Thought Overflow

As of the moment of my writing this, Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol enjoys a 7.9 rating on IMDB. Needless to say, I was excited about it, particularly bearing in mind the low standards set by its prequels, particularly the absolutely brainless M:i-2.

Ghost Protocol is simpler. It’s got a very linear storyline involving nuclear missiles (which big action movie hasn’t involved nukes lately, eh?). So obviously our secret agents have to save the world, and they do. Unlike the original Mission: Impossible, which had an interesting story to go along with that wonderful scene in the computer room, Ghost Protocol is all about slick special effects. The special effects, cinematography and the action sequences in general are really good, though.

Tom Cruise is too old to be playing these roles. He looks old, man; even the make-up cannot help. If they ever decide to another Mission: Impossible movie, I reckon he should look to pass on the baton. It’s painful to watch him do those stunts. In every action sequence, my subconscious was asking me exactly how much trouble and pain he would have had to go through to carry them out.

And a bit about Anil Kapoor. DEAR GOD! What in the name of crap was he thinking when he agreed to that role? He played the most ridiculous character and he was far too embarrassing to be funny. He couldn’t deliver his lines properly, he played to the tune of the stereotypical Indian rich brat. In fact, even that’s false. No rich spoilt millionaire, Indian or not, would act like a complete idiot the way he did. In an otherwise serious and completely watchable movie, Anil Kapoor descends with sheer stupidity like a blanket of blackness, spoiling the experience so completely.

Bottom line: Ghost Protocol is a simple, straight-forward, no-apologies action movie which is not really dumb, but doesn’t particularly require you to exercise your brain too much either. Apart from the annoyance of the minor character of Anil Kapoor, the rest of the actors do a good job. Everything has a quiet, functional reason to be there, and while Hollywood requires the suspension of disbelief, Ghost Protocol doesn’t overdo it the way the ridiculous M:i-2 did.

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I believe in God, but I also believe in the really old saying—”God helps those who help themselves”. A lot of times, I like to leave things to the Big Man (or Woman) up above, for things to happen as they will, because my world-view is that life is unpredictable, and life is a bitch. But let’s just chalk it down to the cynic in me.

Anyway, this post is about that line that separates “Leave it to God and hope for the best” and “If you don’t try to make things happen, they never will”. I’ve been on the proactive side of something for the last few days, and I think I’m inching closer and closer across the border to the other side. I’ll let you know how it goes (not).

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Years ago, Notepad was my favourite programme on Windows. I loved it. It was simple, and I loved how I could focus on the letters appearing before me in the monospaced, predictable manner as I typed them. I loved our old keyboard. It was gentle, and the keys made a very satisfying “tick-tack” when pressed.

It was easier to write blog posts then because on that great expanse of white, there were no distractions. I’m older (and wiser?) and more experienced now, with a lot many more posts behind me. Now, it feels like every second post I’m about to write has already been written. Or that I’ve grown out of it. It’s tragic, really, in a way. But it’s also a good thing because maybe it shows I’m moving forwards. It’s like yet another depiction of the fact that life is changing (or well, it has), and I’m accepting the change by changing too. I’m not a kid anymore (that’s a lie … I so totally am still a kid … at least I hope I am!).

So today, for the first time in a long time, I’m typing this post on Notepad, without spelling check or grammar or the neat fonts and colours and formatting. It’s primitive, but strangely, it doesn’t really feel too strange. Now all that’s missing is freedom of thought.

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Happy Feet was a delightful, charming tale of an adorable little penguin that’s different from the others. It’s heart-warming and I felt empathetically connected to the characters. It had a decent story (which did wander off aimlessly a bit in the second half), but there were plenty of good moments. Robin Williams’ comic relief was splendid, and the voice-acting was top-notch. Even the musical sequences were good. Overall, a good experience then.

Its sequel, unfortunately, is nothing like it. This is a terrible movie and a terrible waste of time. There is a hint of a storyline, but you really struggle to find out which one it is. There are a couple of new interesting characters, but they don’t quite work. The sub-lot involving the krill is interesting, but if it was intended to be funny, it backfired. The genuinely funny moments are few and far between, and Robin Williams’ Mexican/Spanish penguin character gets wasted here.

The krill sub-plot is interesting, but rarely funny.

To put it briefly, this is a music for kids. It’s all about light and colour. There is no story, nothing to hold the interest of anyone above 12 years of age (and even in that number, I’m being rather lenient). Don’t watch this movie. It’s a huge let-down.

