Viraj's Weblog

Here is a great episode of PBS' NOW explaining the role of credit rating agencies in the financial meltdown.

Upon first glancing at the IMDB page for this movie I thought it was a Bollywood one, and I'm not much of a fan of those. Then I saw the director 'Danny Boyle'. This guy did some awesome movies like Shallow Grave, Trainspotting, and 28 Days Later. One thing about all of those movies is the great use of music, almost as if the music is driving the movie. Slumdog is like that too, and the best way I can describe it is an Indian version of City of God.

I think most people didn't expect to see so much violence in the movie, but it really brings to light the fallacy of what many people think India is like: some exotic place where everyone is nice. The movie gets pretty brutal as it follows a boy rising out of the slums. Granted, there are other movies like Salaam Bombay! that also do a good job of showing the seedy side of India. However, the vivid cinematography in Slumdog is unmatched.

Boyle does a great job of filming the trains with the same technical fascination as a boy with a Lego set. Everything about the movie is just really nicely done.

Charlie Kaufman is a great writer who normally takes melancholy trips into the psyche. His earlier movies like Being John Malkovich and Adaptation have a fairly humorous tone about them. Synechdoche is labeled a 'Comedy' in IMDB, but I don't think I or the audience laughed once during the movie. There were some amusing moments, and they were funny in a way because they are true to human thought, but also uncomfortable to admit. Synechdoche is pronounced like Schenectady. Yes, I had to look it up because I wanted to know how to pronounce the movie I'm buying a ticket for.

I honestly wanted to walk out of this movie about 30 minutes from the end. It just became a bit non-sensical with characters becoming other characters. Then I realized Kaufman employs a similar technique in his other films: recursion. Adaptation had an author writing a book about an author writing a book ... In this movie he blurs the line between the characters people portray and the real characters (also actors). He's generally conveying the philosophical idea of humans constantly changing their portrayals of who they are based on interactions with others.

From Ebert's review:

Here is how it happens. We find something we want to do, if we are lucky, or something we need to do, if we are like most people. We use it as a way to obtain food, shelter, clothing, mates, comfort, a first folio of Shakespeare, model airplanes, American Girl dolls, a handful of rice, sex, solitude, a trip to Venice, Nikes, drinking water, plastic surgery, child care, dogs, medicine, education, cars, spiritual solace -- whatever we think we need. To do this, we enact the role we call "me," trying to brand ourselves as a person who can and should obtain these things.

The movie is dream-like, with time whizzing by without any indication. It's really about hopes and failures, and how we are all actors in our own plays. There was a bit too much self-pity. Just when I was almost fed up, the ending was something that really brought it all together. Philosophically it is not a new groundbreaking idea, but it's a good portrayal. It's a really sad and hopeless ending, but it made sense. The director becomes the directed. At every point there is a voice in his ear telling him how to respond to the world, until he is directed to let go and die.

Good interview.

Here is a pretty good article on parental gene battles. A quote:

One of the most striking contrasts between autism and schizophrenia is how they affect the ability to understand others. Autistic people have a difficult time figuring out what other people are feeling. Schizophrenic people, on the other hand, sometimes do too good a job. They may come to believe that a refrigerator is talking to them, for example, or that people are conspiring against them.