There are a dozen and a half reasons out there for which hate is piled up on CWG2010. I have my problems that go beyond beauracratic corruption. My reason is a simpler one. Whose Common wealth is being spent on the games? Is it unpatriotic to raise such a question; for I really don't feel like spending a budget that has been overshot at least a dozen times on a city that does not need the specific event to put it on the map. This is my problem; why Delhi. Why Always DELHI; when the games could have been some other Indian city's ticket to the international map?
Let us consider something; the very first Asian Games was conducted in 1951 in India to massage the egos of some national figures who wanted to claim international status when the economy of the nation was nowhere in the zone of hosting such an event. However, Delhi was India's biggest city then and if any city could pull it off, it was the capital city. Then like father like daughter; in 1982, we hosted another Asian games and it was not the post-liberalization India which would have had money pumped in from India Inc, but an India where the Games are state sponsored. So yet again, the decision to Delhi does not seem like a decision where there were many options. We pulled through that one. But in 2010, for the CWG, why does a place which claims to be a WORLDCLASS CITY, needs be the destination, yet again? Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai were on the historical and political map for a long time and with the advent of IT, Bengalooru and Hyderabad have made it to the big league. However, the CWG could have been just the right opportunity to elevate a second tier city, like Lucknow, Ahmedavad, Nagpur, Cochin, Madurai, Vishakapatinam, Cuttak, Jaipur and the list goes on. Does this sound like an unrealistic idea? Let us consider International precedents. CWG was conducted thrice in Australia and each time, it was in a different city, viz, Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne. England had the CWG twice, in London and Manchester. The only nation which had the games twice in the same place was a one-city country, New Zealand. But with India's size and population, is it not a crime to return to the same city for an event of such a scale? This mentality comes from a miscomprehension of Atithi Devo Bhava [Thankyou Sangeetha]; as the only concern is promoting a desirable view of the nation in a microcosm called Delhi while everything is swept under a blindspot. I this what a major sports meet is all about?
Sports is the highest form of human interaction for it lacks no compulsion except for the one of the excellence of self. You know that you are getting better everytime you engage in sports. That is why it is considered to be the ultimate mode of dialogue; when two kids from completely different linguistic, cultural, socio-economic backgrounds push about a ball - progress is made. However when an event becomes about political muscle flexing and corporate swindling, sports loses lustre like a paper flower. Sports does not get better when money is spent in bigger buildings. Automatically, more medals will not start flowing when there are more swimming pools and shooting ranges. Sports and sportspeople have always succeeded despite the odds and sometimes because of it. How many true sportspeople will get to use the facilities once the Games are over? Probably the same number of sportspeople who used the facilities after the Asian Games 1982. Let us keep concentrating the COMMON's wealth to one city which has no other merit except being the capital city. Let us silence voices as unpatriotic that raise questions the order of things. Let us have a a great Games @ Delhi.
Showing posts with label Power adapters. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Power adapters. Show all posts
20 August 2010
05 August 2010
Quick Review, edition 2
The Messenger: Story of Joan of Arc (1999)
This movie written and directed by Luc Besson has Vincent Cassel, Faye Dunaway, Dustin Hoffman, Milla Jovavich, John Malkovich in leading roles is quite a treat to watch, for I like period films that offer a brave new alternate to an established lore. As a given for epic movies, it has a running length of 158 minutes; and honestly, the length does not hinder the movie as it has done easily in other films of this genre. The original story itself presents a LOT of questions about the nature of the person that Jeanne D'Arc was. The best thing about this movie is that Besson does not attempt to over-simplify and give an neatly folded conservative or ridiculously modern answer. He does something else, and for this, I appreciate him. He steers clear of history and focusses on the central issue of Faith. The definitions of the word Faith and Heresy is very important to follow this film. If heresy is anything that is in disagreement with the dominant view of the church and Faith is the only vessel through which the god of the christian mythology can be acessible, it sets up a polarity which is bound to encounter great conflicts. This conflict, despite the apparent other-worldliness, is essentially HUMAN. It is this human nature of the heavenly conflict that Besson captures brilliantly in his film. On the flipside, I found the movie peaking too early, as it starts really well but slows down to an unreasonable and overly complicated pace. The length of the film is battled by its compelling screenplay, but at times, I felt that Besson dropped the ball in his approach to the characters in the last quarter of the movie. Vincent Cassel shines throughout the movie as does John Malkovich. Dustin Hoffman in his really brief stay onscreen takes the movie to a whole another level. Milla Jovovich strangely reminds us of her fifth element days; and her character loses its way towards the end of the movie. So a really good movie that falls short of expectations thanks to streaky story-telling, The Messenger slips into a 6.4 in general rating for its unsound and unexciting second half but surprisingly bucks up to a 5.8 in the critics' rating thanks to the conception and making of really memorable moments and characters overall. Catch the movie if it is running at a convenient time on TV; but not worth buying the DVD.
