12 Angry Men

"Life is in their hands, death is on their minds"

This is the tag line of one of the greatest movies ever made - 12 Angry Men. Directed by Sidney Lumet and produced by Henry Fonda is an absolute classic.
The movie was released in 1957 and has spawned many spin-offs and rip-offs. The beauty of the movie lies in the fact that the movie belongs to a genre called as the claustrophobic genre. Here the events of a movie are screened in a single room. It calls for masterful direction as the audience must be kept engaged and monotony must not set in. A movie that showcases this tension that grips all characters of a movie in one room - it is really compelling.
The movie starts with a judge instructing a jury of 12 members to come out with their verdict- guilty or not guilty. The decision must be unanimous in their decision. All 12 should agree to a verdict guilty or not guilty.
The setting after about 35 seconds shifts to the jury room. Its peak summer time and the fans are not working. This adds to the tension of the moment. Out of the 12, 11 of them are convinced that the boy is guilty of murdering his father. Only one sees reasonable doubt in it and votes not guilty. His job is to now convince the others about his view point.
Henry Fonda as the initial voter for not guilty has given an absolutely flawless performance. The highlight of the movie is his conversation with Lee.J.Cobb. My personal favorite role was played by Lee.J.Cobb. He plays a father, who has been estranged from his son and somehow sees his son in the accused.

The beauty of the film lies in its setting, and the combined performances of all the actors. Individual performance by actors usually over shadow the movie's script and other aspects but not this movie. The movie engages the audience thanks to the superb ensemble acting by the cast. The camera work and especially the screenplay deserves all the credit for making the movie it is.

I would say that, 12 Angry Men is the greatest film I have watched that has not won an Oscar award of any sort. It is a must watch

A Hindi rip-off called 'Ek Rukha Hua Faisla' directed by Basu Chatterjee was released in 1986. Here theatre personality K.K.Raina plays the role essayed by Henry Fonda and the irreplaceable Pankaj Kapur plays the character enacted by Lee.J.Cobb in the original. The rip-off has stuck to the original script and not added any typical Bollywood masala and hence is also good to watch.

I would give the movie 5 out of 5. For the sheer joy of ensemble acting, please watch 12 Angry Men...

Job Job Everywhere, not a job to pick...

Well, the placement season has started in college. By the way, this blog has nothing do with Sp-Ent, but it is just to tell you the fact that, in the last few weeks I have not had the time to do any of my favorite activities - like sports and entertainment.

The first day started with close to 900 guys writing TCS in our college. It was a pretty hectic day for all us PC's (not Power Corrupts). At the end of the day, I was really tired. Such an instance had never happened in my life before - I well asleep watching cricket. The way Wasim Jaffer and India batted on the 2nd day would have put anyone to sleep. But, I have the highest regard for test cricket and can watch an entire day of test cricket without company as well - I did that once, in Chinnaswamy stadium - India vs Australia, 2004.

Well leaving cricket aside, I did the test pretty well. There were people who were mugging the previous papers and could not help laugh at that. I could not stop laughing when the paper given to us was infact very similar to last years paper. Come on TCS, you could do better. Anyways got through the written test and was called for Interview. The interview happened the next day and was another tiring day for the PC's. Adi and me handled the mike (Pop Singer). Then it was my turn. It turned out to be the worst interview anybody applying for a job can give. Pathetic would be an under statement. Finally after all sorts of games to keep ourselves occupied, came my rejection. It was a strange feeling. Was dejected myself, but the despair turned into glee when I saw how happy people in my class were. They got placed and I would love to think that I did have a very minute hand in it..

After the disappointment of TCS, came the opposite of disappointment in IBM. The guys had changed their pattern and a lot of people seemed stunned. I somehow liked the new pattern, and did pretty well. I had to write an essay on the topic - "Cricket overshadows other sports in India". The number of people short-listed was really a downer. Only 61. The interview did not seem to be a grilling session as I had predicted, but turned out to be a very meaningful conversation between 2 senior personnel at IBM and some prospective employee. After the interviews, the results were announced, and yours truly was selected. It was even more memorable as Srijith also got in.

Another day passed as the PC and Infosys took 6 people from my class. I am counting the days till everyone in my class gets a job.

Perks of PC include - 1. Bitti Oota
2. Meeting HR's
3. People calling you Sir

Qualities of a good PC - 1. Must be able to shout 200 names at the top of his voice.
2. Should be able to serve hot Akki-Rotis and explain some North Indian company representatives what it is.
3. Be good at MS Excel
4. Run around
5. Lift benches, which seem to be 20kg's heavy.

I think, I possess some of the above mentioned qualities. Anyway, getting really sleepy.
I would like to end this blog by corrupting an immortal line uttered by the great Dr. Raj Kumar, in an immortal movie "Operation Diamond Racket" --

"Baby, I am getting sleep" - Dr. Raj Kumar..

Battleship Potemkin

Movies evolved over time just like any thing else on this earth. First, the era of the silent movies, followed by the era of black and white talkies. Then came the era of colour and now god knows what is next. We also have the animated series of movies and no body can predict what the next generation of movie goers will experience..

One of my area of interests is seeing old, really old movies that are often not shown on any public platform often. These are real classics and must be treated and preserved.

