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Thursday, July 26, 2012

Did you like the new "Batman" movie? I didn't. Here's why.

(A Facebook conversation)

 ·  · 

  • Apar Dham, Shobhit Siddharth and 2 others like this.

    • Apar Dham I've not seen Madagascar 1,2 and 3. Never been able to warm upto animated movies. But agree with the rest! :-)

    • Ramesh Prabhu Apar: Don't you want to know what I'm talking about? You're not going to like it, my friend.

    • Apar Dham Well, you just decided that I'm not going to like it! So what's the point now? :-s

    • Ramesh Prabhu Sorry. Well, I watched "The Dark Knight Rises" today. And that's what I'm talking about.
      18 hours ago ·  · Shyam Prabhu likes this

    • Apar Dham Aahh! Doh! Silly me! :-p Sir, please please please, share your views about The Dark Knight Rises! It has been a long time since I had a healthy debate with someone! Especially, you! :-p

    • Pooja Kamath Do watch 'Dark knight rises'. It's an amazing movie! :)

    • Ramanathan Iyer Did you like it? Ramesh sir, please amplify your answer a bit.

    • Ramesh Prabhu Where do I begin, Apar? First, there wasn't enough Batman in this Batman movie. Then, I also thought there wasn't enough Batman in Batman either. Next, there were lots of set pieces that seemed to be randomly put together -- there was no coherent narrative. I found the dialogues pretty hokey also. All those movies I talked about in my status update above? I would much rather watch them a second time (make that three times for "Inception" because I have watched it twice already) than be bored like I was today.

    • Ramesh Prabhu That is why I am wondering: Is it me?

    • Arpan Bhattacharyya Yes. It's you.
      17 hours ago ·  · You + 1 other

    • Ramesh Prabhu Luckily, our tickets only cost Rs.99 apiece at Meenakshi Mall, otherwise...

    • Arpan Bhattacharyya Rs. 99? For the big bad Bat? Nah, that explains it! You watched some other movie...
      17 hours ago ·  · Ramanathan Iyer likes this

    • Ramesh Prabhu Apparently, Arpan, and we learnt about this after we bought our tickets, ALL shows at Cinepolis on Wednesdays are Rs.99 each. :-)
      17 hours ago ·  · Nandini Hegde likes this

    • Ramesh Prabhu Anyway, I am just glad that someone else out there shares my views: http://goo.gl/SiY9P.

      17 hours ago ·  · 

    • Arpan Bhattacharyya Frankly speaking, I don't know what the reviewer is talking about here. 

      1.) What on earth does Mr. Charity mean by "...as others have noted, the movie's defense of the establishment in the form of philanthropic billionaires and an incorruptible police force gives it a conservative gloss..."? The only philanthropic billionaire is Bruce Wayne. 

      2.) Bane is more than just a "brawny sewer rat"; he's the first villain who can physically match up to (and beat the daylights out of) Batman while still managing to have an obscene thirst for large-scale destruction. 

      3.) "..stop yakking and pull the trigger..."? Hahaha! Most movies would end within the first 10 minutes if the villains started doing that! 

      4.) Obviously this gentleman doesn't have a knack for research, as is amply proven by his description of prison in Jodhpur as "hellhole... in Afghanistan". Is that because he was trying so hard to make his point about the terrorism link?

      5.) This movie isn't Nolan's best. It isn't even the best of the trilogy. There are a few flaws, some of them quite glaring (like how Batman survived a nuclear blast with a 6 mile radius). But it certainly isn't "disappointingly clunky and bombastic".


    • Ramesh Prabhu Well, I was disappointed for all the reasons I have mentioned above, and now that I think about it, I agree with Charity -- "The Dark Knight Rises" is indeed clunky and bombastic. :-)

      That reference to Afghanistan, Arpan, is not meant to be literal. The sentence reads: "... hellhole he comes from sure looks like it belongs in Afghanistan". See what I mean?

      And as for "Batman" surviving that nuclear blast, if you remember the scene that came afterwards, we learn that he had fixed the autopilot on his plane six months prior to all the events. So he bailed out, let the autopilot take over, and flew to Paris (or is it Rome) for his rendezvous with "Catwoman". :-)


    • Sanaa A'esha I agree with Ebert's review. http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=%2F20120717%2FREVIEWS%2F120719981

      rogerebert.suntimes.com
      ‎"The Dark Knight Rises" leaves the fanciful early days of the superhero genre f...See More

      17 hours ago ·  · 

    • Faye DSouza More than?

