(Book) Blink written by Malcolm Gladwell

Blink carries on the tradition of ‘The Tipping Point’ of demystifying some of the mysterious undercurrent forces that affect us so much in our lives, only that we are unaware of them consciously. If ‘Tipping Point’ was about how social phenomenon around us are affected by things which do not lend themselves to documentation or rational analysis by common sense, ‘Blink’ is more personal and more individualistic.

‘Blink’ is about how our mysterious subconscious, the murky supercomputer residing in us, can make leaps of decision making and connections that we are unaware of us, but which nevertheless is a part of the choices we make or the way we think.

From knowing that a statue is fake by looking at it, when scientific analysis state otherwise, to the best method of choosing a musician (should be done blindly), this books has interesting tit-bits that keep you hooked and encourages you to think and reflect. For example, I found the part where this supercomputer can work against us, very exciting. Not only because it explains a lot about how subconscious prejudice works but also because of how we can actually make ourselves fairer by knowing our own pitfalls.

Malcolm Gladwell is very good at assimilating all the interesting research being done out there. So even though nothing in the book is essentially original, the compilation of the various researches aimed at a specific reasoning makes for exciting reading. I think this is mainly because the lay reader does not come across the individual researches which are usually known well in the scientific world…

This book, though leaves a lot out. I would have loved more details in every chapter especially on the neurological and the psychological part of the phenomenon. Though I admit that if that would have been so, the book would have become a tome of sorts. But nevertheless I found this gap to be both the strength and weakness of the book. The strength of this lies in the fact that it spikes your interest and encourages you to read more on related topics in detail.

For me, the book served more as a window to more exciting possibilities…

Labels: Books, psychological, science

posted by Protik Basu @ 9:19 PM 0 Comments

(Movie) The Untouchables directed by Brian De Palma

A movie that I needed to see after watching the pathetic ‘Public Enemies’. Saw this for perhaps the fifth time though after around two years. And I realized that it is still exciting to watch, even though I remembered almost all of it, which to me is proof enough that its one the best movies made about that era.

The movie brings the world of 1920’s vividly to life, complete with Al Capone, Chicago gangs, prohibition and the fledgling law enforcement in the country. It was a world which was a part of the violent transition between the old and the new. Policemen could all ride horses and they can do a cavalry charge complete with guns in tow. At the same time, an extensive railroad was making life and crime easier and gangsters were a mixture of the cowboy and the new age. And the policemen were more passionate than professional (from today’s perspective). And everyone carried impressive looking tommy guns and everyone looked rakishly stylish. All in all, a world in transition. That is what this movie captures beautifully

The story is compelling enough. A bunch of police officers with widely different personalities come together (later branded as ‘The Untouchables’) to bring down one of the biggest crime lords of America – Al Capone. This is about good men fighting the good fight. No shades of grey here and for once you don’t miss it.

And of course the best part is that it is based on a true story (with modifications of course – for instance, the Untouchables were eleven in number, not four).

The film has got some very memorable scenes, especially the shootout on the stairs at the railway station, which is incidentally a homage to the Odessa step scenes from ‘Battleship Potemkin’. And all the four guys making up the group have delightfully different characters and look good as a group. Connery shines in his role as Malone, the oldest and the most experienced guy in the group.

All in all, a highly gripping story and a movie in which you thoroughly enjoy the fight between the good guys and the baddies. A great watch always and especially after the bad experience of ‘Public Enemies’, this came as a fresh breath…

Labels: historical, movies, thriller

posted by Protik Basu @ 9:15 PM 0 Comments

(Movie) Lakeview Terrace directed by Neil LaBute

Imagine the horror of moving into a new house and finding yourself next to a police officer, with huge personal demons, who hates you and will stop at nothing, not even murder, to drive you away. It will be terrifying, even if you are just watching it in a movie.

Especially when the police officer is Samuel L Jackson, who gives one of the best demonic performances of his life. When he looks with malice towards you, eyes glittering in anticipation of the coming ‘bad thing’ for you, it can sometimes get positively hair-raising. And you can actually feel the helplessness of the young couple caught on the wrong side…

As the movie progresses, we get to know eventually why Jackson is opposed to the mixed race couple staying next to him. This brings a reverse racism angle to the story, which makes it different maybe because we are so used to seeing the black man as victim of prejudice that we forget that the reverse also happens as easily, and with as much stereotyping.

The fanatical desire of Jackson to drive away the couple becomes more and more intensive and slowly more dangerous. All this happens in the background of a raging forest fire that begins to threaten their homes as the story progresses. A mock robbery goes terribly bad and Jackson begins a race against time to clear the evidence…but then, that is the best part of the story.

