Once Upon a Time.....

The Story: The Gallant Mane

Author: Anonymous. The story was mysteriously found near the old garbage dump in the borough of Islington.

A quick scan of the story reveals the following:

Hero: A young fast horse named The Red Mane. The horse's name comes from the combination of two French movie titles by Albert Lamorisse -- The Red Balloon and White Mane.

Villains: 4 horses named Mud, Chester, Ringo & Spurtz. Also, an unknown mystery man named Raul Bendez also falls under the villain role.

As per the story, the young horse Red Mane was a joy to watch as he effortlessly glided past all the other horses to win race after race. The more races he won for his owners, the more annoyed the rivals got. Just when things were looking good for the Red Mane, a minor stumble resulted. In the middle of the regular Premier Stallion Championship, the Red Mane's team accepted an invitation to participate in a charity trophy. There the Red Mane came across his rival Spurtz. Red Mane held an amazing record over Spurtz in that he had finished ahead of Spurtz in 21 previous attempts. But on this charity trophy event, Spurtz finished 4 seconds ahead of Red Mane. Such a margin was a huge shock but Red Mane's owners dismissed it as meaningless as it was just a charity trophy. The real prize lay in the Premier and European crowns. However, a few weeks after the charity loss, Red Mane lost yet another trophy, this time a friendly association title to rival Mud by once again a 4second margin. Questions were being asked about Red Mane's capacity. Was the young horse getting burnt out? Or was the jockey not able to control Red Mane?

The management team decided to bring in a young fresh jockey (Alves) for a Premier race to shake things up. Unfortunately tragedy struck just 3 meters after the horses left the gate. The worst horse on the track, the old aging Maylor charged towards Red Mane. Maylor raised his front two legs and knocked the young Alves off Red Mane. As Alves was knocked off & his legs were caught in the saddle, Maylor stomped on Alves. The sight of a 1500 pound horse falling on Alves made everyone present in the stands cringe. As per some rumours, Red Mane witnessed his new owner crying out in pain and even shed a tear.

After the tragedy, the owners of Red Mane struggled to find a new jockey. They cycled through 4 jockeys in the next few races but lost all of the races Nothing worked. They turned to a trusted experienced jockey only to lose a 5th straight race, this time to Chester. Things were getting grim for the owners of Red Mane. They had banked heavily on Red Mane pulling them through the year and had even released their other experienced horses and jockeys in the off season. Debate raged among the owners on what to do regarding the fate of Red Mane. Some said that the horse was done, burnt out, finished and should be laid to rest. Others wanted to give Red Mane some time.

It was agreed that the European crown was the final chance for Red Mane to shine. Unfortunately, some owners did not want to take a chance. They talked about bringing in the cold executioner Raul Bendez.

The Myth of Raul: The Spaniard Bendez, born in Madrid, was considered by some to be a cold executioner who could put down any horse without blinking. He was known to always formulate a perfect poison to kill each horse based on each horse's weight and age. Bendez was known to have studied his art of killing under the famed Hungarian Keyser Söze. Söze's greatest trick was to convince the world that he that never existed. Bendez learned from Söze and devised a poison that some say never existed, meaning his so called poison was just a placebo. His critics believed Bendez merely showed up at a stable in a white coat and glasses, had a syringe with no poison, injected the horse and by pure luck, the horse went down maybe due to fear. Others claimed that as nonsense and vouched that Bendez did indeed brew a vicious poison. Bendez made his career by putting down a prized horse named Rosso and from then on was respected in the industry. There are others who have a different version on the death of Rosso. They say after Bendez injected the horse, nothing happened. The horse in fact kicked into life and tried to run out of the stable. But as the horse was running out, a bucket from a height of 6 meters fell onto Rosso's head, bounced off his head and settled into a corner on some hay. Slowly and quietly Rosso fell on his knees and died. It is believed that the bucket killed Rosso but others say it was all part of Bendez's plan. The legend of Bendez grew from there.

So the owners of Red Mane wanted to use Bendez to put down their prized horse rather than face a possible defeat in the upcoming European crown race. This European race was to be held at a venue where Red Mane had failed to win the previous 4 Premier races, although Red Mane won Charity trophies within the last year at that ground. The venue was known for its beautiful architecture and contained an entire stand made out of copper and known as the copper end. Since the eyes of the European elite were focused on this race, defeat here would be costly. Plans were drafted to bring in Bendez. However, Red Mane's coach came up with a compromise. He proposed that if upon seeing Bendez approach with a syringe, if his horse kicked his leg and showed signs of life, he should be allowed to live. Otherwise, he would accept whatever the owners proposed.

The Ending: Unfortunately, this story has no end. Mysteriously, the final page in the story is blank. Either it has not been written or it has been wiped out. So each reader is allowed to draw their own happy ending.

Arsenal vs Liverpool, Round 2

Time for game 2 of the Arsenal and Liverpool series. Even though it may look tiring to play the same opponent in quick succession, each game presents a different flavour and in turn a unique challenge. The first game was meant for Arsenal to gain a good advantage, maybe a 1-0 or even a two goal lead while Liverpool's intentions were to sit back and limit Arsenal to just one goal, or get an away goal themselves. The second game means more to Arsenal than Liverpool as Arsenal need 3 precious points, while a single point might do for Liverpool; the game itself should present some of the Liverpool subs with a chance to make their mark. It is only in the third game that one would see Liverpool try to attack and get a goal in front of their home crowd. Prior to the three games, Liverpool would have been happy with two goal-less draws in the first two games, with a 1-0 win in the third. In Arsenal's case, it was always about winning the three games and scoring goals. So Arsenal's task was always going to be harder, while Liverpool would be content to sit back for 2 of the three games.

