From a crow's egg to inside a kid's head

I watched two incredible movies the last weekend. So I am going to break the wedding diary series and put this piece in. Both movies were amazing- both were about children and both were funny and intelligent and wonderfully entertaining. In fact, it is only as I type that I realize they are in completely different languages, with drastically different budgets, and depicting almost different ends of the economic spectrum. The first movie was "Kaaka muttai" (Crow egg) and the second was "Inside out". (Interesting/funny-moments non-plot spoilers ahead!)

"Kaaka muttai" is a movie about two kids living in a Chennai slum. When a new pizza store opens in the neighborhood, they want one and decide to save up  (300Rs=~6$) for it. The story revolves around the little schemes they do to get the pizza and whether money was all they needed to get it.
"Inside out" is a Pixar creation and about what goes on in a girl's head when she moves to SF from Minnesota- the typical struggles of a regular kid who moves to a new place and faces change. of course, the main brainwave (no pun intended) was in showing her emotions as quirky characters in her brain who are trying to control her actions- and how they interplay as she eases in.

The Ayn Rand movies

As promised yesterday, I'm here writing about the movies I was watching. Since both are movies based on Ayn Rand books, most of the post may not make sense unless you have read the books.

The first one: Atlas Shrugged- Part 2. It has a pathetic rating on IMDB and is said to be worse than Part 1, but I had to watch it still, didn't I? Surprisingly, I liked Part 2 much better than Part 1. As an independent movie, it's not even average (bad graphics is one reason). As a movie that explains Objectivism, just so-so. But as a movie that somehow showed characters close enough to what I had imagined them, it was pretty awesome.
For part 1, I had thought that the characters didn't have what you imagined them to from the book. And the whole idea of setting this movie in the future seemed stupid. But in part 2, there were some points where I thought it was a good idea. You relate more to the characters because they live similar lives and speak similar language (like using tablets and saying 'asap'). But I didn't like Dagny in Part 2- she was too emotional, didn't have the right amount of confidence AND showed too much cleavage. In fact, what's with all the women in the movie? An inordinate amount of cleavage, even for a Hollywood movie. Maybe somebody thought this abstract philosophy stuff puts people off, so lets make it up with some low necks. Honestly, it made the movie a little weird-looking.
Anyway, I liked most of the other characters- James Taggart (who I think makes a good Peter Keating), Ken Dannager, Lilian, Cheryl. I was not completely happy with Fransisco, but there was one moment in the movie when he said "Isn't money the root of all evil? I have decided to stop being evil" and it made me laugh. For that moment alone, I think he wasn't a bad choice at all. But I LOVED the guy who played Rearden. He was awesome! Just the right amount of sarcasm in his smile, just the right level of confidence and laughter in his voice and perfect expressions in his eyes. And for him alone, I'd say I love the movie.
There was one thing I noticed about the movie that was minor but irked me still. When Dagny waits outside Ken Dannager's office, she thinks that she COULD open the door, but she doesn't and she notes that all that's stopping her is 'civilization'. I love that moment in the book. In the movie she actually pushes the door open, and that bothered me a lot- not because they weren't true to the book, but because that one action betrays the rest of Dagny's character so much.

Anyway, I still love the movie for Rearden alone.

After that, I saw 'Fountainhead'. It's a black and white movie and the screenplay was by Rand herself, so I thought she would stick to the book. To my surprise, she didn't. While there are no character breaches in this one, the plot is changed a great deal. Some of it might have been for length, but it appears to me that when the movie was made, they couldn't show an engaged woman being someone else's lover or getting a divorce etc. Which messes up the plot badly. I could also see the difference in acting styles (compared to now). Maybe it was that but I wasn't too impressed by any of the actors- least by Roark.
And it led me to think about how interpretations and imagination change with time- what Rand saw in her own novel is not good enough for me today! I also realized how changes in movies (compared to the respective books) sometimes annoy me. It may be because I have imagined something and what they make is not as good as what's in my head. Or maybe I hate the parts where I feel the changes don't fit the essence of the plot or characters. (Like Dumbledore shouting out incantations and waving his wand too much. So so un-Dumbledoreof him!)

The other thing is that because I have read these books, my mind fills in the info for everything that's not in the movie. Which means I have no idea whether people who haven't read the book got it or not. And that makes me a poor judge of the movie. 

But well, I'd rather read the book and imagine the story first before I see it. So, its a minor loss I will have to take I guess..

Chennai Express, stereotyping and cinema

About a week ago, I saw the Chennai Express trailer and posted it on fb with an equivalent of- 'The only reason why Chennai Express can be this bad is if Mumbaikars are taking revenge on us for the Tamil movie Mumbai Express'. The two-minute trailer had about two million mistakes. (My Intel Media days make me say: That should be ~694 mistakes per frame! Ya, I know I am using my hyperbole license here.) 

