The Good Road

March 3, 2014 — 2 Comments

the good road posterthe-good-road-stillsThat it was India’s official entry to the Oscars should make those mad about movies go out of their way to watch The Good Road. If that isn’t motivation enough, think of it as the Gujarati film which upset the makers of The Lunchbox. Having watched both the films, I think it’s a shame that I have to think of Ritesh Batra’s brilliant Hindi movie as ‘offbeat’ only because The Lunchbox happens to be one of those rare Bollywood movies that exhibit a different sensibility.

Good Road 2Gyan Correa’s debut film The Good Road relies heavily on Amitabha Singh’s cinematography. As I have traveled to the remote villages of Rajasthan, views of highways and the interiors of any part of India hold much charm for me. As a fan of everything minimalist, I feel the film breathe through the few dialogues there are. Three stories cross paths in/on The Good Road, and the poor acting doesn’t come in the way of gorgeous shots of the Gujarat highway. Shamji Dhana Kerasia, who plays the truck driver Pappu (and happens to be a truck driver in real life) and his assistant (?) Priyank Upadhyay are the only two in the cast who effortlessly act.

stills the good roadMoments of despair turn to utter desolation in the Rann of Kutch, and Gyan Correa keeps you engrossed in this surreal piece of cinema. Not a minute from this Gujarati film (my first, by the way) is spent getting melodramatic, and even the harsh realities depicted nudge you subtly. Subtlety, yes. This subtlety is what I crave in Indian cinema. This subtlety is what I found missing in The Lunchbox, despite its delicate story and nuanced performances. This subtlety is what The Good Road has in abundance, despite its grim story and incompetent performances.

It’s the unhurried pace at which the story is told and the breathtaking visuals of the rural landscape and all that the movie says by way of saying very little that do it for me. Here’s to more films down the Gujju road.

RATING: 3.5/5

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Darr @ The Mall

February 21, 2014 — Leave a comment

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Pavan Kirpalani’s previous outing Ragini MMS was a triumph of sorts; a found-footage film that did build up decently but didn’t make you defecate in fear, it is still very different from what Hindi horror movies have been. You might have just been glad to watch another scary movie from Bollywood that dared to not have songs, I was overjoyed to see people actually act in it. Even with Ragini MMS 2 being helmed by another director, it’s still a sequel I look forward to, and with Sunny Leone in the lead, we’ll certainly enjoy a few laughs, if not the chills, but that’s a few months from now.

Darr @ The Mall veers towards the commercial side of Bollywood horror, with an item number and other songs, and an amateur cast hammy as can be (it’s good when they’re this annoying; you wait for them to be done away with). Jimmy Shergill, a fine actor who deserves better, is helpless in this horror flick the way he was in Bullett Raja (read my review of that unbelievably bad Tigmanshu Dhulia film here), and he looks bored out of his mind while experiencing occurrences spooky enough to unsettle anyone.

Nushrat-BharuchaBut get it right: Darr @ The Mall at no point manages to even interest you. Pavan Kirpalani takes a horror cliche we don’t find offensive and attempts to make it abstract. (Dude, we would’ve never guessed the damned mall was built on where an orphanage used to be. It could’ve also been a mental hospital or a cemetery, but we movie watchers are incredibly dumb, right?) Still, the problem remains that Kirpalani sacrifices scares because he’d much rather confuse you into thinking the plot (the story, not where the mall is) is deeper than it is. Despite the many deaths, there isn’t one moment that shakes you out of your boredom. Ask the couples who made-out throughout 2014′s first Bollywood horror film.

Who throws a grand bash at an allegedly haunted mall with inadequate security measures? Who attends a party at a mall which is currently all over the news because there have been nine unexplained deaths in it only recently? Along with the apparitions (ghosts of children) is the angry spirit of a nun, and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out the owner of the mall and his crony have perpetrated one of those crimes that unfailingly get every villain in Bollywood the punishment due.

Too bad that I expected Kirpalani to repeat his successful act; now all I can do is wait and see if Sunny Leone has gotten any better at emoting with her breasts.

RATING: 1/5

Horror Film Review: Question Mark  | Bollywood Slasher Movie: Hide And Seek

Sockweb – It’s Time To Get Bullies

February 6, 2014 — 2 Comments

By ASMO

Album: ‘It’s Time To Get Bullies’

Artist: Sockweb

From: Richmond, Indiana, USA

Label: Monolithic Records

Availability: Stream / Download for $1 from theironcouncil.bandcamp.com

It’s been one of those weeks. You know the ones where a second feels like a lifetime, and every hour an eternity? The ones where you check the time every 20 minutes or so, waiting ever so patiently to slink off? You stuff your face with anything and everything, you check emails and chats and wait for people to strike up any interesting conversation? Yet, you remain bored. Bored out of your skull. And just when you’re contemplating the silly travails of life, you find that one stimulant that brings you back in to the real, productive world. And before you know it, you’re jumping up and down like the Energizer bunny.

