Guess who got quoted?

Me!

At least now, the category looks right.

Twenty20 and NYT

This NYT article identifies Sreesanth as a batsman, which he isn't, but the most impressive thing about the story is that it appeared, along with a photograph, on the New York Times homepage, a day after India lifted the Twenty20 World Cup. In all the years of reading NYT, I have rarely seen a story that can make an Indian proud. This one certainly did!

B. Rangan gushes about NOT meeting AB

B. Rangan winning the National award for Best Film Critic has been an inspiration. Hear from him.

He-She

Prabhu used to be on Chennai Metblogs. He is funnier in person than on his blog. He-She no longer makes me chuckle the way it used to, but I think you should read it at least once if you haven't yet.

Nam Nadu review

Review of the movie, Nam Nadu, starring Sarath Kumar and Nasser is here.

More reviews that appeared in Rediff are here and here.

Some shots

More photos here.

Photo via New Yorker.

No more Times Select

The New York Times is scrapping Times Select. Now, a part of the NYT that used to be paid for will be made free. Link.

UK's top 50 designers

I know nothing about the subject. But the link makes an interesting read.

Sethu project

Another article in Metblogs. Again on Sethu project. Link is here.

I link to myself

I wrote about the fear that terrorists cause among us and on a protest in Chennai against the destruction of the so-called Sethu bridge. Both those posts are at Chennai Metblogs.

Two film reviews are at Rediff. Seena Thaana 001, which is bad, and Satham Podathey, which is good.

Girlspeak and Manhood

For guys, only. Here.

This is a little more original, and funnier.

Link via Deepti.

I recommend

David Lynch, ever the enigmatic director, has a great website. You might need broadband.
Go explore.


Friend Sanjeev has updated his blog. This is at least in part about the controversial helmet rule. Go there.

Sexism

I have a new post at Chennai Metblogs. It's about a party that went nasty at the house of a call centre employee. I am inviting the wrath of commentators, who mostly seem pretty sexist themselves. Join in the fun. Click here.

Two movie blogs

Here and here.

Happiness

A man and a woman lie on a white bed.
It is morning. I think
Soon they will waken.
On the bedside table is a vase
of lilies; sunlight
pools in their throats.
I watch him turn to her
as though to speak her name
but silently, deep in her mouth--
At the window ledge,
once, twice,
a bird calls.
And then she stirs; her body
fills with his breath.

I open my eyes; you are watching me.
Almost over this room
the sun is gliding.
Look at your face, you say,
holding your own close to me
to make a mirror.
How calm you are. And the burning wheel
passes gently over us.

Poem by Louise Gluck from here, via Lavanya.

1,000 movies to see before you die

Guardian picks the 1,000 movies you have to see before you die. Bookmark the link. Might make for a lifetime of happy viewing. (They are just starting out, so keep going back.)

New Yorker

I am stunned at the revamp New Yorker has undergone. I don't know when they did it. But this is fantastic. You got to go there. Now. There's a Summer Fiction special issue waiting for you too!

(The cover in pic is obviously old).

RTFF, the second edition

On Saturday night, I attended the second edition of the Roof Top Film Festival. After lounging around all day, making pointless and lengthy phone calls, I finally moved my butt to Sid's place in Mandaveli, which has a great rooftop, where the festival is held. Sid is one of those perfect host types, discreet and genuinely hospitable.

A quick guide to the festival for dummies: RTTF is an all-night festival of films held on a roof top. The march version of RTTF being a success, the second edition was held on the day of the cricket World Cup finals, April 28. Details of the movies shown are here.

What's right with the festival:

Enthusiasm of the participants. Even when a boring, pretentious movie like Elephant was shown, about 10 people survived. A few even wanted to discuss the movie, despite Kiruba's threat that he will throw me off the roof for choosing the film. I was ethu, in case you are wondering, because of the similarity of the film's story with the Virginia tech massacre. Great roof. We seem unable to move the event to another roof. Sid's is so good. Discussions. I love them. I learned that I like to show off too, like everyone else. I flatter myself that I am subtle about it.

There are a good many other things that come to the mind that is great about the festival like its lack of stuffiness. But let's get to the points that we may have to correct the next time around.

