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Ferreting out the ‘inspiration’ behind popular B-K-T-Mollywood movies and songs is a thriving cottage industry. While Wiki is still the best source for info about movies (Saroja: Judgement Night, Dasdivaniya: My Life Without Me/ Bucket List) not many sites can beat itwofs.com (I-two FS, Inspirations in Indian Film Songs) when it comes to giving Anu Malik-types sleepless nights.
But what ’bout balposh? (Sangham-speak for wall posters).
I remember the time when brick-effect-on-Vijaykanth’s-face was very cutting-edge for Tamil movie poster art. Today, the writing (pasting? sticking?) on the wall is very clear. Tamil movie posters have distanced themselves from the Dravidian political poster funda (check out the Krish Ashok’s take), and discovered cool – innovative layouts, unusual colour combinations, unreadable typography.
But the 35 bucks DVD to 35mm formula seems to have impacted poster design also (I had blogged about Siva Mansula Sakthu and Satyam posters, didn’t want to blog about Billa and Eagen titles, Lost inspired layouts, the connection between SaSi and SS Music…)
Then last month I saw something in Landmark that can only happen in the world of cut-and-paste – Ranbir Kapoor kissing Evan Rachel Wood. The blues and the greens were exactly the same, the actors positioned at exactly the same angle, I couldn’t make out where Saawariya ended and where Across the Universe began.
Jai guru deva…Saawariya Saawariya…
Kumz is getting married this Sunday, and I am not able to sleep. Am not able to sleep not because Kumz is getting married, but because I feel high, frisky, perky, full of beans, as if I had had a gallon of jet fuel. Let me explain. Last month my office folks rose up in revolt and overthrew our canteen contractor (a lot of his stuff was actually revolting) – an incident known in our area as the October Revolution – and…ta da…got a coffee machine. Animal Farm meets The Matrix. Unhygienic tormentors replaced by uncaring automatons that…slurp. And the coffee is, as Knopfler would have slurred, ‘heavy heavy fuel’ and I feel high, frisky, perky…you get what I mean…
I thought a shower would help, didn’t. Thought I will lie on my bed and induce a dream that will carry me off to some place nice, like, you know…Vepery YWCA. But at 43, even the girls in your dreams are not interested in you.
I tried Nuovo Cinema Paradiso without sub-titles (hilarious), Autograph with sub-titles (hilarious, do not try this at home), finally settled for Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Full Monty treatment to King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, and God, the Bible, the Athanasian Creed…
Check out Scene 27
A Reading from the Book of Armaments, Chapter 4, Verses 16 to 20:
Then did he raise on high the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch, saying, “Bless this, O Lord, that with it thou mayst blow thine enemies to tiny bits, in thy mercy.” And the people did rejoice and did feast upon the lambs and toads and tree-sloths and fruit-bats and orangutans and breakfast cereals … Now did the Lord say, “First thou pullest the Holy Pin. Then thou must count to three. Three shall be the number of the counting and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither shalt thou count two, excepting that thou then proceedeth to three. Five is right out. Once the number three, being the number of the counting, be reached, then lobbest thou the Holy Hand Grenade in the direction of thine foe, who, being naughty in my sight, shall snuff it.”
Exhibit 2
MAYNARD: It reads, [reading] “Here may be found the last words of Joseph of Arimathea. ‘He who is valiant and pure of spirit may find the Holy Grail in the Castle of Auuggggggh.’”
ARTHUR: What?
MAYNARD: [reading] “The Castle of Auuggggggh.”
BEDEVERE: What is that?
MAYNARD: He must have died while carving it.
LAUNCELOT: Oh, come on!
MAYNARD: [To LAUNCELOT] Well, that’s what it says.
ARTHUR: [To MAYNARD] Look, if he was dying, he wouldn’t bother to carve ‘auuggggh’. He’d just say it!
MAYNARD: [To ARTHUR] Well, that’s what’s carved in the rock!
GALLAHAD: Perhaps he was dictating.
The DVD has some great features. “On-screen Screenplay: Read the screenplay as you watch the film”. If you click on the “Special Feature for the Hard of Hearing” button, the menu is read out for you in a really loud voice…
To cut a long story short, I watched three movies, downloaded Holy Grail script, read the wiki, checked out rottentomatoes (94/92), and am still not feeling sleepy. OK, that brings us to the beginning of the story…Kumz. I figured Kumz would still be up, chatting and stuff, with the wedding just a few days away…well, he hasn’t replied to my message, guess he is still chatting and stuff. Now this is something you miss once you get married, chatting and stuff…you know, you don’t want your wife to catch you.
Kumz is marrying Mayura on 23 Novemeber 2008. Here is wishing them a very happy married life.