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Luis Suarez gets charged by an official body for using racist language against Patrice Evra. Gus Poyet, manager of Brighton, calls Evra a “cry baby”. Really? A guy stands up against racism and this is what he gets? Poyet, you muppet!

Sepp Blatter thinks racist insults during a game should be forgotten at the end of the game–the referee should make them shake hands and forget it because things happen in the heat of the game. What a load of crap. Thankfully, he’s been roundly and deservedly criticised, and has finally apologised.

Why am I posting this here?

• Too big for a Facebook status
• This is my blog, my opinion
• Because it’s an opinion I choose to express.

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This is a movie made up of a series of bad clichés one after the other—predictable, dull and annoying. My roommate tells me this movie’s budget was a whopping $200m, but what’s really astounding is that it generated revenues to the tune of $219m—holy cow, how many dumbass people paid money to watch this movie?

Anyway, back to clichés:

• The hero is irresponsible and an utter loser. He is supposedly an excellent fighter pilot. How in the world did a grade A loser ever become a fighter pilot? Seriously? And unlike Peter Parker, he is ripped even before he gets blessed with the magical powers of the ring of light (or whatever it’s called). Completely inconsistent character there.
• The villain too is a loser. I’m not kidding. I hereby propose this image to be the new Green Lantern logo:

L for Lantern, L for Loser

• There’s a girl and a best friend, and the amount of value they add to the plot is equal to the amount of brains you have if you enjoyed this movie.
• The plot is insanely predictable. Here, let me sum it up for you: Loser gets “chosen”. Loser gets the crap kicked out of him by other Green Lanterns. Loser saves hot girlfriend. Girlfriend dumps loser for being a loser. Loser gets epiphany. Loser defeats alien which has been devouring other planets whole. Loser becomes responsible grown up. Everyone goes home happy. Except the audience.

There’s actually a hell of a lot of potential in this movie. The powers of the Green Lantern ring give rise to so many possibilities. Think about it—a ring that lets you materialise anything you can think of, out of pure energy. What was required to harness that potential is probably a gutsy, intelligent scriptwriter, and a director with vision.

Instead, we get a film tailored to make money, following every letter of the tried and tested formula. The hero is your average everyday loser, so that the audience can identify with him (but even this goes wrong because he’s an awesome fighter pilot and lives in a very swanky, huge apartment…oh, also he’s got a body carved like Michelangelo worked on it). And because everyone wants a hot girlfriend, he automatically gets one, though it’s never quite explained how or even WHY she’s in love with him. Hero’s faced a personal tragedy (dad was a pilot who died in a crash in front of the son’s eyes), but this fact is never used for the rest of the movie. Hero has to be rejected by his love before he becomes a serious superhero. Hero is an underdog because humans are supposedly too weak to be Green Lanterns. And yet, this puny unimportant human being defeats the greatest evil force in the world. YAY FOR US HUMANS! Yet another film that projects us as the greatest life forms in the universe! HURRAH!

There’s so much wrong with this movie that I don’t even know how much of it to write about. Paper-thin, predictable and insultingly simple plot. Underdeveloped characters. Lack of imagination. You’re better off spending that time reading my blog…seriously.

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There was once a boy who sang very well. His was gifted with the ability to hold on to a tune like a train holds on to its rails. His voice was like petrichor—like the smell of approaching rain, his young voice signalled a time in the not too distant future when his fully developed throat would produce a voice like velvet.

But the boy knew he wasn’t as gifted as others perceived. He knew he had to learn other trades. He started going into the forest with the others, learning how to chop trees and sell wood. He earned a little money and bought himself some toys. They were reward for working so hard, for enduring cuts and bruises and constant back-aches. Yet, he carried on, growing better and better, earning more and more, until one day, he bought himself his own cycle, just for fun.

On a typical day, he’d trudge into the forest with the others early in the morning. After working hard all day, he’d return home late in the evening, freshen up and go riding on his cycle. He soon made friends with other boys in other parts of the small town, and then a couple of girlfriends too, who taught him how to do more things with his lips than just sing.

And life went on.

One fine day, it rained too heavily. Many parts of the town got flooded with water, and everyone was advised to stay indoors. The boy was no longer a boy but a hardened man now. His hands were rough, and his face was smoothened by years of winter wind blowing against it. With nothing else to do, he made himself some tea and sat by the window, tapping his foot absentmindedly against the chair’s leg.

