tiberius now

Who would have thought the finest tribute to William Shatner's unique style of interpreting his lines as Captain James T. Kirk would come from a "news" channel back home? Consider as exhibits two samples, the first about the swindler's list and the second, a piece of fluff about Rahul Gandhi's car and security. Just as William Shatner would challenge the mundane benign cadence of a simple sentence and deliver instead strings of words separated at random by pauses or beats. Therein, for all we know, lay the origins of hip-hop. But that has to be a nugget for another day. In the meantime, we must return to Times Now's voiceovers.

Here's a fragment transcribed from the first exhibit. For sheer glee, I have chosen to let each beat function as the end of a line.

With Tehelka claiming
That these are the Indians
Who have stashed away their money in accounts abroad
(the narrative dies, yielding to a short video clip, before returning)
The debate on India's swiss secrets
Has only begun

And a sample from the second exhibit:

The first car in the conwoy
Zooms past
But for some reason
The second
Slows down
Inside
Is Rahul Gandhi
Clearly wisible
In these pictures
The team of Samajwadi Party workers
Tries climbing
Onto the car
The car starts mooing (moo-wing)...

Accept no substitutes. The original reigns supreme. As a final exhibit, I present Captain Kirk's motivational monologue from Return to Tomorrow.

all good things/bhansali does devdas

Thanks to TNN's Friday night special reruns of Star Trek: TNG, I managed to catch the 2-episode series finalé All Good Things.... This one has the ingredients of the best of the TNG episodes: time travel, Q and some very nice SFX. Just like the series finalé for M*A*S*H (which drew a record audience of 50.15 million households in 1983, according to Nielsen Media Research), this one hits all the right buttons.

To cap the evening with Devdas was a downer, overall.

space

Well not quite, but Star Trek: TNG definitely dominated yesterday's evening TV splurge. TNN decided to change the setup of their bonus Treks on Friday night. They did away with the dark bar at the bottom of the screen and stuck the label of Trek: Uncut on the combo. Didn't matter much to me. The episodes they chose yesterday were ones I hadn't seen before, and were worth the time.

Cause and Effect: Another time episode. Directed by #1/Frakes himself, this episode sees the Enterprise stuck in a time warp, doomed to destruction, endlessly repeating the same experiences (Groundhog Day/12:01 {short | TV movie} in space). And to top it all, there's a little cameo at the end by Kelsey Grammer. Cool.

Relics has several nice things going for it. There's the pre-credit sequence featuring a Dyson Sphere (Freeman Dyson proposed this artificial sphere the size of a planetary orbit in 1959 as a way for an advanced civilisation to utilise all of the energy radiated by their sun). The Enterprise encounters the U. S. S. Jenolen, which crashed 75 years ago, on the surface of a Dyson Sphere. A landing party discovers a survivor hidden in the ship's transporter. The survivor (the surprise package of the film) is perhaps the only engineer who could have pulled off a stunt like this, Scotty (formerly Chief Engineer in TOS, now Captain). The rest of the episode deals with Scotty trying to adjust to the time lost, while the Enterprise deals with the Sphere itself. The end neatly wraps things up (with Scotty saving the day), but it's still a pleasure to see a member of the old cast (who is not William Shatner) linking memories from TOS with events on TNG. The holodeck also provides an excuse to see the old bridge of the first Enterprise.

With the bonus Treks out of the way, and sleep making its presence felt, I caught the end of Force of Evil and most of Touch of Evil, Orson Welles' epitaph to film noir. While watching the wonderful filmmaking, planned camera angles and the ambiguity of light and shade, the pace and synching of dialogue gave me the weird feeling of this being a dubbed foreign (Spanish?) import. Wonder if Welles intended this, because one could make a case for this observation. One could also simply conclude that sleep was inevitable, and just turn in:)

the wrath of khan: an exercise in reuse and trends

Finished Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan yesterday night, twice if I may add: once as is, in the restored director's cut (released in 2002 along with the last TNG movie Nemesis) accompanied by very informative and entertaining text commentary by Michael Okuda; and the second time with commentary from director Nick Meyer. The idea for text commentary is pretty cool, if I may say so (for lack of anything more literary to say about it). This is widely regarded as the best of the Star Trek movies, and for its impact on the rest of the movies and the subsequent TV spinoffs, I must agree. The film is also an exercise in recycling:

* props from the abandoned Star Trek: Phase II project, the disastrous first movie, Conquest of Space, The Towering Inferno

* Heavy reuse of sets with marginal alterations: all the bridge scenes were filmed on the same set. Sets from the first Star Trek movie (parts from the Klingon bridge) reappear here.

