Shark s Tale

A decent movie, but guess lots of hype behind this movie.
The credits that was shown during the end, was a sensational i.e lots of major Hollywood stars including Scorcese have lent their voices to the charaters in this animated movie.

Saw a curtain-raiser programme which talked about Martin Scorcese's strong bid for this Oscars' Best Director slot. I have seen his earlier movies "Casino", "Bringing out the dead" , "Gangs of New York", but didnt really enjoy any of them. Hoping to see if "the aviator" is really that good. Lots of hype all around that he will get the Best Director for "the aviator".

The usual suspects

Out of the world movie.
Last ten/five minutes is the best part of the movie.
Kevin Spacey did give the absolute knock-out punch when he starts walking from limped foot to the normal way.

Benecio Del Toro kind of comes and goes in this movie, not so memorable performance unlike "the traffic" one.

Sense and sensibility

"Sense and sensibility" is a good movie. Really liked the way Emma Thomson has acted in that movie.
Small trivia about Emma,
Source: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000668/bio

"She was initially cast as the lead in Basic Instinct (1992), but refused later on. About Sharon Stone's appearance she said: “As far as I can see, from Sharon Stone's love scene in "Basic Instinct", they molded her body out of tough Plasticine. She was shagging Michael Douglas like a donkey, and not an inch moved. If that had been me, there would have been things flying around hitting me in the eye.”"

I saw the movie "kandukondein kandukondein" before seeing this movie "sense and sensibility". Thought "kandu... " was a good movie. Infact all the while, while watching this movie I kept comparing the actors of "Kandu.. " and "Sense and...".
Sometimes, I like those old-hindi remix songs that get played in channels. Agreed, the videos are bad most of the times. But the actual remix of the song seems to be good. I think R and B and our old songs kind of jell really well. My old hindi songs knowledge/awareness is bad. So, I get to listen to remix first and soon when I happen to listen to the original, I have a problem in appreciating the original. Maybe it is because the remix was the one I heard first.


I saw "Love actually" movie , in which almost "who is who" of Brit film industry appear. And only via "Love actually" did I get to know Emma Thomson and Robert Hardy.
And in "Love actually" they play more of a middle-aged role so, at times found it difficult to see them as relatively young folks in "Sense...", though Robert plays only a middle-aged man in "Sense..." but he looks lot older than that.

Ghosts ?

Ghost-town is something that you will get to see when you visit a place after a long time and you are in company of old-friends or in short when you in old-environment. Old here can be thought of as an abstract span-of-time i.e old = 1 month to n years.

Ghosts could be people or places will be omnipresent. You cant survive a minute without this ghostly or rather ghastly thought!

Drowning myself in nostalgia is not something I relish. True, nostalgia is like plesant break but I think nostalgia takes you away from reality and the minute the honey-moon ends you will be stuck with reality staring infront of you :-(

Guess, it is better to sit and go through the reality motions than chasing the mirage.

Hordes of movies

I got to see hordes of movies last week.
I saw "the forgotten", "alexander", "national treasure", "office space", "braveheart" and "rounders".

"the forgotten":
Bad movie, might have got inspired by "The ring". Nothing much to type about. Certainly will scare you out of your seat when you see men/women suddenly pulled from land towards sky in a second when they are about to utter something that is important about "how juliane moore's girl got lost in the plane-crash or why people lose their memory?"


"Alexander":
Bad movie. Oliver Stone has given a sketchy idea about Alexander, nothing really impressive. Few sequences that will amaze you is:
i. alexander as gay
ii. No decent collector's details about "porus, the king of Punjab region". In this movie "Porus"'s name is not even mentioned.
iii. origin of the name "alexandria" a port city in egypt which was named after alexander
So, historical details are mostly left forgotten all through this movie.

