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    I am the Butcher of Vilaspur. I am just like you. There is nothing special about me.

The Conspiracy against Screenwriters

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Jun 24 2008 | 62 Comments »


You are a part of it.

As are film journalists, directors, actors, critics, reviewers, right down to the spot boy. The most egregious offender is of course the self-effacing screenwriter, who puts up with the debasement and will often partake in it. So, you have people running around spouting sewage like, “A film is merely a ploy to wokka wokka wokka,” or “A story gives you an excuse to enter certain spaces,” “Scripting and plotting is a yawn mechanical exercise” and similar wankery.

Be wise and end it now, because I have declared war and I wear barbed knuckle dusters.

I will level the instigator blame squarely on the French. Truffaut, his band of merry wankers and the auteur theory. The whole notion that directors were the primary authors (auteur in French) of film, and had a distinct vision or theme running through their films. The role of Screenwriters was minimized, …

PFC New York City MeetUp - The report

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Jun 24 2008 | 33 Comments »


I arrived at the location a full 37 minutes after the witching hour, figuring I’ll still be the first. IST and all. But no, Badmash and Evelyn were standing outside the bar. From their unbridled disappointment at seeing me, I figured they were PFC.

We air kissed our hellos (Not), got a round of drinks and headed to the patio, It was Evelyn’s wedding anniversary, yet she said husband can wait. A PFC Meetup is more important, and hung out with us for most of the evening, while waiting on her husband to pick her up.

It was a small and intimate group and PFC author Shripriya put in a cameo.

Evelyn, Shripriya, Badmash, dabba, and 6 empty glasses.

I would be lying if I said that I was disappointed with the turn out. Not the folks that came(they were fun, and charming) …

Where Aamir went wrong - Autopsy of a thriller screenplay

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Jun 20 2008 | 132 Comments »


When it comes to cinema, everyone has an opinion. Not me. This is Gospel.

What credentials have I, you say?

A one time script analyst and self taught Ph.D in thrillers (Dr.Dabba), and currently, writer of a single location/real time thriller. I have watched several quintessential Hollywood thrillers multiple times, well made and those that fucked up, studied them beat by beat, and deconstructed the genre to inform my writing. The films that I’ll be calling upon - Collateral, North by North West (NNW), Phone Booth, Arlington Road, Enemy of the State (EotS), Three Days of the Condor (3), Nick of Time (NoT), Red Eye, and Flight Plan - have been chosen to illustrate various structural issues in Aamir.

I was disappointed in Aamir because there was so much in there to work with, to build tension, raise the stakes and make it a tight gripping thriller. Instead we have a 90 minute …

How to become a good Director

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Jun 16 2008 | 27 Comments »


I’m not concerned with greatness because it is usually inexplicable, almost always inimitable, and for the most part inscuziflageheifapermejandable. Also, it is conventional and collective wisdom that one must suffer for greatness. I have a remarkably low threshold for pain, emotional or otherwise, and don’t particularly fancy being the starving-cynical-great artist, aka the Pyaasa types.

Competence and merely good will suffice.

I made a live-action short film a little over a year ago based on my screenplay The Gumshoe. It sucked camel’s hairy balls and sent me into a year-long bout of rage and self-loathing, which ended in introspection and plenty of good ol’ fashioned heave ho.

I asked myself, what are the qualities of a good director? I know I am sorely lacking in quite a few now, but can it be acquired?

In the time honored tradition of “those that can’t do, teach” that has served the Syd Fields and …

The Fall - Tarsem Rises

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May 29 2008 | 59 Comments »


Assalam waaleikum
My boy’s back, and he goes by Tarsem
No video for R.E.M.
Or J.Lo and the Vinces in a bad fillum

It’s been a while since he rapped at ya
He got a dope rhyme,
but it won’t sell
No family’s dysfunctional
Or that other favorite;
repression
A visual fantasy, that’s his habit
And there’s a lil girl expressin.

If you get a chance, give it a dekko
and unlike The Cell,
You won’t need the blow.

Pardon my late May and newly 30 need to rap and keep it real. I have to re-assert my street cred what with all the punks getting a run of the place. I’m back bitches.

