Best Kiss – Twilight {Romantic Fantasy film}

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Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart’s kiss

….a sense of anticipation, a sense of longing, a sense of hesitation, a sense of urgency driven by till-now suppressed passion…this kiss, forbidden one yet subtly intense, between Vampire and human, makes a kiss desirous…

I was told, repeatedly, by Shweta at work that the book is an indulgence for one’s imagination. I usually do not believe in Vampire-n-human’s magical journey into elevations of heart, but post watching the film, I find self now relentlessly hungry for ‘adult* romantic fantasy’ …* read woman! It may be termed as ‘meaningless’ by most, a grown up entertaining ‘fantasy based expeditions’, after having tasted life’s harsh realities. Well, I would beam, let’s not under-estimate the universe, the mother nature and all those secret dynamics of life that stay alive around us, which cant be gauged by ordinary & mundane eyes. There’s always a stream of hope, there’s always a desire to ’lift feet up, stretch on the couch, disconnect from the world and reach some other universe where earth’s rules no longer are valid’  

Twilight is a 2008 American romantic fantasy film directed by Catherine Hardwicke and based on the novel of the same name by Stephenie Meyer. The premise focuses on a teenage girl and a vampire who fall in love.

We will Miss You MJ

 

A legendary Performer who enjoyed immeasurably high universal appeal, i.e. cutting across the masses and the classes.., like a democratic world of mood-uplifting musical entertainment! Michael Jackson left a great legacy behind with his heartfelt music, which pulled most of us into its energizing spell {the most basic and sought after benefit that one seeks from music}, which was not demanding on the systems {not the kind for which one have to pull out those repulsive hats of intellectualism}…MJ’s legendary singles were integral a part of my teenage years, …’Break-dance’, ‘Thriller’, ‘Beat it’ and ‘Billy Jean’ became teen-anthems, something so exotic, which did not sound like the regular stuff that we were surrounded with. His ‘Liberian Girl’ lived on my lips when I was struggling with a huge crush in a feverish pace over my junior …Most of his performances [music videos] were ahead of their times and backed with uniquely rendered or articulated concepts….they were like mini-movies! tales of longing, tales of flirtatious expeditions in the streets – a few streaked with thrillers, jubiliant celebration of world culture, gang fights, The Taste of Americana to the rest of the world, Pepsi Generation across many countries….I am older now and had moved to more meaningful and soulful {soul-searching} music, but I still would love to go back to the MJ Phase in my life, when for the first time ever, like many teenagers, I tasted the Americana, I became a part of a bigger world out there about which I read a lot…then came the first MTV surge…MJ was the first music idol that we used to talk about while cycling down to the college, and of course, listening to his songs was one amongst those rebellious acts launched against our parents….perhaps, MJ music, then, was an accessible western music based indulgence for me, a young girl from a sleepy town, who was untouched by the impact of Urbanization  – a grown up kid-woman with not so grown up like attitude, blissful n content with something relatable n basic!

“With Michael, as with any superstar, reality and fantasy are totally confused,” says John Landis. “It’s very difficult to remain sane. I think he’s doing the right thing by cutting himself off from the press, because the press tends to write what it wants anyway. But I tell you, I really like him a lot. He’s very smart; he’s a very nice man.”….Cover story RollingStone

May his soul rest in eternal peace!

Do You Remember
When We Fell In Love
We Were Young
And Innocent Then
Do You Remember
How It All Began
It Just Seemed Like Heaven
So Why Did It End?

Do You Remember
Back In The Fall
We’d Be Together
All Day Long
Do You Remember
Us Holding Hands
In Each Other’s Eyes
We’d Stare
(Tell Me)

Do You Remember The Time
When We Fell In Love
Do You Remember The Time
When We First Met
Do You Remember The Time
When We Fell In Love
Do You Remember The Time

Waiting..for something to happen to me {Girl on the Bridge}

I see my future like a waiting room in a big train station with benches and drafts. Outside, hordes of people run by without seeing me. They’re all in a rush…taking trains and cabs…they have somewhere to go…someone to meet..and I sit there, waiting. For something to happen to me!

