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June 19, 2005

Identifying yourself with films !! – Spielberg

[Pic – News Week]

Question – It’s been 30 years since “Jaws.” You’ve achieved every measure of success. What keeps driving you to make movies?

Spielberg – I’ve often asked myself that question, and my answer comes back the same way every time: I love it. Being a moviemaker means you get to live many, many lifetimes. It’s the same reason audiences go to movies, I think. When my daughter Sasha was 5 years old, we would be watching something on TV and she’d point to a character on screen and say, “Daddy, that’s me.” Ten minutes later a new character would come on screen and she’d say, “No, Daddy. That’s me.” Throughout the movie she would pick different people to become. I think that’s what we all do. We just don’t say it as sweetly.

Seems like a Deja vu. I’ve posted Steve’s view of filmmaking, before. This time its reasoning out the filmwatching experience in the interview to Newsweek.

This is Steven Spielberg‘s honeymoon with the media. Just when his movie’s post-production is all done and he is waiting for the verdict, he loves to talk to the media. A little hype, for his latest film, may be behind these interviews but what comes out are some amazing quotable quotes.
June 19, 2005

Redefining houseful !!

Nope this is not about Parthiban’s Houseful. That was a gem. Outlook’s note on how multiplexes are re-defining the meaning of houseful, in this not-so-interesting article, is interesting.

Strangely, alongwith the outsourcing stuff, we are also inheriting the Hollywood’s way of movies in India. Bollywood with it’s wider audience, is obviously the first market to catch the trend of opening weekend box-office. The article lists numbers that clearly show how producers/directors are more interested to grab the eyeballs during the opening weekend rather than relying on repeat audience or deferred success.

The other pleasant/unpleasant is the audience segmentation. It’s a long awaited wish to have more movies made specifically for genres. For years, Indian cinema has been a one-stop-shop for all types of entertainment. It had a family drama, a steamy romance, a touching sentiment and moving saga. But as the example on the article quotes Kya Kool Hain Hum, a supposedly mega-hit of the year, wasn’t an all-in-one fare. It was targeted the youth and despite being a super-hit, the movie only reached it’s targeted audience. Such segmentation is certainly a welcoming move but it’s harmful too. Too many movies for the urban youth will just endup as a saturated market, after a year. Just like what happened during the late 90’s in kollywood. With Agathiyan’s Kaathal Kottai, innumerable movies of were produced as variances of the movie only to tire the audience after a year.

From the article, Housefull! (But… Kitne Aadmi Thhe?)

In a nutshell, there are far more avenues to catch a film and that has led to a concomitant reduction in crowds at any one theatre. The same number of people can now view a film in a week as would have earlier in a month. No wonder, most films are making money in the very first week itself, at times just the first weekend is enough to recover the cost of a film. “What a film makes in 15 days today is as good as what it used to make in 15 weeks earlier. The duration of the a film’s run may have declined but the collections have risen,” claims Mehta.
June 19, 2005

Blogs made a headstart over

Blogs made a headstart over main stream media because of the personal voice they had in every single blogpost. In the process of getting wider audience and millions jumping into the blogging badnwagon, if they end up being badly written, poorly gestated trashes of email driven culture, someone has to take note of such blogs and vrooooomm !!

– Thumbi, the MP(D) of lazygeek
June 17, 2005

Matrubhoomi – A social sci-fi

[Pic – Frontline]

Reading this quasi-review Matrubhoomi directed by Manish Jha, I’m pushed to look out for the availability of the film in video stores around me. While most science fictions deal with gizmos and fanatasy stuff, here’s a sci-fi with a social sense.

From what’s been written, the movie could also end up as yet another message movie. It’s the premise of the movie excites me for this is what is expected from our folks at woods of India. Also the note that Jha, the director of this movie had already won a Prix du jury at Cannes his feature, for A Very Very Silent Film, makes me have high regard on his abilities as a director.

From Frontline –

Futuristic films are supposed to be an escape into fantasy, even if they do make passing or pointed references to current attitudes and cultural fashions. They are usually not grounded in current social reality – a reality rooted in centuries of accumulated prejudice and burdens of history. Jha’s film is more a doomsday warning – of the approaching apocalypse of moral collapse and sexual depravity caused by selective decimation of women – than a futuristic sci-fi scenario. The film describes the nightmare of what happens to a society that systematically kills girls – after they are born, if they have not been finished off in the womb itself. Our past foretells the future. The past Jha resurrects is from the Mahabharata, of a Draupadi married to five brothers – in this case, not out of the choice of a swayamvar but because there is a dearth of brides in a sex-starved patriarchy. Will this enhance the value of women and the girl child? So the proponents of sex-determination tests would have you believe, as they try to offer a sociological rationale for the morally indefensible practice of selective abortions.

His short A Very Very Silent Film (a pavement dweller is raped through the night by the many passers by till it is discovered to be a corpse the next morning) won the Prix du jury at Cannes in the year our media went gaga over Devdas (ignoring the quickly emptying halls) to the exclusion of everything else – including the arrival of a major new talent.
June 16, 2005

LMAO !!

In the case of new films, the ban would be subject only to some rare situations such as the treatment of historical personalities known to smoke, and period films. Also, it would be allowed as part of social messaging against smoking itself. As for old films, due to technical difficulties, it was agreed that instead of a prominent scroll containing a health warning accompanying smoking/tobacco-using scenes, theatre owners would have to show warning slides.

What else to say of this. I remember a short story which a friend of mine shouted over my shoulder while biking on GST. A greedy disciple wants a boon from his guru while leaving for his hometown, after schooling. The guru understanding the covetousness of his disciple, plans to whack him smoothly. As the disciple asks,” I need a magical power that would give me whatever, when I think of it”. The guru says,” Given. But whenever you are using the power, you shouldn’t think of a monkey”. The disciple thinks,” I need a ton of gold and yeah !! I am not going to think of a monkey”. Whacked !!

Similarly during a smoking scene in the movie, if they are showing the scroll, Cigarette smoking is injurious to health, our friend would get reminded of the single cigarette left in his pocket an walk out of the movie hall, to smoke. Aren’t you LYAO ??

Identifying yourself with films !! – Spielberg

Redefining houseful !!

Blogs made a headstart over

Matrubhoomi – A social sci-fi

LMAO !!