Pygmalion

 George Bernard Shaw's play Pygmalion being adapted into a film in 1938 directed by Anthony Asquith and starring Leslie Howard and Wendy Hiller among others. The film stays true to the play, well almost. Professor Higgins (Leslie Howard) is a professor of phonetics & linguistics, and while wandering about in lowly Convent Garden, gets into a scrap with a flower girl Eliza Dolittle (Wendy Hiller). Just then Colonel Pickering comes by, he is an expert of linguistics and dialects himself and wants to meet Higgins, having returned from India. Pickering challenges Higgins to improve the flower girl in a few weeks. Eliza lands up on his doorstep the next morning to learn from him. Then follows the most exacting phase of her life while she tries to throw away her Welsh cockney accent and to adapt a proper British accent with pronunciation, grammar, manners, etiquette etc. Higgins accepts an invitation to an embassy reception with trepidation as to how Eliza would perform. It became his obsession and luckily Eliza goes through with flying colours. Higgins thinks he has won the battle but what has to become of Eliza, where will she go back now that she has become a proper lady, she won't be able to go back to selling flowers. Higgins is unfortunately not able to make that connection.  Higgins comes across as a self centred egomaniac and for him every girl is like a subject to him, like his triumph. Wendy Hiller got nominated for Best Actress at the Oscars. Superb acting by both Wendy Miller and Leslie Howard, both stayed true to script. 

Meshes of the Afternoon

 

Meshes of the Afternoon, (1943) a short film created by Maya Deren and Alexander Hammid. Its again a surrealist film just like Luis Bunuel's "Un Chien Andalou". A woman is seen as walking down a path, she goes to a door, finds it locked, finds the hidden key, the key falls down onto the stairs, then she goes inside the room, which is in disarray, the phone is off the hook, she finds a knife on a bread, a record player playing and then somebody is chasing her, she in turn is chasing a lady without a face but not able to catch her. The images and visuals keep repeating like in a dream. There is no meaning to the movie, its a dream sequence, and one can interpret it the way one wants. Later a man comes into the house, the same sequence keeps repeating, with the key and the knife and the lady. One can sum it as the character's thought patterns in a time of crisis. 

Strange Happenings at Landings Castle & Other Humorous Stories

 

A collection of uproariously humorous stories by Gopal Ramanan, third in his series of short stories books. Starts off with a brilliant spoof on Sherlock Holmes with some strange happenings going in Landings Castle with Lord Landings himself perplexed and requesting for Sholmes' help along with Dr. Dotson. Then there is a take on the venerable James Bond getting old, well, actually old instead of being perpetually young and handsome. Partha is then fretting with his unusually long name in the US and wonders whether he could change it to something short and sweet. Then there are a series of short essays on the author's crisp observations on life's inanities all laced with sweet humour. Written in a very simple style with narrative reminiscent of the great RK Narayan, this is a highly recommended book for light reading. Goodreads 5/5 

Ad Astra

Ad Astra, a 2019 science fiction drama movie directed by James Grey and starring Brad Pitt, Tommy Lee Jones, Liv Tylor, Donald Sutherland among others. It is more of a psychological drama movie rather than pure technology although there is a lot of science frontiers being broken down as shown in the movie, for eg. colonies in moon, Mars and space travel to Saturn, Jupiter & Neptune. Brad Pitt (Roy McBride) is the son of Clifford McBride (Tommy Lee Jones) who has gone away to space for 30 years in search of intelligent life on the universe, in the process he has travelled to Saturn, Jupiter and now stationed near Neptune. His space station has created some cosmic ray disturbances which has affected Earth also, so the son sets out to locate his dad in the vast universe, which takes 79 days from Mars itself. Lot of emotional tug of war between father and the son later, earth is safe from the cosmic disturbances and the power surges. The movie drags a bit in the middle especially when Brad is about to reach Neptune to find his dad after 3 decades. There is no emotional re-union sort of, the Dad has more or less lost his contact and interest in Earth. The movie was nominated to the Oscars in the sound mixing category. The special effects in the movie is quite extraordinary, it is in the human connect that the movie finds its weak spot. 
 

Open Water 2: Adrift

 

An open water adventure holiday gone horribly wrong. Open Water 2: Adrift is projected as based on true events, but with the kind of human stupidity depicted in the movie, i doubt if humans can be so stupid. Three pairs of couples go on a yatch holiday out in the open sea or ocean, far away from shore. One couple has an infant daughter also on board, which itself was a risky thing to take such a young one on a ship or a yatch cruise. Four of the members jump into the water to do a swim which i thought was another stupid thing to do, who swims in open ocean far away from land, maybe some do perhaps. Of the remaining, Amy (Susan May Pratt) has a phobia for water because of an incident in her childhood when her father drowned while swimming with her. The other guy Dan (Eric Dane) is ostensibly the owner of the yatch, but later reveals that he is a fraud and that the yatch is actually belonging to his boss. What kind of a boss allows his employee to take his yatch out to a cruise, beats me. Anyway, both of them also jump into the water, without realising that nobody has bothered to put the ladder down or keep the hatch down so that people can climb back. Dan is such an idiot that he does not realise the blunder he has committed endangering everybody's lives. All of them are stuck down in the water with nary any hold or groove to climb back. Soon one after another start drowning. The movie advertised shark attack, but there was nothing of that sort, even though blood oozed from a couple of the guys. 

The General

 

Buster Keaton and his rip roaring comedy in The General (1926) one of the finest silent era comedy films of all time. Johnny Gray (Buster Keaton) is a train engineer and loves his engine and his lady love Annabelle (Marion Mack). When war breaks out, time comes to enlist for the Confederates, but he is rejected and his lady love also rejects him without an uniform. In the meanwhile, the Confederates are infiltrated by some spies who steal his train and make off with the supplies. Off goes Johnny after the train and some delightful comic scenes follows. Annabelle is meanwhile kept as captive by the Union soldiers and then Johnny has to rescue her, so some more delectable comic scenes. Buster Keaton's comic timings were superb in the movie somewhat reminiscent of Charlie Chaplin. Fight ensues between Union and Confederate soldiers much to the relief and joy of the Confederates. Brilliant movie to watch especially for Buster Keaton. The direction and camera work were quite superb for that era, especially shots of the moving trains and the wilderness. Who knew a silent movie would prove to be so powerfully comic. Brilliant. 

The Squaw Man

 

A 1914 silent era movie "The Squaw Man" directed by the great Cecil de Mille and the first western ever in Hollywood. It is one of those cult movies in the history of movies. Starring Warner Baxter as Jim, Eleanor Boardman as Diana, Lupe Velez as Naturich, its a story where an Englishman Jim has had to leave England to save his face and family name, following the swindling of the war regiment cash by his cousin Henry. Jim has to take the blame on himself and unfortunately he loves Diana who is Henry's wife. So all sort of tangles there. He escapes to America, where he becomes a wild west man, gets into a conflict with a local goon there Cash Hawkins, who is killed by Naturich. Later Jim and Naturich marry and have a kid. In the meanwhile Henry dies in an alpine fall accident and his dying confession absolves Jim of all the wrongdoings. Diana comes to America to reunite with Jim and ask him to take his rightful place as the Earl. There is no music, unlike in Battleship Potemkin which had great orchestral music. And with no sound, and only the few notes to let us know what is going on in the movie. Cecil de Mille made a 1931 version of the same movie, but with sound and dialogues, but that version is unfortunately not available on youtube.