Movies, Masti, Magic

I mentioned in my previous post that I have been on a movie watching spree since my last term got over. I am doing five courses this term, out of which three are by visiting professors. This means that I'll have short bursts of hectic schedules, mainly on weekends, while for the rest of the week I'll essentially be doing just two courses. Plus most of the courses have very little group work, which was my main criterion for choosing courses this term. This directly translates into a whole lot of free time.

There was this guy I knew in Delhi, a batchmate of mine and a member of the quiz club there, who used to say that the only Hollywood movies worth watching were black and white ones. I always thought he was saying it just for the effct, considering that he usd to do a lot of other things for the same reason. But after having seen classics like The Ox Bow Incident, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Out of the Past, Brief Encounter, Kind Hearts and Coronets and The Big Sleep over the last few days, I am beginning to see the truth in the statement. I am not sure about the 'only' bit, as I have also seen The Conversation, Rosemary's Baby, Bonnie and Clyde, Sleuth and several others, but I definitely respect B&W movies much much more now (and yes, I have had my fair share of Ford, Capra and Wilder). Before you point out, I know that not all of these movies are Hollywood products. New found respect for Brit flicks too.

Of course, I do not always agree with the IMDb 250. Even though you discount the presence of new releases like Ratatouille and Superbad on the list (which are really good movies, but certainly not worthy of being up there), there are others like Out Of The Past or Life of Brian that do not come across as all that great. I liked the former, but not all that much again, and found the latter rather painful.

Then there are movies like Bonnie and Clyde or Easy Rider, which you appreciate more when you learn about the context they were made in. I am reading this brilliant book by Peter Biskind called Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex-Drugs-and-Rock 'N' Roll Generation Saved Hollywood and a few chapters into it I am fascinated by the turbulence Hollywood had gone through in the late 60s and early 70s. And how big a name Dennis Hopper, whom I mainly know for his delicious villany in Blue Velvet, and not so delicious one in Speed, was for a brief period. The combination of drugs, promiscuity, nudity, anti-war protests and the general hippie culture is, to repeat the word again, extremely fascinating. I know where I would want to go to if I had a time machine.

To round up a really wholesome diet of movies, we were visited by Mani Ratnam today as part of these talks we keep having organized by one club or the other. The man is really shy and so normal that making movies actually looks like just another simple career option.

To make things perfect, the weather's just amazing, the courses are generally interesting and life's good.