    • Ramesh Prabhu Sanaa: Here is what I like from Ebert's review:

      It isn't very much fun, and it doesn't have very much Batman.

      When it finally comes down to Bane and Batman going mano-a-mano during a street fight, it involves an anticlimactic fist-fight. He blows up the city's bridges and to top that lands a right hook on Batman's jaw?

      Bane is the least charismatic of the Batman villains, but comes close to matching Bruce Wayne and Batman in screen time.

      All of these characters and their activities produce stretches in the first half of the film during which, frankly, I was not entirely sure who was doing what and with which and to whom.


    • Ramesh Prabhu Faye: More than "The Dark Knight Rises".

    • Sanaa A'esha Yeah. Ebert's review captures everything I feel about the movie.

    • Arpan Bhattacharyya Yes. In hindsight (such a wonderful thing, isn't it?), that Afghanistan bit was a bit of a rant on my part - I do see your point. And yea, I know that he fixed the autopilot but how far could the plane have flown in the few minutes/seconds before the blast. But that's a debatable point. As for the review and your views, I still disagree. It is indeed an "honorable finale."

    • Ramesh Prabhu So here's an important question: Do old fogeys (like me) and adolescents no longer like the same movies?

    • Arpan Bhattacharyya Hehehehe! Only when it comes to Batman. :)

    • Nandini Hegde Sirji, I agree with everything except Dabangg. I think it was a pathetic film and because of that film directors made similar films. I still haven't watched TDKR. I really liked TDK but the main reason for that was Heath Ledger's performance.

    • Amrutha Raman Sir I see your point - But as a crazy comic fan, especially the Batman series one thing what I liked about 'The Dark Knight Rises' and Nolan's scripting is bringing in depth in the character Batman. Batman is not just a 'detective' with fancy gadgets, but has his own inner struggles to fight with. And agreed that Bane wasn't as cynical as the Joker ( If that is the standard that has to be met with) but Bane is the most intelligent villian in the entire series of Batman. This movie is an inspiration from the 1993 series Batman - The Vengeance Of Bane. Batman fears him the most out of all his villains. I think Nolan had the guts to show Batman more than just a super Hero.

    • Ramesh Prabhu Nandini: I hear you! But, for what it is worth, here's my post on "Dabangg" -- http://goo.gl/gIxUt.

      engageentertainenlighten.blogspot.com
      This blog is for students of Commits, a media college in Bangalore, where I teac...See More

      46 minutes ago ·  · 

    • Ramesh Prabhu Amrutha: I hear you, too! But I think I have been reading comics and been a comics fan since before my students were born, so perhaps I see all this from a different perspective. :-)
      42 minutes ago ·  · Arpan Bhattacharyya likes this

    • Arpan Bhattacharyya Quite a few years before your students were born. :)
      40 minutes ago ·  · You + 1 other

    • Amrutha Raman Hehe.. Well I shall rest my case for now..


Sunday, July 22, 2012

Remembering Behram Contractor

Of all the editors and senior journalists I have worked with, Behram "Busybee" Contractor is the one I loved and respected the most.

I began my journalistic career as a trainee sub-editor with Mid Day in June 1981 when Behram was the chief reporter (that was his official designation but everyone knew he was the person whose opinions mattered the most at the paper). Four years later, a bunch of us left Mid Day with Behram to launch a rival evening newspaper, The Afternoon Despatch & Courier. And in October 1988, I left The Afternoon to become the features editor of the Dubai-based Khaleej Times.

BEHRAM CONTRACTOR (SECOND FROM LEFT) PRESIDING OVER THE FESTIVITIES AT ONE OF HIS FAVOURITE HAUNTS AFTER A LONG DAY AT THE OFFICE.

I remained sporadically in touch with Behram and my former colleagues all through my stay abroad. Every time I visited Mumbai I made it a point to visit Afternoon House and spend some time sitting across Behram at his desk and making conversation, which, with Behram, was not always an easy thing. He was known, among other things, as the funny man of journalism thanks to his famous and popular "Busybee" column, but he was an intensely private individual who preferred to let his writing do the talking.