After the Sunset (2004)
Pierce Brosnan, Woody Harrleson, Salma Hayek and Don Cheadle. Looking at this film from 2010, I am pretty amazed at the role played by Don, given the star value that he packs in today's industry. People like him have surely worked their way up. I have said this somewhere else about Brosnan, but he is more of a Bond in non-Bond films than he was in the Bond ones. Though the movie is nothing like the excellent Thomas Crown Affair, it gives a great canvas for Brosnan to showcase his suave, charismatic presence. However, the best moments of this film comes between Brosnan and Woody; whether it is when they are rubbing sun-screen on each other's back or spooning at dawn. Despite having cliched elements of heist and bromance genre of movies, this is a thoroughly enjoyable affair thanks to passionate actors, a witty screenplay and the sun-kissed, colorful Carribean setting. I say Watch-it; particularly if you are yet to see Thomas Crown Affair as this would be a good way to build into TCA. However, if you have just seen a great heist film in the past week, give this one a skip. It is download-watch/enjoy-delete kind of a film that scores pretty high on the regular scale at 6.6 but fails to cross 5.2 at the critics' level.
Anchor Toothpaste Ad
After months of crying out loud about the poor quality of advertisments in the recent past; this ad was a breath of fresh air (the bad pun, not intended). It is funny, contextually apt, well cast as well as drives home the product's functionality. This is exactly how an ad should be; and that is after seeing so MANY bad Toothpaste/dental care ads amongst other bad ads. Please do watch this; it is not the smartest ad ever made - but it puts a smile on your face (again, the bad pun) at the end of the sixty seconds. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rw5arTc26-0
Funny People (2009)
I am not a big Judd Apatow fan. I think that he has a lot of potential but the acclaim he has received is unwarranted. Neither as a producer nor as a writer, he has done something exceptional. I often get a feeling that the product is a result of cotton-candy flavored, shallow, simplistic writing pushed in the right direction by some big names in the business. The Forty Year Old Virgin, well, it showed how funny Steve Carell could be but nothing from Apatow. Knocked up had a few moments but it was never fully a comedy, romantic or any other sort nor was it a drama on unwanted pregnancy. Thanks to Katherine Heigl (who for some strange reason gets better billing than Gerard Butler), it was as bland as bland could be. He also wasted all our time by writing You Don't Mess With the Zohan. But come Funny People, Apatow makes up for all that mediocrity we have endured. Seth Rogen and Adam Sandler are absolutely brilliant in their roles. Right from the first minute, the movie had me hooked. The conception of the movie is exceptional and the casting could not have gotten any better than this (of course it could have, had Elizabeth Banks played Laura; but we have seen her once too many with Seth Rogen on screen). Jason Schwartzman is an actor that whose work I have always liked, and he continues with the good work here. Every role is well fleshed out and the stand-up comedy moments are brilliant. Aziz Ansari is bound to turn heads; and I hope that he does not end up becoming another Russell Peter's ripoff. He has a solid, unique style, which is bound to succeed just as Jonah Hill would. Like Date Night, this movie has some of the finest cameos in recent times. The pick of the lot is Eric Bana in his Australian-Buddhist-Rugby-Brawler role. He lights the screen on fire every moment he is there. Ray Romano is a personal favorite of mine and never would I have EVER imagined him sharing a conversation with Eminem. Just the sheer mention of these two talking sets me off. This must have been a good movie because it runs a whopping 153 minutes. Trust me, I am a big fan of the 80 minute movies for a REASON. I get bored pretty easily. But I surprised myself with this really funny and really well-written movie. It gets an above-average 7.4 in the regular scale and since it is a comedy, it also draws a 6.1 Woody scale rating and a Must-Watch tag.