The climactic scene is pretty nail-biting and was realistically done.

Overall the acting is brilliant, Jackson especially. The young couple is  very believable in their initial helplessness in combating a man who has even the law on his side and in their eventual fight-back with their back against the wall. And the movie is built up well – the story goes from being mildly tingling to a raging nightmare in the space of an hour and a half…

A gripping watch…

Labels: movies, thriller

posted by Protik Basu @ 9:07 PM 0 Comments

(Book) The General in his Labyrinth written by Gabriel García Márquez

One of the most enigmatic, heroic and tragic figures of all time is ‘The Liberator’ – Simon Bolivar. He tried to achieve essentially what any conqueror of continents try to achieve, except for one significant difference – not seeking an empire of conquest or loot, he wanted to free the continent of its Spanish rulers and unify the continent. It was a highly idealistic mission which almost became a reality.

His life reads almost like a fairy tale with an imperfect ending, the whirlwind story of an underdog who with his rag tag army of freedom fighters toppled a giant but could not keep the flock intact after the common enemy was thrown out. It is a very human story of a military genius who like Hannibal could scale the Alps and take the fight to the enemy but could not complete his dream only due to human weakness and folly

This story is about the last few days of this man. Days, when his glorious cavalry charges and his improbable victories have already receded into history and he has become an object of derision for some people and an object of pity for others. His liberating army has scattered around the continent and civil war is raging in many parts of the continents he had set free. Cities, where he was hailed as the Liberator only a few years ago, turn their back to him. Only a handful of faithfuls stay with him. Fewer still believe and understand what he tried to do. The Liberator is physically wasted, prematurely aged due to the demands made on his body over the years and is being set adrift by the world he helped create. He is racked by the injustices done to him and he bemoans the infidelity of his erstwhile comrades especially Santander and he bemoans the fate of the continent and in his deepest despair questions the uselessness of it all. Only one thing still stays with him – his indomitable will and his readiness to spring to action at a moment’s notice

The story is as much about the great man – his eccentricities, his achievements, his superhuman courage as it is about the time he lived in, a time, a century of great ferment, a century of revolutions around the world. Bolivar is both the man who covered himself with glory with single minded, almost god-like dedication to his cause and the man who was full of inner contradictions. He was the man who trusted some people like children and who could be the fearless general in battle, a man who gave away his wealth who asked for it and also the man who can give the order to kill as easily. It is the sum total of everything that made up Bolivar. All of this is presented in the story, though as flashbacks. The time that the story is set, the sun is setting on Bolivar and on the ruins of his dreams…

It is a lyrical prose about an old man’s last days. The fact that the old  man is one of the greatest figures in history does not detract from the universality of the story. Every man has his glory days and at the end, every man seeks the same things that Simon Bolivar wanted. The best thing about the way Marquez has written the story without any embellishments on Bolivar. When he is pathetic, he is shown to be so without apologies or excuses. When he shows the traits that made him one of the most feared man on a battlefield, it is simply stated as a fact. That leaves us to concentrate on the man himself as he faces one enemy he cannot ride to battle – death.

It’s a book that lends itself to a lot of contemplation – about history and the men who make it and what happens to every man when their glory is past. This story about Bolivar is about one way in which such men live the last days – things which are not easily recorded in history since we like to remember our heroes unblemished and perfect. This story is about when each one of us becomes human and all too mortal.

Beautifully written, the words flow easily and the most difficult emotions are expressed easily. The man who is Bolivar and the men and women around him comes out beautifully in the pages. Awareness about the history of the period is not necessary as the story reads as an allegory. It is at once a homage to a great man and a poignant story of old age

Labels: Books, fiction, historical

posted by Protik Basu @ 7:38 AM 0 Comments

(Movie) The Chumscrubber directed by Arie Posin

A film about the steadily increasingly disconnect in urbania, a style of movies most people associate with films like American Beauty. But if American Beauty was brutal poetry, Chumscrubber is more psychological in nature with huge doses of black humour.

A suicide occurs. The tragedy, you realize, is that no-one knows why, even till the very end. It was just one person less. The few who care are confronted with a Kafkaesque world where everyone seems dysfunctional and ‘normal’ emotions themselves seem to be twisted around itself, with the result that normal emotions seem grotesque to us and to people in the movie. The people who care are left to deal with their own demons, in their own stumbling ways. The way Glenn Close does this is beautifully shown – frightening and maddening at first, only to become very poignant at the end, when her behaviour makes perfect sense.

