August 2016 – Ramana's Musings

The Jury System.

In my post reviewing the Hindi film Rustom, I had mentioned “Incidentally, the jury system was abolished in India after this case wound up.”

Reading that a friend of mine had suggested that I read The Humanity Of Justice by Burke Strunsky to understand the jury system in the USA. While reading the book, I came across a lead to the film 12 Angry Men which brings out the role of the American Jury system so well which is elaborated in the book.

While I could not immediately get a DVD of the film, on investigating, I found that I could see a play on youtube. I saw it earlier this evening and I was zapped and I could well understand that the film must have been more powerful.

Reading the book and seeing the play, I have come to the conclusion that we in India have gravely erred giving up the jury system. I wish that we could go back to it but it is a pipe dream.

I give below the link to the play and if you have not seen the film or the play, it would be worth your while to see it at your leisure.

Nine Lives.

There were no other worthwhile movie to see and despite having seen the trailer a few times, I decided to spend an afternoon to primarily see Kevin Spacey and Christopher Walken in a movie.

Neither disappointed me but the rest of the film was on predictable lines and the only other redeeming feature of the film was the trick photography and the trained cat.

If you have nothing else to do on a monsoon afternoon, and would like to be occupied with a passable film, you can see this. And Shackman, this is not even a popcorn film. I am unable to give it more than three out of five as a rating.

Best Movie Of 2015.

The film that I would rank as the best that I saw during 2015 would be Piku. I had reviewed it in my blog post.

Coincidentally, Piku was chosen as the Best Film in the 61st Britannia Filmfare Awards, as well as other categories. Padukone won her Second Filmfare Award for Best Actress, and Bachchan received his fourth National Film Award for Best Actor at the 63rd National Film Awards and his third Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actor for his performance.

Coming now to English movies, although the Oscar for the best picture went to Birdman I was unable to see it when it was released here due to various reasons despite wanting to see it. It completely escaped my attention subsequently and I did not get to see it on a DVD either. I will now put that into my bucket list for this year.

Of all the pictures that I did see in 2015 I would rank Bridge of Spies as the best. I had written my own review recommending it to my readers as one not to be missed.

Thiw week’s topic for the Friday LBC posts was suggested by Shackman whose take on the subject can be seen at his blog. Pravin an occasional contributor may also write and his take can be seen at his blog.

UnIndian.

Two important factors made me want to see this film. The first one was that it had Brett Lee, the Australian Pace Bowler acting in it, and the second as it eventually turned out was that it was produced by someone known to me. So off I went earlier this afternoon with my partner in crime Ramesh, whose nephew had produced the film, to see it.

It is an Indo Australian romantic comedy film with an interesting story, great editing to keep it crisp and taut, good photography, some excellent acting and camera work. The direction is of a very high order and with that kind of a background, it has to be a great film. I would give it a five out of five rating and am amazed at the lacklustre response it has evoked among the Indian audience.

The surprise elements in the total package is the acting skill shown by Brett Lee and all the other names, none of whom are well known here. The humour is subtle and effective as is the script.

I intend buying the DVD when it is made available to see the film again and again. It was that good.

If you get an opportunity to see it, do not miss it. It is that good.

Happy Bhag Jayegi.

I had seen the trailer for this film earlier and had made up my mind then to see it when released. I was able to earlier this evening and I am very happy that I did.

It is a very well made movie and despite the fact that I had heard about two of the actors earlier and had seen only one of them on screen before, I enjoyed the performance of all the actors. The story is partly in India and partly in Lahore, Pakistan and that adds a bit of masala to the effect.

I particularly liked the performance of the Pakistani actress Momal Sheikh who does her job with aplomb that belies the fact that this was her first movie experience!

If you are, like me fond of seeing light hearted comedy, this is a picture that you must see.

Red Notice; How I Became Putin’s No.1 Enemy.

This is a book that should not only be read by you, but one that should be recommended by you to all your contacts so that more and more people will come to know about the Powerful Russians and the way they bamboozle even foreigners leave alone their own citizens.

My brother Barath suggested that I read this book and he has not made a better recommendation than this ever in his long life.

This book had me riveted to it from the first page till I finished reading it. It is an amazing true story with all real people featured in it and instead of a non fiction book, reads like a mystery thriller. But it also left me emotionally quite involved in the writer’s agony and angst as well as sad for the lawyer who gets killed by the Russian system.

I do not want to share the contents of the book here and hope that you will read the book to gain a first hand knowledge yourself.

I request you to read these two reviews here from a British newspaper and here from an American one to add further persuasion if it is needed.