casino royale: craig bond is here

james bond is finally born on the screen
this one is real
he gets more blood on him than all the bonds before him
pearce brosnan for example got nice designer scratches doing all those stunts

that was a fake james bond
unreal pompous and with a bloated ego
an ego that every other charcter has to take for granted
i thought it was pathetical feudal and british imperialist

the new james craig bond cannot be confined to the ac room
shaking and stirring his drink
he is out there doing his thing
which is acting smart and cocky
in the thick of where the shit is hitting the fan
this sunny number #1 thing he's got
plays out superbly in the action
and thats what makes this bond so cool
but the fun really is when this disposition is under attack
and when he reveals his vulnerability to some one
to show that vulnerability requires a good actor
and in daniel craig the bond franchise
has finally found a good actor
thank god for that

bond is meant to be threatened and he is meant to get flustered
but he is meant keep it below his sauve demeanour
how are you gonna show something like that as an actor
i can imagine how hard that can be
but that is the true drama of bond
hats off to the scriptwriters of casino royale
foe throwing up such a hard to play bond
for the first time we see bond in this vulnerable dramatic manner

the only other bond who seemed like real human being
was sean connery in Dr. No
he too seemed vulnerbale at times

of course these are opinions
lots of people have counter arguments

but i am particularly glad
that brosnan is out of the bond franchise
i never understood all those people going gaga over him
i am sure they will be the ones who have problems with daniel craig
but i am sure craig's here to stay

till then the line for me is
bond
james craig bond

bad guy this

a few days back i saw this korean film BAD GUY
people love people thats what makes the world go round if you ask me
its a need that keeps finding fullfillment in some form or other
as mankind continues existing

changewhich cannot be denied takes its course and what was will cease to be
the way things flowed will not remain the same
the way men find love
the way they satisfy their need for it will have to change

does love have to make thing better for people
does love have to be understandable for everyone
does love sprout only out of tenderness and benign feelings

bad guy illustrates a situation where none of the above questions find an affirmative reply
like many others who watched the film i too was disturbed by the film when i saw it for the first time
when i look back at that feeling i realise now that
the ease with which we compartmentalise people in terms of the ethics we set for ourselves makes the uinderstanding of this film very difficult

we cannot follow the logic of the film because it arrogantly refuses to take into account
this easy compartmentalising
if you feel its tough to understand then you are not open enough to embrace a sinner
you cannot forgive some sin
you cannot avoid raising yourself above
some emotional and psychological damage that fate confers on another
in other words this film attempts to confront us with our deep-seated and cruel selfish natures

this makes the film what some would call subversive
i call it meaningful
i mean this is not some candy floss
that melts in your mouth and makes you feel nice and gooey
its a story that takes some listening to
like an interesting person you might meet
this film alienates you and yet makes you want to get to know it

check out bad guy if you can lay your hands on a dvd of it

read alan moore

published in the decaan herald supplement articulations

Have you noticed the increase in the number of thick Rs 700-1000 comic books in places like Landmark? Comic books with trade releases of compiled volumes of series have hit major bookstores in India. Couple this with the plethora of comic book films that are around and we have a sort of renaissance of the comic book in India. Remember Amar Chithra Katha, Bahadur and Indrajal, Chacha Chaudhary and Diamond comics? Those comics faded away but in the late nineties, with the arrival of Gotham comics, a small market for comics opened up. Bookstores today seem to be opening up to this market. You will find in bookshelves such classics as Frank Miller’s Sin City, Grant Morrisson’s Doom Patrols, Neil Gaiman’s Sandman series and Alan Moore’s Watchmen. A decade back it would have been difficult to hear about these books in India.

