THE BLCKSHEEP

Picture credits: Twitter

I was surprised when Glenn Greenwald announced that he will be leaving the Guardian to kickstart an online news organisation funded by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar. Another surprise was Buzzfeed got the scoop -- surely after the NSA Prism director -- before any mainstream media outlet. 

In a combined statement released by Greenwald and The Guardian, Greenwald said that "because this news LEAKED before we were prepared to announce it, I'm not yet able to provide any details of this momentous new venture, but it will be unveiled very shortly."

Ah, the irony! A journalist and a British newspaper dealing with sensitive leaked documents fell victim to a leak. Like a classic leftist, even the leaker chose to leak the information to a media source outside the circle of right-wing populated newspapers in England. 

Greenwald also said 

"My partnership with the Guardian has been extremely fruitful and fulfilling: I have high regard for the editors and journalists with whom I worked and am incredibly proud of what we achieved.

"The decision to leave was not an easy one, but I was presented with a once-in-a-career dream journalistic opportunity that no journalist could possibly decline."

It is definitely a dream opportunity for any investigative journalist to be funded by millions of dollars to fight the good fight. But was it the only reason he chose to leave The Guardian?

The last few months have been chaotic at The Guardian. First David Miranda, Greenwald's partner, was detained at Heathrow, and then Alan Rusbridger had to destroy all the NSA documents they had in possession. After Miranda was released, Greenwald said: "I will be far more aggressive in my reporting from now. I am going to publish many more documents.

"I am going to publish things on England too. I have many documents on England's spy system. I think they will be sorry for what they did."

The promise of publishing more documents never materialised. The only major story that broke was about NSA weakening encryptions used in major software programs by installing backdoors. At the same time, Greenwald's articles appeared in national newspapers of other countries. Indian newspaper, The Hindu, carried a story about India being the fifth-most spied on by the NSA. The Guardian published a similar story, when the revelations were first made public, with heat maps of countries around the globe that are targeted by the NSA. Greenwald regurgitated the story and sprinkled it with quotes from Indian bureaucrats. Yes, not everybody reads The Guardian in India, but this story would have definitely been picked up by the Indian media when it first broke out. To be fair to Greenwald, it could have been an arrangement between The Hindu and The Guardian, who previously teamed up to work on the Wikileaks files. Nonetheless, it wasn't the kind of "aggressive reporting" I was expecting. 

Were his hands tied by The Guardian, whose own hands might have been shackled by the GCHQ? After all, Guardian destroyed those files from the fear of being slapped with a super-injunction from the government. It also would have made Greenwald's decision to leave much easier. There is no point in working for a newspaper gagged by the government. Besides, nowadays, The Guardian is devoting more column inches to fend off attacks from the right-wing press than embarrass the government with more stories of NSA/GCHQ spying. Hands down, The Guardian dealt a major blow to NSA and GCHQ with its coverage and, finally, set the ball rolling on the debate about spying that Edward Snowden wanted; but is this enough? Shouldn't they finish what they have started? 

Coming back to Greenwald, when he threatened England that he has more dirt on them and they will be "sorry" for what they did to Miranda, it almost felt like he sought vendetta against England. What was that saying about not to mix personal problems with the profession? I can understand what Miranda had been put through, but Greenwald should have maintained his composure. There is enough reason to doubt his judgement after that incident. Can he remain objective in his reporting and write without bias?

Another thing that I have learnt after his announcement yesterday is that he did not share every document with The Guardian. He might have his reasons, but it strikes me as a bit selfish from Greenwald. Guardian produced the Snowden leaks, brought in the experts to help Greenwald, paid for flight tickets, and sent their own lawyers to bail Miranda. Why did he not share everything with The Guardian? Only he can answer this question. 

The Guardian took steps to ensure that the NSA will not catch a breath if The Guardian is persecuted by its government. They sent the leaked documents in a thumb drive to Politico, so that they can carry on publishing the stories from USA. They also partnered with New York Times because the American press is protected by the first amendment. 