In the meantime, a kidnapping takes place and someone has to give the kidnappers something that is present in the dead boy’s room. One thing leads to another and the kidnapping almost goes terribly bad.

The ending was positive though, unlike American Beauty but it suits the movie, since there is an undercurrent of dark flippancy to the movie. I particularly liked the part at the end when Dean (Jamie Bell) talks to Glenn Close, when they are left all alone, when the whole madness of the world seemed to have poured out onto the street. That was the scene that made the movie memorable for me. It was as if we become truly human only when confronted with a deep personal tragedy that only very few understand. It was also the part of the movie that made the whole thing make sense.

A movie that will not fail to affect the viewer, not least because so many elements in it don’t make perfect sense at one go – only to slowly fall in place later, which for me is a sure sign of a great movie The movie sure stays with you for a long time…

Labels: movies, satire

posted by Protik Basu @ 8:50 PM 0 Comments

(Movie) Very Bad things directed by Peter Berg

Now, this is a movie that gets hooked into you progressively and traps you into an increasingly dark and mad world. But you don't get a hint of that when you start off.

It starts off with four guys going on a bachelor’s party to Las Vegas before one of them gets married. Its all hunky dory and they look like regular guys out to enjoy a sinful night at Vegas…very American, you may say. So it seems…

And it is precisely because of this innocuous starting that the twists that come gives the movie a wildly dark energy.

An innocent accident in the revelry turns out to be a life-changing one, for each one of the friends. One thing leads to another, accidents and murders lose their boundary and each person starts to become a stranger to the other. It suddenly become a battle for survival and the battle for the survivor begins, if only subconsciously at first.

The friends bring back their secret back to their normal lives and here their different characters begin to define how they cope with what they hide…which is where the story begins to take dark overtones. Their families get involved and soon, the phantom of Vegas begins to haunt  them…

The movie has a dark sardonic humour to it as well. You would find yourself laughing nervously at times at the most inappropriate moments. That edge makes this movie stand out, in my opinion.

The ending is  little too fantastic and somehow a little out of sync with the tone of the movie but other than that its a fantastic movie, a movie that gives a rollicking time to the person watching it…

A great watch…

Labels: movies, thriller

posted by Protik Basu @ 11:00 AM 0 Comments

(Movie) Public Enemies directed by Michael Mann

A movie that had so much potential, so much scope for not only exploring an era and the wildly interesting characters that inhabited it but also for making a fast paced action movie. And it had the people to do it – Johnny Depp as John Dillinger, America’s most wanted, Christian Bale as Melvin Purvis, the man who pursued Dillinger. Their pairing could and should have been explosive. Sadly, nothing worked – on occasions, there were only the hint of what could have been…

Dillinger was a fascinating character. The movie failed to bring it out though there were faint echoes at times. He was a charmer, a guy who did his work with style and was one of the last romantic gangsters…the movie failed to bring it out. Even his almost fairy tale romance with Billie fails to bring any energy to the screen. His growing desperation and death also seemed devoid of sentiments that the audience could have felt. His relationship with his comrades never really came off the screen. So much so, I had difficulty in recognizing at times who his men were!!! but inspite of all that, Depp rises above the loose storyline at times by the sheer power of his acting depth. Not enough to salvage the movie, however

Christian Bale is wasted. Now there are two movies in a row that I watched where this hugely talented actor as been under-utilized (the other being terminator). Here, his combat with Dillinger could have been more intense. Here you have two highly intelligent, resourceful men on opposite side of the law – perfect recipe for a mammoth showdown. It ended in a whimper, however. We don't get to know anything about the agent as a man. Remember, this was the time that FBI got formed and it was mainly due to this conflict between Dillinger and Purvis. We don't see much evidence of birth out of conflict, neither in the story, nor in the character of Purvis

All, in all, it was a movie that held so much promise and of which it gave slight glimmers at times but it ended with being just a linear cat-mouse chase story without any flesh being put on the characters. We don't get to know them. This was a movie about characters who were in  grey. The ‘bad’ guys were simply a product of their times. So were the ‘good’ guys. That borderline treatment never really came out. The characters on the screen remained strangers to us.

Watching it made me compare this movie to the ‘The Untouchables’. And that made this movie come out even poorly…

So much promise, so little delivered

Labels: action, historical, movies

posted by Protik Basu @ 9:44 AM 0 Comments

(Movie) The Jacket directed by John Maybury

  This is a story of a man thrust into a mad world where he finds the only person he loves and who is worth saving even at the cost of his life. There is a twist though…the person he falls in love with is in the future and he is supposed to die 14 years before.

