Sleuth..

Sleuth is Kenneth Branagh's re-make, re-imagination, re-invention of the 1972 film with the same name which, in turn, was based on Anthony Shaffer's stage play. In the original, Laurence Olivier played the high-born snob Andrew Wyke and Michael Caine was the working class hairdresser Milo Tindle. This time around, Caine is Andrew and Jude Law is Milo. The general storyline remains the same, as does the cat-and-mouse dynamic between the leads, but the screenplay has been rewritten. The result is a script with more delicious lines and a shorter running length. What's lost in translation, however, is any reason to like or sympathize with either of the principals. In the film, both’re arrogant assholes, and it's not really tough to enjoy spending 90 minutes in the company of two such jerks.

Sleuth is all about revenge: Andrew's revenge against Milo for stealing his wife and Milo's need to strike back after Andrew humiliates him. The first two acts of the movie are, as explicitly stated, like sets in a tennis match. The third act acts like icing on the cake.

Sleuth can be enjoyed for its plot convolutions. For those who are aware of all the twists and turns, this is a chance to admire the performances, savor the script, and appreciate how much visual variety can add to the proceedings.

To keep things lively, the director uses all kinds of odd camera angles and mixes traditional shots with images gleaned from "security footage." Andrew's mansion is an amazing slice of Oz - a playroom for the rich and famous that's so cold and sterile that it's unfathomable how anyone but a complete narcissist could call it "home”.

If revenge is a dish best served cold, then Andrew and Milo are dining raw. It's an interesting movie - a film that works more successfully as a study of technique and writing than as a motion picture.

Trivia: In the casting, there are just three (3) names!

Almost...

Fast driving epitomizes something marvelously rapturous, as one is carried by an invisible force in an unknown direction. And obviously something terrifying is hidden in this quick flickering, so quick that there is no time for an object to make its mark, and only the sky over one's head, the light clouds, and a moon that peeks through them seem motionless.

Fast driving elevates one above earthly minutiae, making the celestial firmament the only stable point. What this thrill achieves is jolting one out of reality, making it flash by so rapidly that it does not manage to assume a viewable form.

Fast driving is not only about an experience - it is about screaming with excitement. In addition to thrill, it gives a chill, and asks for a skill too.

So all this that you read, is what normal perception could be, for wannabe speed lovers. And all the ones who care for these wannabe's will dread what is written above.

I am an ardent driver, who loves to speed too. Many would say that they feel very concerned sitting next to me, when I'm driving. Many of my friends, till date, tell me to drive safe and reach home, and to give them a call when I reach, so as to ensure I drove safe.

I do understand that I drive fast, and I try to keep a check on that (atleast when someone else is sitting with me too). Today, I was driving home, at a normal pace (and that means I was neither overspeeding, nor was trying to overtake; was just enjoying the drive, and the music), with some good music soothening my mood. It was relatively eased out traffic, and I was touching 80, since the traffic in my lane was at that speed.

Suddenly, a car was putting the brakes on, some 50m ahead of me - guess a pedestrian tried to test his feet. Anyhow, all the cars in the lane applied brakes, and one could hear the screeching of the tires on the well built road. However, there was a bike in the lane too, and fortunately or unfortunately, it was just ahead of me! It doesn't happen many-a-times that I follow a bike - I prefer to follow cars that know how to make their way - mostly call centre cabs, or police jeeps. But because I was engrossed in the music and was not really bothered about overtaking anyone, I let the bike overtake me, and I took its lead.

Now in the spur of the moment, when everyone in the lane could just stop in time to hit the cars in front, the brakes of the bike at such speeds doesn't really do wonders - and I guess the bike would have hit the stationary car in front of it at the speed of about 10kmph. Obviously the bike lost balance, and the couple riding the bike tasted the road (and so did their laptops; they were some software engineers coming back from their office, as I came to know later). Now I was following them, and when I saw them go down, I felt a chill drive down my spine – and this was not from thrill of fast driving, but of the concern that I should stop in time. I had what, maybe a few milliseconds to react, maybe ten metres ahead of me. I found myself almost standing on the brakes, and thankfully, with another screech, I came to a halt, a metre behind the flattened bike.

How much I thank whoever that it stopped just in time – I came back from there to my home, driving sub-50. And I brought back a few lessons too.

And by the way, both of them were safe & sound, driving back when I last saw them. I never tried to overtake them...

Harold & Kumar......

Thats the name of the movie I saw in the early hours of the day - "Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle". Sounds a bit absurd, huh! Well, the movie is not. Made on the lines of "Dude, Where's my car" and "Starsky & Hutch", this is another comic flick which gets you to rock-n-roll, meanwhile getting you to have a hell of a time.

The movie's about two guys, in America (both un-American by birth), getting along with their lives. All the twists & turns in their lives are OK, but what matters most to them is to have a nice burger, which they are so much looking forward to. Just come to think of it, somebody going to such extent is quite unheard of. Reminds me of the times we used to go off to all those places(of the likes of Murthal) to have something to eat. Crazy thing to do if you think, but then, everything is fair and done, if one looks for the satisfaction one gets out of the whole endeavor.

A couple of dialogues surely caught my attention. One of them says, "There's no sense getting all wild up, everytime a bunch of idiots give you a hard time. In the end, the universe tends to unfold as it should." Hearing this at 5 in the morning made me realise that whatever happens doesnt matter at all in the end. It will be, as it should be, and as it has to be, in the end. There's no use thinking about it all the time, making our own lives hell, and of those who get affected by ours. Its all part n parcel of life, and should be taken as it comes.

"

If you love something or someone, you have to GO for it." This is another one. Though this seems quite ordinary, and well known, but this befits the context of the movie so well, that you have to watch the movie for yourself, to admire its relevance.

Worth watch, atleast once!