Let me welcome year 2009 with dreams of better life for all of us. It’s not unusual that whenever a year ends, we are reminded of some unfulfilled dreams and some unaccomplished promises, promises which we made to ourselves at the beginning of that year. But, I think that’s normal. The important thing is to keep making promises to ourselves every year and not stop dreaming. I wish you all a very happy and a fulfilling 2009.
My latest obsession with saving dough has made sure that my new year celebrations are going to be pretty modest this time. But, for all of you who might be partying really hard: Please dont drink too much; we need you in 2009!
Here comes the second part of my A to Z films meme. I have picked only one film from a particular letter; except P and S, where I picked two films each in lieu of letters Q and U respectively (I couldn’t come up with a single film from these two letters which I thought was very good). Thanks to all you guys who have done the meme and am looking forward to the ones who are yet to do it. I repeat once again that when you write few lines about the movie, try to write what made you personally like the film so much rather than writing the synopsis of the story (which we can anyways read ourselves).
Alfred Hitchcock’s bit less known but nevertheless perfect suspense drama. I think Notorious had exceptionally pure story line. In the sense that maximum effect comes from minimum of elements. Notorious is considered one of the best examples of suspense in cinema history, and I cannot agree more. Ingrid Bergman looked so beautiful and angelic. Where are those beauties now?
I got this interesting film meme from Chris. What’s interesting about this meme is that rather than choosing your top 10, 20, 50 etc films of all time, which is always an impossible thing to do for many of us, it asks you to list an alphabetical list of your favorite films, one for each letter of the alphabet. Yes, it’s still challenging because it could happen that your many favorite films start from the same alphabet (as it happened with me), but still easier and fun to do than trying to list best films. I have also written few lines after every film (except two), where I tried to sum up those things which I thought made me like the film so much. I did a bit of a cheating by listing two films starting from G, rather than one, as I could not come up with a really cool film starting from H. I tag all currently active bloggers on my blogroll, Amit, Anamika, Canadiancinephile, Nova, Nomad, Nita, Poonam, Prerna, Reema, Roop, Ruhi and Shefaly, to do this meme. All other readers of this blog are also more than welcome to do this tag. If you can, please write down few sentences or even few words explaining what made a particular film favorite for you..I think it will really richen your meme. Otherwise, just listing the films is also fine. I finished the listing till M today, remaining I will do later. You guys can also do in parts if you like.
Jim Jarmusch is one of the most successfull independent filmmakers of Hollywood. Jarmusch’s first major film, Stranger Than Paradise, was released in 1984 to much critical acclaim. The film broke many conventions of traditional Hollywood movie-making, and is still considered a landmark work in modern independent film. Jim Jarmusch’s films, quite a few times, are compilation of different short films within a film; all stories binded by a common theme. Coffee and Cigarattes and Night on Earth fall under this category. I particularly liked ‘Coffee and Cigarettes’ for it’s multi-layered stories which, in a very strange funny way, tell us a lot about human nature. But, the humor here is not direct or instant laugh types…it stays with you for long. The common theme in these eleven different shorts/stories is different actors talking over coffee and cigarettes.
My favorite among the segments is Cousins, starring the actors Alfred Molina and Steve Coogan, both playing themselves in this short. Molina has asked for the meeting. Coogan is not sure why and grows more condescending as, the polite and perhaps less successful of the two, Molina explains the reason. Almost till the end, Molina is at the receiving end of Coogan’s snobbery, and then, the tables are turned around. Right from the start till the end, this short film is simply hilarious. The original length of this short is bit longer than the video below, so let me explain the story till the point where this video starts:
I’m extremely worried; I dread a full blown conflict between India and Pakistan after what happened last week. No guys, I’m not being paranoid here. This wasn’t a regular terrorist attack or some random bomb blasts which will be forgotten easily this time. The carnage is weighing heavily on millions of Indians across the world. People in India no longer feel safe; ‘anything can happen anywhere now’ is the common sentiment among people there. Though I admire our commandos, who continuously fought for 50+ hours with terrorists, experts believe that in the final count India’s response to the attacks was much delayed, amateurish and a systematic failure. (Please read this article)
Now, if India can provide concrete evidence to Pakistan and, more importantly, to the International community (including UN security council) that Mumbai terrorists had base in Pakistan (even if Pak govt or the ISI was not involved directly), I see no reason why India cannot take Pakistan to task this time. I mean the whole world witnessed in horror what happened and most of them are as eager as us to punish the culprits.
