profile Yeah. Sure. Whatever. I think there is something terribly wrong with the way I am since I seem to be the only person I know who seem to have enough time and is never busy. Is it only me, who is not doing something that almost everyone seems to be doing? Odd. More.. archives November 2008 December 2008 January 2009 February 2009 May 2009 June 2009 July 2010 affiliates affiliate affiliate affiliate affiliate affiliate 
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Monday, July 5, 2010
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Movie: English: Shutter Island (2010)  I watched this because it has Leo Di Caprio and Martin Scorsese combination. And to top it, it's a psychological thriller.I both liked and disliked the movie. I have not read the novel so the story seemed fresh for me. But it was kind of redundant in many places. There have been many movies, dramas both in English and Asian where war hero loses his mind for various reasons (mostly guilt driven) and snaps when his life returns to ordinary. The brutal part of the war is shown in a ghastly manner which numbed me for a minute. The goth style is amazingly done and the period authenticity is well maintained. I wish the story was not this predictable. There are traces of evidences of the real mystery all over the place and it gets evident from scene one. And later on it gets more obvious and there are few scenes added which could have been well edited. I am not sure the depth to which the novel delves into (it is on my buy-to list so I will get there eventually) which perhaps would have made me appreciate the movie more or dislike more. Besides that, it was a treat to watch Leo. I have liked him in all his movies post Gangs of Newyork, the movie from which he lost his androgynous look and put on lot of weight and looked more of a man than a boy. The traces of that Leo is obviously not there but the intensity is signature Di Caprio. There are few scenes in the movie, the long shot of the island, the shot of watch tower and the military camp scenes which scream Scorsese. A good watch if there is nothing on television or DVD backlogs and I watched it because I am plain sick :-) Labels: 2010, Hollywood, Movies Monday, June 15, 2009
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Movie: English: Bobby (2006)  A colleague referred me this movie. Three things inspired me to watch this movie and those three things were the only things that I liked in this movie. 1. Joshua Jackson 2. Shia LaBeouf 3. One scene with both Joshua Jackson and Shia LeBeouf. The movie is quite nice actually. The way many characters come together and give you a big picture. Actually its quite the opposite. In this movie, the big picture, that is Bobby Kennedy's assassination is dissected to multiple smaller story lines. Its kind of nice but at times I did not understand the reason to introduce this many characters. All in all, I got to watch Joshua Jackson in a movie where in he looks pretty good. Labels: 2006, Hollywood, Movies Thursday, May 21, 2009
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Criminal Minds: Season 4 - Episode 25,26: To hell and back  Where do I start? I have been meaning to write something about the season finale which I finished watching about thirty minutes ago, but whatever I come up with looks pretty lame. This season has been wonderful; in casting, storyline, performances etc. This show has always managed to have a decent finale and I thought they cannot get better than what they did in season three which was Hotch getting blown up. I honestly had not seen this coming. The Reaper coming back to say hello to Hotch? I think this is the beauty of this show. The way characters are used across episodes and not wasting an opportunity to give a sudden twist using them.To Hell And Back - was not really a one man's episode. In season four, somehow every episode has someone from team getting involved in a bigger way than the others. But in this episode it was complete team effort. Even Garcia flew down to the crime scene which in itself is a rare scenario. It was a lengthy episode running as long as 84 minutes which is almost length of motion picture. There were few moments when I felt that it was little slow for my taste; if you are accustomed to the speed in which the crime is solved, then this one is far longer in that aspect. It could be because of the vastness geographies of the victims and the unsub(s). In essence, the storyline is not as great as some episodes that I have seen in past; Minimal Loss, Pleasure is my business, Omnivore, Bloodline or A shade of Gray. But the beauty of the episode comes in characterization and the clean story telling. Of course, this case is quite unique with brothers (one paralyzed from neck down and the older retarded) being the killers and having killed 89 people in past few years; the thought itself is horrifying. Dave Rossi in this season is written very nicely. He is like the uncle that everyone in the family likes, loves and relies on. His witty comebacks though borderlines on sarcasm always hit home. Spencer Reid has always hinted on how things are going to turn out. His transition from a brilliant profiler to an insecure and afraid young man - when he asks Hotch if things were going to turn out OK was excellent. Emily Prentiss speaks what everyone thinks but don't speak. Her conversations with Rossi are a hoot. This is the first episode where there is no ending note which neatly summarizes the case or the day or the type of victim or unsub that they have encountered. For the first time, Hotch speaks honest words; words of a man who stands toe to toe with sickest of minds which are capable of most horrifying crimes that one cannot even imagine. What I loved about his monologue is that it was real. In very simplistic terms, he explained the action of one person can cause a chain of reactions among plenty even if most of them are strangers. The emotional taxing that the team take eveytime with a case like this would make them darker with each passing day. Its that look of resignation that he sports about one minute away from the ending of the show which made me realize that something is wrong; very, very wrong. In the background, Foyet/The Reaper comes out with a gun. He says, "You should have made that deal". Screen fades and we hear a gun shot. Damn! Labels: Criminal Minds, Season Finale Monday, May 18, 2009