Greenwald, on the other hand, signed a book deal in July to spill fresh NSA secrets, and got a $250m investment to start an online news website that will also have Sport and Entertainment sections.

There is something oddly familiar about Ben Stiller's, soon to be released film, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. The film trailer pulls you right in; perhaps, the source of this magnetic pull is the soundtrack composed by the indie band Of Monsters and Men. 

The visuals are stunning. And I was surprised to learn that Stiller has directed the film. I also learnt that it is based on a short story written by James Thurber, which was first published in The New Yorker in 1939. 

The magazine has a digital archive of every edition it had published till date. A quick search lead me to the March 18, 1939 issue. The short story is just a page in length; if you add the story illustration, then it is a page and half.

It is a story about a daydreamer, who easily slips in and out of reality with considerable ease. Avoiding the risk of spilling any spoilers, if you want to read the story before watching the film, you can do it here . 

A film based on the short story had already released back in 1947. According to Wikipedia, James Thurber was consulted on the script, but his suggestions were largely ignored by the film director.

Anyway, after watching the first trailer of the new film it is clear that significant script modifications were made for a full-length feature film.

Look up pretentious in the Oxford dictionary, you'll probably find Nicolas Winding Refn's picture: stoic, expressionless, almost like he is in a permanent coma. True, it is a harsh assessment of someone who directed Drive. But, his latest offering, Only God Forgives makes one forget his previous masterpiece.

It was refreshing to see Ryan Gosling play the role of a mystery man, in Drive. But, in Only God Forgives, Gosling thinks he is still on the sets of Drive. He seems to be suffering from the "Refn syndrome"; symptoms include forgetting the lines, staring into space, and severe constipation.

Even the rest of the cast members look like extras on the sets of The Walking Dead. The only person who looks alive is Gosling's mother in the film. She seems to have no trouble in telling Gosling's girlfriend at the dinner table that Gosling has a smaller penis than her murdered first born son. 

And the antagonist is played by somebody who looks like an Asian automaton. Also, he enjoys chopping off arms.

  This Is Not a Movie is a psychedelic experience. Filmed in black and white, the overall watching experience is enhanced by the background score composed by Slash. With just three cast members, and the lead actor playing two other characters of himself, This Is Not a Movie has no story or plot. 

It is an hour and 39 minutes of strong self loathing and self denial where the protagonist debates with his two alter egos about existentialism.

 The story, or whatever the writer chose to call it, is set in Las Vegas, Nevada. The world is supposedly about to end in 48 hours and Pete, played by Edward Furlong (John Connor in Terminator 2: Judgement day), doesn't want to die without knowing who he really is. He feels he has lived a life based on the decisions made by the system. 

He suspects there is a group called the Masters of Propaganda, aka MOP, who sell happiness and fear to the world.

After 15 minutes into the movie I lost track of what is happening, and where this drama is headed towards. What starts off as an interesting conversation between Pete and his alter ego loses steam midway, and a new Pete joins them from a third dimension.

Over the next hour, the third Pete tries to convince the other two Petes that they are characters in a movie; a figment of a writer's imagination. However, they will buy none of that and dabble endlessly about topics ranging from propaganda, reality, god and existence. 

When there appears to be no ending to This Is Not a Movie, it changes gears and Pete meets the writer or GOD who gave life to Pete. Well, that was how it ended.

2011 saw Insidious take the horror honours and [REC]3 Genesis fall flat after two brilliant prequels. Last year, I did not get to watch as many horror films as I would have wished to, but I did manage to see the ones that scared film critics the most. 

Best film of 2012 - Sinister

It is hard to determine which horror genre Sinister best fits into. It is cocktail of found footage, haunted house and serial killer themes. Most of the stories in horror films have been regurgitated time and again, and they simply fail to provide the scares anymore. However, Sinister offers a fresh perspective without straying far from the traditional horror narrative. 

