Rock on gets four

out of five.

Bloody Americans are good!

And the reason is below.

American television has consistently pursued creativity in the form of a Lost, a Prison Break, an Apprentice, a Beauty and the Geek and/or the latest offering - The Moment of Truth. A show in which one can make a lot of money and at the same time, make you loose all your loved ones. I loved this episode especially the segment where he hugs his mother after answering a question concerning her.

And another one on a little naughtier note...!

Whom do you believe?

India's most secular 24 hour English News Channel or India's number 1 website.

My Review - Bachna Ae Haseeno

Once again I got swept away by good...sorry excellent marketing by none other than my better half to see this latest Yash Raj offering. And because of financial constraints, I had to bloody well go at 08:50 AM to catch an early morning show. Since I TOOK the pain, here is the review.

BAH is one of those typical Yash Raj romantic comedies which is good only in parts. Most of us know the story by now. One confused guy gets three girlsat different stages in life, two of whom he rejects himself and the third girl rejects him and blah blah blah... The first track with Minissha Lamba aka Mahi is irritatingly slow and has a DDLJ hangover. Its actually in the second track with Bipasha aka Radhika where the movie lifts itself. The third track with Deepika is also good. Deepika's introduction is quite cool.

The movie has too many songs in the second half. The balle-balle and luckyboy songs was not all required. A lot of reviewers gave the second half thumbs down. I felt that the second half was much better than the first. About the cast

Minissha: Badly written character. I pray to God that there are no girls of that species in our country. And those green harem pants need to be thrown away fast.

Bipasha : Does what she is supposed to do. Show cleavage, play the 'fast' girl and smooch Ranbir. Smooch as in smooch. Not a peck. A smooch! Saif should be angry!!!

Deepika: The lady looks like a million bucks in this film, much better than OSO, but for Gawd's sake she can't act. Has to improve her dialogue delivery, A LOT. Seems that she did the role only for Ranbir given that her role is the shortest.

Ranbir : Best of the lot. Looks great. Does well in the comedy scenes though falters badly in the scene where he proposes to Deepika. Will have the girls drooling over him including the one who marketed this movie to me.

All in all, okay for a young college group but for serious cine lovers.....TRASH!

My Review - Platoon

Last to last Monday, I saw Platoon, the supposedly iconic 1986 film by Oliver Stone. I was pleasantly surprised to see 'some' negative portrayal of Americans as Hollywood generally has a legacy of hyping up all things American. I found it to be an average film maybe because I have seen so many war movies of the 90s and 2000s and now I am going backwards. Watching Charlie Sheen in a serious role was a bit awkward as I am used to watching him in stuff like Scary Movie and Hot Shots. I quite liked the character of Willem Dafoe, the Officer with morals. All in all, a one time watch.

Kashmir Vs Democracy

I got to know this from my brother. India's best blogger is asking - "Is Kashmir more important than democracy?" and also providing links to Swaminathan Aiyar's latest as well as Vir Sanghvi's latest.

Well, I seem to agree with all three of them. We should 'gift' away Kashmir to democracy. Similarly, we should conduct plebiscites in parts of western UP, parts of Assam, Hyderabad, Lucknow, Ahmedabad etc etc. We should also ask Shabana Azmi to take part.

And after all this is done, we can kiss India goodbye.

P.S. - Fortunately for us fundamentalists and nationalist elements, there are individuals who have other ideas.

Congratulations

Abhinav Bindra.

Buttering gets

an american twist. Some like to call it diplomacy. LOL!

Mid-Terms are over

And I am back to blogging. So what's new? Jammu is still burning, Kashmir(is) are still lying, The Dark Knight is still rocking, Shivraj Patil is still sucking, BJP is still hamming, Katrina is still denying and so on and so forth. Life hasn't changed much except that Harsha Bhogle is still mindblowing.

And that is why I like Viru...

Some champions work on a very simple principle. If a ball is to be hit, hit it. Sometimes it works better than the walls, little masters and gods of the off side.

My Review - The Dark Knight

Finally I saw The Dark Knight today. Just a couple of hours back. I am still stunned. Heath Ledger is not around. I mean when you like a cinematic performance, you want to listen to the person concerned(actor/director) bask in its glory and live the moment. It could be anybody - Farhan Akhtar after Dil Chahta Hai, Ashutosh after Lagaan, Aamir after TZP etc etc. Unfortunately Heath is not around. So I will put it in these words which were sent to me by a certain Mr "Lost-in-his-own-world" from Chicago. Verbatim.

