Starring Ajith Kumar and Jyothika in the lead role, the movie is about a musically gifted young man, trying to make it big in the cinema industry. His family supports his decision for a long time inspite of the difficulties. Along the way, he also finds love. For a long time, he tries hard to make it to success but is unable to. Along the way, his girlfriend’s father asks him to choose between music and his love and with much pain and reluctance, he gives up his love. But eventually he is forced to give up the music because of his family.
The movie was an interesting subject based on family ties. Nothing seemed too outlandish, although the music could have been better considering it was about a man making it big in the music industry. Jyothika, as usual, stunned with her overacting, but Ajith carried out the role of the pained, ambitious youth well. Good movie to watch with family, but fast forward the songs.
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Mona Lisa Smile
Starring Julia Roberts in the role of Ms Watson, a revolutionary single woman (unheard in those days) trying to make a difference in the life of a traditional school.
Ms Watson is a single woman, who has refused offers of marriage to better herself and to make a change in the life of the women in the society. She receives an invitation to teach at a prestigious institution and accepts it. Daunted on the first day, she catches up with the rhythm of the school and becomes dear to many students, except one. Her arguments, discussions and advice falls on her deaf ears, but the student feels it, when calamity hits her life.
With the rigourous change brought about in the course outline, the school decides to oust Ms Watson and the teacher sees the difference and change she has brought about in the faces and eagerness of her students on the last day.
A good movie to watch – although it seemed like a typical chic flick, it covered other aspects and emotions of the era and society as well.
Ms Watson is a single woman, who has refused offers of marriage to better herself and to make a change in the life of the women in the society. She receives an invitation to teach at a prestigious institution and accepts it. Daunted on the first day, she catches up with the rhythm of the school and becomes dear to many students, except one. Her arguments, discussions and advice falls on her deaf ears, but the student feels it, when calamity hits her life.
With the rigourous change brought about in the course outline, the school decides to oust Ms Watson and the teacher sees the difference and change she has brought about in the faces and eagerness of her students on the last day.
A good movie to watch – although it seemed like a typical chic flick, it covered other aspects and emotions of the era and society as well.
Mamma Mia
Adapted with music by ABBA, the story was of a girl finding her father amidst three possible choices. Her reckless mother in youth dates three men around the same time and gets pregnant. Finding her mother’s diary, she invites all the three possible men to her wedding. After an explosive and emotional reunion, the men stay for the wedding, which never happens. In the end, one of the men proposes and her mother accepts.
Starring Meryl Streep, Colin Firth, Pierce Brosnan and others, the cast was huge and the music was great, yet the movie failed to make no impression on the audience, except the remade songs, inserted at the appropriate moments in the movie. A tolerable movie for ABBA fans but the others can pass it.
Starring Meryl Streep, Colin Firth, Pierce Brosnan and others, the cast was huge and the music was great, yet the movie failed to make no impression on the audience, except the remade songs, inserted at the appropriate moments in the movie. A tolerable movie for ABBA fans but the others can pass it.
Thursday, August 7, 2008
The Mummy 3
Here was the much awaited sequel of the Mummy and the Mummy Returns. The disappointment was in proportion to the hype and enjoyment that the prequels had.
Brendan Fraser, Maria Bello, Jet Li and others came together in this movie to portray the return of the mummy of the Dragon king, who was cursed by a witch, whom he double crossed.
O’Connor’s son, Alex, follows in his parents steps in finding and excavating the tomb site. He meets with some obstacles, but succeeds in finding the emperor. The financier of the excavation project is a Chinese general obsessed to bring back the Dragon king’s regime for the betterment of China. In spite of their efforts, Dragon king is brought back and seeks immortality. The O’Connors with Lin (daughter of the witch) and her mother, try to prevent him, but are unsuccessful. Now the Dragon king is invincible save a dagger, which will kill him if pierced through his heart.
After a battle of decomposing soldiers and victims and fight between the O’Connors and the Dragon King, he is finally sent to afterlife and the movie closes with some frivolity at Imhoteps, Jonathan’s bar in Shanghai.
The scenes were well made – good use of realistic and computer generated images. The camera, lighting and technical aspects were all good – except the coherence of the story. The jokes and punch lines were clichés from the older movies and were too overused to get laughter from the audience, especially someone who has watched the movies many times, to a point where they could recall jokes, etc.
A movie OK to skip, except for die-hard movie fans, but even for them, it might kill the appetite for more ‘Mummy’ fun.
Brendan Fraser, Maria Bello, Jet Li and others came together in this movie to portray the return of the mummy of the Dragon king, who was cursed by a witch, whom he double crossed.
O’Connor’s son, Alex, follows in his parents steps in finding and excavating the tomb site. He meets with some obstacles, but succeeds in finding the emperor. The financier of the excavation project is a Chinese general obsessed to bring back the Dragon king’s regime for the betterment of China. In spite of their efforts, Dragon king is brought back and seeks immortality. The O’Connors with Lin (daughter of the witch) and her mother, try to prevent him, but are unsuccessful. Now the Dragon king is invincible save a dagger, which will kill him if pierced through his heart.
After a battle of decomposing soldiers and victims and fight between the O’Connors and the Dragon King, he is finally sent to afterlife and the movie closes with some frivolity at Imhoteps, Jonathan’s bar in Shanghai.
The scenes were well made – good use of realistic and computer generated images. The camera, lighting and technical aspects were all good – except the coherence of the story. The jokes and punch lines were clichés from the older movies and were too overused to get laughter from the audience, especially someone who has watched the movies many times, to a point where they could recall jokes, etc.
A movie OK to skip, except for die-hard movie fans, but even for them, it might kill the appetite for more ‘Mummy’ fun.
Monday, July 21, 2008
dasavathaaram
The much awaited magnum opus of Kamal and Ravikumar is finally here. Starring in 10 different roles with varying depths and backgrounds, Kamal has truly shown his versatility in acting and portrayal. Although some of the roles could have been avoided to lower the number of avatars, the movie didn’t seem disjointed or in bits – which is commendable.
The movie starts off with the old feud between the two prominent lines of worship in Hinduism – Shaivism and Vaishnavism. Here, a devout Vaishnavite, Rangarajan Nambi, is cruelly killed, by a Shaivaite king, as Vishnu is ousted from the temple, and his wife loses her life on the same shores that her husband loses his.
Moving into the new millennium, Dr. Govind is a leading scientist in synthetic biotechnology, who is against his boss to sell a harmful microbial for money to immoral people. Meanwhile, the entire research unit witnesses the harmful effects of the microbial as an accident happens to one of the lab monkeys. Knowing that his boss has been bought, Govind tries to remove the vial himself and succeeds to escape to his friend’s house, whose wife is Japanese.
He is pursued by an ex-CIA trained killer, Christian Fletcher, from who he escapes, but his friends die in a bomb blast. While escaping, he meets his friend, who is about to mail his packages to India, and in a mix up, the vial (which was also in a packet similar to the mailings) is switched with one of the packets. As he tries to convince the company to stop the mail from going out, he spots Fletcher and in his escape gets packed into one of the mail delivery containers and is transported to India. Meanwhile, Fletcher ‘marries’ a club girl fluent in Tamil and follows Govind to India.
The brother of the Japanese girl who dies is informed of her death and he pursues Govind after knowing he is responsible for her death.
George Bush gets updated on this loss of biotechnology and after much ‘discussions’ decides on going to India to fix this issue.
In India, Govind is met by Balram Naidu, a local official, who is put in charge of his case. As Naidu is trying to interrogate Govind, he is forced by his superior to welcome the agents from America, who have followed Fletcher to India. As Naidu leaves, the Fletchers enter the room posing as agents. After a couple casualties, Govind leaves with the Fletchers at gunpoint with a local policeman.
As they are trying to leave, the arrival of a pop singer, Avtar Singh, catches the attention of the local crowd. He ends up coughing out blood and in heed of his safety, the gate to Fletcher and his hostages is left unguarded. The group leaves in the mayhem.
Along the way to discovering the vial, the group meets with an accident where the policeman gets badly injured. As a deal, Govind sends the policeman to get help and escapes from Fletcher.
Meanwhile, Naidu is collaborating with the real agents from the U.S. He finds out that Fletcher has been to the local despatch office and destroyed all records, save one. Using the despatch list, he starts to send his officials to watch each delivery.
Govind heads to the location where his package was being sent to – Azhagiya Singar madam – which is a devotional group practising Vaishnavism. The package is sent to an old woman, Krishnaveni, who is slightly deranged, since her son died in U.S. She is very stubborn and refuses and give up her package. Here is where Govind meets a beautiful devotee called Andal, who also lives in the same house.
Naidu’s agents inform him about Govind and the package, and Naidu starts to hurry to the location. Fletcher also finds the location and keeps an eye on Govind. Meanwhile, a religious procession of Vishnu passes by in the street and Krishaveni insists on ‘asking’ her God before giving up the vial. Instead of bringing it back, she drops it off in the idol. Panicking, Govind tries to get it back but his efforts are thwarted by the rest in the procession. Getting the idea, the Fletchers try to get it as well, when the sirens stop them. To distract, Fletcher distracts one of the temple elephants in the procession and mayhem ensues. Govind escapes with the idol, but Andal persists in following him and go along with him.
For the rest of the movie, they keep trying to shake off Fletcher. Along the way, a tall muslim man is introduced as part of a family in an accident. A Dalit protesting against soil erosion are also introduced. Although these two characters weren’t entirely a part of the chase, they provided the distractions that Govind needed to escape Fletcher. The Japanese brother also understands that Govind is innocent and helps him out.
The antidote if the vial breaks out would be loads of NaCl – which is salt and using this concept, the movie tried to create a situation for one of the most horrific, unexpected tsunamis that hit South East Asia.
An interesting movie – definitely covered all the ground and without many bloopers. Considering the number of characters and expanse of the plot, the feat was amazing and kudos to Kamal for coming up with a great storyline. But certainly, some of the characters could have been better woven with the story to keep it together, though one can’t expect everything to be perfect. Definitely worth the watch.
So the 10 avatars were: Rangarajan Nambi, Dr. Govind, Christian Fletcher, Balram Naidu, Krishnaveni, Avtar Singh, the Japanese brother, the tall Muslim boy, the Dalit and George Bush.
The movie starts off with the old feud between the two prominent lines of worship in Hinduism – Shaivism and Vaishnavism. Here, a devout Vaishnavite, Rangarajan Nambi, is cruelly killed, by a Shaivaite king, as Vishnu is ousted from the temple, and his wife loses her life on the same shores that her husband loses his.
Moving into the new millennium, Dr. Govind is a leading scientist in synthetic biotechnology, who is against his boss to sell a harmful microbial for money to immoral people. Meanwhile, the entire research unit witnesses the harmful effects of the microbial as an accident happens to one of the lab monkeys. Knowing that his boss has been bought, Govind tries to remove the vial himself and succeeds to escape to his friend’s house, whose wife is Japanese.
He is pursued by an ex-CIA trained killer, Christian Fletcher, from who he escapes, but his friends die in a bomb blast. While escaping, he meets his friend, who is about to mail his packages to India, and in a mix up, the vial (which was also in a packet similar to the mailings) is switched with one of the packets. As he tries to convince the company to stop the mail from going out, he spots Fletcher and in his escape gets packed into one of the mail delivery containers and is transported to India. Meanwhile, Fletcher ‘marries’ a club girl fluent in Tamil and follows Govind to India.
The brother of the Japanese girl who dies is informed of her death and he pursues Govind after knowing he is responsible for her death.
George Bush gets updated on this loss of biotechnology and after much ‘discussions’ decides on going to India to fix this issue.
In India, Govind is met by Balram Naidu, a local official, who is put in charge of his case. As Naidu is trying to interrogate Govind, he is forced by his superior to welcome the agents from America, who have followed Fletcher to India. As Naidu leaves, the Fletchers enter the room posing as agents. After a couple casualties, Govind leaves with the Fletchers at gunpoint with a local policeman.
As they are trying to leave, the arrival of a pop singer, Avtar Singh, catches the attention of the local crowd. He ends up coughing out blood and in heed of his safety, the gate to Fletcher and his hostages is left unguarded. The group leaves in the mayhem.
Along the way to discovering the vial, the group meets with an accident where the policeman gets badly injured. As a deal, Govind sends the policeman to get help and escapes from Fletcher.
Meanwhile, Naidu is collaborating with the real agents from the U.S. He finds out that Fletcher has been to the local despatch office and destroyed all records, save one. Using the despatch list, he starts to send his officials to watch each delivery.
Govind heads to the location where his package was being sent to – Azhagiya Singar madam – which is a devotional group practising Vaishnavism. The package is sent to an old woman, Krishnaveni, who is slightly deranged, since her son died in U.S. She is very stubborn and refuses and give up her package. Here is where Govind meets a beautiful devotee called Andal, who also lives in the same house.
Naidu’s agents inform him about Govind and the package, and Naidu starts to hurry to the location. Fletcher also finds the location and keeps an eye on Govind. Meanwhile, a religious procession of Vishnu passes by in the street and Krishaveni insists on ‘asking’ her God before giving up the vial. Instead of bringing it back, she drops it off in the idol. Panicking, Govind tries to get it back but his efforts are thwarted by the rest in the procession. Getting the idea, the Fletchers try to get it as well, when the sirens stop them. To distract, Fletcher distracts one of the temple elephants in the procession and mayhem ensues. Govind escapes with the idol, but Andal persists in following him and go along with him.
For the rest of the movie, they keep trying to shake off Fletcher. Along the way, a tall muslim man is introduced as part of a family in an accident. A Dalit protesting against soil erosion are also introduced. Although these two characters weren’t entirely a part of the chase, they provided the distractions that Govind needed to escape Fletcher. The Japanese brother also understands that Govind is innocent and helps him out.
The antidote if the vial breaks out would be loads of NaCl – which is salt and using this concept, the movie tried to create a situation for one of the most horrific, unexpected tsunamis that hit South East Asia.
An interesting movie – definitely covered all the ground and without many bloopers. Considering the number of characters and expanse of the plot, the feat was amazing and kudos to Kamal for coming up with a great storyline. But certainly, some of the characters could have been better woven with the story to keep it together, though one can’t expect everything to be perfect. Definitely worth the watch.
So the 10 avatars were: Rangarajan Nambi, Dr. Govind, Christian Fletcher, Balram Naidu, Krishnaveni, Avtar Singh, the Japanese brother, the tall Muslim boy, the Dalit and George Bush.
I am Legend
Starring Will Smith, this was probably one of the most thought provoking scary movie I had seen in recent times. Will Smith is a lone survivor after a cancer vaccination gone wrong. The rest of the people had been vaccinated or infected by each other to live an existence of a wild brute, that were afraid of the dark and thrived on violent and propagation of their own disease.
Smith lived with his dog and conducted experiments to find the cure, in which he was unsuccessful so far. He would go on a hunt everyday to find supplies to survive. From time to time, his past will be shown.
After the discovery of a cure for cancer, vaccination for cancer became popular and everyone started to get it. However, the strain started developing other kinds of symptoms and people started getting more aggressive and violent and started losing their sanity.
During one of his hunts, he loses his dog to the savages and becomes desperate to kill himself and get a revenge, but gets knocked out and saved by a woman and a boy. Shocked to find another and refusing to believe that there is a safe human camp away from the island, he tries to fight away the savages, who are now on his trail, since his saviours forgot to clean off their scent.
In the last few moments, he finds out that one of his experiments was successful and he sends this cure with the woman and boy, while he dies in a blast. The movie ends with the woman and the boy reaching the ‘promised land’.
An interesting movie and thought, but it was scary to think what would happen, if indeed all that was true. Our society is very interested in having vaccines for every possible disease and do not hesitate in introducing viral strands in us, for example, with the flu. Either way, a good movie to watch.
Smith lived with his dog and conducted experiments to find the cure, in which he was unsuccessful so far. He would go on a hunt everyday to find supplies to survive. From time to time, his past will be shown.
After the discovery of a cure for cancer, vaccination for cancer became popular and everyone started to get it. However, the strain started developing other kinds of symptoms and people started getting more aggressive and violent and started losing their sanity.
During one of his hunts, he loses his dog to the savages and becomes desperate to kill himself and get a revenge, but gets knocked out and saved by a woman and a boy. Shocked to find another and refusing to believe that there is a safe human camp away from the island, he tries to fight away the savages, who are now on his trail, since his saviours forgot to clean off their scent.
In the last few moments, he finds out that one of his experiments was successful and he sends this cure with the woman and boy, while he dies in a blast. The movie ends with the woman and the boy reaching the ‘promised land’.
An interesting movie and thought, but it was scary to think what would happen, if indeed all that was true. Our society is very interested in having vaccines for every possible disease and do not hesitate in introducing viral strands in us, for example, with the flu. Either way, a good movie to watch.
Wall-E
Wall-E is the story of the compressing robot left behind by humans centuries ago to ‘clean up’ the Earth. He shows many anthropic qualities, in being able to trinkets, keep a pet (a cockroach) and feel love (while watching tapes of old musicals). Often during his day of compressions, there comes a huge dust storm and gale that he hides from in another machine. As he continues collecting trinkets, he comes by a plant growing inside a discarded refrigerator and adds it on to his collection. One day he sees a bright red spot that remains uncatchable and he curiously follows it, only to find that it from a huge machine landing on Earth and out of it comes the prettiest little robot. It is love at first sight for him, but it takes a while for him to confess since the pretty robot also had a quick hand in shooting down anything that she thought was harmful. He finds out that her name is Eva and takes her to his home to show all he has. After a few clashing interactions, he shows her the plant and suddenly Eva becomes unresponsive, save a beeping green light. Wall-E tries everything in his power to bring her back but nothing happens. This was probably the cutest set of scenes.