A crime novel writer, played by the brilliant Ethan Hawkes, moves into a new house along with his wife and kids to work on a new book he is writing. The book is about a family of four, who were mysteriously hung on a tree by an unknown killer in his backyard.

While moving boxes into his new home he finds a box of Super 8 films with a projector in his attic. The five neatly labelled homemade films show five grisly murders that happened over the last 50 years. With help from a local police man and a university professor who specializes in cults and paganism, he slowly pieces together the puzzle and links all the five killings to an unknown serial killer. But each of the five films show a grainy image of a pale ghostly figure with jet black hair and sinister looking eyes in the background...

Sinister pays homage to many horror films that are today's cult favourites: The Exorcist, Ring and The Shining. 

Writer-director Scott Derrickson slowly builds the tension and manages to keep the viewer interested for most of the film. It is shot in a single location inside a fairly large family home with no immediate neighbours. The film doesn't aim to mimic a feeling of claustrophobia but it allows enough breathing space for the film's characters to engage with the plot. 

The simple premise and the plot points are a bonus because it doesn't involve any routine exorcism or the extra gimmicks that we tend to associate with a horror film. 

Some scenes are so scary that you will be forced to turn your eyes away from the screen. Coupled with the background score by Christopher Young, it could turn you pale out of fear. He hits the right keynotes and sometimes it feels like the music is more scarier than the film. Young is the Mozart of eerie music!

The found footage was a nice addition and some of the Super 8 shorts will make you flinch. The ending could have been better since it goes down the same road as every horror film does: there are no happy endings. 

Horror films that disappointed - Women in Black, Cabin In The Woods

"There are two sides to every lie."

The tagline sets the tone to this gripping documentary about a Frenchman - wanted by the Interpol - impersonating a missing 14-year-old Texan teenager. 

Frederick Bourdin recollects his story, which happened 15 years ago, when he fooled a family and the U.S immigration to believe that he is someone who is nine years younger than him. 

Bourdin artfully weaves a bizarre story about how he went missing three years ago in Texas and was later found in Spain. The only drawback to his story is that he does not bear any resemblance to the blue-eyed, blonde Texan boy; worse he cannot lose his French accent.

When Bourdin's mask finally falls off and his identity is revealed, the story takes a wicked twist. The illusion created so far by the narration shatters and we are set in a free fall, where there is no safety net to catch us. The truth is shocking and too surreal to be real. After the closing credits we are left with more questions than answers. 

An ambitious story which was once said to be impossible to film was brought back from the dead by the Wachowski's. The film struggled to secure funding and was almost abandoned, but Tom Hanks brought things in order and they finally set the cameras rolling.

Cloud Atlas is perhaps the most expensive independent film ever made.

The screenplay moves back and forth between six tightly interwoven stories, where the same set of actors play different characters in different time lines in the same universe. 

Every action in the present has a cause and effect in the future, and it is felt across generations after millenniums.  

The sheer scale of the project and the ambition itself deserves a golden statue this year.

Killing Them Softly is an encore of 2011's Drive. Making comparisons between the two is an insult to both films.

But they have certainly carved a niche for themselves, and I expect to see more films this year in this genre.

The film's razor sharp dialogue cuts through our conscious and the dark humour tickles even the most sensitive mind. The camerawork fascinatingly brings you closer to the action and the photography intensifies the scene further. 

Brad Pitt plays a suave hit man who is hired to hunt down two criminals that robbed a card game. Despite all the suaveness, he has his own flaws underneath. He subcontracts the job to another hit man (James Gandolfini). How they track and kill the criminals forms the rest of the story.

It is a shame to see James Gandolfini to be stereotyped as a mobster in every crime drama but there is no one, who could play this role better than him. Ray Liotta plays a small but central role in this plot.

I would voluntarily submit myself for a lobotomy procedure performed by Dr. Jonathan Crane, than watch Christopher Nolan pour cold water on our expectations of the Dark Knight Rises. 

