S.S Jishnu

Examination blues...

I vaguely remember starting this no-good blog of mine in a 'season' on one of my engineering examinations. I say season coz with regulars n supplies i had quite my hands full of papers to clear... even after completing my engineering course, i still have quite a handful of supplies left.... And i don't know why but at these exact moments i have a literal and artistic urge. My mind gets over flooded with ideas and creativity i have never felt in my off-seasons... So here I am facing my another series of rapid fire university exams completely devoid of even a remote intention to study and venting my exam-specific artistic surges in a continuous rhapsody of meaningless words and wisdoms....

So first up i have decided to trim my reinvented and revived blog to a series of reviews about movies of which not many people have heard of, both national and international. And adding to the spice will be any thing that i can conjure up in my brain so as to hurl it right back at any accidental visitor who may have stumbled upon this god forsaken blog of mine.

Now on with the review of a film titled MOON which i saw some weeks back.....

Lets get this straight, this film is basically a low budget sci-fi flick. But never ever during its runtime of mere 97 minutes it makes u feel that you are actually watching a film made on a budget of peanuts compared to the recent Hollywood productions whose budget has more zeros than I could count with my fingers. its a beautifully crafted saga of a man who is sent to moon on a contract period of 3 years to carryout mining operations in the near future. Except of 2-3 glancing shots showing other human characters, the entire movie is based on this one particular man. However towards the end of his contract which forced him to live in isolation 384403 km (238857 miles) away from his home, he makes a startling discovery of another astronaut on the surface of moon who looks and talks exactly same like himself.

The story unfolds in a pace of its own and those looking for unusual visual effects brilliance and mind numbing action are going to be disappointed. But it doesn't in anyway mean that the visuals are bad. Infact they are just perfect but one wont find any shots just to add the visual candy. The film rather than lurking on the technical aspects of the future and the usual ingredients of films from sci-fi genre, tends to discuss the impact of all these advancements on the mind of a single human astronaut. The lead character Sam Bell portrayed by actor Sam Rockwell is nearing his 3 year contract and longs to see his wife and baby who was born just days after his departure from earth. All along the film the protagonist is accompanied and assisted by his local robotic help GERTY (voice over by Kevin Spacey) who exhibit uncanny levels of emotions and humanity.

More than being a pure sci-fi movie, MOON actually is more of a psychological drama. The cinematography leaves no space for errors though one may feel the repetition of several shots and angles. But I strongly feel that this was done on purpose just to emphasize the monotonic life of the protagonist. Background score is minimal and to the point and never ever hinders any dialogue though most of it is shown to be day to day repetitive computer generated responses. The other departments have also performed crisp and well.

The movie stands out for its more human approach to such a futuristic concept. And the director has stayed faithful to the character driven story and has crafted out an slow moving yet unusual masterpiece which directly impacts the viewers soul...

Rating : 3.5/5 and a thumbs up

after a while my New Work...

Sorry folks...i know iknow..i had been leading a completely 'net-shy' life for months now...but here iam...back with sumthing to share with u all... Nothing special or important...but just another phase in my self learning process of video editing...Hope u ppl wil watch it and leave comments..

Now this is the video of our Gang...BACARDI BOYS.... the most notorious gang of EC 2005-2009 Batch of MBCET.... The whole video was conceptualized and executed by me, Jishnu.S.S. The shoot was on our friend Renjith alias Koshy's Sony camcoder.... Editing completely done in adobe premiere pro... It was intended as a stylish visualization of all the Ungodly deeds that we have been upto in 4 years of our engineering college life... with all the members of our gang being properly introduced in it... and ends with a msg for our juniors...[;)]... WATCH IT !!!

in love with my life.....

hey for the past 1 month in which i dissapointed u completely lots happened....

1) My sis got married

2) My college organised a national level intercollege technocultural fest "CROSSROADS 09"

n this two things had me back breakingly busy....

Not going to anymre details... but i have uploaded all the relevant pics of my sissters marriage on my orkut profile which u can visit at the link

http://www.orkut.co.in/Main#Album.aspx?uid=15266080893982422963&aid=1233222728

and i also designed posters n created a theme video for CROSSROADS 09...which i will share with u right here... but let me jus tell u i simply had a Rockin time in the fest & its simply the BEST CROSSROADS i hav ever experienced... n the thanks goes to all my batchmates n juniors of my college who went allout to make this great event simply AWESOME... kudos to u all....!!

CROSSROADS 09 poster:

Crossroads theme Video:

This is the Theme Video of the National Level Inter College Technical & Cultural Fest, Crossroads 09 organised by the Mar Baselios College of Engg & Tech, Nalanchira, Tvm...

