Aamir and The Happening

Both the movies were good.

Aamir is an outrageously well taken movie. It's gripping and fast all the way. The background score sounded familiar, but couldn't find out the source. The lead actor did an outstanding job and so did every character who appeared in this movie.

Manoj Night Shyamalan once again has come up with an interesting weird idea for a movie i.e plans do react in 'The Happening'. I really enjoyed watching 'Lord of the Rings' movie, in particular the scene in which the tress or woods or forests come to the rescue of the good against the evil. Really awesome sequence that. And so did I enjoy the 'Narnia' movies too, where they explored similar sequences. So, in fact it was so amazing to see Shyamalan explore the 'trees' and how they react to the humans. Of course few silly parts include the casting of Mark Wahlberg (a typical action hero) in this movie somehow appeared odd. Zooey Deschanel was really beautiful. She looks similar to Meg Ryan in parts and Jodie Foster in parts.

Hazara and Kites

The Kite Runner was outstanding.
Best scenes which I liked include:
a. Amir asking casually "where were you .. i was looking all around for you" to Hasan. Thought it was totally outstanding..
b. Amir trying very hard to get rid of his guilt by calling Hassan a thief.
c. Amir asking his father to back down when confronted with a Russian guard.
d. When Soraya and her parents visit the hospital. Amir telling his father, how much he is in love with Soraya.

e. And most of all I liked the way they have dealt the ethnic conflict i.e Hazara-Pashtoon conflict. Got curious and read an article in wiki on Hazaras, and glad it was amazing education for me.

Also, it was truly spectacular how the movie romanticized 'kites' and I cannot agree more, it is such a beautiful hobby really. But I thought there was a flaw in this movie in the way in which, Amir successfully cuts the other kites by not allowing more thread instead by pulling more thread towards him. My kite experience teaches the opposite i.e you have to give more thread towards the kite rather than pull the thread, in order to win the duel.
Am sure other kite exponents will agree that you really have to push the kite away from you rather than pull the kite towards you, for winning the contest. As they say in tamil, deel pannnumpothu noola vidu .. neraya evan noola vidarano avan than most of the times kite contest a win pannuvan .. (of course goes without saying manja is mandatory for the thread)

Lamppost conversations

It happens so often to me.
I would have had a really long not so productive and silly conversation with a friend (maybe in his house or my house or maybe in a playground or movie hall or bus-stand etc.,). And the time ticks real fast and soon it will be time to say goodbye. And invariably the "goodbye's" are told under a lamp post on the road side near to my friend's place or mine. I think I would have stood there before my friend all the while hoping that I will get to hear some "super truth" or "wisdom" or "totally profound" or "a mantra which will give me nirvana" or "the reason why I am born on this earth etc.,". Simply put, the objective of the entire conversation is to figure out who am i or what am i here for etc., invariably you get to hear these only from your close friends or folks, who know you better than anyone.

And just when 'goodbye' is about to be told under the lamp post, my friend utters something totally profound and we get embroiled in that topic. And both of us hate to let the conversation die, so continue on and on, but there comes the time when both of us run out of ideas and we both wonder 'what next?' and we just say "good bye" and walk our way towards our respective houses. It is so strange that the best part of our conversation invariably happens on road under a lamp post.

This hasn't happened once or twice but so many number of times and the worst part is "you feel what you went through can't possibly be nirvana" or "can't possibly be the super truth or wisdom". Since I haven't seen 'super truth' or 'nirvana' or 'wisdom', I can't possibly identify them when I see it.