Atlas Shrugged – The movie!

 

Well… yet again, I’ll stand by what I always believed in – never watch a movie based on your favourite book. Barring Godfather and Gone with the wind, there is not a single movie which brings justice to the book.

But still, if it is a movie based on your favourite book, it would take immense and senseless will power to not watch it. And that is exactly why I subjected myself to this movie, based on my forever favourite book (so much so that I even once had a blog with the name – Who is John Galt?, and a blogger nickname of Ms Taggart).

For starters, even I am glad that they decided to go with two parts of the movie, only that way could they even try to bring justice to the extremely verbose ~1200 page novel , cast in the smallest font. But then, the point that a movie will never live up to the detail and description that a book will feed to  your imagination turns out to be true in this case.

There are couple of good points in the movie – like it being set in 2016, and a time of great depression. Well, we are in the almost-great-depression right now, and the references to the oil spill, the Dow-Jones index falling everyday, against-capitalism attempts by some governments make perfect sense for this times.

However, where the movie fails in its logic is , why would a railroad mean so important for the survival of a state even in 2016. Its not like the 40’s which is when the book is set that trains were the only means of reaching out into the interiors of the state.

The movie fails in areas where it is supposed to make a mark, like showing Dagny’s never-say-die attitude , or her childhood friendship with d’Anconia, her passion with Hank Rearden, or when John Galt comes to take away each of the Titans.

Also, the movie seemed unnecessarily fast-paced which is why most of the important scenes felt like they were rushed.

Watch the movie if you are a fan of the book, but keep in mind that this will not stand up to the world the book has created in your mind. Watch it only to see an effort to make a great book into a movie. A not-so-great effort.

La Mariee

 

This is the painting Anna Scott and William Thacker talk about in his house in the movie Notting Hill, the dialogue being exactly this -

Anna Scott: I can't believe you have that picture on your wall.
William: You like Chagall?
Anna Scott: I do. It feels like how being in love should be. Floating through a dark blue sky.
William: With a goat playing the violin.
Anna Scott: Yes - happiness isn't happiness without a violin-playing goat.

Anna also gifts the original of this painting to William towards the end of the movie.

In all the times I’ve seen the movie(which is at least 5 times so far), I’ve not noticed anything peculiar about this painting. But the last time I saw it over last weekend, I was intrigued by the painting. There must be something in the painting.

I looked up the painting and found the above jpeg. More information about this painting – here.

There is indeed something about this painting. Something about yearning. Something about love. Something about wanting to go with the person the bride loves. And a magic realism-istic feeling being shown by the flying fish in the background. And something making the whole thing grounded and real with the chick and moving man at the bottom right corner. Something about all this love getting realized, by the church like building in the background and the man beside the bride, may be she found the love?

To me also the painting spoke of love. Of Love that makes the bride want to fly in the sky , expect beautiful yet strange things a goat playing a violin. Of Love that makes her want to be grounded and may be have a house with a hen in it.

May be I am reading too much into this or may be the movie indeed did influence my thinking about this painting, but for the first time a painting (except of course Da Vinci’s. But then who isn’t interested in Mona Lisa or the Vitruvian Man?) interested me.

Now am looking to have at least a copy of the photo of this painting as a poster in one of the rooms in the house… Lets see.

So, who’s the RockStar?

Though I did not understand what the whole deal with ‘Socha Na Tha’ was, and think that ‘Jab We Met’ was a nice movie and that it didn’t blow me away, and that ‘Love Aaj Kal’ was a decent movie, I agree that Imtiaz Ali is a good director, there are no doubts in that. And a good dialogue writer too.

 

So where did he go wrong with Rockstar?

In my honest opinion, what is wrong with the movie is the plot. Its just not present. Or let’s just say, its too weak. So weak that if it were to try to stand on its feet, it would make a big hole in the earth beneath it and fall down. You get the point , right? Heavy, but weak. Its like he planned to fit in all elements into the same story and make one movie out of this all. Well, this had material for atleast two movies – one love story, and one story on how a boy turned into a rock star. Both would’ve sucked big time, but nonetheless, it would’ve been two stories. You get the point again , right?

