Monthly Archives: February 2006

JSA – Joint Security Area

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I caught this movie yesterday, rather it caught me by the throat and had me suspended there for a good hour. Its from Korean Director Chan Wook Pak who directed ‘Oldboy‘, and ‘Sympathy for Mr.Vengence’. He has this knack of making movies that push emotions to the extreme, and making stories where we feel for the protagonist – however bad or good he is.

To my surprise – The movie started very dull – even after 30minutes into the movie – I was actually so bored that I stopped it, and started again after 2 days. It started with some crap about an investigation about a shooting in Korean DMZ. It had some fundas about how things don’t add up, and that there is some mystery to it – yawn… so? who cares?

Then it happened (I don’t want to spoil the fun by revealing the plot points – its best experienced, as I experienced it – bored first, then whacked into attention next) things were set in motion – and I was in a state of heightened anxiety till the end of the movie. You know, the ‘M.Night effect’ – you know something bad is about to happen, and u close your eyes partially, but peek through just enough to see/hear whats on screen. And that is the state you will be in, for the whole second half. At one point, the tension was so high, that I had to take a break… it was emotionally draining.

The production values are not as gorgeous as his other movies – maybe since this is a reconstructed set of the actual DMZ (obviously no one can get permission to film at the most volatile military zone of the planet – the ‘Bridge of No Return’ separating North and South Korea).

This is not a great movie – but just watch it for the director – how he manages to pull off the impossible: converting a bored spectator into a guy who pauses the movie to stop the inevitable from happening on screen.

4/5

Tadpole

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Tadpole Dinner

Just watch the movie for a fantastic 15minute sequence at a Dinner Table. I just enjoyed that scene so much – it kept me smiling, nodding, shaking my head and gasping at regular intervals. Textbook showcase of crisp Editing.

The rest of the movie was good (not as great as the above said scene). It was an intelligent movie which wasn’t afraid to cross boundaries (borderline taboo relationship), and when things spiraled out of control, and you are sitting there expecting a train-wreck, director Gary Winick adeptly handles it to a soft touchdown. Even though it was a trick play – I was glad it didn’t end in a mess, which would have spoilt the whole movie.

The movie was shot with a consumer digital camera Sony PD 150 ($2000) on a micro budget (just $150,000). So the quality of the image suffers – but after some time, you get so involved in whats going on screen, that you forgive (or forget) the digital noise, blown highlights and other digital artifacts and just concentrate on the story – just as it should be. Director Gary Winick won the Best Director award for this movie at Sundance 2002. He also teaches Film at Tisch School of Arts in New York.

4/5

Superbowl Skycam

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Those who watched Superbowl on Sunday might have noticed the wonderful Skycam in action. The change in perspective is startling for us folks who have been used to pretty ordinary cricket telecasts. Whenever we need to get closer to the player in field, we have always been used to a simple Zoom. But robotic Skycam flies down to that part of the field and shoots the player over his shoulder!

Skycam can any point in a specified 3D space as shown the illustration below. The Skycam has 3 components:

  1. The guiding Software called Skypath.
  2. The Hardware which holds the camera (equivalent of a tripod)
  3. The wires which move the Camera in 3D Space.

sky cam

The whole unit is around 3feet and can fly as fast as 30mph. Now the most obvious question. Will it bump into a player, stopping play at a critical stage or even worse, what happens when the ball collides with the cam when flying towards the goal post?

The Skypath software takes care of it – the operator programs the shape of the object to look out for – like a cone, box, cube or in case of a ball, round.

I am sure they are working on a ball-cam and a bat-cam. Imagine seeing the point of view of a ball getting released from Shoaib Aktar’s hand at 150mph, hitting Lara’s bat darting skywards for a six, flying off the stadium towards the parking lot… to your car’s windshield at 100mph! :)

Almost there…

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Trinidad beat Barbados in a regional test. It looks like a simple ordinary news, and then you come to this “Brian Lara, who hailed it as one of the highlights of his long career”. Woah.. what..what??