The theme fer this year was Atlantis...the video depicts the Story of Atlantis & how it went down n then goes on to illustrate that the technical ingenuity & skyscrapping brilliance of atlantis has reincarnated on the grounds of mar baselios during the fest, Crossroads 09

The voice over is done by one of my Batch mate, Jyothish Varghese of final semester mechanical.... Man he ought to be a dubbin artist man...such a freakin gud voice he has....

The Motorcycle Diaries.....

Yet another film review n this comes at a time when i should be better off studyin for the comin exam which jus one day ahead as of the time of writing.... But against all my reasoning i would like to put my mouth where my heart is...

Title : The Motorcycle Diaries (Diários de Motocicleta)

Director : Walter Salles

Writers : Ernesto 'Che' Guevara (book "Notas de vijae)
Alberto Grando (book "Con el Che por America Latina)
Jose Rivera (screenplay)

The Motorcycle Diaries is the English title for the original Brazilian (or is it Argentinian?) film Diários de Motocicleta...which tells the story of a road trip embarked upon by 2 young lads on their motorcycle with the aim to see and experience the continent of South America of which they have only read in books... The 2 main characters are Alberto Grando, a 29yr old Biochemist and Ernesto Guevara de la Serna, a much younger medical student who is about to acquire his MD n who later became known to the world as Che Guevara....

The Tag line of the film reads Before he changed the world, the World changed him.... True to tht, the story basically illustrates the road trip that young Che went, which showed him his life's true calling... But don't be mistaken, its only the sparks that ignited his thoughts that are being brought on the celluloid... Those expecting to see the biography of Che are goin to be terribly disappointed... The film is based on the book written by the close friend of Che, Alberto Grando with whom Che set out for this adventure... The film unfolds itself from the viewpoints of Che himself n his Diary entries... n never does the character of Alberto interferes the flow of the film as a story teller... He stays there by Che's side as a dedicated friend though he grows poles apart from him in character and outlook as young Ernesto undergoes the metamorphosis to become Che... The story never dwells into the inner minds of Che nor does it provide us with an exceptionally satisfying reason of Ernesto's transformation to Che... It simply flows from incidents to incidents tht Alberto along with Ernesto aka Che shared on their trip together... to quote the movie itself 'Its not a story of heroic or great deeds but a story of 2 lives captured in a moment when they were cruising together'....

The metamorphosis of an young lad to the most influential revolutionist of all times is not the main theme that this film intents to portray... Rather its the homage to him from a dedicated friend... Not even for a single moment does the film tends to exhibit a commercialised nature trying to sell off Che... The growth of a character from a simple ashtmatic young medical student in love to someone who is truly humanitarian forms the basic plot... The growth of the character with the progress of the journey is well categorized n lucidly depicted with charm... Many characters come n go but the 2 central characters stay, influenced n moulded in different ways by those who pass by... The film ends not where the usual films of this genre ends, but just at the beginning of the Che's final transformation....

Dwelling into the details of technicality, one fails to notice these aspects as the story grips n drags u along with it... But to say about for the sake of a review, the film though was shot recently has not tried to be picture perfect or present a beautiful locale with all its grandeur n glory... The lack of a crystal clear frame is not goin to hinder this movie experience, believe me on tht!! The script is taught n sturdy with the dialogues (though i read the subtitles) to the point n apt... Direction is top notch with all the right ingredients in the right quantity n proportion... The post production departments of Editing n BG scores have added to the quality of the finished product...

I highly recommend this film n include it in the Category of Must Watch.... n goes with a rating of 4/5....

Revelations...

hi all.... was utterly busy with my exams...u see in addition to my regular university papers i hav papers that need to b cleared from my past semesters....but aside with these depressing thoughts.... here comes the first Blog post of 2009....what i want to talk about today, after such a long time is sum works, exactly 2 in numbers that i came across which made my spirits high.. not cos i could relate them in any way with me (however hard i tried) but cos they jus created an aura n feeling of watchin sumthing artistic..

1st..i came across a photoblog of my friend today... u too can visit it at http://www.photoblog.com/ArunHarish jus go through his works.... he always had this dream of being a photographer... n frankly speakin has been always a source of inspiration for me... now pertaining to his works.... my all time favourite is the one he so fondly calls as 'bottle blues'... transforming sumthing so insignificant to a nice picture...hats off to u man!! n there is his new one named portrait... it is a truly near professional quality pic... n the work of creating centres of attention by turning the other parts to grayscale is really nice...but i personally feel the natural look of the same colour composition in the original picture might create a more visual impact... jus giv his blog a visit... n before i conclude about him let me say jus a lil thing...he takes his pictures with an ordinary point n click digital camera....