If there is one film you watch at the theater this year, this is it. It was raved about in Tornoto in 2006, had a preview screening at IFFLA 2008, and finally gets a wide release on May 30. Apparently, it is not enough to make an awesome film. …

IFFLA through beer goggles

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May 10 2008 | 12 Comments »


The last few weeks have been trying. I have suffered some personal tragedies that make the Burmese look like a bunch of sissypant whiners. On my way back to New York from IFFLA, I spent an entire day at the airport because there were 2 clouds over Timbaktoo. I finally arrrived at my apartment, only to lose my tranny shades (Chinatown - 5$) in the cab. I had two hours to rest, before heading to the airport again. This time I lost my cell phone in the cab.
And then the last straw. My only expensive piece of clothing, a $400 baby lambskin white leather jacket that has served as a panty-dropper, got stuck in a door handle and ripped. I could have had it mended. Instead, I proceeded to shred my jacket and threw it in the garbage. I was free again.
Pardon me then, …

Persepolis - And why animation gets me every time

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Apr 13 2008 | 20 Comments »


There was once a little boy who had a very big heart that bled easily. Unfortunately for him, his brain was too small to fix his chronic syndrome. Since he could think of no way to grow his mind to fix the imbalance, he went the other way. He started chipping away at his heart until the center of gravity was restored, and harmony found. He became selfish and happy.

An hour ago after watching Persepolis, I met that boy again. And he cried and he cried. He can’t take the repression that abounds in the world. How the spirit and will of the strong is crushed, turning them into zombies of their former selves. I should know. I have seen the mighty crumble. Losing the confidence and swagger they once owned. I want them to be King Kong again.

The movie is about repression in Iran, and how religious fundamentalism affects …

How to write Naach-Gaana?

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Apr 10 2008 | 45 Comments »


After yet another rejection of yet another offbeat screenplay (breakdancing gangstas, ichchadari nags with superpowers, indian zombies, refrigerators that molest little girls, romance between a guy and a dog, serial killer on a shopping spree, etc., not all in the same movie though), I decided to sell out (and hopefully sell a screenplay) by writing a mainstream movie.

I took inspiration from Lars who thundered back at critics when they accused Metallica of selling out with the Black album (a manifesto of metal and poetry), “Yeah, we sold out. Every arena and stadium we played at!”

And because all good and some bad things always come in 2s (like hot twins, underaged hot twins, and not so hot twins), I decided to write one for Amreeka/Hollywood, and another for India/Bollywood. The Hollywood film is a Thriller, and the Indian film is a RomComMusical.

Let’s man up (ladies can man up too). Our …

My Blueberry Nightmares

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Apr 07 2008 | 12 Comments »


Awful Awful Awful.

Beyond terrible.

This is going to be a quick and dirty post.

At 90 mins, the movie feels padded, what with half the movie shot at 48fps.

Kar Wai explores new lows in acting, exposition, storylessness, general wankery, and the ancient philosophy of keys and doors. Also, Jude Law douchebaggery is really explored.

Norah, don’t act. Ever. Again.

Jude Law should only act in movies where someone takes a nice oar to the backside of his head in the middle of the Mediterranean.

Accents up the wazoo. Brit Rachel Weisz phoning in a Cliff’s notes southern accent (that’s all drawl, without consistency or nuance) when she’s supposed to be from Memphis. I think I could see her dialect coach in the corner of the frame, reciting the lines and guiding the inunciation.

Same with Natalie. I will do anything for you love but I won’t do that!
Felt like she walked off the set of …

Prabhu Deva - Renaissance Man

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Mar 30 2008 | 75 Comments »


Yes. I said it. I called Prabhudeva a renaissance man.

This is not going to be an objective post. A glowing hagiography is more like it.

He may be the most talented person working in Indian movies today (hyperbole never hurt anyone). But he is wonly a dancer you say. No.

Item Dancer, Choreographer, Actor, Star, Director, Writer.

Writer/Director? Yes. That too of hit movies.

He was the original male item number. Nowadays a lot is made of Shah rukh, Abhishek or Hrithik dancing in some film they are not acting in. But he was there first. Many may not have seen this song of his. It was from a Rajni movie that bombed but this song was a hit.

How awesome was that?

His first appearance on the screen was as a backup dancer at age 17 in Mani Rathnam’s Agni Nakshathiram….

The Gumshoe - my short screenplay

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Mar 23 2008 | 17 Comments »


In 2006, my Indian co-worker’s 8 year old son came into the office for “bring your kids to work day.” The boy was precocious, and for some reason I took a liking to him (may be I was projecting my id). I conjured up an image of him in a chocolate brown Fedora, and brown overcoat with a magnifying lens in his hand. He was solving some kind of case. The whole story for my film arrived fully formed. I went home that night and wrote it as a one page outline, and a week later, I was still kicked by the idea, and wrote a 10 page screenplay and a few re-writes for readability.

