Religulous is a movie/documentary on religion by Larry Charles who was the director of one of the worst movies ever made in my opinion, namely, Borat. For this very reason, I was a little apprehensive about watching this movie. However, the fact that it starred one of my comedy heroes, Bill Maher and that it took a negative look at one of my pet peeves, religion was enough for me to give it a try. And I am very glad I did, the movie was excellent. I had expected the movie to be very funny, irreverant and vitriolic about religions. Suprisingly it is much more respectful than I had imagined it would be. Interestingly enough, this works in the favor of the movie. And the reason it works is that you don’t need to do anything special with the religious nuts to generate laughter, they tend to say stupid things on their own. And the movie is full of such moments.
Bill Maher goes around the country talking to “religious folks” and trying to create doubt if possible. Maher looks at threeof the major world religions, Christanity, Judaism and Islam and the goal is to convince people of the absurdity of religious practices and texts. The goal of the movie is to try and convince people that doubt is OK. Not knowing all the answers about God, about our life, after-life is also OK. What is dangerous is following religions that claim to have these answers and that too with certanity when it is obvious that they don’t.
Now I have watched Bill Maher for years now and agree with pretty much everything he says. But a few things really caught my attention in the movie.
1. When he says that not having faith is a luxury not everyone can afford. This is something every atheist needs to keep in mind when we ridicule organized religion.
2. When he equates orgainized religion with mass hysteria.
3. The bit about how using religion as a crutch allows us to ignore our duties and responsibilities as world citizens. Let us not worry about oil, global warming, war, terror because some GOD somewhere is taking care of it for us.
I will not give away any more of the movie than I already have but I would HIGHLY recommend it. 5 stars.
This is one of my favorite stand up acts. I literally was rolling on the floor, laughing. Warning: Some people might find it a tad offensive. But then again, it is George Carlin.
I have been complaining about the lack of quality movies from Hollywood for a long time. But I sense that they are turning a corner. A couple of movies I saw recently give me hope that things will get improve and we will see better movies from Hollywood.
Juno - A really good movie. I haven’t seen a better movie in a while. A simple story translated very well on to the big screen. Also the actors are excellent. Juno is a witty, smart comedy about a 15 year old girl whose life takes an unexpected turn when she gets pregnant. A must watch. Just the song on the opening credits, All I want is you, is worth the price of the ticket/DVD.
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull – I have met a lot of people who hated this movie. I think their expectations were too high. While nowhere close to the earlier Indiana Jones movies this is a thrilling, fun movie in it’s own right. And you can’t go wrong with that soundtrack.
I have also heard very good things about Ironman and the previews for Hancock and Dark Knight look good. So summer movie watching might not be as bad as the last couple of years.
As the legend says, “There for the grace of GOD, goes Rajnikanth”. So without further ado, and with great pleasure, I direct you to my good friend S’s blog. Do watch the video.
I personally, have found inspiration and wisdom in the most unlikeliest of places, Hollywood. A place famous for it’s lack of touch with reality.
1. X-Men United.
A Hollywood action movie based on comic book about mutants is the last place you would expect to learn something useful from. But there is a dialogue in XMen-United that goes as follows:
Night-crawler: Someone so beautiful should not be so angry.
Storm: Sometimes anger can help you survive.
Night-crawler: So can faith.
The fact that a blue mutant in a fancy dress says it, does not take anything away from the powerful message. It is the basic philosophy behind most religions.
2. Las Vegas (TV show):
In a quite ludicrous scene based in a Las Vegas casino, a Tibetian monk who is gambling in the casino tells the casino host,
“True luxury is freedom from want”.
This is the sort of an one-liner that goes un-noticed. But in reality, it is really deep and represents the core of Gautam Buddha’s teachings.
3. Spiderman
Yes, I am talking about the famous dialogue. “With great power, comes great responsibility”.
This is similar to the message Mahatma Gandhi gave the Indian leaders when India attained independence. He warned them that power corrupts and that they had a responsibility to the Indian people to not let that happen.
There are many, many more examples where a lot of useful and good thoughts are crystallized in very apt words by the movie folks. My good friend S has an interesting theory behind why this is so. Essentially every person has a life philosophy, a sort of a guide by which they live their lives. Hollywood writers are people too. And they are well-read, well-educated and very talented people. They also have a knack of finding the right words to get the message across.
So next time you are watching a crazy horror movie or a cheesy romantic comedy, just keep your eyes and ears open. What you see and hear just might change your life forever
As a child, I had very little appreciation of fine arts. Dance, music, art, paintings and so on. Things did not change much as I grew up. I started understanding them better but didn’t really like them. However, over the past few years, I have started enjoying music more and more. And except for Hard Rock, I pretty much love all kinds of music.
It started, interestingly enough, with Rap. Now there are many people out there who do not even consider it as music. It is profane, mysogynist and has very little soul. But it IS art, just listen to Eminem. He cusses, he is extremely troubled, he is mysogynist and he is a homophobe. He also happens to be a fuckin’ genius! The reason I enjoy Eminem is that he has a gift of words that is unparalelled. If you can look past the cuss words in his songs and listen to the lyrics, you will understand what I mean. There is a lot of anger, a lot of craziness and also, a lot of brilliance. Eminem was the first time I started listening to music with the sole purpose of actually listening to music rather than using it as an accessory while running or driving.