When he died in Mumbai on April 9, 2001, I was in Goa at a company event (I had joined TMG in Bangalore after my stint in Dubai came to an end). I received the sad news from my good friend Shashikant Jadhav, who was Behram's assistant as well as the nominal publisher of The Afternoon.

Many glowing tributes were paid to the man who had become synonymous with the city but none was more personal than the appreciation written by Mark Manuel, my dear friend and former colleague. Mark's tribute to Behram was carried as the lead story in The Afternoon with the masthead placed below it. "I wrote it in one shot at 5 a.m., after coming to work straight from the hospital where I had sat beside his body through the night," Mark says. "I don't like to think it is one of my best pieces of writing, but people (and total strangers, too) still connect me today with this obituary... it is as if Behram's hand was on my head even from beyond the grave."

Here is the tribute in its entirety:

Busybee is no more!

Afternoon House’s heartbeat has stopped…

By Mark Manuel

I’ve trained under the man and worked with him for 17 years, but there is one assignment Behram Contractor, better known as Busybee, never prepared me for. The heart-wrenching task of announcing his own death and writing his obituary in this newspaper. Yes, he is really no more. And something within me dies to bring you this terrible, tragic news. He passed away early this morning, round about 00.40 o’clock, as peacefully and gently as the summer rain that had fallen on the city in the dawn hour yesterday.

I was with him when he died. We were rushing him to Bombay Hospital in an ambulance, his wife Farzana Contractor, the CEO of this newspaper, a close family friend Rajesh Jain, and Drs. Aashish Sahukar and Anil Sharma. The doctors were massaging his heart and pumping oxygen into his lungs artificially. And Dr. B. K. Goyal, as big an institution in medicine as Busybee was in journalism, was driving behind us in his own car. It was a short drive, from Busybee’s residence on Malabar Hill to Bombay Hospital, six kilometres here or there. And with flashing lights and wailing siren, we covered it in minutes. But somewhere along Walkeshwar Road, we lost him. I like to think he quietly slipped away.

Since April last year, he had been suffering indifferent health. First, a definite weakening of the lungs caused by half a lifetime of smoking 60 cigarettes a day. Then, in September, a fracture in the lower spine brought about by a spasm of coughing. He was not bedridden, only advised bed rest, but Busybee got up in lesser time than it takes to cure a fever and did what he knew best… he started writing his column. It had been appearing sporadically due to his absences, and he was eager to resume it and go full steam ahead. And he would have, but for the fact that he was pushing 70 and age and his health had begun telling on him.

On January 18, after he did a tremendous cover story for Upper Crust (Farzana Contractor’s food, wine and lifestyle magazine) at the Taj Mahal Hotel over dinner, Busybee suffered a relapse of the old lung problem. That winter night, too, we thought we had lost him. But Dr. Goyal and Dr. Sharma worked on Busybee’s heart and lungs until dawn and got him fit again to do battle for another three months.

I think he might have pulled through yet again, for both Busybee and Behram were fighter and survivor, but he had been through a major shock earlier in the day that must have weakened him considerably. Farzana’s eldest brother, Capt. Ishrat Khan, had died tragically in a road accident near Panvel. And although Busybee usually kept his emotions in check, Farzana’s loss must have upset him. For by midnight, we were fighting to save his own life. Truly if God has been cruel and unjust with anybody, that person is Farzana Contractor. I’d like to see this same God give her the strength to go through two funerals today.

BEHRAM AS SEEN BY ONE OF HIS CLOSEST FRIENDS, THE CARTOONIST MARIO MIRANDA.

For those who did not know him personally, Behram Contractor and Busybee was the son of the late Hirabai and Pirojshaw Contractor, and brother of Darius (UK) and Dadi (France). With his passing away, India has lost its only full-time genuine satirist, and easily the country’s most popular humorist. His column, "Round and About", began with the Evening News of India in 1966, went over to Mid Day in 1979, and came to stay with this newspaper in 1985. It is the longest-written column in this history of newspaper journalism and maybe Guinness will find space in its next edition to mention this.