2nd..after much naggin from my sisters part i bought the DVD of AakashaGopuram... n since she was hogging the computer watchin it, i jus sat there without any particular interest to watch the film... n after about 10 mins into the film i realised that i had missed the theatrical experience of the greatest visual extravaganza tht i hav ever seen in a malayalam film.. The film directed by K.P Kumaran is a celluloid adaptation of 19th century Norwegian playwright of realistic drama, Henry Ibsen's classic 'Master Builder'... But story n characterisation wise it is not every ones cup of tea... the pace of the film is slow as compared to the 100 mph scripts of these days... the characters not defined in the conventional way...we are just given the pieces of puzzles of the characters... its upto u to figure the rest out... The basic story revolves around Albert Samson,a master builder who has trampled upon many to reach the status he is in now n the reputation he so proudly holds... we r put in the phase of his life where he has started to grow old... the 2 things that he fears the most is turning old n him being replaced from the throne of master builder by the upcoming generation... He is portrayed as one who has always aimed for his personal career growth, willing to go to any extend for it... the character of Albert Samson is clearly etched out by the other characters interaction with him but alas! the support characters are left incomplete much for ones dismay... i havent read the original play but i think the film as a whole could have been much more clear...

The actin front is in safe hands with the big talents like Mohanlal, Bharat Gobi, Sreenivasan, Manoj K Jayan living out their characters... Shwetha Menon enacts the role of the distressed wife of Albert n Geethu Mohandas who plays his secretary are also equally good... But the surprise was a gal named Nithya who plays the role of Helda... She acts as beautiful as she looks... n to say the truth i think im in love with that beauty...

The dialogues of the film makes one feel like they are watchin a drama... its has the unusual n unnatural stress on the dialogues with the language used bein more of the print type than dialect, which is common in the case of a drama... ac act of the script writer which i justified on the grounds that this is a homage to a great plarwright n one of his master plays...

Now let me come to the part where the film just left me wonder struck... each n every single frame in the film is perfectly composed... the beautiful backdrops of foreign locales actually blends in with each scene rather than just acting as a mere eye candy... The cinematography is absolutely brilliant from shots varyin from indoors to outdoors, closeups , longshots, pan, steady cam shots area all handled with exceptional finesse... even the angle selection is worth a mention here... the visual treat doesn't bother u in anyway and actually does wonders by creating an exact atmosphere for the story... the lighting for each shots is also sumthin that will catch ur eyes... examples of these can be best observed in scenes where Shwetha Menon sits in her room n the evening sum creates a shadow of her rooms window partly on her & partly on her bed and in a shot where the setting sun becomes the backdrop for a mid range closeup shot of Mohanlal... n Kudos! for that to the cinematographer Santhosh thundiyi n his assistants.....

This is the most technically brilliant Malayalam film i have seen till now n no wonder, the end credits listed the name of various foreign technicians... But i strictly feel that this film should be set as a technical standard for the malayalm films yet to come... and with blending background scores conducted by John Altman providing the perfect aura needed, the movie is as good as a work of art rather than a a feature film... the minor flaws that it has is more than made up by the technical brilliance and the plethora of visual treats that soothes the eye... But do urself a favour and watch the film in a theatre or at the least a DVD cos a VCD doesnt provide u with the clarity needed for this kind of film...

AakashaGopuram rating - 2.5/5

Acknowledgement....

As u see my Blog now comes in a new avatar... i dont kno whether this new look suits the nature of my blog or not.. n quite frankly...i dont care !... but this new look wasnt invented or at the least discovered from the deepest trenches of internet by me.... hence this acknowledgement...

The whole layout of this blog was inspired and copied from my friend Alen's blog which is named as 'Baloney of Thoughts'... its a gud read actually with the only prob tht he doesnt update it quite often... u can read his blog from the list of blogs that is provided on the right side tab named 'Clicks of Interest'... Now the original layout is copied from www.gosublogger.com... give them a visit... they have lots n loads of other interesting blog themes up there....

So due to reasons pertaining to my impending University exams for which i hav studied nothin, i conclude my today's post... and in the course declaring this to be the most short post i have ever made...

Patriotism in these changing times...

just about 5 mins ago i received an SMS from my friend, the contents of which goes like this....

"Rs 6 crore/week is wasted in SMS by Indians, which cud have been used to feed 6 lakh hungry ppl in Pakistan...so keep those MOTHERFUCKERS hungry & keep messagin... Jai Hind!!"

Now those of who feel this is the right thing to be done and in anyway finds a rapport of patriotism with this msg can leave this page ryt now cos from very beginning, this sms has been like a bullet that got lodged up in my brain!.... Since when hav we decided that for the wrongs done by a handful, the costs need to be imposed on the majority of innocents?

