographer Sven Nykvist provides Bergman’s eyes to Kaufman’s visuals of sensuality. A fascinating emotional roller-coaster of a film that is provocative and intellectually stimulating.
• Umbartha (Threshold): Vijay Tendulkar + Jabbar Patel + Smita Patil = a troika of immense talent that is sure to exude powerful cinema. A study of the familial and social roles a woman has to play and how she deals with the conflicts arising out of them. An apparently liberal and progressive family nonetheless limits a woman’s individuality, and Umbartha shows one woman’s steady progression towards crossing that threshold.

A to Z of Films Meme (T)

Ever had to take a leak during a long movie but didn’t want to miss the action? Runpee.com tells you the best time to go and also what you will (not) miss. They will soon have an iPhone app you can use to check PeeTimes, along with a timer that tells you how much longer you need to, um, hold it.

T

Taxi Driver

Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver is a hell that we don’t want to see, but some of us live in. Travis Bickle, a Vietnam veteran, taxi driver, is a desperate alienated man who tries to make contact but fails repeatedly. After a series of failed attempts to connect, he is so lonely that he asks himself in the mirror, “Who you talkin’ to?”

This powerful loneliness is the epicenter of the havoc Travis creates, and though his character is one of the strangest of all movie heroes, many people connect with him because they have experienced something like that in their lives.

When a girl rejects him, the camera dollies away to an empty hallway. It is as if the girl’s rejection is unbearable, but later we are shown the horror of violence in excruciating detail. The camera’s avoidance of the rejection is the most important shot according to Scorsese. He once said “Cinema is a matter of what’s in the frame and what’s out”, but in this case, he keeps an important thing out of the frame.

Varying speeds of slow motion are used dramatically, either while observing faces in close-up or to increase awareness of Travis’s point of view. For example, the shots of the taxi are at normal speed, but what Travis observes on the street from inside it are in slow motion. Scorsese takes us inside the mind of Travis without using dialog.

See Thurman’s excellent analysis of how Scorsese pays homage via allusions in Taxi Driver.

Taxi Driver is great because it is not a superficial, violent, portrait of a sociopath. It actually takes us inside the mind and character of such alienated people, helping us understand them better. If you look at Martin Scorsese, he looks so gentle that it seems he won’t even hurt a fly. He grew up in an Italian-American neighborhood with violence all around him, and says he just wanted to be a parish priest. Those childhood days underlie many of his films, and it is important to understand Taxi Driver in the context of his own words:

Now more than ever we need to talk to each other, to listen to each other and understand how we see the world, and cinema is the best medium for doing this.

Runner Up

Titanic

Extravagant, spectacular, and dramatic, Titanic is the most-voted for movie that is not in the IMDB Top 250 charts. Clearly, there are those who like it and those who don’t. Here are some reasons why I like it:

I admire Cameron. He took great ridicule and criticism in his stride for making the costliest and most delayed motion picture, while working as a one-man army as producer, director, writer, and editor. Heck, he even drew the sketches of the artist hero, Jack! It is a reach of greatness against all odds.

Attention to detail in an epic of this size is ‘beyond fanatical’ as the NYT puts it. One of the longest Trivia section in the IMDB details the extraordinary extent to which Cameron went to make the movie seem real. Learning about the meticulous level of detail will make you realize that you need multiple viewings to appreciate it.

The characterizations and storyline of the romance was deliberately ‘standard fare’, since any attempt at serious character study would have been dwarfed by the vision of the script – to create a cinematic spectacle of the tragedy of the Titanic.

Unforgettable touching scenes: a mother reading to her children while knowing they are doomed, an old couple embracing in a watery grave, musicians performing while staring at death in the face.

The actual tragedy doesn’t strike us or the characters in an instant, like many times in real life. The gravity of the situation slowly descends upon us, slowly. This is handled very sensitively, unlike sudden hysteria so typical of disaster movies.

Awe-inspiring special effects that are subservient to the story and not the other way around.

The movie educates the audience of the ships layout and its physics in an entertaining fashion before tragedy strikes. This is ingenuous, because after it strikes, we actually understand all the stages of the sinking without being focused on the physics. Rather, we are so knowledgeable about the ship that we are fully immersed in the tragedy, emotionally involved with the characters, and know exactly what is happening and will happen.

Making a suspenseful, engaging movie of this kind is a technological feat. Making it without altering the facts or deviating from history, and weaving a romantic drama in it, is virtually impossible. Cameron is a genius who achieves it.

