I’m more of a first person/third person slasher/shooter fan myself but Limbo is unlike any other game I’ve played. Most of the indie platform titles I’ve come across (on a Mac) have been unimaginative and forgettable. Limbo, on the other hand, is dark, ambiguous, atmospheric and surprisingly moving.

A boy wakes up at the ‘edge of hell’ and encounters bear traps, giant spiders and a girl. The player gets to control the boy’s movements and perform some basic actions like jumping, climbing and interacting with objects. As the (very short) game progresses, things get darker and creepier;  you die many times before you figure out what to do. And the deaths are gruesome – plenty of decapitating and impaling. The puzzles get progressively harder and the deaths, more horrifying.

The developers were spot-on in recreating the noir look and feel reminiscent of Fritz Lang’s M, Metropolis and other German Expressionist films. The story is weird and uncomfortable and the ending is open to interpretation (or perhaps, no interpretation at all). Sadly the game clocks in at less than 5 hours and costs 1200 points if you’re on XBox Live.

For me, this is the closest a video game gets to being a work of art.

Face it, Avatar was never really going to live up to the hype.

Granted, James Cameron’s return to screen is every bit a visual spectacle as they say; Pandora is unlike anything we’ve ever been subjected to especially in 3D. The environments are lush and Pandora’s inhabitants are stunningly rendered. Visually, the film is brilliant and deserves every bit of praise it gets.

Sadly, the script is overwrought with cliches bordering on heavy handedness. It would’ve been enough if it were simply an allegory for civilizations and their misplaced sense of entitlement. Turns out, it’s also about the environment. Thankfully, the last 40 minutes made up for all the preachiness.

It’s interesting that Cameron never strays from the basics – there’s the three-act narrative, James Horner’s pounding orchestral score and a voice-over. For all the technical wizardry involved, Avatar is a very conventional film and a very good one at that.

Wonderful little video/track by Oren Lavie. 

Tip of the hat to The Mute Oracle.

I have a newfound respect for this very underrated Pink Floyd album thanks to a moment of epiphany whilst listening to High Hopes.

Leaving the myriad small creatures trying to tie us to the ground
To a life consumed by slow decay

…

Steps taken forwards but sleepwalking back again
Dragged by the force of some inner tide

Then again, it could have been the whisky. Or that vegetative substance. Or both.

Eleven years ago, after mercilessly tormenting our father, we had our monolithic 386 PC replaced by a Pentium II ‘multimedia’ machine. Needless to say, at the time it was a pretty big deal for my brother and myself. We’d finally gotten a CD ROM drive and there was this one CD; presumably a freebie thrown in by the reseller — Fleetwood Mac: Greatest Hits.

I recall the two of us falling in love with the music. It was refreshingly different from popular music the likes of MTV bombarded us with and very upbeat too unlike brooding lovesick 19 year olds. The music remained buried somewhere in my subconscious until ‘Rhiannon‘ played through the broken speakers at a Pizza Hut outlet in Coimbatore during the final days of college. Predictably, I got a little too excited and one particular gentleman went so far as to say that I was making up band names. A couple of weeks back, a local band at a pub here did an amazing cover of ‘Go Your Own Way‘. Armed with a sense of nostalgia, I went hunting for the CD and found it in the bargain bin of a decrepit music store here in the city this morning.

Listening to it, I’m reminded of sounds, events and even smells long forgotten. It’s amazing how a forty year old band can bring back strong memories ranging from the texture of the carpet at our home back then to our two year old baby sister dancing to ‘Everywhere‘.

The rush is brilliant.

As I write this, I’m listening to the new Coldplay album and still can’t make up my mind as to whether it’s a masterpiece or a tad underwhelming (like Narrow Stairs, the latest Death Cab album). Coldplay’s success in many ways has been a curse of sorts; critics, elitist as they are tend to distance themselves from popular music. To top it off, Viva La Vida isn’t exactly the groundbreaking title that the band’s been touting it to be.

However, the album is still very very good. There are strains of Arcade Fire, Radiohead, Keane and U2; U2 (early 80s U2) being the most predominant influence. There’s less keyboard this time, some neat guitar riffs, awesome stadium choruses and even a bongo drum. Lyrically, it isn’t too different from the usual sappy ambiguous stuff but still far superior to X&Y (Fix You anyone?). A little more political, a little more pedestrian, still very affecting. My favorite tracks as of now are Lost!, Yes/Chinese Sleep Chant, Life in Technicolor and the overplayed Viva La Vida.

Thanks to Brian Eno, this is a shiny packaged-for-the-masses product but it’s still art nonetheless. This is an album that 20 years down the line will be as fondly remembered as The Joshua Tree is today. Or not.

There are barely a handful of artists whose music perfectly accentuates whatever state I’m in. The last time I was this moved by an album was when I listened to Jeff Buckley’s Grace for the first time; an underrated (by today’s general public I mean) masterpiece – the kind of music that slowly grows on you and before you know it, consumes you.