History and all that:

In the 200 games that the two teams have played against each other, Liverpool hold a slight edge with 80 wins compared to Arsenal's 70 with 50 games being tied. The 10 game winning margin presents itself in the 167 league meetings between as Liverpool have 68 wins compared to Arsenal's 58. The first time these teams played each other was in the old second Division when Liverpool thumped Arsenal 5-0 back on Oct 1893. In fact, Liverpool won the first 4 meetings with Arsenal, outscoring the Gunners 12-0. It was only in 1905 when both teams were in Division 1 did Arsenal manage a 3-1 victory over Liverpool.

Historically, there have been cases where both these teams played each other more than 3 times in a season. In the 1979/80 season, the two played each other 7 times, with 4 of those games being an F.A Cup tie in the days of playing replays until a winner was found. In the 1981/82 season, the two met 4 times, while a 5 game meeting took place in that eventful 1988/89 season when Arsenal won that memorable away game to Anfield 2-0 to take the title. Arsenal played Livepool 4 times in the 1989/90 season, with another 4 games taking place last season thanks to the two Cup games in quick succession when Arsenal went to Anfield and came away with 6-3 (League Cup) and 3-1 wins (F.A Cup).

Given the number of games between Arsenal and Liverpool, there have been plenty of memorable moments from matches. Anfield 1989 stands out because that title provided the foundation for the current era of Arsenal success. The 4-2 Highbury win provided a calm path towards the unbeaten title in 2004. The F.A Cup loss in 2001 also stands out because of the manner in which Arsenal lost -- Arsenal dominated the game, created plenty of chances yet only took a 1-0 lead, before two late goals sunk them. Arsenal would find that pattern of dominating possession, creating plenty of chances, yet not winning repeated again and again over the last 7 years.

Create at one end, prevent at the other:

In a match if a team creates atleast 7-10 goal scoring chances, then it would be a good result if they scored 2 or 3 goals. Also, it is important on how many chances the team limits the opposition to. If the opponent is limited to a few chances and either only one goal is conceded or the team keeps a clean sheet, then victory is assured. In order to win, a good balance is required between the attack and defense. However, wins can still be achieved if one part is much more stronger than the other. George Graham's Arsenal teams had a rock solid defense and had a good chance to keep a clean sheet, so the attack could get away with only one goal (Alan Smith's lone strike in the 1994 Cup Winner's Cup final is a perfect example). When Wenger took over, he inherited that solid defense. So that allowed Wenger to build on that and modify the team's attack. The goals flowed in and the defense held firm. When GG's defense started aging away and disappearing, at first it was not a problem as Arsenal kept creating plenty of changes and scoring enough goals to get by. Only when the chances were limited and the goals dried up, the limitations of the poor defense came into focus.

Given that plenty of Wenger teams have fallen prey to similar defensive mistakes like being caught out by long balls, poor at defending set-pieces, it does not seem likely that over-night the Arsenal team would start having a rock solid defense. If the mistakes have not been fixed over a span over 4-5 years, they certainly won't start correcting themselves in a matter of weeks. So that leaves more pressure to ensure that the attack can carry a large burden on their shoulders. But in order to score goals, chances have to be created. If in a game a team only creates 5 chances, then the pressure is on the team to take full advantage. Out of those 5 changes, if one chance is incorrectly called back for off-side, or a valid penalty not given, then the pressure on the team increases as they have to extra sharp in front of goal as the next chance might not come for a long while.

Advantage creator vs Advantage destructor:

As history and every day life show, it is easy to destruct rather than create. Likewise, it is easier to break up a team's creative play than it is for a team to creatively split open an opponent's defense. Liverpool have flaunted their destructive mentality in the Champions league for the last 3 years and Wednesday's game was no exception. So on Sat, once again the pressure will be on Arsenal again to take advantage of Liverpool's sit-back & watch approach. Arsenal need an early goal on Sat to break Liverpool's shell mentality. But before a goal is scored, a chance has to be created.

The oilman cometh

An interesting story in the Sunday NY Times regarding how an oilman managed to swindle people out of money by the promise of oil wealth. This certainly makes Daniel Plainview look like a clean-cut honest man in There Will be Blood. And even if Daniel Plainview is indeed out there today, you can be sure he won't flaunt his wealth and instead would stay hidden away in a mansion somewhere where he would either bowl or enjoy using that straw. A Milkshake maybe?

Alien x 3

Sometimes key scenes of a film find a way into popular culture and end up serving as inspiration for other movies including spoofs. Such is the case with the Alien movies and its shots of the Alien creature encountering Sigourney Weaver's character of Ripley. During a recent conversation with friends, the talk of the Alien films came up. Even though I had a visual memory of some of the scenes that they were talking about, I had no recollection of the films themselves. I believed I had only seen the second film but I remembered scenes from the first movie only via other sources like tv clips. So I decided to sit down and watch the first three movies, leaving the fourth film as a possible option.

