Social network

The whole world and its family went gaga over Social network the movie but not me. Valleywag is to blame. A friend suggested that site and the few times I clicked this is the one story they had. The story of rich twin boys and 'whitest' Indian (according to a comment in youtube ) being taken for a ride.

The movie ofcourse is taken deftly. Not just aah... oh... exclamation point feel inducing for me.

Stepping aside from the movie and on to the real story, Bill gates was known for similar stories and look at what a wonderful Philanthropist he turned out to be. This sort of crooked street smartness actually boards well in building a corporation. Mark Zuckerberg sounds like he has a good future.

Facebook on other hand just seems to be one of the waves like myspace, orkut for indians and so on. Can we sustain updating statuses for 10 years?

I saw inception a week ago - spoilers galore

The first few minutes of inception made me panic that this might turn out to be one of those over the head movies and I am not going to get any of it. Thankfully, the rest of the movie was all crystal clear.I quite liked that aspect of the movie.

Somewhere they start talking about architects and introduce more and more rules, I dont remember which ones but I almost felt like laughing out at couple of the scenes.That is always bad when the scenes in question were quite serious. It isnt that I didnt try, I even went up to the point of trying to look at the defenders as some sort of metaphor and in the real dream world, we will have something more sensible than that. Such extrapolations arent me at all but I tried. The execution was good though. Quick scenes always makes a movie watchable, even  with a  lengthy movie I look at the watch less. 

But yeah, with all that set of rules, it did seem like a video game and it looks like i am not the only one to think so.

It just wasnt bizarre enough as my dreams. In a way that might be the real problem, unlike topics that matrix touched from advaita philosphy to all sorts of things which we only have a slight idea of, dreams are something all of us know. Not that we can write a thesis of why, what but we can raise our hands up when we see it on screen - the jolt, the rain, the timeline, and also to say no when we see what is not a dream.

Oh, not the least important point, but di caprio? the jollu flooded the theatre.

Ps: To think, even the execution could have been better, but then this is all one can do with this script.

Avatar

I have often heard or read of atheists who became believers after seeing Himalayas or some such beauty, well i am not one of those people. Me, my belief comes from life, people - I am fascinated by the complexities of our emotions, the turns our lives take and so on. Which is why the whole range of visuals in Pandora doesn't strike me as much. The fact that in a movie that was 70% computer generated, I never thought about the computer animation part even for a moment is something that struck me only after leaving the theatres. I got thrilled with hair movement in shrek. And this movie is so much more in terms of animation but it is done so well and blends in that one hardly realizes it. You forget that navi people are all computer generated.

Yet that is not something that excites me as a viewer. We are talking about a whole new life form in a completely different planet and possibilities for every single aspect about them is endless. For God-sake, a sidney sheldon novel once had aliens who would communicate purely through thoughts without a need for words, language. That is just one aspect. Simply transporting the european invasion of americas into an alien world isnt enough. And I think i am fairly justified in expecting so much more.

Some of the elements like a random corporation with a oversimplified greedy motive and agressive military which wants to use force for force sake is quite laughable. But it is James Cameroon. He made us(atleast me) feel for an usual rich girl -poor boy love story and similarly he does make us root for the Navi people which is a great skill - to make us retain the emotional touch in the presence of all this hoopla and a cliche-ridden story which quite a few movies fail to do these days. But even he cant make you hate the military agressor or the evil corporation, heck he cant even make you laugh at them, you just tolerate it due to the rest of the movie.

Yes, there is this bit about the way they sync up with the animals or the way the trees are all supposed to be linked together similar to the synapse that our neurons form but that is just there for the sake of it. ( Remember matrix the whole image as an electrical signal to the brain manipulation, the whole illusion - maya concept, yes Matrix is leaps ahead of avatar in terms of script).

Similarly the whole save nature concept. It is there because you cant just spend 300 million dollars and not have some high brow concept. Having things for the sake of it is so blah - it is even getting tiring to say this.

Ps1: as some one from the group I went with mentioned when technology has improved so much why the hell do we still have to wear this sloping glasses? gave me a headache and made my eyes watery. On top of this, when outside temp in single digits the theatre was like a oven. I understood what cookies go through that day except cookies don't have feelings and I do. so:(

Ps2: Every guy in the group wondered why wasnt the mating ritual done through the neurons as well. Dont know why the James Cameroon guy thought differently!

Ps3: there was a trailer of movie with Cameron diaz and Tom cruise. Movie surely looks blah but the thought of these two beautiful people coming together excites me. like Ash and hrithik - not a big fan of either, neither do i like their acting but to see them together thrills me. i might even drag my posterior to the theatres drooling for this movie:)

Juno

" You are a part time lover & a full time friend
The monkey on you are back is the latest trend
I do not see what anyone can see, in anyone else
But you....."

It happens sometimes. I read a book or watch a movie, dismiss it in the first glance and then I go on to discover more things about the book without even a revisit over a period of few days.

Juno had put me in a similar state. I watched the movie, felt it was a nice movie. But couldn't move away from the question," this got nominated for academy awards?".

I still don't know if it is worth the academy award nomination.* But I have rediscovered the movie in few days. More than the teenage pregnancy , what defines the movie for me is what Juno realizes from Vanessa and Mark and the decision she makes afterward. Sort of coming of age except I know even a decade latter I haven't gained the maturity Juno has in the movie.

In quite a few ways, the ethos of the place where you come from affect you. I did not grow up here and I never quite mingled. So, it is hard for me to understand the quirky way in which the family decides to handle Juno in general and pregnancy in particular. I know how a teenage pregnancy will be dealt in India. I grew up with too many population growth ads that Pro-choice versus pro-life debate just doesn't ring a bell in me.

Music was another thing everyone was gung-hoo about in this movie. I am not familiar with music genres outside Indian sub-continent, so it is hard for me to go wow over Juno's soundtrack. But I like it. Music is different from the usual hollywood stuff.

Wanted: A part-time lover and a full-time friend:)


Ps: * . One expects a lot more depth when an Oscar gets associated with it. And may be content depth of a movie gets defined by the amount of gloominess in a movie in my brain.