livin-on-the-cactus: 12 Angry Men

livin-on-the-cactus: 12 Angry Men

livin-on-the-cactus: Casablanca

livin-on-the-cactus: Casablanca

12 Angry Men

It is one movie that stands out with its amazing Screenplay, gripping Narration, magnificent Direction and some amazing performances.

Set in a a small room where twelve jurors sit to decide the fate of an 18 yr old boy accused of killing his father with a knife. All witnesses are against him including an eye-witness who saw him do it, and another who saw him run away just 15 seconds after the killing took place. To complicate things , the boy pleads not guilty as he claims to be at a movie the whole time. But, it sounds like a hollow alibi since he cannot recollect the movie he saw nor who starred in it.

The judge has a order that the jury should be unanimous and if the boy is guilty as charged then he has to be sent to the chair without any questions asked.

The movie starts with the jury pretty convinced that the boy is guilty and only one jury (Henry Fonda) stands for not guilty. He says he really doesnot know if the boy is guilty or not , he is unsure but he doesnot want to sent him to chair without a fair discussion.

He doesnot even have a single valid point and with all the evidence and witnesses acting against the bot , it seems he has a tough job at hand.

but slowly as the film advances he starts tearing all evidences into peices and succeds at convincing half of the jury. The other half is still unmoved and it looks as if it is leading to a hung jury.

This is when the movie gets really captivating . They take the two eye-witness's testimony and gradually prove it to be under reasonable doubtAt the end of the movie all jurors remove their personal preferences and prejudices aside to give a unanimous "not guilty" verdict.

the movie is set in asinle room and a small rest room for all but three minutes and has twelve faces. Most of them not so known except ofcourse Henry fonda and to an extent Martin Balsam and Lee J Cobb. But i can Promise you it is as good a movie as it can get.

Casablanca

If you wanna see how love hurts , you have to see this movie, specially the sequence where a Drunk Humphrey Bogart pleads Sam(Dooley wilson) to sing " as time goes by".

The movie is considered one of the greatest all time and one of the best tragic love stories. Starring Humphrey Bogart , Ingrid Bergman and Paul Henreid in major roles and directed by Michael Curtiz, is a must watch for it's story , amazing performance and some really good punch lines like " Heres looking at you kid" , "Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship" , "Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine." " we will always have Paris" and "Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your life."

The story is set in Casablanca (a city in western Morocco, located on the Atlantic Ocean, which is a gateway to America from Europe.) Rick BLaine(Humphrey Bogart) runs a posh nightclub in a city populated by people who illegally want to go to US. His place not only attracts them but also the stern cops( on lookout for such people, as well as people who want to cash-in on this oppertunity.

Rick somehow gets a "letter of transit" from a petty criminal that allows the bearer to travel freely around German-controlled Europe and to neutral Portugal, and from there to the United States. Though rick claims a neutral positon with regards to worldly affairs, he has a grey past which he soen't want to haunt him.

Twist in the tale , enters pretty Ilsa Lund (Ingrid Bergman), with her husband Victor Laszlo (Paul Henreid) to purchase the letters. Laszlo is a renowned Czech Resistance leader on the run from the Nazis. The couple need the letters in order to be able to leave Casablanca for America, where Laszlo can continue his work. German Major Strasser (Conrad Veidt) arrives to ensure that Laszlo does not escape.

Rick refuses to hand over the letter to them without giving them a reason. Upon being asked repeatedlt he says lazlo to "ask his wife". Ilsa comes back in the night gives her reasons for deserting him and begs for the letter. But, she finds herself totally in love with him again and swears never to leave him. They then decide that Rick would let Lazlo have the Letter of transit while Ilsa will stay back with him.

The climax is amazing where Rick sacrifices his love and lets them both go.

Amazing movie , Gracious and a little grey at times.

I know most of you must have watched it alre3ady and those of who , who haven't got the chance get the DVD from your nearest shop, you won,t repent it , thats my word.

P.S I personally like the way Humphrey Bogart drags heavilly on his cigettes and the song " as time goes by" …. my rating 9.5/10

To Kill a Mockingbird

I remember Tom Criuse opening the Oscar night some years ago( i guess it was 2002) , and he tried to justify why we need movies in such turbulent times. There he mentioned "To Kill a Mockingbird" as after the movie he wanted to be an attorney.

This movie is rated the 25th all time best at AFI and and it's hero Atticus Fich (Gregory Peck as an white attorney defending a black guy accused of raping a white woman) is rated the #1 American Film Hero of all times by the same .

When i first read the book, i just loved it. "To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee always will figure in my list of top ten books ever. It was with this notion and a little doubt in my mind, on whether anyone can really justify a book that is so minutely written, that i saw the movie.

Though as everyone would agree that comparing a movie with it's film adaptationis not exactly being just to the moviemaker as in all classical movie adaptation( Gone with the wind, The Godfather, Wuthering Heights to name a few) you sometimes feel something missing as compared to the book. I guess that is very much due to the lack of creative independence in case of a movie. But, having said that let me tell you this movie is one which sometimes matches the book narration.

The story is told through the eyes of two kids Scout and Jem,(especially "Scout", Mary Badham in her best known role) as they go about they go about they normal life(like school ,teachers and summer holidays) during difficult times. As their father represents a black(Tom Robinson) accused of raping a white woman ( though it was a not the case) in a white dominant neighbourhood at times where blacks were considered as secondary citizen.