Then a few days later, the big machine comes back and sucks up Eva. Wall-E refuses to leave her and follows her along into the machine. Here he finds a whole new world and we, as audience, have some funny moments to watch. He finds out a whole bunch of bloated humans stuck to their seats and their screens without any movement. Although the thought is scary enough, sometimes it does feel that the world might just come to that. Eva after scanning and searching makes it to the captain’s cabin and he is unable to fully realize the impact of the plant. However, after a day’s lesson on Earth, during which Wall-E and Eva have fatal adventures, he is firm on returning back to Earth and after battling his rebelling autopilot, the craft returns to Earth. Mankind resumes and Wall-E is fixed!
A very sweet and thoughtful story. Definitely a must see.Saturday, July 5, 2008
Sherlock Holmes - The complete novels and stories - Part I and II
Never have I felt so complete than when I was reading this set of 2 part collection, bringing together all the jewels of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s writings about his famous sleuth, who is the epitome of excellent observations and deductions. Often I have wondered if such a person existed in the world, and if he did, what loads of astonishment he could create in this monotonous world.
These set of stories bring all the cases together starting from when Dr.Watson first moved in with Holmes to his early conclusion with Professor Moriarty and then a rebirth, including the Hound of Baskervilles, until the final conclusion of the series.
The author extracts a new skill of Holmes in every story – women psychology in the Scandal of Bohemia, cryptology and text analysis in the Case of the Dancing Men, makeup and disguise on countless occasions, etc. There are few skills that aren’t present in the stories.
Part 1 consists of the adventures, the memoirs and the return of Sherlock Holmes with the Study in Scarlet and the Sign of Four.
Part 2 starts off with the bone chilling Hound of Baskervilles and ends with the case book of Sherlock Holmes.
Personally, I feel that these books are great sources for people who would like to develop their analytical and deductive reasoning as it gives clues on how Holmes arrived at a certain conclusion. Putting these theories to practice would definitely help in decision making of the day-to-day problems of mankind. Of course, that is not to demean the intrinsic value of the methods of this sleuth, but it is give credence to the unusually complex society that we live in, with multitudes of rules and regulations.
I often consider the probability of survival of Holmes’ methods in today’s worlds. Would he have survived with his analytical and deductive reasoning? Are people as transparent as they were in the century that he lived? Most of the criminals today are aware of their act in cold blood and take every step to erase the marks that might lead to them. However, it is also worth to note that technological and biological advancements have brought even unimaginative detectives (the quality that Holmes thinks the local inspector lack in the Adventure of the Silver Blaze) are able to get somewhere without any toil. And often Holmes claims to know the n number of tobacco types or soil types in the area or locale. With so many people migrating and moving to all parts of the world, still facing an ever growing population and exchange of so many materials and natural resource, would Holmes have been able to keep track of what belongs to where and come to his conclusions as easily? Chemical analysis is possible today to gauge where samples originate from, yet they take some time to complete. And yet, for a seasoned detective as Holmes, this time of wait might be expensive. The argument may go on, yet the result might be inconclusive.Allure Confessions of a beauty editor
Written by Linda Wells, the magazine strove to cover aspects of beauty.
Starting my life in the professional world, I needed some professional advice and since this glossy magazine reigned the world of fashion, I tried it out. It was definitely interesting to see the techniques to maintain hair, skin, body, nails separately and it was even more interesting to see the techniques to apply makeup and maintain the equipments. I have to sincerely admit that I don’t remember anything that I read, since none of them were actually doable for a person like me who gets up 10 minute before leaving to work in the morning and one who is not really interested in constantly touching up. I think I’m one of those people who thrive in natural beauty, yet with scars of adolescence, I can only depend on cosmetics to help me with the ‘beauty’.
I think discovering what will suit you and what will be good is a journey that everyone has to go by themselves and reading books aren’t really the best ways for all of us out there. Yet, this book was very elaborate and covered many aspects which might be useful to others, who might gain more by reading others’ experiences.
Starting my life in the professional world, I needed some professional advice and since this glossy magazine reigned the world of fashion, I tried it out. It was definitely interesting to see the techniques to maintain hair, skin, body, nails separately and it was even more interesting to see the techniques to apply makeup and maintain the equipments. I have to sincerely admit that I don’t remember anything that I read, since none of them were actually doable for a person like me who gets up 10 minute before leaving to work in the morning and one who is not really interested in constantly touching up. I think I’m one of those people who thrive in natural beauty, yet with scars of adolescence, I can only depend on cosmetics to help me with the ‘beauty’.
I think discovering what will suit you and what will be good is a journey that everyone has to go by themselves and reading books aren’t really the best ways for all of us out there. Yet, this book was very elaborate and covered many aspects which might be useful to others, who might gain more by reading others’ experiences.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
sandai
Starring director-turned-actor Sundar C, yesteryear beauty Nadiya and other cast, the movie is about a family broken apart due to circumstances and brought together by the persevering heir of the family.
Nadiya comes to her native village with her grown up daughter for her marriage. Her main aim to carry out the ceremony in front of her estranged family, whom she wants to get revenge out of. She constantly opposes them and refuses all their requests.
Eventually, she trusts a henchman, Sundar to protect her. She fixes her marriage with a good family and yet on the day of the marriage, the groom is kidnapped. To save her honour, in spite of her family’s requests, she marries her daughter off to the henchman and discovers that he is also her family.
Frustrated, she keeps her daughter away from her husband. Eventually, she relents to sending her daughter with them, to let her daughter see the truth behind her family, but her daughter gives in. In the end, Nadiya realises that all the confusion in her family was caused by a trio, who were a distant relation of the family and the whole family comes together.
Although Nadiya’s comeback in M.Kumaran s/o Mahalakshmi and Thamirabarani was appreciable, this movie didn’t make to the mark. Most of the times, she was overacting and was annoying. As for the background score – it was super annoying and very dumb. But Sundar C is definitely climbing up the ladder of success. A tolerable movie to watch for Sundar C.
Nadiya comes to her native village with her grown up daughter for her marriage. Her main aim to carry out the ceremony in front of her estranged family, whom she wants to get revenge out of. She constantly opposes them and refuses all their requests.
Eventually, she trusts a henchman, Sundar to protect her. She fixes her marriage with a good family and yet on the day of the marriage, the groom is kidnapped. To save her honour, in spite of her family’s requests, she marries her daughter off to the henchman and discovers that he is also her family.
Frustrated, she keeps her daughter away from her husband. Eventually, she relents to sending her daughter with them, to let her daughter see the truth behind her family, but her daughter gives in. In the end, Nadiya realises that all the confusion in her family was caused by a trio, who were a distant relation of the family and the whole family comes together.
Although Nadiya’s comeback in M.Kumaran s/o Mahalakshmi and Thamirabarani was appreciable, this movie didn’t make to the mark. Most of the times, she was overacting and was annoying. As for the background score – it was super annoying and very dumb. But Sundar C is definitely climbing up the ladder of success. A tolerable movie to watch for Sundar C.
Monday, June 23, 2008
Robin Hood
As part of my crazy period for Richard Armitage, I wanted to watch this BBC adaptation of Robin Hood. And by the end of the series, I started getting crazy about other people on the screen – which is an inherent problem when there are too many cute and gallant stars in one show. Jonas Armstrong plays the lead character of Robin Hood, with Lucy Griffiths as Marian, Keith Allen as Sheriff and Richard Armstrong playing as Sheriff trusted sidekick Sir Guy.
So far, I have watched seasons one and two, which have been well paced and racy enough for a much tried archetypal figure and storyline. There were some instances where I couldn’t understand the heroism of the characters and sometimes I couldn’t agree with the kind of clothing and sets used. But mostly, the series has been well done and I’m definitely looking forward to the end of season three which is ending this year. Jonas Armstrong seems too short to be addressed as a gallant hero but as I found out with the ‘Behind the Scenes’ video for the series, short men are better archers than taller ones. And his partnering with Sam Troughton (playing Much) is funny enough from time to time. Much portrays a feminine man by taking care of his master and being in charge of cooking food and talking a lot. Will (played by Harry Lloyd, a descendent of Charles Dickens) is the creative, quiet, shy teenager in the group, whose skills help in smuggling arms and creating ingenious hideouts for the group. Allan (played by Joe Armstrong), though, not entirely gallant, owing to his shady past, helps the group with entering the castle. Little John (by Gordon Kennedy) is the strong, passionate man known for his physical strength and weak mind. Lastly, Djaq (Anjali Jay) joins the group as a Saracen boy, but is found out to be a woman disguising as her dead brother. She has a physician background, assisting her father in the Holy Land.
So far, I have watched seasons one and two, which have been well paced and racy enough for a much tried archetypal figure and storyline. There were some instances where I couldn’t understand the heroism of the characters and sometimes I couldn’t agree with the kind of clothing and sets used. But mostly, the series has been well done and I’m definitely looking forward to the end of season three which is ending this year. Jonas Armstrong seems too short to be addressed as a gallant hero but as I found out with the ‘Behind the Scenes’ video for the series, short men are better archers than taller ones. And his partnering with Sam Troughton (playing Much) is funny enough from time to time. Much portrays a feminine man by taking care of his master and being in charge of cooking food and talking a lot. Will (played by Harry Lloyd, a descendent of Charles Dickens) is the creative, quiet, shy teenager in the group, whose skills help in smuggling arms and creating ingenious hideouts for the group. Allan (played by Joe Armstrong), though, not entirely gallant, owing to his shady past, helps the group with entering the castle. Little John (by Gordon Kennedy) is the strong, passionate man known for his physical strength and weak mind. Lastly, Djaq (Anjali Jay) joins the group as a Saracen boy, but is found out to be a woman disguising as her dead brother. She has a physician background, assisting her father in the Holy Land.
kannamoochi yennada
Starring Prithviraj, Sandhya, Satyaraj and Radhika, the movie is about a couple gaining acceptance of their love in their respective families.
Prithvi meets Sandhya in Malaysia, where she is pursuing her studies. After repeated meetings they fall in love. Prithvi’s foster parents, also his uncle and aunt, have plans of getting him married to their business partner, but Prithvi reveals his love and they fall apart. With the help of his friend, he flies to India to meet Sandhya’s parents, doubting police officer Satyaraj and his soft wife, Radhika. Everyone in the family seems to like Prithvi except Satyaraj. Prithvi confides his fallout with his foster parents to Radhika and she accepts him as he is and they plan to reveal everything at the right time. One day, with the turn of events, Prithvi gets accepted by Satyaraj, but wrongly believes a concocted story by Prithvi’s uncle in Malaysia, about Prithvi being a crook. Satyaraj insults Prithvi and shows his ‘true’ colours to his family. Although Radhika tries to stop him, she fails and in frustration of having a not-so-understanding or trusting husband leaves the place. Sandhya goes along with her. Satyaraj continues to search, while Prithvi also tries to search with his own methods. Finally he finds out that they might have gone to the house of Satyaraj’s estranged sister in Ooty and decides to follow and his discovery is right. He also informs Satyaraj, who follows him a while later. After a few misunderstandings, Satyaraj and Radha get together, while the young lovers are still separated. As Prithvi is leaving the town, Sandhya has a change of mind and tracks him down to re-concile. After an over dramatic chase, they come together.
An excessively annoying movie. I had high expectations for Prithviraj and he seemed to be pretty weak in the story. There wasn’t much scope for acting for any in the movie. Sandhya was absolutely annoying. She’s probably the one actress who doesn’t have either looks or talent and is still in the industry. I’d definitely suggest leaving this movie out of your ‘want-to-see’s.
Prithvi meets Sandhya in Malaysia, where she is pursuing her studies. After repeated meetings they fall in love. Prithvi’s foster parents, also his uncle and aunt, have plans of getting him married to their business partner, but Prithvi reveals his love and they fall apart. With the help of his friend, he flies to India to meet Sandhya’s parents, doubting police officer Satyaraj and his soft wife, Radhika. Everyone in the family seems to like Prithvi except Satyaraj. Prithvi confides his fallout with his foster parents to Radhika and she accepts him as he is and they plan to reveal everything at the right time. One day, with the turn of events, Prithvi gets accepted by Satyaraj, but wrongly believes a concocted story by Prithvi’s uncle in Malaysia, about Prithvi being a crook. Satyaraj insults Prithvi and shows his ‘true’ colours to his family. Although Radhika tries to stop him, she fails and in frustration of having a not-so-understanding or trusting husband leaves the place. Sandhya goes along with her. Satyaraj continues to search, while Prithvi also tries to search with his own methods. Finally he finds out that they might have gone to the house of Satyaraj’s estranged sister in Ooty and decides to follow and his discovery is right. He also informs Satyaraj, who follows him a while later. After a few misunderstandings, Satyaraj and Radha get together, while the young lovers are still separated. As Prithvi is leaving the town, Sandhya has a change of mind and tracks him down to re-concile. After an over dramatic chase, they come together.
An excessively annoying movie. I had high expectations for Prithviraj and he seemed to be pretty weak in the story. There wasn’t much scope for acting for any in the movie. Sandhya was absolutely annoying. She’s probably the one actress who doesn’t have either looks or talent and is still in the industry. I’d definitely suggest leaving this movie out of your ‘want-to-see’s.
pirivom sandhipom
As usual Cheran proves that any movie with which he is involved, is sure to be one that makes the audience think. Coming together with Sneha once more, the movie is about a newly wedded couple.
Sneha is an only child and hates being alone and being so, creates situations to be along with her friends – asking them to stay overnight, inviting them for movies, etc. Cheran is from a huge joint family with generations of sons living together in one roof in their ancestral home. Every trip together takes hours to leave and there are so many relations that he deosn’t have a separate name for each one of them.
Being of marriageable ages, a common friend proposes marriage between the two families. Things happen well and they welcome their daughter-in-law as their own daughter into the family. Sneha is also very understanding and caring towards all. Life seems to be smooth sailing until she finds out that her husband has an offer to go another location. Even though the job offers him promotion and a higher salary, Sneha is not happy because she would be lonely. In spite of her doubts, she follows her husband faithfully.
In the new place, she meets some new people and every one of her socializing effort is thwarted by her husband since he wants peace and quiet for the two of them. Cheran starts noticing some change in his wife, but thinks nothing of it. A local doctor, played by Jayaram starts noticing problems with Sneha’s loneliness and urgently requests her husband to meet him as soon as possible. But it is too late, when they find out that Sneha is heavily drugged with sleeping medicines one night. They manage to save her and Jayaram is also able to educate Cheran about the situation. The movie ends by showing the couple returning to Cheran’s huge joint family.
The movie had no violence or disturbing scenes. Even the commonly abused subject of in-laws was beautifully and delicately handled. The actors didn’t overdo their love, but acted as humans should have and humans would – very realistic! The subject itself was unique – not for just namesake. Excellent acting by the supporting cast – each and everyone of them is still memorable and cute. Cheran did a good job in his role as well, but could improve some bit. He is seasoned enough yet there seems to be something lacking in it. Sneha did a good job as well, yet I felt her emoting was not complete. I suppose the sense of incompleteness overwhelms when the load of the character is huge and the role players not so strong enough to carry them. But definitely a movie worth the watch with the entire family.
Sneha is an only child and hates being alone and being so, creates situations to be along with her friends – asking them to stay overnight, inviting them for movies, etc. Cheran is from a huge joint family with generations of sons living together in one roof in their ancestral home. Every trip together takes hours to leave and there are so many relations that he deosn’t have a separate name for each one of them.
Being of marriageable ages, a common friend proposes marriage between the two families. Things happen well and they welcome their daughter-in-law as their own daughter into the family. Sneha is also very understanding and caring towards all. Life seems to be smooth sailing until she finds out that her husband has an offer to go another location. Even though the job offers him promotion and a higher salary, Sneha is not happy because she would be lonely. In spite of her doubts, she follows her husband faithfully.
In the new place, she meets some new people and every one of her socializing effort is thwarted by her husband since he wants peace and quiet for the two of them. Cheran starts noticing some change in his wife, but thinks nothing of it. A local doctor, played by Jayaram starts noticing problems with Sneha’s loneliness and urgently requests her husband to meet him as soon as possible. But it is too late, when they find out that Sneha is heavily drugged with sleeping medicines one night. They manage to save her and Jayaram is also able to educate Cheran about the situation. The movie ends by showing the couple returning to Cheran’s huge joint family.
The movie had no violence or disturbing scenes. Even the commonly abused subject of in-laws was beautifully and delicately handled. The actors didn’t overdo their love, but acted as humans should have and humans would – very realistic! The subject itself was unique – not for just namesake. Excellent acting by the supporting cast – each and everyone of them is still memorable and cute. Cheran did a good job in his role as well, but could improve some bit. He is seasoned enough yet there seems to be something lacking in it. Sneha did a good job as well, yet I felt her emoting was not complete. I suppose the sense of incompleteness overwhelms when the load of the character is huge and the role players not so strong enough to carry them. But definitely a movie worth the watch with the entire family.