Strange Wilderness (2008)
Though I kept thinking that Steve Zahn deserves better than this, the movie itself was quite candid. It was one of those comedies where there are no obviously funny situations arising out of dramatic tension but just crazy bunch of people doing crazy things. A broke, bong addicted TV crew that is on the verge of losing their 3am slot sets out to South America to shoot never-seen-before footage of the BigFoot. As simple as the plot is, it is riddled with mindless misadventures that take us quickly through the ninety minutes. Look out for Steve Zahn speaking Spanish. That, coupled with the Turkey scene, the low-rider scene and the scene with the BigFoot himself are the highlights of the movie. it is not an intense comedy by any stretch of imagination. What the movie lacks is conviction to give it strong story-based moments or courage to make it into an all out farce. Stuck in the middle, Strange Wilderness is a movie worth watching to kill an afternoon if you have no other movie to watch. At a regular level, this movie gets a passable rating of 5.7 while it fails to even breach anything at a higher level thanks to its dumb-comedy approach.
This movie written and directed by Luc Besson has Vincent Cassel, Faye Dunaway, Dustin Hoffman, Milla Jovavich, John Malkovich in leading roles is quite a treat to watch, for I like period films that offer a brave new alternate to an established lore. As a given for epic movies, it has a running length of 158 minutes; and honestly, the length does not hinder the movie as it has done easily in other films of this genre. The original story itself presents a LOT of questions about the nature of the person that Jeanne D'Arc was. The best thing about this movie is that Besson does not attempt to over-simplify and give an neatly folded conservative or ridiculously modern answer. He does something else, and for this, I appreciate him. He steers clear of history and focusses on the central issue of Faith. The definitions of the word Faith and Heresy is very important to follow this film. If heresy is anything that is in disagreement with the dominant view of the church and Faith is the only vessel through which the god of the christian mythology can be acessible, it sets up a polarity which is bound to encounter great conflicts. This conflict, despite the apparent other-worldliness, is essentially HUMAN. It is this human nature of the heavenly conflict that Besson captures brilliantly in his film. On the flipside, I found the movie peaking too early, as it starts really well but slows down to an unreasonable and overly complicated pace. The length of the film is battled by its compelling screenplay, but at times, I felt that Besson dropped the ball in his approach to the characters in the last quarter of the movie. Vincent Cassel shines throughout the movie as does John Malkovich. Dustin Hoffman in his really brief stay onscreen takes the movie to a whole another level. Milla Jovovich strangely reminds us of her fifth element days; and her character loses its way towards the end of the movie. So a really good movie that falls short of expectations thanks to streaky story-telling, The Messenger slips into a 6.4 in general rating for its unsound and unexciting second half but surprisingly bucks up to a 5.8 in the critics' rating thanks to the conception and making of really memorable moments and characters overall. Catch the movie if it is running at a convenient time on TV; but not worth buying the DVD.
After the Sunset (2004)
Pierce Brosnan, Woody Harrleson, Salma Hayek and Don Cheadle. Looking at this film from 2010, I am pretty amazed at the role played by Don, given the star value that he packs in today's industry. People like him have surely worked their way up. I have said this somewhere else about Brosnan, but he is more of a Bond in non-Bond films than he was in the Bond ones. Though the movie is nothing like the excellent Thomas Crown Affair, it gives a great canvas for Brosnan to showcase his suave, charismatic presence. However, the best moments of this film comes between Brosnan and Woody; whether it is when they are rubbing sun-screen on each other's back or spooning at dawn. Despite having cliched elements of heist and bromance genre of movies, this is a thoroughly enjoyable affair thanks to passionate actors, a witty screenplay and the sun-kissed, colorful Carribean setting. I say Watch-it; particularly if you are yet to see Thomas Crown Affair as this would be a good way to build into TCA. However, if you have just seen a great heist film in the past week, give this one a skip. It is download-watch/enjoy-delete kind of a film that scores pretty high on the regular scale at 6.6 but fails to cross 5.2 at the critics' level.