Organise it better. Start at 9 pm and end at 4.30 am. Show only three features. The rest should be shorts. Even show old ad films. Download films from U-tube you find interesting. A sequence of Rajnikanth dancing to Rock can lift the spirits of the audience and make them ready for the cruelly boring, but rewarding films. Show films that are not seen widely. Stick to the theme of the edition. Don't lean towards cult films. Strike a balance between the classic and the timeless and the contemporary. Invite more people to come and participate. Even if they are not part of the in-crowd. We could also host a veteran film critic for a day, who may stay, if he/she wants to, only for the first feature.

At the end, Syed called out for a theme for the next edition. No one volunteered. Half of them were sleeping. Some were watching the match. No bother, can we have a weekend of CGI movies? Syed seems to think Twister is a great choice. I watched this movie in Coimbatore with my cousin. There is a moment in which a cow caught in a twister flies past a jeep. Pure, unforgettable CGI moment. I still hear the cow moo in Dolby. Lately, CGI movies have taken a rap in Hollywood because it dishes out so many of them. I remember A Perfect Storm being very good, while I hated Day After Tomorrow.

Sagaro has written about discussion with the CNN-IBN reporter. I don't agree with him completely, especially when he credits BlogCamp as one of the reasons why Chennai is the blogging captial and when he says it became so due to the IT boom. I thought about the issue as I was driving home last night. I really don't have the foggiest idea why this city is the blogging capitial of India, if at it is. I really don't have the figures either - like say how many bloggers are there in Delhi and Mumbai as opposed to Chennai. But couple of contentions made seemed absurd. One is the link between the peninsula's history of never been invaded and blogging. What's that again? I kept blanking out each time this was discussed.

An even stranger thing happened. This reporter had called up and we had what she said was a detailed conversation about blogging. I arrived at RTTF without recalling this conversation and after she mentioned it, I realised she was right. Calls that you attend in the middle of your precious daylong sleep are that way bizarre, I guess. About four months ago, I had a fairly serious and almost career-deciding conversation with my editor. Didn't recall it when I arrived in office the same day. She was so angry.

And finally a reminder, those who took photos at RTTF please upload them on Flickr. I would like to add them. At the moment, there are some photos here, including of course, some of mine.

Two film festivals

There used to be film societies in Chennai. People used to gather and watch movies. They chatted about them, shared their views and fought over stuff they didn't agree. Now all that is gone. The Digital Video Disc pretty much killed the communal watching of films. Now, films that were once rare are no longer so. From Chabrol to Kurosawa, all movies are available in Chennai in DVD/VCD stores. Film festivals too have been common and are usually trashy or conventional.

But I still love film festivals. I haven't been to any major ones. Most of what I learned about films came off the Net and from watching on the DVD.

Now for people like me, there are two film festivals happening in Chennai.

The first is held by the Department of Communication at the Madras Christian College. It's called 24fps. This is standard fare and films are expected to be the "festival kind". Some of the hot shots of the film critic circuit would be there. So will be the students. Go here to register. The choices of films are expected to be conventional. At least that is what it sounds like. There is no complete list out yet on the Net, but my friend who spoke over the phone about this named a few Iranian films. I forget their names.
Date: March 14-17
Venue: M.M. Auditorium, Kodambakkam.

The second festival is more interesting. Sagaro was the one who told me about it. We are working on a list of films that will provoke the audience enough that they come back for more next year. This festival will take place on a rooftop in the city. We haven't got one yet, but we will. Date: Late March or April. This festival is called rtff. You can pitch in with anything in this festival: right from the choice of movies (use the wiki) to providing a rooftop. You have to bring your own everything: from the atmosphere your presence would create to the kind of food and snacks we eat.

Can you light petrol with a cigarette?

How many times have we seen petrol lit with a cigarette in the movies. It begins likes this: there is a running car which is leaking petrol. The hero, who has already ensured the leak, lights up a cigarette and waits with screwed up eyes till the car has almost gone out of the frame. Then with a stylish flick of his hand, he drops the cigarette to the ground. And then you get this close up: Of a cigarette turning in slow motion and falling on the black tarred road. It lights up a long line of fire leading up to the car, which is usually a white Ambassador in Indian movies, and bham: the whole thing goes up on fire. Usually the sound effects for the entire sequence is carefully composed to give us an impression of reality.

But scientists have now proved that this is impossible. Go here.

I can remember this happening in the Malayalam movie starring Mohan Lal, Vandanam, and the Mel Gibson-starrer Payback. How many more can you think of?