Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened

Dear Q,

It’s impossible to sum up in a short letter how + why I love John, but here are a few thoughts…
I love him because…he was a mate through our teenage years in Liverpool, he was the guy I sat across from as we worked out how to write songs, he was the man I admired as we evolved through the madness of fame, fortune and “fabness”, and he was, and still is, the heroic figure whose wit and wisdom, with a little help from his friends, shaped the thoughts and lives of millions of people.
AND SO MUCH MORE.
Love, Paul

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOHN!! YOU ARE SORELY MISSED...

John Lennon Google Doodle

"Dear Leonard. To look life in the face, always, to look life in the face and to know it for what it is. At last to know it, to love it for what it is, and then, to put it away. Leonard, always the years between us, always the years. Always the love. Always the hours." ~ Virginia Woolf, The Hours

"I feel certain that I am going mad again. I feel we can't go through another of those terrible times. And I shan't recover this time. I begin to hear voices, and I can't concentrate. So I am doing what seems the best thing to do. You have given me the greatest possible happiness. You have been in every way all that anyone could be. I don't think two people could have been happier 'til this terrible disease came. I can't fight any longer. I know that I am spoiling your life, that without me you could work. And you will I know. You see I can't even write this properly. I can't read. What I want to say is I owe all the happiness of my life to you. You have been entirely patient with me and incredibly good. I want to say that — everybody knows it. If anybody could have saved me it would have been you. Everything has gone from me but the certainty of your goodness. I can't go on spoiling your life any longer. I don't think two people could have been happier than we have been.

V."

Just watched The Hours again. How I love that film and the performances and the music! I love how when Ed Harris' character throws himself out of the window, he says the same last line to Meryl Streep's character as Virginia Woolf wrote in her suicide note to her husband Leonard. I think though it is essentially a sad film about the three women so wonderfully played by Nicole Kidman, Juliane Moore and Streep, about their struggle, illness and family problems, I do think love plays an important part. It's somewhere there in the haunting atmosphere, in the beautiful music, in their grief...it makes your heart swell up while watching.

Though it's awful when people die young, today being the 70th birthday of John Lennon who passed away at 40; I somehow think that they would have had it in no other way. "Only the good die young." Woolf's stories made so much sense because you can see parallels in her life with them. The fact that she died, and that Septimus Smith died and everything else, it's all part of a bigger picture. I genuinely love her relationship with her husband Leonard and this letter shows that so clearly.

"My songs are just little letters to me." ~ BEST MUSIC VIDEOS

      So I know that this is mainly a film-appreciation blog, but I quite like songs too if you've noticed the playlist at the bottom. Now today I saw a music video and thought it was one of the most beautiful and brilliant things I've ever seen. I love good music videos. There have been many times when I hear a song and imagine how the video would look like...I bet many of us do that actually. I think there can be nothing better to compliment a good song than an equally good video.


      So these are some of my favourite music videos (or the ones I remember right now):


1) Gravity, Sara Bareilles- This was the video I saw today. The use of lights in the video is just incredible. It's like a dream. I can't think if such an effect can realistically be used in a film, but a musical or something, it would just do wonders. It's just transplendent.
Video


2) Dog Days Are Over, Florence + The Machine- I mean the cool, apparently wiccan video and not the awful Avatar-dancer video. I love people going mental in forests...really do. There's something awesome about pagan rituals and Florence Welsh is just gorgeous.
Video


3) Islands, The XX- I love them dancers. This is my personal favourite XX song due to the simplicity of its idea, but the whole backstory with the fantastic dancers makes it so much more.
Video


4)Bones, The Killers- Okay I accept I'm biased when it comes to Tim Burton, but this is an awesome video. It's so expected that he would put skeletons in a love story. The song is genius and I honestly prefer the From Here To Eternity kiss in the video to the real one.
Video


5) You're so Gay, Katy Perry- I love it. I love the fun, cynical Katy Perry. The whole Barbie-Ken twist is superb. Though I like most of her videos, just the amount of insulting and demeaning is plain inspiring.


6) All You Need Is Love, The Beatles- Flower Power! Words cannot describe how much I want to be sitting in the crowd. It's lovely.
Video


7) Thriller, Michael Jackson- I know people would find it a "cliché" but, as I always say, that a cliché is nothing but a hit formula. MJ has made amongst the best videos and Thriller is the epitome- the setting, the make-up, the zombies, the dance, It's a legend.
Video


8) Northern Downpour, Panic At The Disco- Many consider it their best song yet, including me. It's very sad that they disbanded right after this. They had so much potential that it kills me. It's a very cute and Panic-y video.