While looking up the movies, I realized that all the movies were directed by different directors, with the first three movies done by directors in the early stages/start of their careers. I only knew that James Cameron had directed the second movie and was utterly surprized to learn that David Fincher directed the third movie and Jean-Pierre Jeunet was behind the 4th one.

Alien (1979, Ridley Scott):
Ridley Scott directed only his second feature with the 1979 film before he went on to more fame with Blade Runner in 1982. One can assume that Blade Runner was probably only made possible for Scott after the Alien film.

Aliens (1986, James Cameron):
James Cameron directed the second Alien film 2 years after achieving success with Terminator. Ofcourse, after Aliens Cameron found more success with Terminator 2 (1991), True Lies (1994) and that 1997 film about a sinking ship.

Aliens 3 (1992, David Fincher):
David Fincher directed his first feature with the third Alien film. I only learned about Fincher from Seven (1995) before enjoying Fight Club (1999) & even last year's Zodiac.

Alien: Resurrection (1997, Jean-Pierre Jeunet)
Jean-Pierre directed the 4th Aliens film on the back of success with 1995's City of Lost Children and 1991's Delicatessen. The biggest acclaim for Jean-Pierre came with 2001's Amelie, the film he directed immediately after Aliens: Resurrection.

The Films:

In a way it was interesting to see the three films back to back as a few similarities showed up.

The Alien was disposed of in a similar manner in the ending of both the first and second film.

All three films started with the character of Ripley waking up after a state of frozen slumber.

In the second and third movie she is only found after someone encounters her space shuttle accidentally. It was amusing to see that at the end of the first and second movie her character escapes in a shuttle to safety, only for the shuttle to drift off course & end up lost before being discovered at the start of the next film.

Ripley does find a way back to Earth in the second movie, before heading out to space again and ending up in a different planet in the third movie. One could have imagined an endless cycle of Quantum Leap like films where her character would wake up in a different planet only to continue fighting the same alien. But thankfully, the ending of the third movie squashed any such possibility. That was until Hollywood managed to find a way to resurrect Ripley again for more Alien battles in a 4th movie.

Aliens 3 was the worst of the bunch and almost painful to watch. The first two movies atleast managed to create a coherent thread despite being separated by a gap of 7 years. I enjoyed the start of the second movie the most where Ripley's character has to justify her actions (like attempting to destroy a multi-million dollar spaceship) before a committee. But three movies was a bit too much to take as all three movies offered up similar concepts of predator-prey and alien hunting episodes. I will have to put off watching that 4th movie for a long time.

Chasing a Fantasy

After I recently saw the French film The Russian Dolls, I was reminded of a conversation I had from a vacation trip to Vancouver back in June 2000. To avoid the rain, I decided to grab a drink in a Martini bar. I ended up staying at the bar for a few hours as I was busy chatting with the bar tender, Adam, who decided to share a few of his martini recipes. In between moments of great conversation, I tried to sample some of Adam's proudest martini creations, one of which was an expresso martini, the first of its kind that I ever sampled. The martini bar no longer exists as I found out from subsequent visits but one conversation with Adam still stays fresh in my mind. It was regarding the movie High Fidelity. When I asked him if he had seen it, he replied after a few seconds pause that he made the mistake of taking his girlfriend to see the movie.

"Did you not like the movie?", I asked in a surprized tone.
"The movie was good but it revealed too many secrets!" was his response.

I knew what he meant as High Fidelity was a rare movie that gave an insight into how men thought about women and even approached relationships. Prior to seeing High Fidelity, a majority of Hollywood and Bollywood movies that I had seen showed men as either macho studs who rescued women, womanizers who dumped their lovers as soon as the sun rose or innocent guys who only eyed girls/women through a starry eyed purity. But what about the everyday guy who is conflicted about the love in his life? How does this man finally decide a woman is the one for him? The thought process of when a man finally realizes that his girlfriend is the love of his life is hard to capture on screen but thanks to Nick Hornby's novel, John Cusack's character is able to convey his feelings clearly in a very enjoyable film.

The Russian Dolls by Cédric Klapisch also follows a similar ground to High Fidelity in that the main character (Xavier played by Romain Duris) realizes that the models he chases are just fantasies while the down to earth Wendy (Kelly Reilly) is his true love. The Russian Dolls is an enjoyable film with some very quirky characters. Klapisch first introduced these set of characters in the 2002 film The Spanish Apartment and it is interesting to see the progress some characters make in The Russian Dolls. Although The Spanish Apartment has some hilarious moments and some tender relationship scenes, I prefer The Russian Dolls as that is a better developed and mature film.

Arsenal vs Liverpool, Champs League

Champions League football is back again. Although, the almost month long wait feels like an eternity. That is because days after the joyous March 4 away win to Milan, things have not gone as per a happy script for Arsenal. Dropped points in the league before a loss to London rivals Chelsea threw Arsenal's title hopes into a spin. Things appeared to get more grim after 45 rain soaked minutes away to Bolton; the rain appeared to be drowning Arsenals' promising season down the drain. Yet amazingly this young team took a page out of previous Wenger and even George Graham teams in able to turn a game around when there was absolutely no sign of hope. 3 second half goals, including a snooker like winning goal ensured that there is still some life in this young Arsenal team.

