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 )!

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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'.

More movies - this weekend

Aladdin:

Ordinary movie.
Trivia: Robin Williams has lent his voice for Genie!
In this movie, there is a lot of Indian influence - girls with kumkum (aka bindhis aka pottu), few of the characters with the typical sethji kind of looks.

Reservoir Dogs:
Good movie. Quentin Tarantino's style written all over the movie. Guess, Tarantino's movies will never reach Oscars thanks to his adoration of violence and obscene dialogues - this movie had lots of it. Movies that go to Oscars invariably have this 'feel-good' content and I guess, Tarantino wont really make those kind of movies. Wonder how 'Kaante' was?('Kaante' an hindi movie is said to have the same story as 'reservoir dogs').

Shawshank Redemption:
Great movie.
Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman were great all through the movie. The final few minutes reminded me of 'The usual suspects' last-twist. Tim Robbins was good even in 'Bull Durham' - but then his bigger co-star Kevin Costner stole most of the limelight. I felt Tim Robbins was ordinary in the Clint Eastwood movie 'Mystic River', but his performance in 'Arlington Road' was real good . But, 'Shawshank redemption' has to be his best-ever. Feel the same for Morgan Freeman as well, his other movies including his latest one with Clint Eastwood 'Million Dollar Baby' just wasnt in the same class as this movie.

KwK with Vivek Oberoi and John Abraham:

Vivek was tight-lipped and made the show uninteresting. John Abraham just stole the show all the way. John Abraham during the chat said that 'he is a director's actor' - think it is very difficult to be one of such kind. Guess, the actor has to call the shots at some point of time - because in Hindi cinema, I think it is saleability of actors that still counts and not that of the plot. Director just has to move the plot around the main-actor and not the other way around. This also applies to our politics and cricket where politicians and cricketers score over their parties and teams respectively.

The Boondock Saints:

Oridinary movie. The movie started more like a comedy movie under the backdrop of mafiadom. But soon took an ugly turn when the movie became more like a 'right' vs 'wrong' and 'what are values' type. So, became boring and predictable in the end. Ashok Amritraj is one of the Associate Producers of this movie. Similar to most of Ashok's movies it has lots of action-sequences.

Little Terrorist:

I guess this movie went for the Best Oscar in short-film category. A Pakistani boy comes into Indian territory by mistake and gets back to his country with an Indian's help.
Trivia: Guess all the technicians worked for free as per the request by Ashwin(the director) who shot this movie with a very small budget.

Cheaper by the Dozen:

Good movie.
Movie mostly talks about 'small-town values'.

Ghost and the Darkness:

Good movie.
Val Kilmer was outstanding. I think Michael Doglous during his cameo was overacting, he also happens to be the executive producer of this movie. Some of the dialogue delivery pattern of Michael Douglous is similar to the tamil actor Sivaji Ganesan. Om Puri plays a listless role. Some of the scenes including the scene where lion pounces on Val Kilmer's wife and kid(during his nightmare) was really well shot.

Alien movies :(

Encounters of the Third Kind:

Ordinary movie.
I remember another ordinary movie of same genre titled 'The Signs'. Both Manoj Night Shyamalan(dir of signs) and Spielberg built the plot in an exciting fashion, but faltered in the final hurdle by showing 'aliens' on screen.

Starship troopers:

Bad movie.
Most Alien movies are boring. In this movie, one compensation inspite of all those gory-scenes is 'Denise Richards is there in this movie looking-really stunning'

Boiler Room

Good movie. The movie has a good starcast including Giovanni Ribisi, Vin Diesel and Ben Affleck(guest role). Giovanni Ribisi(GR) really stole the movie from the other stars. The dialogue between GR and his father were good. And the monologue by Ben Affleck was good, but Ben could have actually been part of the film rather than a lecture and go kind of person.

One sequence in this movie that is the soul of the story is , when GR was 10 years old he fell down from his bicycle and got badly hurt in his leg. When his father found his child to be crying with pain because of the fall from bicycle, he initially got stunned and then the father slapped the kid. Later GR's father says that he slapped GR to let GR forget the pain of the bicycle-fall.