"National Treasure":
Nice movie. Very fast one. From Nicolas Cage and Bruckheimer team. This movie has way too many historical/trivia details. But some no one can vouch for the authenticity. Few sequences that might of interest include:
i. DST or Daylight Saving time invented by Benjamin Franklin
ii. All the theory about "Crusaders" and "the progressive thinking americans of that era"...
iii. good fast-paced adventure similar to indiana jones kind of movies.
iv. maybe this movie might have got inspired by da vinci code

"Office Space":
Nice Comedy movie. Has Jeniffer Aniston in not so cool role. Few funny sequences include:
i. Michael Bolton (not the singer but the software engineer who likes Rap) !
ii. Michael Bolton and the fax machine
iii. The next-door neighbour who overhears all the conversations
iv. The project manager during assesment describes his role as "i get the specifications from client and give it to engineers, because engineers cannot speak to the client". The manager kindof accepts that he is more of a postman.
v. Best part is when our hero quits his IT job and finds demolition job more interesting.
vi. And the mumbling fellow in office, who no one bothers


"Braveheart":
Bad movie. Too much hype. I get a feeling of deja vu almost after every sequence in this movie. I hope Kamal Hassan doesnt make 'MaruthuNayagam" in the "Braveheart" lines as most journalists claim.

"Rounders":
Great movie. Check this movie. Best part is when the law-student with a steady love-life decides to quit the secure atmosphere around him to enjoy the fascinating world of poker/gambling/insecure life as if he has nothing to lose.
Contrasting theme to that of "Eyes Wide Shut" where the plot doesnt encourage fantasy for normal regular-folks!

Eyes wide shut

Through Jayakanthan's blog http://shakuni.blogspot.com, I came to know about a few exhaustive links/articles about 'Stanley Kubrick'.
Stanley Kubrick's ideas are out of the box. I had seen only one Kubrick directed movie "Eyes Wide Shut" as of now. Did not really enjoy watching "Eyes Wide Shut" .

But really enjoyed a few sequences in that movie, including one scene when Tom Cruise kindof gets himself stuck very badly in the shady world of some cult and wants to get out of it for good. I think Kubrick via Cruise is telling that "cult-following or doing things out of the box is not for you, and go ahead and continue your regular boring day-to-day work in your office". Adventure particularly of this kind sounds cool, but wont suit you or me! He could be telling you and me to "Enjoy the movie and get alongwith your life and forget about the 'fascinating' world of cults/adventures"

The Hours

A few days back I saw the movie "the hours".
Found the movie to be interesting, mostly due to the style in which the movie was taken. Three characters different years/places, but similar emotions.
Nicole Kidman was not recognisable at all in her role as an english-author.
The characters are complex and it required good concentration to understand the characters. Meryl Streep cries a lot in this movie!
Claire Danes was cute all through the movie.

I liked the novel interpretation of "suicide", in this movie.

'The Score' - De Niro, Ed Norton

Few days back I saw the movie "the score". This movie had Robert De Niro and Edward Norton in the lead role. De Niro with his method acting skills kind of steals the movie from Edward Norton. I enjoyed the movie for the good-thriller element that it had.

De Niro's role is similar to most of his other roles. He is more of a listener and doesnt talk much in this movie. Ed Norton is the exact opposite of De Niro. De Niro and Ed Norton have some fissures, but nevertheless go ahead with the plan of snatching a priceless artifact from a museum. In the climax, when the heist is almost done, Ed Norton double crosses De Niro. At this point Ed Norton tells De Niro how he hates De Niro's way of doing things. Not sure whether this is just my imagination or rather my interpretation but that Ed Norton's dialogue showed contempt for the method acting style. Enjoyed that part of Ed Norton's performance. The plot really thickened during that time till the time when we get to know that De Niro had actually out-classed Ed Norton again. My interpretation, maybe method acting has won again.

Anyone who likes the fast-thriller movies, will enjoy this one.

More cricket round-up

Dinesh Kaarthick played some fantastic knocks to make TN one day format champions in the south zone. Surprising, how people like Sriram, Balaji, Kaarthick make it a point to perform outstandingly when they play for their state team and certainly not-so-good performances when they represent the country. Maybe Balaji is the best among the lot. Balaji truly bowled well in Pakistan and fairly okay in Australia except for that Brett Lee six in the last-over.

