What is it with Chinese love stories! They are sooo sad. Almost always its a sad ending. I first began watching the kungfu serials. One of the most intriguing ones - Blood Stained Intrigue - went on for more than a year.. and then in the end, the hero had to kill the villainous father of the heroine. So the girl leaves him cause she cannot take the shock!
Another one, went on for a shorter time but in the end the girl gets caught by the villian so he is holding her at sword-point while threatening the hero. In any usual Hindi film, there would be a drama but she would be saved. Here, the girl stabs herself with the knife dying so the hero can kill the villian! Bah.
Then I went on to watch movies, one of my most favorites Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Out of the two couples in it, one of the men dies out of poison. Thankfully in the dying moment he confesses his love for the woman. While the woman does not decide to kill the culprit girl, the girl herself goes and commits suicide leaving her guy looking... both tragedies.
Though it has one of the most engrossing fight scenes, watch it below,
In fact this was not the worst, in Hero the girl kills her love and then kills herself! Ya, you can't beat that!
I have watched House of Flying Daggers, The Empress and warrior always drawn to all the Kungfu and Chinese stuff and what do I get? More sad endings and unfulfilled love lives!
It is almost bumming me! Sigh..... you will also get bummed if you see this next video...
And then Jet Li also dies because he is one of the few people who understood the king! Do you know any Chinese Movie that has a happy ending?
My Name is Khan - a bollywood movie starring Shah Rukh Khan and Kajol, has been released today to a lot of noise and bustle online. MNIK has been trending on Twitter from morning. For a little while SRK and #mynameis was also trending.
Its getting rave reviews with 4 or 5 star ratings in the newspapers. Shar Rukh Khan has been tweeting about the movie for the past few days.
Shiv Sena one of the political parties in Mumbai has extended its support towards this movie (sarcastic). They rallied against SRK for his comments about including Pakistani cricketers in an Indian Cricket tournament. It infuriated the tweeps enough to get 'MumbaiforAll' trending. Most of those tweets included MNIK!
It has not opened in many Mumbai theatres as the Shiv Sena guys said they would cause trouble for the theatre and people. I am waiting to watch this movie, as Kajol and SRK are one of my fav bollywood pairs :)
I have been taking guest blogging (my brainwave that turned out to be a common idea) seriously, A few days back I wrote the Sherlock Holmes Movie Review, let me know what you think of the movie if you have seen it.
My review
I have read a few Sherlock Holmes books, but I did not know what to expect from the movie. Both the actors Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man fame) and Jude Law (Cold Mountain fame) are two that I think can do some real good work. They along with the old London setting full of carriages, hat wearers, women wearing those big skirt gowns and ongoing construction of the tower bridge have created a very vivid and engrossing movie. Read More.
Just came across the most hilarious episode of 'Star Wars in the Facebook age' ....
Many more such funny conversations here....
I came across Ramayana and Mahabharata on Facebook, they have also been very popular. I find them ok, however this Star Wars one takes the cake!
After the #chetanblocks debacle (which is quite a hilarious exchange of tweets and sentiments flying high), Chetan Bhagat the Indian author of many books has again started a controversy. He claims that his book '5 point Someone' has not gotten enough credit in the Aamir Khan bollywood block buster 3 Idiots. I personally cannot really say much on this cause I have not read the book, but the movie is pretty damn good!
Even other celebrities have given their views about Chetan's claim including media person Vir Sanghavi. You can read his views on this controversy here.
What I find is that controversies can be magnified on Social media. People, maybe celebrities or maybe not, pitch in to take sides. Seeing their views a lot of people who otherwise might have ignored the issue will also think on it and maybe speak up, thus increasing the controversy's scale.
Also the medium allows people to directly address the person/institution concerned. Its not giving views to a journalist about an issue and hope the politician reads that paper but to directly address a tweet, makes a whole lot of difference.
With all the attention maybe the issue gets resolved.
Is All Publicity Good Publicity?
#Chetanblocks was trending on Twitter for quite some time. Without doubt it drew a lot of attention world over, but surprisingly when I looked at @chetan_bhagat's twitter follower count there wasn't much difference. A slight wobble in the follower count is all there is around 7th Dec when this incident happened. I got this graph from Twitter Counter.
Around 1st Jan when Chetan's credit controversy was raging there has been quite a jump as you can see in the second boxed region in the above pic.
So maybe all publicity is not good publicity on social media! Definitely bad publicity would lead to brand recognition albeit negatively, it apparently hasn't led to more brand followers in Chetan's case.
The second incident interests people and now they want to know Chetan's side I think that is why there is a jump in the followers. This follower increase could also be due to the interest generated in 3 Idiots movie.
Get my articles in your email inbox as I publish them , or in your feed reader all via RSS!
Social media is all the rage. The usual computer user now has a way to make his voice heard. Even if the companies don't listen, other usual computer users do! The usual computer user watches MOVIES!
Consequently, when a new movie is a total hit with the first few to watch it, they let their social networks know about it. Reviews spread virally, and usually for aniticipated movies the reviews trend on Twitter. If the movie bombs then the news spreads virally and the ratings fall at a much faster rate than before. 'Before' was when social media was not all a rage.
Twitter also boosts the anticipation levels for an awaited flick. New Moon has been trending from last couple of days. An Indian, I thought maybe it was a more auspicious or inauspicious new moon day than usual. However soon I realised this was about the new upcoming movie New Moon!
Get my articles in your email inbox as I publish them , or in your feed reader all via RSS!