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus
Here is another attempt at trying to define and analyze the differences between the two most inexplicable creatures on earth. The Ph.D. graduate, Dr. John Gray, brings in examples from his own life and many others to explain the intrinsic personality differences and expectations coming out of it.
The basic psychology of what you expect from others is what you give is brought to our attention and from here, he strives to explain women give men what women need and vice versa. As a result neither of them is satisfied. He suggests that by understanding what the other wants or needs, the individuals will feel more energized and fulfilled as not only are you trying less harder, but you are also receiving what you need and this makes all the difference.
The basic difference is explained as follows: women are very nurturing by nature. They feel that to help someone is to show that they care and love them. By trying to make them perfect, they have completely loved and accepted the other person. Men, on the other hand, take it as an offense if someone tries to change them. In the eyes of their women, they like to stay as their heroes and when that isn’t reflected (when she constantly tries to change him), he feels he is not good enough and he is broken and thus, slides away from the relationship. They also have the philosophy of ‘fix only when broken’, which extends to their relationships as well. Right after courtship and marriage, they feel that they have done enough to settle and ‘fix’ and need to take some time off. On the other hand, with the emotional turmoil and hormones of women, they need to be reassured from time to time about their love and life. But this constant ‘nagging’ is seen as broken relationship by men.
Such are the conflicting opinions of the two genders which hve resulted in many battles – many quite ugly. Although I sympathized with many of the situations in the book, seeing my relatives’ relationships in them, it boils down to the aspect of awareness and respect for each other. At the end of the tunnel, the whole issue about communication pops up. The author himself didn’t have this book to teach him how to deal with issues, yet he took the step of communicating with his better half. Humans are probably the only species that have so many languages to communicate with and yet they are the only ones who feel incomplete and misunderstood in the society.
The basic psychology of what you expect from others is what you give is brought to our attention and from here, he strives to explain women give men what women need and vice versa. As a result neither of them is satisfied. He suggests that by understanding what the other wants or needs, the individuals will feel more energized and fulfilled as not only are you trying less harder, but you are also receiving what you need and this makes all the difference.
The basic difference is explained as follows: women are very nurturing by nature. They feel that to help someone is to show that they care and love them. By trying to make them perfect, they have completely loved and accepted the other person. Men, on the other hand, take it as an offense if someone tries to change them. In the eyes of their women, they like to stay as their heroes and when that isn’t reflected (when she constantly tries to change him), he feels he is not good enough and he is broken and thus, slides away from the relationship. They also have the philosophy of ‘fix only when broken’, which extends to their relationships as well. Right after courtship and marriage, they feel that they have done enough to settle and ‘fix’ and need to take some time off. On the other hand, with the emotional turmoil and hormones of women, they need to be reassured from time to time about their love and life. But this constant ‘nagging’ is seen as broken relationship by men.
Such are the conflicting opinions of the two genders which hve resulted in many battles – many quite ugly. Although I sympathized with many of the situations in the book, seeing my relatives’ relationships in them, it boils down to the aspect of awareness and respect for each other. At the end of the tunnel, the whole issue about communication pops up. The author himself didn’t have this book to teach him how to deal with issues, yet he took the step of communicating with his better half. Humans are probably the only species that have so many languages to communicate with and yet they are the only ones who feel incomplete and misunderstood in the society.
Animal Farm
George Orwell writes about the power-hungry world that we live in, by putting it in the context of an animal farm. The animal farm started off with ill-treatment, enlightening, secret meetings, rules and behavioural code, rioting, battle, usurping, hard work, peevishness, breaking of rules, selfishness, power hungriness and everything that you would see in today’s world to gain power and position. The only difference was this was set among the animals of the farm.
There is not much in the story itself as to where the beauty of this classic come from but the similarity to the life that we see in politics and even in some families.
The farm animals are mistreated for a long time and they realize eventually that since they are the ones making the farmer survive, they should overthrow him and take the profits and goods for themselves. The secret meetings happen and the riot and battle that ensues sees many casualties and it also brings freedom. The animals come together to make their laws and continue to work hard to make their life. Many feel that they are working harder than before but content themselves in thinking that they are working for themselves. Yet, after a while, they start feeling as though some of the initial rules made were broken by their leaders, but the leaders carry out many dark dealings, which makes it seem as though the animals’ memory might be at fault. The book ends by showing that there is no difference between the animals’ chosen leaders and the men that they drove away from the farm in the first place.
After reading 1984 in a forced condition, I wasn’t a fan of George Orwell, but as I grew up and saw more of politics in play in the world and in my office, I started appreciating his ideas and Animal Farm can also be safely added to his extraordinary books. A good, insightful read.
There is not much in the story itself as to where the beauty of this classic come from but the similarity to the life that we see in politics and even in some families.
The farm animals are mistreated for a long time and they realize eventually that since they are the ones making the farmer survive, they should overthrow him and take the profits and goods for themselves. The secret meetings happen and the riot and battle that ensues sees many casualties and it also brings freedom. The animals come together to make their laws and continue to work hard to make their life. Many feel that they are working harder than before but content themselves in thinking that they are working for themselves. Yet, after a while, they start feeling as though some of the initial rules made were broken by their leaders, but the leaders carry out many dark dealings, which makes it seem as though the animals’ memory might be at fault. The book ends by showing that there is no difference between the animals’ chosen leaders and the men that they drove away from the farm in the first place.
After reading 1984 in a forced condition, I wasn’t a fan of George Orwell, but as I grew up and saw more of politics in play in the world and in my office, I started appreciating his ideas and Animal Farm can also be safely added to his extraordinary books. A good, insightful read.
Sunday, June 15, 2008
O. Henry
No author has broached the subject of short stories with the theme of 'Man proposes, but God disposes' as well as O. Henry a.k.a. William Sydney porter has. The easy flow of his stories with an equally easy twist, brings a smile of acknowledgment on every reader's face, since each one of us has experienced ruin of our plans in a good or evil way. And yet, no one has figured why some things that should run smoothly end up so rough.
The collection of stories starts off with the infamous 'The Gift of Magi', which is the story of a loving couple, who lose their best possessions to make their other half's treasure more valuable, yet, in the end, find out that their love for each other is the best present they could have got for Christmas. Second in line is 'Mammon and the Archer', which is the story of a rich father who believes in money's power to achieve anything and proves so, when he stages the situation for his son's proposal to the lady he loves. 'After Twenty Years' tests the bonds of friendship between two men, along with a moral crisis, since one of the men, now, is a wanted criminal, while the other, a dutiful law enforcer. 'Two Thanksgiving Day Gentlemen' shows how not knowing how to refuse can overfeed a man to hospital and brings his benefactor to death bed. Human spirits and beliefs are tested in the 'The Last Leaf', when a woman close to deathbed survives, which the man who saves her succumbs to death. Old habits die hard in 'A Retrieved Reformation' for a hard core thief, who even after turning a new leaf, is forced to re-live his old habits at the time of a crisis, while his old mate, who is waiting to expose his old habits accepts his new situation gracefully.
My grandfather introduced this author to me and as much as O.Henry's short stories are much celebrated, seems like the local library has little momenta of his to remember.
The collection of stories starts off with the infamous 'The Gift of Magi', which is the story of a loving couple, who lose their best possessions to make their other half's treasure more valuable, yet, in the end, find out that their love for each other is the best present they could have got for Christmas. Second in line is 'Mammon and the Archer', which is the story of a rich father who believes in money's power to achieve anything and proves so, when he stages the situation for his son's proposal to the lady he loves. 'After Twenty Years' tests the bonds of friendship between two men, along with a moral crisis, since one of the men, now, is a wanted criminal, while the other, a dutiful law enforcer. 'Two Thanksgiving Day Gentlemen' shows how not knowing how to refuse can overfeed a man to hospital and brings his benefactor to death bed. Human spirits and beliefs are tested in the 'The Last Leaf', when a woman close to deathbed survives, which the man who saves her succumbs to death. Old habits die hard in 'A Retrieved Reformation' for a hard core thief, who even after turning a new leaf, is forced to re-live his old habits at the time of a crisis, while his old mate, who is waiting to expose his old habits accepts his new situation gracefully.
My grandfather introduced this author to me and as much as O.Henry's short stories are much celebrated, seems like the local library has little momenta of his to remember.
Bachelors Anonymous
Here's another classic comedy from P.G.Wodehouse bringing a marriage addict and a bachelor together in one book.
Ivor, an American movie moghul, is a recently divorced personality, who wants to avoid getting into any more impulsive marriages, like his last one. He seeks his lawyer, Ephraim, who is a member of a club called Bachelor's Anonymous, for advice. Ephraim suggests Ivor should leave for England and get a personal bodyguard, who'd protect Ivor from rash decision of proposing to women when he has run out of things to talk to. Thus, Ivor leaves for England.
Joseph is an upcoming story writer. Thus far, he has been supporting himself at a lawyer's office, but his passion lied in drama. One of his story's was going to be performed at the local theatre with Vera as the leading lady. As part of her journalist job, Sally had to interview the story writer and proceeds to interview Joseph. For Joseph, it is love at first sight, but he is unable to get a date with her. Meanwhile, he gets a call from his friend Jerry about the possibility of a new job. The new job is being the bodyguard to Ivor, which is a chance in a million for Joe, since he could finance his stories.
Sally receives a letter from Jerry's company mentioning a matter of importance with regards to her old boss, who was a campaigner against smoking. It's fate that brings Joe to Sally again and this time, he fixes a date with her. After he leaves, Sally finds out from Jerry that her old boss had left her a fortune and a home, under the condition that she doesn't smoke and to monitor that, a detective would be living with her in her new apartment. She returns home to share her joy with her roomie, who insists on seeing the new place. As they are viewing the new place, Sally tires out and falls asleep, missing Joe's lunch date. Panicking, she reaches the restaurant, only to find him gone. She is remorseful, since she had started to like him as well.
Meanwhile, Joe starts his new job with Ivor. Ivor quite liked his bodyguard, but is disturbed when Joe starts raving about when an interviewer, Sally, comes by to ask him questions. Ivor immediately insists that Ephraim come to England, while Sally apologizes and fixes a lunch date with Joe. Ivor attends Joe's play and is delighted to meet Vera and according to his usual self, invites Vera to have dinner with him.
Joe prepares himself tiptop for the date and meets Ephraim with Ivor, when he returns. Ephraim enrages him by speaking odd things about love and finally loses his mental balance, when he drinks a seemingly harmless concoction that Ephraim hands him and thus, misses his date with Sally.
Meanwhile, Sally moves into her new apartment and finds out her detective roomie, Daphne, to be not-so-formidable. She easily fits in with her and feels on cloud nine thinking she's never be smoking, so the fortune would be hers in no time. However, her day starts going wrong when she's stood up by Joe and is angry at him. Surprises of surprises, her ex-fiance, Jaklyn, who finds out about Sally's new fortunes (and decides this is the solution to all his debts), arrives at the restaurant and in fit of anger, Sally agrees to be engaged to him again. She returns home in low spirits and tells of her engagement to her roomie, who is decidedly shocked, since she is engaged to Jakyln as well, however, she keeps her calm.
When Joe finds out the next day about what happened to him, he is annoyed at Ephraim and tries to make peace with Sally, however, Ephraim follows him around with discouraging words. Finally, they follow Sally in a cab to her nanny's home. Ephraim loses Joe and Sally and tries to find them by asking the nanny, Jane, however, Jane is a stout woman who refuses to let him in. To try again, Ephraim enters the neighbour's lawn and gets bitten by the dog. The owner, Amelia rushes out to help him and Ephraim falls in love with the nurse, who works at St. Swithin's.
Joe is unable to convince Sally and returns disheartened to Ivor's house, where he finds a panicking boss. Ivor is worried about his n-th lunch with Vera and is convinced that he would be marrying Vera soon. Joe suggests Ivor to hospitalise himself, such that Vera will not be able to find him. Ivor does so accordingly. Ephraim returns and apologises to Joe and insists that he would clear up the matter with Sally. Sally is very happy when she hears of the truth, but shares the problem of her engagement with Jaklyn. Ephraim volunteers to clear it up with the third guy and leaves with Joe. The matter seemed to be utterly simple when Ephraim, single handedly, offered some money to Jaklyn to break up the engagement and the couple is much obliged to him. However, Sally loses her fortune since, in her restlessness, she takes up the cigarette.
Meanwhile, the readers find out the reason Jaklyn was so easy going was because Daphne (to whom he was engaged first) had given him a surprise trip to the church, where they had been hastily married off. And Ephraim's offer was a bonus to the already available riches that Jaklyn was to receive because of his marriage to Daphne.
Ivor is much angry at being left at the hospital and calls and fires Joe, since Ivor had now proposed to his nurse, Amelia, and she had replied that she would consider his proposals. Ephraim finds out about Ivor whereabouts and visits him at the hospital only to find out that Amelia is his nurse. He loses no minute in proposing and securing her hand.
When Ivor finds out that he is in no danger of marrying Amelia or Vera, he happily receives Joe again and also agrees to finance his movies. Such ended the hilarious book of English humour and wit. Certainly, Wodehouse is the king of the 'Comedy of Errors'.
Ivor, an American movie moghul, is a recently divorced personality, who wants to avoid getting into any more impulsive marriages, like his last one. He seeks his lawyer, Ephraim, who is a member of a club called Bachelor's Anonymous, for advice. Ephraim suggests Ivor should leave for England and get a personal bodyguard, who'd protect Ivor from rash decision of proposing to women when he has run out of things to talk to. Thus, Ivor leaves for England.
Joseph is an upcoming story writer. Thus far, he has been supporting himself at a lawyer's office, but his passion lied in drama. One of his story's was going to be performed at the local theatre with Vera as the leading lady. As part of her journalist job, Sally had to interview the story writer and proceeds to interview Joseph. For Joseph, it is love at first sight, but he is unable to get a date with her. Meanwhile, he gets a call from his friend Jerry about the possibility of a new job. The new job is being the bodyguard to Ivor, which is a chance in a million for Joe, since he could finance his stories.
Sally receives a letter from Jerry's company mentioning a matter of importance with regards to her old boss, who was a campaigner against smoking. It's fate that brings Joe to Sally again and this time, he fixes a date with her. After he leaves, Sally finds out from Jerry that her old boss had left her a fortune and a home, under the condition that she doesn't smoke and to monitor that, a detective would be living with her in her new apartment. She returns home to share her joy with her roomie, who insists on seeing the new place. As they are viewing the new place, Sally tires out and falls asleep, missing Joe's lunch date. Panicking, she reaches the restaurant, only to find him gone. She is remorseful, since she had started to like him as well.
Meanwhile, Joe starts his new job with Ivor. Ivor quite liked his bodyguard, but is disturbed when Joe starts raving about when an interviewer, Sally, comes by to ask him questions. Ivor immediately insists that Ephraim come to England, while Sally apologizes and fixes a lunch date with Joe. Ivor attends Joe's play and is delighted to meet Vera and according to his usual self, invites Vera to have dinner with him.
Joe prepares himself tiptop for the date and meets Ephraim with Ivor, when he returns. Ephraim enrages him by speaking odd things about love and finally loses his mental balance, when he drinks a seemingly harmless concoction that Ephraim hands him and thus, misses his date with Sally.
Meanwhile, Sally moves into her new apartment and finds out her detective roomie, Daphne, to be not-so-formidable. She easily fits in with her and feels on cloud nine thinking she's never be smoking, so the fortune would be hers in no time. However, her day starts going wrong when she's stood up by Joe and is angry at him. Surprises of surprises, her ex-fiance, Jaklyn, who finds out about Sally's new fortunes (and decides this is the solution to all his debts), arrives at the restaurant and in fit of anger, Sally agrees to be engaged to him again. She returns home in low spirits and tells of her engagement to her roomie, who is decidedly shocked, since she is engaged to Jakyln as well, however, she keeps her calm.
When Joe finds out the next day about what happened to him, he is annoyed at Ephraim and tries to make peace with Sally, however, Ephraim follows him around with discouraging words. Finally, they follow Sally in a cab to her nanny's home. Ephraim loses Joe and Sally and tries to find them by asking the nanny, Jane, however, Jane is a stout woman who refuses to let him in. To try again, Ephraim enters the neighbour's lawn and gets bitten by the dog. The owner, Amelia rushes out to help him and Ephraim falls in love with the nurse, who works at St. Swithin's.
Joe is unable to convince Sally and returns disheartened to Ivor's house, where he finds a panicking boss. Ivor is worried about his n-th lunch with Vera and is convinced that he would be marrying Vera soon. Joe suggests Ivor to hospitalise himself, such that Vera will not be able to find him. Ivor does so accordingly. Ephraim returns and apologises to Joe and insists that he would clear up the matter with Sally. Sally is very happy when she hears of the truth, but shares the problem of her engagement with Jaklyn. Ephraim volunteers to clear it up with the third guy and leaves with Joe. The matter seemed to be utterly simple when Ephraim, single handedly, offered some money to Jaklyn to break up the engagement and the couple is much obliged to him. However, Sally loses her fortune since, in her restlessness, she takes up the cigarette.
Meanwhile, the readers find out the reason Jaklyn was so easy going was because Daphne (to whom he was engaged first) had given him a surprise trip to the church, where they had been hastily married off. And Ephraim's offer was a bonus to the already available riches that Jaklyn was to receive because of his marriage to Daphne.