This brought me ryt in front of this blogging screen... I kno not many wud read my blog or that many of those who reads this wouldn't last beyond a 3 or 4 sentences down the lane... But let me make myself clear... I despise Terrorism n in general i despise all those means and methods by which humanity (which is a simple basic emotion and a virtue at the same time) is dragged down and turned up as a bloody mess for the personal gains and means of a few...

I see a lot of unrest amongst us Indians now... for what reason i ask... for the fact that we have suffered from a series of all time high level of terrorism in India?? OK! i agree with tht...But hav u ever wondered how much bloodshed is going on in other parts of India amongst our own people... Where Indians kill fellow Indians just because they believe n worship god in another name... Its not so long back...the news from Orissa and Karnataka is only sum months old.. Have u even read those news or seen the reports on TV from the comforts of ur home? U don't remember ryt?Its bcos it lacked the so called commercial value that the reporting channels could used to increase their TRP ratings... But I'm not in anyway trying to say that what we have experienced in Mumbai and in other places is to be forgotten or forgiven... We hav to act...react is more apt word to be used.. but not in the way like the SMS says u to... Not in the ways in which it would become easy for those who conduct these operations to succeed in their ill natured aims...NO! Be informed of the things that goes around u... realize that what we are going through is indeed a bad time... one in which we tend to doubt our brothers... where the very basic foundation stone of our entire nation, 'unity in diversity' seems to be shaken.... remember for a few that carries out terrorism, don't punish anyone of any community, any nation, any caste, any creed or any ethnicity.... Be humanitarian in ur approach... Just imagine urself to be in the place of an innocent Pakistani... who has done no wrong himself but who is blamed and hated by other foreign nationals...

"Treat violence not with violence but with compassion as violence begets nothing but violence"

remember that lesson which we all studied in the smaller classes at school?? remember the policy used by British East India Company to curb n control of the freedom struggle and to prevent the strengthening of nationalist feelings brought about by the union of Indians regardless of their religion caste or region?? its the famous old DIVIDE AND RULE... They days are here when we need to fight a war against those who wish to leave our country in chaos... n they r using this same age old policy... 'DIVIDE AND RULE'... but we need to open our eyes against this resurrected evil... Understand that its that which now being poured into our minds in its new avatar...but before i go into the details i want to share sumthing with u ppl... there was a program in the 9X news channel regardin the condition that prevails post Mumbai terror attacks... Sum person who was introduced as the expert in the psycology of violent men was called upon to giv his opinions about the mindset of the terrorists who seized mumbai.... But the views and conclusions that he put forth are worth listening to... According to him this case of an individual turning to terrorism has no reason psycological....its 100% sociological... any person can turn to terrorism.. yes any person..yes! U, me anybody... Its like a comparisons of an individuals past present and future status with more emphasis on the future... its like a self comparison of his and his families living conditions in the past to the living conditions to which they have deteriorated to now and the future where the act of terrorism promises to provide a radically different and promising future... the persons who recruit these terrorists giv an importance on the future aspect... the main recruit for the religious terrorism is found out to be headed by main 2 individuals...one a priest who gives consent for jihad and the 2nd a commander who provides training and coherence among other members during combat... The people who sponsor terrorism are of course always at a safe distance trying to achieve their goals without gettin their hands dirty... now there is also the factor of feeling powerful... A person with gun is the most obeyed and feared... The terrorist who gets the hang of wielding a weapon gets addicted to it... he feels ever powerful with the fact that he has a gun with which he can take lives of others...Now, what I understand from all this is tht the whole branch of terrorism works by feeding on the feelings of people who feels themselves to be depraved and who believe that they have been subject to social injustice... So the person who was talkin advised that while we should hit hard on the terrorists it is also our responsibility and duty to make sure that no terrorists is born again...

Now coming back to the before discussed divide and rule policy... there clearly exists a rift towards the people of a particular religion now... the reason for which is cited that terrorism is mainly from their religion... now think! estranging those brothers would only lead to more and more problems..more social injustice gives rise to more terrorists... more chaos...more doubts suspicions... leading to the ultimate collapse of the entire country... and also fanatics are also present from other religions and groups...the act of spreading terror is not reserved for any religion.. Keep urselves informed to the best as possible and prevent the spread of prejudice sparked by incomplete information and biased opinions...So sit up and think now cos its time to make up ur mind...

IN THESE TROUBLED TIMES OUR COUNTRY NEEDS OUR HELP, OUR COUNTRYMEN NEEDS OUR HELP, BUT MOST IMPORTANT AND ABOVE ALL THIS THE BASIC IDEA OF HUMANITY AND COMPASSION NEEDS TO BE KEPT ALIVE...THE MESSAGE OF LOVE AND UNITY NEEDS TO CROSS BOUNDARIES OF NATIONS AND BELIEFS....COS NOT EVEN ANIMALS KILL ANYTHING WHICH IS NOT THEIR FOOD!!!