This is a love story which has a lot of elements of “Butterfly effect” in it. It has a sombre and grey air around it in which the acting of Adrien Brody particularly stands out. His haunted look throughout the movie goes perfectly with the theme of the movie. He dominates the movie completely and does a damn good job of it

The story takes its inspiration from a story by Jack London “The Star Rover” and is about Adrien Brody who is injured in the Gulf war, miraculously surviving a direct head wound, even though he is medically psychologically impaired, possibly suffering from amnesia. He helps Jackie and Jean (a daughter-mother duo) who are stranded on a roadside and in the process forms a bond with the little girl Jackie and shortly after gets innocently involved in a shooting and is implicated in the same. He is packed off to an asylum when he is released since he is considered insane. There, Dr Becker starts experimenting on him, in order to test his healing technique. Brody is strapped in a straitjacket and put in a morgue drawer with drugs pumped into him. It is here where he starts getting transported into the future (2007) where he meets Jackie, who has now grown up into an embittered miserable young woman. It is also then that he realizes that he is supposed to die four days later (in the present time)

The rest of the story is about how Brody tries to find out about the cause of his death and how he ultimately decides to deal with it.

I liked the last scene the best. The expression on Brody’s face, as compared to the rest of the movie, is amazing. It was as if he was at last at peace with himself, with his decision.

Watch it for a the different story line (though it has strong echoes from many other movies) and Brody’s acting…

Labels: love, movies, psychological, thriller

posted by Protik Basu @ 9:07 AM 0 Comments

(Movie) The Counterfeiters directed by Stefan Ruzowitsky

A film in german, this is based on the true story of Operation Bernhard, a secret plan by the Nazis to destabilize the economies of United Kingdom (and later United States) by flooding them with counterfeit money. For this, they put together a team of forgers from the various prisoners in the concentration camps. The leading forger is Salomon ‘Sally’ Sorowitsch, around whom the film revolves.

I think the best part of the movie is the way Sally tries to keep together his men and tries to keep them alive in conditions where the prison guards dont think twice before putting a bullet through your head. A team that consists of a TB patient, a person who decides to rebel on an individual basis to deny the Nazis victory and other characters who compromise for various reasons…among all these, Sally tries to keep himself and his men alive.

What I liked about the character that is Sally is his deadpan expressions which hide a solid though quirky ideology. His main aim is stay alive, at all costs. He does not have an ideology as such nor does he indulge in analysis of the situation on any other basis except whether it keeps him and his men alive…

And as a background runs one of the biggest attempted frauds in history, a scam that could have turned the tide of the war. At the end, it is only Sally and his men who, risking their lives, did not allow this to happen.

It is a fast moving movie whose pace never slackens. The brutality of the camps are shown indirectly and perhaps because of that, the setting seems more terrifying because you realize that for all the ‘better’ treatment that the forgers are getting till the time they are useful, one failure can lead them straight to the gas chambers.

I think what I liked best about the movie was that it did not moralize or shed tears about the victims and the brutality (there have been too many movies about that – has almost become a template of sorts) but used it as an implicit background and showcased a thriller where the most unlikely men became heroes mostly simply by the defiant act of staying alive and denying their oppressors the final victory…

Labels: book adaptation, Foreign Movies, movies, thriller, World War

posted by Protik Basu @ 10:17 PM 0 Comments

(Book) Brave new World written by Aldous Huxley

This is one of the original books which looked at the future as a dystopia – a world which has become a nightmare (to the current reader).

This books raises the spectre of a future where everything is controlled by the way of conditioning from embryonic stage. There is no concept of a family (terms like mother and father have become smut impolite terms) and the world has been divided into a caste system where the top guys (Alphas) have been given the best of embryonic treatment and are thus the masters of the system whereas Epsilons are the lowest of the low. It is a world which would be a Nazi and other imperialists’ fantasy – people are conditioned by chemistry from birth to accept their place in society, which coupled with progress in science has led to a situation wherein problem of rebellion has also been eradicated. The people in various strata of society have been given the minimum level of brain-power (except Alphas) and have been taught that their position and situation is the best that there can be. It is a world where stability and non-individualism is the motto. It is also a world where all kinds of pleasures  are encouraged especially sexual which are aimed to numb the mind from doing any introspective thinking. History has been eradicated and you can only get books that conform to the dominant philosophy.