Ricky, as always is in blazing form in down-under. West Indies were drubbed badly. The best part of the match I think is the announcement that McGrath is the 12th man for Australia. Replacing McGrath was Brett Lee who bowled a fiery first spell taking 3 west-indian wickets. Now, wondering who McGrath will replace in the next match?
Brad Hogg replaced Shane Warne for this one day match. Hogg has taken a fiver in this match. Now, lets see how Shane Warne will replace in this team.

Ajay Jadeja is performing well for his ranji team. He is helping his team post big scores and he himself is scoring hundreds at ease. A tainted player to come back after a ban and play such comeback knocks is really cool-stuff. I am sure Ajay Jadeja knows that it is impossible for him to break into this Indian team. But still the committment shown by him for Ranji tournaments is just great. Another Ajay who showed great committment to Ranji tournament and was exceptional for Delhi in Ranji is 'Ajay Sharma', he too was a tainted player. Quite a coincidence!

Best of Jerry Maguire

In my opinion, scenes in Jerry Maguire that were a treat to watch include:
i. Man with the coat's punch-lines. His quotes and his appearence sometimes remind me of IMG founder 'Mark McCormack'. I am sure most of the people who had read 'what they dont teach you at Harvard' will agree to this.(I guess he could be professor or maybe Tom Cruise's mentor)
ii. The cute kid of Renee Zellweger in conversation with drunk Tom Cruise.
iii. When Tom Cruise proposes to Renee, she tries to hide her happiness with her black shades.
iv. The last scene of the movie when Tom Cruise visits Renee s home to apologise to her.
v. The sequence when all the family and friends are watching the marriage video and find Tom Cruise sad. Now, Cuba Gooding Jr pitches in and tries to divert the attention to something else.
vi. Cuba's in-studio interview, where he promised he wont cry.

Guess that's it. The bad or not-so-good scenes include:
i. Tom Cruise leaving the office with the gold-fish when he is chucked out.
ii. Tom Cruise's animated hand-movement when he tells Cuba Gooding Jr. what the coaches and club-managers think about Cuba's ability.

I didnt find the 'show me the money' sequence all-that-good.

Steve -> sorry if I had disappointed you with the last comment.

Tsunami match in MCG

Ricky has proved his class again.
Ricky really slammed all the Asian bowlers in the 'tsunami' charity match in MCG.
I think if there is one bowler who can fool Ricky it has to Anil Kumble. But even Anil was clueless for a moment but later took Ricky's wicket after Ricky did all the damage on Asian team. Anyway it could have been far worse had Ricky gone towards scoring a big 150+ score. The stumping of Ricky by Sangakkara was out of the world stuff. The delivery that got Ricky stumped was a fast-one(as most of Anil's deliveries are) and reached the keeper in half-volley length, guess that was just way difficult take. I am sure most of keepers of the world would have missed, but the Sri Lankan keeper didnt and got handsome praise from Richie Benaud.

Another out of the keeping stuff, that comes to my memory is the Ian Healy stumping by Nayan Mongia in the 1996 Delhi one-off test against Australia off the bowling of Kumble. Nayan had earlier got 150+ score but till took a tremendous take when the ball was going doing the leg-side and the length was again a half-volley to the keeper. Mongia's effort out-classes Sangakkara's because Mongia took that impossible take down the leg side and knocked off the bails.

Heard of 'bloggers block'

A week or two back, I had some content to blog about in this page. But as I am trying to make blogging a habit, I find content eluding me. Not sure, how regular bloggers beat this block.

French women in H'wood

Yesterday, I saw the movie 'Diabolique'. This 1996 movie had Sharon Stone, but surprisingly the person who stole the screen from Sharon Stone was the beautiful Isabelle Adjani. Isabelle is a french actress.
Another French actress who has a striking resemblence to Isabelle Adjani and acted in Hollywood movie is Sophie Marceau, the villian woman in the Bond movie 'the world is not enough' .
Virgine Ledoyen, is another French actress who got a major role in hollywood movie. She acted in the movie 'the beach' opposite to Leonardo Dicaprio.
Isabelle or Sophie or Virgine didnt survive long in Hollywood movies.
Isabelle/ Sophie/Virgine have a different style of acting which is so unlike the Hollywood-way. I think French movies dont allow their actors to overact unlike their Hollywood counter-parts. And, the plot itself is so different in French movies from that of the usual Hollywood-masala that actors dont have the opportunity to overact.