Yes, this happened to me this week. What was that stimulant? Glad you asked.

Sockweb - 02 - Album ArtLadies and gentlemen, meet Sockweb. An American grindcore project that took the Internet by storm last year thanks to some brilliant ditties about pancakes, Scooby-Doo monsters, bullies, and werewolves. Seems a bit juvenile? Well, pop it in, and trust me, you won’t know what came and hit you.

One listen to the band’s new four track EP “It’s Time To Get Bullies” will leave you bedazzled, stumped, exhilarated, and happy. With a big stupid smile on your face! Lead vocalist Joanie ‘Bologna’ Young is just seven, yes, seven years old. She screams, sings, whispers, rants, growls and more throughout the four tracks, channeling her inner Kat Katz (Agarophobic Nosebleed, ex-Salome). It’s achingly cute, sugary sweet adorable, and at the same time, so, so, metal!

Joanie’s words are backed and bound together by osmium heavy, yet abrasive guitar work, a bass that booms all around, and absolutely wicked drums. All courtesy guitarist, composer, and well, father Adam ‘Blackula Young’, who also jumps in with growls of his own. You won’t need a lyrics booklet to understand the dialogue here. Instead, you’ll be nodding your head in agreement. Unless, of course, you are headbanging away to glory.

Critics will consider the band a gimmick. But the songs are anything but. It’s heart warming and genuine music that you can relate to. Superbly produced by Pig Destroyer mainman Scott Hull, the EP is what good art is. A genuine expression of self that’s easily understood, and appreciated by anyone who consumes it. This is what a quadruple-shot black coffee would be aurally. In one word, awesome.Sockweb - 01 - Band

 

 

SundogProject – Hex1/Visions

January 20, 2014 — Leave a comment

By

ASMO

Album: ‘HEX 1 / Visions’

Artist: SundogProject

From: New Delhi, India

Label: Independent

Availability: Stream / Download from  HYPERLINK “http://www.sundogproject.com” http://www.sundogproject.com

It takes guts to tag yourself “experimental”. The word implies that you can push boundaries and definitions, or else formulate and approach that’s an amalgamation of disparate styles, or simply, introduce new ingredients to tradition. The word against a band’s name lures in the curious mind. After all, who doesn’t like being challenged, and hence, discover new ideas? With ‘HEX1 / Visions’, the SundogProject delivers on that tag, and how. The debut album from the Delhi based supergroup-of-sorts spans six songs that are dark, doomy, gloomy, and moody. It’s a lush soundscape that you can’t really put a finger on. With elements of industrial, alternative and rock married to electronica, the songs, on first listen, will make you reminisce ‘Kid-A‘ era Radiohead, Tool, and industrial powerhouse Nine Inch Nails. But, the only reason you will recall those bands is because you will be at your wits end, trying to compartmentalize and make sense of this album.

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Most of the songs are built up on a hypnotizing progression that drones on and on. As elements are added in, layer by layer, you are greeted with a thunderous distorted bass, crunchy-yet-smooth guitars, and vocal lines that can range from whispers to screams. The first couple of tracks serve as a harsh introduction to a world that you are not familiar with. But, by the time ‘Venus’ and ‘Face/3’ swing in, it all comes together to make up an experience that’s intensely personal. One which you can immerse, and lose yourself in.

All in all, this is definitely a challenging album. One which will have you hit ‘repeat’ ever so often, just so that you can peel the layers and reach the core. And once you’re there, don’t bother if you ‘get it’ or not. You’ll appreciate it for the sonic adventure it will set your mind on.

About The Band

From: New Delhi, India

Initially a studio project started by Rahul Das (vocalist, Joint Family), the band today comprises guitarist Rahul Sainani and drummer Shardul Mehta [from Joint Family], bassist Anupam Roy [producer and guitarist, Narsil] and guitarist Viraj Mohan [Another Vertigo Rush].

ALBUM REVIEW: Monster Magnet – Last Patrol

Monster Magnet – Last Patrol

January 16, 2014 — 1 Comment

By ASMO

Album: ‘Last Patrol’
Artist: Monster Magnet
From: New Jersey, USA
Label: Napalm Records
Availability: iTunes, Rs 130 (available October 21, 2013); Stream on SoundCloud.com

Meat and potatoes. Yellow daal and steamed rice. Aloo-Puri. Home cooked, comfort food. Simple, easy to digest, delicious, and most importantly, forever satisfying. It nourishes, delights, lifts your spirits, and stays with you.

indexYou can slot in Monster Magnet’s tenth album, ‘Last Patrol’ in the same category. Here, the sludge lords from New Jersey turn the clock back to give you a smattering of their past. A tasty collection of nine songs (eleven if you include the bonus tracks) that are more psychedelic, spacey and atmospheric than their last few releases.

