A wasted weekend?

There were several important tasks to be done this weekend, and I didn't do any of those. I was so bored that I just whiled away the weekend doing nothing. By Sunday evening I was bored to death. Finally, in the evening Poornima and I went out to watch Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part I. That proved to be a silver lining to the otherwise dark weekend.

Deathly Hallows - Part I was a very engrossing movie. I am a fan of Harry Potter books. I haven't enjoyed each of the Harry Potter movies equally. I liked this one was better than most others. I am glad I watched it. It would have been even better if I had watched it in IMAX.

Something to write about - my favourite movies of 2009-10

After writing post titled Nothing to write about, I thought for sometime, and remembered something to write about. Something that I wanted to write about for a long time, but kept forgetting to write. I wanted to write about the best movies I saw in last one year. And here it goes.

I saw quite a few movies in last one year. Let me recollect the names - The Last Emperor, Driving Miss Daisy, The Pursuit of Happyness, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Chariots of Fire, One who Flew over Cuckoo's Nest, Three Idiots (Hindi), I Hate Luv Stories (Hindi), Ajab Prem Ki Gajab Kahani (Hindi), Avatar, Up in the Air, Night at the Museum II. These are the ones I could remember right now. There might be other movies that I don't remember right now. However, it doesn't matter, because if I don't remember, they are probably not the best ones.

The top 3 movies that I enjoyed the most were:

1. Chariots of fire

2. The pursuit of happyness

3. The last emperor

Chariots of fire was best movie of all and the biggest surprise of all, because I had never heard of the movie before. It's a well-deserved winner of four Oscars, including the Best Picture, at 1982 Academy Awards. The amazing true story depicts the "fire within" of two British athletes (Eric Liddell and Harold Abrahams), who go to 1924 Olympics at Paris to win two Golds for their country. It's a engrossing story of triumphs and tribulations of the two Cambridge students, whose crisscrossing paths cause them to confront each other at times and collaborate at other times.

I watched TV

What's in it to write about, you might ask. We all watch TV, everyday, don't we? Yes and no. Most people watch TV, everyday. Most, but not all. There are few like me, who have given it up almost altogether. In last 7 years, I have spent more time brushing my teeth, or tying my shoelaces, than watching TV. I get my news on the Net. There is little else of value on TV. Yes, I know, there is that one amazing serial that you are so fond of! But for me to figure out when and where it is aired, would be like searching a needle in a haystack. Easier it is to give the remote a pass.

On Saturday, however, I purposefully watched TV, just to give myself a break from it all. I watched Dominick and Eugene, which turned out to be a decent movie. Kind of drama that I love to watch - about people and relationships, plausible and realistic. It's a story about two brothers - Nick, who is mentally retarded, and drives a garbage truck to earn money to send his brother Eugene to medical school. I not a must-watch movie, but it did entertain me enough to keep me glued in front of the idiot box for an hour and fifty minutes - not a bad achievement, I would say.

A good start to a new year

I don't party too much on new year's eve. After several years, it was a very enjoyable new year's eve this time. We saw Avatar in 3D IMAX at Pacific Science Center. The IMAX theater at Pacific Science Center is the largest IMAX in the world, with the screen as tall as a six storey building! It has 12,000 W of digital surround stereo. Although we were not the first to enter the auditorium, we were lucky to get seats exactly in the center.

The movie is a good, especially in 3D. Must see once. Generally I dislike sci-fi movies, movies on aliens with non-anthromorphic creatures. However, I enjoyed Avatar because it has extraordinary animation. The plot is decent, not great. 3D IMAX experience at Pacific Science Center is great!

After the movie we just hung around at Seattle Space Needle and saw new year's fireworks at the space needle. We got a good place to sit and eat aaloo paraThas that we had packed. The fireworks were short (about 8 minutes), but splendid.

On the whole it was a very enjoyable new year's eve. It reminded us of new year's eve of 2006, when we were in London. We had watched fireworks at London Eye.

The Last Emperor

Yesterday I saw The Last Emperor. It is no wonder that the movie won 9 Oscars, including the Best Picture Award. It's an amazing movie. It's a long movie (more than three hours long) on a serious topic, and yet it keeps you glued to your seat. The way Bernardo Bertolucci has recreated early twentieth century China is definitely admirable. It is very interesting narration of the life of the last emperor of China, Puyi, who was crowned emperor when he was just 3 years old, lost his seat when he was just a teenager and ended up in prison after the Communist revolution of 1949.

After watching the movie a thought crossed my mind. Is it because of the constant fighting between different warlords that Chinese people finally thought that the best option available to them was single party rule and Communism. Is that why Communism has survived sixty years and is seeing no threat in near future?

Crouching Tiger ...

Yesterday I saw Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. It's a movie I always wanted to see. When the movie won the Oscar for best foreign language film, it evoked mixed response from people. Many people told me that it is an excellent movie, whie others condemned it for being nonsensical.

My reaction after seing the movie was that it's a good movie. The cinematography is great. The plot is interesting. Acting is good. Pleople flying in air and jumping over rooftops can be tolerated and is compensated by some great photography of martial arts. On the whole, it was not a bad movie at all. Worth watching once.

Old Man and the Sea

Today I saw movie Old Man and the Sea, which is based on a novel by Ernest Hemingway by the same name. I had read the book during my MBA days. Old Man and the Sea is a story of courage and persistence of an old man, who was once the greatest fisherman in his small Cuban town. Hemingway describes poignantly the old man's three-day long battle against a 1,500 pound marlin. Although wounded, exhausted and hungry, Santiago finally conquers the giant fish, only to lose it to a group of sharks the next day.