But… you will read no more Busybee on the back page of this newspaper, no guides to eating out by him in the colour pages. And you will not come across Behram Contractor’s pithy, evocative essays on the edit page, nor find his poetic and fluid interviews of celebrities on Wednesday. His terse and laconic style of writing that had a rhythm in it which created an impression of deadpan comedy, is over. I have lost a colleague and a friend. But you have lost your favourite columnist. And I don’t know whose loss is greater. R.I.P.
Also read:
  • "Busybee wrote every day for 36 years, beginning in 1955, and he died in 2001. He was one of the few Indian writers in English who had an individual style and that made him special. He was confident enough, and good enough, to develop it and stay with it for decades. Like Hemingway, he had found his writing voice early in life and did not change it." Read Aakar Patel's heart-felt tribute to the journalism of Behram Contractor here.

Good grammar is important for everyone, not just journalists

There is a notion that it is important to have good writing skills, which would include a sound knowledge of the rules of grammar, only if one wants to become a journalist.

Here is a brilliant post on the Harvard Business Review website that puts paid to that notion. Titled "I Won't Hire People Who Use Poor Grammar. Here's Why" and written by entrepreneur Kyle Wiens, who calls himself a grammar stickler, the piece will come as an eye-opener to many young people who have only a passing acquaintance with grammar. Wiens writes:

Everyone who applies for a position at either of my companies ... takes a mandatory grammar test. Extenuating circumstances aside (dyslexia, English language learners, etc.), if job hopefuls can't distinguish between "to" and "too," their applications go into the bin.

And then he explains, in words that warm the cockles of my heart, why good grammar is important for everyone:

[G]rammar is relevant for all companies. Yes, language is constantly changing, but that doesn't make grammar unimportant. Good grammar is credibility, especially on the internet. In blog posts, on Facebook statuses, in e-mails, and on company websites, your words are all you have. They are a projection of you in your physical absence. And, for better or worse, people judge you if you can't tell the difference between their, there, and they're.

Good grammar makes good business sense — and not just when it comes to hiring writers. Writing isn't in the official job description of most people in our office. Still, we give our grammar test to everybody, including our salespeople, our operations staff, and our programmers.

On the face of it, my zero tolerance approach to grammar errors might seem a little unfair. After all, grammar has nothing to do with job performance, or creativity, or intelligence, right?

Wrong. If it takes someone more than 20 years to notice how to properly use "it's," then that's not a learning curve I'm comfortable with. So, even in this hyper-competitive market, I will pass on a great programmer who cannot write.

Read the article in its entirety here.

ADDITIONAL READING: On Ragan's PR Daily, "12 unforgivable writing mistakes".

ALSO READ:

"A good copy editor is a reporter’s best friend"

The role of the copy editor in the newsroom remains an adversarial one. There’s no getting round that; copy editing requires critical analysis of other people’s work. It can lead to tension. Smart leaders try to defuse that tension and foster constructive relationships among groups of journalists. They correctly point out that a good copy editor is a reporter’s best friend someone who will head off mistakes, is a trusted sounding board for risk-taking writing, and burnishes the reporter’s copy with headlines that invite the reader. Improving relationships between copy editors and the rest of the newsroom needs to be an important factor in our deliberations.

From "Copy Editors: Journalism’s Interior Linemen", a tribute by Gene Foreman, who was the deputy editor and vice president of the Philadelphia Inquirer when he wrote this piece for Poynter.org in August 2002.

Saturday, July 21, 2012

A tribute to journalists who have left us a rich legacy

Outlook editor in chief Krishna Prasad's blog "sans serif" is the go-to site for, as he puts it, "the news, the views, the juice".

Yesterday, KP, as he is popularly known, blogged about a remembrance ad in The Indian Express for a reporter who was killed in a blast in Uttar Pradesh two years ago. In the same post, KP has also provided links to obituaries of well-known journalists, many of whom were legends in their lifetime and whose careers we would do well to emulate. (The only person on the list who is not a media professional is T.N. Shanbag, the founder-proprietor of Strand Book Stall in Mumbai, who is hailed by KP as "the man who educated Bombay journalists".)

