Movies by April Fools Day

Love Story:

Kind of liked this movie. It was a really clean movie and the theme music was good.
Remember hearing one Landmark final quiz question based on this theme music, guess this theme must have been picked
from some Bach's symphony.

The Hitchhiker's guide to Galaxy:

This movie appeared to be more like a TV serial or talk-show that they show on TV.
The comedy part in this movie was a bit stale.
Though the last 15 minutes of this movie was good.
I think I will try to read this book, which I feel will be more interesting than this movie-adaptation.

Grapes of Wrath:

Really good movie, based on Steinback novel.
Quite sad how rural poor or the rural unemployed gets manipulated by all for their own ends.
The rural poor have nothing to do except for moving to prosperous regions. And the minute they migrate, they join the nobodies of this world. They are paid lowest wages because they dont have another job. If the law or the employer uses his muscle they just have to be spectators against this injustice, if they talk-back they are silenced.
The parting-off conversation between the mom and the rebel son was interesting, the son wants to change the exploitation of the poor folks and mom wants him to stay with her, but realises that he also cant stay with her, because he s a bit of an idealist himself so he would be off-place here with her where she and her other family members just crawl before the mighty since they dont have a job.

Memoirs of Geisha:

Not a good movie, wonder where the hype came from.
The lead characters didnt look like Japanese i.e Zhang Zhiyi and Michelle Yeoh. Though Zhang Zhiyi looked brilliant without make-up. Rob Marshall was quite pathetic in Hollywoodising many of the components in this movie. The bright colours all around seemed to be too artificial. For similar reasons I found 'The Last Samurai' movie too nauseating, there is hardly any realism in any of the sequences. The role of Michelle Yeoh seems to be similar to the role of Rekha in the movie 'Kamasutra'.
Akiro Kurasawa movie 'Drunken Angel' was top-class Japanese movie, guess one cant see a better Japanese movie than that..

Origin of 'Charlie' (nickname for Viet Cong soldiers)

Got interested in the trivia related to the origin of the word 'Charlie' that was used to refer to Viet Cong soldiers after coming across an article about 'Apolcalypse Now' and the similarlity between Kurtz and Pol Pot.

Check the url about Viet Cong
and NATO phonetic alphabets to understand the origin of this word 'Charlie'.

Movies by Ugadi

Mathrubhoomi - A nation without woman

Quite a shocking-futuristic movie.
Explores the option of polyandry in Indian hindu rural society because bride is hard-to-find for elgible bachelors, which is already plagued with its caste-conflicts.
Latesh Chaudhari as the bride looked real good in this movie, kind of resembles Neha Dhupia.

A fish called Wanda:

Good-racy fun movie.
Jamie Lee Curtis was looking good in this movie.
The American vs Brit fight featuring Ken Kline made up superb viewing.
Ken Kline stole most of the comedy parts in this movie.
Brit-accent also made up entertaining listening all through the movie.

Being Cyrus:

Good movie.
The plot is an oft-repeated one and extremely simple one, but this movie had loads of style with its chic-makeover, one can compare this movie with the presentation style of Rang De Basanti. And the movie had super actors and the dialogue, the background score and the narration by the protagonist all made the movie a pleasure to see. Saif Ali Khan, Boman Irani and Simone Singh had interesting roles-to-play in this movie, though its out-and-out a director's movie.
One worry is that I did not understand much of the Parsi-language(guess Gujarati) that was spoken during some phases in this movie.

Movies by weekend

Monty Python - The Life of Brian and The Holy Grail:

Saw both these movies back-to-back. Guess, both the movies had a fairly decent share of humour(political).
But, these two movies still fall-short of most other parodies or spoofs.
Guess, Adam Sandler or Leslie Nielson or Rowan Atkinson will always be the god of all spoofs or parodies.

Hazaron Khwaishon Aisi:

Good movie.
Concepts like 'naxalism' or 'emergency or police-raj' or 'absolute corruption' are handled in this movie. It takes you down the memory lane.. i.e into days where Indian democracy really fought against evils-within.

I feel naxalism wasnt deftly handled, one reason could be due the large-number of key-characters in this movie. Quite difficult to manage a movie which has many protagonists, since the story always shifts from one key character to another. No director could ever do justice to plots which has many characters. Sudhir Mishra though has tried his best to pull off a coup.

