Category Archives: 1-By Laksh

All these articles are from Laksh’s desk

1-By Laksh, Movies

‘Rosebud’ and ‘Skyfall’: Some musings…

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‘Skyfall’ in a lot of sense is an anti-thesis of a James Bond movie, that attempts to decode the persona of Bond, instead of making it bigger and brighter. The movie lacks the grander set-pieces, huge spectacles and the franchise strengths, and instead becomes a brooding and soul-searching effort with the director (Sam Mendis) offering his tribute to ‘Rosebud’. (Orson Welles and ‘Citizen Kane‘)

Sadly, the approach of Mr.Nolan’s unmasking the superhero isn’t the appropriate delineation for a Bond movie.

With some positive reviews (Wired, being one of them) floating around, my view could be seen as counterpoint.  May be a back story isn’t out of the order.

My introduction to James Bond transpired in a rather old fashioned way, when a chummy of mine narrated the lead scene to the opening titles of “The spy who loved me”.

He did it to perfection, including the act of mimicking the the James Bond theme that kicks in when the parachute bursts open. For a ten year old kid, it was a heady experience, imagining the terrific chase, villains chasing the hero and finally hero jumping off the snow clad mountain.

But, the true appreciation for the man who has a penchant for scantily clad women, exotic locales and an assortment of  gadgets n’ cars, came in a little later, when in my early teens, a norm in our household was broken.

It was a routine in our house to fast forward all the rain and item songs in Telugu and Hindi films, and it was never challenged as the powers that be, mostly my father, controlled what came out of the Video Cassette player. However, for some mysterious reasons the Bond films were left intact.

I wonder, if it were my father’s way of telling me that with Bond and God (read Lord Krishna), everything is not what it seems and merely watching them indulge in girls, guns and gadgets wouldn’t influence me (read mortal) in any way 🙂

My fascination for the franchise continued even as I picked up years (a-k-a getting old) as I watched bond movies both on the big screen and on home video. It sort of reached a peak when one of my favorite bands, A-ha,  performed the title song for ‘The Living Daylights”.

Interestingly, all along I became a ‘serious’ movie fan itching to dissect each and every movie I watched. While all the other movies were laid to bare on my post-mortem table, the Bond movies (Jim Carrey, Govinda, Manmohan Desai and a few others included) escaped my scalpel of story n’ structure. You could say that I reinforced my childhood gyan about Bond and God 🙂

 

 

 

Now, you could imagine my puzzlement after watching ‘Skyfall’ and its painful attempt to make ‘sense’ of Bond and his world.

 

 

The director unearths just about everything about the psychological profile of  Bond, barring his extreme virility and libido, or did he make an innuendo that they are on the wane? 🙂  He brings down Bond to just an extra-ordinary human being (like in ‘The Expendables” ) and in the process justifies the ‘fall’ in the movie title 🙂

May be, he should have listened to Steven Spielberg, who (supposedly) believes in following up with bigger things in the sequels in terms of scale and surprise, and sticking to the original ‘format’.

Hopefully, we will have a new director at the helm (and a clean shaven Daniel Craig) for the next outing. Hmm…how about a remake of Dr.No, just to practice the basics?  Hope the folks at Eon, MGM and Sony have something exciting planned for the movies to come.

But, No Dr.s (read shrinks) and  ‘Rosebud’s, please.

 

1-By Laksh, Books, Movies

‘The Girl With The Dragon Tatoo’

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‘The Girl With A Dragon Tatoo’ is about two individuals–an investigative journalist and a freelance researcher–whose paths cross when the journalist (Mikael Blomkvist) is offered an assignment to track down a missing woman belonging to a rich business family.

Mikael, having just suffered an ignominious defeat in the courtroom and facing the imminent danger of losing his magazine ‘Millennium’, reluctantly agrees. He shifts his base to the countryside and under the pretext of writing a memoir of the ageing and semi-retired patriarch of the business house, starts probing into the family. Mikael solicits help from the girl researcher (Lisabeth Sandler), and both embark on a risky journey to unravel the dark secrets of the family.

 

 

The movie stays pretty much faithful to the novel, trimming the not so important aspects of the novel (like Mikael ‘s affair with Cecilia Vanger etc). David Fincher as usual does a very good job of unveiling the serial killer and his den towards the end.  Special mention for the production design (Donald Graham Burt) and music (Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross)

1-By Laksh, Books, Leadership, Management

‘I too had a dream’

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“I too had a dream” is an excellent memoir, of a nationalist entrepreneur, Dr.Verghese Kurien.
( Wikipedia article http://bit.ly/QrsWgr)

Here are some quotes picked up from the last chapters of the book, where he summarizes his ideas on leadership, management and his life in general.

  • “What is the primary job of an excellent manager? In my book, it is to bring in and groom the right people on the team. Once this is done, the manager must then groom the successor most appropriate for the institution”
  • “While integrity and loyalty are core values, there are other values too, which are a prerequisite to achieve success in any field. For example, the leader has to set a personal example and make others understand in what ways ‘change’ is going to be useful. I believe that professionals working in our organizations must have a clarity of thought combined with a passionate pursuit of mastery of their subject. I have always emphasized that large endeavors are only the sum of many small parts and, therefore we must keep in mind not just where we are going but how we are going to reach there successfully. I also believe that a person who does not have respect for time, and does not have a sense of timing, can achieve little.”
  • “As I never tire of saying, my colleagues did all the work and I collected all the awards.”
  • “I remember often explaining to Nirmala that it is terrible to have too little money because you will not even have enough to eat and appease your hunger. But it is far, far worse to have too much money because then you will surely get corrupt.”
  • “I may be old fashioned in my thinking but I have always believed that it is only when you get less than you are worth, that you can look for respect; if you are paid much more than you are worth you will get no respect.”
  • “Bureaucracies do not exist only in Governments. Tragically, most institutions given time and allowed to grow big, tend to get bureaucratized. When employees begin to believe that the institutions exist for them, rather than that they exist for the purpose and ideals for which the institution was built, then clearly that institution has mutated into a bureaucracy. The revolutionary in me would demand that such an institution be broken down unabashedly, and built again anew.”