Noteworthy Mentions

The Indian Taare Zameen Par was a good mainstream movie that did not conform to any of Bollywood’s usual formulas. I have yet to find a sub-titled version of Santosh Sivan’s The Terrorist.

Tenue De Soiree was weirdly interesting. As a kid, I actually enjoyed the 1978 British adaptation of The Thirty Nine Steps more than Hitchcock’s version. Two Half-Times in Hell, Zoltán Fábri’s Hungarian masterpiece that ‘inspired’ Hollywood’s Escape to Victory, is highly recommended. Ozu’s Tokyo Monogatari is high up on a mountain that I am still learning to scale – simple, powerful, and now competing with Citizen Kane as one of the best films ever made. So, here are my noteworthy mentions:

• Throne of Blood: Kurosawa’s adaptation of Macbeth with the extremely powerful acting of Mifune is stunning. The end of the film where Mifune is killed by a thousand arrows is unbelievable, breathtaking, and iconic in cinematic lore.
• Terminator II: Pure entertainment.
• The Third Man: One of the best-ever film noir movies, that I saw only once and want to see again.
• To Kill A Mockingbird, a beautiful adaptation of a classic.
• The Terminal, Spielberg’s entertaining light film of an immigrant with a unique problem. Observe the entire construction of the set of the Terminal and study Janusz Kaminski’s unbelievable, astounding camera work.

Roller Coaster Ride at Cedar Point

A few weeks back, when I realized that the world’s largest automaker was heading towards bankruptcy, I did a nostalgic photo-post of General Motors World Headquarters at the Renaissance Center and Detroit. This week, Six Flags, one of the world’s largest amusement park company in the world announced that it is filing for bankruptcy. It seems that in this economic downturn, people don’t want to spend their hard-earned money to get amused. So here is another nostalgic photo-post of a day at an amusement park that was loosely affiliated with Six Flags.

Cedar Point at Sandusky, Ohio currently holds the world record for the maximum number of roller coasters, one of which is the world’s second tallest and second fastest roller coaster. It has been voted The Best Amusement Park In The World for 11 consecutive years (yes, over Disneyworld in Florida). This is how the park looks from the air (not my photo):

It was a cloudy, rainy day that we went to Cedar Point. We were anxious, but the rides were fortunately open and running. Click on any of the pictures to get the higher resolution.

The cable car runs through the entire length of the park, since walking around the whole day can become quite tiring!

It was a bit difficult to get good outdoor photographs because the light was poor in rainy conditions.

The Top Thrill Dragster has been the most thrilling experience of my life. Paragliding at the foot of the Himalayas didn’t come anywhere close. 0 to 120 mph (193 kmph) in 4 seconds. A 90 degree climb up to 420 feet (~ 50 stories) and a 90 degree straight fall while spiraling 270 degrees. All over in just 17 seconds. I managed to capture a train climbing, at the top, and descending:

See more pictures of this demon here. The official page has more technical information as well as additional multimedia. And if you want to know how it actually feels like, I found this on YouTube:

A to Z Films Meme (S) Runner Up, Noteworthy Mentions

Runner Up

Seven Samurai

The most famous and highly praised Japanese film of a band of samurais protecting a village from bandits gave rise to an entire genre of films. ‘Schichinin no samurai’ is Kurosawa’s grand epic when he was at the height of his creative powers. For those who haven’t seen it, I can only say watch it and enjoy it. Then you’ll start to see from where many of your favorite action epics came from!

Seven Samurai was the first film to assemble a team to execute a mission. It led not only to its remake, The Magnificent Seven, but also The Guns of Navarone, The Dirty Dozen, Ocean’s Eleven, The Italian Job, and innumerable other war and caper movies. Kurosawa’s Yojimbo was remade as Fistful of Dollars, which led to the spaghetti Western. Roger Ebert explains how this and Hidden Fortress inspiring Star Wars essentially means Kurosawa gave employment to action heroes for the next 60 years till date.

The hero being introduced by his engaging in a brave act in a situation not related to the main plot. Each hero within the team getting his own introductory sequence establishing the character. These are plot devices copied by dozens of movies over the years. The use of deep focus camera technique to keep everyone in focus whether near or far. The movie runs well over three hours yet the intermission seems like an unwanted break – such is the power of the story-telling, so overwhelmingly Seven Samurai draws you in its world.