Had Siddharth been the protagonist or Vikram been the protagonist then things would have made spectacular viewing, but here both of them happen to be key characters and thus no justice is done to the ideology(or lack of) to both these characters.

The female-lead Chitrangada Singh was beautiful in this movie.

Taxi Driver:

Good movie.
The work-fatigue that was showcased in this movie by Robert De Niro as an over-worked taxi-driver was kind of similar to another Scorecese movie 'Bringing out the dead' in which Nicholas Cage also goes through similar motions, in which Cage suffers with overworked syndrome as an ambulance driver.

Brokeback Mountain:

Seems to have been a very difficult movie to pull-off on gay relationships.

La Mala Education:

Another movie which involves gay-relationships, the origins of this can be traced to catholic school.
This is a Pedro Almodovar movie.

Yes Minister - Benji episode:

Classic Brit-comedy.
Enjoyed seeing this small episode which makes fun of bureaucrats and how they manipulate politicians

Petronas Advertisements

Petronas advertisements seems to be quite good. Some are funny, but most of them seem to be values-oriented.

Got Marooned

Liked Maroon's song 'She will be loved...'.
Check out the lyrics here

I feel the singing style of Maroon's leadsinger seems to be kind of similar to Coldplay's leadsinger Chris Martin. Some of Chris Martin's songs has this swooning ability thanks to its mushy-factor. Also, Darren Hayes is another singer who also has this falsetto-factor.

Sweet Home Alabama

While listening to 'Sweet Home Alabama' by Lynyrd Skynyrd, first thing that came across my mind was 'Forrest Gump'. Really cant find words to appreciate the super song-picks in that movie. Dont think there will be ever be another movie like Forrest Gump.

Soon, while listening to the same song for the 4th or 5th time, the 'Forrest Gump' part of the flash-memory evaded from me and I was wondering how come Governor Wallace's name is coming in this song. So started googling for this song's lyrics, but could not figure out much info behind the context of this song.

So tried wiki for the 'Sweet Home Alabama', got a good education of American history yet again.

Movies by weekend

The Shining:

This movie is certainly not a Kubrick classic, but more like a Stephen King-one.
The movie had its share of usual pregnant silences which is quite a cliche in most horror movies. The best part of the movie was the trolley shots following the kid riding the tiny cycle.

Found a small technical defect in this movie. When the movie starts with Jack Nicholson driving his car into this hotel-resort in the middle of nowhere, one gets to see some amazing landscapes, forests and valleys, but sadly one also gets to see the shadow of the helicopter from which the aerial shot is taken. Surprisingly this appeared in a Kubrick movie, but I am told this shadow-defect can be seen only in the DVD and not in other prints.

Locks, Stocks and Smoking Barrels:

Guy Ritchie movies are simply awesome. The Brit way of speaking English makes good hearing. And the plot looked more like a Crazy Mohan-style, which made it really entertaining. The movie had a good mix of good-old revenge plot alongwith comedy-sequences.

Crash:

Movie had dark-shades all-around, but in the end brought in the usual feel-good tempo. I think this feel-good factor might have helped this movie clinch the Oscar. The movie was brilliant in the way so many different characters were shown , their stories, kind of reminded me of the movie 'The Traffic' another spectacularly shot movie!

Funny Clip - Call Center

This is a short clip titled Call Center. It runs for just 12 minutes, but it is packaged real good!

Guess, it's all in the mind

Lately came across a theory called 'Johari Window. Take a look into that article, it sounds interesting. I could not add anything much beyond that observation. According to this technique, it allows a person to open up and be brave to accept one's vulnerabilities and tell the same to others. Also, it also requests one to be open to suggestions coming from strangers.

Following Johari technique is requesting a person to walk naked on the road. Guess, for someone who has got so much used to fancy clothes or even simple basic clothes, the very idea of walking naked will put one-off from this!

Movies by weekend

Fun with Dick and Jane:

Movie was fiercely ordinary. Not the typical Jim Carey comedy, but some sequences were good. Including one sequence where Jim Carey gets irritated with the way his lawn was bereaved of green grass and is dirt-brown. He resorts to stealing of grass from his neighbours and then plants the stolen grass in his barren lawn, after completing this planting he goes to sleep. And the next morning when Tea Leoni wakes up, she sees Jim Carey's soil-browned hand-print on her shirt.

