Todo sobre mi madre or All About My Mother

This Pedro Almodovar's movie was outstanding. The start was exciting which reminded me of '21 grams' but slowly this movie drifted beautifully to create an exciting story. The reference to 'Street Car Named Desire' all through the movie has allowed me to take a resolve to see that movie soon!
The style of direction reminded me of French movies(for example 'Amelie'), with a narrator with a heavy voice speaking fastly briefs us regarding the state of the story and the emotions that the characters carry within.
Cecilia Roth and Penélope Cruz looked stunning in this movie.

The plot also included characters who are cross-dressers and transvestites. Guess, Spain is the first country to make same-sex marriage legal. Guess, the tolerance in this country hit a new low, when a visiting English football team's black-players were booed by a racist-crowd. Guess, it has to be a brave initiative by the director to take a movie which deals with complex-characters.

I am a rock

Classic lyrics of Simon and Garfunkel's "I am a rock " song:


A winter’s day
In a deep and dark december;
I am alone,
Gazing from my window to the streets below
On a freshly fallen silent shroud of snow.
I am a rock,
I am an island.
I’ve built walls,
A fortress deep and mighty,
That none may penetrate.
I have no need of friendship; friendship causes pain.
It’s laughter and it’s loving I disdain.
I am a rock,
I am an island.

Don’t talk of love,
But I’ve heard the words before;
It’s sleeping in my memory.
I won’t disturb the slumber of feelings that have died.
If I never loved I never would have cried.
I am a rock,
I am an island.

I have my books
And my poetry to protect me;
I am shielded in my armor,
Hiding in my room, safe within my womb.
I touch no one and no one touches me.
I am a rock,
I am an island.

And a rock feels no pain;
And an island never cries.

Movies by Last-Few-Weekends

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas:

Dark movie. Did not enjoy much watching this movie.

The Basketball Diaries:

This movie reminded me of 'Good Will Hunting' and 'Varumai Niram Sivappu', in both these movies the protagonist is depicted as a genius/prodigy. Inspite of their natural talent in poetry(Kamal) or mathematics(Matt Damon), they kick-off their strengths to do something their mind-pleases.

Few things that strike me once we see some talent in someone else or see some talent in me, is what do I do with it. Since I am already strong in some area, I will feel no challenge in store in my strong-area, so I chase challenges in unchartered territories. And in those areas, I might not really hit the jackpot, but the key is that I do what I want, nevermind the result.
This incident as per some stranger's perspective, what a waste of talent?!

Just like the poem by Robert Frost 'The Road not taken' in which protagonist finds two roads before him and does not know which one to choose. One of the roads is a comfortable one, which many people had taken earlier and the other one seems to be a difficult one. I think sometimes we prefer the difficult route and sometimes the easier one, based on our temperament. Whichever path we choose, I think it is important to get alongwith our lives rather than introspecting our actions or worst of all regret our actions.

In one sequence, Leonardo DiCaprio watches his erstwhile teammate(Neutron) participating in All-school-stars basketball competition and kind of realises the big let-down he has been. Few questions that struck me,
i. Does Neutron becoming an all-star signify that he is placed better than Leo?

'Good Will Hunting' had the famous ending of the protagonist doing what he wants rather than to follow his talents and so was 'Varumai Niram Sivappu'. But, 'The Basketball Diaries' was slightly different in the ending. But all three are mostly feel-good endings after the infinite struggles that protagonists' had to face.

One scene in this movie that surprised me was, when the teacher(catholic clergy) is shown to hit Leo with a cricket bat. Wondered how cricket bat came here(in New York school).

Frequency:

Entertaining stuff. The movie was fast-paced and thus was a good-watch all through.
Elizabeth Mitchell was gorgeous in this movie.

Groundhog Day:

Bill Murray movie, all the way. Enjoyable fare all the way.
Still his role in 'Lost in Translation' was much better than this.

Punch Drunk Love:

What a let-down movie, didnt expect an Adam Sandler movie to be so drab. Not an rip-tickler like most of other movies from Adam Sandler's stable. Adam Sandler picks up his favourite role of the protagonist, who appears to be a perennial under-achiever, somehow this tag fits Adam Sandler extra-ordinarily well than most other stars.

Raging Bull:

Martin Scorcese movie.
Raging Bull's protagonist Jake LaMotta, suspects that his wife/friends are conspiring against him round-the-clock to bring him down, kind of reminded the role Leonardo's role in 'The Aviator'. Martin Scorcese's way of providing considerable screen presence to such minor emotions really sets him apart, I think any other director would have been happy to glorify the better-parts of the protagonist. This movie is also set in New York like most of his other movies.

Solaris:

Did not enjoy watching this movie. The dreams/reality part sometimes did not make sense to me. And the worst of all blaming the happenings on some virus :-( ! Natasha MacElhone was looking stunning in this movie.

The Butterfly Effect:

Donnie Darkoish kind of movie. But this movie is faster-paced and thus, it was entertaining.

Scent of a Woman:

'Oooh-Aaaaaaah I am just now getting STARTED..'
Al Pacino could be blamed for over-acting in this role.
But the dialogues were entertaining and the background-score in this movie was also good.
The sitar score in the background, whenever the school-campus is shown was great-hear.

Goodfellas:

Joe Pesci movie, more than anyone else. Joe Pesci's claim to fame in this movie is his constant utterance of profanities. This movie was yet another Joe Pesci-Robert De Niro combine. Remember seeing another movie 'Casino' which had Robert De Niro-Joe Pesci falling in love with the same woman 'Sharon Stone'.

Kung Fu Hustle:

The second cd failed me and thus I had to be happy with just the first part of this movie alone. The movie was best in terms of fantasy, with good orchestration of fight-sequences, but guess this concept seems to be over-exploited.

Catch-22:

Thought this movie was terrific and enjoyed this movie till the point when the second cd failed me. Jon Voight(Angelina Jolie's father) also has acted in this movie.
Mike Nichols has directed this movie!

1984:

'Big Brother' concept was nicely conceptualised in this movie. Some observations in this movie, 'government or dictators need a war to keep the nation united and to impress their hegemony on their citizens most importantly rather than the opponents' appears to be so true. This concept again seems to have been the bottomline for 'JFK' movie also.

The Hustler:

Paul Newman's charm is what this movie has to offer. Being a Hustler is all about most how to bow-down your opponent with shrewdness most importantly rather than skill. Thought this movie was brilliant in lots of sequences.

The Polar Express:

This Tom Hanks-Zemeckis movie did not live up to their usual standards. I think animation movies will always fail to stand upto viewer's expectations. It is very difficult to compare the acting abilities of an animated-character with that of an actor like Robert De Niro or Tom Hanks or Julia Roberts.
And another irritating part about Christmas holidays movies is that, there is an overkill of 'feel-good' factor movies.

The English Patient:

Naveen Andrews role in this movie was outstanding and so were the roles of all the other actors in this movie. Fast-paced and the clever 'Present - Past flip sequences' made interesting viewing. This movie deserved an Oscars in many fronts. Michael Ondaatje's book must have been a great read going by what I could see in this movie!
One sequence in which Naveen Andrews helps his lover-girl to view the paintings in a nearby church kind of reminded some sequences in Anbe Sivam involving Kamal-Kiran. Kirsten Scott-Thomas was great to watch in this movie.

One flew over the Cuckoo's Nest:

Outstanding movie.
The head-nurse reminded me of 'Mrs. Robinson' role in 'The Graduate'.
Half-way through the movie the head-nurse talks about ideals and values, when she overturns the decision of other experts in claiming that 'Jack Nicholson is not crazy' and promises to help him solve his problems. But she doesnt do much to help solve the protagonist's problems.
This movie tries to venture into a sticky wicket i.e what can an individual do against a system. I think the common behavourial pattern among us is 'whenver we find someone who has an independent thinking, we ridicule him/her try to debunk his theories'. I think we will start working overtime to "HELP" that independent-thinking individual to adopt the thinking-style of the rest of us. Thus, once the thinking-style is changed, that person could be domesticated to do only what we want to do. But Jack Nicholson's role doesnt get cowed down, by the stereotypical folks around him, but tries to think out of the box or out of the ordinary. It s a pity to see how the protagonist is domesticated in the end!

I think most of us lack consistency and our responses to questions that someone poses us, is pathetic. We are keen to provide answer(not the answer we want to say) but the answer that the questioner wants to listen. Sure, trendsetters who fought for paradigm-shift are sure genius to revolt against the existing system.

Also, the 'euthanasia' kind of end for the protagonist seems to be apt! Cause there is nothing much the protagonist can do, when almost everyone is against him!

Michael Douglous has produced this movie.

Guess the Prabhu(tamil actor and Sivaji's son) movie 'Manasukkul mathapu', must have got inspired from this movie.

