notes from an occupied land…
by a lost, diaspora Tamil or a gypsy wanna-be…. this is ma journey from a land called S Lanka to occupiied land called kænədəArchive for our film club selections
SIR ! NO SIR !
“Film Screening of ” SIR ! NO SIR ! “” on Sunday, March 29 at 7:30pm.
Event: Film Screening of ” SIR ! NO SIR ! “
“Introduced by Richard Boyd Barrett chair of the Irish Anti -War movement”
What: Performance
Host: Irish Anti War Movement (IAWM)
Start Time: Sunday, March 29 at 7:30pm
End Time: Sunday, March 29 at 9:00pm
Where: The New Theatre
To see more details and RSVP, follow the link below:
http://www.facebook.com/n/?event.php&eid=59637533121&mid=346daeG2153161dG1d05d51G7
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Big Fish (2003): Quotes… & comments
Big Fish
director: Tim Burton
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{just finished watching it now (watched start yesterday) in da midle went to V aunty’s house, so there watched surprisingly good new tamil movie vennila kabadi kulu}
Drama themes (just for a note): son & father / facts and stories / imagination to fill boring life / big fish in a small pond or ocean
/Will Bloom: In telling the story of my father’s life, it’s impossible to separate fact from fiction, the man from the myth. The best I can do is to tell it the way he told me. It doesn’t always make sense and most of it never happened… but that’s what kind of story this is.
/Senior Ed Bloom: Truth is, I’ve always been thirsty.
/Senior Ed Bloom: People needn’t worry so much. It’s not my time yet. This is not how I go.
Will Bloom: Really?
Senior Ed Bloom: Truly. I saw it in the eye.
Will Bloom: The old lady by the swamp?
Senior Ed Bloom: She was a *witch*.
Will Bloom: No, she was old and probably senile.
Senior Ed Bloom: I saw my death in that eye, and this isn’t how it happens.
Will Bloom: So how does it happen?
Senior Ed Bloom: Surprise ending. Wouldn’t want to ruin it for you.
/Will Bloom: You know about icebergs, dad?
Senior Ed Bloom: Do I? I saw an iceberg once. They were hauling it down to Texas for drinking water. They didn’t count on there being an elephant frozen inside. The wooly kind. A mammoth.
Will Bloom: Dad!
Senior Ed Bloom: What?
Will Bloom: I’m trying to make a metaphor here.
Senior Ed Bloom: Well you shouldn’t have started with a question, because most people want to answer questions. You should’ve started with “the thing about icebergs is.”
/ Senior Ed Bloom: I’ve been nothin’ but myself since the day I was born, and if you can’t see that it’s your failin’, not mine.
/Senior Ed Bloom: There’s a time when a man needs to fight, and a time when he needs to accept that his destiny is lost… the ship has sailed and only a fool would continue. Truth is… I’ve always been a fool.
/Karl: I don’t want to eat you. I just get so hungry. I’m just too big.
Young Ed Bloom: Has it ever occurred to you that maybe you’re not too big? That maybe this place is just too small?
Young Ed Bloom: There are some fish that cannot be caught. It’s not that they’re faster or stronger than other fish. They’re just touched by something extra.
Will Bloom: A man tells his stories so many times that he becomes the stories. They live on after him, and in that way he becomes immortal.
/Amos Calloway: Her favorite flower is daffodils
Young Ed Bloom: Daffodils.
[smiles]
/Senior Sandra Bloom: I don’t think I’ll ever dry out.
/Josephine: I’d like to take your picture.
Senior Ed Bloom: Oh, you don’t need a picture. Just look up “handsome” in the dictionary.
Will Bloom: You become what you always were – a very big fish.
Young Ed Bloom: This isn’t how I die.
Senior Ed Bloom: They say when you meet the love of your life, time stops, and that’s true. What they don’t tell you is that when it starts again, it moves extra fast to catch up.
Young Ed Bloom: Your last name is different. You married.
Jenny: I was 18, he was 28. Turns out it was a big difference.
[Amos returns from the woods after being a wolf for a night]
Amos Calloway: Didn’t kill anything, did I?
Young Ed Bloom: A couple of rabbits, but I think one of ‘em was already dead.
Amos Calloway: That would explain the indigestion.
Senior Ed Bloom: [quoting his mother] “The milkman just dropped dead on the porch.” Because see, my mother was banging the milkman.
/Young Ed Bloom: There comes a point when any reasonable man will swallow his pride and admit he made a mistake. The truth is… I was never a reasonable man.
Senior Ed Bloom: I’ve told you a thousand facts, Will, that’s what I do. I tell stories.