Contrast the tough, commanding presence of the lead, Takashi Shimura (Kambei) with his worn out, defeated, meaningless existence in Ikiru as Watanabe. Contrast the high-spirited, rambunctious, showoff Toshiro Mifune (Kikuchiyo) with his restrained, awe-inspiring, imposing presence in Red Beard. This is acting of the highest caliber.

Those who do not understand why the bandits keep attacking the village repeatedly when it is clear that they are getting decimated fail to understand the Japanese cultural roots behind the movie. Japanese society forces cultural roles and obligations upon individuals and groups to the extent that they become masochistic.

Kurosawa’s meticulously perfected battle-scenes, extraordinary camera work, great editing – everything comes together to make this a highly enjoyable, rewarding cinematic experience.

Noteworthy Mentions

Schindler’s List: It was more difficult for me to choose the runner up between Schindler’s List and Seven Samurai, than the winner. In the greater scheme of things, maybe Schindler’s List would rate higher. For example, if I were to choose between the two to select one movie that we should send to share with an alien civilization, it would be Schindler’s List. I would like to tell the aliens – “look folks, here is what we did back on earth. We hope you don’t do anything like this. But more importantly, we would also like you to know that there are people like Oskar Schindler back on earth, so we are not all evil. We’re all human beings and we try our best to make the good triumph.”

Saving Private Ryan: 30 minutes of the most terrifying war scene ever filmed start off this devastating tour de force of Steven Spielberg’s war drama. It is a comprehensive assault on the senses and leaves you breathless. Watch it on the big screen or watch it in a home theatre with Dolby Digital 5.1 or DTS. You will be transported to Omaha beach in Normandy during WWII. The rest of the movie is great but I still have to go beyond my study of the opening sequence that has overwhelmed me each time I see it.

Sholay: A noteworthy mention that was inspired by the runner-up says a lot. The perfect introduction for a Bollywood virgin. The most beloved and famous Bollywood movie ever made. A must-see for generations to come. Song and dance sequences where the plot continues and is not paused for their sake. The slickly-edited, impeccably filmed opening action sequence with the train and bandits on horses.

The use of silence. The swatting of a fly by the villain denoting the murder of a victim. Sharp characterizations.

The best villain unlike anything seen before in Bollywood. Dialogue that replaced school textbook lines in the minds of generations born decades afterwards. R. D. Burman’s memorable score. The massacre sequence with slow-motion, freeze frames, and the sound of a swing squeaking used to dramatic effect. Do watch the uncensored director’s cut for the true, more fulfilling climax – the censors have cut the heart out of the story in what is essentially a ‘revenge film’.

A to Z of Films Meme (S) Winner

Do check out Karma Calling’s new twist to this meme with her Comprehensive Geek Guide to Movies.

S

The Shawshank Redemption

Fear can hold you prisoner, hope can set you free.

A movie described as a ‘prison drama’ with a weird, difficult-to-pronounce name, no action sequences, and running for two and a half hours. Further: no romance or love story, no heroine, no special effects, and no celebrity stars. Such a movie can hardly be expected to become popular. Yet, The Shawshank Redemption has more or less remained #1 on IMDB’s Top 250 films chart for over a decade. Why? Why have 400,000+ viewers rated it at the top and over 2000 users taken the time to write a review for it just at one website?

Nominated for 7 Academy Awards but winning none, the movie was underrated by most self-proclaimed critics, many of whom still dismiss it as a ‘popular feel-good’ movie with an improbable storyline. Their critical analysis focuses on exposing flaws, seeing the trees and missing the forest. Ultimately, The Shawshank Redemption works like music – the more times you watch and get familiar with it, the more you love it. Not many films share this unique trait.

This is the story of two imprisoned men, developing a bond over years of friendship, finding salvation and redemption. It is an inspiring story of hope and courage. The movie is an uplifting, spiritual experience, and that is the forest, and why this film has topped popularity charts in these times of fear, ‘threat levels’ and despair lurking beneath our everyday lives.

Frank Darabont, a first-time director, does not flinch from the nasty things that take place inside prisons. The cinematography by Roger Deakins (a Cohen brothers favorite) builds the lifeless life and drab existence in the prison. Despite this, it is not a dark film, in fact, it has its emotional payoff moments, humor, as well as a cathartic finale. From the quiet dignity exuded by Tim Robbins as the hero (Andy) and the beautiful narration and excellent performance by Morgan Freeman (‘Red’) as his buddy, to the entire supporting cast of Bob Gunton (the evil warden), James Whitmore (the old-timer Brooks), Clancy Brown (the sadistic guard), Gil Bellows (the young prisoner) – the performances are all first-rate.