 

Lay’s Be a little DilLogical (India)

Maddening rat race of modern life is REAL. There’s no Escape. Each moment comes with a choice. EACH MOMENT IS LIKE “A GAME BETWEEN HEART AND HEAD”. Most times HEAD RULES OVER HEART.  What happens if you listen to your heart and let it win over your head for a change?   

Make things that matter to the heart happen!

We are not talking about those few big life-changing moments/decisions….but all those tiny unpredictable moments that come tucked in with everyday….

Loved every moment of this journey : Lay’s Repositioning Campaign by JWT India.  

Lay’s, a drool-worthy bag of irresistible tasting Potato Chips in subtle & sophisticated, exuberant flavours, still, continues to be the dominant favorite (Lovemark brand) in India, potent enough to put one in damn good and light-hearted moods. This Iconic brand felt the need to up/reinforce the appeal around its bags when certain parts of the country are slipping into this behavior of ‘counting no. of chips in a bag’. What do you truly appreciate - a few potato chips, carefully made with natural and healthier ingredients for that irresistible multi-sensorial journey / loaded experience or plenty of not so great tasting potato chips in the bag?

Be a little DilLogical – Make things that matter to the heart happen!

a different point of view! {link} 

Restricted Passion

 

{Painting : Vincent Van Gogh’s Starry Night over the Rhone}

Restricted / Controlled Unspoken passion with its angst-filled moments, lonely walks, sweet recalls lingering on lips, and a veil of unfathomable hopelessness suspended heavily over the horizon, stretched as far as one could see, is far truer than everyday mundane predictable passion available abundantly {Jyo}

Nadine Labaki’s Caramel

 

Nadine Labaki’s debut venture Caramel is an enchanting film about women in Lebanon.  Set in a beauty salon in Beirut, which becomes a space for love, to regain strength from loss, and sharing laughter for a group of women, the film explores the lives of these women trapped between tradition and modernity, the past and the present, and between doing what they want to do and what is expected from them, while also highlighting the sisterly friendship and warmth these women share and their joys & dilemmas, which are universal in their tendency and come across to us as familiar conflicts that most of us live with, every moment.

Protected from the scrutiny of the outside world, Layale, Nisrine, Rima, Jamale and Rose deal with questions related to extra marital affairs, lost loves and secret longings. They share their troubles, dilemmas and all those unspoken fears – Layale, an unmarried woman having an affair with a married man, feels a conflict between her obsession like tendency towards her lover and a strain of resistance that reminds her continually that she is going against the traditional values she was raised with {Self-deception}. While Nisrine, relatively a younger woman, fears her fiancé will find out that she is no longer a virgin and tries to work out a solution that does not destroy her chances for marriage {Being Non Virgin}. Rima can not communicate her attraction towards women, and is afraid of it {fear of being considered as an Unconventional young woman with abnormal tendencies}. Jamale, a divorced actress who is insecure about her age, struggles through her need to keep up with the younger women around her, because in a society where women’s appearances determine their fortune, she knows that she will soon have no worth {Haunted by the fear of redundancy}.

Their problems are personal and political, as Nadine, the film maker says  – in a society tightly bound by rules and taboos.

There is also the touching story of two sisters, Lily and Rose {Irrepressible Hope}. Rose has always kept her older sister as the top most priority, and now at 65 has to let love pass her by again. Her older sister Lily picks up pieces of paper from the streets hoping they are letters from a soldier she was in love with as a young woman. Caramel explores their love stories with utmost  sensitivity, and gently suggests it’s never too late to fall in love, and never too long to wait.

The film’s title refers to the paste for removing unwanted hair in the Middle East, a blend of sugar, lemon juice and water that is boiled until it turns into caramel. But it is also, according to Nadine Labaki, an idea of sweet and salt, sugary and sour, of the delicious sugar that can burn and hurt you. Bittersweet and affectionate, Caramel is an exceptional version of a woman’s world

Labaki who plays Layale, the protagonist in the film, describes the filmmaking process:

“The film came from personal questioning I have about Lebanese women [who] are an example of emancipation, of liberty, of independence for other regions in the Middle East. Lebanese women are really doing what they want in their lives. But at the same time, there is this struggle with their traditions, their religion, and their education. It is still a little bit rigid. So it is a struggle between these two worlds.