Liverpool come into this game on the back of an impressive 5 game winning Champs league streak. After a poor start where they only picked up 1 point from their opening 3 games, Liverpool turned things around when staring group elimination in the face by going on an amazing run of 8-0 (Besiktas), 4-1 (Porto) and 4-0 wins (away to Marseille) before their 2-0 home and 1-0 away win to Inter. Arsenal on the other hand started the Champs League group stages in the impressive manner as their league campaign -- stylish wins and a handful of goals. Arsenal were impressive in taking care of a Juande Ramos Sevilla side 2-0 and followed that with a 1-0 away win to Steaua before turning it on against the new comers Slavia 7-0. With qualification in sight, Arsenal let their foot off the pedal and only managed a 0-0 away tie to Slavia and a poor 3-1 away loss to Sevilla cost them top spot in the group before their final 2-1 win over Steaua. However, top spot meant nothing as Arsenal outplayed and completely dominated the defending Champs Milan to reach the Quarter Finals. Liverpool also dominated their Milan opponents, although one can argue they only had to do it against 10 men in both legs.

Arsenal and Liverpool will get an intimate look at each other over the next week and their 3 meetings will go a long way towards deciding the future of both teams as well. Which team will be left fighting for silver-ware and what will each team's league standing be after all is said and done? The questions should start answering themselves starting Wed, April 2.

Not so great movies

There is a hilarious article in the Guardian by Joe Queenan as he attempts to define a criteria for the worst movies of all time.

In his own words:

To qualify as one of the worst films of all time, several strict requirements must be met.

For starters, a truly awful movie must have started out with some expectation of not being awful.

Two, an authentically bad movie has to be famous; it can't simply be an obscure student film about a boy who eats live rodents to impress dead girls.

Three, the film cannot be a deliberate attempt to make the worst movie ever, as this is cheating.

Four, the film must feature real movie stars, not jocks, bozos, has-beens or fleetingly famous media fabrications like Hilton.

Five, the film must generate a negative buzz long before it reaches cinemas; like the Black Plague or the Mongol invasions, it must be an impending disaster of which there has been abundant advance warning; it cannot simply appear out of nowhere. And it must, upon release, answer the question: could it possibly be as bad as everyone says it is?

Six, to qualify as one of the worst movies ever made, a motion picture must induce a sense of dread in those who have seen it, a fear that they may one day be forced to watch the film again - and again - and again.

There is one other requirement for a movie to be considered one of the worst ever: it must keep getting worse. By this, I mean that it not only must keep getting worse while you are watching it, but it must, upon subsequent viewings, seem even worse than the last time you saw it.

I normally try to steer away from so called bad movies but every now and then for whatever reasons, I force myself to watch a few not so pleasant movies. In that regards, almost all the bad movies I have seen have forced me to add this criteria:

The movie is so bad that it makes for a hilarious viewing.

Ofcourse, no one intends to make a bad movie. Most films start out with good intentions but then things go wrong. On the plus side, bad films are good case studies on how to not do things. Also, often good movies spring up from the graves of bad movies. The re-launched Batman series is a perfect example of this. Each subsequent Batman movie kept getting worse until rock bottom was reached with Batman & Robin. Out of the ashes from that disaster rose a slick and smart Batman Begins in 2005.

Over the last two months, these are the worst rated movies on my viewed list: Ghost Rider, London, Sunday, 300, Ali G Indahouse, My Name is Anthony Gonsalves, 30 Days of Night.
But these are just personal tastes. I found 300 to be a laughably bad movie but currently the average imdb.com rating for the film stands at 8/10 as per 164,552 votes. Moreover, I know a lot of people who love the movie. I loved the look and feel of 30 Days of Night but everything else frustrated me. Even though the Bollywood film Sunday is quite bad, it provided me with plenty of genuine laughs. Same goes with the Ali G movie -- bad but there were some very funny moments. I honestly have nothing good to say about Ghost Rider.

Although I have a funny story regarding My Name is Anthony Gonsalves. I tried watching this Bollywood movie but after 20 minutes or so, I had to turn it off. A few days later, I was at a party where my friend was asking for some new film recommendations. A fairly polite guy heard us and told my friend that he had to see My Name is Anthony Gonsalves. He turned to me and asked if I had seen it? I replied that I had not finished it as I found it a bit dull. The guy and his wife had such a shocked look on their face as both of them loved the movie and must have thought that I had poor taste in films. When I got back home, I tried to finish the movie. And the film only kept getting worse and worse, satisfying part of Queenan's final criteria. The biggest disappointment regarding this movie is that it is not made by a new director but by E. Niwas who at the tender age of 23 directed a masterful movie (Shool) back in 1999. Unfortunately, his subsequent efforts have been not as good and My Name is Anthony Gonsalves is the latest in a string of substandard fare.

Maybe once I am done all my regular film spotlights this year, I should try to put together a bad film festival where I try to see the worst of the worst. It will be painful but it should be worth a few laughs.

To sum it all up...

How best to describe the two overall results of "Super Sunday" part II in the clash of the top 4 in the English Premier League?