Ivor is much angry at being left at the hospital and calls and fires Joe, since Ivor had now proposed to his nurse, Amelia, and she had replied that she would consider his proposals. Ephraim finds out about Ivor whereabouts and visits him at the hospital only to find out that Amelia is his nurse. He loses no minute in proposing and securing her hand.
When Ivor finds out that he is in no danger of marrying Amelia or Vera, he happily receives Joe again and also agrees to finance his movies. Such ended the hilarious book of English humour and wit. Certainly, Wodehouse is the king of the 'Comedy of Errors'.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Mulliner Nights
P.G.Wodehouse gives his fans a series of short stories as told by Mr. Mulliner about the tales of his relatives.
The series begins with Adrian Mulliner of 'The Smile That Wins', who was suffering from dyspepsia, which made him smile strangely from time to time and was usually interpreted to be a kind of evil smile, which made people scared and cautious. He uses this smiles to eventually win the lady of his heart, from her foreboding father, Reginald, and her balding fiance, Jasper, with the help of a kleptomaniac Sutton.
'The Story of Webster' boasts of a pristine cat gone rotten with Lancelot, a struggling artist, who is forced to give up his Bohemian habits when his rich uncle bishop, Theodore, leaves his cat, Webster, under his care. The cat was also indirectly to reform Lancelot of his waywardness, by giving up his love, Gladys, and offer his hand to a boring pill, Brenda, who also posed for Lancelot.
The sequel to the above comes in 'Cats will be Cats' where Theodore finds himself in the grip of Lady Widdrington, a lover of cats and power. Theodore implores Lancelot to help him and bring his cat back. To the former, Lancelot is willing, however, the second might bring him trouble, since Webster, isn't exactly in his former glory. So leaving the cat to a reformer, Lancelot arrives at Lady Widdrinton's castle as Theodore's lawyer. After fruitless efforts to detach his uncle, the surprise arrival (to Lancelot) and state (to Theodore) of Webster and the fight ensuing between him and Lady Widdrington's cat, Percy, puts an end to all of Theodore's misery, reserving a definite part of his fortune for Lancelot's future.
'Knightly Quest of Mervyn' makes a hero out of a shy, quiet person, Mervyn, by making a hero out of his disposition. To prove his love for Clarice, Mervyn ventures the impossible of obtaining strawberries during the off season. Although he succeeds in getting the strawberries, first by using his uncle Joseph's name falsely, then by escaping with it, he loses by tasting and finishing them by the time Clarice asks him to wait. And then he is forced to get it again, when Oofy also seems to be competing with him for Clarice's attentions.
Change in confidence levels and fear of headmasters rules the plot of 'A Voice From the Past'. Sacheverell is a soft spoken Mulliner, who is now engaged to breezy, confident girl, Muriel, who was previously engaged to her cousin, Bernard. And the reason she broke it off was because he was very commanding. However, when the subject asking Muriel's hand in marriage comes, Sacheverell is worried and to impress her father, he takes up a correspondence course on Muriel's father, Col. Branksome, interests. But he realises, after more than half the course, he still hasn't seen a word on what he wants, feels furious and stomps down to the school's office and finds out that he has seen results of a confidence builder course. Pleased with himself, he returns to Muriel and expresses his confident self, much to the chagrin of Muriel. But when he realises, his headmaster is in the same castle, he returns to his former self and Muriel's lover.
'Open House' sees another version of Jeeves and Wooster where Eustace is thrown into a mess because of his valet, Blekinsop's, incomplete information. Marcella, his lover, leaves her canary and dog under his care, while she travels to Paris. At the same time, his widowed aunt leaves her cat with him. While trying to keep all of the pets alive, Eustace's actions are misinterpreted by his animal lover neighbour Orlando. Meanwhile, a drop in visit by Eustace's old flame throws his affairs into a further disarray, displacing the dog, bringing in both his lover and aunt as surprise during the most untoward hour. But thankfully, his valet's quick ideas save him.
'Best Seller' outlines the relationship between a novel author hating news correspondent and a new authoress. Egbert is the correspondent and he checks if Evangeline is not a novel writer before falling in love with her. Over time, she feels like writing her relationship with Egbert as a novel. Although he is shocked and is perturbed with his personal relationship becoming public, he allows her to proceed. With the fame, she becomes closer and closer to her manager, Henderson, until the day she breaks down confessing that she can't be an author anymore to Egbert. Egbert is happy to have her back and promises to help her complete all her assignments.
Mystery and nature lovers duel in the story of 'Strychnine in the soup'. Cyril and Amelia are in love and share the passion of mysteries. However, Amelia's aunt, Lady Basett is a hindrance to their union, as she finds interior decorating (Cyril's profession), not manly enough. Cyril tries to reason but to no avail. She has other plans of having Lester, a hunter, marry Amelia. Drawing Cyril, Lady Basett and Lester into a twine of mystery, the story ends with Lady Basett consenting to Cyril and Amelia's marriage.
'Gala Night' is another tale of a man misinterpreted due to his love for the arts, dancing. Ronald and Hypatia are in love, yet her uncle, Percy, a bishop is against it. Using the assistance of Augustine, Jane and an energy booster, they manage to make Percy and his wife Priscilla dance and hence accept Ronald's love of dancing after a mysterious gala night which they attend without proper consciousness.
The series begins with Adrian Mulliner of 'The Smile That Wins', who was suffering from dyspepsia, which made him smile strangely from time to time and was usually interpreted to be a kind of evil smile, which made people scared and cautious. He uses this smiles to eventually win the lady of his heart, from her foreboding father, Reginald, and her balding fiance, Jasper, with the help of a kleptomaniac Sutton.
'The Story of Webster' boasts of a pristine cat gone rotten with Lancelot, a struggling artist, who is forced to give up his Bohemian habits when his rich uncle bishop, Theodore, leaves his cat, Webster, under his care. The cat was also indirectly to reform Lancelot of his waywardness, by giving up his love, Gladys, and offer his hand to a boring pill, Brenda, who also posed for Lancelot.
The sequel to the above comes in 'Cats will be Cats' where Theodore finds himself in the grip of Lady Widdrington, a lover of cats and power. Theodore implores Lancelot to help him and bring his cat back. To the former, Lancelot is willing, however, the second might bring him trouble, since Webster, isn't exactly in his former glory. So leaving the cat to a reformer, Lancelot arrives at Lady Widdrinton's castle as Theodore's lawyer. After fruitless efforts to detach his uncle, the surprise arrival (to Lancelot) and state (to Theodore) of Webster and the fight ensuing between him and Lady Widdrington's cat, Percy, puts an end to all of Theodore's misery, reserving a definite part of his fortune for Lancelot's future.
'Knightly Quest of Mervyn' makes a hero out of a shy, quiet person, Mervyn, by making a hero out of his disposition. To prove his love for Clarice, Mervyn ventures the impossible of obtaining strawberries during the off season. Although he succeeds in getting the strawberries, first by using his uncle Joseph's name falsely, then by escaping with it, he loses by tasting and finishing them by the time Clarice asks him to wait. And then he is forced to get it again, when Oofy also seems to be competing with him for Clarice's attentions.
Change in confidence levels and fear of headmasters rules the plot of 'A Voice From the Past'. Sacheverell is a soft spoken Mulliner, who is now engaged to breezy, confident girl, Muriel, who was previously engaged to her cousin, Bernard. And the reason she broke it off was because he was very commanding. However, when the subject asking Muriel's hand in marriage comes, Sacheverell is worried and to impress her father, he takes up a correspondence course on Muriel's father, Col. Branksome, interests. But he realises, after more than half the course, he still hasn't seen a word on what he wants, feels furious and stomps down to the school's office and finds out that he has seen results of a confidence builder course. Pleased with himself, he returns to Muriel and expresses his confident self, much to the chagrin of Muriel. But when he realises, his headmaster is in the same castle, he returns to his former self and Muriel's lover.
'Open House' sees another version of Jeeves and Wooster where Eustace is thrown into a mess because of his valet, Blekinsop's, incomplete information. Marcella, his lover, leaves her canary and dog under his care, while she travels to Paris. At the same time, his widowed aunt leaves her cat with him. While trying to keep all of the pets alive, Eustace's actions are misinterpreted by his animal lover neighbour Orlando. Meanwhile, a drop in visit by Eustace's old flame throws his affairs into a further disarray, displacing the dog, bringing in both his lover and aunt as surprise during the most untoward hour. But thankfully, his valet's quick ideas save him.
'Best Seller' outlines the relationship between a novel author hating news correspondent and a new authoress. Egbert is the correspondent and he checks if Evangeline is not a novel writer before falling in love with her. Over time, she feels like writing her relationship with Egbert as a novel. Although he is shocked and is perturbed with his personal relationship becoming public, he allows her to proceed. With the fame, she becomes closer and closer to her manager, Henderson, until the day she breaks down confessing that she can't be an author anymore to Egbert. Egbert is happy to have her back and promises to help her complete all her assignments.
Mystery and nature lovers duel in the story of 'Strychnine in the soup'. Cyril and Amelia are in love and share the passion of mysteries. However, Amelia's aunt, Lady Basett is a hindrance to their union, as she finds interior decorating (Cyril's profession), not manly enough. Cyril tries to reason but to no avail. She has other plans of having Lester, a hunter, marry Amelia. Drawing Cyril, Lady Basett and Lester into a twine of mystery, the story ends with Lady Basett consenting to Cyril and Amelia's marriage.
'Gala Night' is another tale of a man misinterpreted due to his love for the arts, dancing. Ronald and Hypatia are in love, yet her uncle, Percy, a bishop is against it. Using the assistance of Augustine, Jane and an energy booster, they manage to make Percy and his wife Priscilla dance and hence accept Ronald's love of dancing after a mysterious gala night which they attend without proper consciousness.
Friday, June 6, 2008
What Not to Wear
Written by the BBC hosts of the programme with the same title, Trinny Woodall and Susannah Constantine, the book provides women with varying physical problems to overcome them with their dress sense - big chest vs no chest, big bum, saddlebags, short legs, big calves and ankles, no neck, no hip - the list is endless.
The book does a good job of portraying what's good and bad since there are good visuals and the contrast is shown by what not to wear on the left and what could be worn on the right. The readers can see the difference the clothes make in achieving the slim killer look one can achieve with their own body type.
A good read for all those with 'defects' to help them flaunt what they have best.
The book does a good job of portraying what's good and bad since there are good visuals and the contrast is shown by what not to wear on the left and what could be worn on the right. The readers can see the difference the clothes make in achieving the slim killer look one can achieve with their own body type.
A good read for all those with 'defects' to help them flaunt what they have best.
The Game Plan
Dwayne Johnson shares the screen space with Madison Pettis in this comedy about a successful football player bonding with his daughter.
Joe Kingman is a successful football player and lives the luxury which is rudely interrupted one day when Peyton shows up at his doorstep claiming to be his daughter. After showing the birth certificate, Joe and his manager refrain from doing a paternity test, since that might affect his career. Peyton claims that her mother left her under Joe's care since she had to go on a sudden mission to Africa. Over time, Joe and Peyton start to bond. But Joe catches Peyton red-handed when she blurts out she needs to return before she is found missing. Joe rushes Peyton to the hospital cause of an allergic reaction, just when he finds out from her that his ex-wife had died in a car crash 6 months ago and Peyton had decided to find out about her father herself. Since then, Peyton had been living with her aunt. While Peyton is undergoing treatment, she hears Joe and her aunt arguing about what's best for her and overhears Joe's manager mentioning that Peyton might interfere with Joe's career. Not wanting to disturb Joe's life, Peyton returns with her aunt. Not able to withstand the loss, Joe performs badly in an important match and gets injured. Peyton rushes to the stadium seeing her dad's state on TV. Joe recovers his confidence and wins the game.
An OK movie - there could have had more funny sequences between Peyton and Joe trying to live together. The ending was predictable and 'The Rock' was indeed rock-like and needs to work a bit more on his emotions.
Joe Kingman is a successful football player and lives the luxury which is rudely interrupted one day when Peyton shows up at his doorstep claiming to be his daughter. After showing the birth certificate, Joe and his manager refrain from doing a paternity test, since that might affect his career. Peyton claims that her mother left her under Joe's care since she had to go on a sudden mission to Africa. Over time, Joe and Peyton start to bond. But Joe catches Peyton red-handed when she blurts out she needs to return before she is found missing. Joe rushes Peyton to the hospital cause of an allergic reaction, just when he finds out from her that his ex-wife had died in a car crash 6 months ago and Peyton had decided to find out about her father herself. Since then, Peyton had been living with her aunt. While Peyton is undergoing treatment, she hears Joe and her aunt arguing about what's best for her and overhears Joe's manager mentioning that Peyton might interfere with Joe's career. Not wanting to disturb Joe's life, Peyton returns with her aunt. Not able to withstand the loss, Joe performs badly in an important match and gets injured. Peyton rushes to the stadium seeing her dad's state on TV. Joe recovers his confidence and wins the game.
An OK movie - there could have had more funny sequences between Peyton and Joe trying to live together. The ending was predictable and 'The Rock' was indeed rock-like and needs to work a bit more on his emotions.
Monday, June 2, 2008
The Spiderwick Chronicles
With young star Freddie Highmore, this fantasy movie is about a magical world encompassed in a book.
The Grace family - divorced mother, twins (Highmore) and a daughter - arrive at their aunt's place only to discover that there is something evil and magical about it. Jared discovers Spiderwick's book about the magical creatures and reads it despite a deathly warning. When things start going wrong and risky, he tries to convince his family about the book and the existence of the creatures. After finally convincing his siblings about the magical book and creatures, the Grace children have a responsibility to kill the Ogre to save themselves. But it is impossible without Spiderwick's help. Jared summons his pet and the three travel to see him only to discover that the 125-year old man has no powers against what is happening. Now the Grace family puts up a fierce fight against the evil and wins.
I had high expectations with Freddie Highmore in the story. But the story was almost bland and totally non-magical. The fight and relationship within the family could have been better enunciated for emotions, although Highmore's emotions in the short scenes were good to watch. The magical creatures were very well blended with the real actors, but there was a dearth of magic and the flying sequence could have been better handled. A tolerable watch.
The Grace family - divorced mother, twins (Highmore) and a daughter - arrive at their aunt's place only to discover that there is something evil and magical about it. Jared discovers Spiderwick's book about the magical creatures and reads it despite a deathly warning. When things start going wrong and risky, he tries to convince his family about the book and the existence of the creatures. After finally convincing his siblings about the magical book and creatures, the Grace children have a responsibility to kill the Ogre to save themselves. But it is impossible without Spiderwick's help. Jared summons his pet and the three travel to see him only to discover that the 125-year old man has no powers against what is happening. Now the Grace family puts up a fierce fight against the evil and wins.
I had high expectations with Freddie Highmore in the story. But the story was almost bland and totally non-magical. The fight and relationship within the family could have been better enunciated for emotions, although Highmore's emotions in the short scenes were good to watch. The magical creatures were very well blended with the real actors, but there was a dearth of magic and the flying sequence could have been better handled. A tolerable watch.
Being Cyrus
Saif Ali Khan, Boman Irani, Dimple Kapadia and Naseeruddin Shah come together in this English movie about a dysfunctional family of Parsis.
Cyrus (Khan) arrives at his favourite artist's (Shah) house as an intern. He finds him absolutely aloof of family life. The location of their house is in the suburbs with access to almost nothing. Yet, Shah and his wife (Kapadia) are leading their almost-non-existent marital life amidst grumbles and groans. The wife receives many phone calls from her NRI brother and that is the only time her face sparkles with joy. Eventually she asks Cyrus to visit her father-in-law in the city. Cyrus meets her captivated FIL and foul-mouthed brother-in-law (Irani) and his young bride. Cyrus continues to meet the FIL and gaining his trust. One such day he kills him and enters the adjoining house, where the BIL and his wife live. BIL arrives, only to be killed after a tiff. Cyrus' emotions continue to narrate claiming Kapadia to have double crossed him, since she was the one to send Cyrus to kill her co-sister, but she informed BIL to kill Cyrus as well. Kapadia and Shah are held in for questioning, but Cyrus comes off clean.
The story ends of showing how the whole plot was the co-sister's, who was actually Cyrus's real sister. Both of them were abused as children and this was their way of making money. But Cyrus had enough of it and when he sees his sister spotting her next family, he leaves her.
A pretty disturbing story of betrayal, greed and love. The fact that it was forcibly taken in English in Indian surroundings was kind of annoying and the characters lost a bit of their Indian flavour and seemed fake, but other than that, it was a good psychological plot. Khan has a bit of a way to go with the heavier aspect of his character. He carries the light hearted roles better thus far, but it was interesting to see him in a different role. Irani, Kapadia and Shah were great in their respective characters, as they always were. A good time pass.