Will Bloom: You tell lies, Dad.
/Young Jenny: Promise me you’ll come back
Young Ed Bloom: I promise. Someday. When I’m really supposed to.
[a poem he's worked on 12 years, written on a note pad]
Norther Winslow: The grass so green. Skies so blue. Spectre is really great!
Norther Winslow: Roses are red. Violets are blue. I love Spectre.
Senior Dr. Bennett: Did your father ever tell you about the day you were born?
Will Bloom: A thousand times. He caught an uncatchable fish.
Senior Dr. Bennett: Not that one. The real story. Did he ever tell you that?
Will Bloom: No.
Senior Dr. Bennett: Your mother came in about three in the afternoon. Her neighbor drove her, on account of your father was on business in Wichita. You were born a week early, but there were no complications. It was a perfect delivery. Now, your father was sorry to miss it, but it wasn’t the custom for the men to be in the room for deliveries then, so I can’t see as it would have been much different had he been there. And that’s the real story of how you were born. Not very exciting, is it? And I suppose if I had to choose between the true version and an elaborate one involving a fish and a wedding ring, I might choose the fancy version. But that’s just me.
Will Bloom: I kind of liked your version.
Wilbur (Age 10): Is it true she’s got a glass eye? I heard she got it from the gypsies…
Young Don Price: What’s a gypsy?
Ed Bloom (Age 10): Your momma’s a gypsy.
Young Don Price: Your momma’s a bitch.
[this scene reminded me of the boys out in the woods, in the 'to kill a mocking bird']
/ Will Bloom: [to Ed] You’re like Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny combined – just as charming, and just as fake.
/Amos Calloway: You were a big fish in a small pond, but this here is the ocean and your drownin’. Take my advice, go back to Puddleville; you’ll be happy there.
[talking about the witch]
Zacky Price (Age 10): She’ll make soap out of you. That’s what she does. She makes soap out of people.
Senior Ed Bloom: Most men, they’ll tell you a story straight through. It won’t be complicated, but it won’t be interesting either.
Will Bloom: Unbelievable.
Senior Ed Bloom: The story of my life.
Will Bloom: A man tells so many stories, that he becomes the stories. They live on after him, and in that way he becomes immortal.
/[Ed and Norther are in line at a bank together]
Young Ed Bloom: And now what are you doing?
Norther Winslow: I’m robbin’ this place!
Sandra Bloom: [of Edward to her fiance] He’s almost a stranger, and I prefer him to you!
[the things i didn't like in this movie is how he goatta kill several asian troops to escape to find his life, fail to show that troops' has love of their life too (i know, i am tooo much!) & the scene where others are losers/jerks Vs great ed bloom... or is it just that, in all their stories humans are the heros of their own? 
]
Karl: Friend, what happened to your shoes?
Young Ed Bloom: [Looking down at his feet] They kinda got ahead of me.
Young Ed Bloom: It was that night I discovered that most things you consider evil or wicked are simply lonely, and lacking in the social niceties.
Sandra Bloom: You don’t even know me.
Young Ed Bloom: I have the rest of my life to find out.
Ed Bloom (Age 10): I was thinking about death and all. About seeing how you’re gonna die. I mean, on one hand, if dying was all you thought about, it could kind of screw you up. But it could kind of help you, couldn’t it? Because you’d know that everything else you can survive.
Young Ed Bloom: She said that the biggest fish in the river gets that way by never being caught.
Jenny: I loved a man who could never love me back. I was living in a fairytale.
Young Jenny: There’s leaches in there.
Young Ed Bloom: Did you see that woman?
Young Jenny: What did she look like?
Young Ed Bloom: Well, she was, uh…
Young Jenny: Was she naked?
Young Ed Bloom: Yeah, she was.
Young Jenny: It’s not a woman. It’s a fish. No one’s ever catched her.
[the woman's role never changes. women who serves. women who dry the clothes. women who walk as perfect wives.. and fairy wom3n. perfect body women.. what not. Same thing with Spectre (the happy / ideal place) to the tamil movie vennila kabadi kulu women are expected to fill men's adventures. one of men's achievements. isn't it abt the dad, rite? and goatta say i love the mother/lover character's Chins! oh wow! my granny has it!]
/ Norther Winslow: I’ve been working on this poem for 12 years.
Young Ed Bloom: Really?
Norther Winslow: There’s a lot of expectation. I don’t wanna disappoint my fans.
Young Ed Bloom: May I?
Young Ed Bloom: [Edward reeds the poem on the notebook ] The grass so green Skies so blue. Spectre is really great!
Young Ed Bloom: It’s only three lines long.