“When you think about Beirut, normally you see a grey picture, you see smoke, you see buildings that are destroyed, you see women crying in the street. This is what comes to your mind when you see the word Beirut. And I wanted to change that. I wanted to make a film that was colorful and about warm people, because this is also our reality. I think I come from a generation that doesn’t want to look back, that doesn’t want to talk about war anymore. It wasn’t easy in my case, because I finished the shoot and a week later the war broke out again. So I had a huge feeling of guilt. Why was I making a film about life when my country was at war? But then I thought maybe this was my way of struggling, of resisting: making films about life [in a time of war].

James Galvin’s Blue or Green

We don't belong to each other.

                     We belong together.

                                                          Some poems 

belong together to prove the intentionality of subatomic particles.

                                     

Some poems eat with scissors.

                              Some poems are like kissing a 

porcupine. 

                God, by the way, is disappointed in some of your recent 

choices.

               Some poems swoop.

                                        When she said my eyes were 

definitely blue, I said, How can you see that in the dark?

                                        How can

you not? she said, and that was like some poems.

                                          Some poems are 

blinded three times.

                Some poems go like death before dishonor.
                                                                                         

Some poems go like the time she brought cherries to the movies; 

later a heedless picnic in her bed.

                                    Never revered I crumbs so

highly.

           Some poems have perfect posture, as if hanging by 

filaments from the sky. 

                         Those poems walk like dancers, 

noiselessly.

                      All poems are love poems.  

                                      Some poems are better off 

dead.

           Right now I want something I don't believe in.

 

Aki Kaurismäki’s The Man Without a Past

The Man without a Past (2002), a masterpiece from Finnish director, Aki Kaurismaki, is an endearing tale of humanity, minimalist in style & dialogue, but with a compelling view on life through its frozen yet subversive tone of humor. The film begins on a tragic note, and soon turns into a longing, beautiful study of love and loneliness, of pain and poverty, of faith and fragility.  It is about a provincial welder, the unnamed protagonist {played with soulful deadpan by Markku Peltola} who arrives in Helsinki by train, in search of work, gets brutally mugged & assaulted by a group of thugs and left for dead. Pronounced dead in the hospital, he miraculously returns to life, stumbles out of the hospital, with his face fully swathed in bandages, and somehow is found collapsed on a riverbank that’s adjacent to an urban Finnish landscape shadowed by poverty and bureaucratic negligence. Subsequently, he is taken care of by a security guard who happens to be a landlord of the shipping container shantytown and as an unskilled individual, amusingly fancies himself a ruthless enforcer of law and order.  Poverty and existence of the downtrodden working class, I felt while watching this film, never has been captured in such an inviting manner. Not so eventful yet simple everyday-ness, resilience and nobility of poor families in hard times takes the audience far away from the universal definer of poverty, i.e. the struggle/labor and the sweat : simple family meals, the woman at the helm of family affairs striking conversations with the stranger who is recuperating from his head injuries to figure out his real identity, family sitting outside enjoying the music floating out of a radio,  dad after a hard day taking a hot shower bath in an open bathroom with his kids perched on the tin roof pouring hot steaming water through a bent pipe, dad requesting M to share his crop of Potatoes – a handful of Potatoes grown out of a tiny patch of ground  …..