Brother Bear:

Ordinary animation fare. Typical feel-good kind, seems like an overkill with most animation movies totally turning out to be out and out feel-good kind.

For a Few Dollars More:

The villain role in this movie reminded me of mannerism of Gabbar Singh in 'Sholay'. Guess, this movie has to be the inspiration for 'Sholay'. Really enjoyed this movie, classical western movie! The simple background music, the long stares, the eerie silence once-in-a-while, the gun-battle, the macho-style and most importantly the barren land all have created a perfect setting for this movie.

Fiddler of the Roof:

Movie is made out of a west side story on the same name. The Soviet-Russian and Jewish context kept me watching the movie. Poignant tale!

Apocalypse Now:

Thought the movie was out-of-place i.e the ending part. The movie had some really super sequences like the helicopter bombing and napalm spray. Having seen other Vietnam movies, I feel nothing comes close to 'Full Metal Jacket' and the way Kubrick tells how ordinary people hope to do something extra-ordinary in their lifetime and when faced with such extra-ordinary circumstances how they wilt under pressure. Kubrick is a master in that!
Francis Ford Coppola pulled off a casting coup. Though I felt both Sheen and Marlon Brando were not so suited for their respective roles! The idea that you have to really rout out the enemy completely, inorder to avoid further conflicts sounds logical, though sounds terribly absurd! Remember my friend Bugjhi, telling something along similar lines in one of our usual marathon chats. For someone to tell something like this, they have to either horribly stupid or a unbelievably intelligent! And the worst part is I could not judge whether it is stupid or intelligent.

The HitchHiker's Guide to Galaxy:

Got to see this BBC serial(first part), yet to read the novel though. Will try to see the remaining five parts...

The Incredibles:

Enjoyable one, with some quick action.

On the Waterfront:

Movie seemed to have been released in a time when USA was fast-moving to identify themselves as a capitalistic country and went cynical about socialism or communism. The movie's feel-good ending doesnt seem to fit-in well.

The leftists, socialists (equivalent of Democrats in USA) are slowly on the rise everywhere in the industrialized world thanks to their non-rising economies of late.
Eshwar might sure will have a point or two on this.

Drunker Angel:

Classy Akiro Kurasawa movie. The shot of sewage simply epitomises the movie. Seems to be in the same mould as 'the Bicycle Thief' which also tries to indicate to us that big-cities are not kind to all its citizens.

Stand by Me:

Another classy movie. Movie had a few interesting sequences including the last line the protagonist types on his computer telling us that he did not have a true friend lately and the last time he had a good friend was when he was 12 and poses the same question to us. Another sequence in which the boy-protagonist tells the story about a fat-kid who got his revenge! This movie is based on a Stephen King novel.

Dr. Zhivago:

This movie looked more like an epic just like David Lean's 'Passage to India'. Not really a fan of such epic movies, which kept going-on-and-on without an end in-sight. This movie also has the usual long shots, wide landscapes, stillness that is there in most of David Lean's movies.

Chronicles of Narnia:

This movie looked like a poor-cousin of Lord of the Rings, not just the story, but even the visuals. Guess, the budget must have been on shoe-string.

Hanuman:

This movie was a total bore. Though, the songs that appeared in this movie were good.

Jack Black simply rocks

Lately heard the song 'This is the greatest and best song in the world... Tribute' by Jack Black( Tenacious D ). Thanks to my generous cousin!

The respect I have for Jack Black is growing since the time I saw the movie 'Orange County'... and then.... 'School of Rock'.....and then 'King Kong'... and lately this song 'This is the greatest song.... '. Fellow has to be multi-talented to do something of this kind. Also, heard another comedy actor's song lately i.e Jim Carey's 'Somebody to love'. Think this song was part of the soundtrack for the movie 'Ace Ventura'.

Everytime I listen to Jack Black song, I feel he is referring to Led Zeppelin's 'Stairway to Heaven' as 'the greatest song in the world....'!

Movies by weekend

Flight Plan:

Fast paced masala movie. Jodie Foster looked a bit too old and haggard.

Rainman:

'Yeah.. Yeah...' and Who's on First were great fun to hear.

Dustin Hoffman really stole the thunder all the way.
In phases, the characterisation of Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise reminded me of Kamal and Madhavan in the movie 'Anbe Sivam'.
Lots of sequences in this movie including the casino sequences were an absolute delight to see.