Anchor Toothpaste Ad
After months of crying out loud about the poor quality of advertisments in the recent past; this ad was a breath of fresh air (the bad pun, not intended). It is funny, contextually apt, well cast as well as drives home the product's functionality. This is exactly how an ad should be; and that is after seeing so MANY bad Toothpaste/dental care ads amongst other bad ads. Please do watch this; it is not the smartest ad ever made - but it puts a smile on your face (again, the bad pun) at the end of the sixty seconds. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rw5arTc26-0
Funny People (2009)
I am not a big Judd Apatow fan. I think that he has a lot of potential but the acclaim he has received is unwarranted. Neither as a producer nor as a writer, he has done something exceptional. I often get a feeling that the product is a result of cotton-candy flavored, shallow, simplistic writing pushed in the right direction by some big names in the business. The Forty Year Old Virgin, well, it showed how funny Steve Carell could be but nothing from Apatow. Knocked up had a few moments but it was never fully a comedy, romantic or any other sort nor was it a drama on unwanted pregnancy. Thanks to Katherine Heigl (who for some strange reason gets better billing than Gerard Butler), it was as bland as bland could be. He also wasted all our time by writing You Don't Mess With the Zohan. But come Funny People, Apatow makes up for all that mediocrity we have endured. Seth Rogen and Adam Sandler are absolutely brilliant in their roles. Right from the first minute, the movie had me hooked. The conception of the movie is exceptional and the casting could not have gotten any better than this (of course it could have, had Elizabeth Banks played Laura; but we have seen her once too many with Seth Rogen on screen). Jason Schwartzman is an actor that whose work I have always liked, and he continues with the good work here. Every role is well fleshed out and the stand-up comedy moments are brilliant. Aziz Ansari is bound to turn heads; and I hope that he does not end up becoming another Russell Peter's ripoff. He has a solid, unique style, which is bound to succeed just as Jonah Hill would. Like Date Night, this movie has some of the finest cameos in recent times. The pick of the lot is Eric Bana in his Australian-Buddhist-Rugby-Brawler role. He lights the screen on fire every moment he is there. Ray Romano is a personal favorite of mine and never would I have EVER imagined him sharing a conversation with Eminem. Just the sheer mention of these two talking sets me off. This must have been a good movie because it runs a whopping 153 minutes. Trust me, I am a big fan of the 80 minute movies for a REASON. I get bored pretty easily. But I surprised myself with this really funny and really well-written movie. It gets an above-average 7.4 in the regular scale and since it is a comedy, it also draws a 6.1 Woody scale rating and a Must-Watch tag.
Strange Wilderness (2008)
Though I kept thinking that Steve Zahn deserves better than this, the movie itself was quite candid. It was one of those comedies where there are no obviously funny situations arising out of dramatic tension but just crazy bunch of people doing crazy things. A broke, bong addicted TV crew that is on the verge of losing their 3am slot sets out to South America to shoot never-seen-before footage of the BigFoot. As simple as the plot is, it is riddled with mindless misadventures that take us quickly through the ninety minutes. Look out for Steve Zahn speaking Spanish. That, coupled with the Turkey scene, the low-rider scene and the scene with the BigFoot himself are the highlights of the movie. it is not an intense comedy by any stretch of imagination. What the movie lacks is conviction to give it strong story-based moments or courage to make it into an all out farce. Stuck in the middle, Strange Wilderness is a movie worth watching to kill an afternoon if you have no other movie to watch. At a regular level, this movie gets a passable rating of 5.7 while it fails to even breach anything at a higher level thanks to its dumb-comedy approach.
11 August 2009
Who's afraid of swine flu?
Two million people in the next two years...
Thousands dead. Thousands infected.
Say hello to the next Kala bandar.
Be afraid; be very very afraid.
Everyday, you wake up, and get the feeling that if you want to live a happier life, you probably should not read the newspapers. Fears, both imagined and real are treated with the same excitement, that the idea of news gets cluttered. Is it a fear-porn which makes us feel safer with the troubles faced by our fellow humans? By knowing that seven died in a different city, are we consoling that our own city has had just one victim? Yes, my dissenters are already compiling their response speech. I will be called as a suffocator of free speech and a violator of the fourth estate. Maybe, but I do not care much for their opinions. So, what am I trying to say? That the media is creating un-truths as news? No; but I am convinced that the prioritization of news is aimed at creating a mass hysteria, keeping the people in a constant state of fear and making sure that there is only one direction towards salvation. Think of the past three years, and tell me, if one world-threatening situation was not replaced by the next... Taliban, SARS, Bird Flu, Swine Flu, Chicken Flu, Anthony Bordain Flu, Will Smith Flu... The list is rather impressive. We are not told the how of the disease. We are not informed about the do's and the don'ts. What we are reminded of constantly, are the reassurances of safety from the Central and the State governments, the allegations of negligence from the opposing parties, the sting operations from TV news channels which expose our incapacity to handle the situation. Oh, come on! Of course we are incapable of handling the situation. We have an irresponsible media which keeps a bodycount much similar to the way sporting-event scores are updated. Ultimately, only the urban population which watches an English TV news channel, gets half an idea of what they are up against. Suddenly the politics of who went to which country and the route of infection is more important than the message of PREVENTION, CURE and VACCINATION.
