THE DARK KNIGHT
Despite Rohit’s misgivings playing somewhere in my mind, I decided to watch a movie in a Colombo theater for the histrionics of Heath Ledger as the Joker.
This Chris Nolan’s second attempt at Batman is almost 3 hours long with an utterly stupid script and equally silly dialogues. But, what elevates the movie from its insipidity is Mr Ledger’s performance as a ‘crackpot with a sense of humor’. It’s unfortunate that he died just when he was beginning to show his true colors.
When a dark character is played by a fabulous actor, he becomes the center of attention instead of the hero (remember Jack Nicholson as the earlier Joker or Amjad Khan as Gabbar Singh). This is true for this edition of Batman too. I won’t be surprised if the Academy decides to give best actor to Mr. Ledger.
The other bright side of this experience was the fact that Colombo theaters serve beer at their F&B counters.
SHINE A LIGHT
Martin Scorsese has always been a big fan of The Rolling Stones and it gets reflected in almost all his feature films. In 2006, he decided to do a full length documentary filming the band’s ‘A Bigger Bang’ tour performance at New York and smartly editing it with each of the band member’s capsules from the past.
In one such edit he shows a shot from a 1967 interview of Mick Jagger in which he is saying, ‘You know, I never thought we would be doing this music thing for more than a year or two and I’m surprised that we are still doing so’. The band was 3 years old then.
Next shot is that of Jagger jumping around with ‘Jumping Jack Flash’ in 2006, at the age of 63. The Band had beed around for 42 years. Amazing!
A must watch for any Stones fan, Scorsese fan or for that matter, anybody. In fact, my wife who isn’t too enthusiastic about rock music saw herself getting mesmerized by the raw energy of the 60 years old rock stars.
GIVE ME THE NIGHT
Hearing this forgotten George Benson classic on the car radio found me acquiring 3 of his finest albums, ‘Give Me the Night’, ‘The Other Side of Abbey Road’ and ‘Givin’ it Up (with Al Jarreau). I would strongly recommend ‘The Other Side…’ for open-minded Beatles fans. Mr Benson’s sophisticated, jazz-guitaring and smooth vocals does wonders to McCartney-Lennon compositions.
PS: Thats one of the best logos i know of