Anyway, almost every Tamilian I knew was aghast. Even some non-Tamil south Indians were shocked. THIS was not how we were. (The most glaring mistakes included using Kathakali to depict Tamilians and showing goons threatening with knives that are actually used for harvesting- which no self-respecting goon would even touch. And I am not even going to start on the accent :-/). 

But then, I thought for a few minutes- aren't "North" Indians misrepresented in Tamil movies? From the assortment of "Singh"s who speak unbearable Hindi to Mallu women in blouse and mundu (tied in a way that I have never seen any Mallu woman wearing in all my years in Kerala!), Muslim men always with beard and cap and talking Hindi-mixed Tamil- the list is endless. And you might have noticed the stereotyping in Hollywood as well- Chinese accents, French romantic men, rude Germans, Indian women with jingling jewelry, and it goes on.
If you know me, you might be tempted to ask at this point- didn't you miss TamBrahm stereotyping in Tamil? I was actually saving the best for the last :P From the earliest time I can remember of watching Tamil movies, I have always wondered why Brahmins were sooooooo misrepresented in our movies (Hindi and Tamil alike. Hindi- Hum hai rahi pyar ke, Shaktimaan (the series), Malini Iyer (don't remember the name) are a few off the top of my head!) What did we ever do to the world to be stereotyped so poorly? With all my interaction with Brahmins, I have met too many "normal" people to believe that everyone uses Brahmin accent at work and with non-Brahmin friends. It is almost like somebody picked a stylised accent from a century ago and decided that anybody who is a Brahmin in a movie should speak that archaic accent. (I know some Brahmin guys who look awesome, speak flawless English AND are very intelligent. Which is the exact opposite of the typical thayir-saadam Ambi types in movies!)

So, am I saying that just because we have so much stereotyping in Tamil cinema, it's ok for Bollywood to stereotype us? Well, it depends.
The idea behind having a stereotype is that it is easy for the audience to fill in some gaps and make inferences. Also, it often makes humor very easy- an effort-saver if you are unable to think up good jokes. Which is fine if the audience understands that this is a stereotype used for a joke and not carry the stereotype home.
But there are two caveats to this. The first is that- even some very good movies have stereotypes.  When an otherwise sensible movie has a stereotype, it clashes with how realistic the plot is. It ruins the movie for people who know the stereotype, it spreads the stereotype for those who don't. 
The second is that- unfortunately movie watching usually triggers the emotional circuitry of the brain, but not much of the cognitive circuitry. (There are some MRI studies which show brain activity in the medial temporal lobe, but almost none in the frontal cortex.) What this means is that the audience is emotionally involved with the movie, but not usually thinking. So when a stereotypical character is bad or stupid, the audience is angry or frustrated along with the protagonist, and might potentially carry that frustration back home. (This is just my inference, not part of the study!) So you see, the stereotypes are not harmless comedy at all! 

At this point, I am sure someone is thinking I am creating a mountain out of a molehill. I used to think so too, until I faced some typical racist comments from people around me- From "You are a South Indian so you don't understand Hindi" (which pisses me off because I have read more Surdas and classic Hindi literature than many people who comment), and "You are a TamBrahm so you love curd rice", to "I am surprised you are not mean. Are you sure you are a (*insert any group I belong to here- Indian, Tamilian, Brahmin, Iyengar, whatever*)?" When someone says that, I have an instinct to say "You racist *#*^$%*". But instead I swallow and say "You were wrong about (*the group*) then, weren't you?"

I know that stereotyping doesn't originate in cinema. But because cinema is such a powerful medium, it might be worthwhile to cut down the stereotyping.

As for Chennai Express- it is still an unforgivable stereotyping attempt because it seems to have only racism and almost no humor. But then again, when did I start expecting good cinema from Shah Rukh?

What's with all the marrying?

Seriously. What's with everyone? Either getting married or having kids.. I'm tired of it, I tell u.. 
Ya, ya I know there are some people out there who are gonna be saying- "Don't talk as if you never will get married. That particular abyss awaits everyone!" So, at the outset let me tell you that it is not marriage or having children that I am against. It is the whole set of stupid things that people do along with it.. And anyway, I tried my best to avoid writing about this for quite sometime, partly because many other people have written very good posts on this topic and I thought I won't have much to add. But I guess the frustration got ahead of me today.

So here is my list of 5 things I hate to see people do after their wedding/baby-having- in the order of least annoying to most annoying. 