Well the forces of evil prevailed once again. The storm troopers have marched on as Manchester United registered another win over their rivals Liverpool and Chelsea scored a 2-1 win against mis-firing Arsenal to jump into second place. Liverpool now have an awful record against Man Utd under Rafa Benitez: out of the 8 league games played between the two, Liverpool have 7 losses, one 0-0 draw and have managed only one goal in these 8 games (and that too an own goal from O'Shea, a Man Utd player) while letting in 11 goals (6 of those have been scored by Man Utd defenders thanks to bad defending by Liverpool).

Of course, the perception of good vs evil is entirely based on one's point of view. Where I see evil, others see good. The truth is that Arsenal have only picked up just one win in their last 6 league games, and are winless in the last 5 games. They are not good enough to win the title, even though injuries and a horrible tackle on Eduardo changed their season. The injuries are valid reasons but they are also excuses. Despite having some of the best technical players in Europe, the players have not shown the mental strength to cope with the pressures placed upon them. When the going got tough, all the top Arsenal players just folded.

On the other hand, no one is apparently good enough to win the title in Spain. Real Madrid have only 3 wins and 7 defeats in their last 10 games in all competitions, including two losses in the Champions League and 5 league defeats including today's 3-2 home loss to Valencia. Despite their poor form, they are still 4 points clear at the top because Barcelona aren't that sharp enough to win the league. The Spanish Liga can be defined by the overall poor quality this season with no team consistent enough to charge for the title. Real Madrid might still win the title even if they lost every game from now up to the end of the season because Barcelona and other teams always find a way to make life difficult for themselves.

Danger, with or without the sun

Let there be light

"When I was a little kid, my mother told me not to stare into the sun, so when I was six I did" Max, Pi

What does staring too much at the sun do? In the film Sunshine, it convinces one character to conclude that he had a conversation with God. And that God instructed him to stop the human space mission to save the dying sun. If the space crew did not accomplish their mission and blast the sun into a new life, it would ultimately result in mankind perishing in complete frozen cold weather.

No light

In the vampire film, 30 Days of Night, the light is only shown at the film's start and end. Shortly after the film's start, darkness slowly descends. And with that, evil takes over. The vampires in the film do not speak English but there is one instance that the leader of the pack speaks a few words in English. In that scene, a young girl is pleading for her life and utters, "Please, God". To which the vampire leader replies "God? No God".

Science vs Religion

Even though both Sunshine and 30 Days of Night belong to different genres, it is interesting that the mention of God is made in both films. On the surface, it is tempting to assume the excessive light in Sunshine means the presence of God and that the darkness in 30 Days of Night signifies the absence of God. But the mention of God is more tied to the two film's core.

The story in Sunshine is about using scientific principles to alter the fate of mankind which brings up the debate between science and religion. If science can save mankind, then where does religion stand? And the debate about how religion fits in with the crew's mission is uttered by more than one character in Sunshine. So the character in the film wants to follow the natural order of things and believes that life should end as God intended it. Mankind should not interfere.

I only paid attention to the concept of God in vampire films while watching the brilliant Abel Ferrara film Addiction. In Addiction we meet an existentialist vampire who quotes Nietzsche and does not believe in God. In a sense, the vampire's disbelief in God makes sense. A vampire by nature is a walking dead person. If someone cannot die, then why would they believe in religion, whose foundation is centered around the concept of birth, death and life after death. So if a person cannot die, then their existence is validated more by existentialism than by conventional religious beliefs. Appropriately, in Addiction the main character who gets bitten by a vampire only finds salvation when she gives herself over to religion; her belief in God saves her from a lifetime of disbelief. The vampires in 30 Days of Night are more sinister than the ones in Addiction but they still subscribe to the same existentialist belief. They have no need to believe in God as they move from town to town, feeding on the weak religion believing humans.

Euro 2008 Films & Results

Film Festival Rules & Guidelines

Final Standings of all the 4 Groups with the following format:

Country, Film: Rating out of 10

Group A:
Portugal, Bad Blood: 8
Switzerland, The Boat is Full: 8
Czech Republic, Zelary:7.5
Turkey, Harem Suare:7

Both Portugal and Switzerland earned 8 points and as per the tie breaker, Portugal takes first place by a margin of 4 (acting, direction, cinematography and production values) - 3 (acting, direction, story).

Average group rating: 7.6

Group B:
Poland, Edi: 9
Germany, Good bye Lenin: 8.5
Austria, Antares: 8
Croatia, Sorry for Kung Fu: 7

Average group rating: 8.1

Group C:
Romania, 12:08 East of Bucharest: 9
France, Angel-A: 7.5
Holland, Interview: 7
Italy, Summer Night: 5.5

Average group rating: 7.3

Group D:
Spain, Torremolinos 73: 9
Greece, Rouleman: 7
Russia, DayWatch: 6
Sweden, Thriller a Cruel Picture: 6

Both Russia and Sweden earned 6 points. As per the tie-breaker, Russia takes 3rd place over Sweden by a margin of 5-0.