After Rap, it was reggae, then rock and of course, Hindi music. My latest craze is Desi Rap. I think it totally rocks. Bluffmaster (Right here Right Now) started the trend. And Hare Ram Hare Raam in Bhool Bhullaiya is the tops. It is amazing what great music 7 different “surs” and 2 different languages can produce.
Now for a little lightness I was watching the movie As Good as it Gets yesterday. I really like that movie, even though it is of a genre I do not usually enjoy. It is a quirky, romantic, feel-good comedy with all the cliches in the world. It even has the token gay guy. I think this movie started that trend. The reason I love this movie is that rarely do you find a movie with two great actors who fit their roles so perfectly. See this movie and you will know what I mean. It seems like Jack Nicholson and Helen Hunt were put on earth to play the lead in the movie.
That got me thinking of actors that fitted their characters like a glove. Here is my top 10 (12 if you count Jack Nicholson and Helen Hunt)
Jim Carrey in The Mask The greatest role ever played by any actor. PERIOD. The movie is nuts and Carrey is nuttier. It is a sacrilege that the Oscars do not take comedies seriously. Without him, the movie could not have been made.
Russell Crowe as Maximus in Gladiator. Amazingly intense actor in the role of his lifetime.
Kevin Spacey in Usual Suspects.
Cannot say nething without giving away the surprise of the greatest crime thriller ever made.
Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones-Raiders of the Lost Ark. I do not think anyone could have played the “academic” explorer-adventurer with the panache of Harrison Ford.
Marlon Brando in GodFather.
He was THE GODFATHER in one of the best-written roles ever.
Julie Andrews in Sound of Music. Sound of Music was overall a brilliant movie but Julie Andrews took it to the next level.
Whoopie Goldberg in Ghost Fitted the role of a psychic to the T. She is good at whatever she does.
Sean Connery as James Bond.
Another example of great casting.
Haley Joel Osment in Sixth Sense. Again, a brilliant movie to begin with. He made it even better.
Leonardo DeCaprio in Catch Me If you Can.
One of the best actors of our generation. But a prisoner of his looks and the fame that came with the one of his worst movies, and I do mean the Titanic. He was brilliant in this movie though.
Eminem in 8 Mile. This was easy. He was playing himself :)
I went to Yahoo!’s yearly party this Saturday. I had missed it last year and wanted to see what it was all about. It was right in the heart of Hollywood at this really nice hotel called Highlands. It was certainly wayyyyy more fun than the Qualcomm party I attended a few weeks back. I am not really a dress-up, party kind of a guy but every once in a while change isn’t so bad. Some of the highlights were:
Met friends I hadn’t seen in a while. It was fun hanging out.
Inspite of an open bar, all I had was some beer.
I wore a sports jacket for the first time in my life. Everyone looked really nice all dressed up.
Lost 500 dollars of fake money in 5 minutes of gambling.
Was reminded that I really dislike LOUD MUSIC. Not good for someone who likes to listen to his voice all the time.
Paying 15$ for a non-Yahoo! parking spot instead of waiting for an hour for a free one was a great decision.
All in all, although I had a good time, I realized it wasn’t my scene. I would take a nice bike ride or some R&R with my close friends and family over a flashy party any day. I guess to each his own.
Hollywood has lost it’s marbles. I have always been a big fan, but for the last few years they have disappointed me so regularly that I have sworn off Hollywood movies all-together. Done, finito, full-stop. Movies have become more formulaic than Ekta Kapoor’s “Saas Bahu” serials and almost any movie can be slotted into the following genres.
Epics – Or as I like to call them “Fancy dress movies”. These involves extremely well muscled men in skirts in sword fights or pirates or something of that sort. Huge budgets, big stars, all fluff and nothing else.
(Comic) Book adaptations- Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Spider Man, the list goes on and on and on. You do great special effects, I get it. Enough already. Now how about working on a great script?
Sequels – Are you as tired of sequels as I am? Wolverine, Spiderman, Terminator were all interesting, but only in the first installments. Take 10 million out of those humongous budgets and give it to a decent writer. The only excellent sequel I have seen so far has been X-Men United.
Humor – Doesn’t exist in Hollywood anymore. Last good funny movie was Rat Race. The rest are absolute and total crap.
Animated – The saving grace of Hollywood. These days big budget cartoon movies are the only place where you see creativity from Hollywood. The screenplays are excellent and almost always original. The movies are entertaining for both kids and adults. Most of my favorite movies in recent times fall in this category. But you can only take so much of talking fish, talking cars, talking ogres, talking mammoths …
Hollywood still has the capacity to make stunning movies. I was blown away by cinematography in King Kong and Lord of the Rings. I loved the CGI of Spiderman 3. But in this razzmatazz they have forgotten about the one thing that really matters. The story. And that is really sad.
And if you have started thinking am getting too cynical in my old age (I seem to keep talking about the good old times way too much), wait for my next post. It will be about how much impressed I am with the new Bollywood. Hindi movies rock!
but I would HIGHLY recommend it. 5 stars.