JFK:

Spectacular Oliver Stone movie. I think the Woodrew Wilson footage in the beginning of this movie, was a giveaway as to who were behind the killing of JFK. The interesting theory as to how government gets its hold on citizens and how government scares citizens was nicely explored in this movie. Guess, Kevin Costner is a Democrat. Michael Moore's documentary 'Bowling for Columbine' and 'Fahrenhiet 9/11' also tamefully explored this theory. It amazes me, as to how conscious Americans are on their recent history. And it shows in their movies, where they go to great extents to make a statement based on that historical event/mishap.

The Bridge over River Kwai:

David Lean movie.
The last sequence was extremely well-shot and the predicament of the Brit Colonel who had built the bridge and had fallen in love with the bridge, and is worried as to why the bridge is to be brought down, is well-shot.

Tora Tora Tora:

Brilliant movie. Never seen a better war movie than this. The sequence of events is well illustrated and the lack of jingoism is extremely helpful in enjoying this movie. The separate-set of Japanese and American production team for this movie helped to bring alive this movie as more of a neutral movie.
Could not help reminding myself, how bad Jerry Bruckheimer's 'Pearl Harbour' movie was while watching this movie.

Madagascar:

Animated movie, okay-kind.
This movie could not live to other top-of-the-charts animated movies list, but nevertheless enjoyable fare.

Kewl Advertisement

This is a cool Malaysian advertisement by Petronas group. Sure, this advertisment will throw you out of your seats :-D

Happy Viewing!

Dragoste din tei

If the title sounds alien to you, check out this
link which I am sure is not something new once you start listening to the song which starts 'Allo... Salut... Dragoste din tei...".

This was one major hit techno-party song in Romania and soon spread chaotically everywhere around the world.

Dhoni, Wrists and Hockey

Dhoni rocks in the careless way he strokes the ball-everywhere!
Dhoni's batting reminds me the batting style of Moin and Salim Malik!

Moin Khan has this really inimical way of dealing with fast-bowlers. Remember seeing the 1999 world cup match league stage match against Australia where he was just flicking Glenn McGrath to some really casual sixes off the legs into fine leg and deep square leg. Damn, of all the people Glenn McGrath is getting hit! The match was played in Oval where the square-boundaries are short, which also helped Moin's cause.
The best part about Moin's batting is his wristy sixes/fours to any given place in the ground. He makes any fast-bowler look like a spinner with his wristy-style. His late-cuts, wristy cover-drives and best of all the leg-flicks. He really looked awesome when he is in good form!

Salim Malik was also fantastic in his strokeplay, somewhat similar to Moin's or Azhar's game. Seems like Salim Malik and Azhar blossomed into their super-stars somewhat during the same period and got ousted from their teams also during the same period. Salim Malik's best knock according to me is the way he played Prabhakar in 1992 World cup against India in SCG, Sydney. Prabhakar had just come-in for a second spell in the 25th or 26th over.. and that was when Salim Malik was also new to the crease. Salim Malik played a classic wristy-cover drive and one amazing leg-glance for four. Prabhakar till then bowled his huge-inswingers. Now, after two fours of consecutive balls, he came back with a beautiful leg-cutter that foxed Salim Malik and Malik got caught behind. That ended his brave little cameo and also, Pakistan's chances of winning that match. But it was entertaining!
Another(totally unrelated sequence of events) instance where an Indian bowler was clubbed for two fours of consecutive balls and then came back to clean the leg-stump, was when Sachin bowled Lara in the 'Hero Cup final' in Eden Gardens in 1993. Sachin was bowling his slow medium pace and Lara on the other end was in pensive mood and blasted Sachin for two fours and in the third ball.. alas, Sachin let the leg stump take a walk with a rather fast-paced delivery and from then on, India went onto win that match.

Now, back to my original topic of dissertation of Dhoni. I think Dhoni is more of a complete stroke-maker better than Sehwag or Yuvraj. Sehwag cant play the ball properly if it is in the legs at a rather awkward length(short-ones) because he pulls or hooks in a rather ugly-fashion and he prefers to play most of the balls in the off-side. Yuvraj is more on the hard-hitting class, he plays more like a West-Indian batsman who prefers to punch the ball rather than just time it sweetly. Guess, nowadays most Indian or sub-continent batsman prefer to punch rather than use their wrists, just like how Azhar or Dhoni or Moin or Salim Malik or Miandad do. I think wristyness is kind of unique to sub-continent players and it is important to appreciate players like these.

Even in hockey, the sub-continent teams are revered for their wrist-work rather than for anything else. Skills like these are to be encouraged just like how we encourage other talents or art-forms!

Hotel Rwanda, 21 Grams

Hotel Rwanda

Good plot to revolve the characters around. No wonder this movie was nominated for the Oscars.
Some of the best segments in this movie include:
i. The answer to a question as to 'who is a tutsi and who is a Hutu?'
ii. The way the protagonist bribes his way into getting things done in his capacity as a hotel manager was another interesting part of this story. And also, the way he escapes and allows his tutsi-friends in his hotel to escape the offensive of Hutu army was also nicely shot.
iii. The UN commander's reasons for why 'Americans and Europeans refused to stop the genocide' and the realisation part of the our protagonist was also interesting. But the protagonist's emigration to Belgium is hard to digest inspite of his realisation!

I remember listening to the African genocides in Sudan, Nigeria, Somalia, Bothswana, Congo, Rwanda but somehow it hardly got registered in the Indian news media(even the good old Doordarshan). There seems to be definite disinterest in following such events. One should really pity the protagonist's idea of showcasing the strife in his native country to the world-media, hoping for international-intervention.
It's quite true that like money interests all. If these countries could display economic-superiority, then nations around the world would have made a beeline to stop such atrocities, not for helping the people of this country but to protect their interests in this country! It sucks bigtime to know that the only thing that really matters is 'money'!

21 Grams:

This movie-style reminds me of another movie 'The Hours'(Nicole Kidman an Australian starred in 'The Hours' while another Australian Naomi Watts has acted in 'The Grams') which also had three-different characters and in the end the audience were allowed to figure out what connected these three characters. Amazing way to tell a story!
With great actors on screen like Noami Watts, Sean Penn and Benecio Del Toro also helping the cause!
Another sublime idea which seemed to run the whole story was the 'guilt' part. The best punishment one gets because of one's misdemeanour is 'guilt'. It is extremely difficult for one to lead the usual life with 'guilt' feeling always in one's head. The movie 'Closer' was also exceptional in exploiting this feeling.
Guess, Mahatma Gandhi or Gautama Budha were exceptionally intelligent to make use of this 'guilt' feeling to succeed in their pursuits.


100 Girls:

Ordinary fare. This movie is more of a 'wannabe' of the American Pie genre. But hardly reaches that grade.

Charlie, Harry, Majaa and Things...

Majaa:

Few things I noticed in this movie which was funny include, the way Vikram and his co-stars pointlessly tell 'majaa' after a number of scenes, as if they want to remind the audience that they watching the movie 'majaa', it like how in radio shows and tv shows where the person behind the mike keep telling us they are listening to 'all india radio or radio mirchi or suriyan fm or times fm or you are watching star movies or something along similar lines'
Also, another funny part of this movie include the 'final credits' in which instead of using the word 'Cast' the word 'Cost' was used to provide the names of Vikram, Asin, Pasupathy, Manivannan.....Maybe the producer's intention is to raise a pitch on the high-salaries he had to pay for the star-studded cast, instead of investing more money on the story and other basic areas of this movie.


Things to be before you are thirty:

Ordinary movie.
Expected this movie to be a laugh-riot, since the title sounded more the American Pie genre and of course the famous 'Guru' star Jimi Mistry was also acting in this movie. But this movie remained more down-to-earth more of a black-comedy genre which somehow has provided a another Brit-movie hit 'The Full Monty'.
The plot sounded hollow and did not do much of justice to the star-studded cast. It is very difficult to make movies with many stars and still do justice to their characters, guess 'Love Actually' was good in that respect which was also fiercely anti-Bush.


Charlie and the Chocolate Factory:

Guess, the movie did not live to all the hype after Johnny Depp-Freddie Highmore's success of 'Finding Neverland'. This movie had some really good frames(photography), but the story had no exciting parts and it was more of a deja-vu. The feel-good factor hardly enters one's head, because of the plot which was along anticipated lines.
Guess, Johnny Depp's forthcoming movie 'Pirates of the Caribbean 2' sequel will be as good as the earlier movie 'Pirates of the Caribbean 1'.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire:

The adolescence displayed by almost all the kids in this movie was incomplete, since the director had to move on with the action segments of the movie. Guess, thanks to this adolescence sequences, the emotional-intensity that Harry Potter shows in action-sequences were mostly diluted and he hardly makes an impression.
Maybe reading the book might have helped i.e in understanding the sub-plots inside this story. But the best part about watching the movie rather than reading the book is that it takes just 2-3 hours for watching the movie, but 10+ hours for reading the book.

Sin City

Sin City:

This movie was absolute fantasy and I really liked the massive hunk (first story about him and how he gets revenge for the killing of his sweet-heart. Robert Rodriguez has chalked out a really novel way of directing a movie. The black-and-white, the garish red-colour, the colour of blood and the golden yellow colours were never seen earlier. The flying-overcoats, the killing-style, the scarfaced face, the Jap-Eng model who appears in this movie as Mayhem all come up with memorable performances in this movie.
When Benicio Del Toro loses his left-hand which is holding a pistol and tries very hard using his right hand to grab the pistol from his amputated left-hand was awesome to see. Maybe the shots were gory for some, this movie was great fun to watch. The movie is so fast that one will hardly have any qualms about this, except for, why cant this movie stretch any further and also, why wasnt the hunk's role extended to the complete length of this movie!

Movies by Deepavali

Dodgeball:

Entertaining movie.
I remember trying to see this movie maybe 3 or 4 times, but never ever passed the first 30 minutes because I doze off
pretty soon :)
But this time, I promised not to doze off and watched the entire movie. The movie wasnt all that bad actually.
This movie more of an Adam Sandler genre of comedy. Ben Stiller as the villian was hilarious.

Thirteen Days:

Good movie.
Fast-paced movie based on the Cuban missile crisis starring Kevin Costner.
Guess, Kevin Costner must be a Democrat, cause I remember his earlier movie 'dancing with the wolves' and now 'thirteen
days' all have some democrat-ideologies encapsulated in them.
It is quite surprising how come this movie was allowed to be released, since it had too many real-life characters and
it is quite impossible for the director to unfold the story as it happened some 40 odd years back. One would
expect a truck-load of controversies getting started due to this movie, and of course barrage of lawsuits etc.,
Anyway, bold attempt for a movie!
In India, very few real life based movies were actually tried, and when few of them are actually released, it always
sparks tremendous opposition from various groups(there is a group for almost everyone out here!) and finally
the director calls-off the project or is happy to release the film only for foreign film festivals.

Shaolin Soccer:

Stephen Chow's comedy movie!
This movie is entertaining in the slapstick sense, and also it has some dark-comedy as well.
The dark-comedy of course is a shocker to viewers, who dont expect such kind of comedies from Chinese films.
This isnt exactly a spoof one and neither is this is an action-extravaganza with comedy-fillers.

Trainspotting:

Another black comedy movie!
Best part of the movie include: Ewan Mcgregor talking about how Scotland was conquered by wankers(read England) and why they should not go for mountain climbing trip. It sounded senseless but was funny nevertheless. Also, the Scottish accent was great fun to listen.

Parineeta:

Vidya Balan was extra-ordinary all through the movie. But sometimes, she tends to give a photographic smile in quite a few sequences. This photographic smile is not really required, sometimes it is slightly irritating because those looks are artificial and you will tend to wonder whether she is doing an advertisement for a 'toothpaste or something'! Aishwarya has this bad habit of showing off her best smile all through the movie rather than look natural. Hope Vidya Balan doesnt overdo this smile!
For a moment, I thought 'Parineeta''s story is similar to 'Devdas'.
Rich boy in love with next-door neighbour. Rich boy's father wants his son to marry some rich-girl and is against the relationship between these two love-birds... but thankfully that's where the similarity mostly ended, else this movie would have been as worse as 'Devdas'.

A Walk to Remember:

Mandy Moore's idealistic behaviour was highly intolerable.
Story is a regular love story and the movie went from bad to worse when Mandy Moore claims that she has got 'cancer'!

Wimbledon:

Good romantic comedy movie.
The movie really takes a sprint right from the first sequence. There is hardly a dry segment all through the movie.
The game-shots was choreographed in an impeccable manner.
Wonder why this movie was dedicated to Mark McCormack?!

Enter the Dragon:

Must have been atleast 10 to 12 years back when I first saw this movie in DD Metro, when they showed 15-20 minutes of this movie and I patiently watched this movie 20 minutes every week to see 'The End'. Then, I grew impatient at the way this movie was shown on national television, as if this is television serial! At that time, I liked any Jackie Chan or Bruce Lee action movie and so I liked 'enter the dragon' then!
Now, when I saw this movie again, I dont see any good points at all in this movie, except for the funny sounds that Bruce Lee makes when fighting his rivals, his funny face-expressions when he kicks or jumps on someone, the best of all is the crazy mirror fight sequences - damn - that was a stupidest action sequence one could ever see on movies! Nevertheless, enjoyed watching this comedy movie!

Harry Potter - Chamber of Secrets and Prisoner of Azkaban:

I havent read the Harry Potter series as yet, but I was promised by a couple of my friends that this is top-class work. The movie was ordinary fare according to me, but I am sure ardent 'Harry Potter' readers might think the other way. Lots of sequences in this movie seems to have been copied from various mythological stories or simply picked from well-known adventure-fantasy writer's works. The time machine based climax and the 'back to the future' kind of picturisation are plagiarised in this movie.
Somehow to me seeing a movie seems to be a better option than reading the book. Book consumes major chunk of one's time, while a movie consumes just 2-3 hours to the max.

Iqbal:

Ordinary movie. Did not expect to see such a below-par movie from Nagesh Kukunoor. This was worse than 'Hyderabad Blues 2'. This 'feel-good' movies will certainly irritate the audience.

The Legend of Zorro:

Entertaining movie.
More in the Indiana Jones-way, no wonder Steven Spielberg's Amblin Production house is behind this movie.
Liked the way Hollywood couples american history with the protagonists in the movie and Spielberg Zemeckis are masters in this area.

Moon Landing Hoax:

I think this documentary is a big hoax.
Seeing this documentary reminded me of 'Wag the Dog' movie.
India is planning to land a man on the moon by 2007 and hopefully another documentary like this will creep-in and provide fun for all of us.

Once upon a time in America:

Ordinary fare.
Best part of this Sergio Leone movie is the pace at which it moves. Though the duration of the movie is a bit too long, and this will take a heavy toll on the viewer. This movie went along well till the point when Robert De Niro comes back to New York as an 60 odd year old man.
Guess, Mani Ratnam's inspiration for the 'Nayagan' smuggling modus operandi i.e throw the smuggled goods into the ocean/sea along with sacks full of salt was picked up from this movie.

Once upon a time in West:

Good movie.
Charles Bronson and all the actors in this Sergio Leone movie were great to watch. The music by Encino Morricone was also good. Guess, all Sergio Leone movies will have an actor playing a tune with harmonica. Quentin Tarantino's movie 'Kill Bill' seems to be inspired from this western classic. The theme music, the acting style, the revenge-part and the setting part all seem to be similar to this movie.
Guess, even Sholay seems to be inspired from Sergio Leone movies. For example, Amitabh's role seems to be quite similar to Sergio Leone's protagonists. Thankfully, Amitabh went on to do movies taking up roles which potrayed him as a calm-quiet-reticent-angry when pushed a bit too hard-taking revenge in style.

Tarzan - animation movie:

Entertaining fare.
Star voices include George Carlin and Brad Garrett.

Pulp Fiction:

Good movie.
Quentin Tarantino's dark-comedy style is great entertainment. The senseless arguments that his characters get into during the course of an important segment in the movie is great fun to watch, and we wonder 'damn.. can you guys stop this senile conversation and get alongwith the actual story of the movie', for example the one on 'five dollar shake' or the 'foot massage' or the 'why no one dont rob restaurants' or 'whether escaping from gun-shots was a mirace or not'.


Fourty year virgin:

Ordinary movie.
This movie started along similar lines to the movie 'the office space' and I was expecting this to be a comedy riot, but the movie lost the tempo.

Eternal Sunshine of the spotless mind:

Good movie.
Great idea for a movie, i.e allowing people to erase their memories of someone who they dont like. It was a novel attempt. Jim Carrey's role will remind us of his earlier role in 'the truman show' where he desperately tries to find out 'who he is'. The way Kate Winslet's hair colour was used in this story was interesting. Kirsten Dunst's character-name in this movie is 'Mary' and it looks like she is having a name-fetish with this name, since she happens to carry the same name 'Spiderman', 'Wimbledon' and now in this movie. Also surprised, to see the name of SD Burman, Lata Mangeshkar, Lakshmikant Pyarelal and Mukesh's name in the soundtrack credits, since I dont remember listening to any hindi song during the course of the movie.

Run Lola Run:

Thought this movie was slightly on the boring side. The story line gets repeated thrice and the enthusiasm to watch the same movie thrice really will put one off from watching this movie.

No Man's Land:

This movie beat 'Lagaan' and three other non-Hollywood movies to win the 'Best Foreign Language film'.
Guess, 'Lagaan' deserved to get the Oscars with its nice 'feel-good plot', unlike 'No Man's Land'.
This movie seems to have a strong backing from various television network majors from France, Switzerland, Italy, Slovenia, Croatia and UK.

The Real Da Vinci Code:

Haven't read this book 'The Da Vinci Code', but having seen this documentary, my earlier doubts about the authenticity of this book is proven right. Would love to read 'The Da Vinci Code' just for the entertainment value and of course will love to see Tom Hanks in action in the soon-to-be-released movie 'The Da Vinci Code'.

Dr. Strangelove:

Dark comedy which must have generated lots of publicity among-the-sixties generation ! It is a pity that Peter Sellers did not have much of a role. It is very difficult to make sense of this movie in the current era, where there is only one superpower.
The humming sound in the background everytime the bomber is shown on screen is hard-to-forget!

The Motorcycle Diaries:

Seeing this movie in Spanish(guess so), without any English sub-titles made life not-so-easy for viewing this movie.
And me also not knowing much about Che, also didnt help much. One will get a feeling that this movie is incomplete and thus will not impress upon the viewer.

The Graduate:

Good movie.
Dustin Hoffman's performance was top-class.
Simon and Garfunkel songs all through the movie also makes up good listening.

Beauty and the Beast:

Ordinary movie.
Guess, this is the first animated movie to have won an Oscar.
Maybe this movie-experiment paved the way for better animated movies than this.

Dil:

A Vikram movie before he had hits starting with 'gemini'.
Vikram seemed to be a much better actor in this movie before he started acting in outright-masala movies.
The story was a novel one in tamil cinema and it seemed to be vaguely based on the hindi movie 'Is Raat ki Subah Nahin'.

To Kill a mocking bird:

Thought this movie was kind of ordinary, did not live up to all the hype I heard about this movie. The child-actors in-particular the protagonist's acting i.e Scott was fantastic.
The Alabama accent is great fun to here, remembering listening to the same accent in Forrest Gump.

Full Metal Jacket:

Great movie.
This movie stamps Stanley Kubrick's class.
Best part of this movie include:
i. the funny rhymes the marines are taught
ii. the name-giving ceremony to the marines by the PT
iii. Joker's stubborness on claiming that 'virgin mary was not virgin' inspite of his PT trainer's insistence otherwise
iv. the dark style of film-making whether it is comedy/action
v. the war-game when they try to catch a sniper in the climax
vi. Joker's 'talk the talk' bold comments was great fun to watch.

Adaptation:

Good movie.
Nicolas Cage in a new avatar.
The movie was extra-ordinary except for the last 15-30 minutes, when the movie started taking the usual-commercial masala cinema plot.

Clockwork Orange:

Did not like this Stanley Kubrick movie, maybe a trifle too long also.

Vanilla Sky, Alfie

Vanilla Sky:

Tom Cruise came up with a memorable performance alongwith beautiful co-stars Penelope Cruz and Cameron Diaz. The hand-picked soundtracks were very good, as you would expect in any Cameron Crowe movie. As for the story-content, that's the not so exciting part, things just didnt move fast and boredom sets in when the viewer tries to identify which is real and which is dream. As for story content, the ending showed Tom Cruise preferring the reality than the dream.

Dreams are exciting because once you wake up, you have to take great pains to recollect what exactly happened in the dream. And the worst part is that, after lots of thinking, your recollection will go something like this 'i just walked into the railway station... and what happened next.. i woke up from the dream'. After this starts the soul-search, why would i go to a railway station? to receive someone? to leave this town ? if so, why would i leave this town?... and a zillion other questions.... It's a pain to break-your-head about it.... so ignore your dreams(i.e what you get in sleep... daydreaming is different though )

Earlier when I had read 'Tell me why .. ' series or may 'Children's knowledge bank ' or some encyclopedia of this sort, it said that 'our dreams always come in black-and-white colours alone' i.e during dreams we cant identify any colour. Guess, it is wrong, because, during some of my dreams I was able to distinguish colours. Maybe I am conscious of this 'black and white dream funda' that.. I am always searching for colours in my dreams and happy when I notice something in colour during my dreams.

Alfie:

Good movie, inspite of an okay first half.
The narration style of Jude Law reminded me of 'The Hitch'. Guess, this narration really lifts the story.
In this movie, Jude Law is afraid of relationships and everytime he gets very close with someone, he breaks that relationship and moves on to find another one.
Unlike the other usual romantic movies, the best part of this movie is Jude Law confessing to us that he still doesnt know what is in-store for him for the rest of his life, though for a moment we will wonder .. 'what?! .. is he nuts!.. the answer is blowing through the wind... marry some women.. you are close to ..'.

Movies by mid-week

Larry Semon's "Wizard of Oz"

Guess, this has to be one of the technologically advanced movies of those times.
I didnt like the ending i.e where Prince Kynd gets to marry Princess Dorothy married.
The plot could have been lot more interesting had the scarecrow 'Larry Semon' been the rightful husband for Princess Dorothy. This silent movie was fast-paced similar to most other silent-movies I had seen, mostly Charlie Chaplin movies!

Runaway Jury

Enjoyable thriller.
I had earlier read the novel 'Runaway Jury' by John Grisham, but the movie never failed to amaze me. It is a difficult job i.e to make movies out of novels. Lots of sequences which can be found in the novel, did not get featured in the motion picture. For example, the sequences in which John Cusack gains the confidence of his fellow-jurors are mostly absent in the movie.
The best part in this movie, was the sequence where Dustin Hoffman enters into a argument with Gene Hackmann in the restroom where Dustin Hoffmann warns Gene Hackmann that 'Gene Hackmann might win this case, but someday he will lose and that day he would be alone and no one to help him'. Quick came the reply from Gene Hackmann 'It doesnt matter, I dont give a sh**'.
Guess, the best John Grisham movie has to be 'The Firm' which had Tom Cruise in the lead.

Ali G Indahouse

Ordinary comedy movie, there are better spoof-style comedy movies for sure. Guess, 'Hot Shots' and Leslie Nielsen movies are the best in this genre.
Sacha Baron Cohen's(the main man in this movie) claim to fame must be appearing on the music video 'Music' alongwith Madonna.

Paycheck

Typical John Woo classic thriller. Enjoyable fare right from the beginning.
It's a shame that Ben Affleck hardly gets any movies to show his skills. He seems to be tailor-made for the ultimate American hero characters like Bruce Wills' John McLane(Diehard) and Harrison Ford's Jack Ryan(Clear and Present Danger, Patriot Games..). His performances in 'Good will Hunting', 'Reindeer Games' and 'the sum of all fears' also made up good viewing.

Guess, Philip K Dick's "Paycheck" was originally a short-story. Guess, in a way it was easier to make movies out of short-stories rather than based on novels, because in case of short-stories the Director has the responsibility to include new plots and make the movie interesting. But in case of novels the director will get busy on how to edit the sequences and shorten the sequences to fit into a moving picture!

Gajani

Ordinary fare. The story didnt fit well into tamil masala cinema profile.
Most irritating part of the movie, is the horrible 'arabic/chinese/god-knows-what-language hymns/sloka/humming in the background during various stages in the movie'. Harris Jayaraj's chorus vocals will leave one a lot to be desired. The worst part in this chorus vocals is that it will remind you of SA Rajkumar kind of music, cause till now I thought only SA Rajkumar is capable of copying himself.

The Cat's Meow

Good movie!
The plot was simple and what appears to be a true-story made the viewing even more interesting. I could identify only the real-life character of Charlie Chaplin played by Eddie Izzard in this movie. Kristen Dunst also plays a key role in this movie.

Lobo

I have been a fan of Lobo's songs like 'Dont expect me to be your friend', 'I'd love you to want me' etc.,

Lobo's 'Dont expect me to be your friend', made up great listening. I am not a big fan of poetry, but somehow be an ardent fan of music with great lyrics. Not sure, whether lyrics like these can be called as 'poems'.

The lyrics of Lobo's 'Dont expect me to be your friend':

I stopped sending flowers to your apartment
You said you aren't home much anymore
I stopped dropping by without an appointment
Cause I'd hear laughter coming through your door.

Sometimes late at night you'll still call me
Just before you close your eyes to sleep
You make me vow to try and stop by sometime
Baby that's a promise I'can't keep.

I love you too much to ever start liking you
So lets just let the story kinds end
I love you too much to ever start liking you
So don't expect me to be your friend.

I don't walk down through the village or other places
That we used to go to all the time
I'm trying to erase you from my memory
Cause thinking of you jumbles up my mind.