5. Talking about their kids all day long:
   A typical conversation goes- "My kid does (insert some disgusting thing) with food" "Oh so sweet! My kid did (insert an even more disgusting thing) when he was about that age."  "But you know he is very smart- he can tell when I am watching" .......
   You know what this talk reminds me of-

4. Saying stupid things that are supposed to sound sweet:
   This is not as common as the previous one, but is still bad. Just last week someone put a status- "So sweet to be stuck in Bangalore traffic while carpooling with my hubby". I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. The best I can say is "You are probably not the one driving!"
   Even better is what new-age parents put up- "First time changing my son's diaper. It's a soul-stirring experience". Soul-stirring? Seriously? I am just speechless!
3. Hitting on each other on fb: This one is mostly for newly engaged men who are having arranged marriages and hence are trying to create an "I-am-a-very-sweet-cool-fun-guy" impression on the girl by going "Happy Valentine's Day to the cutest, smartest, prettiest woman in the world." First off, just because Bombay Jayashree sings 'Win me over with lies' this anda-pulugu-aagaasa-pulugu level is too much. (or in Rajni style- too too much!).Second, if you are already engaged, this flirting is not gonna change much. See I am not saying don't flirt. But flirting on fb makes it look like you can't flirt but just want everyone to know you can. It is the most pretentious thing I ever saw. 
   I remember a couple I knew who were like the most boring people on Earth, and they converted each other's timelines into countdown timers ("Honeeeyyy.. 2 more days to go!"  "5 mins left" and so on.) In the end I had to block their feeds before they went into the microseconds range.
   So here I bring a new edition of the the third George Carlin commandment- "Thou shalt keep thy flirting to thyself!".
   Or in thalaivar style - "Adhigama sight adikara payyanum, adhigama 'Awww' solra ponnum nalla vaazhndhadha saritharame kedayadhu. Mind it!"
2. Changing photos: This one comes in so many different forms I could dedicate a separate post to this alone. Anyway...

• Changing cover photos on fb to 2 clasped hands or wedding rings or mehndi-applied palms. I admit I loved the first mehndi cover pic I saw. It looked pretty and made a good cover pic. But when 17 people on my profile changed all their cover pics to mehndi-applied palms, (I am not kidding- I actually counted 17 last summer!) it's not that cool anymore. Now I can draw mehndi designs from memory. And I'm not even that great an artist.
• Changing profile pics to couple pics- This one is tops.  Once in a while having a couple pic on your profile is all fine. But what's with I-got-married-so-I-shall-never-have-any-more-individual-pics? Are you so lame that all your life is about just one individual? Get a life, seriously!
• Writing "You are the cutest couple ever" on the couple pics above- I agree that sometimes couple pics look good. But I better let this cat out of the bag right now. 99% of couples in the world are not cute, even alone. Worse, together. This is the obvious corollary of the fact that 99% of the people in the world don't look particularly good.
  So, I don't know what makes such good liars of everyone once they get on fb. In real life, most people would just remain silent when shown the same photo, but on fb they are like "Sooooo pretttyyyy".
  See, I am not someone who goes by appearances usually- but when someone writes "Soooooo cuuuutttteeeee" for the pic of a couple that look like the TR and KB Sundarambal, I really want to burn all of fb. (The bride looked like TR btw. No, not exaggerating. In fact, on second thoughts KB Sundarambal looks ok.)
• Changing their profile pic to that of their baby's: See, I understand you are very happy with having a baby and all that. I am sure it is an important phase in your life etc. But did u suddenly convert into your baby? Or did you mean that once you had a baby, you don't exist anymore?
  Also, what's with calling every new born baby the most beautiful in the world? "Sooooo cute, he looks just like u". Tell you what, all new born babies look the same. Very few of them have discernible features. Even with Aishwarya Rai's genes they look like this-
  
  
  Need I say more? 

1. Asking other people to get married- Changing photos would have been the most annoying thing married people did, if only they didn't do this.
   I used to think only old aunties go around asking "When are you getting married?". But I realized that even people who got married like yesterday start asking- "Why are you not getting married? You shouldnot postpone these things you know.." See, life is a lot more than just marriage. There is so much more in this world- to do, to think. Anyway, when someone asks me this question- I usually wanna say "How could you go to the dark side in less than 24 hours!" but I don't. Instead I just say this-

P.S: Thanks to Ezhil because it was a conversation with him that made me come up with the two punch lines here :)

Rajnikanth

(This post is the 4th post in the one-month challenge I gave myself.)

Ok. I know I won't finish this before 12 tonight, seeing I started it at 11.45 pm and might have to take couple of breaks in between. But we will see.