"Ok So we believe that the days where we "live" the characters of the movie are gone. I did. I thought I had grown up. "Acting" like a movie character after watching it was a thing of the past. It had to be either really smart or really artistic. Something has to be really "convincing" or "captivating" to make me do that..The Joker did.Very few things live up to the hype that surrounds them these days.. Joker's potrayal by Ledger is one of them. I was "acting" like him after the movie. Really well supported by the "eerie" music whenever he comes on the screen .. no overwhelming-orchestra-music here.. normal superhero movie.. has its moments.. 2.5 hrs long.. watch it for heath...! Javier Bardem, make way for the new bad man!"

The Ultimate Bad Guys list

An impressive list which has The Joker(Heath Ledger), Hannibal Lecter(Anthony Hopkins), Jack Nicholson(The Shining), Kathy Bates(Misery) and the recent Mr Chigurh from No Country for Old Men.

Harsha Bhogle

on England's 20-20 league, Toyota Prius and the economics of cricket. As usual, brilliant!

Digging its own fuckin hole....

Thats for the BJP - the stupid and arrogant "Hindu Nationalist Party". For the six years they were in power they built a strategic relationship with the US, they initiated an agreement and when it came to partnering with the Italian National Congress and passing the very same-but-improved agreement(and in the process, making the Left and Amar Singhs look like non-entities), they put their respective foots in the mouth and did this. In the process, they gave an alternative to all the other Laawaris parties aka UNPA in the form of "Bahen Mayawati".

Manmohan Singh has won and I am happy. For my country and my country alone!

I still don't like Manmohan Singh - he's weak, he's incomprehensible, his record as PM is worse than Kishan Kumar's stint in movies and he does not even have a Lok Sabha seat to back him up. But on this issue, I am with him, behind him, totally.

The things to do List

That I like the Travel and Living channel(TLC) is no big secret, what is not known about me is that I have a huge fascination for adventure. I might not have the stamina or a previous skydiving/mountain biking/bungee jumping record or the money(LOL! for now that is) but I have always had a huge inclination to go for a (mo)bike ride across Ladakh or take the Jism(Ahem the film!) route from Chennai to Pondicherry and the biggest of them all - the Trans-Siberian Railway. I dont know when did I read about it, I guess it was in some travel magazine - maybe Outlook Traveller. But its hung up on me. The very thought. 7 days of a train journey acoss Russia, the landscape, the experience, the people, the culture shock. The kind of stuff you tell your grandchildren about. Right?!!

But yesterday I saw something even more exciting on the TLC channel. The name of the show is Long Way Round. Its a documentary of a 31,000 km journey of Evan Mcgregor(acted in Moulin Rouge and Black Hawk Down) and his friend Charley Boorman from London to New York on BMW bikes in 2004. In between they pass through Europe, Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, SIberia and then via Alaska, Canada to New York. I saw one episode yesterday and it was actually mindblowing, something which could better the Trans-Siberian Railway. What do you think?!!

Hancock Vs Harman

A run of the mill comment from Bollywood makes up for a dissapointment from Hollywood. I saw Hancock today. After Spidey 3 and Hulk remake, this also comes as a dissapointment(I haven't seen Iron Man). The movie has an excellent first half with Will Smith clearly at his best. Just when you expected the momentum would carry forward(along with chicken nuggets and a cuppa coffee)....BAM...bollywood comes in with a superwoman, a centuries old love story and a hospital ending. Gawd!!!

As for Harman, how do you expect the junta to like you when even your girlfriend won't kiss you? LOL. Note the lines guys - "That's exactly why she didn't do the kiss. She couldn't make a concession with me because then other filmmakers would've accused her of preferential treatment. So we simply scrapped the smooch." Great!

Hit SMS

What did one Congress MP say to the other after SP decided to extend support to the UPA?
Pehle Lal Salaam, ab Dalal Salaam!

Source : Swapan Dasgupta's article in today's Sunday Times

Bol na halke halke

Listened to this song from Jhoom Barabar Jhoom almost seventeen times tonight. Pata nahi kya baat hai is gaane main. I get addicted to it especially when I am all alone.

P.S. : I know the singer is a paki but the music directors are Indian!

My Review - Dus Kahaniyaan

Last Sunday I managed to catch Dus Kahaniyaan on Sony. Most of the stories in the film are good but what lets you down is the direction. Also, the film moves at a very fast pace. Arre Gupta Saheb kisne kaha tha Dus Kahaniyaan dikhaane ko. Saat dikha dete! Anyway, the stories which I liked are Zahir(*ing Manoj Bajpai and Diya Mirza), Gubbare(*ing Rohit Roy and Nana Patekar) and Rise and Fall(*ing Sunju Baba and Sunil Shetty). Rice plate starring Naseer and Shabana was also good but I am not comfortable with pseudo-secularism so I let that pass.

Obama condoles Maneckshaw's death

I am pleasantly surprised.