Showing posts with label Film. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Film. Show all posts

Thursday, January 19, 2023

This song will make u feel sad even if you have nothing to be sad about ...


2019), based on a true story (murder of Susan Smith by FBI agent Mark Putnam in 1989) - it is the song playing at the end of the movie.

Friday, January 11, 2019

The eventful afternoon haiku

Fell asleep watching
Sherlock Holmes’ private life – not
a single thing missed

– Leonard Blumfled (© 2019)

Note
Razor edge of time reporting from the real life front. The movie (The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, 1970), even though directed by Billy Wilder, who has made great films, is only worth a few yawns ... or sleeping through part of it.

Saturday, May 13, 2017

Time travel Bengali style

(Another one-line movie quickshot)


Abby Sen (2015) is a beautifully filmed time travel drama/comedy that is well worth watching - but do not expect this to be an action movie; this is a detail and character-oriented film that takes its time and is ultimately very rewarding.

Directed by Atanu Ghosh, starring Abir Chatterjee, Raima Sen, Chiranjeet Chakraborty, Bratya Basu, and Priyanka Sarkar.

Monday, February 6, 2017

The Hateful Eight

(One-line movie quickshots)

A lengthy exercise in Tarantinoism - no need to waste your time on that one.

- Leonard Blumfeld

Note
This quickshot refers to the 2015 film The Hateful Eight, directed by Quentin Tarantino and starring Samuel L. Jackson, Kurt Russell and Jennifer Jason Leigh and others. Go ahead and watch if you get off on cruelty, gore, etc.

Sunday, October 18, 2015

An excerpt from an interview with Anna K., actress

“I hate smoking, especially Lucky Strikes.
And I hate kissing – or worse –, especially old lechers like [name omitted], my so-called romantic partner in my most recent film.
Ha!
Both make me vomit, and that’s not a good thing to do in front of the camera.”

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2015)

Disclaimer
Some names have been shortened or suppressed to avoid legal issues.

Saturday, November 8, 2014

The art movie haiku


So I decided
to make an art movie. Long
long shot of nothing.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2014)

Note
Today’s horoscope said my creativity was going to be low today. But I tried anyway. The picture is a still from the movie – 90 minutes of showing the shadows play on my balcony.

Tuesday, March 4, 2014

Roja

Watched Mani Ratnam's Roja from 1992 again after a long time. Enjoyed it immensely (despite its obvious flaws). Fabulous music by A. R. Rahman.


Sunday, May 1, 2011

Sunday, October 3, 2010

Try this

“Try this!”

Sunita was my seductress.
With glee she’d ask me to close my eyes and open my mouth. Then she’d insert something and tell me to chomp down.

I got to taste hot green chilies that way, hot mango pickle and burnt brinjal (she was Indian, and her family ate Indian all the time).

All great stuff for sure, but challenging to tongue and taste buds.
I’d be in pain, she’d dance around me, laughing her head off.

Things took a different turn one day, when we were about sixteen.
She warned me not to bite down hard this time, or it would cost me dear.

With eyes closed, I felt the heat of her face very near me and then tasted no vegetable, no chutney, no pickle, no slimy substance, but something alive and soft and warm – the tip of her tongue.

I opened my eyes and stared into hers, so close, so intense. We stayed that way for minutes, but they seemed like a small eternity.

...

She’s off to college in California, where she got a scholarship because she’s brilliant. A few days ago I received a package containing a DVD – an Indian movie called “Ugly Aur Pagli*” – and a card with these words:
WATCH THIS! Your Pagli.
PS: Come see me soon. You still have lots of things to try.
– Leonard “In Teen Mode” Blumfeld (© 2010)

Posted for One Single Impression and Try.

* “Aur Pagli” = “and Crazy” in Hindi. “Pagli” rhymes with “Ugly.”

Information about the 2008 movie starring Mallika Sherawat (as Kuhu / Pagli) and Ranvir Shorey (as Kabir / Ugly) at IMDB:


This Indian film is a remake of the South Korean film My Sassy Girl (2001). Both are a lot of fun. Much more so, to my taste, than the American version: My Sassy Girl (2008), starring Elisha Cuthbert and Jesse Bradford.

Sunday, August 29, 2010

2046

For her, as usual

“You say your life is so empty these days, so lacking in purpose and meaning. But aren’t you shortselling your friends, the hours you spend with them, the hours they spend with you, the things you do together, the food and drinks you share? Aren’t you just a bit too much into feeling sorry for yourself and for the vicarious time you spend with the one person who does not wish to spend time with you?”

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2010)

Written for One Single Impression and Empty.

Note
The title is derived from the film 2046 by Wong Kar Wai (2004), which portrays a middle-aged man whose life gradually becomes more and more meaningless as he drifts from one party to the next, from one short-lived affair to the next.

 Scene from 2046, with Ziyi Zhang and Tony Leung

Saturday, April 3, 2010

Raaz

(राज़) 

Laughing, I ran away from Manoj.
He’d won a kiss from the spinning bottle –
but I felt like making him work a little
before consenting.

From the clearing I went into the evenly
planted pine rows, hiding from Manoj
behind one. I heard him shout, run by,
went round the tree to avoid discovery.

He shouted about the mansion
at the end of the forest, I peeked
and saw it. Not to go in there,
he said, that it was forbidden.

It drew me. I waited for Manoj
to rejoin our friends, who were
singing and laughing in the distance,
and then went closer, to the black

iron fence. The place looked
deserted except for vivid reflections
in the windows. Flashes of people
and violent changes in temper.