The book’s central point is the ‘Savage’, who is brought from a settlement (where people are living as they do today). His dilemma and his clash of ideology with the ‘civilized’ world is the central tenet of the book. It is as if through the savage, we are being put in that future world.

It is a good book but comparison to 1984 is inevitable and when you do that, the book suddenly does not seem as good. 1984 had a terrifying power in its vision and was complete in proclaiming the helplessness of any sort of rebellion – mass or individual. The characters in 1984 were complete in their wishes and their weaknesses. The world of 1984 was far far more nightmarish and terrifying than the world of this book. That said, it is clear that 1984 draws many of its themes from this book but improving upon them.

Overall, a good book to read but the talent of Huxley in this case was overshadowed by the genius of Orwell, in my opinion. But on its own, this book is complete in giving us a vision of a future where our own progress leads us to digging our own watertight grave…

Labels: Books, classics, Dystopia

posted by Protik Basu @ 9:00 PM 0 Comments

(Book) Johnny got his Gun written by Dalton Trumbo

Very few books can make everything around you irrelevant except the words that you read. This for me, is one of them.

I sincerely believe that this is one of the most important books of our times and the surprising thing is that so few people seem to have heard of it, let alone read it. I believe that this book tells us more about the tragedies of the last century in particular and of the way we live in general. I also believe that this book is a terrifying reminder of all that we keep conveniently forgetting.

The general perception among the lay reader is that the best and most important anti-war novel to come out of world war I is “All quiet on the western front” by Erich Maria Remarque. I believed that until I read this. It has a terrifying and a savage power that almost gets you by the throat at times, when its words probe deep into the reader’s mind and psychology. Its words tear at you and embed themselves deep and wakes you up completely from whatever sort of slumber you have been in.

This book is about Joe Bonham, who is the narrator of this novel. A foot soldier in World War I, he wakes up in a hospital bed and realizes that he is deaf. He is miserable but then realizes that he could have been worse. Slowly however, he begins to realize, to his terror, that he has become a living dead (which becomes for him an unique platform to have his ‘say’). He has not only lost his hearing ability, he has lost his arms, his legs, and his face has become a hole without a nose, mouth, eyes – just a forehead. An impossible case, as he himself admits but which has become true nevertheless…

And therein begins the story. Completely helpless and unable to communicate at all to the outside world, Joe begins to try and resurrect himself, try and find ways to cope. For example, he is unable to do something that we are take as an implicit – keep track of time, which he realizes is the backbone of keeping one’s sanity. After multiple failed attempts, he finally dawns upon an ingenious solution to keep time – with the only sense he has left, through his skin.

As he begins to create his own universe, we also begin to discover Joe, as we go along with him as he remembers the events of his short life – his father, mother, siblings, friends and some of the women in his life especially Kareen – the woman he loved and whom he left behind when he went to fight the great war. Each part and member of his life is remembered in different episodes and across time – from his childhood to late adolescent. We go through his ups and downs as he grapples with his world just like anyone else – with heartbreaks, joys, sorrows and finding love. Which brings into contrast the cruelty with which his life was brought to a crashing halt – all the more cruel since due to his condition, he could not be identified and so it was unlikely that his family, friends or Kareen ever knew he was alive.

While he thinks about his life, he also begins to think (which by his own admission is all that he can do really) and slowly develops a philosophy (which he wants, at the end, unsuccessfully, to share with the world) about what is most important to an individual (the part which more than anything makes it an important anti-war book). He also becomes aware of his unique position – he is one who has, in many ways, come back from the dead and he realizes that he can tell the world a thing or two of truth that no-one can tell.

The book ends with him making a superhuman effort in coming up with a way in which he can communicate to the outside world only to be thwarted in his attempt to get his message across to the world (and what he wants to say to the world makes for some chilling reading and for me, was the best part of the book). He is thwarted, he realizes, by a world that is afraid of what he can say and the truth of what he wants to say. Its a world that needs to lie for things to go on….

The book is extraordinary in that it combines the personal and political beautifully. The passages about his life are poignant, especially his parting with Kareen and when he remembers the rituals at home at Christmas. The passages about his developing philosophy is one of the most stirring cries for sanity that I have read in a long long time.

The whole book hammers through you as you read it. And when you have read it through, the book’s words simmer long after you have closed the covers. For me, it is one of the rare category of books that change a part of your life’s philosophy and something that becomes a part of you; one of those books whose words come back to you when you are doing something completely different…

Labels: anti-war, Books, war, World War

posted by Protik Basu @ 7:39 PM 0 Comments