9) What Goes Around Comes Around, Justin Timberlake- Oh I loved it when JT brought sexy back. And this monumental return got completed by this video. It's super-hot. Scarlett Johannson is gorgeous and JT shows he can be as sassy and mean as Katy Perry. I like the debauched sort-of background, and the fact that it has a storyline.
Video


10) Happy Ending, Mika- I love each and every Mika video. But Happy Ending's just special. Its quite a sad song, I always imagined it in a cemetery. Then I saw the happy and childish video. It is so joyful, and charming.
Video


11) Here It Goes Again, OK Go- I seriously look forward to each of their videos like how I look forward to a Tarantino film. They are just grand. Also the whole tradmill dance became such a sensation. They're not even dancers. It's marvelous!!
Video


12) Knights Of Cydonia, Muse- This actually looks like a cross between a movie that would inspire Tarantino and probably someone like George Lucas. I love the insanity of a karate-obsessed "space cowboy".
 Video


13) Vogue, Madonna- Like Thriller, this is plain legendary. Madonna is dazzling. I love the black and white. I love the dancing. I love love love the cultural references! And...the fact that DAVID FINCHER made it!!!
Video


14) 1234 I Love You, Plain White Ts- It's just the most adorable, puppy love video ever. It spreads joy and love. A sappy me would love to be in the video.
Video


15) A Beautiful Lie, 30 Seconds To Mars- They make extreme, mindblowing videos. But going to the Arctic and shooting this video was just the icing on the cake. The message, the song, Jared Leto's bluest-of-all-blues eyes. Takes your breath away, it really does.
Video


Bonus: A bonus awesome video would be Everybody by Backstreet Boys. This song was the total combined essence of the boyband era of the 90s. I bow down to it.
 Video


      Other videos I really like are Boys Don't Cry by The Cure, all Mika and OK Go videos, Empire State of Mind by Jay Z and Alicia Keys, URA Fever by The Kills,  and Cousins by Vampire Weekend.


      Now amongst the videos I hate  are those which completely ruin the song. For instance Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol and Your Guardian Angel by Red Jumpsuit Apparatus. The videos were meant to be as excellent as the song, but they absolutely disappoint. Also I hate many videos and songs together, like California Gurls by Katy Perry. Just want to ask her one thing, What was she thinking?


       However, without these slight glitches, all the videos are exquisite. Watch!!

I always liked strange characters~ Tim Burton

The sheer brilliance of their friendship and chemistry just amazes me. Love them both!

Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up. ~ Pablo Picasso

I recently turned the big, or rather ‘grown-up’ 18. Might sound clichéd but I can’t help reminiscing about my childhood. I was quite spoilt as a child, probably most amongst all my cousins or my ‘generation’ of kids, and I have my parents’ amiable nature and the Indian obsession with nerdy kids to thank for it. Honestly I’m a bit freaked out about becoming an adult. It’s like I am Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire, not Andrew G) sitting in a car with my uncle saying “With great power comes great responsibility.” As of 25^th August this year I cannot get away with being just a kid. I cannot act childish without being called immature. I cannot just sit around filling my face up with food. I actually stand a chance to get in trouble if I follow my true destiny of becoming a serial killer/mob gangster. Flying away with Peter Pan is no longer an option. Bloody hell I am too old to ever get accepted at Hogwarts!

So in order to honour my yesteryears, I want to write about my most random childhood moments, my favourite kid movies and (since I’m a born cinephile, one film-related post isn’t enough) all the movies that have shaped my personality, my dreams, my choices and my life so far.

Random Kid Moments-

•     My First Sports Day- Now I actually remember this like it was yesterday. I had four slices of jam bread for extra energy. I was in nursery and five years old. I was in a race and the teacher said, “Ready Steady Go!” and I started running…and then I realized I was the only one running because apparently we had to wait for her to blow the whistle. My mum says that I made a very embarrassed face and went back. Then there was a relay and I was the last person in my team. I was coming second but I stopped right at the finishing line, let another girl through and then ran and came in third. Why? Because the second prize was a stupid little dilapidated football and the third prize was a kitchen set. It was also the first and last sports prize I have ever won.

