Good Will Hunting

So, continuing with digging out my old blog posts from those I abandoned and buried deep.

Two or three years back I used to watch a lot of movies. Then, I just gave up on movies, altogether. They simply didn't make them good anymore, and I switched to watching television shows. Since, then I have watched some of the best content which is out there on television, which beats the shit out of movies- House MD, Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, Hannibal, Boston Legal to name a few.

I do however keep a lookout on the new releases. Sometimes, downloading a few which even IMDB has rated 6 point something, or 7 at best. My personal rule of thumb being download only those movies which have over 10000 ratings, and the rating being at least 7.

I have over the years of watching movies have developed a tremendous amount of intolerance and disdain for anything remotely stupid. I though depend on IMDB ratings, which unfortunately also rate some of the worst Bollywood movies very highly, I like to believe that the ratings normalise after a certain threshold of reviews have been reached. More, than the ratings, I usually prefer reading some of the user reviews. They offer quite a personalised insight into the movie, sometimes against the rating trend.

So, I recently watched these 2 movies- At Middleton and In Lieu of Flowers. Another movie that I watched almost a year ago and is worth mentioning in this post is Any Questions for Ben. The common factor in these movies are that they all have reviews which range from less than hundred to less than 3000. And the fact that the average rating is either 5 or 6.
My own personal criteria of rating any movie depends on the following factor:

1. Story/Script (Inherently, different as you can still make a good script out of nothing) 
2. Acting talent
3. Action  

Now, I will watch a movie and rate it highly if any two are available.

So, when I watched these movies I was presently surprised by the acting talent and the script. I had to write a review for all three movies.

At Middleton- The movie revolves around two parents who fall in love while they pull a bunk on their children's college tour. This is what the whole story is which unfolds in a timeline of maybe 4 hours compressed to fit 90 minutes of pure viewing pleasure. Andy Garcia and Vera Farmiga are at their very best. And I have never been more impressed by the acting in any of the movies than this one. They both played their part to perfection. Reading up on movie trivia, I found that the movie was obviously a small budget one, but it was shot from beginning to end in a matter of 20 days! This movie is something that you must watch, to actually see what acting talent is. Vera Farmiga looks as beautiful as ever.

In Lieu of Flowers- Another gem I found, and I literally mean a gem. Why? Check out the IMDB ratings- 6.2 and this only has 234 reviews as of now when I write this post. How can it be? This movie in my opinion deserves more. The story revolves around two people- Eric and Rachel. Eric is shown to be grieving for the loss of his girlfriend who he was about to propose for marriage, while Rachel is shown to have lost her husband two years ago in a accident. Both of them meet in a anonymous club, trying to cope up with the lose, and somehow trying to fill the void in their lives which they believe nothing can fill.

The story revolves around not how they find comfort in each other or fall in love. But what people actually go through when they lose a loved one. Oh, and there is also a beautiful climax. You will never expect what hits you at the end.

Any Questions for Ben- Another good movie, that I happened to stumble across almost an year ago. The story is boring but the script is excellent. The acting even more so. And I was eyeing Rachael Taylor the whole time. The movie is about a guy who suffers a mid-life existential crisis in his early thirties when he is super successful at his career, and it seems that the girls can't pin him down for more than 3 months at best. He goes to a reunion and meets Rachael Taylor whom he had a crush on, and finds that all his success is rather boring as nobody is interested in what he does, even though he makes a killing amount of money out of it. He and Rachael are drawn to each other, and they then eventually break up. The movie is not a love story, but rather more of a coming of age story only with a twist- Ben came of age in his early thirties. My review, though not inspiring, I would still recommend this movie, as the acting was superb as was the climax at the end.

So, I know there are very few readers who actually suffer through my blog, but if you happen to take me on my recommendation, I would like to hear your take on these movies!

Procrastination, Writers Block and some Californication

I have written atleast half a dozen blog posts over the past 12 months and sadly none of them made past the draft stage/ “blog probable” folder on my laptop. And so my blog lays neglected ever since. I myself can not fathom to explain why I sat down to write something, gave a lot of thought over it and then simply abondoned it for lack of inspiration. Being the most lazy ass'ed person who accepts the fact in his own blog- too long have I blamed it on writer's block. Too long. I have always realised it time and again. You are the master of your own destiny, no one else makes you, nothing else matters. If I want to write something which I want to see getting published, I bloody have to keep writing till it actually gets so. Someday. Sometime.

I also began writing a short story for the first time ever- which has also stayed neglected for almost a year. More on that later.

So, here goes the piece which I began writing a year ago, and posting here without any edits. I am my biggest critique- and a very harsh one at that. I abandoned this post as I didnt like it without realising that this is the perfect way I would have liked it.

What actually inspired me to write this blog post is that Californication ended- for the uninitiated, it is a TV series. I have watched several TV shows from beginning to end. Some of the best and most thought provoking(in your face) being House MD, and Hannibal. But none of them enthralled me as much as Californication did.

Talking to a friend of mine about the show, and here's what she said, “Hank Moody is a commitment phobe, a drunken fool who thinks that he is above all, and fucks pretty much everything that moves.” I find that this is pretty much the common idea that most people have about the show. I concur that the theme is mainly sex, drug abuse, and rock n roll, but what most people miss out on is that all these are not central to the character. The central theme is love- always. Hank Moody has his faults, he is selfish, and an addict(well, almost), but he also is a romantic- a hopeless one for that matter.

The character of Hank Moody with constant references to (and inspiration from) Charles Bukowski, is that of a novelist/writer who made it big in Hollywood. He has the perfect girlfriend Karen, with whom in his own words he “lives in sin” and has a daughter Becca. The success and the pressure(read fame) which came with the job, somehow went to his head and takes a toll at his relationship with Karen.

It's not like Hank stopped loving Karen. But somehow, love got lost on the way. This is something which makes Hank realise that he did truly love Karen and keeps returning back to her. I found Karen amazing, she is portrayed as someone who plays this beautiful bohemian chick yet with a sense of responsibility and maturity which is inexplicable. The only character flaw I could possibly find is how she could always forgive Hank given his chronic fuck-up history with her.

The hedonistic lifestyle of Hank is what adds glamour to the show. “Bitch, thy name is temptation” is a filler for most of the plot. Temptation presents itself to Hank -far too often it seems, and tempts him, teases him till he actually strays off the beaten path. After having led him astray, it then comes back to bite him in the ass. He has no sense of grandeur about himself. He knows what he is, and loathes himself for being himself- something he admits to Karen way too often, sometimes even as an excuse.

I am here trying to convey- a mix of emotions trying to use as few words as possible, for there are too few that I can find. I empathise with the character, that is of course obvious if not already.

There might be several scenes which may be described as best in the show, but personally the one I really liked was the one where Hank blew a million dollar paycheck on an engagement ring, carrying it for months on end like a talisman waiting for the one perfect moment when everything just feels right, and then after a much predicted fight with Karen one day giving it away to a homeless person out of sadness.