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Bones: Season 4 - Episode 26: The end in the beginning  Every season, these guys have screwed up their finale. Last season, that is season 3, people dubbed "Pain in the heart" to "Pain in the ass". It was that bad. This finale went into a whole new tangent; the one that no one saw coming. Hart Hanson, the show's creator promised during mid-season that the fans see BB in a whole new light which loosely dubbed means, perhaps, romantically. And so we did. In Booth's hallucination. I mean come on, when I saw last three episodes, I was really glad to see more lab work, interesting case, more psychology and actual growth of characters. I loved "Mayhem in the cross", which is episode 21, (I think I will do a separate write-up on that one. I will have to watch it again!) solely because, I saw Temperance Brennan the way I wanted to see her in season 2 or 3; understanding and continuously evolving. It looks as if there is a set of writers who write this Brennan I like and there are various other set of writers who are still stuck in cynical and monotonous Brennan of season 1. Its very confusing to keep up with the characterization! Well, I did not like season finale mostly because I knew from the start that it was fully fake. All the characters made an appearance on a loosely based dime-a-dozen gang based thriller novel whose authors are heavily inspired by Mario Puzo and Tom Clancy. To make the long story short, BB own a club called "The Lab" (lame!) where Sweets is a bar tender, Anjela is a hostess, Cam is a cop and Jared her partner, Clarke, my favorite assistant is a rapper, zack is Brennan's assistant, Daisy is a waitress and so long. There is a murder, whole lot of suspicions, finally find out Jared did it for some obnoxious reason and finally we see Booth awakens from coma. This is some kind of freaky dream sequence in his coma which viewers made to watch which we now know that it does not add a tiny bit to the main storyline thus wasting one hour of my time only to drop a bomb in the end when Booth asks Brennan - "Who are you?"As if it matters anymore. Labels: Bones, Season Finale Thursday, February 12, 2009
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Anime: Hellsing - TV series and OVA  It has been a while since I have obsessed over an anime. The last time this happened, it was for "Trinity Blood" and "Paradise Kiss". The former is a vampire based story with a semi-happy ending and the latter is downright depressing.But Hellsing, breaks all barriers and took me to a fantastic journey of spectacular art work. The storyline itself is quite simple; a half a millennium old vampire (the one on the inset picture) works for Hellsing corporation. He (it?) changes a police girl into a vampire. I have seen many interpretation of vampires in various media - TV Series, Anime, books, movies etc, but Hellsing offers weirdest explanation of all. It even beats Twilight's theories. According to Alucard (a very, very, very old vampire and notice that his name spelled backwards means "Dracula") a vampire can change a human only if the human is of the opposite sex and is a virgin. Thats how the police girl becomes a vampire and his fledgling. Apart from obvious storyline (its not good vs. evil, its evil vs. eviler) and stunning artwork, its a great entertainment if one is a fan of violence and hardcore action. In this series, conversations range from witty to downright cynical. The only element that is not found in this series is perhaps, romance. From frame one, there is blood, blood and more blood. The whole series is one messy business. One might fall in love with the first scene of the series or they might switch channels after they see the first scene or they might switch off TV and try to get the image out of their head. Yes, the first scene is that gory and horror filled. Its extremely fascinating to see the perception of this hero who tries not to be a hero and is happy being a monster. He knows he is a monster and never tries to be anything but. He gives a loud guttural satisfied moan when he kills ghouls (humans bit by vampires but are not turned to vampires). His boss, Sir Integra Hellsing, is a bitch. She orders him around since he takes orders from only her as Alucard is in a binding contract with the Hellsing family for generations. Seras Victoria, the newly formed vampire, Alucard's fledgling, is a woman torn between humanity and immortality. While Alucard is amused by her indecisiveness when it comes to drinking blood, Integra is irritated. As the series progresses, she is one character that grows strong on episode basis. She finally accepts her mortality and drinks her master, that is Alucard's blood. Alucard seems to soften around her and is always amused with her actions. For him, her point of view is interesting and entirely refreshing. What to watch out for: All fight scenes (which thankfully makes up 95% of the show) and background music. Of course, there is Alucard; he has been given most amusing lines and sometimes most cynical ones, even for a vampire. Many claim that Hellsing is one of the best Anime that has been released in past one decade. I am not sure if thats entirely true, but it definitely is one of the best around. ~Sookie Tuesday, January 13, 2009
