Monthly Archives: October 2020

1-By Laksh, ET, Movies

‘Halal Love Story’

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Films like ‘Stranger than fiction’, ‘Bowfinger’, ‘Harishchandrachi Factory’, ‘Get Shorty’ etc explored either the personalities involved in film-making or the process of it.  And films like ‘Abhimaan’, ‘Sur’, ‘Swathi Kiranam’, ‘Rangeela’ ‘Janam’ etc threw light on the relationships of the protagonists and how they change for better or worse during the course of their artistic careers or specifically during a project..

‘Halal Love Story’ does a combination of both. It’s about a bunch of likeminded people who know exactly what their film should be, yet absolutely ignorant of the whole process. Interestingly they get the first step right—The producers. These are like the Chili Palmer(Get Shorty) kind in ‘who believe they don’t have to know much about producing’, yet smart enough to make the key decisions about how their film would eventually turn out as per their inspiration, which in this case is the Iranian classic ‘Children of Heaven’.

‘Halal Love Story’ is an endearing tale of emotions and how the simple things become complicated in life and then simple again. It’s a must watch for any person who is interested in movie-making and management. What in management? One can still stick to his principles and get a project done and that accommodating the emotions of the team always helps in a better output.

Tailpiece 1: ‘Bowfinger’

Q:Why don’t you wait till you get a star who wants to be in it?
Mr.Bowfinger: I’m 49 years old. Admittedly, I could get away with 44, 41, maybe 38. But when you hit 50, they don’t hire you anymore. It’s like they can smell 50.

Tailpiece 2: ‘Get Shorty’

Q: What the f do you know about producing?
Chili Palmer: I don’t think the producer has to do much, outside of maybe knowing a writer.

Tailpiece 3:

When my father made a film for TV, he called it TV Cinema 🙂 That’s the same term producers use in ‘Halal Love Story’ 🙂

Tailpiece 4

Sync sound used to be a very expensive affair. Not sure how it was even considered at that time. But the cameo of Soubin Shahir is very funny.

1-By Laksh, ET, Movies

Meet Viju Prasad

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More of Viju Prasad coud have helped Anwar Rasheed’s ‘Trance’?

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In the late 80s any attempts to deviate from the regular was met with a disaster at box office. This was especially true for big stars like Amitabh Bachchan. His terrific portrayal in ‘Main Azaad Hoon’ couldn’t help the film from sinking without a trace. The film itself was an adaptation of Frank Capra’s classic ‘Meet John Doe’, where a good for nothing simpleton becomes an overnight sensation, thanks to some crafty schemes of the men behind, who pull the right strings. What happens when the puppet decides to have its own life and break away from the powers to be, is the crux of both films. Without sounding repetitious, or rather sounding repetitious, one has to agree that it is one of the best performances of Amitabh.

‘Trance’ reminds you a bit about these films. A mentally depressed person is picked up and groomed to be a pastor, who can connect to millions of people. While the pastor is bringing his followers the sunshine of Jesus’s miracles, his masters make hay.  One fine day, the pastor/puppet decides to break away and that’s when the movie goes into a spiral and never recovers.

Mental depression or for that matter any mental illness is hard to spot, unless the intensity is so much, that the person shows the symptoms all the time. Otherwise, they look and come across as normal, barring those episodes where the other selves kick in, which most of the times could be when they are alone. The first half of the movie achieves this depiction brilliantly, with Fahadh Faasil switching from one shade to the other, effortlessly. It’s the script in the second half that deserts him, leaving him repetitive and confused, just like the audience.

Overall, ‘Trance’ is an okay film for a one time watch, powered by a spirited performance from Fahadh Faasil and tied in by the novelty of the theme.

Tail piece 1: At the end of the show, when someone was asked about how the film was, he apparently said ‘Main…. Azaad Hoon!’ (‘At last… I am free!). Back then, such negative reactions did cause much hurt to sincere Amitabh fans like me 😉

Tail piece 2: For a few moments I wondered if the movie would take RK Narayan’s ‘Guide’, where the pastor redeems himself as a true saviour or a seeker. Reminding us of such possibilities indeed shows that the script had a lot of promise, which evaporated once the typical denouement of plots was chosen. Ex. The antagonists getting butchered and washed under a (Quentin Tarantino) blood splurge

Tail piece 3: When one is battling mental illness, he/she should reach out to qualified doctors and stay away from dark suited businessmen, even if they were the likes of Gautham Menon. 🙂

1-By Laksh

From ‘Onehour MotoPhoto’ to Moto G.

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In late 90s there was no camera phone or an affordable digital camera. One had to buy a roll of film, load it in the camera and once the reel is exposed, have it developed outside and printed as photos. If you had to see your photographic exploits in the shortest possible time, you had shops like ‘One hour motophoto’ that developed the reel for a premium. Being a purist or a wannabe purist in almost every pursuit, I bought a manual camera and couple of lenses from a catalogue. (My boss at that time, suggested to go for a Vivitar, a cheaper version of the in-vogue cameras, but still had great lenses. He also threw in his professional chops into the equation saying that he uses Vivitar lenses all the time, for his modelling studio at home.)

Quite a few weekends were spent in heightened anticipation with what would turn out of my ‘manual’ expeditions. Depending on the level of anticipation, the film rolls either made it to the value-for-money drop box in local grocery/pharmacy chain or to the pricey ‘one hour motophoto’.

I subjected several subjects of mine to severe ridicule (by the end product) and to sheer exasperation (with the process). Many were aghast with my guts, when they heard my caveat (‘Hey, trying out a new setting…not sure how the picture would turn out). In no time, nature and ‘self’ became the obvious choices. The former being mute, cannot sigh in displeasure, and the later has no one else to blame.

In a nutshell, a good photograph had to survive the following hops. 1) My atrocious and experimental camera settings 2) The usual shakes and tilts of an amateur photographer 3) The after effects from the reel developer, where the colors sometimes were auto adjusted or ‘treated’ out of pity for the Picasso in me. Here is one that survived these ordeals and came out okay… one of the very few photographs that can boast of a 100pc success rate, i.e with no outtakes (or photos in the dustbin).

Incidentally, this was my first selfie, in 1997/98.