The whatever-ness

My hands and my brains can't take it anymore. The ludicrousity that is offered in a beautiful platter every night on Sun TV has been ringing alarm bells in my head for an incredible amount of time now.

Let's get to the bug. We all easily have a laugh at the Tamil TV serials that are being dished out like candies but the day has come when I have to note what makes the world go round here.

Okay, here's a list of things that I have against serials (I can sue them if there's a chance of doing so).

1. Every other cinema actress who fails there take a 'leap of faith' into serials. And she ALWAYS plays the ever-so-goody, exemplary, she loves everybody, she helps everybody, picture perfect woman. Get a life.

2. Oh yeah, all serials are female centered. The leading character is always a woman. Never a man. Male characters are totally incapable of hooking people to the screen for a mind blasting 600 episodes in a row.

3. The lead female is almost always a stand-alone woman at some point- she will live without her husband. She has to do that because she needs to be the strong one, you see? All of them will go through a bit of rocks in their married life. In some cases, the husbands are just plain BAD, you know. Otherwise, it's just sinful isn't it?

4. They waste 5 minutes of each serial with a song. It runs 5 times a week, and that song plays every freaking time. They hire a team of dancers to dance to that, and by the time you get to the story, we are nearly 10 minutes in the time slot. Excellent time-wasting, producers. Be proud.

5. Oh, the easiest job in the world is to write a freaking STORY or even a script for a Tamil drama. It's easy- maybe let's say three scenes for every episode? Rest just leave to the dialogue writer, they know how to stretch even a non-event scene into a cruelly long one.

6. The music composer is the biggest criminal, he places the most thrilling, heart beat music for scenes that turn out to be pure duds. It's like a character comes and says, 'hey, you've got a dirt on your back'.

Jeng Jeng Jeng.

The other character (the one with the dirt) stares at person A with such shock and disbelief.

And don't forget they have to slow mo at some point. If at a scene which is being shot there are five characters around, the director generously ensures he captures the eye contact between all those characters- each one of them with each other.

By the time the fella realizes he's just got a freaking dirt on his freaking back, you passed a freaking say, 6 minutes? This people are just amazing.

7. Ridiculous dialogues happen in the most ridiculous places. There'll be a court trial and the characters will be pouring their emotions to the judge, or the policeman, or the lawyer. And these people will actually listen, it seems. For god's sake these officials will only ever collect details. Try standing up to one of them that you had some 'avamanam' two days ago. They'll finish writing a verdict by the time by the time you finish narrating an unrelated event. Goodness me.

8. Here's the masterstroke. They want to end the drama for that episode, but they don't know how. What they do, they cut through a lame scene, make one character say a statement of accusation (or it sounds like one), and they put 'to be continued'. Next day, it turns out the whole scene has little significance.

9. It's very educating religiously. They expose the most ridiculous rituals that many would have thought must be banned for their sheer stupidity in the modern world that we are living in now, but they will still show you scenes of a ritual to separate families, and how the families will actually adhere to that rule because it will become 'sami kuttam'.

Why don't they just show 'Amman' rising up and sticking blades in their eyes when they slightly breach any ritual rules? With a serious music this time.

I'll ban dramas from showing scenes that can mislead if I have the authority. But too bad people choose to be ignorant about it.

It's just as bad as a guy accidentally placing 'kungumam' on a girl's forehead and the next thing he knows he has to marry her no matter what. Grrr.

End of the day, I walk out after watching a drama and look for a wall. So that I can bang my head on it. The easy way to attain high blood pressure? Tamil dramas.

Inception- Movie Review

Christopher Nolan comes on the back of redefining the Batman series a couple of years back with The Dark Knight, and Leonardo Di Caprio has built a reputation to be an actor of fabulous calibre with the ability to almost always choose the right scripts to participate in despite his relatively young age.

When these two come together, you know that you are in for something extraordinary. With 'Inception', Nolan brings together a mixture of two of his best-written movies- 'Memento' and also the 2006 magical thriller 'The Prestige'. The most telling factor about the film is that the film comes with a concept and theme which is so complex- as it always is when it involves the infinite spectrum of our mind, yet it manages to remain in control and not spiral out to become a self-indulgent psychological thriller as it could have very easily been.