Aishwarya Rai's fate might be kindof similar to that of Sophie/Isabelle/Virgine. But in the case of Ash, Hollywood movie audience might feel Ash is overacting!

free hand writing

Bruce Wills advises Haley Joel Osment to try 'Free hand writing' to get out of his worries in the movie 'the sixth sense". The very phrase "free hand writing" sounded interesting to me.

In the movie, Bruce Wills wanted Haley to do this "writing whatever he felt like instantly".

I find it hard to practise this "free hand writing". I feel it is a very difficult activity to follow for anyone, since most of us are 'conscious' of what we do and our 'consciousness' will stop such honest delivery of thought.

I feel blogging could be a place where one can try this 'free hand writing'. Guess 'free hand writings' makes good reading for all.

jiddu krishnamurthy and george carlin

j krishnamurthy and george carlin are fierce anti-establishment personalities, who have a huge following.
quite surprising why j krishnamurthy went ahead forming an institution when he was against the very idea of institution. george carlin is smart entertainer.
not sure, comparing an indian who came out of avatar-hood and an american who pisses-off the americanism and other isms makes any sense. i find both of them to be interesting because they have the audacity to stand-up against establishment.
not sure why we have this j krishnamurthy cult following when he himself was against cult-hood.

i enjoy george carlin and his famous stand-ups. guess, he must be the most hated man in america.

kerry o keefe

hi all,

now, why did i hv the title as ' kerry o keefe', after seeing yesterday' s ricky ponting knock against pakistan. keefe instantly came to mind as a person who had tremendous 'foresight'.

if title sounds strange ' kerry o keefe'. let me give a brief intro abt keefe. keefe represented aussie cricket team in 19 70's. keefe's cricketing prowess is not well-known or documented, u cant of course compare keefe with superstars in cricket.
but in the commentator s box, keefe is top-of-the-charts.
sometime back they broadcasted a channel called 'australia television' and in that channel there was a program titled 'at the wicket'. it s a cricket chat-show, which featured lots of aussie superstars commenting about world cricket and the cricketers. some of the comments are undiplomatic. and keefe is the leader of the whole team when it comes to slandering any cricketer. of course his views are brutally honest.
in 1999 when india toured australia, i had the opportunity to see 'at the wicket' quite regularly.
that tour had indian team performing badly in bowling or batting or fielding. during that series, ponting thrashed india. he scored his runs very fast even in test matches. at that time, keefe made a point in one the 'at the wicket' shows that 'ponting' is the best player in world cricket. some of the other cricketing greats in that talk show include greg mathews, geoff lawson. when keefe made this point the rest of the crowd in the studio were surprised and mentioned the name of 'sachin tendulkar'. it was only few months back then, that bradman himself said that 'sachin is the best'. and sachin made it a habit of thrashing aussies also. but during that series, sachin was pathetic, particularly in the adelaide test when he played his first-of negative innings.
sachin didnt try to score runs of mcgrath. he kept leaving most of the deliveries. and to make matters worse, dravid was in the other end. and dravid also played slowly. so the post-tea session when sachin and dravid played india had a run-rate of maybe 1 or 2 runs per over.
i liked that point that kerry o keefe made about 'sachin being not the best' and 'ponting is the best'. sachin is good enough only in indian wickets. infact nowadays, sachin bats negatively even in indian wickets.
somehow ever since then, i didnt really like the sachin s negative game. but to be honest, sachin s straight drive(in early 90s), and sachin s down the wicket sixes of spinners are really a treat to watch, too bad he doesnt play them often. i am sachin s fan when sachin gives scant respect for bowlers just like maybe richards or powell or ponting. but not when he trembles whether he plays shoaib or mbangwa.