Rajnikanth is someone I can write a lot about. Rajnikanth is almost a phenomenon in Tamil Nadu. Maybe the almost is not required. I grew up watching Rajnikanth movies and I could go on talking about why people like him, whether he is worth being liked, and so on. But today I choose to talk about something that's less serious but more ubiquitous- Rajnikanth jokes. 

Most non-Tamilians I know have only one form of appreciation of Rajnikanth- mockery. They want to watch an entire Rajnikanth movie just to make fun of it. And then to send me forwards of Rajnikanth one-liners and jokes. 
For the record, I am not a diehard fan of Rajnikanth. I like his movies, but mostly because they remind me of my childhood and are otherwise very light. There are very few actors I am really a fan of and he is not one of them. However, he does what he does well and has his plusses. So I am not one of those people who cannot listen to a Rajnikanth joke and laugh at it.

Then why the previous paragraph? Because I have been the victim of some very very bad Rajnikanth jokes. Now, in an ideal world I would just tell the person it's a bad joke. But what usually happens is just because I am a Tamilian, people assume that if I don't laugh at their joke, I am being defensive of Rajnikanth. (The number of times I didn't smile at a Rajni joke and people told me I am not a sport would probably cause a memory overflow.) Or even worse, they think I am hurt. And interestingly, I find THIS part really funny. Me being hurt for someone mocking some complete stranger would be a ridiculous thing to happen. But anyway, because of this completely baseless assumption people make about me, I am forced to actually smile at their joke or say "Ha ha good one" even if it was the worst joke I ever heard in my life.And almost all of these jokes are Chuck Norris jokes where somebody did a string replace of Chuck Norris with Rajnikanth. Which really pisses me off. No self-respecting Chuck Norris joke would like to be reused with Rajnikanth and then with whichever next Super/Ultimate/Gethumax star Tamil Nadu chooses to have. It makes me want to start a Society for Prevention of Misuse of Chuck Norris jokes (SPMCJ - like Hermoine's SPEW).

I think that the real problem I have with Rajnikanth jokes is this- most of them are sad excuses of jokes and follow a specific formula: 

Template 1: Rajnikanth did A, then A backfired in some way. (When Rajnikanth logs into facebook, fb updates its status msg. When Rajnikanth writes a cheque, the bank bounces. And so on.)

Template 2: Rajnikanth did something exaggerated. (Rajnikanth's rough note is now Wikipedia. Rajnikanth purchased a road roller to iron his clothes. Rajnikanth struck a match and it is the sun.* etc.)

Template 3: Rajnikanth did something that is impossible. (Rajnikanth saw the Dead Sea when it was alive. Rajnikanth has counted to infinity, twice. Rajnikanth knows Victoria's secret and can strangle you with a  cordless phone. Rajnikanth has seen the face of the lady in Tom & Jerry.** And so on.)

Template 4: (Variation of template 1) Rajnikanth doesn't do X. X does (something else). (Rajnikanth doesn't wear a watch. He tells the watch what time it is. Rajnikanth doesn't pay income taxes, the government pays him. And so on.)

Template 5: Rajnikanth is so strong/invincible that... (This is mostly stuff like- when Rajnikanth shows you his fingers, he is telling you how long you can live. Rajnikanth's calender goes from March 31st to April 2nd because noone fools Rajnikanth.)

I guess you get the idea by now. And then people say his movies are not original. Oh, the irony! (Especiallly when you think about how dumb/unoriginal/exaggerated any average Indian commercial movie is. I don't see any difference between any of their plots anyway. And I really like Rajni's dialogue delivery.)

Which brings me to another point. While I don't think Rajni films are good cinema or anything, I do think that he has excellent voice modulation. Excellent is an understatement for what he can do with his dialogues. And this is something most non-Tamilians don't get. The reason people repeat "Oru dhadave sonna nooru dhadave sonna maadhiri" is not because it is the best line ever written. It is because of the way he said it. The same thing in Hindi (or any other language) makes me want to puke. I actually tried watching "Shivaji" in Hindi and it's a "medical miracle" that I am still alive. And if this is what people saw from his movies, I can almost understand why they make such lousy jokes out of him. 

Anyway, I digress. The reason I wrote this post was to ask people to tell me only the jokes which don't fall into any of these templates. Geeky ones that fall into this template are still pardonable (Like the ones in this link- an article that I completely relate with and which made me finally pen down this post..) But if you expect me to actually appreciate a Rajnikanth joke, please make good original ones. And until then, I will continue to work for SPMCJ.

*I made this one up as I typed the sentence. Though it probably exists in some website somewhere.
**This is the only Rajnikanth template joke I ever liked. 

Tomorrow:Wild Card. That is, no ideas yet on what I should write, We will see.