Thursday, March 26, 2009

Slate really gets me!

(Warning: This may be hazardous to bloggers).

NPD or Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

Yup. Well. That was a depressing/damning read. The title of my post should tell you how deep I am in this sh$t. Its been a few days since I read that - and I'm still trying to come to terms with it.

There now. You only live once.

Friday, March 20, 2009

"I Liked/Like" - P II

Kay Kay Menon

Kay Kay has been around for a while. First saw him in some gangster movie - where Kay Kay plays a police office who goes undercover and infiltrates a notorious gang, but in the course of time ends up conflicted about the situation (Chhal). That story is pretty much almost staple fare across the world for action-drama movie script purposes. So no biggie there.

But he's always been an integral part of the alternative/ multiplex Hindi movie genre. He played an impressionable Marxist in Sudhir Mishra's superlative Hazaroon Khwaishein Aisi, a business tycoon who ultimately goes up and down with the dirty game that business tycoons seem to be playing all the time in Madhur Bhandarkar's Corporate, an investigative officer trying to put together the pieces of the bomb blasts in Mumbai in March 1993 and the plot behind it in Anurag Kashyap's Black Friday, a senior manager at a Mumbai call-center not averse to cheating on his wife on the side in Life In A Metro, among other parts. Did I say he was very impressive in essaying those varied roles? Well - he was.

He's been acting in commercial potboilers off late as well. So far they've been a mixed bag. In Ram Gopal Varma's Sarkar - a remake of/tribute to Mario Puzo's The Godfather (of sorts) in an Indian political setting, he played the character most similar to Fredo Corleone. He was also easily the best thing in that movie, for me at least, despite the fact that Senior and Junior Bachchan were the central characters. Can't wait to catch him in Kashyap's latest release Gulaal.

To sum it up, easily one of the best around in the acting business. Fair to say that the parallel cinema/multiplex movement would have been/be far less effective/entertaining had he not been around.

Thursday, March 12, 2009

"Bhimsen"

Bhimsen (by Prem Panicker) (Link updated.)

Prem Panicker's story series views the world of the Mahabharata through the eyes of Bhima or Bhimsen, the second of the official five Pandava brothers, also the mightiest of them all according to legend. It is in episodic form and is a work in progress/unfinished. Meaning - episodes are being written as we speak and the story updated periodically. The link above points to the entire archive including Prem's preamble and the source of his inspiration.

Those familiar with the Mahabharata will find this easier to follow perhaps. I have been following it since Prem started writing it on his relatively new website (see side link under "Reading List").

Why follow it though if you already know the story?

Ah, but, does merely knowing a sequence of events mean that you really know a story? There are as many perspectives to a story as there are readers. It's also very well written.


Update:
Prem's continuing the series and his blogging over at his new site. So follow the latest Bhimsen episodes over there.