Cyrus (Khan) arrives at his favourite artist's (Shah) house as an intern. He finds him absolutely aloof of family life. The location of their house is in the suburbs with access to almost nothing. Yet, Shah and his wife (Kapadia) are leading their almost-non-existent marital life amidst grumbles and groans. The wife receives many phone calls from her NRI brother and that is the only time her face sparkles with joy. Eventually she asks Cyrus to visit her father-in-law in the city. Cyrus meets her captivated FIL and foul-mouthed brother-in-law (Irani) and his young bride. Cyrus continues to meet the FIL and gaining his trust. One such day he kills him and enters the adjoining house, where the BIL and his wife live. BIL arrives, only to be killed after a tiff. Cyrus' emotions continue to narrate claiming Kapadia to have double crossed him, since she was the one to send Cyrus to kill her co-sister, but she informed BIL to kill Cyrus as well. Kapadia and Shah are held in for questioning, but Cyrus comes off clean.
The story ends of showing how the whole plot was the co-sister's, who was actually Cyrus's real sister. Both of them were abused as children and this was their way of making money. But Cyrus had enough of it and when he sees his sister spotting her next family, he leaves her.
A pretty disturbing story of betrayal, greed and love. The fact that it was forcibly taken in English in Indian surroundings was kind of annoying and the characters lost a bit of their Indian flavour and seemed fake, but other than that, it was a good psychological plot. Khan has a bit of a way to go with the heavier aspect of his character. He carries the light hearted roles better thus far, but it was interesting to see him in a different role. Irani, Kapadia and Shah were great in their respective characters, as they always were. A good time pass.
Lawrence of Arabia
Starring Peter O'Toole in this award-winning classic tale of an Englishman in love with the Middle East.
Lawrence starts of as a happy go lucky recruit of the British administration, who tries to gets his passage into Cairo. There starts his love for the desert country. He leads an Arab group through the impassable desert terrain and wins a city for Prince Faizal. He becomes dear to the Arabs and the English see this as their victory as well. Lawrence is promoted and asked to continue his zeal. So Lawrence begins his campaign of conquering and along with him, his friend, Ali, and thousands of other Arab tribes lay claim on the loots. On one such attack, he fails, but he proceeds.
Even though he spends most of his time with the Arabs, he is singled out one day and he feels he should return to his own people. But on the bidding of his General, he continues his expedition. In the last city he conquers, he sees the Arab tribes unable to function as one and separating, leaving the city to the British. In the final scene, Lawrence is shown to be driving away morosely.
The movie gave me a similar feeling as Jodha Akbar after watching. It began and ran and ended. It was supposed to be a documentary and it was so. It was interesting to see the flow of emotions and turn of events in Lawrence's life. It was even more enriching to see his confidence in himself. Although I couldn't share his love for the desert and hot climate, I could sympathize with his need to belong where he couldn't. An interesting movie worth the watch and do be ready with lots of cushions for your seating.
Lawrence starts of as a happy go lucky recruit of the British administration, who tries to gets his passage into Cairo. There starts his love for the desert country. He leads an Arab group through the impassable desert terrain and wins a city for Prince Faizal. He becomes dear to the Arabs and the English see this as their victory as well. Lawrence is promoted and asked to continue his zeal. So Lawrence begins his campaign of conquering and along with him, his friend, Ali, and thousands of other Arab tribes lay claim on the loots. On one such attack, he fails, but he proceeds.
Even though he spends most of his time with the Arabs, he is singled out one day and he feels he should return to his own people. But on the bidding of his General, he continues his expedition. In the last city he conquers, he sees the Arab tribes unable to function as one and separating, leaving the city to the British. In the final scene, Lawrence is shown to be driving away morosely.
The movie gave me a similar feeling as Jodha Akbar after watching. It began and ran and ended. It was supposed to be a documentary and it was so. It was interesting to see the flow of emotions and turn of events in Lawrence's life. It was even more enriching to see his confidence in himself. Although I couldn't share his love for the desert and hot climate, I could sympathize with his need to belong where he couldn't. An interesting movie worth the watch and do be ready with lots of cushions for your seating.
Step Up 2 the Streets
Here's another movie that shows about a teenager much interested in dancing proving what she is worth in a different environment.
D's life changed after her mother passed away. She finds a family in the street dancers, skipping school. Her guardian has had enough and decides to send her to her aunt in Texas. Not wanting to move, D decides to give the local elite ballet school a shot. She finds new friends, but also loses her old since the extra practices take up most of her time. Her old friends don't understand as well and she joins with Chase, a popular student, to create their own street team, out of the outcasts in their school.
When the team goes to the local hangout, they are severely defeated since they aren't up to the standard. They also play pranks on D's old team, who in turn vandalize their school's practice room and injure Chase. D takes all the responsibility and is dismissed from the school.
While the school is getting ready for a fundraiser, and D's old team is all set to win the streets that night, D is packing to leave, when her school team turns up at her doorstep to ask her to join them at the streets, which she does. Eventually, the team does great, D is back at school and finds her romance.
A total chic flick; good dance, but the story line is entirely predictable and all the danced movies are set out to prove each method of dancing is cool in its own way. An OK movie with a repeated theme.
D's life changed after her mother passed away. She finds a family in the street dancers, skipping school. Her guardian has had enough and decides to send her to her aunt in Texas. Not wanting to move, D decides to give the local elite ballet school a shot. She finds new friends, but also loses her old since the extra practices take up most of her time. Her old friends don't understand as well and she joins with Chase, a popular student, to create their own street team, out of the outcasts in their school.
When the team goes to the local hangout, they are severely defeated since they aren't up to the standard. They also play pranks on D's old team, who in turn vandalize their school's practice room and injure Chase. D takes all the responsibility and is dismissed from the school.
While the school is getting ready for a fundraiser, and D's old team is all set to win the streets that night, D is packing to leave, when her school team turns up at her doorstep to ask her to join them at the streets, which she does. Eventually, the team does great, D is back at school and finds her romance.
A total chic flick; good dance, but the story line is entirely predictable and all the danced movies are set out to prove each method of dancing is cool in its own way. An OK movie with a repeated theme.
Dr Seuss Horton hears a Who!
The story is about a friendly elephant who strives to save Who-ville, a miniature world living on a speck.
Horton is a happy-go-lucky kind elephant, who teaches the kids about different things. One day, while teaching, he hears a 'who' while a speck floats around and concludes that there must be a small world on the speck. He carefully maintains the speck on a clover and confirms his suspicions when he hears Mayor Ned of Who-ville speaking to him.
Ned is overwhelmed, but finds out that any effect on the speck could be catastrophic and asks Horton to find a safe place for the speck. Horton discovers such a place and starts travelling there. Meanwhile Kangaroo, who has an unpleasant and strict disposition, finds Horton disruptive and discourages Horton. Horton refuses to give in, which angers her and she finds Vlad, an eagle to destroy the clover.
Ned, on the other hand, tries to convince the inhabitants of Who-ville about the issue, but finds no support. When Horton sleeps with the speck nearby, it ends up snowing in Who-ville. Vlad finds Horton and drops the clover into a huge clover field, which impacts Who-ville like an earthquake.
After going through 1 less than 3 million clovers, Horton finds the speck again and the Whos believe Ned after the catastrophe. Kangaroo discovers Horton still has the clover and instigates the rest of the animals in the forest against Horton. They find him and cage him and are just about to destroy the clover when Kangaroo's baby hears the Whos making a din on the speck and all ends happy.
I expected the story to be funnier and it was a disappointment. However, the story line had an interesting theme with multiple universes and people on all levels. A tolerable story.
Horton is a happy-go-lucky kind elephant, who teaches the kids about different things. One day, while teaching, he hears a 'who' while a speck floats around and concludes that there must be a small world on the speck. He carefully maintains the speck on a clover and confirms his suspicions when he hears Mayor Ned of Who-ville speaking to him.
Ned is overwhelmed, but finds out that any effect on the speck could be catastrophic and asks Horton to find a safe place for the speck. Horton discovers such a place and starts travelling there. Meanwhile Kangaroo, who has an unpleasant and strict disposition, finds Horton disruptive and discourages Horton. Horton refuses to give in, which angers her and she finds Vlad, an eagle to destroy the clover.
Ned, on the other hand, tries to convince the inhabitants of Who-ville about the issue, but finds no support. When Horton sleeps with the speck nearby, it ends up snowing in Who-ville. Vlad finds Horton and drops the clover into a huge clover field, which impacts Who-ville like an earthquake.
After going through 1 less than 3 million clovers, Horton finds the speck again and the Whos believe Ned after the catastrophe. Kangaroo discovers Horton still has the clover and instigates the rest of the animals in the forest against Horton. They find him and cage him and are just about to destroy the clover when Kangaroo's baby hears the Whos making a din on the speck and all ends happy.
I expected the story to be funnier and it was a disappointment. However, the story line had an interesting theme with multiple universes and people on all levels. A tolerable story.
Definitely, Maybe
Starring Ryan Reynolds, Isla Fisher, Rachael Weisz, Abigail Breslin and Elizabeth Banks, the movie is about the love life of a man.
The movie starts off with Maya meeting her father, Will, after a sex-ed class. She is inquisitive and persists in hearing about her divorcing parents' life. Will agrees, but changes names in the story and makes it like a mystery where Maya has to find out who her mother is.
Emily is Will's college sweetheart. Will needs to go to New York to fulfil his dream of becoming a politician. Emily sends a parcel to her friend Summer in the city. Will starts off small at the campaign office and slowly rises. He meets the copy girl at the office, April, out of work and becomes good friends with her. Meanwhile, he also opens the parcel and ends up reading Summer's diary, which contains some romantic encounters of Summer and Emily. He brings the package to Summer and meets her on and off lover, a famous writer Roth as well.
He decides to propose to Emily and April pretends to be his girlfriend so that he could practice, but ends up saying 'Definitely, Maybe' falling for the intensity of his proposition. They return to her flat. He finds multiple copies of Jane Eyre and hears about her father's fatal accident. They end up having a romantic brush, with Will rushing out regretting.
When Will proposes the next day, Emily blurts out her cheating encounter. Will is heartbroken but moves up the career ladder, over time. April travels the world and they become pen-pals. With Roth's encouragement, Will and Summer start dating, but break up when Summer ends up submitting a negative article about Will's boss.
Will becomes depressed and hates everything when Clinton is involved in the scandal and in a drunken rant asks April out and in anger blurts out that she should go to the rehab. After years, he finds out the copy of Jane Eyre that April has been looking for. When he goes to give it to her, he finds out she is dating and living with a boyfriend, and so leaves.
Will bumps into Summer at a coffee shop and she invites him to a party, where he ends up meeting his college sweetheart. Emily and Will get together again and she happens to be Maya's mother. Even though Maya figures out her mother, she realises Will is still in love with April, considering he changed both the other girls' names, but not April's. Maya encourages Will to pursue April.
Will finds April to tell her that he held on to the Jane Eyre book since that was the only thing he had of hers and the story ends with Will and Maya going to April's apartment and the lovers kissing.
An OK romantic story. It was taken differently and I expected April would have been the mother. Ryan Reynolds could have showed more emotion, but it was bearable.
The movie starts off with Maya meeting her father, Will, after a sex-ed class. She is inquisitive and persists in hearing about her divorcing parents' life. Will agrees, but changes names in the story and makes it like a mystery where Maya has to find out who her mother is.
Emily is Will's college sweetheart. Will needs to go to New York to fulfil his dream of becoming a politician. Emily sends a parcel to her friend Summer in the city. Will starts off small at the campaign office and slowly rises. He meets the copy girl at the office, April, out of work and becomes good friends with her. Meanwhile, he also opens the parcel and ends up reading Summer's diary, which contains some romantic encounters of Summer and Emily. He brings the package to Summer and meets her on and off lover, a famous writer Roth as well.
He decides to propose to Emily and April pretends to be his girlfriend so that he could practice, but ends up saying 'Definitely, Maybe' falling for the intensity of his proposition. They return to her flat. He finds multiple copies of Jane Eyre and hears about her father's fatal accident. They end up having a romantic brush, with Will rushing out regretting.
When Will proposes the next day, Emily blurts out her cheating encounter. Will is heartbroken but moves up the career ladder, over time. April travels the world and they become pen-pals. With Roth's encouragement, Will and Summer start dating, but break up when Summer ends up submitting a negative article about Will's boss.
Will becomes depressed and hates everything when Clinton is involved in the scandal and in a drunken rant asks April out and in anger blurts out that she should go to the rehab. After years, he finds out the copy of Jane Eyre that April has been looking for. When he goes to give it to her, he finds out she is dating and living with a boyfriend, and so leaves.
Will bumps into Summer at a coffee shop and she invites him to a party, where he ends up meeting his college sweetheart. Emily and Will get together again and she happens to be Maya's mother. Even though Maya figures out her mother, she realises Will is still in love with April, considering he changed both the other girls' names, but not April's. Maya encourages Will to pursue April.
Will finds April to tell her that he held on to the Jane Eyre book since that was the only thing he had of hers and the story ends with Will and Maya going to April's apartment and the lovers kissing.
An OK romantic story. It was taken differently and I expected April would have been the mother. Ryan Reynolds could have showed more emotion, but it was bearable.
August Rush
Starring Freddie Highmore in the star role, the movie is about a musical prodigy.
Evan lived all his life in an orphanage believing that his parents were very much alive and always wanting him. He refuses adoption but runs away from the home and ends up with a man called Wizard, who gives refuge to many other kids and takes money off their earnings. He discovers Evan's genius and renames him August Rush, saying his real name might lead him back to the orphanage.
Flashbacks show his parents, Lyla, a cellist, and Louis, a band member met and had a romantic encounter. Lyla's father prevents her from meeting him and leaves the city. Lyla becomes pregnant and gives birth to Evan, but her father gives up the baby and tells her that the child is dead. Louis is unable to forget Lyla. Both give up music.
After a police raid, Evan runs off to a church, where his genius is found and he is sent to a great musical school. He starts composing his own piece and the school decides to play it in a huge concert. During his rehearsal, Wizard walks in and threatens Evan to come away,s o that he could make money for himself.
Lyla finds out about her child when her sick father confides the truth. Lyla starts to look around for her son and identifies him. Louis thinks that Lyla is married when he tries to track her down. While Lyla decides to start playing again, Louis returns to his band. Lyla ends up playing Evan's piece (under August Rush's pseudonym).
Louis meets Evan in a park playing the guitar and they share some warm moments. On the night of the concert, Evan runs away and conducts his composition. Louis sees Lyla's and August Rush's names on the banners and rushes to the location to find Lyla. They stand hand in hand, as Evan's bows to the audience after the performance and understands that they are his parents.
An interesting story and Highmore had done a good job in playing the subtle silent emotions. Sometimes I felt he was underplaying the emotion of fear, but it passed quickly and he shone as the star of the movie. Even though the movie played on some high emotional sentiments, it wasn't much of a tear jerker, but created just enough warmth to enjoy and sympathize with the characters of the movie. A good movie.
Evan lived all his life in an orphanage believing that his parents were very much alive and always wanting him. He refuses adoption but runs away from the home and ends up with a man called Wizard, who gives refuge to many other kids and takes money off their earnings. He discovers Evan's genius and renames him August Rush, saying his real name might lead him back to the orphanage.
Flashbacks show his parents, Lyla, a cellist, and Louis, a band member met and had a romantic encounter. Lyla's father prevents her from meeting him and leaves the city. Lyla becomes pregnant and gives birth to Evan, but her father gives up the baby and tells her that the child is dead. Louis is unable to forget Lyla. Both give up music.
After a police raid, Evan runs off to a church, where his genius is found and he is sent to a great musical school. He starts composing his own piece and the school decides to play it in a huge concert. During his rehearsal, Wizard walks in and threatens Evan to come away,s o that he could make money for himself.
Lyla finds out about her child when her sick father confides the truth. Lyla starts to look around for her son and identifies him. Louis thinks that Lyla is married when he tries to track her down. While Lyla decides to start playing again, Louis returns to his band. Lyla ends up playing Evan's piece (under August Rush's pseudonym).
Louis meets Evan in a park playing the guitar and they share some warm moments. On the night of the concert, Evan runs away and conducts his composition. Louis sees Lyla's and August Rush's names on the banners and rushes to the location to find Lyla. They stand hand in hand, as Evan's bows to the audience after the performance and understands that they are his parents.
An interesting story and Highmore had done a good job in playing the subtle silent emotions. Sometimes I felt he was underplaying the emotion of fear, but it passed quickly and he shone as the star of the movie. Even though the movie played on some high emotional sentiments, it wasn't much of a tear jerker, but created just enough warmth to enjoy and sympathize with the characters of the movie. A good movie.
Friday, May 23, 2008
Parenting when your child is an Adult
Written by Dale and Renee Jacobs, the book is a good read for parents to deal with grown up children. It covers many aspects such as how to talk to teenagers, why they react in a certain way, how do they expect to be treated, how do different reactions lead to different outcomes, money matters, home and residence, staying away from home and so on.
My reason for picking up the book was to figure out what was wrong in my family. I'm not a parent, but an adult living with parents and I'm pretty much either in a foul mood or in a brawl with them day in day out and I started to think whether this friction is because of me or them.
Simple things such as reactions to events and words could shape the future or psychological make up of your teenager or adult. Sticky situations could be taken care of by optimistic behaviour. Things could be so much easier by just letting go. If anything holding tight makes things worse and harder. The best example I can think of is of meals. My mother follows a policy of feeding her children all the time. There is definitely something or other cooking on our stoves to ensure we are never hungry. But our lifestyle doesn't demand so much energy considering we are relatively sedentary. Even though I tell her not to cook so much (which is technically less work for her), she insists on cooking more and insists I eat it as well - which is both annoying - she is more tired and I'm not happy. Perhaps if she were to let go, I would be happy that she is actually reciprocating (in the long run, I would be happier to return to a place where I'm treated as an adult); she would have less work and perhaps, if I were in the wrong, I would learn a lesson in realizing I'm hungry and thereby listen to her, instead of rebelling.
