Only the Brave

MOVIE
  • 11 Nov - 17 Nov, 2017
  • Mag The Weekly
  • Time Out


Even though the movie is about firefighters, not soldiers, but it has all the ingredients of an exceptional war film, which emphasises on how teamwork and physical labour brings people together, focusing on strengths, weaknesses and loyalty of the characters.

In the movie, the enemy is right there in front of them. It’s the fire bearing down on them. This is the true-to-life story of the Granite Mountain Hotshots, an actual firefighting crew who were affected by a tragedy in 2013 during an Arizona wildfire.

Josh Brolin played by Eric Marsh, is the one the guys call “supe,” who is the head of the troop. Marsh actually talks to the fires, which may sound ridiculous as you read it but is compelling when you see it happen. The cast also includes Jesse (James Badge Dale) and Christopher (Taylor Kitsch.) Miles Teller is front-and-centre as a recruit who has a troubled past but gets his act together for he’s about to become a father. Jeff Bridges plays a fire chief and Jennifer Connelly is Marsh’s wife.

It is amazing to see the way these men relate, support and forgive each other. Director Joseph Kosinski wants the spectators to empathise with them, and it sure works because one sees them when they are most vulnerable and when they are strongest.

VERDICT
The movie is a tribute to real-life firefighters, and is moving and spiritual to watch. Consider keeping some tissues handy!


MUSIC

Ragged Gory

by Neil Young and Crazy Horse

Neil Young’s greatest hits are the stuff of legend – at least among the converted. Young is a Marmite artist and there are as many who recoil from his thin, whiney voice attempts (even the less successful stuff) fascinating. Of course, like any true Young fan one would like the Crazy Horse material more than anything. The greatest Neil Young & Crazy Horse album is Ragged Glory, an LP that contains four solid-gold epics – Country Home, Over And Over and Love And Only Love – 36 minutes of aural carnage that could change your life completely.

It was around this time that Young started to be known as ‘The Godfather Of Grunge’, though Ragged Glory was actually recorded in 1990, way before grunge’s commercial high points, Nirvana’s Nevermind and Pearl Jam’s Ten. After the success of this release (his first great album after a decade in the experimental wilderness), Young embraced his own guitar histrionics, subjecting his audiences to mammoth one-note solos and acres of feedback.


Book

Lincoln In The Bardo

by George Saunders

Short-story expert Saunders' first novel is an exciting change of pace. The bardo is a key concept of Tibetan Buddhism – a middle, or liminal, spiritual landscape where one is sent between physical lives. It's also an appropriate master metaphor for the author’s first novel, which is about suspension – historical, familial, personal, and otherwise.

The Lincoln of the title is America’s 16th president, who is in a despair so deep that it cannot be called mere mourning over his 11-year-old son, Willie, who died of typhoid in 1862. The author skilfully interweaves historical anecdotes with his own disconnected, multi-voiced narration as young Willie is visited in the netherworld by his father, who somehow manages to bridge the gap between the living and the dead, at least for the time being. But the sneaky brilliance of the book is in the way Saunders uses these encounters. 1862, after all, was the height of the Civil War, when the outcome was far from assured.

Lincoln was widely seen as being out of his depth. Among Saunders’ most essential insights is that, in his grief over Willie, Lincoln began to develop a hard-edged empathy. This is a hard truth, insisting that brutality now might save lives later, and it gives this novel a bitter moral edge. With Lincoln In The Bardo, Saunders emphasises on a multifaceted and troubling vision wherein society and cosmos tend to blur.


First Person

Dilip Kumar – The Substance And The Shadow: An Autobiography

Yousuf aka Dilip Kumar was born on December 11, 1922, to Ayesha Bibi and Mohammad Sarwar Khan of Peshawar. When he was five, a fakir asked his Dadi to protect Yousuf from the ‘evil eye’. Dadi had soot applied on his forehead to make him look unattractive, while Saira Banu does so to her ‘Kohinoor’ – Dilip Kumar – till this day.

The autobiography uncovers many unknown features of the versatile actor’s life, where one finds dramatic utterances of Dilip’s personal self, the meaning of his romanticism and rise in the triumph of his vision of life. The book contains articles written by 43 people who have known the legendary actor closely and reveal many more facets of the thespian.

The book’s writer Udayatara Nayar has a fairly good command on the English language, who was honoured to be writing for the legendary artiste. The autobiography is a captivating literary work of art, where hundreds of photographs add to its beauty.


GAME

FIFA 18

The premier football sim is back to command the field, netting major upgrades to your next night in. As the reputation of football’s governing body deteriorates, that of FIFA’s namesake video game series only seems to improve. FIFA 18 promises an expansion to, and deepening of, a game that, year by year, becomes ever more beautiful. The Frostbite Engine is used alongside motion-capture technology to create an array of running styles appropriate to each player. You must now anticipate strides in order to time passes and shorts, while the unique gaits of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo are all realised on screen. Its newest edition extends this support to intermediates and veterans with training features that adapt to the difficulty level at which you play. For those competing at the game’s highest level, for instance, there will be support in learning the intricacies of the new volley system.


PICKS OF THE WEEK

How To Be A Bawse – A Guide To Conquering Life

Lilly Singh is not just a superstar, she’s a Superwoman – which is also the name of her widely popular YouTube channel, for which she had to work really hard. Now she wants to share the lessons she has learned with her book, How to Be a Bawse a definitive guide to conquering life.

Hema Malini – Beyond The Dream Girl

In an industry where the male star has always driven the commercial success of films, Hema Malini was an exception, with her name alone sufficing to ensure a film's box office glory. The autobiography provides an inside look at the life of one of India’s greatest cinema icons.

The Mind Of The Islamic State ISIS And The Ideology Of The Caliphate

This book traces the evolution of ISIS from its origins in the prison writings of the revolutionary jihadist Sayyid Qutb, through the thinking of Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, to today's incendiary screeds that motivate terrorism via the internet.

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