•     The Piñata Tale- So in kid parties, there is often that enchanting glittering piñata which is full of little toffees, chocolates, gifts and thermacol balls. Now whenever the birthday girl (I was in a girl’s school as a kid) hit the piñata and broke it open, all the other children started to collect as many sweets and gifts as possible…except me. I used to run after those lighter-than-air thermacol balls and collect twenty-thirty of those and those alone.

•     Eating out- Whenever I was invited to any parties by my friends or my parents’ friends, I never ate anything. Numerous people have tried and failed but the kid Me was adamant about eating nothing. Rather, I came home and ate normal food. Also whenever my family went to eat at restaurants, I didn’t used to eat anything at first and when all the food was getting over and we were going to leave, I would start eating then as if a bolt of lightning has suddenly hit me.

•     Pink Obsession- Oh I was the worst type of girlie-girl as a kid. I loved pink so much I bet I wanted to marry it. I wore pink rubber bands and clips and clothes and shoes. My worst pink memory is when I entered an art  competition my uncles used to hold for the kids in my area and drew a landscape with pink mountains, pink sun, pink trees, pink buildings, pink cars and pink people…needless to say I didn’t win the prize and had the worst crying fit ever.

•     Barbie Girl- Oh this might be a spin-off of the pink fiasco but I loved my Barbies. I bought new clothes for them when I bought new clothes. I gave them hircuts thinking their hair would grow back. Every time my best friend Alisha or I bought a new Barbie we would create a whole love story with a vamp and everything and marry her off to Alisha’s super-hunky Ken. I even bought the monthly Barbie magazines, without fail.

I’m having a bout of mid-teen amnesia and so I cannot remember more random stuff, but be sure that I was a weird kid.

PS. Feel free to not read any of this.

Growing up is such a barbarous business, full of inconvenience... and pimples. ~ J.M. Barrie

Okay. I have not outgrown my kid movies phase. I literally vow to keep watching them and enjoying them till I am dead and buried/incinerated/lost forever in an ice glacier. The reason why I love them is because it gives so much joy and hope, and that too in such a pure form so as to leave the viewer with satisfaction and memories. The innocence of the children is what sets it apart from most films about grown-ups. Also I guess they must be amongst the most difficult types of films to make, with kids and all. So here’s my tribute to them.

•     Home Alone 1 and 2- Could there ever have been a cuter kid than Macaulay Culkin? I think not. His two adventures, the first being left home alone and the second being lost in the huge city of New York are absolutely amazing. Kevin McCallister’s wit and courage keep him safe, especially from the two evil crooks Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern. Oh how I love this film. Chris Columbus’ excellent ability to make mesmerizing kid movies and John Hughes’ genius made these films what they are today. There are very few (deeply disturbed) people who do not like these films. The sense of freedom that Kevin experiences and how he is able to completely torture the grown-up bad guys is just awesome! We also love Kevin’s huge and oblivious family, the ‘tough’ bad guys who get hit with bricks on the face, electrocuted, burnt, pecked upon by hundreds of pigeons and they just don’t give up, and obviously the old man in the first film and the pigeon lady in the second. And who can forget Tim Curry’s evil Grinch face in the in Home Alone 2?

•     Baby’s Day Out- Another John Hughes classic. I often talk about how I never got over Jack Dawson from Titanic and Jess Mariano from Gilmore Girls…but I never got over the baby in this film too. How incredibly brilliant is this film? A millionaire baby who is kidnapped but just because of pure childish joy escapes from his kidnappers living out the adventures in a book his nanny, none other than SATC’s Cynthia Nixon, used to read to him while his kidnappers get into trouble everytime. The various situations the baby and the kidnappers, led by Joe Pantoliano, get into are unforgettable- the gorilla scene, the park scene and obviously the construction scene. And the baby, with his “Boo Boo!” and “Tik Tok” and everything else he does is so infinitely adorable, you can’t help but love him!!!

•     Kindergarten Cop- I love it when big tough men do “sensitive” roles. How sensitive exactly? Enough to take care of an entire kindergarten class. Governator Arnold Schwarzenegger (this spelling was in my laptop’s dictionary btw) plays a cop who has to go undercover as a kindergarten teacher in order to catch a criminal whose son is in his class. When brawn meets bawling bubbling 3-4 year olds, you can count on hilarious consequences. I honestly think it’s one of the most ingenuous films because it is absolutely amazing to see this huge man take care of kids who are like a tenth of his size. The kids are all very sweet; my personal favourite being the precocious boy whose father was a gynecologist. Schwarzenegger too is absolutely convincing in this part action-part comedic role.

