Interstellar and Event Horizon ?

Interstellar is something - in a good way. When you see Cooper programming an unknown drone over the air while cutting through his field in a Dodge Durango, taking full control of the drone and letting his daughter Murph land it near their truck - it sets your perception. If you didnt catch that, you probably will end up with many questions. Which is not bad, considering what the movie is!

If this movie was an art movie, it probably may not qualify for National Awards. If this is a family drama, you probably saw Sivaji Ganesan doing it in 60's & 70's. If this is a sci-fi James Cameron already showed it to you. But for a change there is no fighting aliens in this cross galaxy ride. It is about a father trying to get back to his family. I have to admit that I took a short 7 minute nap during the ride.

In 1997, Devi Paradise Chennai, I was munching away popcorn watching Event Horizon along with my elder brother Mani. The movie was about a spaceship that goes missing near Neptune and starts sending distress signals. A crew under Lawrence Fishburne is dispatched to follow the distress signal. The spaceship is called Event Horizon and it is designed by Sam Neil. Event Horizon uses the experimental gravity drive that makes the ship travel faster than light. In real life law of relativity prohibits fast than light travel. The gravity drive creates a gateway allowing the spaceship to jump from one point of the universe to another. Transcript of the scene where Sam Neil explains:

"Dr. William: Lets imagine this attractive piece of paper represents space-time and you want to get from point "A" here to "B" there. Now whats the shortest distance between two points?
Mr. Justin: A straight line
Dr. William: Wrong. The shortest distance between two points is Zero and thats what the gateway does. It folds space, so that point "A" and point "B" co-exist in the same space and time. When the space craft goes through the gateway, space returns to normal. It is called a gravity drive."

I could not find the video of it, but I will post add it to this post whenever I find it.

Christopher Nolan for some reason puts the same scene in Interstellar of course with his characters with almost the same explanations. Event Horizon made in 1997, actually had only 2 factual errors in terms of logic. Interstellar has striking similarities to Event Horizon like travel through wormhole/blackhole,  relativity and working around it in space, Dr Mann's distress signal and Event Horizon's distress signal, connections to gravity and time travel.

Luckily I have a collectors edition of Event Horizon and I saw it again immediately after coming out of Interstellar.

Event Horizon probably didn't get its due, but it was an awesome movie of its time.

Ministry of Health & Family Welfare in India

I always thought that the tiny message "Smoking and drinking is injurious to health" scrolling down every TV channel or in a movie scene was the works of I&B Ministry. It was a mistake. This message campaign is run by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and from the year 2005.

We all know that in 2002 Superstar Rajnikanth and his movie Baba saw protests in the Vanniyar belt esp after the speech by Ramdoss. After this protest, Rajnikanth has stopped acting in scenes that depict him smoking and/or drinking on screen, which I feel is a great thing to do. This ministry actually woke up after 3 years of that protest in Tamil Nadu.

Any movie goer today, in India or an movie goer watching Indian movie outside India will see the story of Mukesh first. Watch here, if you don't know Mukesh.

Ever since the active push for ban on smoking or drinking on screen, it has taken a toll on people who think "Health and Family Welfare" is not just in these two things. May be it is not under the purview of the  MoHFW, but if they consider drinking and smoking to be a social vice and destroyer of families, then they probably should take into account other things that are shown in the movies that can destroy a family. MoFHW has many departments tackling various diseases starting from leprosy, polio & all the way to cancer and AIDS. And they have a special department for injury and trauma too.

Days ago I was watching TV with my family and there was a scene, where few men were chasing down a woman (attempt to tease, molest probably) and our 6yr old daughter was sitting with us. As usual, we changed the channel.

At that second, I told my wife, "Why don't they put a message on screen that attacking a woman is a criminal offense?". Not that the child would read it, anyways we will be around to change channels.

I would go one step ahead and add "molesting a woman attracts IPC354". Sexual harassment or eve-teasing attracts IPC294. Murder attracts section 302 and the list is endless. Imagine, we would be watching a movie and come out as a law expert.
Today I was watching a song from a Shaam movie (6 is the movie name). In this song they capture Shaam driving with his son sitting on his lap. Have a look at the chopped video here:

(Click to view the full video).

This is a real, shot on camera. For me driving without a seat belt is a big no no, so is any person less than 10 year old sitting in the front seat. Children below 10yrs of age should be at the back seat with seat belt on. Babies and Toddlers should have their own special seats in the car that allows them to be buckled. Isn't the welfare of a baby or a child more important than that of smokers and drinkers? I think the younger generation are more important.

Also here is a post from my friend Kiran KS on Facebook on Tuberculosis:

I never seen an awareness program on TB like cancer (smoking & drinking).

But if there is a Ministry for Health and Family Welfare, they might as take the causes that are important to the society. I feel the MoHFW campaign is selective going by mere statistics.

The directors who make movies can also show some social responsibility wherever possible. I widely hold the thought that no amount of information dissemination will stop a person from doing what he/she wants to do.