Here is the list in its entirety:

Alfred D’Cruz: ToI’s first Indian sub-editor

Tarun Sehrwat, 22 and killed in the line of duty
Chari, a lens legend at The Hindu

Harishchandra Lachke: A pioneering cartoonist 

T.N. Shanbag: Man who educated Bombay journos

Rajan Bala: cricket writer of cricket writers
  • I knew Rajan Bala as both journalist and friend. I first met him in Dubai in 1991 — I was working with the Khaleej Times then and he had come over to cover the Sharjah cricket tournament for an Indian newspaper (I think it was The Indian Express). I accompanied him to a couple of games and I have to say it was a great privilege to sit in the press box alongside Rajan as he pronounced judgment on some of the greatest cricketers the subcontinent has produced. Waqar Younis was a rookie then, but I remember Rajan telling me after watching him bowl to Sachin and Co. that Waqar would soon be hailed as one of the world's best pacemen. We spent a lot of time together in Bangalore afterwards talking about cricket, books, and the English language. Rajan was a character and a phenomenon and the tributes to him are  richly deserved.
Jyoti Sanyal: The language terrorist and teacher
Russy Karanjia: The bulldog of an editor

Sabina Sehgal Saikia: The resident food writer

M.G. Moinuddin: The self-taught newspaper designer

Naresh Chandra Rajkhowa: Journo who broke Dalai Lama story 

J. Dey: When eagles are silent, parrots jabber

E. Raghavan: Ex-ET, TOI, Vijaya Karnataka editor

Prakash Kardaley: When god cries when the best arrive

Pratima Puri: India’s first TV news reader passes away

Tejeshwar Singh: A baritone falls silent watching the cacophony

N.S. Jagannathan: Ex-editor of Indian Express

K.M. Mathew: chief of editor of Malayala Manorama

Amita Malik: the ‘first lady of Indian media’

K.R. Prahlad: In the end, death becomes a one-liner

M.R. Shivanna: A 24×7 journalist is no more

C.P. Chinnappa: A song for an unsung hero

V.N. Subba Rao: a ‘shishya’ remembers his Guru 

Dicky Rutnagur, an ekdum first-class dikra
  • ADDITIONAL READING: Krishna Prasad's recommendations "WHAT TO READ" if you want to become a journalist or want to know more about journalism or if you simply want to become a better writer.
UPDATE (July 20, 2013): From The New York Times — "Helen Thomas, Who Broke Down Barriers as White House Reporter, Is Dead at 92".

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

The most sensible comment I have read on the Guwahati molestation issue

R. Sukumar, the editor of Mint, a newspaper I like and respect, has devoted his regular column to what is now being referred to as "the shame of Guwahati".

Given the controversy over the possible involvement of a journalist in the case, Sukumar makes it clear that his opinion of this incident "is clouded by the journalist’s behaviour in the video clip" he saw.

[H]e was shoving a mike at the terrified girl’s face, trying to get her to speak even as the camera repeatedly tried to get a glimpse of her face. At a time when he should have been offering succour, he seemed to be more interested in a sound-bite for his channel. That’s the kind of thing that gives journalism and journalists a bad name.

Sukumar also refers to an NDTV report that said the reporter came across the incident, started recording it on his mobile phone, and called the office for a camera team. Sukumar writes:

It isn’t clear from this report whether he did this after calling the police or if at all he did so. A few tweets on my timeline say he did call the police, even tried to intervene, but then retreated when the mob turned on him. I haven’t been able to verify this either but if true, this is probably the best way he could have reacted.

In incidents of this nature, Sukumar asserts and I agree with him the journalist at the scene is the best person to take a call on what will work and what he or she is comfortable doing.

His conclusion especially leaves us in no doubt of his views which every right-thinking journalist would do well to consider seriously. Read the column in its entirety here: "Doing the right thing".

Thursday, July 12, 2012

Headlines that hum

Hats off to the sub who came up with this headline for a feature in The Times of India Crest Edition (June 30) on the Sania Mirza-Leander Paes-Mahesh Bhupathi controversy:

NEW BALLS PLEASE


***

Hats off to the DNA sub who came up with this headline for the news report of the Wimbledon men's singles final match between Roger Federer and Andy Murray:

GREAT BEATS BRITON


ADDITIONAL READING: