I generally don’t like the fantasy genre. Which is weird because I fantasize all the time. Even though I thought Gandalf was kinda sexy, I fell asleep during one of The Return of the King’s two billion endings. I just dislike fantastical films and can’t be convinced otherwise.
I can however, appreciate the aesthetics of a genius set and styling and I love these stills from the movie Where the Wild Things Are. Great costumes, effects and that light is so pretty. See the trailer here.
Some of my best memories are on rooftop terraces. Swimming in a paddling pool on a hot summers day when I was five with my then best friend Anand. Children’s birthday parties with hundreds of guests (only in India). Hiding there during hide and seek, the only place nobody would look. Running to the rooftop terrace as adolescents telling each other our newest secrets and filthiest jokes. Parties with fairylights, white plastic chairs and more sangria than you could shake your maracas at. Rooftop experimenting. Lying on your back facing the full moon with one of my best friends and her brothers, talking shit and sharing thoughts we never had before and never would again. Salsa lessons and Bollywood dance practice. Dipping my feet into the pool when the asphalt got too hot. Kitschy Goan weddings and hanging out with new acquaintances soon to become good friends on hotel rooftops.
The rooftop of the Gordon House Hotel, in Pune, India. A glorious find from last Summer.
Accessories editor for Teen Vogue, Sarah Kuhn’s wonderful rooftop, here found via pigeon.toed
NYC rooftops, by DeathWing
from the set Rich People Rooftops NYC. I can’t even decide where I’d sit on this incredible one.
Melbourne’s rooftop cinema. Teva and I went once, ate crepes, snuggled and watched a documentary. It was nice. They reopen next summer.
While I spend my days making cauliflower cheese and photographing buskers, I thought it might be fruitful to learn a foreign language. I probably should take up lessons because reading a book called ‘Hide this French book’, the highly inflammatory, uncensored French phrasebook hasn’t taught me shit about conjugating verbs.
However, now I have an excuse to browse countless Parisian blogs and watch films like Paris Je T’aime over and over in the name of learning. Paris Je T’aime is one of my favourite French films, 18 remarkable shorts by 18 directors in 18 different arrondissements. I watch it without subtitles even. In fact, the first time I watched Paris Je T’aime, there weren’t any subtitles and my lover translated the whole thing into English for me. Maybe that’s why I like the movie. Or maybe because it’s really good.
Every so often, you watch or listen to something so dazzling and stimulating, you feel changed by it. Slumdog Millionaire is exactly that. I feel like screaming from rooftops, my immense approval and recommendation of this film.
The child actors and Dev Patel (Anwar from Skins) are captivating, the cinematography stunning, the story interesting and the storytelling techniques dynamic. It was both distressing and heartwarming; and personally, so involving because I recognise so much of the culture I know and understand as an Indian, one that lived in the very suburbs it was shot in.
Just watch this film. The soundtrack is most excellent, it’s a gorgeous love story and a divine cinematic feast.