Kumz & I in happier times. Monster House. Apr08
Was the title font of Satyam, the new Vishal movie about an upright cop, inspired by Satya, RGV’s underworld classic? Guess we will never know the ‘other side of the truth’…
I started composing a post titled Bell’s Belles on my misadventures with call centre chicks, learnt that today is Bell’s birthday, Googled, stumbled upon Saul Bass who designed the iconic AT&T Bell System logo, also many famous movie posters, and title sequences for films such as It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, which incidentally inspired the opening sequence of Catch Me If You Can, the movie based on the misadventures of Frank Abagnale Jr. Where was I? Gotta stop this hyperlinked stream-of-consciousness stuff.
If you are a movie buff and a quizzer, chances are you are familiar with ‘Six Degrees of Bacon’. The game is very simple. You select a film star, and connect him to Kevin Bacon, in six links or less. The game’s name is a pun on the concept of Six Degress of Separation (“anyone on the planet can be connected to any other person on the planet through a chain of acquaintances that has no more than five intermediaries” source).
Game Demo:
Clint Eastwood was in Space Cowboys (2000) with Marcia Harden
Marcia Harden was in Rails & Ties (2007) with Kevin Bacon
(2 links)
Mammootty was in Kandukondain Kandukondain(2000) with Aishwarya Rai
Aishwarya Rai was in Singularity (2008) with Brendan Fraser
Brendan Fraser was in The Air I Breathe (2007) with Kevin Bacon
(3 links)
Clark Gable was in The Misfits (1961) with Eli Wallach
Eli Wallach was in Mystic River (2003) with Kevin Bacon
(2 links)
(Bacon is at the Centre of the Movie Universe. Not convinced? Check out University of Virginia’s Oracle of Bacon)
The game has helped me survive many seminars and training sessions over the years. And in the good old days before Google and imdb, the pleasure of finding a link, after racking the brain for hours, can only be described using a word that my firewall wouldn’t approve.
It was a colleague of Velan who introduced me to Six Degrees.
Let us call her Diya. When I called up Velan’s office one day, I happened to speak to her – she had this lovely voice, with a hint of mischief. She was a great conversationalist, and I had time to kill. Soon Diya became a daily habit, I was spending hours on the phone, and dying to meet her. Finally, D-day, her birthday. She said she would wait for me in front of Adyar Bakery. I rode my KB to the Bakery, I saw her standing there, took a U-turn and disappeared…well, almost. To cut a long story short, we became friends, very good friends.
Around that time, a girl working with Diya and her college sweet-heart decided to get married, against the wishes of both their families. Typical Hindi padam: Rich boy – poor girl, Vadakkan boy – TamBram girl, Anupam Kher – Amrish Puri. The boy was going abroad for his MS and wanted to tie the knot before he left. The kids were broke and their friends were scared to support them because of Amrish Puri. Diya decided to sponsor the wedding but asked me to front the operation.
After a week of hectic preparations…Inside Kapaleeshwar Temple. Almost muhurtham. Friends and colleagues hanging around. The lovely couple, he in a sherwani, she in kancheevaram, before getting on the stage, they dive for my feet, and I flee.
PS, posted a day later: I now realize that the last line was a subconscious tribute to one of my favourite books, Catch 22, which ends with “The knife came down, missing him by inches, and he took off“. Six Degrees of Separation again?
“You probably don’t know John Alvin by name, but if you’ve stepped foot in the cinema anytime in the last 30 years you know his work. He was a poster artist that was responsible for some of the most iconic poster work of not only my generation, but the generation before mine, going back to some of Mel Brooks’ earlier movies.” (from Ain’t It Cool News. Also check out the NY Times tribute)
John Alvin designed the posters for 135 movies including Aladdin, Arachnophobia, Beauty & the Beast, Cocoon, Color Purple, Empire of the Sun, ET, Hook, Lion King and Blazing Saddles (his debut).
More Alvin posters available at the Internet Movie Poster Awards – worth a visit especially if you have had days when the posters in the lobby gave you more pleasure than the main feature.
Vaal kashnam – Balposh is Sangham-speak for Wall Poster
Roy Scheider, Actor in ‘Jaws,’ Dies at 75 (NY Times article)
Star of classic late’70s – early’80s flicks Jaws, All that Jazz, Marathon Man and Blue Thunder passed away on Sunday.
Good bye Chief!
Recently we dropped in on Vinu and Sindhu. After the inevitable rounds about family, friends and REC, the talk drifted to movies and movie stars. Sindhu asked me who my fav Tamil actor is and I said ‘Kamalahasan’.
Sindhu: I should have known. You look a bit like him…
Flashback. 1992. I shaved off my mush, and my friend Shobhana was like, “Mallu, you look like Guna”. Wow! Shaving-off-my-mush…and waiting for some guy to go, “You know, you look a bit like Kamal” became an annual ritual for me.
Then one day, mush-less, I entered the office, and the gang went…“Tada Tada Tada Tada…Avvai Shanmukhi…”
(Avvai Shanmukhi = Chachi 420, hence this post qualifies for the ‘Series 42’ stamp given to posts about my fav stuff – thought you would like to know)
Babu Kuriakose 