Suddenly he realised the tapping was rhythmic. A simple tap-tap-tap, tap-tap. What a strange thing. But the rhythm began to fill him up, from toe to head, until he found himself nodding his head as soundless music welled up inside him. Suddenly, he had the urge to sing, something he hadn’t done in years. He hummed the forgotten lyrics of the verse until he reached the chorus, and when he opened his mouth to sing—

He spat out his tea.

He tried again, and then he threw away his cup, staring at it as if it were filled with poison.

Yet he tried again to force words out of his mouth in a melodious manner, but all that came out of him was an untamed voice, wildly out of tune, uncouth. He sputtered and fell to his knees, clutching his throat desperately.

But it was in vain. The music had drained out of him, gone like the trees he had cut away. The demons of neglect had stolen his gift from him.

I am that boy. I am he, at that stage of my life when the writing is going out of me. All I think about is work, my salary and Football Manager. I am losing touch, losing my magic. I have not been inspired to write for the longest time, and I am afraid it’s slipping away from me. I look back on it now—writing used to give me satisfaction every time I wrote something awesome. Now, that source of satisfaction and happiness has gone missing. Writing a blog post is one thing, but writing something romantic (for lack of a better word) is almost therapeutic. Where has my imagination gone? I hope, having locked it away for so long, I have not lost its key. Then why, something inside me screams, am I not writing? Why am I not getting ideas about what to write? Why am I not randomly typing away on an empty Notepad or Word document, to find at the end that it’s beautiful and brutally honest? I WANT TO WRITE! A story, a shamelessly amateur poem, anything at all! A random literary stream of consciousness that could mean anything to anyone reading it, and something entirely different to me, because I created it and only I know what I meant.

What strikes me hurtfully is how much I’ve sold myself out. Whenever I write a blog post, I’m concerned about the fact that it will appear on Facebook, it might attract readership and comments. If my writing is a bit of my soul baring itself to me, I’m putting it up for display to the world. Am I ok with that?

This is not the first time I’ve written about writing something under the watchful eyes of the Invisible Audience—hah, I think of it now…the number of times I’ve written praise for it. Yet, I contradict myself…my audience is not invisible. It’s made up of people I know, people I studied with—colleagues and potential colleagues, bosses and potential clients. We’re all judged by everyone else every minute of every day. But come to think of it…instead of that fact becoming a point of worry, shouldn’t it raise a question, i.e. why bother? How many of these people mean anything to you anyway?

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(This post is Part 2 of this post)

I suppose I should have taken it as a sign that I had to actually consciously build up excitement before the show. Before the Iron Maiden concert (and yes, I will compare Metallica 2011 with Iron Maiden 2007 throughout the post), TB and I were literally buzzing. Maybe there’s a certain romance of being young ones about to witness India’s first ever true rock/metal concert. Whatever.

It rained in the morning as I drove up to Indiranagar. I didn’t care. In fact, I found it exciting. A rain-soaked concert! HELL YEAH! Except that that became a bit of a problem, as you’ll find out.

Getting to the venue wasn’t a problem—we had hired radio cabs. Getting in wasn’t a major problem either—it was fairly well-managed. The ground, though, was slushy and slippery. And for some reason, our group pushed forward, which made zilch sense to me. What was the point of getting forward a few steps? There were bodies in front of us…we couldn’t see the stage clearly anyway (well, I couldn’t—height disadvantage). And there were thousands of dim-witted idiots trying to do pretty much the same thing—take a couple of steps forward, squeeze through to try and reach the coveted barrier…not that many of them had any major success.

We got in at 4 or so. The opening acts bored us. Biffy Clyro, otherwise a good band but a bad selection to open for heavy metal Metallica, took ages to set up. But a major annoyance was how long it took for Metallica to start performing. For more than an hour, the crowd just waited, soundcheck completed, for the Gods to get on the stage. Humbug.

What about the actual concert, then? The performance?

Disappointing…seriously. Compared to Maiden, Metallica’s stage presence is amateurish. They did have pyrotechnics and…nothing else. No stage design. No artistry. Just a giant screen at the back showing the band performing. Bruce Dickinson is like a monkey on drugs on the stage. He set the place alight. Hetfield…not so much. “Metallica loves you India” can only get so much applause and cheers, man. Show some enthu!

James Hetfielf (doesn't Lars on the giant screen at the back look like someone's squeezing his sensitive parts when he plays the drums?)