Secretary:

This movie starred the beautiful Maggie Gyllenhaal. The story was kind of drab.

A Killer Within:

The movie was a bit too predictable, looked more like a B-Grade movie!

Rang De Basanti:

This movie was stylishly made, just like Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra's earlier movie 'Aks'. And this movie was also lucky to have had a good starcast. This movie's ending looked more like a Shankar-style ending with all the public supporting the heroes' actions. The movie had a slightly overweight Madhavan and slightly cool Sidharth. Sidharth was lucky to have got this role. Aamir was a bit too old for this role. The time spent on comedy throughout the entire first half was kind of cliched. Rahman's songs were below part except for one or two songs. Rahman's punjabi, arabian tunes looked like plagiarised ones.

How to Steal a Million:

This movie was good fun to watch with Audrey Hepburn stealing the show rightaway with her innocence. Audrey must have been a role model for actors like Saroja Devi.

Goodbye Lenin:

Saw this German movie without English sub-titles. So, the dialogues didnt make much sense to me. The movie shows the impact Communism had on East Germany and how East Germany quickly adopted capitalism in their land. Movie was slightly in the slower side.

T M Krishna @ IIMB

Thanks to a friend @ IIMB, went to Carnatic kutcheri after long time.

Went to the venue a few minutes ahead of TM Krishna's kutcheri, so got the chance to see Mishra brothers in action(of course not for long).
Earlier I had been to T M Krishna's homepage and so got interested in seeing him concert. Actually, never listened to him earlier via tapes/mp3. So went there to the OAT venue with interest.

Both me and TM Krishna were introduced to a major hitch in 'microphone'.
The microphone system was off-the-mark and so the concert started maybe 30 minutes late from the scheduled time. But that was not all, soon TM Krishna and his co-artists started complaining about the microphone system. According to them, there seems to be some humming sound which kept coming up, when he was singing. TM Krishna's and his co-artists' irritation was for all to see. After the initial song 'Vatapi Ganapathim..', TM Krishna said 'I cant continue like this' and said it is difficult for him to sing. He soon requested all the audience to come front near the dias and said he will sing without microphone.

Thought it was a wonderful decision by TM Krishna, cause I was also sensing that the sound system was quite dismal. There seems to be too much of feedback(same as the ones we hear in old-style rock concerts), resonance and sometimes strange 'dub ... dub...'. I think there were too many microphones close to each other and that probably might be the reason. The microphone-man came close to Krishna and asked Krishna what the problem was. TM Krishna slightly rudely responded, 'I am not the technical person here, you should be telling me 'what the problem is!''. That made up a rather sorry viewing, imagine losing your cool infront of your fans. That was not the end for this rather sorry episode, soon the compere requested TM Krishna with folded hands to continue singing with the existing sound system. Thought maybe this compere need not have embarassed TM Krishna by requesting this. Poor man TM Krishna must have felt terribly sorry for no fault of his and went to on to sing with the rather stupid system. It was more like a Led Zeppelin/Pink Floyd concert, with feedback thrown in now-and-then :-( ( of course unintentionally by the artist)

For a moment, I was wondering how is this microphone supposed to be that important and soon thought about those Pink floyd's rock-concert videos. Pink Floyd was one of the techno-savy bands of their time and they were good musicians alongwith good sound engineers. They trusted no third party sound system or equipment, so they always carried their our gadgets for whatever concert they went whether it is in UK or outside UK.

Concert was okay, considering all the sound-hitches. Was expecting him to sing some Bharathiyar song or maybe any Tamil song, guess, he did not sing any tamil song.

Ripper of a Ranji Final

Guess, all of us are waiting to witness a ripper of a Ranji final between Bengal and Uttar Pradesh.

Bengal has a few India-rejects like Deep DasGupta, S S Paul(fairly decent line-and-length bowler in NZ-style), LakshmiRatan Shukla and Rohan Gavaskar. Of course, without Ganguly this team looks out-of-colour, but still they have experienced campaigners in their team which will help their tital-cause.

Uttar Pradesh has a bunch of prospects like Suresh Raina, Kaif, Piyush Chawla and JP Yadav(not exactly a India-prospect considering his age and his baldline ;-) ). They have an old workhorse in Ashish Winston Zaidi.

