Annie Hall

…And I thought of that old joke. You know, the, this, this guy goes to a psychiatrist and says, ‘Doc, uh, my brother’s crazy, he thinks he’s a chicken,’ and uh, the doctor says, ‘Well why don’t you turn him in?’ And the guy says, ‘I would, but I need the eggs.’ Well, I guess that’s pretty much now how I feel about relationships. You know, they’re totally irrational and crazy and absurd and – but uh, I guess we keep going through it because most of us need the eggs

That’s the final dialogue from “Annie Hall”. I watched three Woody Allen movies in the last three days. “Annie Hall”, “Manhattan”, “Love and Death”. I loved them. There is no major plot in any of them, Mostly it’s just two people talking. “Annie Hall” especially is brilliant.

Alvy Singer is the narrator. He is a standup comedian. His relationship with Annie Hall ended a year ago. Annie is the love of his life. He narrates their story in hope of finding what went wrong.

There are little things about Annie that makes her perfect and beautiful. The way she laughs. The way she says “la di da”. These little things draw us even more towards her. Alvy Singer is our protagonist. He is neurotic. He keeps on talking. He sees a conspiracy in everything. His mental processes never slow down. He is smart and knows a lot about different things. Quite naturally or not so naturally, Annie is attracted to Alvy. They start dating each other. Alvy wants Annie to take university courses. “adult education is a very good thing”, he says. When Annie hugs one of her professors, Alvy starts doubting her and they break up. There is a lot of funny dialogue here. For example, Alvy says that he is not following her that he is spying her, as if following is a mistake but spying is not. When they break up, Alvy asks couples on the sidewalk their secret to a successful relationship. One couple say that both of them are stupid and that’s why it works. After a few days, Annie calls him saying that there is an emergency. This leads to them making up again. This is my favorite scene in the movie. I don’t exactly know why, but I like this scene very much. They love each other and eventually, they break up again. This is expected. Nothing makes Alvy happy. There are only a few shots in the movie where he is smiling genuinely. It’s a little heart breaking but that’s how the movie ends.

My head hurt a little when I watched this movie. Maybe it’s because Alvy keeps on talking in almost every frame of the film. Or may be it’s because I played football for 2 hours that evening. The dialogues are sharp and witty. The movie takes the time to showcase all phases of a relationship. There are no rough edges. In most of the films, I feel some scenes have nothing to do with the story. In “Annie Hall” everything adds up into a beautiful experience.

Oscars 2014

I have a lot of free time now as it’s just the beginning of semester. I was sifting through my facebook news feed when i found a post about oscar nominations. A brilliant idea stuck me. Why not watch all the movies that are nominated in some category for an oscar? The final announcement is to take place on 2nd march. So, I have ample time to watch them all. For the next month i will be watching these great movies. I will write something about each of them here. I will write about my predictions. Basically, a whole lot of exciting stuff. I am looking forward to it.

Adios.

(find the nominations here.)

Nenokkadine Interval scene

There has been much talk about the interval scene in Nenokkadine. Some saying that it’s the best scene ever in a telugu film. So, I thought, I may as well dedicate a blog post to it.

Confession time: I am a big fan of Mahesh Babu. So, I may be biased. I loved the scene. but, for slightly different reasons.

What follows is my dissection of the scene

The act can be divided into three parts.

1) kelly dorje confronted by Mahesh.

2) Mahesh realizing that kelly is real.

3) Mahesh’s frustration for losing a valuable link to his past.

 

Part 1:  

  This is a laugh riot. Thanks to some clever dialogue by Sukumar. I don’t want to spill the beans. Mahesh’s dialogue delivery is top notch (as usual). Kelly Dorje showcases fear perfectly. 

 

Part 2:

  This is the part where Mahesh realizes that kelly is infact real. There is an excellent dialogue here. Kriti asks Mahesh about the gun sound. Mahesh says “sound rakudade”. The movie is peppered with this kind of subtle humor. 

 

Part 3: 

  This part is my favorite. Mahesh’s first reaction is happiness because he was right all the way. Because it means he has a past. Slowly, this happiness turns into frustration for losing the link. He starts firing bullets at kelly’s corpse.  The rising tempo gave me goosebumps. 

 

 

A scene this good should have a brilliant ending. Mahesh continues firing even after the barrel is emptied. Mahesh’s intensity here is unbelievable. Now DSP’s awesome BGM kicks in. This BGM is on par with Hans Zimmer’s (IMHO). I really hope that the BGM is not copied. By this time, I was clapping and screaming. I went to the film again just for this scene. Sukumar’s dialogue and Mahesh’s acting are brilliant, but without DSP’s BGM it won’t be the same. 

 

Go watch nenokkadine. Believe me, You don’t want to miss this scene.