White noise is a random signal (or process) with a flat power spectral density. In other words, the signal's power spectral density has equal power in any band, at any center frequency, having a given bandwidth. White noise is considered analogous to white light which contains all frequencies.

Who am I?

Neo-hippie cinephile. Follower of the great Jim Morrison who once said "If the doors of perception are cleansed, everything would appear to man as it truly is, infinite."

Thursday, July 10, 2008

Eternal Sunshine on Polka Dotted Boxers

It is 10:34 am and I am sitting in my second successive meeting of the morning. The caffeine has thankfully started taking effect and I don't feel like I have been hit by a meteorite anymore. Let me go ahead and crib a bit. Thursday is the only day that I have a 9 am meeting. It's usually 10:30 am when I drag my feet into work on other days. Now you might envy me after knowing this, but c'mon, it's not fair to expect me to be at work by 9 when my body is conditioned to wake up after 9. OK OK. Cribbing over.

There is another reason for my lack of beauty sleep. No, there are no cricket matches on at ghastly hours, nor am I in a saat samundar paar long distance relationship, and no, I am not forcing amnesia, no, nostalgia, arrey I can't remember the word, that sleeplessness condition, on myself, to appear pseudo-intellectual. I am fun editing. The phrase hasn't made it to the Oxford dictionary yet, but if I have my way, the Queen's English will be violated a little more by the next release. So, I am working on this 20-25 minute short film as an AD and partly as Lighting Designer (and partly as Cinematographer when crew members vanish into thin air, no not after dieting too much, they just leave: "I have a family emergency", "proctologist's appointment", "I am henpecked and my wife is from Bush's, I mean Hitler's, lineage"; you get the idea), but I recently got Final Cut Pro 6.0 (industry editing software) and so I am playing around with the footage. The first night I got the software, I created this sequence of the protagonist in the bathroom (shower and hair gelling only, in case you kinky ones were getting excited) with the only footage I had at the time - bathroom shots and cutaways of a fire alarm. Go figure!

Watch Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na for very good acting by an ensemble cast so fresh, they still possess that new car smell. Standout cameo performance from Prateik Babbar, product of Smita Patil's mistake with a random bloke. Watch Aamir for a very visual few opening few sequences, directed by Anuraag Kashyap's AD. Watch Wall-E for that good feeling you get after eating dessert (please beware; this feeling maybe exclusively a Bengali thing, but you can relate to it I am sure; as my probashi friend SuGu says, everyone is Bengali anyway, moreso French footballers - MalouDa, Saha etc. etc.). It's already #19 in IMDB's all-time top movies. I am in a Kurosawa-Mifune phase, partly because I was reading Donald Ritchie's The Films of Akira Kurosawa after I heard about it at Jabberwock. Red Beard is their best work till date that I have seen. Beats Rashomon and Seven Samurai for me. Mifune's restrained performance was a revelation. Its a pity that he couldn't shave his beard and thus had an argument with Kuro since he lost contracts of films from other "directors" at the time, and never made any more films with him. Probably for the best. I don't think I would have liked to see him in color (Red Beard is Kuro's last B&W film).

Received a lot of messages since this blog was on standby (OK fine, just two, but you know who you are; thanks - makes a difference in this age of individualism). Read Aamir Khan's and Amitabh's blogs and realized they write very often despite their busy schedule. So, I should not disappoint my "fans" either. OK boring meeting over.

Love

9 comments:

What's In A Name ? said...

You are making back-to back comebacks. :P

Can't remember anyone save Denis Lilee or Mohinder Amarnath making so many.

But, then, u r a buzy man!

ArSENik said...

You are forgetting Amitabh Bachhan and Azhar yaar. Azhar made three comebacks if I remember by hitting three centuries respectively when he was about to be dropped from the Test team.

Mala said...

Good to see you back. Maybe I'll take some Final Cut Pro lessons from you.

ArSENik said...

I don't know too much fancy stuff - just some basics. Yeah, sure.

ad libber said...

eh, what are back to back comebacks? Is not this the only one?

But yes, Prateik Babbar was fantastic. Genelia drove me crazy with her accent problem. No word for Imran's mum (whose name I just cannot remember right now)

ArSENik said...

I think WIAN is referring to my last post, which was also after a very long time, and thus a comeback of sorts.

Apparently, Tyrewallah always wanted to make a film with Smita Patil, but could not because of her untimely death. Salvation of sorts in that respect.

I was a little disturbed about Genelia's accent, but then I thought about it. Rich kids in Bombay (being a Metropolis and all) speaking Hindi like that is very believable.

Imran's "mum" was played by Ratna Pathak Shah, Naseer's wife in real life. IMO she is the most underrated of the entire parallel cinema lot - Naseer, Om, Smita, Pankaj, Shabana and her sis Supriya. Supriya and Ratna are daughters of Deena Pathak - the great Mausiji from Sholay.

aandthirtyeights said...

That was the problem with Jaane Tu... Everyone around the leads and their four irritating, unidimensional friends, was so much better than them. Actually, wait, there was this one girl of the four (the non dumb one) who was better than the rest, but she had no real role...

ArSENik said...

I don't agree that the friends characters were better than the central two characters. I think Genelia was a revelation and Imran's performance was very nuanced, considering it was his debut film. His acting can only get more polished with more experience.

However, I do agree with you regarding the non-dumb girl. I think her name is P-something Garg. I thought she was completely underused, but there were a couple of shots of her reacting with just facial expressions and you could see the talent.

Anonymous said...

Good for people to know.