Vin Diesel repeating the dialogues of Michael Douglous from the movie 'Wall Street' was also good.

Equilibrium

This movie is more of a Matrix take-off. All the masala and with the usual dose of action scenes whether it is of martial arts or the final pistol-fight. Surprisingly, this movie doesnt have a big star-cast. Wondering how it might have fared in the box-office - me never heard of this movie before this!

Joe Pesci

I saw 'My Cousin Vinny' - Great movie! I was expecting Joe Pesci to come up more of an Italian don kind of role, but was disappointed when Pesci was shown more of a struggling-lawyer. But as the movie started moving - it was more of a 'as good as it gets' kind. Me enjoyed all the sequences in this movie thoroughly. I remember Joe Pesci playing the role of an Italian don smattering some expletives in almost all the movies that I have seen him act. So, this rather funny-role really caught me by surprise. Marisa Tomei's cameo was outstanding and she looked stunning!

George Carlin(GC), a famous stand-up comedian once during his regular stand-up dose about 'Religion' said something like this:

GC: You know who I pray to? Joe Pesci. Joe Pesci. Two reasons; first of all, I think he's a good actor. Okay. To me, that counts. Second; he looks like a guy who can get things done. Joe Pesci doesn't fuck around. Doesn't fuck around. In fact, Joe Pesci came through on a couple of things that God was having trouble with. For years I asked God to do something about my noisy neighbor with the barking dog. Joe Pesci straightened that cock-sucker out with one visit.
I noticed that of all the prayers I used to offer to God, and all the prayers that I now offer to Joe Pesci, are being answered at about the same 50 percent rate. Half the time I get what I want. Half the time I don't. Same as God 50-50. Same as the four leaf clover, the horse shoe, the rabbit's foot, and the wishing well. Same as the mojo man. Same as the voodoo lady who tells your fortune by squeezing the goat's testicles. It's all the same; 50-50. So just pick your superstitions, sit back, make a wish and enjoy yourself.
And for those of you that look to the Bible for it's literary qualities and moral lessons; I got a couple other stories I might like to recommend for you. You might enjoy The Three Little Pigs. That's a good one. It has a nice happy ending. Then there's Little Red Riding Hood. Although it does have that one X-rated part where the Big Bad Wolf actually eats the grandmother. Which I didn't care for, by the way. And finally, I've always drawn a great deal of moral comfort from Humpty Dumpty. The part I liked best: "and all the king's horses, and all the king's men couldn't put Humpty together again." That's because there is no Humpty Dumpty, and there is no God. None. Not one. Never was. No God.
Source: http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:IPIdkTKw_DoJ:www.positiveatheism.org/hist/quotes/carlin.htm+joe+pesci+george+carlin&hl=en

Remember the titans

Out and out Jerry Bruckheimer kind of movie. Lots of masala.
Before Indian team played against the mighty Aussies in 2001(the same test series where Laxman scored 281), Indian team went for a special preview of this movie. I guess this special show was in Sathyam cinemas in Madras. Soon after the movie, John Wright praised this movie and said it gave them lots of lessons on teamwork.

Monty Python - The Meaning of Life

Did not enjoy the movie. After seeing this - thought that Monty Python is a hyped-up movie but later one friend told me that this is certainly not the best Monty Python movie. Maybe the reason why I really didnt enjoy this movie could be due to other Brit Brit/American parodies that I had seen earlier. One name that comes to my mind thinking about Brit comedy/parody is 'the benny hill show'. 'the Benny hill show' is good but somehow I never enjoyed the song-segment that is always a regular in his show. Hopefully, the next Monty Python movie I will be seeing is a better one!

Scarface

Bad movie. Acting talents of Michelle Pfeifer and Al Pacino are wasted. Not sure when this movie was made - could be early eighties. Al Pacino is more of a rogue don than a watchful sedate don he played in Godfather. This role didnt suit him at all. Quick trivia: Oliver Stone has written the screenplay of this movie.