The book was definitely an interesting read and is good for both parents and young adults.
My reason for picking up the book was to figure out what was wrong in my family. I'm not a parent, but an adult living with parents and I'm pretty much either in a foul mood or in a brawl with them day in day out and I started to think whether this friction is because of me or them.
Simple things such as reactions to events and words could shape the future or psychological make up of your teenager or adult. Sticky situations could be taken care of by optimistic behaviour. Things could be so much easier by just letting go. If anything holding tight makes things worse and harder. The best example I can think of is of meals. My mother follows a policy of feeding her children all the time. There is definitely something or other cooking on our stoves to ensure we are never hungry. But our lifestyle doesn't demand so much energy considering we are relatively sedentary. Even though I tell her not to cook so much (which is technically less work for her), she insists on cooking more and insists I eat it as well - which is both annoying - she is more tired and I'm not happy. Perhaps if she were to let go, I would be happy that she is actually reciprocating (in the long run, I would be happier to return to a place where I'm treated as an adult); she would have less work and perhaps, if I were in the wrong, I would learn a lesson in realizing I'm hungry and thereby listen to her, instead of rebelling.
The book was definitely an interesting read and is good for both parents and young adults.
Death and After
This book by Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer explores thoughts on what happens after one dies.
After the death of his dear wife, Iyer starts with the exploration of things that happen to the soul of the dead person. He has compiled a whole book of quotations with people who have had near death experiences and who have been revived through electric currents. Most of the quotations describe a painless feeling with bright light and a floating sensation. Some of the quotes sounded like cliche, but I suppose people took their thoughts from those who had experienced death.
It was an interesting book to read. The first chapter was quite touching with the Justice narrating the string of events that eventually ended with the death of his wife. Although the quotations sometimes made the discussions boring, the extracts were interesting and thought-provoking. A good read.
After the death of his dear wife, Iyer starts with the exploration of things that happen to the soul of the dead person. He has compiled a whole book of quotations with people who have had near death experiences and who have been revived through electric currents. Most of the quotations describe a painless feeling with bright light and a floating sensation. Some of the quotes sounded like cliche, but I suppose people took their thoughts from those who had experienced death.
It was an interesting book to read. The first chapter was quite touching with the Justice narrating the string of events that eventually ended with the death of his wife. Although the quotations sometimes made the discussions boring, the extracts were interesting and thought-provoking. A good read.
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Confessions of a Shopaholic
Sophie Kinsella pens this novel about Rebecca Bloomwood - a financial journalist in Successful Savings magazine, situated in downtown London. Becca is a good student, who turns out to be a compulsive shopper. She is unable to keep her addiction to shopping in control. Eventually she receives letters from various institutions reminding about her overdrafts, credits and lack of finances, driving her to trying to save money. She tries to make food at home, but hates her soggy sandwiches and wishes for her fresh coffee and muffins, instead. She tries to make money by making a mail-in frames for a family company and her roommate Suzie seems to be better at it.
Her job isn't any better. She is bored out of her mind writing the articles and the conferences for the financial journalists are a drag, save the free stuff that they give out. Often, she finds herself speechless at questions about the industry, that she should rightfully know, but somehow either gets saved or ends up getting embarrassed beyond belief.
She has just broken up with her boyfriend, since he was very conservative. She can't stand her parents' neighbours, who seem to think that she is still interested in their son, Tom, since high school. She finds her roomie's cousin, Tarquin, a multimillionaire, a drag bore, and ends up peeking wrongfully into his chequebook on their date. Luke Brandon, who is also a multimillionaire businessman and for whom she almost fell for, thinks her stupid and hides the fact that he had a girlfriend, during dinner. She is obviously enraged.
Life for her seems to be a turmoil until she finds a story about Flagstaff, a client of Brandon's. Flagstaff is the insurance company that her parents' neighbours had just switched out of, losing a 20,000 pounds payout. She is determined to help them since she had once casually mentioned to them to switch out the company. She calls her contact with one of the tabloids and once the article is printed in The Daily News, it becomes a sensation. She not only starts making money, but also receives invitations to telly (TV) shows. She prepares herself well for the show, but discovers that instead of a simple naive show, she was going to be arguing and debating on screen with Luke. Although extremely nervous, she thinks of her nice neighbours and manages to get Luke to confess of the company's wrongdoings.
The novel ends with her dealing her financial troubles and shopping addiction maturely and getting together with Luke Brandon.
Although the novel was extremely irritating in seeing how Becca was so idiotic and thoughtless about her finances, it isn't uncommon to find many youngsters so today. I, however, found it very frivolous and unplanned and it's almost impossible to figure out how come a person so incompetent is still hired by the company without realizing what kind of job they are doing. Even though with the unrealistic plot and character, it was good for light reading and it was good to know that not everyone stays on top of things and almost every event can bring daydreaming.
Her job isn't any better. She is bored out of her mind writing the articles and the conferences for the financial journalists are a drag, save the free stuff that they give out. Often, she finds herself speechless at questions about the industry, that she should rightfully know, but somehow either gets saved or ends up getting embarrassed beyond belief.
She has just broken up with her boyfriend, since he was very conservative. She can't stand her parents' neighbours, who seem to think that she is still interested in their son, Tom, since high school. She finds her roomie's cousin, Tarquin, a multimillionaire, a drag bore, and ends up peeking wrongfully into his chequebook on their date. Luke Brandon, who is also a multimillionaire businessman and for whom she almost fell for, thinks her stupid and hides the fact that he had a girlfriend, during dinner. She is obviously enraged.
Life for her seems to be a turmoil until she finds a story about Flagstaff, a client of Brandon's. Flagstaff is the insurance company that her parents' neighbours had just switched out of, losing a 20,000 pounds payout. She is determined to help them since she had once casually mentioned to them to switch out the company. She calls her contact with one of the tabloids and once the article is printed in The Daily News, it becomes a sensation. She not only starts making money, but also receives invitations to telly (TV) shows. She prepares herself well for the show, but discovers that instead of a simple naive show, she was going to be arguing and debating on screen with Luke. Although extremely nervous, she thinks of her nice neighbours and manages to get Luke to confess of the company's wrongdoings.
The novel ends with her dealing her financial troubles and shopping addiction maturely and getting together with Luke Brandon.
Although the novel was extremely irritating in seeing how Becca was so idiotic and thoughtless about her finances, it isn't uncommon to find many youngsters so today. I, however, found it very frivolous and unplanned and it's almost impossible to figure out how come a person so incompetent is still hired by the company without realizing what kind of job they are doing. Even though with the unrealistic plot and character, it was good for light reading and it was good to know that not everyone stays on top of things and almost every event can bring daydreaming.
Deepavali
Starring Jayam Ravi and Bhavana in the lead, the movie is a mixture of Kamalahassan and Sridevi's Moondram Pirai and a typical love story.
Susi (Bhavana) is the daughter of a Bangalorean mafia leader. She hates her violent father and loses her mother and her partial memory in an accident, which was an attempt by her father's enemy to kill him. Driven mad by people asking her to remember things, she arrives in Chennai to live with her father's ex-employee's family. His neighbour is none other than the local Samaritan Mudalaiyar. Billu is his son.
Billu falls in love with Susi at first sight, when he is sent to pick her up from the station. They hang around as friends and one day, Billu's family saint predicts that Susi will be his wife. There is awkwardness in the air after that incident between them, until Susi tells him the truth about her past. He gives her courage by telling they will pass all hurdles and go to the doctor next day for checkup.
With Susi's medical condition, she will be able to remember what she had forgotten, but she would forget what happened after the accident i.e. the times with Billu. Susi takes a promise from Billu that no matter what, he should never leave her, even if she denies or insults him.
Seeing the continued fear of her father, Billu calls her father up to Chennai. After some threats from her side and peace talking from his, the marriage is fixed, but her father cheats everyone, beats up Billu to a precarious condition and leaves with his daughter. Seeing Billu beaten up badly, Bhavana gets cured and forgets everything about him by the time they reach Bangalore.
Now, Bhavana is leading a new life with her fiancee, when she sees Billu creating a havoc during her ceremony, following wherever she goes and starts to request him to leave her. Billu keeps reiterating what she had said to him as his lover. Eventually just before her marriage takes her back to Chennai forcefully and tries to remind her of the life she led there. With no success, she is almost ready to leave, when she changes her mind (even though she can't remember anything) and returns to Billu.
Lots of fighting (without gore), but 20 minutes of fighting straight is too much for a rear end on a bad chair to take. We'd rather see the story move. Jayam Ravi looked well in the movie, except for his squeaky girly screaming pitch (It almost reminded me of M.G.R.'s voice after he recovered from being shot in the neck). There was an excessive hint of Madras Thamizh in the dialogues to a point where I wasn't even following what they were trying to say (but apparently it was funny, since my sibling was laughing to it). Songs weren't that memorable. Bhavana was bearable and the story itself seemed somewhat too cheesy, when she jumps into water, without knowing how to swim and the Holi festival protection of just letting some random guy overpowering you without reason. Except for the fact that Jayam Ravi was the better looking guy compared to the paunchy fiancee Susi was going to marry, I didn't really see a reason why Susi would get together with Billu, unless she really remembered him! And honestly, Ravi could have a better name than that of a cat!
Susi (Bhavana) is the daughter of a Bangalorean mafia leader. She hates her violent father and loses her mother and her partial memory in an accident, which was an attempt by her father's enemy to kill him. Driven mad by people asking her to remember things, she arrives in Chennai to live with her father's ex-employee's family. His neighbour is none other than the local Samaritan Mudalaiyar. Billu is his son.
Billu falls in love with Susi at first sight, when he is sent to pick her up from the station. They hang around as friends and one day, Billu's family saint predicts that Susi will be his wife. There is awkwardness in the air after that incident between them, until Susi tells him the truth about her past. He gives her courage by telling they will pass all hurdles and go to the doctor next day for checkup.
With Susi's medical condition, she will be able to remember what she had forgotten, but she would forget what happened after the accident i.e. the times with Billu. Susi takes a promise from Billu that no matter what, he should never leave her, even if she denies or insults him.
Seeing the continued fear of her father, Billu calls her father up to Chennai. After some threats from her side and peace talking from his, the marriage is fixed, but her father cheats everyone, beats up Billu to a precarious condition and leaves with his daughter. Seeing Billu beaten up badly, Bhavana gets cured and forgets everything about him by the time they reach Bangalore.
Now, Bhavana is leading a new life with her fiancee, when she sees Billu creating a havoc during her ceremony, following wherever she goes and starts to request him to leave her. Billu keeps reiterating what she had said to him as his lover. Eventually just before her marriage takes her back to Chennai forcefully and tries to remind her of the life she led there. With no success, she is almost ready to leave, when she changes her mind (even though she can't remember anything) and returns to Billu.
Lots of fighting (without gore), but 20 minutes of fighting straight is too much for a rear end on a bad chair to take. We'd rather see the story move. Jayam Ravi looked well in the movie, except for his squeaky girly screaming pitch (It almost reminded me of M.G.R.'s voice after he recovered from being shot in the neck). There was an excessive hint of Madras Thamizh in the dialogues to a point where I wasn't even following what they were trying to say (but apparently it was funny, since my sibling was laughing to it). Songs weren't that memorable. Bhavana was bearable and the story itself seemed somewhat too cheesy, when she jumps into water, without knowing how to swim and the Holi festival protection of just letting some random guy overpowering you without reason. Except for the fact that Jayam Ravi was the better looking guy compared to the paunchy fiancee Susi was going to marry, I didn't really see a reason why Susi would get together with Billu, unless she really remembered him! And honestly, Ravi could have a better name than that of a cat!
Monday, May 5, 2008
Pazhani
Bharath stars with a new heroine in this movie, which was akin to what Pazhanimalai is famous for - mottai. A movie with excessive punching cheesiness and defeat to almost all theories of Darwinian or biological evolution of things! Anyway, to the story...
Pazhani a.k.a Vellaiyan is getting released from jail (years after he committed a murder at the age of 10) and his inmates are celebrating for him when a jealous bad guy starts challenging him and gets beaten up badly. Here comes in a song, which was funny, but also so unbelievable cause there was a mass of prisoners out dancing! Were the theory about bad guys being in the prison right (for the most part), you'd think they'd just overpower the police minority and escape. But apparently these people just danced around and quietly returned back to their cells.
Anyway, Vellaiyan leaves jail and starts hounding Jeeva for a job and eventually gets it, after fighting away some bad guys and losing his cycle. He becomes very dear to Jeeva's wife, Karpagambal. He disappears on the death anniversary of Karpagam's mother, saying he had a personal task to attend to and here viewers are shown that both him and Karpagam are children of the same mother.
One day, he saves Karpagam from henchman attack and finds out that it was by Jeeva's illicit lover. When he threatens Jeeva and tells the truth to Karpagam, Jeeva frames him for embezzlement, which forces Vellaiyan to reveal that he is Pazhani. Karpagam sends him out of the house. She gets a phone call the next day from her husband who pretends to have been injured seriously by Pazhani and out of love for her husband, she files a complaint and Pazhani is thrown in jail. A few days later, Karpagam's long lost father returns to see Pazhani, but she discovers that Pazhani had killed her father's illicit lover, to make his mother happy. She, then finds out that her husband's story is false and tries to get Pazhani out. Her husband strikes a deal that if she won't see her brother, he can be released and she accepts.
A few days later, Pazhani plays tricks on Jeeva and gets him thrown in jail. His illicit lover, Durga, is insulted in the station and he is released when Karpagam comes to station, since he is his wife. Durga forces Jeeva to marry her, but Pazhani stops the marriage. Eventually, Jeeva is about to kill Karpagam, pretending Pazhani is the murderer, but again is stopped.
In the end, Jeeva goes his boss and successfully gets Karpagam thrown out of the house, but also loses the house to his boss. Eventually, he also loses Durga to his boss and finds out that she is a woman with loose morals. In the final climax, Pazhani kills and saves everyone dear to him and also displays his heroics.
It was nothing but an hour of torture. I have seen other commercial movies, but probably this movie had so many punch dialogues and cheesy lines that I was squirming and rolling my eyes half of the time. Except for loads of noise that kept me awake from dozing off and Bharath's balanced dancing, director Perarasu needs to look at better topics to make movies out of, since wives who tolerate their husbands' illicit relationships and brothers who send their sisters back to live with their abusive husbands, as well as using thali as release warrant for those in jail is as old as planet Earth.
Pazhani a.k.a Vellaiyan is getting released from jail (years after he committed a murder at the age of 10) and his inmates are celebrating for him when a jealous bad guy starts challenging him and gets beaten up badly. Here comes in a song, which was funny, but also so unbelievable cause there was a mass of prisoners out dancing! Were the theory about bad guys being in the prison right (for the most part), you'd think they'd just overpower the police minority and escape. But apparently these people just danced around and quietly returned back to their cells.
Anyway, Vellaiyan leaves jail and starts hounding Jeeva for a job and eventually gets it, after fighting away some bad guys and losing his cycle. He becomes very dear to Jeeva's wife, Karpagambal. He disappears on the death anniversary of Karpagam's mother, saying he had a personal task to attend to and here viewers are shown that both him and Karpagam are children of the same mother.
One day, he saves Karpagam from henchman attack and finds out that it was by Jeeva's illicit lover. When he threatens Jeeva and tells the truth to Karpagam, Jeeva frames him for embezzlement, which forces Vellaiyan to reveal that he is Pazhani. Karpagam sends him out of the house. She gets a phone call the next day from her husband who pretends to have been injured seriously by Pazhani and out of love for her husband, she files a complaint and Pazhani is thrown in jail. A few days later, Karpagam's long lost father returns to see Pazhani, but she discovers that Pazhani had killed her father's illicit lover, to make his mother happy. She, then finds out that her husband's story is false and tries to get Pazhani out. Her husband strikes a deal that if she won't see her brother, he can be released and she accepts.
A few days later, Pazhani plays tricks on Jeeva and gets him thrown in jail. His illicit lover, Durga, is insulted in the station and he is released when Karpagam comes to station, since he is his wife. Durga forces Jeeva to marry her, but Pazhani stops the marriage. Eventually, Jeeva is about to kill Karpagam, pretending Pazhani is the murderer, but again is stopped.
In the end, Jeeva goes his boss and successfully gets Karpagam thrown out of the house, but also loses the house to his boss. Eventually, he also loses Durga to his boss and finds out that she is a woman with loose morals. In the final climax, Pazhani kills and saves everyone dear to him and also displays his heroics.
It was nothing but an hour of torture. I have seen other commercial movies, but probably this movie had so many punch dialogues and cheesy lines that I was squirming and rolling my eyes half of the time. Except for loads of noise that kept me awake from dozing off and Bharath's balanced dancing, director Perarasu needs to look at better topics to make movies out of, since wives who tolerate their husbands' illicit relationships and brothers who send their sisters back to live with their abusive husbands, as well as using thali as release warrant for those in jail is as old as planet Earth.