Average group rating: 7

Second Round -- Quarter Finals, Semi's and Final:

As per the Euro 2008 draw, the Quarter-Finals would line up as such:

Quarter Final 1: Winner Group A vs Runner-up Group B
Quarter Final 2: Winner Group B vs Runner-up Group A
Quarter Final 3: Winner Group C vs Runner-up Group D
Quarter Final 4: Winner Group D vs Runner-up Group C

As per the group standings, the following are the film match-ups.
QF 1: Portugal (Bad Blood) vs Germany (Good bye Lenin)
QF 2: Switzerland (The Boat is Full) vs Poland (Edi)
QF 3: Romania (12:08 East of Bucharest) vs Greece (Rouleman)
QF 4: Spain (Torremolinos 73) vs France (Angel-A)

Results:
QF 1: Portugal 2 (Direction, Cinematography) - 4 Germany (Acting, Story, Direction, Cinematography)
QF 2: Switzerland 1 (Acting) - 4 Poland (Acting, Story, Direction, Cinematography)
QF 3: Romania 4 (Acting, Story, Direction, Cinematography) - 0 Greece
QF 4: Spain 4 (Acting, Story, Direction, Cinematography) - 3 France (Story, Cinematography, Production Values)

Semi-Finals:

Winner of QF 1 vs Winner of QF 2: Germany vs Poland
Winner of QF 3 vs Winner of QF4: Romania vs Spain

Results:
SF 1: Germany 2 (Acting, Story) - 4 Poland (Acting, Story, Direction, Cinematography)
SF 2: Romania 3 (Acting, Story, Direction) - 2 Spain (Story, Cinematography)

Final: Poland vs Romania

Score: Poland 3 (Acting, Story, Cinematography) - 3 Romania (Acting, Story, Direction)

This one was a tough choice. The Polish film Edi got me hooked emotionally, whereas 12:08 East of Bucharest made me laugh. In the end by a slight slight margin, I have to give the nod to the Romanian film.

Winner: Romania (12:08 East of Bucharest)

Film Selections & Comments:

With the exception of Portugal and Turkey, I got all my first picks for the films. For Portugal, I really wanted to get a Pedro Costa movie. But Pedro Costa films are hard to come by and I am not sure how much more luck I would have had in the next 2-3 months, so I went for my second pick of Bad Blood. My original Turkish pick was Climates by Nuri Bilge Ceylan but for some bizarre reason that movie is still not available for rent in Canada although it can be bought via the internet. Since I had already seen 15 of the 16 films, I decided to go with my second pick of Harem suare to complete the film festival line-up.

The average rating of all 16 films comes to 7.5/10. That is not bad considering the random nature of the film selections. I don't want to read too much into some of the low ratings as in most cases, I tried to choose unknown films. For example, the Greek film Rouleman still does not have any entry on imdb.com although the film's director Panos Karkanevatos has a few films listed on the website. As a result of the unknown picks, there were a few pleasant surprises. The Polish film Edi and the Spanish entry Torremolinos 73 were real treats. Although, I knew about about 12:08 East of Bucharest, I was still surprized at how funny it was. It was a simple and delightful film.

Also, I was pleasantly surprized by the quality of the two co-host nations films -- Austria and Switzerland. The Swiss film The Boat is Full was an interesting film and showed the Swiss might not have been 100% neutral during World War II. The Austrian film Antares is best described as a cross between the works of Ulrich Seidl (Dog Days and Import/Export) and Dekalog. In reality, I was hoping to get a film with a more upbeat vision of Austrian life than that shown in Seidl's works but as it turned out Götz Spielmann's Antares is carved from the same block as Seidl's films.

Initially, I had hoped to have completed watching all the movies closer to the start of the soccer tournament, but now I will have a better chance to focus on the games themselves and compare the soccer results with the films performances.

Only 83 days until the tournament kicks off on June 7 with the Swiss taking on Czech Republic and Portugal vs Turkey.

Euro 2008 Film Festival: Group A, Turkey

Film Festival Rules & Guidelines
Film selected (Year, Director): Harem suaré (1999, Ferzan Ozpetek)
Rating: 7/10
Rules compliance: I have seen a previous film by Ferzan Ozpetek, so the selection is not compliant with picking something from a new director.
Relevance to Soccer: Collecting and hoarding people

Through most of the 1980's, European soccer clubs had a foreign player quota and could only feature two players from an international nation. In the late 80's, that rule was loosened slightly and teams could field upto 3 foreign players. AC Milan led the way by fielding the three Dutchmen (Marco Van Basten, Ruud Gullit and Frank Rijkaard) who led them to domestic and European glory. Then in the early 1990's, the rules were changed once again and any European team could have upto 6 foreign players on their books but could only play 3 for a given game (that included the starting 11 players + 5 substitutes). Once again, Milan signed a bunch of talented players such as Boban, Dejan Savićević, Marcel Desailly and Jean Pierre Papin (at that time he was one of Europe's leading goal scorers) . Since Milan could only play 3 of their superstars, the remaining 3 sat in the stands unused. Other teams complained that Milan were hoarding the best players in the world and preventing them from displaying their talents week in and week out.

By the mid 1990's, European soccer changed once again in that teams could sign as many players from within the European Union nations without any quotas(thanks to the Bosman court ruling). The only quota applied to players from outside Europe. As a result, teams from most European leagues started buying the best young talent other European nations. And when the European Cup was modified into the Champions League, the top European teams were playing atleast 2 games a week (one league game on the weekend and a European game in mid-week). These extra games required these teams to buy atleast 2 quality players for each position. Teams such as Real Madrid, Barcelona, Milan started attracting some of the biggest names in the game, only for half of their star players to sit on the bench, waiting for their chance. As it stands in the current game, the top teams from England, Spain, France, Italy and Germany have a galaxy of star players, most of whom only get a game when the regular first team players are injured or suspended. But given that these teams play more than 50 games a season, they need to have a big squad, because injuries could hamper the first team. However, there are plenty of other teams which could benefit from just a few of these star players. Sometimes, the big teams loan out their players to other teams so that they can get regular match practice. But in most cases, the talented players keep waiting for their chance.

