Crime – A series of interviews with people who have experience with Crime and how  it is so so real for some people. Fascinating read! Author Link

James Cameron & Avatar – Changing Cinema as we know it.

ORIGINALLY WRITTEN FOR AND PUBLISHED AT PASSIONFORCINEMA.COM

Chanda: It’s good to talk when in Pain.

Dev: What do you know about pain?

The arrogance that is inclusive in all souls battered because of boredom and heightened state of desires manifests in this one form  – PAIN. And the idea that pain is only caused to a chosen few and that the person who understands other’s pain is but a jerk. And what  a jerk Dev is,,, throwing all that is dear to him, all that has loved him, possessed him, butchering all souls who cared to wiff at his pathetic existence to see the kid that wants to candy and is ready to move the mountains for it.

Dev’s story is what I took away from this film, yeah yeah the women, yeah their desires and their prerogatives but cliché’s be dammed, here is the story of the guy that resides in all, just that we all hide it under layers of cushy materialistic baubles that are made objective by societal morals! I love Dev, his existence, his way to sustenance, his eternal lust for love but not knowing what to do with it, his caricature reduced to pity in the eyes of the few that standby and take solace that they are not him and his failure to see till the very end that life has a twisted way to give you everything to just take it away and that’s when it dawns – yeah you don’t need all that.

It pours when it thunders and rains and emotions pour down in the film shrouded less in heady monologues than in soulful background ballads that shout out the emoticons in pentameters… ohh what a soul shouting “Dammed happiness” – but ye olde fool – you have no fucking clue what to do with happiness cos you are not wired for such feelings… all you know is to consume and get consumed,,, to lit the pyre and then jump in, to bend the stick and then collide with it. Why the thrice you ask, cos when you are hit thrice, the numbness just befriends you and that ends all the suffering and sweet pain becomes the elixir. Crap? Yeah… then go tripping!

I loved the film, the 2^nd half especially… with no jokes, no intrepid references, no raunchy women… just rowdy existence waiting to self destruct. Dev has the ballz to do it, we don’t – atleast I didn’t. What you are is not when what you become or shine in the world… what you are is what you think and do in times of absolute charring of heart and mind… Dev was charred… once, by a help – by a worthless 2 piece penny that dreamt to snide the queen – he let go of his world then and it took him a long time to become sane again but how the trip is, how the life becomes when you kick away the love is painted in layers. And no one has done it so well in ages like Anurag did. Yes my friend, your genius has come to the forefront… savor it like no other day cos peace is within reach.

Anurag – all the times I heard you regale tales of fiction and passion alike, I stood calm and quiet to make sense. Your pain and angst that we thought we shared through this platform is but a tip of shadow to what I see through Dev and his destruction. Yes you are artist and your art of con is what it is all about (the films I mean) but this time I am drunk in your mastery of art and form that has paraded before my eyes in a giant wave that I never connected to with the voice and words. I am distraught at how easily you did this work in 7hrs (per vasan) and struggle that I will to comprehend the talent that it takes but for now, peace out dear friend. I think you have made the mark with this one and it will be alright from now. The haze will clear and you have’d overcome – drink it up one last time as like Dev did – “Bach gaye yeah zindagi mein ab”!

 

 

Listen to the songs here

A week into listening and its still on the repeat. This is why I like AK.

ORIGINALLY WRITTEN FOR AND PUBLISHED AT PASSIONFORCINEMA.COM

Passion, Pain and Loneliness – that’s the order that a man is driven when dedicating a life to an Endeavour. A passion grips you when you are young, when you are able and when you can conquer the world. Pain hits you when you realize it’s all but a gift that is cruelly snatched away from you time and again when the body & mind start slipping. And loneliness hits you when you are left with bitterness about your life’s work… when the best that you have done is all but a piece of paper or a sporadic haze of recognition on someone’s face. It’s sad, but it’s the truth. 

The Wrestler is a movie, true to its hype, comes along once in a while. It’s a movie that has a heart and a soul that shadows a pro-chap wrestler who is trying to regain his life by getting into the ring to do what he is born for – wrestle. Hell-O-Yeah, the body slams and the make believe top rope jumps, they are all there. What is also there in the film is what it takes to do those stunts. What is there is what really happens in the back-room of wrestling arenas. What is there is the pain, the agony that takes to perform what is commonly dismissed as a manufactured sport. What you see in the movie are the humans behind the devils in the spotlight. 

Almost 3 yrs since The Fountain which for some was a let down, Darren comes back strong with this one. Some will walk out of this film touched by Mickey Rouke’s performance and for those who know him; you will be TOUCHED by the way he probably portrayed his own self on the screen. Randy “The RAM” Robinson was once a great wrestler, heck, he still is. Only difference is there is a life that he leads too and that ain’t all the velvety.

 

Mickey Rourke’s acting is the one thing that for once surpasses even Aronofsky’s’ vision. It’s his film, it’s his body, and it’s his pain that carries the film to connecting with viewers at a very personal level. What Mickey has done to himself all through the film is nothing short of absolute brutality and submission to the character of a wrestler and for that, he is my choice for this years top honors. True, it may not be his true acting poweress that carries the film, but what he has achieved by putting the character first is nothing short of brilliant. 

If the movie’s half job was achieved by Mickey, the other half was done by Darren’s amazing sense of locations and setting. It’s New Jersey, the hard New Jersey. Run down towns, cheap strip bars, low-level wrestling pits, community deli’s. A setting that fits the kind of profession that is chose by men living in such hard-places. I lived in a town like that once – gangs, discount stores and gambling dens – retrospectively, I began to think how I survived then. It’s tough in those places and movies in such setting’s really hit you – hit you hard. 

Technically speaking, the film hides the effort in that department very effectively. I think I did not see even one stead shot and most of the fights had close-up’s that are technically so difficult to shoot. Clint Mansell does not disappoint especially during the Mickey’s constant battle to cheer himself up during tough times. There is this one scene where Mickey and Marisa Tomasi (Mickey’s stripper confidante) talk about golden 80’s and yucky 90’s. The close-up’s make all the difference. 

All in all, The Wrestler is a movie that will over time attain the cult status like most fighter movies. But it’s a relief to see Aronofsky coming out of his comfort zone and making the most brutally honest film of the year; a year that had an overdose of extremely hyper-imaginative films. This will be loved over time till it attains its well deserved cult status. Hopefully it will be sooner. But a watch if you want to see the real and the fake side of rings in which battles however fake, still break the minds and the bodies of those who choose to duel and test their boundaries of their Passion, Pain and Loneliness.  

 

Trailer Link