Film: The Gumshoe
Genre: Family Comedy
Logline:
A precocious 10 year old must solve the case of “the cookies and milk” before time runs out.

I read my script and was surprised that I wrote it. This was my …

WELCOME to my rampage

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Mar 15 2008 | 8 Comments »


An unidentified brown man (insert ethnicity/race you despise) was finally arrested in Manhattan’s Flatiron District after a bloodlust rampage that has left in its wake, 3 dead and 22 injured from serious stab wounds. The victims include 5 women, and two grade school children. He was brought down by another brown man (insert ethnicity/race you like) Striker, a soccer player, and actor. It is unclear if Striker knew the man, whom he referred to as “dabba.”

The cause of the attacks continue to remain a mystery, but everyone agrees that the assailant had emotional and psychological problems. Several witnesses in Murray Hill, fondly called Curry Hill for the Indian restaurants and stores in the neighborhood (the chicken tikka masala is to DIE for), noticed a man who they believed to be Navajo or Sioux Indian, wielding a blood-dripping ceremonial knife and saying some weird chant “Bhill come, bhill come.” They thought …

The Lives of Others - A lesson in character transformation

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Mar 01 2008 | 6 Comments »


Screenwriter Florian Henckel had allegedly heard a quote attributed to Lenin about Beethoven’s Appassionata, “If I keep listening to it, I won’t finish the revolution.” This line makes its way into dialogue between the Playwright protagonist and his Actress girlfriend, while discussing the crimes of the Stasi (E. Germany’s Secret Police).

And thus began his journey of writing the screenplay of TLO, a film about repression in the former GDR where a Playwright (Hero) is put under the scanner for potential subversive tendencies by a Stasi agent (Baldie).

Here is what Lenin actually said as recorded by Maxim Gorky, “I know the Appassionata inside out and yet I am willing to listen to it every day. It is wonderful, ethereal music. On hearing it I proudly, maybe somewhat naively, think: See! people are able to produce such marvels!” He then winked, laughed and added sadly: “I’m often unable to listen to music, …

Character through choice - Gone Baby Gone

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Feb 18 2008 | 18 Comments »


Ours is the era of the cult of personality. When asked to describe a friend, we say things like-

“S(H)e is cool.”
“You have a similar sense of humor. A really dry wit.”
Or “She is nice,” when the person is aesthetically challenged.

More than one friend of mine has lamented their dating life by complaining about an individual’s lack of personality. I ask for clarification, and it usually leaves them with the articulation of a 6 year old with Down’s. I try to help them find the words by saying,

“You mean he doesn’t like The Smiths?

“I wish he had more edge to him.”

They usually don’t read the contempt in my words. So we define ourselves through what we consume. We talk about fashion sense, music we listen to, movies and writers and directors we like. In the end, it’s just shit we buy, rent or steal. This is also the …

Night Falls - An elegy for my hero

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Feb 09 2008 | 18 Comments »


About 2/3rds into the execrable LADY IN THE WATER, there’s a scene where two characters speak outside the building in a medium shot, exit the scene, followed by a pan of the camera to the building door. The framing now is almost a wide shot. The reason why I am describing shot sizes is to put in perspective some basic rules of horror grammar (itself a modification of thriller grammar).

The way it works is, you build the tension in a close up, with jarring and edgy music, offer relief by cutting to a wide/long shot (where you ease up the music cue), since bad things rarely happen when you can see so clearly, then cut to a medium shot, almost like saying, sorry folks - fake scare - let’s move on with the story, and bring the monster out in this medium shot with minimal sound effect.

Shyamalan is a master …

Revenga

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Jan 26 2008 | 100 Comments »


The desire for revenge stems from the mother of human follies. The expectation of fairness. I met some people last night at a bar (i get all my information/knowledge there) and found out that they got paid to study cooperation, fairness and altruism. I coughed bullshit and went on a rant about the humanities departments in universities and that I have greater use for my appendix.

I like to be right, but I love being wrong. I dug around a bit, and one particular study caught my eye. The link is posted below, but I will summarize it.

When monkeys are trained to perform a task with a reward (cucumber slice), they will perform with efficiency 90% of the time. When one monkey gets a greater reward (grape - monkeys love their grapes) for the same effort, the other monkeys were pissed off and refused to perform the task later …

Frigid - a short story

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Jan 06 2008 | 74 Comments »


If you enjoyed the recent film about a child overcoming adversity, you may like this heartwarming story. If you hated that film, you are a misanthrope, and may like this story about the triumph of a child’s will. I would like to thank PFC author Subrat for being kind enough to edit my attempt at short fiction. You will be sad to hear that his retinas have burnt from the effort.