Produced by frontman, Dave Wyndorf and rhythm guitarist Phil Caviano, ‘Last Patrol’ roughly follows the classic early 90’s Monster Magnet formula. A rather distinctive, slow start that casually builds up to an overwhelming wall of sound, infused with some excellent guitar solos and Wyndorf’s twangy-yet-manly vocals. ‘End Of Time’, ‘Bummer’ and ‘Last Patrol’ hypnotise you, and legally take you to higher states of being. The acoustic ‘Paradise’ harks back to the Magnet’s biggest hit ‘Dopes To Infinity’, while the Donovan cover is churned with all the doominess the band can muster up.

MonsterMagnet-BandBesides the songs, what ‘Last Patrol’ does exceedingly well is that it retains all the fuzzy, vintage sound that the band was known for. The record sounds and feels natural, as if the band jumped in together in their practice pad and hammered out everything using just analog recording devices. It has all the textures of an oil painting where you can see the brush-strokes, and none of the flat-lines of a digital painting, even though it may be pixel-perfect.

Those with a penchant for experimentation may not find anything new here. The band largely sticks to its comfort zone. But, that’s not a bad place to be in. Take it or leave it, you know just what to expect from Monster Magnet. ‘Last Patrol’ is a welcome addition to the discography, and a reminder of times when the future was bright, and lives weren’t that complicated. Like an old friend, or home-food that you reach out to when you’re down in the dumps and feeling blue, ‘Last Patrol’ will always keep you company when you are craving for something you know can’t go wrong.

MUSIC REVIEW: Black Sabbath‘s 13

 

The Wolf Of Wall Street

January 14, 2014 — 2 Comments

By JANAK SAMTANI

The film is based on the memoirs of Jordan Belfort, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, a stock broker on Wall Street. The film starts with his career at a Wall Street firm which shuts down and his move to a small time investment firm which deals in penny stocks. It is here where Jordan finds out the profits one could make through commissions from sales of penny stocks. Soon he moves out of there to start his own firm and gets a bunch of known guys, shown to be drug dealers with no banking experience, to join this firm.
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From the start till the end of the film, the investors and Jordan Belfort’s customers are shown as morons, who could be easily cheated and would be sold a story on how the stock would perform. Jordan is shown to be a great salesman who teaches his bunch the trade. The entire success of his company, Stratton Oakmont, which he starts, is based on this. The company starts to grow and make huge profits. With this come lavish parties with drugs and girls, which just do not stop and make the whole thing look unreal after a while. The guys are shown addicted to cocaine and Quaaludes, which they keep popping in every scene and there is just no end to it. Wherever they may go, there is a drug scene involved.

Within no time the company grows from a few people to over a hundred. There is more cursing, shouting, employees going out of control and make the whole workplace look like WWF’s Royal Rumble, which actually looked better. The only time the entire place is quiet is when Jordan is talking to the entire company. They have tried too hard to show how great a salesman he was. Everyone listens to him and gets inspired. All he does is repeatedly sell the idea that by being rich you can solve all your problems. And how do you get rich? By selling lies to people. If you have attended any multilevel marketing seminar ever, in real life I mean, you do not need to go for this film.
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The plot is very loose and events just happen; between the drug scenes, the FBI gets on Jordan’s back, he gets the title of ‘Wolf’, the regulators wake up to the fraud and Jordan’s father just emerges in a scene to come and give him advice. The film is made by Martin Scorsese and that surprises me. If you have seen some of his past films and like them then you will want to leave this film midway.

The film is completely hollow, unconvincing and could have been cut down from three hours to just a little over one. Better go smoke a joint and watch Royal Rumble than this film!

Rating: 2/5

Farewell, Gift

January 13, 2014 — 2 Comments

GiftI found this kitten on December 25, 2013, and never having received (or given) a Christmas present, I named him Gift. Gift was a playful kitten who never stopped smiling and being cute for all of those 19 days he lived with me. Even the other cats weren’t hostile to him the way they usually are to new kittens I bring home. He seemed healthy and ate very well. I didn’t take a pic of his loving smile because I didn’t think he’d die all of a sudden, just like that. I thought he’d grow to be a sweet, fat cat. Perhaps Gift was just that – a beautiful present that was meant to stay with me only for that festive season. Gift taught me yet another lesson in love, and his smiling face is stuck in my heart.