UP will start as the favourites thanks to their astounding win over the perennial favourites Mumbai! UP also has some amazing talent in Raina and Piyush, hopefully these guys get a good break into the Indian team, with Greg Chappel keen to push-in youngsters into Indian team!

Movies by Pongal-weekend

Mr. and Mrs. Smith:

Ordinary movie. Angelina Jolie was the saving grace for this movie. 'Jolie' in French means 'Beauty'.

Winner - Vadivelu Rocks:

Thought Vadivelu kind of tries to act/speak like Vijaykanth i.e the slow way of delivering dialogues ungalalam partha enakku pavama irukku.... and vendam... enakku kovam varanthu...
But all these dialogues suited Vadivelu and from then-on Vadivelu has successfully adopted this style in his other movies as well.

Memento:

Memento had an interesting way of telling the story i.e end-to-beginning. But the story is cryptic, leaving questions like 'who is the murderer of Guy Pearce's wife'. Guess, Memento's claim to fame is that it happened to be the inspiration of Surya's character in the movie 'Ghajani'.

Kung Fu Hustle:

At last got to see the complete movie 'Kung Fu Hustle ', but this time in Chinese itself without no English sub-titles. The climax of this movie was a good spoof on how Neo(Keanu Reeves) went to sky far-up-above and then listens to some divine signs and then fights back his opponents in 'The Matrix Revolutions'. Guess, the best part about all the Chinese movies and Western movies is that they have a superb way of 'hero getting revenge over his enemies'.

American Pie - Band Camp:

Ordinary movie. The movie was below par for the genre of American teen comedy.

Bicycle Thief:

Vittorio De Sica's 'Bicycle Thief' was extra-ordinary.
The best part in this movie was the last five minutes of the movie, when the protagonist tries to steal a bicyle after getting disillusioned about the prospect of finding back his lost bicyle. The decision of the protagonist to steal a bicyle in the end made our protagonist more human and vulnerable to mistakes. And it was really disappointing to see him get caught by police/public in this act.
Another sequence which made good viewing is when the protogonist after joining his job, thinks that he has a secure future and tries to advise his wife to start believing in themselves rather than spend money in religious activities.
But, when he loses his bicycle, he himself pays his money to the soothsayer.
Guess, this movie inspired Satyajit Ray to enter film industry and make movies.
Hoping to see Satyajit Ray movies soon!

15 Park Avenue:

This Aparna Sen movie was lucky to have so many good actors. Best of the lot has to be Shabana Azmi.
The ending of the movie was more of a puzzle, but nevertheless this is a novel attempt in Indian movies.

S J Surya and his antics:

During this Pongal, whichever channel one sees whether it is Raj or Vijay or Pothigai or Sun or K or Jaya, it s all the same face which greets us 'Happy Pongal' - S J Surya. S J Surya's interviews were great fun. In one interview, he said all his movies has a 'message' and went on to explaining what is the message in all the movies he has directed.

Mumbai Knocked Off

Atlast, Mumbai is close to being knocked-off from this year's Ranji trophy. I think Mumbai is close to Australia in getting the distinction of being the 'team-to-beat'.

Sometimes, Mumbai has been awfully lucky to have Sachin Tendulkar during the quarters/semis/finals, who might have missed all the other matches and then play some blinder of a knock during these stages and massacre lesser grade bowlers! Tamil Nadu, a strong Ranji team lately, has been in the receiving end thanks to Sachin's flying visit knocks. This time, Mumbai is struggling against a talented Uttar Pradesh(UP) thanks to no Sachin or Wasim Jaffer. The desperation was there for all to see when Karsan Ghavri, Manager of Mumbai Ranji team requested board to release Wasim Jaffer from India duties if he is not in the playing eleven for playing for Mumbai during their crucial semis match agains UP, inspite of their home advantage.

UP seems to have some talented bowlers. One of them is Piyush Chawla, a leg-spinner. Piyush has been highly rated by lots of current and former India players including Anil Kumble. Hope Piyush makes an impact in international-circuit ones Kumble retires.

The other semis might also be an interesting affair thanks to no-superstars syndrome. There is no Pathan or Zaheer Khan or Sourov Ganguly. So, things are bound to be competitive.