Johnny Cash‘s (1932 – 2003) American IV: The Man Comes Around is undoubtedly the work of a man relapsing into the cold comfort of religion in his last days but that shouldn’t put you off of it. Some of the tracks do have not-so-subtle religious overtones but then again, the songs are so organic, so heartfelt that you cannot help but go back and take them in all over again. One of the truly brilliant tracks on the disc is his cover of “Hurt” by Trent Reznor (yes, of Nine Inch Nails fame). The song takes a completely different meaning when sung by Cash; lending credence to that Edith Wharton saying, “There’s no such thing as old age, there is only sorrow.”

The video, for your viewing pleasure-

I love the way this country smells. I’ll never forget it. It’s kind of spicy.

Wes Anderson, in many interviews has stated that this film was intended as an homage to Satyajit Ray (and even inspired by Jean Renoir) and that’s exactly what hits you from the first frame; a poignant, stylized and funny opening sequence shot somewhere on the streets of Rajasthan. A character (referred to in the credits as The Businessman) played by Bill Murray rushes to the railway station in a cab and chases a train that has already started moving. Enter Adrien Brody with a couple of bags, cue slow motion and the track, ‘This Time Tomorrow’ by The Kinks. If you’ve seen a Wes Anderson film, you’ll know this is a sign of good things to come.

Wes Anderson, pardon the cliche, is one of a kind. His worlds are inhabited by people born into decadence with quirks and eccentricities that seem far too unreal but still manage to exhibit emotions and oddities that are quite humanistic. The Darjeeling Limited is hardly concerned about conventional plot mechanisms but flits across many familiar themes; sibling rivalry, love, family, oedipal conflicts and of course, closure.

Three brothers who have fallen apart over the years meet up on The Darjeeling Limited under the insistence of one of them who feels they need to feel something on the lines of a spiritual awakening. As they visit temples, meet people, share adventures and embrace the culture, they come apart at the seams. One of the more beautiful scenes is when the youngest brother Jack wonders if they would have ever been friends if they weren’t brothers (I wonder if the three of us would’ve been friends in real life. Not as brothers, but as people.).

Ever since Rushmore, I’ve been a huge fan of Anderson. While critics think his films are more stylistic than anything else, I think that’s pretty much what Anderson strives to create, that and characters who in spite of their inherent weirdness still manage to redeem themselves. Anderson’s choice in music is impeccable. The score features tracks composed by Satyajit Ray himself and obligatory punk rock songs from the 70s.

The cinematography by Robert D. Yeoman is as usual very Andersonesque; wide angle lenses and some pretty inventive shots. The settings and locations are a tad bit over dressed but this isn’t unusual considering the man at the helm. The casting is near perfect too. Apart from the main characters, it will be criminal not to mention the beautiful Amara Karan who I intend to immediately hunt down and propose to. She has an amazing screen presence and oozes with sensuality.

Of course, India is portrayed as exotic (to Anderson, India doesn’t seem to have changed since the 1970s) which isn’t such a bad thing since he points to Ray as his inspiration. Also, some of the Indian characters have very noticeable Yankee accents; all forgiven, mostly because I feel Anderson has created his best film to date, moving, heart warming and stupendously beautiful to look at.

9/10

PS: Hotel Chevalier is a mandatory companion piece to the film.

I’ve just spent the last nine hours watching 3 near perfect films, back to back; the cinephile in me couldn’t have asked for more.

Gegen die Wand (Head-On): Faith Akin (2004)

One of the best foreign films I’ve watched so far this year; a tale of self destruction, love and rage. Faith Akin’s brilliant Turkish/German venture is as brutal and cynical as they come. The story is of a suicidal young Turkish woman who marries a 40 something widower to escape from the clutches of her overbearing parents and slowly finds out that even freedom comes at a painful price. Great performances and a mind blowing soundtrack make this one hell of a gritty experience.

Eastern Promises: David Cronenberg (2007)

Disturbing, violent but oddly uplifting. His earlier work, A History of Violence was a film that I’ve often debated with people about. Cronenberg’s characters and their moral ambiguities are often accused of being artificial but I cannot disagree more. Like David Lynch, Cronenberg allows the viewer to piece the fragments of the story and characters themselves. Eastern Promises, while being less subtle still packs a much more powerful punch than AHoV in my opinion whilst still managing to entertain, in a sick twisted way of course.

Once: John Carney (2006)

This little Irish gem (filmed for less than 150K $) is the kind of film that reaffirms one’s faith in humanity and it’s ability to love. It’s impossible to remain unaffected by a film such as this. The characters are people you could come across in real life but what makes this more than an average love story is that music takes precedence over conversation. Whenever a film gets labeled as a love story, it’s natural to not expect much, but this story of an Irish musician and a Czech immigrant is unsentimental yet profoundly moving and perfectly executed.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0445922/

I confess. I love musicals and I love The Beatles. Mediocre reviews didn’t deter me from watching this psychedelic spectacle at the cinema. The film is eminently forgettable but sitting there for those two hours, one cannot help but marvel at the meticulously directed frames and the rousing score, all inspired by the fab four and the political and generational turmoil of the 60s and 70s.

The film is far too cliched but come to think about it, how many twists can you really put in a love story? The characters all have names that allude to Beatles songs and with a protagonist named Jude, you know ”Hey Jude” is pretty much a certainty.

A whimsical, gritty, flawed yet fun experience.