The other cool aspects of the movie include:

* Rich literary references (thanks to Nick Meyer) like Moby Dick, Paradise Lost and King Lear (the inevitable Shakespearean element scattered across the Star Trek canon)

* The little cameo by composer James Horner, walking down a corridor

* Numerous firsts: The first (and only) time we see Kirk using a wristwatch; the first time we see a photon torpedo; the first time you see someone vacuuming a starship floor; the first time you see a "no smoking" sign (on the bridge); strong heritage of the navy in the protocol, dialogue, sets and costumes

what TV can teach you: darmok and jalad at tanagra

I have never heard about Gilgamesh before. Well, at least not till I met a colleague at work who had a machine with that name. Since another machine at the workplace was named for something out of H P Lovecraft, I filed Gilgamesh away as another example. On November 01, 2002 last year, television made sure I realised the error of my ways. TNN was running a Friday special bill of Start Trek: TNG reruns and the last episode they had was one I hadn't seen before, called Darmok. This one has the Enterprise in the El'A'Dral system meeting the Tamarians, a peaceful race with a language described as incomprehensible in past encounters. The Tamarian language uses the same words as English (predictably) but conversation is effected using metaphors from legend. As both sides try to communicate, the Tamarians beam Captain Picard onto the surface of the planet below, along with their captain. Forced to communicate under adverse circumstances, Picard manages to make a connection by using the Epic of Gilgamesh. This dates from the third millennium B.C., making it the oldest epic poem in world literature. As it turns out, the Tamarian captain sacrifices his life for the rather noble purpose of establishing communication with the other (our) race. This is a moving gesture indeed. But the best parts of the episode are the moments when the two captains attempt to get through to each other, using metaphors from their respective mythologies. And I got a free lesson in literature. Temba, at rest.
{more about Darmok} | {episode braindump} | {Discursive Dictionary} | {the Darmok Dictionary}

Sunday, October 20, 2002

Some Led Zeppelin, a handful of Star Trek TNG episodes and some of the music I had acquired over the last couple of days made up my time for the most part. I also got through the second half of Pukar (watch this space for more). The movie for the evening was Louis Malle's My Dinner with André. This overlong conversational movie will interest those with a philosophical bent and who don't mind watching a 110 minute long movie about two people talking. Some of the things they talk about are interesting, as are the two characters, and there's some Satie at the end of the film, but I don't think I'm going to watch this film again from start to finish, just little bits at a time. My emotions for the most part were reflected by the staff at the restaurant, who from time to time, indicate (sans dialogue) that these characters have overstayed their welcome at the hotel.

Saturday, October 19, 2002

Spent the day introducing some friends to Sona Imports ending up making a few purchases myself (my desi music binge is taking over my life)

* Kaisi Yeh Judaai (a compilation of songs apparently dealing with the pangs of separation)

* Voices (a collection of songs sung by a host of Hindi film music legends)

* Maachis

* The Ever Versatile Kishore Kumar

I also had the opportunity to visit Texas Sari Sapné {there's a photograph and brief description here}. The inner room of the store houses a modest collection of well-priced music with some good deals on both old and new music. Their tape collection is one of the best I have seen in this city so far (of course, I refer only to Hindi film music). Interestingly, they have trays for Bengali, Tamil and Telugu music as well. And I lost some more greens here:)

* Gurudev and other hits of 1992

* Gang (and a bonus CD of Love Birds)

* Daayra (a very underrated score by the much-maligned Anand-Milind)

* Manoranjan/Anamika/Paraya Dhan

* Parichay/Khushboo/Kinara

Pukar: Pre-intermission.

Friday, October 18, 2002

My trip to the Indian store got me two more rental DVDs: Pukar, this positions the Big B in the struggle to liberate Goa from the Portuguese (the other historical Bachchan effort was the Manmohan Desai migraine inducer Mard; and Arjun. I also picked up a compilation of Dharmendra hits titled Hum Bewafa, which includes the often-forgotten Morricone-influenced RDB song Raju Chal Raju from Azaad.