When a movie is made, it reflects the mood of the society at that time. Movies often heal the wounds of depressing times - Charlie Chaplin's finest efforts had come in the time of the Great Depression and the World Wars.
In India, during the early stages of our post-independence period, we saw movies like 'Do Bhiga Zameen', which was about a farmer and his struggle. It was at a time when India could not produce even a safety pin on its own. Then came movies like 'Naya Daur' that showed a new confident India in its stride. Then there were movies made by Manoj Kumar which were made with the slogan 'Jai Jawan Jai Kisan' as their basis. Then the Amitabh Bachchan era, during the emergency times, where an angry youth goes against the system and is not afraid to take revenge came into prominence. India became a very confident country in the later part of the 20th century and our movies reflected them.
What I am trying to say is, when one watches a movie, he or she should look at the movie in the broader perspective and not just criticize the movie based on the story or the acting or even location of filming. We must look at the time the movie was made and look at the mood of the times to actually judge a movie..

One of the finest movies ever made, in my opinion, is the movie 'The Battleship Potemkin'. It was released in the year 1925 and directed by Sergei Eisenstein. The movie is a glorified version of the naval uprising that took place on the battleship Potemkin during the Tsarist regime that took place in 1905. It was made at the time when Russia was at the start of their Communist rule and the movie just brought out the heroism of the soldiers very well. Its acting can be criticized, the technology used(or the lack of it) will make the modern day cine-goers cringe. The haunting background music makes this movie extremely special. This being a silent movie has dialogues appearing as title cards from time to time.

The movie is divided into 5 parts -
1. The Men and the maggots
2. Drama at the harbor
3. A dead man calls for justice
4. The Odessa Staircase
5. The Rendezvous with the squadron

The first part deals with the immediate cause for the uprising. The old meat that was infested with maggots. The seniors of the ship, representing the Tsars have no concern for the majority of the work-force on the ship. There is a part in the movie where the doctor, who inspects the meat, tells the soldiers that 'these are not worms on the meat, they will be cleaned if you yuse brine'. The soldiers offended by this revolt by not having the soup.
The second part - A group of offending soldiers are round up in the corner and a tarpaulin is thrown at them. Then the guards are asked to fire at them. When they are about to shoot, a man rises and asks the guards "to look at who they are shooting, their own brothers?". This starts of series of unfortunate events in the ship where the captain of the ship and most of the senior officers get killed.
The third part - Here the man who began the uprising (The man who stopped the massacre from happening) is killed. At this point the ship reaches Odessa in Ukraine, where the word has spread of the uprising. The dead man is kept at the harbor, where the people of Odessa gather and pay tributes to him.
The fourth part - This is the most famous part of the movie - The Odessa Step sequence. Here the people of Odessa who had gathered at the harbor, are shot by the Tsar guards. The steps are almost never-ending and this massacre is shown brilliantly. This event never occurred, but was included in the script just to show, how bad the Tsarist regime was. Towards the end of the sequence, the soldiers shoot a mother who is pushing a baby carriage. She falls to the ground, and as she dies she accidentally kicks the carriage away; it rolls down the steps alongside the frightened crowd.
The Fifth part- This shows the retaliation by the soldiers of the Battleship Potemkin.

I would give this movie 10 on 10. The beauty of the movie is that, despite the fact that there is no dialogue, you still get the message that the director is trying to tell.

Movies reflect the time in history that they were made in. Great Movies tell a great story about that time. Battleship Potemkin belongs to that category...

My first blog

This is my first blog. So what i am starting a blog for..
I use the words "WHY NOT?" a lot.
---- Can we have ice-cream - "WHY NOT?"
---- Can we have bitti oota - "WHY NOT?"
---- Can we watch a match - "WHY NOT?"
---- Can we go for some stupid quiz - "WHY NOT?"
---- Can i maintain a blog - "WHY NOT?"
So here it is. A blog that i will try to maintain.

Well the name of my blog is a tribute to the things i like the most - SPorts and ENTertainment. Few quizzers will automatically know what SPENT means.

I am trying to get the writer instincts in me going. But it seems to be waking up a bit slowly. When was the last time i wrote for the love of writing. School - to pass those awful classes by writing the worst of poetry and entertain my mates in class, or during those English classes where our teacher asked us to write some stuff and then make us read it out in class. Anyway - Past is Past and Present is good. My writer instincts seem to come back and if in case any of my school mates read this, please remember the poems i used to write were of the lowest quality of literature. But it still entertained you people i guess..

The other day i had to watch the movie Coolie No. 1 where an overweight Govinda (similarity between him and me exists only in our sizes) and an equally horrible looking Karisma Kapoor romanced and proclaimed their love to each other in the song - "Main to raste se jaa raha tha"

Here are the lyrics of the first paragraph
Main to raste se jaa raha tha
Main to bhel puri kha raha tha
Mian to Ladki ghuma raha tha

Raste se ja raha tha
Bhel puri kha raha tha
Ladki Ghuma raha tha

Teri Nani Mari tho Main Kya karoo
Teri Nani Mari tho Main Kya karoo

Which roughly translates to
I was walking on the street
I was eating Bhel Puri
I was going around with a girl
If your grand mother died what can i do..

Now is there any sense in this song. How is the death of grand mother even related to the brewing romance between the hero and the heroine. There is another movie with the same hero, heroine and the director. Whats more the movie is also similarly titled. It is called "Hero No.1". This movie was what i call "Rip-off from many places" - inspired by Mr. Bean, a wonderful Rajesh Khanna movie called Bawarchi and so on. Well my love for plagiarized stuff is somewhat unusual. I try to watch movies where i try to find out what part of this movie is taken from which movie of the west or TV series.

Now as a reverse i can very proudly say there are few instances when we have given movies which are taken into Hollywood, packaged better and then released. One such instance is Choti Si Baat, which was released in 1979, starring Amol Palekar, Vidya Sinha, Asrani and Dadamoni Ashok Kumar. The story has a lot of similarities to Hitch, but Hitch is not a complete rip-off. Thats the difference..

Well so long till my next blog..