Just watched The Fountain. Got this CD without knowing any reviews. I thought it might be good since starring in it were Hugh Jackman (Wolverine fame) and Rachel Weisz (The Mummy fame). It turned out to be quite unexpected, I thought it was a time travel or immortal life kind of movie.
There were three different lifetimes of the actors, everytime Hugh is trying to get something done, many questions of Life are raised in a mythical way involving the Tree of Life.
It was very abstract! The narration was quite melodramatic at times, the different life times kept over lapping and influencing each other, making one question whether they are different events occuring at different times or is only one story real and rest are psychological imprints in someones mind or maybe time does overlap.
Maybe what we do (or what we are going to do?) in the future affects us right now.
Get my articles in your email inbox as I publish them , or in your feed reader all via RSS!
When CD's came out in the market, they were the new dazzling discs everyone had to have. Many years since they are still one of the most popular ways of watching movies, listening to music and storing data.
Most households have loads of useless CD's lying around. These CD's qualify as eWaste. If you are coming across this term for the first time please read this. Its always a better option to reuse eWaste or give it to an authorized center for recycling. Moreover please do not buy unnecessary CD's cause they are made of plastic and are one of the worst bio hazards.
Some ways you can reuse CD's in your house and make some really funky and unique utility stuff with it!
- A Candle Holder: Ta
ke some CD's and glue them together as shown in the snap. Make a tray kind of thing out of them. Attach it on top of a wine bottle or any other bottle for that matter. Paint over it with some cool color. You will probably have to use some acrylic paint for it to stay on the CD's and bottle. Read more.
- CD Coasters: This is a cool tutorial about how to make CD coasters. It is really simple and I think the results should be good. Take any CD and paste some big, personalized stickers in the middle. In fact I think we can even cover the CD with a colorful paper or cloth! Then put a sticker in the middle... should make a snazzy coaster!
Read more.
- CD light catcher: An interesting thing if your room is dull with little outside light coming in. Cut the CD into small bits and string them up with shiny sides facing the light. They will reflect the light thus increasing the brightness of your room.
Read more.
- CD clocks: This seems a little kiddish, and hence a very fun thing for kids to work at! It can be a fun activity at their school or a lazy Sunday. Re-useful! Read more.
I find eWaste a very serious matter. These electronic discards lie in the dump oozing toxic chemicals and releasing poisonous gases when heated. They are a threat to the health of any people who come across them. Please take interest about what is happening with eWaste in your area!
Get my articles in your email inbox as I publish them , or in your feed reader all via RSS!
Just saw a very funny movie today. A scientist geek, nerd etc called Jeff (John Malkovich).. made an android of himself called Ulysses. This android would be going into space exploration for years. Except that fate brought Dr. Stone who fell in love with Ulysses and vice versa! You might think that this love affair was doomed but think again!
Apparently Ulysses was as human as he could be. Meaning he needed oxygen, food and all other human amenities. Moreover he had sexual abilities and apparently really good ones!
The funniest twist was when it was Jeff that went as Ulysses up into space and Ulysses stayed back with Dr. Stone as Jeff! Ha-Ha... So for the women out there who cannot find the Right guy.. well maybe its machines they need to be looking at! ;p
Get my articles in your email inbox as I publish them , or in your feed reader all via RSS!
I had my last sports journalism class today, kinda sad cause I attended only two lectures and the prof seemed quite interesting.
Lot of people gave presentations on some sport, discussing its various aspects.
Somehow I realised how much many sports meant to me when I saw them in movies!
Eg: Golf
I barely have anything to do with golf. Its the gentlemen's sports = boring for me.
What I do remember is a movie called Tincup with Kevin Costner and Renne Russo. Very cool movie. Kevin Costner was this golf hotshot who lived alone in his caravan and finally due to some twists of fate he participated in a big golf tournament and well... I can't type the entire story here.
It is very interesting how he comes second in the tournament but plays the most memorable game ever!
Now that is all that really comes to mind when I think of Golf.
Another sport: Baseball
I love playing baseball. I have played it when I was smaller and the funniest thing was that after hitting when I run from first base I completely forget to throw the bat. Everyone is shouting throw the bat and I reach the third base and fling the bat to the first base LOL!!! This is one sport that really charges me up!
Movie: Signs
This is a creepy movie by Night Shyamalan where some really horid aliens came to Earth and traumatized the areas where they had landed. There is a ESP scene where a wife before dying tells the husband remember the baseball bat.
They think she was totally incoherent then. As it happens the husband and his brother come face to face with this totally hostile and horrifying alien in their living room, suddenly the guy remembers his wifes incoherent words... the baseball bat, which was kept on the mantelpiece. He slowly takes it and smashes the aliens head in.
Hooooph, that was a great end to a very, very tight situation. Man I stopped watching Shyamalan's movie after that.
Get such interesting posts at your Inbox!!
Today was a very eventful day. A meeting of Hamara Footpath, the NGO I am working with. Journo lecs where I had to submit some important assignments and did some on the spot article revamping, which did get appreciated.
Finally I saw a movie!! The last movie I saw was Australia which was way back on 5th January (checked the date on my blog post)!
Little Zizou was a very funny movie, very entertaining. A fantastic spoof about the Parsis becoming all fanatic over pure bloods and mingled bloods. Where they stopped allowing cross breed parsis from entering their agyaris.
Acting is good, and many cameo appearances which can be appreciated with men and women both. ;p
A great watch all in all!
Get such interesting posts at your Inbox!!