Maiden must also be credited for travelling with all their original equipment. Metallica used some shitty local sound system, which was so bad! It’s hard to imagine Metallica could sound like that. What a waste. For the first half of the concert, when I was in the midst of the crowd, all I could hear was the crowd yelling. Maiden DROWNED OUT the crowd, man. And then, after I went for a cool drink and a less crowded place, all I could hear was the music, no crowd at all.

Oh, and because it rained while we waited for them to start playing, the entire ground was now just layers upon layers of mud, so when I stepped out of the crowd and towards the cool drink stand, my shoes were caked with mud. So were my jeans…right up to my knees!

After the show, there were approximately 30,000 on the road, and far from enough public transport to carry them all. We walked for a couple of kilometres, backs aching from standing and jumping for so long, and then overpaid an auto to bring us home.

All in all, what a waste. I paid roughly twice the amount I paid for Iron Maiden and got roughly half as good an experience. Poor sound, poor stage presence, poor crowd, poor conditions. As TB remarked after the show, if future concerts are like this, it’s much better to plug in earphones and listen to the CD.

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(Read Part 2 of this post)

Back in early 2007, when I was going through the motions of 2^nd year of engineering, a good friend (Aditya TB) found out that Iron Maiden was planning to perform in India. But you bet your life I was excited. A real rock show. I wanted to go. We all wanted to go. When we started planning, we had at least 4 people who wanted to go for sure. Yeah.

Poster for Eddfest (Iron Maiden Live), Bangalore - March 2007

Then, people started dropping out. TB and I were still interested though. As soon as we could book tickets online, I tried it. Then, when we heard that tickets were available at Music World stores, I went and stood in line, refusing to budge until I got tickets, which I did. Yes!

Once we got the tickets, I started cramming. I wasn’t big into Maiden at the time (I was more obsessed with Tool at the time, if I remember right), so I had to listen to all the potential songs they’d play. At that time, for me, Metallica were on a (much) higher pedestal than Maiden in the corridors of heavy metal music. I distinctly remember saying at the time—“If Metallica ever come to India, I’ll go see the show, no matter what.”

Well, guess what. Four and a half years later…Bangalore, 30 October 2011, at the Palace Grounds (same place as the Maiden concert).

Poster for Rock N' India (Metallica Live at Bangalore)

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Holy cow! A whole month since my last post. What a joke, haha! I remember how many posts I’ve written about being more regular with my blogging, and how many of those posts have come after extended periods of inactivity, just like this one. So, let’s just be honest.

I’m not going to be more regular with my posts. Let’s face it. I’m only going to write when I feel like it. Writing is enjoyable for me. Let’s not make it anything other than that.

On the other hand, I need to build commitment. Even in small things like this? Does commitment to writing a number of posts a month (weekly, bi-weekly, whatever) reflect in my general level of commitment to other things in life which conventionally would be more “important”? Hehe. How fun life is, isn’t it, when you make these little connections, read between the lines, draw a line between two distant dots thinking they were meant to be connected?

Here are the lyrics to Metallica’s “Where the Wild Things Are”:

So wake up sleepy one
It’s time to save your world

Steal dreams and give to you
Shoplift a thought or two
All children touch the sun
Burn fingers one by one
By one

Will this earth be good to you?
Keep you clean or stain through?

So wake up sleepy one
It’s time to save your world
You’re where the wild things are
Yeah, toy soldiers off to war

Big eyes to open soon
Believing all under sun and moon
But does heaven know you’re here?
And did they give you smiles or tears
No, no tears

Will this earth be good to you?
Keep you clean or stain through?

So wake up sleepy one
It’s time to save your world
You’re where the wild things are
Yeah, toy soldiers off to war

You swing your rattle down
(Hand puppets storm the base
Flags up now cannons rage
Hand puppets storm the base)
Call to arms the trumpets sound
(Flags up now cannons rage
All clowns head for the rear
Slingshots fire to the air
All clowns head for the rear)
Toy horses start the charge
(Slingshots fire to the air
Slip into the edge of death
Crossfire to the marionettes)
Robot chessmen standing guard
(Slip into the edge of death
Crossfire to the marionettes)
(all together)
We shall never surrender

All you children touch the sun
Burn your fingers one by one
Will this earth be good to you?
Keep you clean or stain through?

So wake up sleepy one
It’s time to save your world
You’re where the wild things are
Now, toy soldiers off to war
Off to war
Off to war….

So close your little eyes

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