You always act so happy when I see you
You smile that way you take my hand and then
Introduce me to your latest lover
That's when I feel the walls start crashing in

Enemy at the Gates

Remember seeing the movie 'the enemy at the gates' and could not really digest the idea that 'every country needs a hero to lift the people's morale during trying times'. And I kind of feel the same way, when the whole country stood behind Sania Mirza during her trying times. Even during the last BJP-tenure, Sania was selected to be the 'mascot' for 'the year of girl-child' scheme. That was a time when she hardly had this big-international exposure. But then, she had already starting making waves in the Indian scene and also in SAARC scene.
A photograph in 'the hindu' shot in Bhopal had some really old muslim-woman standing in a human-chain in support for Sania. This photo speaks volumes on what India needs at the moment i.e heroes to pullout the rest of the crowd from backwardness. Maybe, five or ten years from now, Sania might be a millionaire and be least bothered about people like that old muslim-woman who dared to come out to protest against fundamentalism, but to me the crux of the idea is that 'people will start using Sania as a mascot to achieve higher ideals of life'!
One question that struck me was 'Do we need someone to inspire us to do something beyond our skins? '
When India won the world cup in 1983, Indira Gandhi took the opportunity to paint India as a resurgent power not just in cricket but in other aspects as well. This could be a phoney way of deriving courage, but what the heck we need to start somewhere. And India as a country needs leaders in hoardes not just a handful of few to lift the rest of the folks.

LOTR

LOTR 1

One of the really longish movies one could have ever seen!
The length of the movie induces a boredom with you and when you get to see no usual-climax, you are bound to feel let-down. After all one doesnt buy tickets and spend 3 hours for nothing.. i.e not watching a movie which has no climax :(
This is what I felt, when I watched this movie for the first time, before it ran away with loads of Oscars. I had heard of this book called 'Lord of the Rings' through couple of my friends. But did not really get to read this book. I think had I read it, maybe I could have appreciated this movie better. The computer-animation used in this movie in various sequences also, brought boredom to me, since I think I had seen n-number of movies with somewhat similar style of animation. I later decided to skip LOTR 2, because I didnt want to torture myself for yet another 3 hours, without understanding the story and with no climax(since LOTR 3 is in the offing). But, somehow got inspired to goto the theatre to see LOTR 3, since I was told that this is the third and last part. Also, this third and last one bagged loads of Oscars, so I thought this better be good. Of course, it's the same old sequence of events, again during the last-part also, but nevertheless what mattered was 'I saw LOTR'.

Now that I have LOTR 1 and 2 cds with me, I thought why not give it a try i.e to watch LOTR 1 and 2 at one go(its been atleast 2-3 years after I saw LOTR 1 in a theatre in Madurai). I took the challenge and this time, I was keen to follow the story and characters and concentrate on the plots and sub-plots which made this movie such a 'talk of the town'. I achieved watching it at one go, but not really sure whether I liked it!

Noticed a couple of things:
i. The background music kind of reminds me of Godfather style of music(not the flute-tune, but the treacherous-buildup tune with a violin)
ii. NZ is a beauty of a country, but I bet Indian movies exploit such locales best than any other moviemaker!
iii. Hugo Weaving appearing on screen reminded me of another 3-phased boring movie 'Matrix'(what was originally not supposed to have a sequel)!
iv. To me, the best sequel-mode movie ever made must be 'back to the future'. It was top-class with an interesting plot!
v. JRR Tolkein is supposed to have been born in South Africa and spent his younger years in South Africa. Sure, JRR Tolkein must be immensely talented to have written such a novel. South Africans seem to be really outstanding in a variety of activities inspite of all the turmoil that nation was put into for so long. For example, Ian McEwan(booker winning writer), hoardes of top-class golfers, great cricketers including Kevin Pietersen, top-class rugby players. Among all these folks, the best ambassadors of this country after Tolkein, has to be the top-class golfers that they manufacture at ease!

Airline Jokes - George Carlin

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Ashes for England

Aussies look out of sorts without McGrath. And take away Warne, this Australian cricket team looks vulnerable in the bowling department. The batting line-up is world-class, but what can a batting line-up do, without good support from bowlers particularly good fast-bowlers and good spin-bowlers. Pakistan with its top-class fast-bowlers and spin-bowlers have achieved more than anyother team inspite of its history bad batsmen! India with its famed middle-order has under-achieved than any other team thanks to its lack of expertise in fast-bowling department!

I would still consider the series between India and Australia in 2001 in India in which India won 2-1 is a bigger achievement when compared to this Ashes series, since India won inspite of a fiery McGrath and Gillespie! Hopefully England win this Ashes and oust this head-over-heels Aussie team!

Courage under Fire

Good movie!
The movie brought back memories of a classic Sivaji movie 'antha naal' i.e the narration of the same incident by many folks. This movie had a decent conspiracy theory and that lifted this movie. Meg Ryan looked out of place in this role as a soldier, but the character hardly had any weightage in this movie, except for Denzel Washington.

The Siege

Ordinary movie!
Denzel Washington seems to be a staunch Democrat. Another movie movie titled 'The Manchurian Candidate', also had some strong Democratic party school of thought encapsulated in it!

The movie was outstanding in a number of sequences including the paint bomb-blasts warning, the actual bomb-blasts, the termination of cell 1 by FBI, the bomb-blast of FBI building and the tempo of the movie was in fifth-gear, but soon one had to see the excesses of Bruce Willis and that's when the film lost the plot with what could have been an interesting battle between FBI and the invisible Jihad-cells, it became a rheoteric between democrats and republicans.

High Crimes

Ordinary movie!

The movie could have been inspired from a few other army-court battle movies including Few Good Men. The movie was extremely disappointing except for Ashley Judd.

Mangal Pandey - The Rising:

Ordinary movie!
A disappointing spectacle from Aamir Khan and Ketan Mehta.
1. Aamir Khan was lost in emotions for a major part of the movie. Poor guy, Kamal Hassan didnt get this much funds for his 'Maruthunayagam'. Kamal is versatile and he would have caught us all spellbound with such a nice-historical movie! Aamir and his attempt towards method-acting for Mangal Pandey is lost because there is hardly any plot or drama to talk about in this movie to build emotion!
2. The introduction of characters like Amisha Patel, Rani Mukherjee was unwarranted and that certainly spoilt the chance of Mangal Pandey getting more screen-time.
3. Guess, 'Mirch Masala' and 'Dil Chahta Hain' will continue to be the best movies of Ketan Mehta and Aamir Khan.
4. Songs, Sophia Haque, Rani and Amisha have successfully derailed the tempo of the film and made a bad-masala out of Mangal Pandey.
5. Tajikistan is said to have played host for a few sequences in this movie i.e barrenlands sequences, lakes sequences and afghan-war sequence.
6. Om Puri uttering what is happening in screen(in Hindi) when the characters speak English is also an absolute spoiler to the viewers.
7. The hype was a bit extra-ordinary and I think that also has built up huge expectations among most of the viewers.

Arbitrary stuff from Romania - VIII - The myth called Dracula

The surname Dracula means 'from the clan of Drac(in native tongue it means Dragon). 'Vlad II Tepes Dracula' is supposed to be the person after whom the Dracula character was created. Tepes means Impale. Vlad II ruled Transylvania in 15th century. His palace is in the midst of a highway which links the western corner of Romania to the eastern part of Romania. This highway was frequently used by traders(mostly Germans and Ottomans(read Turks)). Just behind this palace one can see a thick pine-forest, awesome sight this i.e the palace is facing the plains/landscapes/grasslands on one side and the forest on the other! Vlad II was born in a medievel-town called Singhisora. Singhisora hasnt changed much in the last 500 years and the small streets, bricklanes, churches all give a distinct old-Europe!

The German-population in Transylvania has always had skirmishes with the native-Romanians and Turks during those times. The Germans felt victimised by Vlad II's reign and they started the mass-campaign agains Vlad II and accused him of being a tyrant. And this grapevine was picked by Bram Stoker when he wrote a play on Dracula. Soon, Hollywood picked up this thread and made a huge number of movies surrounding the legend of Dracula!

The Romanian communist government nationalised this castle from the then-rulers. There was a conscious campaign by the Romanian nationalists to ignore the Dracula-story and thus one will be amazed to see the little or no information about the famous-Dracula in this palace. One will get to see the name and photos of 'Queen Maria', who is said to have conserved most of the artifacts in this palace! The palace is the biggest claim to fame of Romania to the western nations. Scores of travellers visit this place. I am sure all the people who have read the Dracula stories and seen those Dracula movies will be disappointed by the little or no documention on Vlad II in this palace.

Contrastingly, the bazaar outside this palace has done a superb job in selling 'Dracula' tourism unlike the government. One gets to see key-chains, clothes, bracelets, tea cups, pencils, idols etc., with Dracula's face on it!

The beautiful landscapes in this part of Romania is a treat to watch, covered by mostly grasslands and small hills!
It's only summer-months does, one get to see this part of country brimming with activity!