How ashamed are you about your friends?

Phoebe in 'Friends' series is not really a good-singer but still persists with her singing in 'Central Perk'. Not many in Central-Perk appreciate her singing-exploits, but still her buddies appreciate each-and-every one of her songs. Monica is not very good in this false-appreciation that Ross, Chandler, Joey, Rachael - so she goes before Phoebe and tells Phoebe the truth that 'she is not a good singer'. Phoebe on hearing this says 'I know I am not a good singer, but still I want you and my other buddies to support me in whatever I do'.

Liked the above sequence. The above sequence is a common occurance in everyone's lives i.e expecting appreciation from our friends for the various actions-we-perform nevermind it is good or bad.

Does adverse criticism help anyone? No, me thinks adverse criticism encourages one to go on the defensive. Defensiveness kills the confidence and thus the person refuses to take risks and thus will gain comfort in the way things-are. Guess, it is better if people start behaving the normal way rather than the defensive way! As to answer the question i.e 'should you tell the brutal-truth to your friend?' - No, I guess your friend knows himself/herself better than anyone around!

Sex and the city

Is 'Sex and the city' a cliched programme?
Always wondered why it is that only upper middle class white working career-woman like Carrie always turn-out to be the mouth-piece of feminism? Almost all tele-serials or movies which talks about topics like feminism feature only the priviliged women(from the upper-strata of the society) as the protagonist and not the under-privileged! And the issues that appear in such teleserials are junk but nevertheless entertaining.

Around The World In 80 Days, Laws of Attraction, Cody Banks

Around The World In 80 Days

Ordinary movie. Not the usual Jackie Chan movie.

Laws of Attraction, Identity and Agent Cody Banks were the few movies I saw lately in TV. Guess, Laws of Attraction was the best among the above three. Laws of Attraction reminded me of another movie I saw lately titled 'Intolerable Cruelty' because of the divorce-lawyer connection. Got to say, rest of the movie was completely unlike 'Intolerable Cruelty'. 'Intolerable Cruelty' was really cruel on all its viewers. Only saving grace was the beautiful Catherine Zeta Jones. In 'Laws of Attraction' both Pierce Brosnan and Julian Moore were amazing. Pierce Brosnan seems to be tailor-made for such movies i.e romantic-roles. All his non-James Bond or spy-kind of movies seems to be good.

Be Cool, Vertical Limit and KwK

Be Cool:

Good movie. This is the sequel to the movie 'Get Shorty' which was also good. Lots of major-stars in the movie. Best part of the movie include 'the black gangsters who also happen to be R and B artists'.

Vertical Limit:

Good movie. I had earlier seen this movie some 2-3 years back, so this time when I watched this movie it was more a 'total recall' - nevertheless enjoyed it!

KwK - Aishwarya and Sanjay Leela Bhansali

Aishwarya was amazing with her polite responses all through the show. I think Jayalalitha also responds to most-interviews in the same way. Jayalalitha blames media for all the bad publicity she gets - even if the mistake is hers. Jayalalitha escapes from answering any personal questions. And Jaya hardly responds to any direct question.

Karan provoked Aishwarya by mentioning 'Salman Khan' again and again. But Aishwarya politely ignored all questions even-vagely related to Salman. It was quite surprising to see Aishwarya calm and composed all through the show. Lots of embarrassments for her all through the show - one of those embarrassments goes like this:
K: Most under-rated actor in Hindi cinema
A: Vivek Oberoi

Later Karan asked similar rapid-fire question to Sanjay
K: Most over-rated actor in Hindi cinema
S: Vivek Oberoi

Immediately cameras focussed on her, she just sat there with a stupid smile.

Guess, Aishwarya will be killing herself for agreeing to come on KwK.

Earlier when Jaya had an interview with another Karan i.e Karan Thapar - Jaya got so irritated with the constant harping questions that she kind of staged a walkout and expressed her disappointment with the interview. But Aishwarya beat Jaya by being cool and composed throughout the show!