now to summarise, keefe is correct according to me in calling 'ponting as the best'.
another point about keefe is that he s a lousy commentator but popular among masses. i think his frankness isnt appreciated, maybe that s y he doesnt figure in channel 9 line-up of commentators for major international matches. some aussie survey on best commentators two people who featured prominently include keefe and richie benaud. another commentator who surprisingly was favorite among aussies was 'harsha bogle'. i dont like harsha much because he kindof supports superstars even if they play bad. i dont like 'ravi shastri' s commentating in particular bcos of his inconsistent opinions.

bfn

jan 3 2004

my hope of seeing amitabh/abhishek bachan in koffee with karan was dashed when i found out that it is meant to telecasted only on this coming friday.

bad news for tn ranji team fans. tn inspite of a victory in their last league match didnt qualify for semis.
i think had they qualified then it would have been 3 in a row.
as for tn ranji team, i believe they are really unlucky this season to miss out balaji. had balaji been there then it would have been a good season for tn.
i think tn had too many away matches this time during league stage, so didnt do all that well. they just drew most of their matches.
extra-ordinary performance by lax sealed tn s coffin as far as this season ranji goes.

aussies are on rampage against pakistan. i think aussies will pile up a huge score and innings defeat pakistan.
kindof fait accompli.

i read "life of pi" by yann martel. i am not able to appreciate writings of such genre i.e "magical realism". earlier read "midnight s children" by salman rushdie, another book from this magical realism -genre.
i am able to appreciate honest as-is writing, but certainly not this kindof writing.

jan 2 2004

Today I saw the movie 'serendipity' and found it to be good.
plan to watch oceans twelve/alexander/incredibles didnt materialize.

saw a program 'koffee with karan' which featured kajol, shah rukh khan and karan johar(host) today morning @ around 02 00 am. found it to be funny. shah rukh was diplomatic and he sucked all thro the interview, while kajol was honest and was great all thro the program. hoping to see the same program today evening as well, this time guests are amitabh and abishek bachan.

today played a decent dose of cricket(tennis-ball). i was trying to bowl fast, but actually couldnt. the run-up area inclination was slightly steep, so couldnt actually get a proper run before releasing the ball. i remember that i bowl a lot faster if the run-up area is even.

i saw a few jay sean (who i guess was part of rishi rich project) music videos. really liked his songs. i think this punjabi r and b style is really different and catchy. one video that stood-out featured bipasha basu. bips for a moment reminded me of naomi campbell.
other brit r and b artists are also good. for eg, bally sagoo, hunters, raghav. i listen to them mostly in bbc asian network online radio.

another tv program which i enjoyed was 'coupling'. the cast and their activities are kindof similar to friends.
but unlike friends stars who were a bit naive, coupling stars are bold.

bfn

Dec 31 2004:

Dec 31 2004 is just another day in office. I find it quite silly to wish happy new year to people around me Since I am not into partying, I prefer to stay at home and do the things I normally do i.e watch TV on new year's eve. I saw "swades" and "raincoat"(hindi movies) lately, and found them to be good. Since my understanding of hindi is poor, I had my friend do the translation of difficult words that was spoken on screen :-)

chk out this page: this is the guy who did all the tough hindi translations for me while watching raincoat.
http://www.blogger.com/profile/5113789

I enjoy watching "the simpsons". the characters are really down to earth. really enjoy watching "lisa simpson" and "bart simpson" when they are in each-other s company.

another serial that i liked is "the wonder years". i think i must have seen this serial years together maybe from 1992 to 2003(they kept replaying this serial in star plus, star world) again and again.
enjoyed every episode(even if it is the n+1th time that i am watching it)

bfn

hi

i am really interested in knowing about things(unimportant ones always interest me).
i am try to check out articles related to History, Current affairs, Music, Movies and sports.
i follow cricket religiously. i hv become a movie phreak lately, infact checking lots of mediocre and horrible ones as well. Liked 'Mona Lisa Smile' movie, i think that is a really good movie.
my all time fave movies include 'american beauty', 'jerry maguire' and 'good will hunting'.

bfn