Arbitrary stuff from Romania - VII - Raj Kapoor

Old Hindi films and film-music are extremely popular in Romania. Raj Kapoor is the unofficial Indian ambassador to Romania. Shame, me not seen that many Raj Kapoor movies. It is quite common to listen to cabbies humming songs like 'Awara hoon... ' or 'Mera jhoota hai japani... '. Guess, the prime reason why Raj Kapoor is a darling to this nation is due to the kind of roles he donned during his prime-days. Raj Kapoor's movies talked about socialism and during those days this country was also ruled by communists/socialists, so Raj Kapoor also became the unofficial ambassador of Communists/Socialists. So, government started showing Raj Kapoor movies in national television. Since the people hardly had any interaction with foreign culture(except for the Soviets) and Hollywood was kind of out of bounds for this poor-country, Raj Kapoor's movies became an instant hint.
But none of the natives are aware of the new-wave Bollywood cinema and Hollywood's charm has hijacked the current generation of Romanians. Not sure, the current wave of Bollywood cinema has any ideals to offer to this country, certainly not in the calibre of Raj Kapoor.

Nehru is also highly revered in this country, because of his ability to stand-up against both the Soviets and USA.

Arbitrary stuff from Romania - VI - How Caucescu's regime ended?

Caucescu was in Iran during the winter of December 1989 when things got stormy in Romania. Protests and agitations became a mainstay. Caucescu hurried back home and was terribly surprised to see the people's unrest. Strangely, Caucescu was of the opinion that his people are all happy during his rule ! Guess, Caucescu was not in touch with reality.

Earlier when Caucescu was in his zenith, he was an outstanding ruler from the Eastern block of countries thanks to his independent foreign policy intiatives and his courage to stand-up against the Soviet war-machine. Caucescu was inspired by North Korean communist experiment and Chinese communist experiment.

Some policies during his rule include:
i. Every youth must enroll in Army, as long as the individual is not pursuing any higher education(read drop-outs from school)! I believe this policy is still pursued in Romania
ii. Every person should get married before the age of 25, if not tax will be levied on that person(i.e family-tax).
iii. Slums were eradicated in and around most cities and huge apartment blocks were built.(direct influence of North Korean communist philosphy)
iv. Every married couple get a Dacia, an apartment and a job! Note: Dacia cars are omnipresent in Romania - guess it is very cheap! (similar to our Maruti)

Arbitrary stuff from Romania - V - Indian restaurants in Bucharest

There are three Indian restaurants in Romania:
i. Haveli - Is run by a Pakistani and this hotel is close to Gara-de-Nord(or North Station). The ambience is appreciable out here. They play hindi music all through the day and there is also a dancing programme during the weekend-evenings. The best part in the dancing programme is that one will get to see a Romanian dancer dexterously dancing to Indian film-songs with the same enthusiasm as Shah Rukh or Hrithik.

ii. Taj - Cozy/costly restaurant, just opposite to hotel Marriot is another place to have good Indian food. One could get to see lots of celebrities' photos and their signature in the walls of this hotel alongwith the Indian chef. Dont recollect many of the personalities I saw, but remember seeing the photo of Wesley Snipes(hollywood actor).

iii. Karishma - Another good Indian restaurant. Maybe the best among the lot!

All the above restaurants only provide North Indian food and its a shame why the chefs dont cook South Indian food. All the above restaurants are frequented by the locals, wonder how they handle the hot-and-spicy food!

Arbitrary stuff from Romania - IV - Caucescu Palace

Caucescu palace is an amazing landmark in the city of Bucharest. This building's construction was started in the year 1984 and the building was 90% complete in the year 1989. Then, came the revolution which overthrew Caucescu and then the stoppage of the palace-construction. What will upset the visitor of this palace, is the way the palace-guide treats Caucescu's era with absolute contempt! According to the palace-guide, Caucescu plundered Romania's wealth and this palace was a huge waste of money. Caucescu's palace's official name is 'People's palace' though according to the guide this palace was built only for Caucescu and not for the Romanian people. Caucescu is supposed to have spent millions and millions of dollars in building this amazing landmark when thousands of people were on the verge of absolute poverty. The topic of 'Caucescu' will enthuse most readers to goto wikipedia and learn more about this communist dictator. After reading wiki's article, one could come to the conclusion that maybe he wasnt all that bad as he is potrayed!
Strange philosophy of Caucescu:
i. More the human population, more powerful the country will become.
Sounds silly but strangely, Jawaharlal Nehru also had similar notions on human population. Once when J R D Tata(in 1951 roundabouts) met Nehru, Tata explained to Nehru about the need to create an awareness among the Indian people about the advantages of small family, which will improve the quality of life. But, Nehru replied 'human resources are the most valuable resource for any country and there is no question of advising people to have small families'. Note: Later after 40 years JRD Tata got 'World population award' just before his death.
One key point to note is that in Romania thanks to the dictatorship-rule, strange laws like if a man/woman is unmarried and his/her age is above 25, then he/she has to pay more tax.
In Romania, once a man/woman are married then they are provided a 'Dacia' car(something as ubiquitous as Maruti cars in India) by the government alongwith a flat in the city.

When Caucescu started the palace construction, the absolte secrecy surrounding the palace-construction upset most Romanian people and allowed people to speculate and spread rumours about Caucescu's luxurious lifestyle. So, thanks to the palace-construction, suddenly Caucescu could no longer gain the same affection from his people and soon he was overthrown from power. One could sense a strange parallel between Jayalalitha and Caucescu, Jayalalitha was overthrown from power in 1996 thanks to the luxurious marriage function of her foster-son. Jayalalitha was not called by an army court for execution thanks to India's matured democracy!

Arbitrary stuff from Romania - III - Mutu

Romania is a fierce football-crazy country and till now they have most probably produced one football superstar 'Hagi'. But lately with the emergence of Adrian Mutu, Romanians are seeing the rise of another superstar. Adrian Mutu is currently playing for Juventus and he is the darling of this football-crazy nation. Mutu's name is mentioned frequently in the country's late-night national news(for both his on-field and off-field activities).
Some Romanian club teams also are on the rise beating top-teams from the leagues of England, Scotland, Germany etc. in UEFA cup qulaifying matches.

Arbitrary stuff from Romania - II - DA

'Da' is the most often spoken word in Romanian language(which also obviously, happens to be the national language of Romania). Anyone who picks up the phone invariably says 'Da' rather than 'Hello'. 'Da''s equivalent in English is 'Okay' or Yes' or 'Agreed' or 'Done' etc., I am told that similar to 'Da' in Romanian it is 'Ja' in Dutch. Romanians also have adopted quite a few French-origin words like 'salut'(a greeting equivalent to 'best wishes' or 'my regards' or simply put 'my salutes'), 'merci'(means 'apologies'). Romania also has a few Hindi/Sanskrit-origin words like 'chai' (equivalent to 'tea') and 'zaher'(means sugar in Romanian, while in Hindi 'zeher' means 'poison').

Arbitrary info on Romania - I

Romanian language is supposed to be primarily based on the Romantic languages i.e French/Italian/Spanish/Portugese etc., but what distinguishes Romanian language is the strong influence of Turkish language. Turkish rulers i.e Ottomon empire have had a major impact on this country and it shows clearly in the Romanian language and also in the architecture of the Romanian Orthodox churches which one can find everywhere in the country. The Romanian orthodox churches have 'dome-shaped'(influence of Muslim Ottomon empire) tower unlike the usual cone shaped tower that one sees in most churches all over the world. These Romanian churches were once close to extinction thanks to the communist dictator Caucescu who ruled this country for a fairly long span of time from the 1960's to late 1980's. Caucescu had ordered to demolish most of the churches in the country and also barred his people from worshipping God in his country.(this reminds me of an interesting sequence in the movie 'Forrest Gump' in which Gump appears on a national television alongwith John Lennon)

Harini and Shreya Ghoshal

Liked the song 'Piya bhole ... ' song from the movie 'Parineeta'.
The female-lead of the movie Vidya Balan also looks beautiful!
Thought, the way Shreya Ghoshal giggles and sings is similar to tamil singer Harini.
The giggle brings in a good-dose of innocence to the song!

Harini and Shreya Ghoshal with their quick-giggles and the heavy breaths while rendering songs have manufactured quite a few hit songs.

Note: Kartik - what do you think ? - email me or write what you feel in the comments section!

London Blasts

Why all this hype when London is bombed and no hype when some remote town was bombarded with missiles in Iraq or Afghanistan?
This inconsistency really irritates me.

Look at BBC or CNN crying that London is bombed and casuality as 100, when a similar happening in any third-world country is hardly mentioned inspite of the huge casuality. A natural-disastor like Iran-quake or Asian-tsunami will go also go unnoticed.

NDTV with its 24 X 7 channel is also aping its western cousins quite-well! Every channel have their own prefixes for NEWS i.e 'cnn news', 'bbc news', ' 24 X 7 news', 'sun news' etc., funny how news programme and the news-items are getting prefixed with the 'channel name'!