I have following observations to add:

• Though set in prison, the film does not focus on the violence and hopelessness of life behind prison bars, but the opposite.
• The film is not seen from the hero’s point of view. This is pure genius and works subconsciously like a charm, because the hero continues to remain an enigmatic wonder to us.
• The character of the hero is conventionally established in films by a heroic or dramatic act or entry. Here, the hero is established ‘dramatically’ by the way he strolls in a carefree fashion inside prison.
• Our hero does not express any intense emotions for the most part of the film, but Tim Robbins is not under-acting. It is the character of Andy, beautifully built up by Robbins.
• The violent abuse and suffering of Andy is not shown closely, but from a distance. There is no pretentious or clichéd attempt to dwell on physical bruises or psychological wounds. Instead, Darabont makes us give space to Andy, like his fellow-inmates, thus building the character. This is remarkable story-telling.
• Meticulous attention to each sub-plot. Darabont is deliberate and thoughtful. This leisurely pace of the film is essential to the story, but was a great risk from a Hollywood box-office perspective.
• Simple, profound lines. “Salvation lies within.” “Put your trust in the Lord; your ass belongs to me. Welcome to Shawshank!” “Get busy living or get busy dying.”
• The grandest, most crowd-pleasing, heroic act performed by Andy is playing a Mozart aria to the prisoners in defiance of the authorities. The point is – this is no grand epic, no great action-adventure, but a simple drama that evokes epic emotions because it has connected the hero with our hearts deeply.
• To the critics who decry the drawn-out ending, I’d like to point out that the film was actually supposed to end with the shot of ‘Red’ going away in the bus. It was the studio that insisted on a more emotionally gratifying closing sequence leading to the magnificent ocean scene. The result is there to see in the IMDB rank!
• This is a beautiful example of adapting a novel to a film. Note the subtle ways in which the story in Stephen King’s novella was adapted for the movie.
• Red’s parole hearing three times in the movie beautifully segments the film into three parts.
• The prison walls are felt all throughout the movie. Yet their imposing presence is shown in only two shots at the beginning – the magnificent opening helicopter shot and the walls looming overhead.
• The movie did not win any Oscars and was a failure at the box office. This movie did not make it big because of big-budget marketing. Instead, 5 years after it released, it became a phenomenon via the home video market and word of mouth. This is how social networking works.
• It usually takes multiple viewings to realize that the film, at its core, is more about Red than Andy.

Well, this is again examining the trees, if anyone is so inclined. For me, I enjoy the forest.

Blog Updates Summary Post

In the past few months, there have been many updates to the blog that I would like to summarize here.

Blog Updates

An Unquiet Mind, which got a tagline, has an updated About Myself page (again). The recent films series is now indexed in the Favorite Films A to Z page, which will also let you download or access the list online once the list is finished.

The sidebar includes a link to my Author Profile at MakeUseOf.com, from where you can subscribe to my MUO articles RSS feed. My FriendFeed updates are shown in the sidebar. This will show you my recent tweets and updates even if you are not using any of those services. Clicking on the FriendFeed widget will take you to my FriendFeed profile, from where you can connect with me on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and other web services you choose (even if you don’t use FriendFeed).

Blogroll Updates

• 42: Litterateuse Gauri, who has a unique way with words
• Dev’s World: A serious student and professional of film-making, who generously and meticulously shares his knowledge and wisdom
• Gaizabonts: The multi-dimensional and prolific Atul Sabnis
• Karma Calling: DotMom’s insightful and enjoyable experiences with family life and parenting
• Life Rules!: Gauri Gharpure, who writes beautiful poetry, and whose blog I’ve yet to explore further
• POV: Harini’s perspective on current affairs which usually resonates very well with me
• Time and Again: Ruhi, who shares my passion for good cinema
• Visceral Observations: Poonam, who should have been on my blogroll a long time back

Needless to say, these one line descriptions of blogs are not meant to encapsulate them – they are just the essence of what I’ve discovered so far.

Lastly, I wanted to mention that Nita had graciously wanted to bestow the Brilliant Weblog Award on An Unquiet Mind, at a time when I was on a hiatus for personal reasons. By being inactive at the time, I have relinquished the award, but I do want to say that your comments, emails, and remembrance always mean a lot to me.

Please do let me know if you have any suggestions, criticism, or any other feedback regarding the blog updates!