He explains further: “On the international circuit, playing Australia and beating Australia is real cricket to me. On the regional scene playing Barbados in Barbados and beating them is what it’s all about.” Ok fine.

And then this: “You have to understand I am now aged 36,” said Lara, who contributed 54 and 47 with the bat. “Any sort of success on the playing field would be greeted with uncontrollable emotions because I’m not sure I’ll experience it again.”

Thats just sad.

I will be heartbroken when this legend, whom I have religiously followed since 91, walks off the field next year. He has been my inspiration – my personal hero. Whenever I read “Lara stuns XYZ” or “Lara leads the rampage” or the frequent “Lara rescues WI from 35/6″ or the most common “Lara Stands Alone” I couldn’t help but wonder if he is from Kryptonite.

He has one mountain which he hasn’t scaled yet – and that little T from India is sitting on the top of it with his 35 test centuries :) I just wish he conquers that before walking off. That would make it easier for record keepers and cricket stat books.

  • Highest number of Runs in Test (11,000+)
  • Highest number of Runs in single Test (400*)
  • Highest number of Run in one over (28)
  • Highest number of Triple Hundreds (2, counting 400*, its 3 :)
  • Highest First class record (501*)
  • Fastest 9000,10000 and 11000 (all within 120 tests, while border took 156 tests)
  • First to reach a quardruple century.
    and so on…

see? it make it easier to manage record books when almost all records are held by one superman.

Borrowed Music – 2

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I never knew that day will come so soon (read the last para of my last post).

Today, a super mega budget movie borrowed the soundtrack from our ARR’s score!! Nicolas Cage’s movie ‘Lord of War’ uses our ARR’s Bombay theme. When Nicolas cage gets arrested in Africa – the sun sets down, we hear Bombay theme in the background – just the full theme, not even a remix.

There you go – as far as I know thats the first time a major Hollywood movie used music from our movies! ARR has made us proud :)

As Manoj points out in the comments, the film makers did obtain the rights from Universal Music (India). It was funny the way they gave credits in the end titles (in the actual movie, not in IMDB) – The title card read as “Mumbai Theme Music” not “Bombay Theme Music” – such political correctness. It reminded me of the time when Bombay was renamed, my alma mater didn’t want to change its name from ‘IIT Bombay’ to ‘IIT Mumbai’ – so they called it : IIT Bombay, Mumbai :)

Borrowed Music 1

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No no – don’t jump to conclusions – nobody ripped off the famous ‘Sex and the City’ tune.

Well, ripping off music, themes and tunes are nothing new in our side of the hemisphere. Our Deva dutifully copied ‘Primal Fear’ (Vaali), ARR from ‘Bewitched’ (En Swaasa Katre) and the list extends on and on. Even I have heard some 60′s classical tunes (from old black and white movies) stolen completely from American 30′s music.

So imagine my surprise when I was watching Ang Lee’s ‘Yin shi nan nu’ (1993), and halfway into the movie I heard it – The famous theme tune from Sex and the City. Back to the initial question – yes, nobody copied from ‘Sex and the City’, but ‘Sex and the city’ has completely ripped off the tune from Ang Lee’s Chinese movie – Not just a few notes, the whole damn tune!

Undoubtedly ‘Sex and the City’ has the most infectious theme tunes, a tune which I keep humming all day (until recently replaced by another HBO tune from ‘Curb your Enthusiasm’, which itself was plagiarized with permission from a Bank commercial). Either way its one of the great tunes on TV today. Digging further, it seems that HBO is actually being sued by the guy who originally composed the tune for the Chinese movie.

I just dream of a day when a western MD rips off our music (for effect, maybe an Annu Malik or Deva tune) – and our musicians take a Warner Bros or a DreamWorks to court – yes, that would be the day!

Listen to a portion of the clip here