The movie to end the week was the howlarious gore-fest Bad Taste, which makes it both clear and unclear how Peter Jackson ended up helming The Lord of the Rings. The latter is also the reason the tongue-in-cheek blood-and-guts tale of four dimwits taking on a bunch of aliens who have decided on humans as the vital ingredient for their intergalactic food chain even made it to DVD. Watch this over dinner.

Sunday, September 15, 2002

return to where no one has gone before ... again and again

We finished watching Gandhi today afternoon. I spent the evening emulating a couch potato as I ingested one Star Trek:TNG rerun after another. Quite a good bunch of episodes, including one dealing with my favourite topic: time. We've also started watching another AFI Top 100 movie, All Quiet on the Western Front (#54). It's long, but interesting, especially in the use of visuals. It seems more like a silent film with dialogue added.

Saturday, September 14, 2002

Italian horror ... in style

A slice of a legend ... again
We started watching Gandhi. The DVD does wonders to the epic. Every time I saw it was in the horrible dubbed version (thanks to the Indian film board). The film has all the trappings of a great epic. I seem to have reached a point where I recognise the devices employed by a film to evoke reactions to its epic elements, but am unaffected by them. This may be detrimental to a complete moviewatching experience, but I don't let it affect my judgement. It's a great film that only fails in the superficial approach it must adopt in telling the tale of man whose life was full of filmable experiences.

Friday, September 13, 2002

Smoke on the weirdo/Charred finger

With a friend from out of town visiting and it being my turn in the kitchen, I dished up a mongrel of chicken biryani and khichdi as well as some daal from blackeyed peas. We watched the rest of MST3K/Manos. Outrageously funny. And highly recommended. My heart bleeds for the people who made Manos.

Star Trek: Going where they've gone before...again

Just found a post on slashdot pointing to a NYTimes article that uses the latest entry (Star Trek: Nemesis) as another example of the franchise recycling itself... ad nauseum?

Where no one has gone before ... again ... and again

what else ... a Star Trek TNG Sunday marathon.

Books past and current

I finished reading William Shatner's Star Trek Movie Memories, a sequel to Star Trek Memories his clearly solipsistic but tongue-in-cheek reminiscences playing Captain James Tiberius Kirk on the classic TV Show. This book is about the 6 Star Trek movies and Star Trek: Generations (where Kirk breathes his last). Being a Trek fan, I didn't take too much time reading this lightweight collection of memoirs and it's heartening to see Shatner poke fun at his attempts to sing (Mr. Tambourine Man and Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds are cult classics, but clearly indicate his future as a singer). And it's not the ego-fondler that was Where No Man Has Gone Before.

A couple of days ago I finished reading Black House, the sequel to The Talisman by Stephen King and Peter Straub. The plot adds elements reminiscent of past King works like The Dark Zone and Insomnia. I haven't read enough Straub to detect past influences. King's contributions bear his signature: the italicized inner thoughts, the gibberish spouted by evil characters, the italicized, uppercase emotional outbursts... There are also references to myths that King visited in other novels (in-jokes, perhaps?) like ka and the crimson king. It was a great read -- a pageturner, if you wish to call it that. My favourites would be the Hegelian Scum (a clique of intellectual bikers) and Henry Leyden, a blind DJ with multiple radio personalities who can see more than mortals with sight.

My current read to work is Vertigo: The Making of a Hitchcock classic, which is an approachable text on what made Vertigo one of Hitchcock's most talked-about films. There are no humanities buzz words floating around here, so come all ye reluctant readers.

Speak softly love

Well, I managed to catch the second half of TNN's rendition of The Godfather {yesterday} right after a rerun of The Schizoid Man, an episode from Star Trek: TNG where a dying genius transfers his personality into Data (yes, intergalactic cornfest, but handled better, IMHO, than the like-minded disastrous Spock's Brain from the original series. Back to the Godfather. Started off bang-on with Michael heading to the restroom to retrieve the gun to shoot Sollozo and McCluskey. Of course, he has to flee to Italy to escape the heat. The dulcet Speak Softly Love is provided as background music in different arrangements as Michael explores the Italian countryside, the village of Corleone (shot in another village), falls in love, gets married and gets tragically widowed. The rest of the film stood the test of time, but my chief peeve was the pixelated nudity on the wedding night of Michael and Appolonia. After all that painful advertising about it being uncut, this was an irritating copout. Perfect moment for MST3K:

Michael (in Italian): My dear Appolonia, you have such a low resolution.

Appolonia (in Italian): <speechlessly staring doe-eyed at him>