What 'The Good Bad and Ugly' taught me

Firstly, my sincere and deep apologies to Sergio Leone, Ennio Morricone and Hollywood for not having watched this movie. It was just yesternight that I realised what a bummer I have been for not having watched this movie all along.

The first cheek-blushing thing this movie taught me was that I do not know about every great movie ever made and that my husband definitely knows more than me. And I am not going to brag about my knowledge in this regard ever because at least in front of him he has a list, a long one. Ouch!

When it comes to movies I do not follow The New York Times guide to the Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made, I just go with any random aspect that interests me, mostly it is the name then the star cast and then the music. So from now on I would trust The New York Times guide  because they definitely know more than me.

Secondly, Clint Mansell, Hanz Zimmer, Nino Rota and John Williams have to make way for Ennio Morricone. This Italian knows his job and he does it well. He is ace!

Mr. Morricone thank you for making me realise that there is music everywhere just like god it is omnipresent. Gunfire, whistling, and yodeling, throughout the movie teach me about this. So much I learnt about music. For the music Morricone seized upon real-life sounds and loaded them with ominous meaning, like the coyote-howl motif and the deafening tick of the pocket-watches counting down the climactic shoot-out. Goosebumps!

The best part about this contemporary classic is  the way the three main characters are introduced, this two note coyote yell is used for the three main characters, with a different instrument used for each one: flute for Blondie (Man With No Name)(Clint Eastwood), arghilofono for Angel Eyes (Lee Van Cleef) and human voices for Tuco (Eli Wallach).

For those who have an eye and ear in understanding music's role in plot development or character introduction, this movie's soundtrack is blinding.

Thanks to this movie I realised about the endless possibility of human voice.

Thirdly, if it's climax it should be nothing less than an orgasm. The film's famous climax, a three-way Mexican standoff had me all psyched! This epic showdown would always be etched in my mind.

Another thing that I realised was men with guns are men, the real deal and not those with gadgets and i-pads. No man can change this. I am no longer sighing over the emotional male protagonists. I'd rather go ga-ga over Tuco than Mr. Darcy (Naaa, I love him too.)

And last but not the least if looks could kill then I would not have had been blogging about this movie. Clint Eastwood, I am sorry for underestimating your dull looks in 'The bridges of Madison County'. Sorry!! And now I know what my husband meant when he said that if he would have been gay he would have married him then.


It is a brilliant Spaghetti Western! Do watch! Breathtaking!

‘ ( Crazy, stupid Cupid ) : My entry for the Get Published contest’

Yes! It is a love story. It has a girl, a boy, the blind Cupid and the story.

It is a story of a journalist, Zoya, working in the top media house in Delhi for a couple of years and Raj, a banker, an engineer from Delhi College of Engineering and an MBA from a top college working in a leading bank in CP, Delhi.

As our blind Cupid would have it they fell in love.

Zoya loved music, books, poems and stories while Raj loved maths, money and business.

She talked of Yeats and Milton and he talked of meetings and cracking monthly targets.

She cribbed for his time and he explained her the importance of money. But, they knew they loved each other.

They played their parts en-regle, but, what went wrong?

If you are one of those who fell in love, did all that they could to keep it safe but eventually lost it and became a self-chronicler after that, you would wonder whether it does qualify to be a love story or something bigger than love.

Crazy, stupid Cupid is such a story where we learn a few more things about love. Firstly you do not always get to choose and secondly you do not always get to keep it and last but not the least it is you who always does the damage control after our blind cupid fails with his arrow.

More than Zoya and Raj it is the story of the blind Cupid.

What makes this story real is that it is a story of a fellow journalist and I have seen her grow within and beyond in this relationship. It has a little of myself in it as well.
 

Excerpt:

“Is it a problem?” Zoya asked, staring outside the car.

“What is?” confronted Raj.

“My love for you. Is it a problem?”

“Is it too big for you that you are sinking in it or worse still is it so vast that you are feeling suffocated?”

Raj was silent. So was Zoya.

After a long uncomfortable silence Raj said, “No”.

“Zoya, I don't understand you sometimes, in fact most of the times.”

“In that case Raj, it is a problem. You and I. We are a problem.”

Time stopped and nothing but ghory silence was shared between the two.

This is my entry for the HarperCollins-IndiBlogger Get Published Contest, which is run with inputs from Yashodhara Lal and HarperCollins India.

ON STORIES AND FABLES

( Another poem written by me while thinking about the amount of stories I have been constantly feeding myself with since childhood.Here it goes.)

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She knew of stories from East and West;
of fables and those tales from the past,
of fairies and goblins and
ghosts that come to haunt one from their past.

She knew these stories, she knew them well.
Wrapped them neatly, held them tight.
Safe from the mornings
and the dead of night.

Insane you would call her,
or one would tell.
But she was wise, she knew
one day she would have kids
and a million stories to tell.

--Joyeeta