Open market consumerism has certain advantages, one of them being that it sells you antidotes to itself. All these writers are highly subversive and don’t think too much about the great western heritage. Most of their work is an indictment of the mediocrity and regress of western society. Their comment on the current scenario of global politics is not any less vindictive.The time has come when comic book writers are often given a higher pedestal as litterateurs than most writers and novelists. This is also because premises for novels seem to have dried up and novels are turning out to be uninteresting and uninspired, too caught up by concerns of marketing and broad-based success, but comics on the other hand are teeming with new concerns and ideas, still relatively unfettered by commercial requirements, most of these talented new comic book writers have managed to strike a wonderful balance between sales and critical acclaim. On the top of the heap of new comic book writers is Alan Moore. Moore was born in Northhampton in 1953 where he continues to reside, presumably as an act of willful defiance. He wrote scripts for various significant super hero comic books in the '80s including Watchmen, Swamp Thing and Batman. His stories have been made into financially successful Hollywood films, From Hell, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and the recent Wachowski brothers’ V for Vendetta. Recently he's written and performed a spoken word piece about William Blake, published a novel called Voice of fire. It's almost certain you've enjoyed some aspect of popular culture that's been influenced by him, but beyond this what makes it important to know about Alan Moore is the fact that so many of his works have seemingly anticipated or prefigured so much of what has come to pass as the contemporary socio-political scenario. V for Vendetta, Moore's dystopian early-1980s narrative about a future fascist Britain under siege by a notorious terrorist who was subjected to unbearable torture, echoes much of our current dilemma in the so-called war on terrorism, all the way down to the criminalisation of homosexuality, the surveillance state and a homogeneous media that glosses over real news in favour of sensationalism. Having seen three films and read the comic books they were based on, I feel an obligation to clear the air on behalf of Moore. All the books were highly original and owe their existence to the singular dedication of one man to keep away from the common place options available in any form of narrative, be it film, literature or comic books. Moore’s Watchmen is a comic book that broke through the dogmas and criticisms that kept comic book art from being considered serious, simply because it was unlike any other comic book before it. He pulled this feat off by a stupendous erudition and a prolific mind; he did every thing that can be done with the entire lexicon of post-modern critical theory in a comic book. He has an opinion about everything under the sun and doesn’t flinch from expressing it. In his own words— “Any form of art is propaganda. It is propaganda for a state of mind rather than a nation-state but it is propaganda, and it's best if you accept that and understand what you're doing and be honest about it: you are trying to change the mind of your target audience. You are trying to change their perceptions... stop them from seeing things how they see things and start them seeing things the way you see things”. What is there to read nowadays other than expatriates’ nostalgic writing about the motherland or over-smart yuppies celebrating their own miserable situation by mocking everybody else? Where is the dope for a book junky, who needs a new high every month? The waiting is over. So go to your bookstore, ask for anything by Moore and become well read and in the know!

the rise of might

in the beginning...
i cant really remember the beginning
when i remember i had a spear and i was angry
from the time i can remember i hunt to get my food
maybe i had the spear to hunt for food
i get hungry and i get mad
and my spear becomes deadly

some stones were big and they scared me
i turned my spear on it
from the stone that i feared a god came out
frightening and mad
then other gods camethere was the god of the penis
there was the god of peace
then the god was put on the cross
i think thats what ticked off the god

he couldn't do with spears anymore
he said he needed better spears
better and better went on
and then the spears became guns
and guns became winchesters
and LMGs and kalshnikov's and bazookas
and howitzers and patton tanks and B-52s and scud missiles
and atom bombs and self guided nuclear warheads

i walked through the valley of the shadow of death
i performed my karma and didn't worry about what i got
i killed for food
i didnt like the taste
i did all this not because i knew that was good
but thats just how i am
i held on to my spear and kept on

i was hungry and my spear had no food to get
the world become madder and hungrier than me
there was noise and lights and madness
i couldn't understand more than i could think
i fought my mind to try think like i was asked to
but my mind is free and doesn't listen to me i never tamed it like my spear
i never thought of killing with my mind
so couldn't play the games people played
and because i do what i do like i do i lost every game i played
all the rules kept changing and i couldn't keep up
people became men and women
people became men who fuck men
and women who fuck woman and
men and woman who fuck animals
and men who kill or maim the woman they fuck
people turned their guns and their minds at people who didn't fuck like they do
i have had no need to think too hard so i beat no sense into things i see
my spear has no say when it comes to things like these that i see
of all the things i hadn't thought much of
this was just another

but even in all this
there was abundance people ate like pigs
i got hungrier and i got angrier and madder
there’s all that out there to look at and eat and drink and wallow in
and sedate and sleep and lie about and think up guns and foods
and things that weren't there
people threw their spears and sharpened their minds too make spears out of it
how funny it is when a thing becomes another thing
a mind becomes a spear
but i never had no need to think all i know is to do
and my spear and mind do what it does and i am what they do not what i make them do
but there seems not much to do but think up more things than there is
what is to think like a spear? i never knew

but my spear is stiff and ready as ever
and i walked my walk and kept my talk within myself
like ever through valleys of fear and pestilence and death and fight against it
and noise and lights and the cry of people and the death of the earth and the land of shit
and filth and too many things and more thing and more things
and some random acts of kindness that mean nothing to you

when i look at you
i think not about you or me
i just like to see what you see
so i ask and i think to see
what do you see
when your eyes peer at me

but i see you when you see me

why do you raise your spear in fright
might never grew with might on might
might be it needs to pickle in your fright
but might is such that it is to be put might upon might upon might
so what will might do with you