The Interpreter and War of the Worlds

The Interpreter

Ordinary movie!

Fast-paced movie, but with a rather silly plot!
Nicole Kidman kind of overacts!

One could draw parallels with this movie and the recent happenings in Africa. White-men getting kicked-out, child soldiers, western democracy influencing opposition in that country, dictator getting abused everywhere for his excesses etc., - except for the child-soldiers part the dictator seems to bear a resemblence with Robert Mugabwe(Zimbabwe's Prime Minister).

The role which was played by Roshan Seth in Mississippi Masala is more realistic than the role played by Nicole Kidman in 'The Interpreter'


War of the Worlds:

Ordinary movie!

A boring Spielberg movie.
Dont think Tom Cruise could probably repeat with a performance like 'Jerry Maguire'!

Aussies down :(

Peter Roebeck's columns are a treat to read! Just before yesterday's cricket match(ODI) against Australia and Bangladesh, Peter Roebeck had claimed in his column in 'The Hindu' that Aussies are at a new-low thanks to their defeat in 20-20 against and against a county team in an ODI and Peter said that it wont amuse him if England could beat the Aussies.

Peter Roebeck also claims that Aussies are good-starters and once they are on top they go for the kill, thus not allowing the opponents to comeback. Steve Waugh did the same during the last Ashes tour of England.

Now after reading this coulumn, I got to saw Bangladesh beating the mighty Aussies! That's a major achievement for Bangladesh. It is mostly former Australian players including Richie Benaud who were hard on Bangladesh after their infinite miserable performances. Now with this win, Bangladesh have silenced the Aussie critics!

Aussies did not attack enough all through the match. For most of the match they bowled with only four fieldsmen inside the circle, which is a bad strategy that gave lots of singles to the inexperienced Bangladesh-players.

Another strategy of Aussies which might have got most of the viewers by surprise is 'Jason Gillespie bowling the end-overs with a thirdman up in the circle'. Jason kept bowling the slow offies throughout the slog-overs and at one point of time everyone watching the match knew what ball Jason is going to bowl next(if you wondering what ball - it is the off-spinner!). I think Jason Gillespie is one bowler who bowls with a lot of heart(not with brains unlike Venkatesh Prasad, who bowls extra-ordinary slow-balls). Jason should have bowled his heart-out with his superb length-deliveries, yorkers and the fast-bouncers!
Guess, the Aussie think-tank were over-confident!

The Godfather series

Great movie!
Guess I saw this movie for the nth time, but this time I made it a marathon i.e 1, 2, 3 at one go!
Enjoyed the movie like never before.

The slowness of the movie and the rather sober background music was the best part I liked about this movie. On the contrary, it is because of the same two reasons why I hated watching 'Donnie Darko'(add to that an unexplained story!). 'The Godfather' made sense to me because the plots and sub-plots in this movie was explained, but the plots and sub-plots in 'Donnie Darko' is a mystery!

One of Kill Bill's advertisement reads 'Revenge is a dish best served cold' suits 'The Godfather' movie-series.

Friends and Big Fish

Friends:

Got the chance to see the episodes of Friends season 1, 2 and 3, enjoyed the same!
I think the best episode has to be the one in which Ross and party travel to UK for the wedding and then Rachel also wishes to come-in at the last moment!
Joey and Phoebe were great fun to watch!

Big Fish:

Good movie!
Magical Realism in full-flow!

Photo Connect

Photo A 


Photo B 

Connect these two photos!
Type-in the answers in the 'comments' section of this post!
Clue: this question is cricket-related one!

Donnie Darko

Ordinary movie.
Expected this movie to be of the horror-kind(read the title!), which I normally dont enjoy. But the worst part was that the movie is was too-slow and the music too dull. Remember another movie which was way-too-slow and the music too slow, was 'Ek Chotisi Love Story'.

Wonder how this movie pulled-off a casting coup(including Drew Barrymore(also an Executive Producer of this movie), Patrick Swayze)!

Van Wilder and Born on the Fourth of July

National Lampoon - Van Wilder:

Good college-comedy movie.
Tara Ried looked real hot in this movie!
Had earlier seen another top-class Lampoon movie which was a spoof on Independence Day and other alien movies.
But this Lampoon movie was a lot different with an original story.
American teen-comedy as a movie-genre is great fun to watch - including 'Revenge of the Nerds i, ii, iii and iv, American Pie series, Adam Sandler-movies, Trip-movies.

Born on the Fourth of July:

Ordinary movie.
I had earlier seen a couple of movies set in the backdrop of Vietnam-war and when I watched this movie had nothing new to offer.
'American history' is a great-read particularly the turbulent 60's and early 70's.
Best 'Vietnam' related readings/serials/movies according to me include
a. Art Buchwald's columns(mostly a parody on Nixon and his Vietnam war),
b. 'The Wonder Years' and 'Tour of Duty' television serials,
c. 'Forrest Gump' movie

The 300 Spartans

The 300 Spartans:

Ordinary movie. This War-movie which sings praises on the Spartan-army, also insults everyother army.
Wars are stupid and war-movies are no exception to this stupidity. Just like 'The 300 Spartans', the movie 'Troy' also talks about 'omens' which gives warriors and rulers a false-sense of security about the future. This sounded really stupid!

Hoping to learn a little about Greek history via wikipedia before watching any more Greek war-movies.

Seven Years in Tibet

Good movie.
This movie tries to explore few traces of world-history(my favourite subject in school), so enjoyed those sequences.

Had Johnny Depp played the same role as Brad Pitt, the sequences with Dalai Lama(younger) would have been more interesting. Johnny Depp and his pranks are always a treat to watch and Johnny Depp has great chemistry with young-actors!

Woh Lamhe

The song 'Woh Lamhe' by Atif Aslam is good. But the controversy surrounding it really sucks (the Bhatts and the Pakistan 'Jal' band brigade).

Pakistani-pop bands are rich in talent when compared to Indian pop-bands but guess the financial backing is not there!

Dogma

Dogma:

Inspite of the good star-cast the movie is an ordinary one.
The comedy-content is also mostly below-par except for a few scenes.
Even, George Carlin's humour is not entertaining.
The two prophets are funny when they are courting for the female-lead.

KwK - the final show for this season:

Boring one. No usual embarassing questions for the guests and Karan was going ga-ga about AB and SRK all-through-the-show.

Kingdom of Heaven

Good movie!

Found Orlando Bloom's acting to be good.
The movie's beauty lies in letting the viewers draw a parallel between the movie-plot and the current middle-east problem and Islamophobia among westerners.

'Religious zealots' and 'mercenaries' are strange-folks, it is very difficult to understand what actually drives them to this kind of madness! 'Kingdom of Heaven' tries to explore the reason why Muslims and Christians fought such bloody battles for the holy-land and strangely the movie just-stops of explaining 'the reason behind this madness'.

In the last scene of the movie, inspite of seeing the mindless-violence, both Bloom and his love-interest start their journey back to Jerusalem for yet another fight!

Nice segments in the movie:
i. The protagonist says, 'god doesnt speak to me, even in the place where Christ was crucified'.
ii. Saladin says 'nothing' and later smilingly 'everything'.. in response to Bloom's question as to 'why is he fighting for Jerusalem inspite of the heavy-casuality?'
iii. Last scene when Bloom and his love-interest ride their horse enthusiastically to (my guess follows) join the crusaders in their journey towards Jerusalem.

Hitch

Romantic-comedy

Few observations:
i. Music that runs in the background seems to have been pilfered:
a. When Albert goes after Allegra(i.e just before the board-room sequence) - the background music seems to be an adaptation of James Bond theme music(of course, maybe the film-maker wanted it that way ... but it is truly unoriginal of the music director to have done that)
b. When Will Smith jumps on top of the car which Eva Mendes is driving(during the finishing-stages of the movie), the background music seems to have been lifted from the theme music of the movie 'Life is Beautiful'
ii. The scene in which Eva Mendes starts crying while seeing 'Jerry Maguire' is quite funny. Parallel to this can be seen in 'Sleepless in Seattle' where Meg Ryan starts crying when she sees a romantic movie in TV.
iii. The sequence when Allegra asks Will Smith - whether he taught Albert that she cant whistle or to throw the inhaler before kissing her or to dance in a zany way etc., Will Smith says 'No'.. then she asks 'what did you teach him?' and Will Smith says 'Nothing'. In short this sequences encapsulates the entire-movie.

Notting Hill

Good movie.