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Krrish
Sequel to Koi Mil Gaya, the original team assimilates Priyanka Chopra, Naseeruddin Shah and an additional cast of Singaporean actors to this superhero movie.
Krishna lives with his grandmother, Sonia, and one day his school principal discovers that the boy has exceptional IQ. Fearing for his safety, Sonia takes Krishna away to live quietly in a little village in Manali and protects him from the world. Most of the kids around do not befriend him, since his powers scare them off. He grows up with nature and mostly alone.
One day, he rescues a beautiful woman, Priya, to whom he loses his heart and gains the friendship and awed respect of all her friends. When they leave, he misses her a lot.
When Priya and friends return home, they find out they have been sacked. To save their jobs, Priya lies to Krishna about her non-existent love for him and invites him to Singapore. Krishna argues with his grandmother, since she doesn't want him to leave and herein, he finds out the secret of his parents' death.
His father, Rohit, was a genius and he is invited by Arya, a renowned scientist, to build a machine that sees the future. When the machine is ready, Rohit is killed in a lab fire. His mother dies in shock.
The next morning, Sonia prepares for Krishna's departure and he promises that he would keep his powers a secret. When he reaches Singapore, he makes a new friend - Christian. He visits his friend's circus and he is forced to reveal his powers by rescuing some kids in danger, when a fire breaks out in the tent. He finds a broken mask - such that he keeps his promise and yet save the people. Entire world is thankful and curious about 'Krrish'. Christian finds out about the true identity, but Krishna asks him to take the identity and the reward for his little sister's operation.
Priya begins to truly fall in love with Krishna. She finds a tape from the circus and discovers that Krrish is Krishna and when she is preparing the tape to hand it over to her boss, Krishna partially overhears about how the whole incident started with a lie. He is heartbroken and heads back to India, in spite of Priya apologising. But, he finds out that his father is still alive through one of his old friends.
Arya wanted to kill Rohit so that Rohit can never help a competition, but the old friend saves Rohit by telling Arya that the machine needs Rohit as the password. So Rohit is kept alive in a machine in a vegetative state, but the world thinks he is dead.
Now, Krishna gets back to Arya and gets his revenge and brings his father back home.
The movie was fast paced and Hrithik really pulled off the superhero stint very well. The movie was slightly reminiscent of Hollywood flick Paycheck, with the future-seeing machine, but different in other ways.
The songs weren't upto the usual Rajesh Roshan mark, although the background music was very atypical of Hindi music - since they had a very Southern Indian classical music tinge - something that might have emerged out of Rahman's or Vidyasagar's keys. But Hrithik amazed me with his dance, as always. Except for the gruelling 3-hour length sitting on a rotten blood-flow-cutting chair, I have no other thumbs down for this movie.
Krishna lives with his grandmother, Sonia, and one day his school principal discovers that the boy has exceptional IQ. Fearing for his safety, Sonia takes Krishna away to live quietly in a little village in Manali and protects him from the world. Most of the kids around do not befriend him, since his powers scare them off. He grows up with nature and mostly alone.
One day, he rescues a beautiful woman, Priya, to whom he loses his heart and gains the friendship and awed respect of all her friends. When they leave, he misses her a lot.
When Priya and friends return home, they find out they have been sacked. To save their jobs, Priya lies to Krishna about her non-existent love for him and invites him to Singapore. Krishna argues with his grandmother, since she doesn't want him to leave and herein, he finds out the secret of his parents' death.
His father, Rohit, was a genius and he is invited by Arya, a renowned scientist, to build a machine that sees the future. When the machine is ready, Rohit is killed in a lab fire. His mother dies in shock.
The next morning, Sonia prepares for Krishna's departure and he promises that he would keep his powers a secret. When he reaches Singapore, he makes a new friend - Christian. He visits his friend's circus and he is forced to reveal his powers by rescuing some kids in danger, when a fire breaks out in the tent. He finds a broken mask - such that he keeps his promise and yet save the people. Entire world is thankful and curious about 'Krrish'. Christian finds out about the true identity, but Krishna asks him to take the identity and the reward for his little sister's operation.
Priya begins to truly fall in love with Krishna. She finds a tape from the circus and discovers that Krrish is Krishna and when she is preparing the tape to hand it over to her boss, Krishna partially overhears about how the whole incident started with a lie. He is heartbroken and heads back to India, in spite of Priya apologising. But, he finds out that his father is still alive through one of his old friends.
Arya wanted to kill Rohit so that Rohit can never help a competition, but the old friend saves Rohit by telling Arya that the machine needs Rohit as the password. So Rohit is kept alive in a machine in a vegetative state, but the world thinks he is dead.
Now, Krishna gets back to Arya and gets his revenge and brings his father back home.
The movie was fast paced and Hrithik really pulled off the superhero stint very well. The movie was slightly reminiscent of Hollywood flick Paycheck, with the future-seeing machine, but different in other ways.
The songs weren't upto the usual Rajesh Roshan mark, although the background music was very atypical of Hindi music - since they had a very Southern Indian classical music tinge - something that might have emerged out of Rahman's or Vidyasagar's keys. But Hrithik amazed me with his dance, as always. Except for the gruelling 3-hour length sitting on a rotten blood-flow-cutting chair, I have no other thumbs down for this movie.
Human Trafficking
Dealing with one of the third most serious international offenses, the mini series stars Donald Sutherland as the head of the investigation surrounding deaths of young hookers in the U.S. Girls from many different locations are duped into the trade of sex slavery - through the glitter and glamour of modelling; the attractions of an exotic trip with a loving man; plain abductions; exploitation of family's poverty - the list is endless. But all their immediate fate is one - slavery in one of Sergei Karpovich's brothels.
The movie shows just few of the many ways the women are exploited, insulted, raped and stripped of their honour and humanity. The incidents catch the attention of Mira Sorvino, who confidently sells herself to Donald to recruit her on the case. From there, she starts to crack down on Sergei's empire bit by bit.
The series focuses of few main women - Helena, Nadia and Annie. Helena is from Czech Republic living for her little daughter. She encourages attentions from a man who speaks up for her in a bar and finds herself thrown into the web. She keeps herself sane by thinking of the danger that would await her daughter, if she did otherwise. She is the first to be rescued by the team, but is shot dead by Sergei's sniper. Her daughter Ivanka is brought to the States and kept safe.
Nadia is a 16-year-old motherless child, who is almost strangled by her father's safe and sedentary lifestyle. When a New York modelling opportunity presents itself, it is more than enticing and she hides it from her father and leaves the country. Her only solace is Helena's friendship. She tries to escape unsuccessfully. Eventually, she reunites with her father, when he pretends to be one of the bad guys, looking for her.
Annie is touring Philippines with her parents and is rudely abducted by the local child brothel owner's men. Her parents try very hard to find seek her out, but with the local authorities helping the bad guys, there is little hope for them. Annie's mother continues to look for her. When she is just about to leave the country to save her breaking marriage, Annie gets an opportunity to call her. With some advertising along with her not-for-profit agency, she tracks the brothel owner, but he has escaped with an insider tip off. Eventually, she and all the kids with her are discovered in the container they were going to be shipped off in.
Mira's final plan is to catch the men red handed with some undercover operation. Her cover is almost blown off, when Sergei finds her too old for the trade, but eventually they catch him - dead.
Touching story for a tear-tank like me, especially scenes that bring back happy recollections and families together. But definitely an important and scary topic to think about. I have been sheltered all my life and I often wonder why my parents are so strict. Looking at this, I can only side my parents in their protective arguments. Yet, I think it is what such protectiveness that eventually leads children to run away from them and classic example in the movie was Nadia's case. Had their been understanding more than blind prohibition, the situation could have been better for the young teenager and her father. Still after watching the movie, I can almost hear my parents' sermon about how bad the world is, instead of seeing what they could do differently.
It is sad to think that even after so much progress and advancement, women and children have to be fearful and wary of men. Even though this need to exert sexual force is prevalent among other living species, for procreational reasons, humans are probably the only ones, in my opinion, who do this for nothing more than sadistic pleasure and profitable reasons. These men could have been nothing more than blood leeches and death for the Sergei character in the series, was not even an equal intensity of punishment to the amount of destruction he had inflicted on the many lives he 'ruled' over.
The movie shows just few of the many ways the women are exploited, insulted, raped and stripped of their honour and humanity. The incidents catch the attention of Mira Sorvino, who confidently sells herself to Donald to recruit her on the case. From there, she starts to crack down on Sergei's empire bit by bit.
The series focuses of few main women - Helena, Nadia and Annie. Helena is from Czech Republic living for her little daughter. She encourages attentions from a man who speaks up for her in a bar and finds herself thrown into the web. She keeps herself sane by thinking of the danger that would await her daughter, if she did otherwise. She is the first to be rescued by the team, but is shot dead by Sergei's sniper. Her daughter Ivanka is brought to the States and kept safe.
Nadia is a 16-year-old motherless child, who is almost strangled by her father's safe and sedentary lifestyle. When a New York modelling opportunity presents itself, it is more than enticing and she hides it from her father and leaves the country. Her only solace is Helena's friendship. She tries to escape unsuccessfully. Eventually, she reunites with her father, when he pretends to be one of the bad guys, looking for her.
Annie is touring Philippines with her parents and is rudely abducted by the local child brothel owner's men. Her parents try very hard to find seek her out, but with the local authorities helping the bad guys, there is little hope for them. Annie's mother continues to look for her. When she is just about to leave the country to save her breaking marriage, Annie gets an opportunity to call her. With some advertising along with her not-for-profit agency, she tracks the brothel owner, but he has escaped with an insider tip off. Eventually, she and all the kids with her are discovered in the container they were going to be shipped off in.
Mira's final plan is to catch the men red handed with some undercover operation. Her cover is almost blown off, when Sergei finds her too old for the trade, but eventually they catch him - dead.
Touching story for a tear-tank like me, especially scenes that bring back happy recollections and families together. But definitely an important and scary topic to think about. I have been sheltered all my life and I often wonder why my parents are so strict. Looking at this, I can only side my parents in their protective arguments. Yet, I think it is what such protectiveness that eventually leads children to run away from them and classic example in the movie was Nadia's case. Had their been understanding more than blind prohibition, the situation could have been better for the young teenager and her father. Still after watching the movie, I can almost hear my parents' sermon about how bad the world is, instead of seeing what they could do differently.
It is sad to think that even after so much progress and advancement, women and children have to be fearful and wary of men. Even though this need to exert sexual force is prevalent among other living species, for procreational reasons, humans are probably the only ones, in my opinion, who do this for nothing more than sadistic pleasure and profitable reasons. These men could have been nothing more than blood leeches and death for the Sergei character in the series, was not even an equal intensity of punishment to the amount of destruction he had inflicted on the many lives he 'ruled' over.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Watermelon
Written by Marian Keyes, the book is the story of a woman, with a new-born baby, dumped by her husband.
Claire is rudely awakened to reality by her husband, when he leaves her for her neighbour, just after she has given birth. She returns to her parents' home in Dublin, where divorce is unheard of, and keeps believing that James will return back to her, but he doesn't. Over time, she recovers bit by bit. She also discovers a new admirer - Adam, who seems to having a secret past. Just when things are going well with Adam, James returns to get her back. With great difficulty, she decides to give her marriage another chance for her baby, hurting Adam. But she starts discovering other things about James that eventually snaps her and she returns back to her parents' home. When Adam drops by a few days later, it's a joyful reunion.
Although the book started off a little annoying, with Claire constantly saying 'sorry' to the reader, it was a quick joyful ride. The imagined entanglements of Claire was definitely a joy to read. It was almost like having Austen's Emma in a modern situation, except she was thinking of herself and she was much more screwed than any of the ladies in Austenian eras could have been. The attractions of Adam was slightly dream-like, but I suppose it is so rare to see nice guys that it is bordering disbelief. The accusations that James was heaping on Claire, as much as it seemed excessive - some of it might have been true. Looking at the other Walsh girls in the book, it was kind of hard to imagine that Claire might have turned out slightly different. Of course, the way James was blaming Claire entirely was wrong, but she was also a reason for their breakup, yet that didn't justify James' choice of having an affair.
Anyway, a quick and joyful read. But don't except any enlightenments or philosophical thoughts in here.
Claire is rudely awakened to reality by her husband, when he leaves her for her neighbour, just after she has given birth. She returns to her parents' home in Dublin, where divorce is unheard of, and keeps believing that James will return back to her, but he doesn't. Over time, she recovers bit by bit. She also discovers a new admirer - Adam, who seems to having a secret past. Just when things are going well with Adam, James returns to get her back. With great difficulty, she decides to give her marriage another chance for her baby, hurting Adam. But she starts discovering other things about James that eventually snaps her and she returns back to her parents' home. When Adam drops by a few days later, it's a joyful reunion.
Although the book started off a little annoying, with Claire constantly saying 'sorry' to the reader, it was a quick joyful ride. The imagined entanglements of Claire was definitely a joy to read. It was almost like having Austen's Emma in a modern situation, except she was thinking of herself and she was much more screwed than any of the ladies in Austenian eras could have been. The attractions of Adam was slightly dream-like, but I suppose it is so rare to see nice guys that it is bordering disbelief. The accusations that James was heaping on Claire, as much as it seemed excessive - some of it might have been true. Looking at the other Walsh girls in the book, it was kind of hard to imagine that Claire might have turned out slightly different. Of course, the way James was blaming Claire entirely was wrong, but she was also a reason for their breakup, yet that didn't justify James' choice of having an affair.
Anyway, a quick and joyful read. But don't except any enlightenments or philosophical thoughts in here.
Thursday, April 3, 2008
The Dispossessed
Margaret Murphy writes this crime fiction based on the East European asylum seekers in England. The novel starts with the discovery of a teen prostitute of Middle East Asian origin brutally murdered and dropped off in a garbage bin. The investigating officer, Jeff Rickman, is in charge of the case, with his close friend and colleague Lee Foster, who also happens to be Rickman's main source of annoyance. They have recently donated blood together and the nurse flirted enough with Foster to go on a date with him. They investigate for a long time, but they can't find anything more than what they already know. Meanwhile, another set of gruesome attacks on four of the immigrants raises racist attack questions. A group of street children are injured and caught on the scene.
Rickman's girlfriend, Dr. Grace Chandler had found the teen prostitute's body and is disturbed by the visions. She also finds out that both her boyfriend and her translator at work are hiding things from their past, that she wants to help them with. Grace works at the hospital for the immigrants and her translator, Natalja is also an immigrant to Liverpool. Grace tries many times to open both Rickman and Natalja up but to no avail.
While investigating the crime scene of the teen, detectives find out that Rickman's blood is found on the scene. On suspicions, Rickman is taken off the case. But eventually, they find a link between the nurse who took Rickman's and Foster's blood and a pimp, Alex Jordan, who had a bad history with Rickman. They also find out that their blood had been tampered with, so Rickman is brought back. Just after he returns, he receives a phone call from a doctor stating his brother is asking for him. Puzzled, yet angry, he visits his brother, Simon, and finds out that he just recovered from coma after an accident and has lost all his memory. He remembers no one except Jeff, and even him from younger days. Simon is married to Tanya with two boys out of his marriage.
Putting all that aside, he returns to work. He has a strong hunch that Jordan is taking revenge on him and is responsible for the murders. Another East European is killed, just after he called with information on the previous murders. By this time, the teen prostitute is identified as Sophia Habib.
Grace receives a visit from Natalja's old friend, Mirko Andric, since he is not able to talk to Natalja directly. Grace is puzzled but agrees to help him out. She is worried more about shiftiness and bursts of emotion that Natalja shows. Finally, she calls Natalja's case worker (for asylum seekers) up, but receives nothing. Rickman confesses to Grace about his troubled past with his brother and connection with Alex Jordan.
The next morning, Rickman is about to confess to his superior, when they get called up for Natalja's murder. At the spot, they discover that it's Grace who was murdered. Shocked, Rickman visits Jordan's home and threatens his current girlfriend. He returns home deranged.
Meanwhile, investigation continues and the department finds out that all the refugees worked with a common law firm. They delve further. They also find out a shady past of Mirko's. Finally, it seems that the law firm works with likes of Jordan and Mirko to find potential people who can stay in England, gets their identities and sells them off to the highest bidder refugees (who were refused but have the cash to buy themselves a life).
The story ends with Rickman reuniting with his family.
The final climax of how the murderer was incriminated was a treat to read, although the beginning was much of a drag. On the whole, it was a decently paced novel, but the author could have thrown bits of much more interesting information in the beginning as well to keep the readers hooked, instead of constantly closing up the characters.
Rickman's girlfriend, Dr. Grace Chandler had found the teen prostitute's body and is disturbed by the visions. She also finds out that both her boyfriend and her translator at work are hiding things from their past, that she wants to help them with. Grace works at the hospital for the immigrants and her translator, Natalja is also an immigrant to Liverpool. Grace tries many times to open both Rickman and Natalja up but to no avail.
While investigating the crime scene of the teen, detectives find out that Rickman's blood is found on the scene. On suspicions, Rickman is taken off the case. But eventually, they find a link between the nurse who took Rickman's and Foster's blood and a pimp, Alex Jordan, who had a bad history with Rickman. They also find out that their blood had been tampered with, so Rickman is brought back. Just after he returns, he receives a phone call from a doctor stating his brother is asking for him. Puzzled, yet angry, he visits his brother, Simon, and finds out that he just recovered from coma after an accident and has lost all his memory. He remembers no one except Jeff, and even him from younger days. Simon is married to Tanya with two boys out of his marriage.