This sappy drama failed to open my tear ducts the way Batman Begins did, despite watching Michael Cain's glycerin tears captured on a high resolution Imax camera.

Listening to Bane was like Darth Vader using the force choke on himself. If rumours are to be believed,  his voice was amplified only after studio's intervention.

The ending was a far cry away from a Nolan climax. If you expected something on the lines of a totem spinning endlessly then prepare to be disappointed.

The legend indeed ends. 

Watching The Amazing Spider-man was like sleepwalking into a multiplex screen and wake up jolted in your seat. You won't remember how you time traveled 10 years backwards, to watch Spider-man swing across his not-so-friendly-neighbourhood in his old red and blue spandex outfit. You'll feel like you are reliving those two and half hours of your life once again, but only this time it gets excruciatingly painful to watch it entirely. 

The original Spider-man was adapted to the screen so well that the new writers seem to have seamlessly traced the story with a carbon paper for the 2012 audience.

Peter Parker can't get laid in high school. A Spider humps Parker. Uncle Ben dies preaching about responsibility. The Villain is a madcap scientist. Lather, rinse, repeat. Nothing changes in the reboot except for the cast and crew.

The story has so many loose ends that you could tie them into a long plait. The makers think it is ok to allow Irfan Khan missing from the movie after a brief cameo. And the Mr. Osborne, who Irfan constantly keeps referring to, is a ghost character. Peter Parker's parents are a new addition to the story, but nobody bothers searching for them after they go missing years ago.

The amount of Batman references are too obvious not to notice. If Jim Gordon had a daughter, then Spider-man doesn't live too faraway from Gotham City. The city police chief's daughter is Spidey's new love interest. They join forces to defeat the villain. The villain - a giant green lizard - chooses Osborne tower to spread his airborne virus which is pretty much similar to Batman Begins ending. 

I can't remember the last time I have walked out of a multiplex before the end credits had rolled. Today was one of those rare days that forced me towards the exit halfway through the second half.

I don't blame Pawan Kalyan for his over the top acting, I don't blame the director, Harish Shankar for the way he handled the script, or the producer for banking on star power than a good story; I blame the audience for sucking up to this brain numbing moving images that they call entertainment.  

When there is a demand for such monologic performances that are delivered with loaded dialogues towards other real life characters (Hero Rajashekar), every step taken forward by Tollywood towards meaningful cinema is followed by two steps backwards towards lazy filmaking. 

It seems as though only the box office numbers concern the trade analysts, critics, fans, and the entire industry these days. If it is numbers that you are interested in, then I would recommend you to invest your time and money in the Bombay stock exchange.

Walking into a Pawan Kalyan movie with an open mind is like walking into a election polling booth with out deciding on whom to vote for. It is impossible to watch his movies as a neutral, you are either a fan or a villain, for loathing his "Charisma". 

I am a villain like Pawan Kalyan, who  likes to call himself as Gabbar Singh in the movie. It would be cruel to deride another villain so I will pick on Harish Shankar, the "hero" of this movie. 

You know that the writer has run dry of his crude jokes when he relies on a game of antakshari among the villain's minions. 10 minutes of lip synced songs will drain out the last drops of your energy after two hours into a failed stand up comedy show. 

Harish Shankar manages to fail 'Gabbar Singh' on every level, screenplay, story, and direction. Instead of sticking with the original version of Dabangg he chose to alter the script to suit his taste. He left the lead characters in the lurch for long periods of time to allow more screen time for his 'villain' to deliver his rudimentary jibes.

He doesn't concern himself with the minute details, like Kota Srinivas Rao wearing socks and leather sandals despite being a poor drunkard, and failing to mask Pawan Kalyan's greying hairline in close-up shots. 

Harish's support staff are only as good as this ship's captain. The art director makes no effort to make the sets look natural. You can clearly see freshly painted shop names in the village market. The fast editing almost manages to give you a epileptic attack more than thrice.

Gabbar Singh is an anorexic version of Dabangg and I would not rate this more than the stars on Pawan's Khaki shirt.