A breath of air struck my neck,
as from somebody close by.
I turned, and there was no-one.
Eery, I thought, and noticed

that daylight had clouded over.
Now there was sooty dark
and a shiver as from an impending
storm. Not to worry, I told myself,

you simply walk back. But my
friends’ merry noises were gone.
I walked and again felt a breath
in my back, longer this time,

more forceful, as if from giant
lungs. And there was noise
to it, the suppressed roar
an immense animal would make.

I stood and turned – not a thing –
turned and resumed walking.
Roar and cold air, an impatient
howl. I turned and saw –

– Johannes Beilharz (© 2010)

This is a rather free retelling of what I remember of the beginning of Raaz (Secret), a Hindi horror film from 2002, which, very quickly and successfully, sets up a scary atmosphere with very simple means, so that this fits in very well with Napowrimo #3, Scared yet?.

Saturday, March 6, 2010

In praise of humor / spoken to a love

Amaze me again today with your
Frail sense of humor, Shalini. Let’s enter the
Sacred realm of laughter.

– Leonard “Finds Humor Here and There” Blumfeld (© 2010)

Written around Amaze, Frail and Sacred from 3WW.

Note
This could be addressed to someone like the Shalini in Dil Chahta Hai (2001), all 3 hours of which I watched again without regret. It is the story of three close friends (played by Aamir Khan, Akshaye Khanna and Saif Ali Khan in excellent roles) and their love relationships.
I must admit to some arbitrary transposition in the poem. The frail sense of humor actually goes with the character Pooja (played by Sonali Kulkarni), but I wanted the name Shalini in there. The Shalini in the movie, played by Preity Zinta in one of her typical lively roles, has much more than a frail sense of humor...



Song from the movie featuring Saif Ali Khan and Sonali Kulkarni.

Sunday, June 29, 2008

Treasures from Brick Lane

Among the treasures I brought back from an excursion to London's Brick Lane – a street full of Bengali/Bangladeshi restaurants and stores – were six Bangladeshi films on DVD and Monica Ali's 2003 novel Brick Lane (now also a movie).

For several years now I've mostly picked books to read that were about a matter I wanted to read about – an interesting biography, personal fate, specific geographical or historical setting.

Brick Lane fits all four categories, is beautifully written and has a deeply human story to tell. I might write about it again once I've made more progress.

Dollhouse by director Morshedul Islam is set in 1971, when Bangladesh (then East Pakistan) was fighting for independence from Pakistan. Rehana, a young woman from Dhaka, comes to the village to seek refuge from the war-ravaged capital city. Essentially a happy, bubbly girl, she displays strange reversals of mood. The film gradually reveals her secret in a series of flashbacks.

A beautifully photographed film that stems from a time zone so different from our hectic one. A domain in which it is possible to feel the significance of every moment, the flow of time. I wish I knew Bengali to fully appreciate this soft-spoken gem of cinema.

Friday, March 7, 2008

My kitchen, right now

It's all about kitchens in Inspire Me Thursday this time around. My contribution is a razor-edge-of-time snapshot of my kitchen's current but no so unusual state (messy).

What you see are primarily the yet unwashed containers of last night's and today's foods and drinks and some utentils. The pièce de résistance, however, is my grandma's flowered coffee pot in the background.

And yes, it was takeout last night. My daughter came over, and we ooled* Chinese while watching a rental DVD - Because I said so with Diane Keaton as the high-strung and meddling mother of three girls. The movie has its moments but isn't the greatest ever made.

* To "ool" - family speak ever since we watched Ringo Starr's Caveman way back when the kids were little. Even our dog knows what the word means. One of our all-time family cult movies.

Monday, January 21, 2008

Yeh Raatein Yeh Mausam

Here's a picturization of one of the most famous romantic duets of popular Hindi cinema – it also was sort of the theme song of the happiest times of my marriage...

The song is from Dilli Ka Thug (1958). It stars Nutan, one of the most beautiful and charming actresses of the time, and Kishore Kumar, who is better known as a playback singer than an actor. Here he does playback singing for himself, while Asha Bhosle is the singing voice of Nutan.

Sunday, April 29, 2007

"Chupke Se" music video from "Saathiya"



A song from the film Saathiya by Mani Ratnam (2002), music by A. R. Rahman. Sung by Sadhna Sargam. Picturized are Rani Mukherjee and Vivek Oberoi.

This is in reference to the Hindi chupke se (चुपके से) used in the poem Evil Mood Fib in my previous post.

Actually, though, I had not thought of this song when I wrote the poem, but only of the literal meaning of the expression, which is secretly. And this is part of the lyrics of the song Chalo Na Gori (चलो ना गोरी) by C. H. Atma, an Indian singer popular in the 1950s, I was listening to when I wrote the poem.

Thursday, April 5, 2007

Kafka's Gallery

First it was a short paragraph of black on white called a short story in a Kafka story reader, then it became a steep old cinema with thickly padded plush folding seats, and my senses were up, close to the projector, darkness and the dust moth-flecked conical beam pointing. It was an empty theater, not even I was there, really. And no movie was playing.

– Leonard Blumfeld (copyright 2007)

Sunday, March 18, 2007

Time will not be cheated

Today, this Sunday, ended up being a BAD day.*
One of those where a universal remote control (URC)
for fast, fast forward would have come in very handy.
Including the autopilot function that gets all your work done
while you're sleeping. Yeah, right.

Except that, as we know from Click, the 2006 Adam Sandler comedy, Morty (aka Christopher Walken) will catch up with you if you press that button, and you will regret it – literally – for ever.


*Including an upchucking toilet, three hours of verbal abuse from an aging parent, fog from several planets, etc., etc.

I am surprised I have some sense of humor back.