They had a special kind of love. Sometimes, it resembled hate. Most of the time actually. Marriages may be made in heaven but they are stoked by the hate-fires of hell. Aided by the searing passion of hate-fuck, and nurtured through a moment of bliss - as short-lived as a firefly’s life - they were accessories to an act of creation, a beautiful one at that. The knocking from the compressor of the icemaker quietened down to a gentle hum after kicking off another regenerating cycle of chlorofluorocarbons. Watching, as the seething gas liquefied and cooled down. Sated, now that the seed was sown.

This story is about a little girl and her refrigerator.

Her oldest memory was of the big white thing. It was imported. This meant that it was produced in a different country from where it was finally used. A lot of people got rich due to this transaction because in those days it was not easy to import things. No one understood why.

She remembered that everyone in the colony stopped by for cold water from their frizz. It was her parents’ pride and in some way the deal clincher for their union. A “present” from the bride’s Uncle in Singapore. A rich wedding gift for a poor marriage.

People always commented on how cute a couple her parents made. They were cute. Their arguments cuter. It was usually about how much detergent to use or events of similar import. After a few years it turned into this -

“Bitch, bitch, bitch – you aaarr a fucking bitch!”
“Nenu bitch aithey, meeru enti? Bastard. Bleddy bastard.”

But, it always ended like this – “aah, aah, aannh.” That was cutest.

And so on it went mellifluously, as their sweaty bodies thwalped into each other; sliding, plucking and clashing, as their symphony climaxed with the refrigerator watching conducting.

In some sense, Mahira had always felt its presence, even when she was cocooned inside her Ammi. She would always remember the first time It tried talking to her. That was a rare day of peace at home. It may have been the only time she saw them smile. Daddy had asked her to fetch an ice cream from the bedroom.

As she walked down the long corridor that connected the living and sleeping rooms, she felt the blood rush to her stomach, and farther down. Gravity and biology working in harmony. Every step echoed, and she could hear the faint sounds of the night. She wasn’t even walking, simply gliding, like iron filings to a magnet. Clearly, the bedroom was designed for adults since the light switch was at the other end of the room forcing one to wallow and grope in darkness.

The fridge had a green glow, like gossamer moss, one that she had never noticed before. It didn’t really coat the surface or stick to it. It sort of hung in the air around the fridge. Catching what little light it could, making its presence felt. Then It spoke.

They were gentle hums and knocks at first. She held her breath, waiting for it to pass, but they only grew louder with determined vehemence. She rushed to the refrigerator, and yanked at the door, but it wouldn’t open. The compressor kicked into a new cycle and the gas molecules collided and pushed the piston. Then, that knocking! Like skeletons dancing on a tin roof. She attempted to overcome the door, but it wouldn’t budge.

She fled the room, desperate to get away from the malevolence of the green noise. She told herself that she was being childish, and it was only a refrigerator. She would come back armed with daylight.

But Daddy would have none of that. Tantrums were not tolerated in his house. She couldn’t possibly tell them that the fridge was alive, if that’s what she thought. Was It haunted, possessed, or was she being delusional? Of course, none of these adult thoughts had crossed her mind at the time. She had only felt fear, at its purest, nakedest; cold fear that made her innards grind and the bile defy gravity. But, there was something else, something new; a tingling in an unexplored corner of her body-temple.

As she trembled back to the fridge, there was none of the ghoulish racket again. Just the eerie glow, eyeing her, lurking. The refrigerator reluctantly opened its arms to her, and let her reach in, deep within, to grab the ice cream. She felt the cold mist caress her, and the green enveloped her and that tingling was back again. This time in company of moistness.

She ate the ice cream in silence as her parents rowed again. Later that night, she had a peculiar dream, if that’s what it was. The first of the many to follow. The fridge came to her, accompanied by the sounds of her parents making hate. It entered her, wholly and completely, penetrating every pore of her temple, speaking to her in knocks and caressing her with gentle hums.

She didn’t remember what happened to her at nights, but she always felt differently the next day. It had taken the refrigerator twelve years to learn to communicate to humans, and even then the grammar was not perfect. If ever there was a chance, it was with this little girl, created to bridge man and machine; the inanimate and the living-breathing. The fridge continued the visitations into the girl’s nights, and Mahira took it gratefully, experiencing the womanhood her body was ready for, but not her child’s mind.