If you commission a painting to celebrate the history of Telugu cinema, would you distort the artist's vision by adding a wall clock to a courthouse scene set in Maya Bazar? Premalo Padithe has nothing to do with the history of Telugu cinema but it has everything to do with molesting another artist's vision.

Suresh Kondeti, who bought the dubbing rights for Balaji Sakthivel's latest tragic love story 'Vazhakku Enn 18/9' (Tamil title), has introduced a gamut of anachronisms that it convinced the TOI film critic that the story is entirely set in Chennai. Suresh convinces us that it is actually set in Vizag by using the beach settings from a few scenes, but the story intercuts between a metro ride in Chennai and a movie theater in Hyderabad which makes one lose their way in Suresh's labyrinth of dystopia. 

If one is willing to forgive his blunders, then think again. He added a music video starring himself in a movie that had no songs in the original version, leave alone a 40 something failed dancer, who has no bearing on the story, trying very hard not to injure himself while dancing. I wouldn't have minded if the 'item song' came on at the end credits, but it was forcefully accommodated in the second half, completely screwing up the screenplay and the flow of the movie.

If I were to review the original Balaji Sakthivel's version of the movie, then it would make my job a lot easier. 

Premalo Padithe is a story about four individuals whose lives overlap each others. It is narrated in the POV of two characters who are interrogated by a police officer in both halves of the movie. Balaji Sakthivel successfully marries poverty, love, and the hate that rises from infatuation. A one sided love ending in an ultimate sacrifice for a crime committed by a jilted lover forms the plot.

The entire cast have been very natural in their roles and nobody overshadows other performances. The screenplay was tight but drags a bit in the second half. There has been an over usage of body mount camera in quite a number of scenes when it wasn't required at all. 

Overall, Premalo Padithe was very welcoming in these times when Telugu cinema has been churning out mass numbers that are an assault on the senses than entertain the masses. 

 '21 jump street is funny enough to make your face hurt with laughter.' ~ Mihir Fadnavis 

It is not the first time that I have been suckered into watching a movie that was recommended by a critic. And it won't be the last either.

If you'd take 'Super Bad' as the yardstick to measure all the teenage comedies, then 21 jump street would probably squeeze itself between American Pie 4 and American Pie 5.

Super Bad had an equally super fat and super funny Jonah Hill and 21 jump street has a half funny and a half Jonah Hill (lost 40 pounds since then).

The last time I have seen Channing Tatum, before watching 21 jump street, was in the forgettable G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. He made ballet dancing in Step Up look easier than his attempt at humour in a R-rated comedy.

21 jump street follows two buddy cops on their first assignment, as they go undercover dressed as high school students, to bust a drug supplier peddling hallucinogens at school.

High school doesn't particularly bring any happy memories for both as they missed their prom night.

Eight years after passing out of school, they think they know everything they had to know about school but they are in for a surprise. Apparently punching the black-gay kid at school is not cool anymore or driving a mustang that gives seven miles a gallon either. On a mission to infiltrate the dealers and find the drug supplier, they would have to win over the trust of a group of cool kids who drive cars that run on bio-fuel and are in the school's drama class. 

A mix of flat jokes, punctuated with a romance angle between Jonah Hill and Brie Larson, which includes a scene where Jonah and Tatum try to force vomit by sticking their fingers down each others throats, sets the tempo for the rest of the movie.

It has more dick jokes than the number of F words in Martin Sorsese's 'Goodfellas' and it tries very hard to make you laugh that it features Johnny Depp in a cameo role with a tatoo on his dick. 

Ice Cube starring as Captain DICKson, is probably the only character in the movie who could make you LOL without trying too hard. Sometimes, you'd wish for him to become 'XXX' again and shoot the two leads and end the movie then and there.

I have never laughed out loud in ages, last time I remember having so much fun watching a movie was during 'Life of Bryan'. MacGruber will easily go down as the best comedy of the year.