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Graphic Novel: Sandman - Sound of her wings  I was talking to an older colleague with who, whatever may be the initial start of the conversation, always end up talking about graphic novels. Today, we were talking about some presentation that had to be made and we ended talking about Ramayana Reloaded by Virgin Comics and finally, Sandman. Again. As soon as I came home, I reread this comic for the sake of my own satisfaction.I must have read this particular piece a gazillion times. I never get tired of reading the same words over and over again. This is the first issue where Death is introduced as Dream's sister. This is the first issue where you do not get intimidated by Dream. Here he is just a man who accompanies his (elder) sister when she performs her duties; letting people leave this waking/living world and take them wherever they are supposed to go. And when she draws them close to her, there is darkness and Dream (also known as Morpheus) hears only flutter of giant wings. Just before people die, everyone seem to recognize her. Some complain going with her, some are expecting her and some even try to reason with her. But she just performs her duties. Initially she is annoyed of Dream's monologue when he goes on about how he came to control dreaming after his imprisonment. The best part of this comic is perhaps the casual nature of Death herself and her respect for life and everything that is a part of it. She quotes Marry Poppins, she appreciates a stand up comedian and actually gives an earful of advice to her little brother, Dream. At one point she complains to Dream that people from waking world enter dreaming without fear as compared to her, but he says that he is more terrible than her. When I read this for the first time, I thought he was simply being modest. But think about it. Dream has the power of driving a man to insanity by a mere touch which he calls - eternal waking. At that point, people actually prefer death over a thousand ideas coming in their head every millisecond. The whole point of the exercise? Dream finally realizes that everyone has some amount of responsibility in this universe; however big or small or life altering it may be. One cannot say that after achieving a certain goal, our existence is justified for. When one goal is achieved, another should be dreamed of. The last panel of this panel really takes the cake. Morpheus is seen smiling full of joy (never seen smiling again in 9 volumes) when he takes a handful of sand and tosses in the air and then he hears it; the sound of wings. ~Sookie Thursday, December 18, 2008
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Music: Twilight (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack), 2008  I love this sound track. I like most of the songs in this CD and its very rare that one can find such a complete sound track. The last time I loved a complete sound track was Matrix I think and may be because it had the kind of music that I generally listened to. No, never liked the kinds of Lion King or other animation movies, since I am not such a fan of ballads. I do own those CDs but its not like I like every song in them. But Twilight, beats every other OST CD that I own. A friend presented this CD to me as a gift (belated gift for my birthday, one month ago exactly from yesterday) and I listened to this music, then watched the movie and then read the novels. How weird is that? Here are songs from the sound track and scenes from movie when its played.1. Supermassive black hole by Muse This song is played when cullens play base ball in thunder. I think this song is perfect for the scene with good guitar score against thunder storm back drop. 2. Decode by Paramore Final Credit roll. 3. Full moon by Black Ghosts Bella and Charlie are driving to Forks, Washington when she arrives from Phoenix, Arizona. 4. Leave out all the rest by Linkin Park Credits (I think) 5. Spotlight (twilight mix) by Mute Math This song is played when Edward and Bella make their first public appearance together, as a couple. They arrive to school together. Bella : "Why is everyone staring?" Edward: "Not that guy." He pauses for a second. "Oh he just did" Edward: "I am breaking all the rules here, since I am going to hell" (I know this is a little different from the book) 6 Go all the way by Perry Farrell This is the part where Edward and Bella first walk into the prom and see Jessica and Mike. 7. Tremble for my beloved by Collective soul My favorite song at the moment (read obsessed). Played when Edward saves Bella from Tyler's car. Lyrics explain Edward's thoughts/mood perfectly. 8. I caught myself by Paramore Played when girls are picking up prom dresses. 9. Eyes on fire by Blue Foundation When Edward avoids Bella in the begining and she waits for him to turn up in school. 10. Never think by Robert Pattinson Edward and Bella at restaurant in Port Angeles. Perhaps the lamest song of the lot as its impossible to hear what he singing. 11. Flightless bird american mouth by Iron and Wine Edward and Bella prom dance, Edward denies to change her. 12. Bella's lullaby By Carter burwell Orchestra, perhaps the most beautiful composition and suits the mood, the pace and the novel perfectly. This music is played serveral times in the movie. The meadow sequence is a little different in movie, but its played when they are lying around there. Also played when Bella visits Edwards house, Edward plays this on his piano. 13. Let me sign (bonus track) by Rob Pattinson This song is played Edward sucks venom out of Bella (in the end). While saving her life there is a flashback of their life together. After few moments, Bella's lullaby picks up. 14 La Traviata by The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra This scene is exclusive to movie. Cullens wait for Bella's arrivale to their home by preparing dinner for her. The song is played when they cook till Bella and Edward arrive. 15. Clair De Lune by Debussy (The APM Orchestra) In book this song is played by Edward in his car when they are driving back from Port Angeles. Bella acknowledges that she likes the singer too. In movie though, when Bella visits Cullens for first time, she is in Edward room, sees that he has lots of music and turns on the system to find out what he was currently listening to. Edward and Bella dance for this song. -- Grab a CD if you find one. Its worth your money. ~Sookie |