One afternoon, while alone at home, she felt It beckon. There was no controlling the impulse. She emptied the contents of the refrigerator, every last one of them, including the plastic grates, and got in. She shut the door and savored the cold darkness.

There was the same tingling of that first night, but with an intensity alien to an eleven-year-old. The green mist embraced her, and made its way in, taking her savagely. All the pleasure centers in her body were active, neurons chitter-chattering and synapses firing away, and the throbbing ecstasy frightened her.

She tried to get out, afraid where it might lead to, but It wouldn’t let her. Her kicks didn’t budge the door as the vacuum created by the gray insulating rubber held. She panicked and pushed against the door with all the strength her little body could muster.

That’s when the knocking started again. She cried and screamed for help. She vowed to be good if she came out alive. No inordinate demands, no wishing ill of her rowing parents and no sneaking in to watch them make hate. It wasn’t exactly a prayer. A dying girl’s plea to anyone that would listen. None up there listened. There was Nobody to listen. This, she thought, was her comeuppance for all the naughty pleasures experienced.

She rattled inside her cage gasping for the limited air. What was it - the equation for the amount of air occupied in confined spaces? For some reason, along with completely useless information about Avogadro’s number, she remembered the news story about the 8-year-old boy in America that had drowned in a washing machine and another little girl in Poland that had charred in an oven. She knew what they were doing in there.

And it got worse. The frizz was torturing her, laughing at her. The blood came out shyly at first, in little drops, and then with great enthusiasm. Hell had opened its gates through her, and she was going to bleed and suffocate to her cold grave. And then that dreadfully familiar knocking!

It all ended just as quickly and quietly as it had started. The door flung open as her limbs flailed and she tumbled out of the refrigerator.

She wiped the fridge clean of all evidence and replaced the plastic grates, and the food. She washed the menstrual blood off the face of Daffy Duck on her underwear. Of course, her parents learnt nothing of that afternoon.

Familiarity is a numbing force. Even the most horrific seems innocuous when cloaked in its dreary garb. Life went back to its charming dullness like before with two minor changes.

In the outside world, three wise men had to pledge the country’s gold to a foreign bank to prevent insolvency. Suddenly, anyone could bring anything into the country affordably, and everyone could start a business without a license. Very few people understood how all this was possible and nobody understood why it had taken so long.

And at home, her parents did not sleep together anymore since they had stopped rowing. Hate is a special emotion to humans. It can be used to turn brothers against each other, enslave souls, and impose the will of one on several. But, like everything beautiful, it must be nurtured. The refrigerator had limited understanding of humans and ignored Mahira’s parents. It would cost the fridge dearly.

Those were the best days of her life. There was calm at home. Not the fragile peace of early mornings, but the unruffled tranquility of the comatose. The fridge came to her every night, but she never remembered it in the clarity of light. During the day, It tried talking to her but she never understood, language barrier and all. She continued being naughty, and was punished for it every month.

Her parents separated shortly after. A child didn’t question those big adult decisions and no reason was ever given. It wasn’t fair to a little girl. Then again, to expect fairness is a human frailty.

She went to live with her mother at her grandfather’s home. She visited her father’s house, the house that he won along with Ammi, the house she grew up in, every weekend; and the refrigerator waited. And so it went on, very cutely.

It would have all been rather unremarkable had she not attended the last day of school that year. Having taught all the chapters, her Science teacher elaborated on the application of all that they had been learning. He picked the Morse Code, and played a sample of the dots and dashes, as radioed by a lost sailor from the high seas.

Mahira felt that familiar cold tingling when she heard it. It translated to this – SOS…SOS…SOS. It was a distress call, popularly known as Save Our Souls.

The smart child that she was, she quickly deciphered that the frizz had been trying to talk to her, among other things. She also translated the knocks and hums from that frightening afternoon to mean – “Don’t be afraid.”

It was not the agreed upon day for her to see Daddy, but she had to meet the fridge, and listen to what It had to say. Before her father could ask the what-how, she was in the bedroom.

And there it stood. In all its gleaming, red monstrosity. She was informed that It had turned particularly noisy of late. Since good imported fridges were now available for so cheap, her father had exchanged it for something new…and red. Her fondest childhood memory was lost to yet another adult decision.

Mahira grew up to be an unusual young woman. Some might even call her frigid.