The best part in this movie include:
i. Hugh Grant playing the role of a down-to-earth Brit, maybe overacting in the last scene of this movie where he gets down from the limo alongwith Julia and walks down a red-carpet.
ii. 'Brownie' scene in this movie was enjoyable
iii. The stupid blushes of Julia Roberts were a treat to watch and all those conversations she and Hugh Grant have without uttering too many words.
iv. The under-achieving friends of Hugh Grant and their conversations were also fun to watch
v. The songs that come in the background were good.(including 'She' by Charles Aznavour and 'When you say nothing at all..' by Ronan Keating)

After Julia-Hugh breakup, Hugh tries to find new girlfriend with the help of his friends - this segment in this movie is quite distasteful.
Wonder why the protagonist has to search a girlfriend?
Isn't the protagonist self-contained as he started in this movie?
Somehow, during that stage, the independent thinking-guy disappeared!

Brit-movies are a treat-to-watch with their good storyline, unlike most of the American-masala movies!

Shifshuf Naim

This is an Israeli movie. Has loads of comedy-sequences in this movie. It could be classified as an 'teen-comedy-genre'. The english name of this movie is 'Hot Bubblegum'. Guess this movie can be classified as a 'mother of all the american-teen comedies'.

Hollywood Squares

Hollywood Squares has loads of trivia for any careful ear. Folks who are deep-into-quizzing will find loads of trivia. The programme is great fun, with the questions and its answers all extremely entertaining. 'Gilbert Gottfried' is my favourite star.

Movies by weekend

Sholay:
Did not enjoy the movie all that much. Lots of western flavour inserted into this movie. One character who came up with a reasonably cool performance is Amitabh Bacchan alongwith Jaya Bahduri. Hema Malini's make-up was atrocious.
Some info: The movie was shot in Karnataka. In the song 'eh dosti..' an advertisement hoarding in Kannada language can be seen in the background.

Revisiting Neverland:
Kate Winslet tells to Johnny Depp that 'we should just act like friends rather than become just more than friends i.e life-partners', for which Johnny Depp says 'No we cant act like this forever'. Johnny Depp later contradicts the same in a scene with young Peter, when he says 'he can imagine that his mother is there everywhere when in reality she is not alive'. Some contradiction, but the best part of course is that we are allowed to do all the interpretation, which I think encapsulates the beauty of the movie.

Life is Beautiful:
Magical realism in movies :-)
The first time I saw this movie was in a theatre in Chennai. Saturday nigh-show in Sathyam cinemas is always a tough proposition for anyone to grab tickets. Me and my friend were very confident that for a foreign language movie there wont be much of a crowd. But we were wrong, the theatre was kind of housefull and we were lucky to grab 2 tickets. While watching this movie, we noticed our former school principal sitting some few rows ahead of ours. I had earlier heard that she got divorced and got married to another man and is soon to shift base to somewhere in Europe. I think she quit her job as a principal shortly after this second marriage. The school administration is mostly old-fashioned and so guess the management would have found her unsuitable to be the principal of a school! Maybe I could be wrong and she could have volunteered to quit her job for moving to some prosperous country in Europe, but just in case she had decided to stay - 'I think the wrath of an orthodox school administration would have pushed her to quit the job'. I think people tend to look down when they see a 'dysfunctional family'. Honestly every family is dysfunctional in their own way. It is very difficult to find a working-kind. What matters is accepting the faults(if any) and move-on!

The Medallion:
Bad movie. Hope 'The Myth' with Mallika Sherawat is better than this!

KwK - Hema Malini and Zeenat Amman:
Hema Malini's views were a bit cryptic, while Zeenat's was straight-forward. Zeenat's english had a lot of accent attached to it. I think this American accent might have distracted the viewers from listening to what she said on camera. My friend felt the same, while watching Zeenat speaking, he got irritated with her accent-part. But I felt accent part is pardonable for someone who has stayed close to 20 years in USA. As for the content she spoke was much better than Hema Malini.

Movies by Weekend

The Alamo:

Ordinary movie.
Dennis Quaid and Billy Bob Thornton play American patriots in this movie. This movie sings about american-jingoism - tells us all the story of how Texas was born!

Chandramukhi:

Rajni movie.
Tinge of Sherlock Holmes-style and Byomkesh Bakshi-style explanation of events - makes this movie interesting.
Another movie which dared to be different was 'alavandhan'. In 'alavandan', Kamal Hassan choreographed interesting sequence of events including the gory animated-fight sequences (Note: Kill Bill 1 had a similar fight sequences). Kamal was quite certain that censors would cut those gory fight sequences, so he took the animation route. Guess, Quentin Tarantino also did the same!

Both 'alavandan' and 'chandramukhi' had a not-so-usual-storyline, but the disappointing aspect in both these movies is the 'comedy'! Both these movies lacked the 'sensitivity-angle' when dealing with topics like 'split-personality' or 'schizophrenia' and followed the formulaic-cinema route. In 'alavandan' the psychopath-Kamal looked like a prankster in the climax segment of the movie.

The Peacemaker:

Movie in the Jerry Bruckheimer mould.
Seems like movies like this just keep coming out of Hollywood day-in day-out! Of course, entertaining one.

Closer:

Good movie.
Found this movie to be interesting and the leading ladies were gorgeous (Natalie Portman and Julia Roberts). Guess, Julia Roberts gels well into Brit based movies.(include: Notting Hill)

Young and Innocent:

This is the first time I saw an Alfred Hitchcock movie.
Nothing extra-ordinary about this movie. It was a fairly decent thriller, except that you know what the next scene is going to be!

Pink Floyd's 'Fearless'

Pink Floyd's song 'Fearless' has a 'chorus' to end. The last time when I saw Liverpool playing a match in EPL I heard the same chorus-tune which comes in the song 'Fearless'. This song seems to be a regular in every English football matches(whether it is the National team or club teams and infact even during cricket matches).

Source of 'You will never walk alone' chorus song:
click here

Me myself and Irine, The Guide and Jewel Thief

Me Myself and Irine:

Yet another Farelly movie. I think the worst Farelly movie must have been their last movie 'Stuck on You' which starred Matt Damon.

Music Videos of 'The Guide' and 'Jewel Thief':

'The Guide' music videos has the best of everything
i. a beautiful 'Waheeda Rahman'
ii. smart Dev Anand (has a vague resemblence to Elvis Presley and Gregory Peck)
iii. great music
iv. No overacting by both the stars
Hoping to see movie 'The Guide' soon. This movie is based on a book with the same name by RK Narayan.
The first RK Narayan book I read was 'Swami and his friends'. I read this book in a public library and found it very hard to control my laughs while reading at all those comic sequences in this book!

'Jewel Thief' in contrast to 'The Guide' seem to have an overacting Dev Anand with those crazy antics( I had first seen these antics by a Dev Anand lookalike in MTV Fully Faltoo) and Vyjantimala's over madeup face :-(

Nostalgia irks!

There is something about Mary:

Good movie.
Ben Stiller fits the bill as an 'under-achiever overly-self-conscious naive person'.

Thirteen Going On Thirty:

Good movie.
I had little or no expectations of seeing a good movie to start with. Thought it is going to be one of those regular teen-girl movie. But this wasnt. Mark Ruffalo was a great foil to the character played by Jennifer Garner. In some of the quick close-ups Jennifer Garner has a vague resemblence to Steven Teller of Aerosmith band! Some of the soundtracks in this movie were really good. To list a few Madonna's "Crazy for you" and Pachelbel's "Pachelbel - Canon in D".

It really is a great place to be i.e to visit nostalgia and be back. But, it is really good if the stay doesnt last long. Because going back to nostalgia makes you forget the present ( which none of us can afford to )!

This Advertisement Rocks

Check this link:
http://www.epica-awards.com/assets/epica/2004/winners/film/flv/11071.htm

Few more Movies and arbitrary stuff

Mulan:
Good movie from Walt Disney stable.
Eddie Murphy has lent his voice to Mushu( a dragon) in this movie. Till Eddie Murphy came - the movie was a bit drab, but after Eddie Murphy comes-in the movie went bazooka!

The day after tomorrow:
Good movie.
Roland Emmerich has scared one-and-all with this movie. Since geography was one of my favourite subjects in school, while watching this movie, when all those geography jargons were mentioned, I took a trip down the lane trying to remember my geography lessons and the great time I had learning those.
Wonder why any disastor movie needs to have New York as the host!

Warriors of Heaven and Earth:
Ordinary movie.
To me, still 'The Hero' seems to be the best Chinese movie I had ever seen. This movie had AR Rahman as the music director. Nothing significant about his music.

Bad Santa:
Good movie.
Expected this to be a comedy movie, but as the story went on it looked more of a black comedy. Movie was enjoyable!

Discreet Discoveries made in Indian music videos:

Made an interesting discovery, Perizaad appears on a Lucky Ali music video for the album 'sifar', in this video Lucky Ali comes as a clown.

Another discovery is that Farhan Akhtar happens to be the music video director for Shankar Mahadevan's song 'Breathless'. Guess Farhan and Shankar Mahadevan's friendship took-off after this when Shankar-Ehsan-Loy did the music for Farhan's debut directorial movie 'Dil Chahta Hai'.