despite repeated efforts by everyone, the protagonist fails to recall anything about his previous life, including his name {the final credits identify him simply as M}. Everyone, however, realizes that he could be from a working class because of his hands that look hardened from work, and his face clearly bearing signs of weathered hardship and disappointment. He, eventually, settles down in the community of homeless and destitute, & with a home in a converted storage shed with a mattress, a portable stove and a refurbished jukebox {M manages to salvage this jukebox, which  interestingly reflects his music preferences, i.e. ‘rhythm music’ {rockabilly, blues and vintage R&B}}. He also finds love in a melancholic Salvation Army worker, Irma {Kati Outinen}, who ladles out free soup by day, & lies awake in her dormitory at night, listening to Rock n Roll with almost a religious devotion… the film is littered with such quietly affecting sequences like that brief montage of homeless people sleeping on beaches and railroad tracks….Unexpected terrible blow of luck turns to good as M’s loss of his former life {a lot better and comfortable than his present status} symbolizes the emergence of a greater self / human in him, through his love for Irma and influence of his musical preferences that transforms the Salvation Army band into a swinging combo {with the thrift shop manager joining the band as a lead singer}. This juxtaposition of abject poverty, upbeat & lilting music filled evenings in a community setup  and everyone’s affection for M for enabling them to take pride in themselves and discover something fresh and new about selves regardless of being surrounded by hardship, poverty and unfortunate conditions, makes this film a contemporary resplendent fairy tale with an optimistic point of view on life.

Aki Kaurismaki’s films, largely, are woven around the aspirations and experiences of working class protagonists. One can see and feel a genuine investment of human norms and morals, positive attitudes {that are strongly associated with the upper class in the society} on simple-minded, regular factory workers, municipal employees, which, effortlessly enable them to rise above their status in the society, their occupations, and their mere existence as insignificant cogs in giant wheels of production. Aki Kaurismaki, with characteristically impish forthrightness, writes that ‘my social, economical and political views of the state of society, morals and love can hopefully be found from the film itself.’ The talk between the protagonist M and the electrician from the municipal utility company who runs a cable from a nearby power line to M’s home (who later repairs the jukebox for M) captures Kaurismaki’s ethical ideals…the electrician refuses payment from M and asks something else in exchange for his favour – ‘If you see lying face down in the gutter, turn me on my back’.  The film, on the whole, is beautiful and sad, witty and indifferent, promises a great beginning even being surrounded by the deepest misfortune. 

And I love reading this review! Kenneth Turan’s film review starts with the much-lauded ‘The Man without a past’ is a FROZEN FINNISH TREAT….:)

Zoozoos, the new addiction in India

Zoozoos, the adorable & hugroolworthy creations flaunting large egg shaped & button-eyed heads with highly animated mouths perched on stick like hands & legs, managing a roundish belly & waist, are the new light-hearted material for everyday & every moment interactions, off-work/at work in India. This new disruptive campaign from Vodafone, created by O&M, boasts 20+ renditions, with each Zoozoo commercial highlighting different features/services by the mobile service provider.

My favourite, at this moment, is  International Roaming, which effortlessly brushed past the last week’s  favourites Beauty tips, and Star of the Match,…..

& a few other beauties… Cricket alerts, Unwanted calls,

Chota credit, Stock alerts, Dating tips, Group SMS, Poke friends - Facebook on vodafone 

Voice SMS, Fashion Tips {awesome}, Recharge Anywhere

The official Fan Club on Facebook boasts 70,173 fans at this moment….{first week of May,2009}

*click the links!  and try to learn Zoozoo language, Kappameena, or whatever!

She said…

She said “Blow a kiss at the woman in the mirror, slip into soft cottons, grab a thin woolen coat, walk into the street to face life, smile at the sun, watch the leaves falling down to the ground, and let the breeze through your skirt….everyone is on his own, on her own…”

I am not here to seek glances of admiration from mortals from opposite dimensions or “loneliness-fillers” or men who are potent enough to redefine my existence through their marked presence in my life. I need what most of us need, what most of us deeply feel for – Crisp yet Bright conversations over the first cup of coffee, a few nagging telephonic conversations when I am amidst varied political hued or non political intellectual masturbations at work just to flaunt to the world that I do have someone in my life who appears to be helpless & clueless without me around, a few stolen kisses now & then, a few random rapid moves and then those introspective evening walks… I prefer men with truly sharp, unpredictable humor, that damn humor has to come and hit me real hard from any corner of the room. A man with a lethal presence of mind, assertive and clear-headed, a true-blue foodie who like a stubborn gourmet embarks upon many a kind of Gastronomic journeys….

well, how about  Jean-Claude Brialy in Godard’s “Une femme est une femme”?