'Inception' is the story of Dom Cobb (Di Caprio), who is an extractor who extracts the deepest memories of individuals by invading their sub conscious mind while putting them in a dream state. Legal problems means that Cobb is always on the run and when a job to extract an information from a Japanese business magnate Saito (Ken Watanabe) goes wrong, Cobb has no choice but to go hiding with a proce place on his head. But Saito traces back Cobb and offers him an interesting proposition- that he'd able to clear all the legal problems that Cobb is facing and allow Cobb to return to his two children- only if Cobb agrees to do an 'inception'- an act of planting an idea in the head of Saito's business rival.

Cobb brings together a group of able assistants, including a dream architect (Ellen Page), to execute the complicated task. However, the recurring presence of Cobb's dead wife Mel (Marion Cotillard) in his dream projections threatens to sabotage the mission, and Cobb has to embrace the disturbing truth and face his own demons in order not to let the memories of his wife haunt him forever. The complicated job carries enormous risks for all involved and Cobb struggles to make it work in order to attain his liberty again.

The first thing that makes Inception work, just like all the other trademark Nolan movies is the screenplay. The movie has a relentless screenplay, with Hans Zimmer's background score being an essential pillar of strength, so much so that you don't feel the pinch of the movie's 148 minutes of running time.

But the catch is- it makes you think. Inception, make no mistakes, is an intelligent movie, and the four-layered dream pattern that forms the climax of the film has to be one of the most complicated action sequences that was ever shot in cinema. You have to pay close attention to all the factors that happen around in the movie in order to really grasp the story of each character and also the logistics and realms of the dreams.

Di Caprio carries the weight of the film on his shoulders and delivers with even a sign of hamming, understating or overdoing it. His calibre as an actor is further reaffirmed with this accomplished, near flawless performance. Inception comes with plenty of CGI and despite the grandeur of images that explore the infinite possibilities that exist within our mind, Di Caprio still carries the emotional weight of the story magnificently, which makes the story more connecting, rather than being just a well-shot dream unique concept.

Ellen Page gives an assured performance in a colorful starcast, and is a real standout. Ken Watanabe also shines in his role as Saito, while Tom Hardy and Joseph Gordon Levitt combine to provide rare moments of laughter throughout the movie. Marion Cotillard is just passable, as her character has the same emotional shade every time it appears, thus having very little to no development (which is the way it is meant to be).

All in all, Nolan once again beats himself to it by pushing the envelope of fine film-making even further. Inception could have become a movie for select audiences with high levels of intelligence, but the film instead threads a fine line between entertainment but at the same time not underestimating the intelligence of its audience. And such an achievement is rare at a time when the movie going public is so often getting divided with recent movies.

And for that, Nolan's got a winner and shows that creativity and popular success can come in the same package.

The death of Samaritans

When my Arabian Scicom trainer told me he preferred the kind of privacy he has gained since coming to Malaysia in comparison to the overtly-concerned Arabians back in his country, I couldn't but to help but raise an eyebrow.

I'll take a love nuisance any day over ignorance. Wouldn't we all? Ask the Malaysians, the pure Malaysians who have actually lived all these years outside their comfort zone, and have actually been faced with situations which left them lurching for help from somewhere.

One thing is for sure- the so-called 'privacy' mentioned before is not something that we Malaysians can smile about, nor to be even proud of. Most importantly- it's about time the alarm bells rang for us- it's nothing to be ignorant about as well- at least not anymore.

Ignorance ain't a bliss anymore.

Not when a couple of lazy petrol bunk assistants have become so disilluioned that their buts would have teared off if they had carried a fire extinguisher and passed it off to a hoillering Samaritan whose nerves are wrangling out for a girl literally burning to death inside a car.

Listen to a piece of that story and immediately the image of two lazy, or if could even mention, utterly stupid guys looking out as if they can't comprehend a a simple call for help, the simple urge of an accident, or above all, the rocking value of a life strikes across your mind. Then you think, would they be just as blurred when they are trapped in a car with the petrol leaking and they know they are burning to death?

The kind of ignorance that we have stamped on ourselves have become so overwhelming that we have accustomed to turn a blind eye to so many things- things that even decides life or death. Like when I was lying on a road drenched in serious wounds and found out that passers-by who apparently have no urgent work to attend to would rather wait for me to clear the road myself rather than helping me up.

Here's a fact we have to embrace- beneath the face of the elegant, ever-growing with tall buildings man that we have epitomized ourselves with over the years- there lies an ugly truth.