Norther Winslow: This is why you should never show a work in progress.
Norther Winslow: Roses are red. Violets are blue. I love Spectre…
[Spectre, are abt the perfect 'place' likes of biblic ideal! a perfect place is not we want. we want a place of equality (where women does not serve men. or remove their shoes to enjoy the earth and 'create' them mood to 'create' poetry rather they are 'part' of that world as well. they cud create as well. believe me!]
/Senior Ed Bloom: What do you want, Will? Who do you want me to be?
Will Bloom: Just yourself. Good, bad, everything. Just show me who you are for once.
/ Young Ed Bloom: [voice over narration] I was the biggest thing Ashton had ever seen. Until one day, a stranger arrived.
[i love the way story was narrated (diologues). loved the smile of evan mccregor. very earthy (real, i mean). like of my maamaas(maternal uncles) back home stucked in war. it got smells of ma earth. so lovedd it.]
Young Ed Bloom: [voice over narration] It occurred to me then, that perhaps the reason for my growth was I was intended for larger things. After all, a giant man can’t have an ordinary-sized life.
Young Ed Bloom: [voice over narration] With my prospects few, I took a job as a traveling salesman. It suited me. If there’s one thing you can say about Edward Bloom, it’s that I’m a social person.
[overall i loved the movie. i am not the next director. so i stopped watching the commentary by the writer and director for the whole movie (extra dvd features) 
i shud stop being soo intellectual .. any way.. datz it abt dis movie.]
vennila kabadi kulu [வெண்ணிலா கபடிக் குழு/2008]
talking abt ‘world class’ movies and all. didn’t watch slum dog millionaire yet. but loved how a short poem of a movie this one is.
somewhat reminded the superb ‘City of God’ [great tamil movies added an early particular shots where they cut chickens or something. to show the violence as it is in 'city of god' including Veiyil/வெயில். Exact shot by the way! that annoys]. inspirations are good.
the boys
*****
vennila kabadi kulu- a fine movie. wanna know abt Tamil Nadu, India Little villages out there, and 1000+ small stories the ppl have. this is one little story based on their game ‘kapadi.’
a low class, oppressed caste boy (only boy to a poor mother) – what is there for him in this century? ! love is costly for them. toooo expensive. not just love. even a touch from a woman! gentle touch! i don’t like giving out stories. this move simply moved me, unexpected. new faces did well. that guy is humanly beautiful as the character is. as there are sooo many ppl resembles him. yet individually charm to the age and that season in life.
the coach
My favorites:
all the boys: shorty to the cute fatty
the coach character
the 2nd gurl who studies in the same school as the heroine. i liked her thudduk thanam (talkativeness?!)
dead man walking [1995]
another movie watched for most favorite of my sisters, Sean Penn. This story is based on true story (few fictional addition). i loved the background score (like the south asian flavour in it), and its by david robbins (brother of the director tim robbins). talented dudes..
few quotes from the movie:
//Matthew Poncelet: I just wanna say I think killin’ is wrong, no matter who does it, whether it’s me or y’all or your government.//
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//Prison guard: Tell me something sister, what is nun doing in a place like this. Shouldn’t you be teaching children? Didn’t you know what this man has done? How he killed them kids?
Sister Helen Prejean: What he was involved with was evil. I don’t condone it. I just don’t see the sense of killing people to say that killing people’s wrong.
Prison guard: You know what the Bible say, ‘An eye for an eye’.
Sister Helen Prejean: You know what else the Bible ask for death as a punishment? For adultery, prostitution, homosexuality, trespass upon sacred grounds, profane in a sabbath and contempt to parents.
Prison guard: I ain’t gonna get no Bible quote from no nun cause I’m gonna lose.
Sister Helen Prejean: You are a son of God.
Matthew Poncelet: [in tears] Thank you. I’ve never been called a son of God before.
[laughs slightly]
Matthew Poncelet: I’ve been called a son of a you-know-what plenty of times, but I’ve never been called a son of God. //
Related bOOks (i shall read):
- Forgiving the Dead Man Walking- Debbie Morris
-
Helen Prejean – dead man walking
[From Wiki:]
Prejean now bases her work at the Death Penalty Discourse Network in New Orleans and spends her time giving talks across the United States and around the world. She is pro-life: “The pope says we should be unconditionally pro-life; against abortion, against euthanasia, against suicide and (that means also) against the death penalty.” This view is commonly called the Consistent Life Ethic.
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i am not a pro-life person. nor supporter of capital punishment. so, there is nothing for me to get convinced of. but again the human dramas behind all the horrible potrayal of criminals well pictured in this movie.