No, we do not need that. The more people die, the better TRP ratings.
I am not trying to slight the seriousness of the scenario. Many have fallen prey to this virus and we are told that unfortunately, many more will. But that does not mean we should be afraid to live our lives. In times of great adversity, has risen our greatest epics. A war is always followed by better human perspective. The Great War showed us our infinite capacity for hope, that we even started another. The plague of Black Death was followed by the Renaissance. The polio vaccine was invented years before the last child suffered from it. It does not matter. What matters is how you get up and keep going. The toughest of life's lessons has been expounded by Sylvester Stallone in an often made fun of movie, Rocky Balboa (yes, the sixth part!) where he tells his son, It does not matter how hard you can hit... It is about how hard you can get hit and still keep going forward. Never backing down, but getting up back on your feet and pushing the line. Stallone is right. Give us a while. We will push ourselves back on our feet and do that in style. If not for this attitude, we would not have survived a good forty thousand years, despite our hardier skinned cousins, the neandrathals and the brainier bunch of cousins, whose name I do not seem to remember. We are survivors. We are not the fastest, strongest or the highest... We are the fittest.
If you do not believe in this, shut yourself in your house and wait for doomsday. The others, hoot a cheers to life. Do not give up your inner strength, just because somebody has a statistic saying that there is a fifty seven percent chance that such a thing called inner strength is improbable. Keep walking. The dawn is near. A new day is around the corner.
Thousands dead. Thousands infected.
Say hello to the next Kala bandar.
Be afraid; be very very afraid.
Everyday, you wake up, and get the feeling that if you want to live a happier life, you probably should not read the newspapers. Fears, both imagined and real are treated with the same excitement, that the idea of news gets cluttered. Is it a fear-porn which makes us feel safer with the troubles faced by our fellow humans? By knowing that seven died in a different city, are we consoling that our own city has had just one victim? Yes, my dissenters are already compiling their response speech. I will be called as a suffocator of free speech and a violator of the fourth estate. Maybe, but I do not care much for their opinions. So, what am I trying to say? That the media is creating un-truths as news? No; but I am convinced that the prioritization of news is aimed at creating a mass hysteria, keeping the people in a constant state of fear and making sure that there is only one direction towards salvation. Think of the past three years, and tell me, if one world-threatening situation was not replaced by the next... Taliban, SARS, Bird Flu, Swine Flu, Chicken Flu, Anthony Bordain Flu, Will Smith Flu... The list is rather impressive. We are not told the how of the disease. We are not informed about the do's and the don'ts. What we are reminded of constantly, are the reassurances of safety from the Central and the State governments, the allegations of negligence from the opposing parties, the sting operations from TV news channels which expose our incapacity to handle the situation. Oh, come on! Of course we are incapable of handling the situation. We have an irresponsible media which keeps a bodycount much similar to the way sporting-event scores are updated. Ultimately, only the urban population which watches an English TV news channel, gets half an idea of what they are up against. Suddenly the politics of who went to which country and the route of infection is more important than the message of PREVENTION, CURE and VACCINATION.
No, we do not need that. The more people die, the better TRP ratings.
I am not trying to slight the seriousness of the scenario. Many have fallen prey to this virus and we are told that unfortunately, many more will. But that does not mean we should be afraid to live our lives. In times of great adversity, has risen our greatest epics. A war is always followed by better human perspective. The Great War showed us our infinite capacity for hope, that we even started another. The plague of Black Death was followed by the Renaissance. The polio vaccine was invented years before the last child suffered from it. It does not matter. What matters is how you get up and keep going. The toughest of life's lessons has been expounded by Sylvester Stallone in an often made fun of movie, Rocky Balboa (yes, the sixth part!) where he tells his son, It does not matter how hard you can hit... It is about how hard you can get hit and still keep going forward. Never backing down, but getting up back on your feet and pushing the line. Stallone is right. Give us a while. We will push ourselves back on our feet and do that in style. If not for this attitude, we would not have survived a good forty thousand years, despite our hardier skinned cousins, the neandrathals and the brainier bunch of cousins, whose name I do not seem to remember. We are survivors. We are not the fastest, strongest or the highest... We are the fittest.
If you do not believe in this, shut yourself in your house and wait for doomsday. The others, hoot a cheers to life. Do not give up your inner strength, just because somebody has a statistic saying that there is a fifty seven percent chance that such a thing called inner strength is improbable. Keep walking. The dawn is near. A new day is around the corner.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)