One of the definitions of a harem is when a king has multiple wives or lovers. However, the king won't require all the women at any given time. When the king gets tired of his regular lover, he picks another younger woman, until he gets tired of her. Still, the king maintains a collection of women around just in case.


The Turkish film Harem suaré is about such a situation where the Sultan maintains a harem of women. However, only a few lucky women get the honor of becoming the Sultan's regular lover or even spending a night with him. Naturally, the competition among the women is fierce to get into the Sultan's chambers. I found this situation similar to modern soccer teams where multiple talented players are eager to make the first team. Most of these young players train every day, hoping to one day impress the first team boss. Some players only get one chance but fail to impress and find themselves shut out of the club. In Harem suaré, we meet a young woman Safiye (Marie Gillain) who has been patiently waiting her turn to become the Sultan's chosen one. However, as chance would have it, a younger woman arrives threatening her position. Safiye's situation is made difficult due to the changing political climate in the Ottoman Empire, as a young Turkish revolution threatens to break the Sultan's hold on power.


So what can all the young women do while waiting for the Sultan to notice them? Some of them take on side lovers, like Safiye. This is akin to soccer players getting loaned out to other teams, who can appreciate their talents. And as it often happens in soccer, the loaned out player finds himself much happier in his new team and prefers to leave the top European team because he can get a regular game at this new team. Safiye also finds more happiness in the arms of another man, as opposed to waiting for the Sultan to make up his mind.

Final shots:

Harem suaré is structured in terms of two flashback stories. In the inner story when the narrator finishes her tale, she mentions that as per the rules of story telling & God's instructions, one should distribute three apples upon the story's conclusion -- one for the narrator, one for the listener and the final apple for the heroes of the story.

In the film's final shots, the camera zooms in on a table where the narrator and listener sat at the film's start for the principle flashback tale. Both of them have left the table but only 3 apples are left to signify the rules of the story telling. As the camera gets closer to this beautiful shot of the apples, I realized that this final shot of the film is also the final shot of my 16 film Euro 2008 Film Festival.




I can't think of a more beautiful way for this film and also for my film festival to end. The stories have been told. Everyone has gone. Cinematic food for thought! Fade to Black!!!!

Euro 2008 Film Festival: Group D, Spain

Film Festival Rules & Guidelines

Film selected (Year, Director): Torremolinos 73 (2003, Pablo Berger)
Rating: 9/10
Rules compliance: All rules met
Relevance to Soccer: Changing tactics, sexy football

As the game continues to change, a team must also adapt and change their tactics otherwise they will start losing games and no longer be a force. The same goes for some salesmen as well. Eventually, they reach a point of saturation with their sales and have to resort to different tactics to make new sales and attract different customers.

The Spanish film Torremolinos 73 starts off when an encyclopedia salesman (Alfred played by Javier Cámara) is told that he needs to adapt to the changing economy as consumers are no longer interested in buying door to door encyclopedias.

However, the solution offered by his boss is a little risky and involves the salesmen selling "reproduction encyclopedias" which examine the different reproduction habits of European cultures. The encyclopedias are to accompanied with a Super 8 video of the salesman copulating with his wife/girlfriend.

Whenever a new soccer manager gets hired by a soccer team, he often promises "sexy football". A decade ago, Ruud Gullit promised to bring "sexy football" for Newcastle only to fail in his promises. When Avram Grant took over Chelsea last year, he promised an entertaining brand of football, something more sexier than adopted previously by Chelsea. But so far it has proved that the talk of sexy football was mere talk. In soccer, there are no prizes for playing sexy football and so the harsh realities of winning games mean that Chelsea are still playing the regular boring football which is working for them.

Even though playing sexy won't win prizes in soccer, in real life sex does sell. This is something that Alfredo and his wife Carmen (Candela Peña) find out. Initially, Alfredo is reluctant about the Super 8 videos but the financial benefits are too much to turn down. He relishes his opportunity and turns into a full fledged ace film director and is not shy to different different camera angles to shoot his wife with.


Eventually he writes his first film script and wants to make a film like Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal.


Alfredo's addiction with film reminded me how the main character in the Polish film Camera Buff took to film. In Camera Buff, Filip eventually learns the compromises that one has to make while making movies. In Torremolinos 73, Alfredo also learns how to make some concessions for the sake of art, even if that means suppressing his principles and even putting his feelings for his wife aside. While Camera Buff bordered more on the serious side, Torremolinos 73 is a hilarious film with some great lines and perfect expressive performances from all the characters.

Euro 2008 Film Festival: Group A, Portugal

Film Festival Rules & Guidelines
Film selected (Year, Director): Coisa Ruim (2006, Tiago Guedes/Frederico Serra)
Rating: 8/10
Rules compliance: All rules met
Relevance to Soccer: Physiological horror

The modern game is packed with sinister tackles, challenges which can put the talented players out of the game for extended periods of time. One recent example came on Feb 23, 2008 when Birmingham's Martin Taylor took out one of Europe's best goal-scorers in Arsenal's Eduardo. Taylor had no intent of playing the ball and clearly went out to injure Eduardo. Since the tackle came just a few minutes into the game, it underlined the tactics that Birmingham wanted to adopt against the free flowing football of Arsenal.

