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A movie and book review blog

  • Reading films, watching books,....
  • Mind candy in the dark
  • All the books left to read...

Jun 23, 2003

  • 6/23/2003 01:20:00 PM
I was blown over by Fight Club, a couple of days ago I watched a more recent movie by the same director, David Fincher, called the Panic Room and I'd like to say its only luke warm. The "nail-biting-edge-of-the-seat" feel you expect from thrillers was absent. It appeared to be a rehash of a lot of Hollywood movies, although not deteriorated to the state of being trash. The movie is slick, dark, Jodie Foster is good, but all in all I'd say it lacked 'something' - something like a stronger screenplay, a better development of main characters - even the intruders(the thiefs) lack menacity to feel threatening to the viewers.

Donnie Darko is a good movie, I am really late in watching this one. Jake Gyllenhal is dark,clever, weird and is really good at being all of these. If you like watching movies that leave you a bit dazed at the end, asking questions about life, space-time and all that we don't understand but yet give you the feeling of having watched a remarkable movie - this is it!

Jun 19, 2003

  • 6/19/2003 03:03:00 PM

Watched Takeshi Kitano's Fireworks(Hana-Bi) yesterday. That was quite a movie. Takeshi Kitano the director himself stars as police detective Nishi, whose wife is terminally ill with blood cancer. The whole films center around Nishi and is characterized by sudden burst of violence, abrupt jumps from past to present and future and vice versa, long silences followed by sudden action and then silence again. It has a good soundtrack and cinematography is commendable.

The film is very 'eastern' in its experience although its theme could very well have been that of a Hollywood movie. The juxtaposition of silence and violence has been utilized to achieve the best results. There is not much talk, especially Nishi(Takeshi Kitano) doesn't talk much but is very quick in his actions. At time film feels comical too, especially at times when you are only shown the 'before' and 'after' shots a particular action, not the violent act itself. (For ex. you see a big porcelain vase one minute, then the camera focuses on two people and simultaneously you hear the vase breaking, then next shot is of the vase broken into pieces and a man lying on the floor in a pool of blood.)

I had watched another movie of Takeshi Kitano's called Kikujiro a few months back, in which the director himself plays the main lead, who is a kind of a dull man, who is taking a little boy on a long journey to find his mother. Both these films make you realize how different is the sense of humor in different parts of the world. Minimal language, silent humor even in some of the saddest moments seem to the trademark of Kitano movies.

Jun 18, 2003

  • 6/18/2003 06:06:00 PM
Just finished reading V.S.Naipaul's A Bend in the River, in record time, since somebody has already reserved this book at the library and I have to return it today. Maybe the sudden interest in Naipaul's writing, even in this so-faraway city, could have stemmed from his winning the Nobel Prize in 2001.


I never had a clear view of the real life Africa, Africa of the ordinary man and this book gives just that, although considered from the current time period, its a little old, its the sixties and the seventies Africa - a small town at the bend of a great river,which forms the setting for this novel. Equally informative is the way the author depicts how the immigrant communities of Indians and other Asians along with a few colonial leftovers from countries like Belgium,France etc cope up with the rise of new Africa, chaotic at its best.


It gave me a perspective on the newly independent African nations of the sixties and the seventies, their citizens trying to "Africanize" everything, the rampant corruption, the role of military in the development of those nations and amidst all that how the ordinary man survives. I wouldn't call it a great work of fiction, not amongst the ranks of Les Miserables or One Hundred Years of Solitude, but if you are interseted in learning about cultures, history and people in other parts of the world, this is a good book, well written, from a first person perspective, you'll feel like you are there.



Catcher in the Rye

Holden Caulfield - Has any other name of a fictional character become more iconic than this one? I doubt. No other name is more popular than its creator (J.D.Salinger) All over America and maybe all over the world there are people who think they are really 'the' Holden of The Catcher in the Rye. Yeah, everyone knows the story of John Lennon's assasin having a copy of this book which inspired him to kill Lennon. After reading it I didn't think it was such an awe inspiring novel, considering all the 'awe' it has inspired throughout the years.


But I can very well see why so many people are inspired by Holden Caulfield, he was open about his contempt of the snobbish society around him, which most of the people living in a standardized, pre-frabricated world are unable to do. For all these people Holden is the mouthpiece of their suppressed souls. Being a teenager, justifies a lot of Holden's actions and thoughts. We realise more than fifty years later after Holden is supposed to have been teenager according to the novel, teenagers all over the world, behave more or less like Holden. Most of us did what he did, before the time we decided to be more prim, proper and learnt the ways of the world.

Jun 11, 2003

  • 6/11/2003 04:17:00 PM
I have been tinkering around with this weblog, changing its appearance and stuff. Found this utility. I didn't use it, found it too late into my experimenting. You can even use this to decide colors for your house or co-ordinating your interior design, I guess.

Jun 4, 2003

  • 6/04/2003 03:19:00 PM
Ebay, the world's largest garage sale, has done it again. This time its in the news for the sale of Soviet Space Memorobilia, Sputnik - the first series of satellites ever manufactured and put to orbit by the Russians, one of them is up for sale at Ebay. So, were there more Sputniks manufactured than originally thought, seems like it! Sputnik Satellite FOR SALE at EBAY. Ebay never ceases to amuse me, although I am yet to buy something from there. Btw Sputnik seller's other items include KGB watches and spycams, Soviet ship's clock (there will be a Made in USSR logo on the back or the Russian translation of the same to prove authenticity, I s'pose)

Jun 3, 2003

  • 6/03/2003 11:01:00 PM
Right now I am watching the Miss Universe contest, I thought it was a rerun or something, then found out that it was happening live. It has been a long time since I watched any such contest, maybe 5 years or so. The 2003 contest is taking place in Panama city. Panama brings to my mind, Manuel Noreiga, the former President now serving his 40 year prison term in a Florida jail. Along with the contest they are showing Panamanian landscape, the contestants' tour of the Presidential Palace (coincidentally the President is woman, wife of a former President. They also showed the workings of the Panama canal, how it lifts up ships so that they could pass to the other side, ie between the two great oceans the Pacific and the Atlantic. Go here, if you want to watch live action from Panama Canalas it happens.

Then ofcourse there is One Hundred Years of Solitude. What a book! This is just nextdoor to Panama, in Columbia. Columbia controlled Panama a hundred years ago, when Panama gained independence with US help. Back to the book, I have heard a lot about Marquez being a great writer and all that crap, so I had decided most probably I won't be able to make it much beyond the first chapter. To my surprise, I finished it, moreover I actually enjoyed reading it. So that is Mystical Realism, eh? Someone even has a site named after the book
The world of the well read has become a big web of blogs, so I have decided to add my own thread to it.Let me see how it goes.Hmm
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