Putting all that aside, he returns to work. He has a strong hunch that Jordan is taking revenge on him and is responsible for the murders. Another East European is killed, just after he called with information on the previous murders. By this time, the teen prostitute is identified as Sophia Habib.
Grace receives a visit from Natalja's old friend, Mirko Andric, since he is not able to talk to Natalja directly. Grace is puzzled but agrees to help him out. She is worried more about shiftiness and bursts of emotion that Natalja shows. Finally, she calls Natalja's case worker (for asylum seekers) up, but receives nothing. Rickman confesses to Grace about his troubled past with his brother and connection with Alex Jordan.
The next morning, Rickman is about to confess to his superior, when they get called up for Natalja's murder. At the spot, they discover that it's Grace who was murdered. Shocked, Rickman visits Jordan's home and threatens his current girlfriend. He returns home deranged.
Meanwhile, investigation continues and the department finds out that all the refugees worked with a common law firm. They delve further. They also find out a shady past of Mirko's. Finally, it seems that the law firm works with likes of Jordan and Mirko to find potential people who can stay in England, gets their identities and sells them off to the highest bidder refugees (who were refused but have the cash to buy themselves a life).
The story ends with Rickman reuniting with his family.
The final climax of how the murderer was incriminated was a treat to read, although the beginning was much of a drag. On the whole, it was a decently paced novel, but the author could have thrown bits of much more interesting information in the beginning as well to keep the readers hooked, instead of constantly closing up the characters.
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Dus
With big screen names like Abhishek Bachchan, Sanjay Dutt, Zayed Khan, Sunil Shetty, Shilpa Shetty, Rima Sen, Isha Deol, Gulshan Grover and so on, one would have better expectations, but the movie was probably the most challenging movie to tolerate to-date.
Abhishek, Sanjay, Shilpa and Zayed are part of the Anti Terrorist Cell, who are in-charge of (obviously) stopping attempts of terrorism. They receive information that a fatal operation is expected on May 10 and they start their enquiries. They capture a local terrorist during a bomb threat and send Abhishek and Zayed to Canada to capture one of their men and interrogate.
Sanjay finds out that the enemy seems to be watching him and knows every move of his. His sister is captured. He finds out who the mole is and gets more information - operation Jeet. The evidence leads him to the important people in the ministry and eventually he finds out that the target occasion for a blast is Indian PM's visit to Canada. He takes the flight to Canada to join the others.
Meanwhile, Abhishek and Zayed meet Esha (their contact in Canada) and capture the enemy's man - Pankaj Kapoor. They also get into trouble with a local cop - Sunil, who ends up helping them. There isn't much information that they get out of the man they captured, but eventually he leads them to killing the head of the operation - Gulshan. Since the cops had promised freedom in return, they let Pankaj go.
Just when they are about to leave the country, they find out from their boss that their contact in Canada had already been killed and Esha was the enemy's girl. Also that Pankaj was actually their enemy and he had fooled them well. The target seems to be a huge stadium, where Pankaj had brought in kilos of bomb. The team tries hard to lose the bomb and succeeds, also losing Abhishek.
The film was a big hit when it was released, but watching it now, was just sheer torture. The special effects, although extremely well done, were just irritating and unrealistic. The forced coolness of the movie was more annoying than anything else. The songs were a disaster, save perhaps the funkiness of the title song. Heroines barely had any part to play. And it was really silly watching the foreign actors in the movie falling prey to the Indian actors' heroics. Definitely worth the skip.
Abhishek, Sanjay, Shilpa and Zayed are part of the Anti Terrorist Cell, who are in-charge of (obviously) stopping attempts of terrorism. They receive information that a fatal operation is expected on May 10 and they start their enquiries. They capture a local terrorist during a bomb threat and send Abhishek and Zayed to Canada to capture one of their men and interrogate.
Sanjay finds out that the enemy seems to be watching him and knows every move of his. His sister is captured. He finds out who the mole is and gets more information - operation Jeet. The evidence leads him to the important people in the ministry and eventually he finds out that the target occasion for a blast is Indian PM's visit to Canada. He takes the flight to Canada to join the others.
Meanwhile, Abhishek and Zayed meet Esha (their contact in Canada) and capture the enemy's man - Pankaj Kapoor. They also get into trouble with a local cop - Sunil, who ends up helping them. There isn't much information that they get out of the man they captured, but eventually he leads them to killing the head of the operation - Gulshan. Since the cops had promised freedom in return, they let Pankaj go.
Just when they are about to leave the country, they find out from their boss that their contact in Canada had already been killed and Esha was the enemy's girl. Also that Pankaj was actually their enemy and he had fooled them well. The target seems to be a huge stadium, where Pankaj had brought in kilos of bomb. The team tries hard to lose the bomb and succeeds, also losing Abhishek.
The film was a big hit when it was released, but watching it now, was just sheer torture. The special effects, although extremely well done, were just irritating and unrealistic. The forced coolness of the movie was more annoying than anything else. The songs were a disaster, save perhaps the funkiness of the title song. Heroines barely had any part to play. And it was really silly watching the foreign actors in the movie falling prey to the Indian actors' heroics. Definitely worth the skip.
Sunday, March 9, 2008
The foolish men of Agra and other tales of Moghul India
With a sister crazy about Jodha Akbar, it imperatively follows that all possible books or adaptations of the life of the Mughal emperor Akbar will be read and seen. Written by Rina Singh, this children's book was a collection of short stories on the famour king-minister combination of Akbar and Birbal.
One of the stories that stand out was the one where Akbar orders Birbal to find four most foolish men in his country. Birbal finds a guy carrying his load on his back while riding on a donkey and refusing to unload on the donkey, since the donkey is already carrying his weight. Another one is a guy who is looking for something he lost under the lamp, even though he lost it in the darker area, because of the fact that there was no light in the dark area. When he returns to court, he tells that apart from the two he found, the third fool is Birbal himself for accepting such an assignment and fourth, the emperor himself for thinking of such a task.
In spite of the insults that Birbal often hurled at Akbar with all due respect, Akbar showed utmost acceptance of the truth and always praised Birbal for both his intelligence, honesty and loyalty. Such camaraderie is rare to witness and worth having.
One of the stories that stand out was the one where Akbar orders Birbal to find four most foolish men in his country. Birbal finds a guy carrying his load on his back while riding on a donkey and refusing to unload on the donkey, since the donkey is already carrying his weight. Another one is a guy who is looking for something he lost under the lamp, even though he lost it in the darker area, because of the fact that there was no light in the dark area. When he returns to court, he tells that apart from the two he found, the third fool is Birbal himself for accepting such an assignment and fourth, the emperor himself for thinking of such a task.
In spite of the insults that Birbal often hurled at Akbar with all due respect, Akbar showed utmost acceptance of the truth and always praised Birbal for both his intelligence, honesty and loyalty. Such camaraderie is rare to witness and worth having.
Saturday, January 26, 2008
The Opposite of Invisible
A written version of chic-flick by Liz Gallagher unfolds in this young teen novel.
Alice and Jewel were the best friends for as long as they could remember. Their families knew each other, they stood by each other in the worst of times and Alice and Jewel were part of the artistic group in high school, which was mostly invisible to the 'popular' bunch.
Until Alice started getting a crush on Simon Murphy, her group mate in Spanish class, whom she found to be irresistible. And that seemed to be the only crevice in her communication with Jewel - she could never talk about that to him. Yet, on of the days, hanging out with Simon, she kisses him - she was in heaven. And the very next day, she kisses Jewel. They have an almost unspoken fight, while she becomes Simon's girlfriend. She enjoys her time, but everytime she sees Jewel hang around with someone else, her heart breaks. Bit by bit, she also discovers Simon is not her kind. Eventually, one day, Jewel tells her that he would so anything for her and breaks up with his girlfriend. Alice seizes on this opportunity to break up with Simon. Jewel and she are best friends forever again!
With so many Bollywood flicks and typical Hollywood chic romances, I could again fathom what the ending would have been, yet it was a cute read, for the different style and troubles the youngsters face today.
Alice and Jewel were the best friends for as long as they could remember. Their families knew each other, they stood by each other in the worst of times and Alice and Jewel were part of the artistic group in high school, which was mostly invisible to the 'popular' bunch.
Until Alice started getting a crush on Simon Murphy, her group mate in Spanish class, whom she found to be irresistible. And that seemed to be the only crevice in her communication with Jewel - she could never talk about that to him. Yet, on of the days, hanging out with Simon, she kisses him - she was in heaven. And the very next day, she kisses Jewel. They have an almost unspoken fight, while she becomes Simon's girlfriend. She enjoys her time, but everytime she sees Jewel hang around with someone else, her heart breaks. Bit by bit, she also discovers Simon is not her kind. Eventually, one day, Jewel tells her that he would so anything for her and breaks up with his girlfriend. Alice seizes on this opportunity to break up with Simon. Jewel and she are best friends forever again!
With so many Bollywood flicks and typical Hollywood chic romances, I could again fathom what the ending would have been, yet it was a cute read, for the different style and troubles the youngsters face today.
The Road of the Dead
The novel is a young adult thriller written by Kevin Brooks. With my sibling working at the local library as a book reviewer, I get an awful lot of opportunity to be a bookworm of books for ages 12 and up, but this was the first time I took avail of it and I have to say it wasn't bad at all.
Rachael's death comes as a shock to her family in London. While the police are investigating her death, her brother is fuming with rage because they can't yet get her body to bury, as until the investigation is over, the body can't be buried. So Ruben sets out to the moorland, Lychcombe, where his sister was raped, killed and left naked. To keep his hot headed brother from trouble, Cole sets along with him. Cole has a great gift - he is able to sense things from his relations from time to time. He was able to feel Rachael in her last moments and knows that both his sister's killer is also dead.
On the way, they meet Rachael's friend, who bears striking resemblance to her. While living at their place (with her husband), the brothers feel that there is something that Rachel's friend, Abbie is not telling them. After some roaming, threatening, they find out that a huge corporation is trying to buy the whole place so that they can convert the locality into a resort, but Abbie was refusing to sell, since it is her ancestral place. Meanwhile, her husband, an unscrupulous fellow, sets her up with the contractor (just to scare her). But Abbie comes to know of the plans and lends Rachael her raincoat that wet night. Mistaking her, the hireman does more damage than needed. To cover the whole conspiracy up, the hireman is also killed by the contractor. The story ends with both brothers returning to London.
The story was well written and progressed smoothly. There was quite a bit of violence for young adult, but I never understand what is an acceptable level of violence at any age. Nevertheless, reading it, there was some level of anticipation in trying to figure out how Ruben and Cole found out the mystery, but the author bursts the mystery quite soggily in claiming Ruben never needed to know how Cole found out. So the whole anticipation seemed pointless. Also because I had read a few more thrillers than an average young reader would have, I had figured out what had happened to Rachael, when Abbie was introduced to have a striking resemblance to her - it must have been a mix-up. My only motivation to read further was to find out why and I suppose that was cleared in a few more chapters too. So until you are looking for some dramatic, soap opera-like ending to the novel, the plot unfolds in a few chapters. However, it was one of the best books I read with some of the new authors. Definitely a quick and easy read for the mature audience.
Rachael's death comes as a shock to her family in London. While the police are investigating her death, her brother is fuming with rage because they can't yet get her body to bury, as until the investigation is over, the body can't be buried. So Ruben sets out to the moorland, Lychcombe, where his sister was raped, killed and left naked. To keep his hot headed brother from trouble, Cole sets along with him. Cole has a great gift - he is able to sense things from his relations from time to time. He was able to feel Rachael in her last moments and knows that both his sister's killer is also dead.
On the way, they meet Rachael's friend, who bears striking resemblance to her. While living at their place (with her husband), the brothers feel that there is something that Rachel's friend, Abbie is not telling them. After some roaming, threatening, they find out that a huge corporation is trying to buy the whole place so that they can convert the locality into a resort, but Abbie was refusing to sell, since it is her ancestral place. Meanwhile, her husband, an unscrupulous fellow, sets her up with the contractor (just to scare her). But Abbie comes to know of the plans and lends Rachael her raincoat that wet night. Mistaking her, the hireman does more damage than needed. To cover the whole conspiracy up, the hireman is also killed by the contractor. The story ends with both brothers returning to London.
The story was well written and progressed smoothly. There was quite a bit of violence for young adult, but I never understand what is an acceptable level of violence at any age. Nevertheless, reading it, there was some level of anticipation in trying to figure out how Ruben and Cole found out the mystery, but the author bursts the mystery quite soggily in claiming Ruben never needed to know how Cole found out. So the whole anticipation seemed pointless. Also because I had read a few more thrillers than an average young reader would have, I had figured out what had happened to Rachael, when Abbie was introduced to have a striking resemblance to her - it must have been a mix-up. My only motivation to read further was to find out why and I suppose that was cleared in a few more chapters too. So until you are looking for some dramatic, soap opera-like ending to the novel, the plot unfolds in a few chapters. However, it was one of the best books I read with some of the new authors. Definitely a quick and easy read for the mature audience.
Thursday, January 3, 2008
eklavya
This was probably one of the coolest recent Bollywood movies. Starring Amitabh Bachchan, Saif Ali Khan, Boman Irani, Vidhya Balan, Jackie Shroff, Jimmy Shergill, Rima Sen, Sanjay Dutt and Sharmila Tagore, the story revolves around the life of the traditional bodyguard with secrets in this Rana family.
Eklavya (AB) is the royal bodyguard of Rana (Irani). The movie begins with a very sick Tagore mumbling Eklavya's name. Rana tries his best to distract her and revive her. But eventually is angered and smothers her to death. He is watched by his insane daughter, Sen. Eklavya is summoned and all rites completed.
With much sadness, Rana confides his impotency and the fact that the Eklavya had fathered his children to Shroff, who is his brother. He implores him to kill Eklavya, since the guard reminds him of his incapacity. Shroff plans with his son, Shergill. Part of the plan was to create a threatened scenario for the Rana. Dutt is called as the investigating cop of the conspiracy. He is indebted to Eklavya, from his younger days for having inspired him to be something in life.
Meanwhile, Khan returns to a saddened home. He visits his sister and sees his childhood sweetheart - Balan. Balan takes care of Sen and also gets a letter from his mother through her, explaining his birth.
While spending time with his sister, he understands through his paintings that his mother was murdered and is disturbed. Meanwhile, Shroff and Shergill carry out their plan. Suprisingly, Eklavya is left alive, while Rana is killed and their driver fatally hurt. While the investigation is being taking place, Eklavya figures out the murderer is Shergill, as he mentions details that even Eklavya hadn't mentioned. When he tries to kill him, Dutt refrains him. The driver, Balan's father, dies and Khan promises to marry her.
Khan asks Eklavya to retire, but he returns to Shergill's lair and kills him. He brings Shroff too, but he is shocked to find out that the second murderer was Khan himself.
Balan on the other hand, finds out that Khan was the murderer and moves away from him. Eklavya comes to kill Khan, but finds out the truth about the queen's murder and stops his son from suicide. The movie ends with the family coming together.
Definitely a good movie with interesting twists. I was kind of annoyed by the funny namaste that AB kept doing and honestly, he doesn't have the strength to carry out a body guard role - he looks so old. Other than that, a good treat.
Eklavya (AB) is the royal bodyguard of Rana (Irani). The movie begins with a very sick Tagore mumbling Eklavya's name. Rana tries his best to distract her and revive her. But eventually is angered and smothers her to death. He is watched by his insane daughter, Sen. Eklavya is summoned and all rites completed.
With much sadness, Rana confides his impotency and the fact that the Eklavya had fathered his children to Shroff, who is his brother. He implores him to kill Eklavya, since the guard reminds him of his incapacity. Shroff plans with his son, Shergill. Part of the plan was to create a threatened scenario for the Rana. Dutt is called as the investigating cop of the conspiracy. He is indebted to Eklavya, from his younger days for having inspired him to be something in life.
Meanwhile, Khan returns to a saddened home. He visits his sister and sees his childhood sweetheart - Balan. Balan takes care of Sen and also gets a letter from his mother through her, explaining his birth.
While spending time with his sister, he understands through his paintings that his mother was murdered and is disturbed. Meanwhile, Shroff and Shergill carry out their plan. Suprisingly, Eklavya is left alive, while Rana is killed and their driver fatally hurt. While the investigation is being taking place, Eklavya figures out the murderer is Shergill, as he mentions details that even Eklavya hadn't mentioned. When he tries to kill him, Dutt refrains him. The driver, Balan's father, dies and Khan promises to marry her.
Khan asks Eklavya to retire, but he returns to Shergill's lair and kills him. He brings Shroff too, but he is shocked to find out that the second murderer was Khan himself.
Balan on the other hand, finds out that Khan was the murderer and moves away from him. Eklavya comes to kill Khan, but finds out the truth about the queen's murder and stops his son from suicide. The movie ends with the family coming together.
Definitely a good movie with interesting twists. I was kind of annoyed by the funny namaste that AB kept doing and honestly, he doesn't have the strength to carry out a body guard role - he looks so old. Other than that, a good treat.
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