The movie starts with a parallel story of a mysterious house and a mysterious character by the name of Boo Radley (Robert Duvall in his big screen debut) that captivates the minds of these young people. The rising temper of the city ( as atticus being a white defending a black , is referred to as "Nigger Lover") is very evident even for the innocent kids as they face trouble in school and all around.

There are a few memorable scenes like the time when Atticus tells Jem that there were so many bad things in the world and he cannot keep them all away from his kids. The helplessness and the anguish that the character(Gregory Peck) displays is amazing.

Atticus loses the case , and Tom Robinson is killed while trying to flee from the police, but he wins so much respect among the black community that is uncomparable . It is best summed up in the lines where the priest asks Scout to stand up in salutation " Your Father is Passing" and that particular scene where he walks away(lost in courtroom) amidst standing ovation from the black community.

Film ends When jem and Scout are attacked while coming back from school and mysterious Boo RAdley saving there lives.

One of the greatest films ever made and a must watch for all who like classics.

Wanna be a Lawyer

Lawyers should never ask a witness a question if they aren't prepared for the answer.

In a trial, a Southern small town prosecuting attorney called his first witness, a grand motherly, elderly woman to the stand. He approached her and asked, "Mrs. Jones, do you know me?"
She responded, "Why, yes I do know you, Mr. Williams. I've known you since you were a young boy, and frankly, you've been a big disappointment to me. You lie, you cheat on your wife, and you manipulate people and talk about them behind their backs. You think you're a big shot when you haven't the brains to realize you never will amount to anything more than a two-bit paper pusher. Yes, I know you."

The Lawyer was stunned! Not knowing what else to do, he Pointed across the room and asked, "Mrs. Jones, do you know the defense attorney?"

She again replied, "Why yes, I do. I've known Mr. Bradley since he was a youngster too. He's lazy, bigoted, and he has a drinking problem. He can't build a normal relationship with anyone and his law practice is one of the worst in the entire state. Not to mention he cheated on his wife with three different women. One of them was your wife. Yes, I know him.

The defense attorney almost died.

The judge asked both counselors to approach the bench and in a very quiet voice, said, "If either of you bastards asks her if she knows me, I'll jail you for the contempt of court…

P.S Amazing joke one of the best i have heard ………………got it in the mail

cheers enjoy

My ordeal with names

I have a distinction. Everyone i meet and subsequently impress (i don't know with what?) award me a name albiet a very weird one.It so happens that i move on but these guys somehow can't and call me by the same name their whole life.So, here i am being called by a thousand names and by thousand different people and i have a difficult time remembering them all . Being a gentleman that i am, i wanted to respond to all those names whenever called .

My ordeal with names started when i was a kid and had absolutely no idea that people around me were conspiring by giving me names more than alphabets in chinese script. My mom named me "Mithoo" ( you got it right , all gals used to tease me by "aaja aaja mere mithoo miyaan ,tujhe pinjare mein band karloon" , but i don't know where they all disappeared when i was old enough to appreciate them,they sure got me angry then) .

My dad apparently wanted a girl and dissapointed at getting a raw deal named me "Bobby", i don't if it was revenge of sorts or his infatuation with Dimple kapadia or he simply ran out of names( and decided to stick with the one he had thought for his would be daughter). To add to injuries my mom used to dress me like a girl, they say i looked really hot( to the dissapointment of many kiddos who used to lick their milk bottles hungarily after looking at me , i grew upto be a man)

It was just a beginning, they also gave me a good name as "Sudhanshu Shekhar" . Not that i don't like that name but it had a few technical difficulties.

• I didnot know how to pronounce and spell my name correctly till i was in 4th and i had to go back home with a red bum every alternate day.
• Most of the guys i have met take special pleasure in voilating the sanctity of my name "Sudarshan" is the closest i get most of the times.
• People, who know that such a name does exist , always confuse me to be a Bengali or oriya( my speaking bengali does help them in their conclusion), ignoring my very proud Bihari roots.
• It takes awfully lot of time to spell it phonetically over phone if you are talking to some call center agents or the bank( i remember once it took me all the way from Royapettah to Thuraipakkam to give my name to ICICI).
• In my school they miscontrued "Sudhanshu" in every possible way , the one closest to my heart is shit-on-your-shoe.

This was just the beginning. I had a teacher who in a moment of ecstacy named me "Machchar" (Mosquito) which i later realized was due to my squeaky voice and ultra thin frame.This name stuck with me like no other though it was it 2nd satandard i still have frfiends who call me that though i have inproved fairly on my thin frame now.

My Father is a Sanskrit Professor so i was naturally bound to be good at it (though its a terror to all high school kids i know). So came the name "Kalidas" . Though the origin of this name had nothing to with my father . The Teacher who named me thus , thought that i closely reminded him of someone who could cut the same branch he was sitiing on.

During the last days of my school life, i still had the baby face i was endowed with,while my friends started looking like uncles and aunties , so they named me " Butroo" ( a kid in bihari) , this was the name i hated the most but it was the named i was called the most with.

P.S Yesterday a friend told me that i write long blogs so ill cut this short here and write the Part II starting from the college days , do commemt .