One good pattern that I have noticed in most of the Ranji games is that, there seems to be lots of result-oriented matches for a Four-Day match. And home teams are keen to make sporting wickets(read bowling ones). Only if, India prepares bowling wickets for international matches....

The 8 things tag

I have been tagged by AFJ. The rules of the game are:

1. The tagged victim has to come up with 8 different points of their perfect lover.
2. Need to mention the sex of the target.
3. Tag 8 victims to join this game & leave a comment on their comments saying they’ve been tagged.
4. If tagged the 2nd time, there’s no need to post again.

My woman should:

1. Be bold
2. Be careless about her behaviour in public(instinctive)
3. Must talk-the-talk
4. Must have interest in sports/fitness
5. Must not be overtly obsessed with cooking
6. Must be enthusiastic about music/movies
7. Be independent
8. Be rational


I really had to think(extremely difficult job) for long for this. Passing across the baton to:

1. Ashok
2. Prasie
Trust Prasie will have lot to contribute :) !

The remaining six places are wild-cards open for visitors. Please feel free to take it.

Jack Black Rocks!

King Kong:

The starting 60 minutes of this Peter Jackson movie was superb thanks to Jack Black! But soon, Peter Jackson because of his 'LOTR' hangover started scripting a few wild action-sequences(gory ones) and that really took the spotlight away from what could have been a superb movie. These giant creatures and its gory activities and sometimes its really humane activities is over-exploited and Peter Jackson would have done a far better job had he made 'King Kong' off-the-screen and tried to continue to build the aura about King Kong(just like how Manoj Night Shyamalan or Hitchcock will do).

School of Rock:

This movie was good thanks to Jack Black again!
Jack Black comes across as a below-par guy just like Adam Sandler and rocks the movie. He was exceptional in a similar role like this in the movie 'Orange County' as well. The way he picked up the monitor of the class as 'manager' and african-american kid as 'security' was fun to watch!

Freaky Friday:

Movie was okay, but of course some predictable humour. Ordinary fare!

Movies by Weekend

Irreversible:

This movie was novel in the reverse way of telling story and the picturisation.
I think it is quite impossible to pick up such a simple subject and explore it so superbly. Remember seeing Is Raat Ki Subah Nahin i.e 'This night has no morning' and this movie was similar to that in telling the story as to what happened in one night.
And the way each scene starts, with concentric circles it reminds me of old tamil/hindi movies where circles go in tortoise fashion to remind us that this is a 'flashback' scene.

Abre Los Lojos or Open Your Eyes:

The cover-version of this movie happens to Cameron Crowe's 'Vanilla Sky'. Quite disappointing to find that Vanilla Sky was a scene-by-scene retake of this movie. The visuals of Alexandro Amenebar's 'Abre Los Lojos' was kind of Hollywoodish and not the usual European cinema-like, maybe the story-line would have prompted major studios to pitch-in and make it a global hit. The dream and reality also kind of reminded me of David Lynch's movies.

Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios or Women on the Verge of Nervous Breakdown:

Pedro Almodovar's movie. Antonoio Banderas comes in a young kid role. The movie was a fast-paced one and it reminded me of the usual Crazy Mohan kind of plots.

¡Átame! or Tie me up Tie me Down:

This movie has to be the original of the tamil movie 'Guna' which had Kamal in the lead role. I think Kamal had customized this role to suit his audience's tastes. This Pedro Almodovar's movie was fast-paced and enjoyable fare, of course the ending was more of a feel-good kind, which was a bit not along the expected lines had one seen 'Guna' earlier.

Pink Floyd - Live at Pompeii - Director's Cut:

Most importantly, this album has the 'Pink floyd' style in the songs, the video picturisation, the interviews. The footages related to Moon, Earth, Pompeii and other outer space footages(thanks to BBC, NASA, ESA etc.,) which were shown with the Pink Floyd's songs playing in the background, brought in a sense of abstraction that only Pink Floyd is capable of! As David Gilmour said in the interview, only they could pull off such a thing.

Scooby Doo 1, Scooby Doo 2:

Movies had nothing much to offer and thought I enjoyed the animation series in TV a lot better than this! Scooby Doo 2 had lots to offer interms of advise to viewers: 'dont forget past', 'enjoy your work not for fame/money but for the fun of it', 'try to be yourself' and more such punch-lines. Guess, a good start for 2006 in terms of listening to punch lines ;-)

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.