The message of the movie is captured in Satiango's summation of this ordeal, when he confesses to Manolin that "it was sad to see it destroyed ... ", and then with a sense of satisfiction, "but not defeated!". It's amazing story of hope, courage, persistence and dignity. It's a must-read for everybody. It's no wonder that the book brought the Nobel Prize to its author.

A relaxed weekend

Last 3 weekends, I skied at Snoqualmie. When I went skiing for the first time 3 weeks ago with Ravikant, I was worried it would leave me too tired the rest of the week. However, I survived that week and went skiing the following weekend also. I decided I won't do skiing the next weekend and take some rest. However, the week after that, the weather was great and some of my colleagues decided they wanted to try skiing too. I couldn't have let them down. We did Skiing on Saturday. I took some rest on Sunday, but it wasn't sufficient. Fatigue made me sick the rest of the week. This weekend, I have decided to take rest. I haven't stepped out of house last 27 hours, and I hope I don't have to go out next 27.

I saw a nice movie yesterday. Richard Gere's An officer and a gentleman. It was a wonderful movie. I loved it. Right now I am half watching 1950's In a lonely place. I am half browsing the web. I don't fully follow English movies until I watch with full concentration. I think it's a good movie, but not a great movie. I plan to watch another movie tomorrow. But haven't decided which one.

One Oscar to Lagaan ...

This year's Oscars have been swept by Slumdog Millionaire. Earlier, there has been debate within India about this movie and how people reacted to it. Amitabh Bachchan in his blog had criticized the movie for showing India in bad light, but he was criticized by others for it. It is likely that the debate will be opened again. So, I would like to make my contribution to the debate by voicing my opinions.

Let me first begin by saying that the individuals (A.R.Rehman, Sampoorna Singh Gulzar, and the rest of the team) who delivered world-class performance need to be congratulated. No other team of Indians in the past has shown such a performance at the Oscars. So, kudos to them.

Now let's talk about the result of their work. The way the movie portrays India is not something that will make us proud. One might say that poverty is a reality in India and so there is nothing wrong in showcasing it to the world. Well, that's right. Poverty is a reality in India. It is only as much a reality as India's mission to moon or India's nuclear program or India's rise from a third-world country to a potential economic superpower within a short span of less than two decades. It is no more a reality than India being the largest market of mobile phone connections.

India has list of spectacular achievements and spectacular failures to its credit. What do we want the world to see and know about us? Our failures or successes? Things that make us proud or things that make us shamefaced? As individuals we have our short-comings and our achievements? Do you go around the world flaunting your weaknesses or your strengths? Why then should it be different for the nation?

Within the borders of our nation, let's talk about our poverty to the death. But why showcase it in international fora? Those who have worked on this movie haven't done anything wrong. But if we start glorifying them, it would not be right. We always knew that A.R.Rehman was a great music director. Was his music in Slumdog Millionaire better than that in Lagaan or Roja? Why did Slumdog Millionaire win Oscars, but not Lagaan or Roja?

Why does the western world fete only those creations that depict the poverty and degradation in our country? It's not just true about India, but it's true about the entire developing world. A couple of years back, the movie "Borat", which won several awards in the western world and was big commercial success, became a topic of debate in Kazakhstan, because it made mockery of the culture of Kazakhstan.

We should ponder whether anybody in Hollywood would ever make a movie on Virginia school shoot-out? If such a movie is ever made, will it ever win an Oscar, no matter how good the movie is? Will Americans go ga-ga over it?

Despite it's Oscar performance, Slumdog Millionaire is not something that would make us proud. We would have been proud if Lagaan or Roja would have won an Oscar. But we can't be proud of Slumdog Millionaire. That's why I believe that one Oscar to Lagaan would have been equal to a hundred Oscars to Slumdog Millionaire

rab ne banayee joDi

Saw rab ne banaayee joDee on Friday evening. It's a decent movie. Worth watching once.

Schindler's List

Poornima & I saw Schindler's List yesterday. It was the second time I saw it and I realized what an amazing movie it is! In Marathi there's a saying - vaalyaachaa valmeekee jhaalaa. That's really true about Oskar Schindler, who first began his business by exploiting Jewish labourers, but later gave up all his wealth to save the lives of as many Jews as he could.

In 1967, Schindler was honored at Israel's Yad Vashem memorial to the victims of the Holocaust as one of the Righteous Among the Nations, or "righteous Gentiles", an honor awarded by Israel to non-Jews who saved Jews during the Holocaust, at great personal risk. Schindler was the only former member of the Nazi party to be so recognized. He was also honored with the German Federal Cross of Merit and with the Papal Order of St. Sylvester during the 1960s. He is buried at the Catholic cemetery at Mount Zion in Jerusalem, the only member of the Nazi party to be so honored.

Sense & Sensibility

On Friday, Poornima & I saw Sense & Sensibility on a DVD. It was nice movie. Poornima was releived to finally watch a movie with a happy ending. Last three movies before Sense & Sensibility were Muqaddar ka Sikandar, Braveheart and Gone with the Wind - all of which had tragic endings.

Last year I had read Jane Austen's Sense & Sensibility. It enjoyed the movie more than the book, because the movie was more fast-paced than the book. Emma Thompson has played Elinor well and so has Alan Rickman (who played Prof. Snape in Harry Potter) played the role of Col. Brandon. Kate Winslet and High Grant have done a fair job of Marianne and Edward Ferrars respectively.