The man is actually a lazy, ignorant one. If over the years the individual determination of that man's cells helped him rise up taller than some of his counterparts and build a respectable image for himself, the lazy, one dimensional, selfish natures of his cells will eventually spell the ruins of the very man. The cells which built him had lost their original vision, and are now drifting, many colliding with each other in their destinations.

The man is now short-sighted and one dimensional at the core. It'll be only a matter of time before it eats into his entire body.

Will the cells change? At least don't let someone die when you can afford to prevent it while seating at your very comfort zone.

And the one who dies wasn't a hapless young lady, but the one the two attendants actually murdered was the little left off from the good nature of Malaysians. Next time a Samaritan wakes up, he might think twice. And what will be the consequences of that Samaritan thinking twice?

R.I.P

The warrior will be alright.

It’s dusk. The sun sets solemnly across the horizon- the warrior loves dusk. He has always felt that the spates of colors strewn across the sky at dusk leave behind a flicker that the eyes will never feast upon at any other time of the day. He sat at the nearby branch, a sole stricken one in the middle of an unknown desert, and he looked up towards the sun. The cloudy horizon have made the sun hardly visible to the naked eye. A faint light shimmering beyond the thin veil of clouds, that was all his eyes could muster to witness at the time.

The thin haze that has been coating the horizons around the place on a consistent basis had also deprived the warrior of his most cherished view- a peek towards the top of the mountain- bright and glistening. Every time he witnesses that peak, he feels like he does belong to that peak, to reach there one day has been etched in his destiny.

But now, there is no dusk, no mountain. All that exists was him, the desert, and the village, a village which he had long assumed would be an useful pit stop in order for him to reach his dreams. The warrior did not like it the moment he arrived in this village- where everyone worked very hard in premeditated routines in order to win the breads to survive the day. The warrior wasn’t an exception in this- he wasn’t given a prince treatment- he had to work to win his bread- for he has to wait until the clouds clear and the sun can rise up confidently and unleash its ray on earth without any barriers again.

Now, as the warrior lay against the sole broken branch in the middle of a dry desert on which the village is located, he feels exhausted, tired, dread. The everyday routine at the village had had its taxes on his energy and enthusiasm. His resources are drained by the end of the day, and he couldn’t have his daily glance beyond the horizons to look at the peak of the mountains that he wishes to conquer one day.

What is happening to his life? Where have his dreams brought him to? Why is the haze so thick he can’t see his destination? He abandoned a kingdom of comfort, security, all to secure the reality of this one dream- he travelled through ages of uncertainty about where his destination would lie, spent so many years of the journey travelling all alone- but as long as he was on the move, when he had his evenings by the crystal clear lake, or under an autumn tree drooping with gorgeous brown leaves, practicing the art of swinging and slinging his sword, as his horse fed on the natural leaves at every stop he pauses at, looking at her master in awe and loyalty.

Today, the sword rusts in the little camp, in which the warrior retires every night- and the warrior shoots the sword a glancing, solemn look, wondering when the time will come for him to ride off into the sunset again, the sword piercing elegantly across his back. His horse waits tied outside the camp, feeding on the same grass everyday, entitled to the same routine the warrior is being subjected to.

The warrior sits and contemplates, wishes he is on the move rather than remaining here- but this is the pit stop he needs to take in order to reach the peak of the mountain. He is made to be on the move, not to rut in a rust. He is made to conquer that peak, not to sit idle doing regular work.

But then he thinks of that sunny day where, when the warrior did not know which direction he should take to reach the mountains which seemed so distant away- when a saint appeared while the warrior was walking on a bed of tulips holding hands with his princess.

The saint pointed in this direction- on the first morning in which the princess held his hand- the direction of this small village; that the warrior should start a life there, and that’s where his journey would have its starting point. The warrior knew there and then, that it was a sign, for he was holding the princess’ hands when the saint looked down from the high hills and pointed his ageing stick in this village’s direction. Upon which the princess gave him a warm smile- so wide it made his insides tingle with joy and warmth.

The warrior walked deeper into his tent, wondering about the crossroads and uncertainty he is facing in his life. Every warrior has to trudge a path of mud in order to be worthy champions. This is his alley of mud. An alley where he can lose all that he is- where he has to hold on tight in order to retain his will, passion and dreams. That is his test.

The pain is true, the discomfort is true, the itchy feet is true, the difficulty is true. But the warrior has accepted it- come to terms with it. This is what will make him a worthy champion.

But as he lies down his head gently on the princess’ shoulders with her brimming smile still there, he knows for a fact- it’ll be alright.