 

No? Imagine this - Glimpses of a wannabe-Jim-Morrison and in-love-and-hence-will-do-things-to-piss-off-lover-and-media-Salman-Khan in a very good-looking, extremely well-dressed-in-its-own-new-way Ranbir Kapoor romancing a just-about-okay-looking-really-big-unnatural-looking-pout-just-cannot-act-for-nuts-Nargis-Fakhri, killing himself out of frustration at not getting to sleep with her, and hence writing and singing great songs composed by AR Rehman.

Well, this is the movie in a nutshell. Now add a cheating-on-the-husband-angle, one could’ve-been-dealt-with-better-divine-intervention angle, police-chasing-Jordan-for-no-apparent-reason angle and a very weak, discontinuous editing job. You have RockStar!

 

Don’t get me wrong. Its not a bad movie. This movie had the potential to be a good one, had it not been for the whining Nargis Fakhri and her pout, the cheap antics of the Platinum music company head, the whole extremely-ridiculous you-should-have-pain-to-be-a-great-artist(Everyone in the story team totally forgot the great musicians who have had sober lives – Bono and ARR himself for example!) and the various angry outbursts by Ranbir Kapoor for no logical reason.

And why the whole cheating angle? Why should Heer chose to cheat on her husband? And if she felt guilty about it, why should she be doing it with Jordan? No, am not against people cheating on each other and all, but the illogical cheating is what I don’t get. In this day and age when people are free to be with whom they want to be, and without anything binding Heer to her husband, why didn’t she just dump her husband and go with Jordan if she loved him that much?

 

And getting the cancerous-about-to-die-Heer pregnant with Jordan’s baby is just, well… cheap. There was no need for this angle in the movie, and Jordan would’ve been pining for Heer even if she wasn’t pregnant with his baby. Also, the Free Tibet concert with Tibet being blurred out. Cheap again. The mention of the forest being cut to make way for the city and the absence of the parinde , well, not required. What is the character doing to substantiate his interest in these causes apart from just fighting with the police?

And what were they trying to show when Shammi Kapoor’s character shakes his head sadly at seeing Jordan’s poster for the album ‘Noir’? That he is going the wrong way? Well, didn’t he already know that Jordan was never the ordinary guy. And he wasn’t on the roads begging after a big fall from grace. So why the whole sad look?

 

And why on earth was Jordan running away from the cops in Prague or Verona or whatever awesome-looking-place it is? And if he was indeed performing in that place, why would the cops not know him?

 

This and many more such plot gaffes killed the movie for me.

What it should’ve been is just a guy’s angst at not being able to be with the woman he loved and hence transforms that pain into music. It could’ve been an honest attempt to show a love story.

 

Not a love-cum-musician-story. Not a sorry mish-mash of all the bad-boys we know in the media. Not how Jordan has an affair with Heer and tries to break into her house or pines to sleep with her or kiss her. Not how he became a Rockstar, coz being a Rockstar is not about being a bad-boy. Not how Jordan uses his pain to gain an image and show his attitude to audience.

The only things I liked in the movie – the music and the clothes. Though many say that this isn’t certainly one of ARR’s, I loved the songs. I enjoyed all the songs and the way they were shot. I loved both Heer’s and Jordan’s costumes. Brilliant work at building a separate style for them both. I loved the locales, and cinematography.

 

But if you ask me who the Rockstar in the movie is, I’d say Mohit Chauhan. Period.

Notting Hill

 

The first time I heard the song ‘When you say nothing at all’ by Ronan Keating, I fell in love. With him and with the band that he belonged to, Boyzone (yeah yeah, boy bands and all, I know! :)). But only recently did it occur to me that this is OST for Notting Hill, and that I hadn’t seen the movie at all.

And the minute I finished the movie, I knew this made it to the list of Movies-I-Watch-When-I-Need-Comfort and hence one of my most favourite movies.

After all , I’m just a girl… standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her…

Everytime I listen to this dialogue, tears well up in my eyes, I cry. Every.single.time.
I cry for the vulnerable girl standing in front of the boy she loves, asking him to take her back and understand her, love her and care for her.
Honest, deep, poignant, vulnerable, slightly desperate for love – this scene is the most defining moment in the entire movie. Anna’s character jumps out of the screen and suddenly feels live, like someone you know could’ve said this , or may be you could’ve said this too…