•     Little Rascals- This is probably the epitome of delightful, adorable kids that can be put together in a film. This film is EPIC cute. It’s a story of chauvinistic 4-5 year boys who run the “He-Man Women Haters Club” except one of the co-founders Alfalfa falls in love with “hottie” Darla. It is absolutely lovely to see this little kids understanding the dynamics of a gender-based world. The lines in this film are classics, like “The way you fill my heart I’ll fill your face”, “What’s the number for 911?” or when a snobby kid comes to town to vie for Darla’s attention and introduces himself by saying “My father owns the oil refinery” and Darla says, “That’s why you’re so refined” and Alfalfa adds, “And so oily.” GENIUS! The kids with the hair-sticking out Alfalfa to super pretty Darla to brilliant Uh-huh are so so cute that you just want to eat them up ( which happens to be one of the most disturbing phrases ever invented).

•     Up- What an enchanting film! I think after many instances people give of true love like Romeo and Juliet, Elizabeth and Darcy, Rick and Ilsa, Antony and Cleopatra, Tony and Maria, Jack and Rose, Joel and Clementine, one should put Ellie and Carl of Up in such a list too. I think more than any of these actually, their story is the actual dream. It’s a story of lifelong love, and what one does after their better half passes on. This is a magical film and makes us realize that why animation still matters so much in this world, and in that of cinema. The image of a colourful house floating in the air with the help of thousands of helium balloons could never have been as effective if it wasn’t a cartoon film. Carl’s adventure to go to his and Ellies’ dream destination in Paradise Falls in South America along with nosy, clueless and down-to-earth Ralph is incredible. There with a rare species of bird who Ralph aptly names Kevin and a talking dog Doug, Carl gets to have a fantastic journey even in his old age. This film also shows that the key to a kids movie is not to be a kid mainly, but to be one at heart.

•     Peter Pan- “All children grow up except one.” I love this story. The enchantment of Neverland, the mischief of the Missing Boys and the evil of Captain Hook, altogether with the hero Peter Pan make one of the most famous children tales of all time. After watching this film, I couldn’t help but wish to be Wendy and fly away with Peter Pan and Tinkerbell, all the way to Neverland. It’s sort of the dream to never grow up, and stay a child forever. As a species I think we are obsessed with such characters and people, whether it is an unnerving fixation with immortal vampires or hero-worshipping all the “good who died young” like James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Sid Vicious, Kurt Cobain and Heath Ledger. Peter Pan stands out to both adults and children because it fills us up with wonder and excitement- to visit Neverland and see pirates and Indians, to find out about fairies and mermaids, to see the good battle the evil. Jeremy Sumpter, Rachel Hurd-Wood and Jason Isaacs – are all amazing in this film.

•     Stuart Little- A kid is a kid even if he is a mouse. I mean forget Oliver Twist, it was Stuart Little who had a hard time fitting in. A most unbelievable tale about a family who decide to adopt a good honest mouse as a kid brother for their only son, and how they all fall in love with each other, true family style. Also don’t forget they have a furry white cat Snowball as their pet. Snowball’s jealousy and stray-cat connections spell doom for ‘little’ Stuart and the Littles, but family and love overcome all obstacles. This film has to be close to everyone’s hearts. This film is also, as far as my memory takes me, the first one I ever cried in, in the scene when Snowball tells Stuart that his family didn’t love him.  I love Michael J. Fox , Geena Davis, Hugh Laurie, Johnathan Lipnicki and Nathan Lane who voices Snowball.

•     Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory- Yes I love the classic more than the modern adaptation. It’s the whole deal with chocolates and Roald Dahl that makes this film magical. I love the Oompa Lompas in this film! And their songs; Deep Roy gives me nightmares. This film too is the dream. Which kid in the world does not want to win a trip to a highly elusive and expert chocolate factory? Everything, from the excitement of the finding of the Golden Tickets, to the Chocolate Room, to the evil spy- is so much fun to watch. Also though I worship Johnny Depp, I love Gene Wilder as the slightly crazy and immensely talented Willy Wonka. This is the cult classic, and though the new adaptation is closer to the book and directed by one of my most favourite directors Tim Burton, something about the classic just makes it better.

Notable mentions would be Mary Poppins (I was never a Sound of Music fan), Home Alone 3 (he wasn’t Macaulay Culkin), My Girl (NO DEATHS OF CHILDREN), The Good Son (awesome but creepy), Pan’s Labyrinth (it’s too different and tragic, brilliant no less, to be in this list) and Harry Potter (he grows up).