It is hard to know when the game turned sinister but one clearly documented incident of violent play took place in the 1962 World Cup in a match between the hosts Chile and Italy. The incident is known as The Battle of Santiago because the game riddled was with kicks. 4 years later in the 1966 World Cup, Portugal and Hungary adopted a policy of kicking Pele at every opportunity in order to stop the talented Brazilian in his tracks. Pele was injured and Brazil, the defending champions, were knocked out early from the World Cup. The incident left a bad taste in Pele's mouth and he almost left the game in disgust but thankfully he returned to lead Brazil to the 1970 World Cup. In those early days, the football authorities had no idea how to respond to this new wave of violent play and players got away with kicks.

After almost a decade of decent football from the mid 1990's to early 2000's, it seems the game has gotten a little bit sinister again in the last few years. And once again, it appears that the footballing authorities are incapable of handling sinister kicks as plenty of talented players have to suffer the opposing players studs on their bodies. Eduardo's injury should have been a wake-up call but the incident has been brushed off in England as part of the game.

The horror tackles not only inflict a physical injury but leave the injured player physiologically affected as well. If an injured player is fortunate to make a full recovery, it will still take some time for him to be able to play freely again. He might change his game to avoid tackles and might even back away from certain physical challenges for fear of the consequences. A player has to rely on their mental strength to overcome their fear of tackles and get back to pre-injury form again.

The horror film genre can be divided into two categories -- physical horror and physiological horror. By physical horror, I mean movies which depict plenty of gore, chopping, hacking and mutilation. Whereas, physiological horror takes place when a film tries to use subtle means to induce fear in the audience by tailoring the background music and the introduction of long shots with plenty of silent moments to soak in the danger. I have elements of the Japanese film Dark Water and The Grudge in mind as two examples. In both movies, shots of an empty apartment hallway become sinister because we know at any moment we might witness a supernatural entity but the waiting only increases the dread. More often, physiological horror films stays longer with a person rather than a mere physical horror film.

Despite what the following poster may seem to indicate,


the Portuguese film Bad Blood falls into the physiological horror category. There are no shots of gore or blood and most of the horror comes from the anticipation of something sinister, which never does arrive.

The story involves a family that inherits an isolated estate home in the countryside. With the aid of some clues we know there are ghosts that linger around the house. The story of ghosts visiting a country estate home is not that original as plenty of past films have shown that the ghosts are present because of unfinished business. However, Bad Blood is still a well made film which attempts to include elements of religion and debates of country life into the mix.

Notes:

In this scene while the younger son is out of the house playing soccer, he witnesses the ghosts that visit him often.



When I first saw the following picture, I was reminded of the creature from Pan's Labyrinth.


The camera then pulls back to reveal back that the creature is an octopus. Horror depicted as art!

Euro 2008 Film Festival: Group C, Italy

Film Festival Rules & Guidelines

Film selected (Year, Director): Summer Night (1986, Lina Wertmüller)
Rating: 5.5/10
Rules compliance: All rules met
Relevance to Soccer: Spying vs Scouting out players/teams

scout: To spy on or explore carefully in order to obtain information

It is a common sight to see soccer managers in opposing team's soccer stadiums watching their rivals in action. Usually one finds a soccer manager in attendance a week or two before his team will play their opponents. The opposing team are usually aware of the rival manager's presence and there are no secrets regarding his attending the game. Such acts are put under 'scouting' an opponent out and are an excepted part of the game. Regardless of the definition of 'scouting', I believe there is a fine line between 'scouting' and 'spying'. I would consider 'spying' as attempting to extract information without the rivals knowledge. But given how some teams manage to sign young players from under their rivals nose, I think this dividing line between 'scouting' and 'spying' is getting blurred each season. And with the huge amounts of money available in the modern game, the ruthless need to find talent is only going to eventually turn 'scouting' fully into 'spying'.

The Italian film Summer Night deals firmly with spies. In the story, a rich woman hires a network of spies to kidnap a gangster and keep him hostage. She wants to teach the gangster a lesson and through torture plans to extract some information & retrieve all the money he has stolen from her friends.


Although the gangster is a hostage, his treatment gets better as the film moves along. Gradually his chains are loosened to a point where he can derive sexual pleasure while feasting on gourmet meals.

Liverpool Icons

Two of Liverpool's most famous icons are The Beatles and Anfield. So it was nice to see that in a film (Across the Universe) containing the Beatles music, there is an attempt to show an Anfield poster in Jude's (Jim Sturgess) room.



But Jude has more important issues to worry about other than soccer. In his life love, war and politics take priority over soccer. And in turn, these other aspects provide him with more misery. If Jude were still around, then he certainly would have been happy with events that took place in Milan today.

Tuesday, March 11:
Liverpool FC booked their place into the Quarter-finals of the Champions league with a 1-0 win away to Inter Milan, winning the tie 3-0 on aggregate.

pic: Getty Images, Soccernet

There will now be 4 English teams in the final 8 of Europe's top competition.