Movie star gossip...

I normally never indulge in movie star or celebrity gossip...

But this is too cool to just shrug off...

A bunch of my favorite Hong Kong/Chinese film industry folks are gonna be associated with Bhutan..

That's coz Tony Leung (and Carina Lau) are getting married in Bhutan (At the Uma Paro resort) ... and guests include Wong Kar Wai and Faye Wong among others..

How cool is that... 3 of my all time fave personalities from the HK film industry and all of them gonna end up in Bhutan!!

Who knows, maybe that'll inspire Wong Kar Wai to shoot a movie in Bhutan! :-)

http://www.straitstimes.com/Free/Story/STIStory_258012.html

And for those of you who're asking why is Faye Wong so special.. check this out. Here's a clip from Wong Kar Wai's "Chunking Express" with Faye Wong in it, and the song is also Faye Wong's cover of (The Cranberries) "Dreams"... :)

Yesterday Once More.... with "Juno"

"Yesterday Once More" by the Carpenters - That came back to me today when I was watching the acclaimed "Juno" and one of the characters pulls out a CD that brought back a flood of memories..

It's "If I Were a Carpenter", a tribute album by various artists.. And it was a great find back in the day. I still vividly remember the cover (I had an audio tape, not a CD) and the songs..



Some of my favs were,

Yesterday Once More - Redd Kross
We've Only Just Begun - Grant Lee Buffalo
Top Of The World - Shonen Knife
and
Superstar - Sonic Youth (mentioned in this flick)..

In addition to that delightful memory nugget the movie had a lot of things going for it.. I did enjoy it, even though the theater was more than a lil' noisy with sniffles..

How come 16 yr olds in the movie were so hip.... Or is it coz their fashion is so old school grungy? I don't think our attempts at grunge looks when we were 16 looked that cool... Oh well.

Oh yea, another thing abt the movie... A cameo by "Dwight Shrute" of The Office is perfect and hilarious.

Taarey Zameen Par

Taarey Zameen Par

A very well made movie with a very important message. Creativity is not valued in schools today. It's all about the rat-race, preparation for real life, marks and achievement, exams and medals. But all children are not the same. Children should be nurtured for who they are. Children should not be moulded into what the parents or society want them to become, but instead should be taught and nurtured to grow in all directions, and helped to realize their innate talent and calling.

This is not a children's movie. It is for the parents.

Aamir Khan has done a great job with the direction. And the cast... the big name actor does not overshadow the unknowns. Everyone has done a great job in their respective characters. Dont miss this movie.

This movie deserves an Oscar !! Well, I may be a bit biased here as the movie was shot in my high school in Panchgani. :) It was such pleasure seeing the school and reliving the old days.

Thanks Aamir Khan for the nostalgia. :)

Is he really Legend??

Watched:

I Am Legend

- One thing is for sure, Will Smith is a hell of an actor!! It's not really difficult to steal the show when your competition in the cast is a German Shepherd and a bunch of hairless vampiric unfortunates. But to be really fair, he portrayed a real good urban version of "Cast Away".. except that his "Wilson" was a bunch of mannequins and his dog.

The story is solid enough.. People did crib about the ending, but I have no issues with it. The bulk of the movie, the effects and the constant tension does make up for it.

Enjoy..

oh, I will give it 4 stars.
I know, I'm getting generous, but it's Christmas right?? :)

Recent Movies

No Country For Old Men

***** = 5 stars.

The Coen Bros do it again.

movies lately...

I really haven't found a great movie in the past many weeks..

except for Ratatouille which was fantastic.. storywise, animation wise and music wise!!:).. I gotta watch it again I guess..

Harry Potter - Order of the Phoenix : Sadly lacking.. I was hoping it'd be so much better, but man it was abrupt... Why do I even bother watching... when reading is so much better

Live Free/Die Hard: All the action was good and nice to see that Bruce Willis can still jump about.. but other than that... nothing great..

Knocked Up: .. kinda funny.. but lame.. and all the movie tried to do was use it's shock value to impress watchers.. nyaaaah

Transformers: Lotsa bangs for your buck... great for 13 year olds! :).. nothing more than that. Still, fun watching all the explosions!!

Movies watched recently

In Nepal -

Life in a Metro - 3.5/5
-would have given more points if not for those singers popping up every few minutes. Once was cool, twice was OK. More that that was just irritating. Don't get me wrong, the music was fantastic. Just that the rock band appearing at different points got old in a hurry. The movie concept was cool though.. and acting was great.. Konkona was awesome.. as was Irfan Khan.


In India -

The Pursuit of Happiness - 3/5
- good acting by W. Smith but hell if he wasn't plagued by misfortune. One of the most depressing movies I've watched this year!

Cheeni Kum - 4/5
- The chemistry between Amitabh and Tabu was awesome. And the Big B has really taken on the old grouch role with his sharp and dry humor and wit.. a la J. Nicholson. And Paresh Rawal was wonderful as ever. The lil' precocious kid deserves an acting award!
Watched it at Red Lounge at Infiniti Mall. Now that's what I call a good movie watching experience. Where are the plush movie halls here in the US? Do they even have any?

Shrek III - 3/5
- I was kinda scared of watching this one.. but it didn;t turn out to be half as bad as I expected. Obviously the CG and the animation rocks as usual.. story was weak, but wit existed and some good moments made it worth your money.


Here -

Pirate Of The Carribean - At World's End - 3.25/5
- This one was a tough one to grade!! I did enjoy the movie.. but if it was about 25 mins shorter it'd have earned another 0.25 points from me. Full marks for the VFX... always makes my mind boggle.. specially after that trip to Prime Focus in Bombay this time where I saw what goes into VFX!! Movie was fun too. Keith Richards, IMO, had too short of an appearance. And I agree with my friend Lava when he said that there wasn't enough extended funnies.. It was much darker than Part 2. But all in all, not a disappointment.

Ocean's 13 - 4/5
- Yeah, am generous here. But what the heck man. You cannot wrong a movie where most of the people end up happy. And however outlandish the plots get, it's still forgivable.. This is one movie which makes you shrug and say.. It's just a movie!! And that's what it is. It doesn't pretend to be some hi falutin' cranial work or some artsy piece or something. It's just fun. So there!

Relevant today... The Lives of Others

If this particular post is considered subversive then the world will have achieved a full circle from the times of the dreaded Stasi in East Germany.

Watched "The Lives of Others" last night.
2+ hours of intense movie watching.

Highly recommended for people who tend to forget history.
History is supposed to teach us.
But again, history always repeats itself.

The Stasi was the 'Ministry of State Security' for East Germany (GDR).
How close is that to: 'Department of Homeland Security' ?

All the time that I was watching the movie, all that was echoing in my mind was the Patriot Act.

You have to watch this movie.

p.s. Just after writing this post I read today's NYTimes.com headline:
City Police Spied Broadly Before G.O.P. Convention

One line that struck me was...

We applied to the F.B.I. under the Freedom of Information Act to see if
there’s a file, but the answer came back that ‘we cannot confirm or
deny.

Hell of an answer to get huh?? cannot confirm or deny.

Here's the link to the full article. Read it. That's an order.

And remember, you might have to register with nyt.com to read news articles, but it is free and easy and WORTH IT.

The Little Match Girl

The classic Han Christian Anderson fairy tale, The Little Match Girl, has been adapted into a short animated film, and which has been nominated for an Oscar.

Watch it: It is beautiful, poignant, bittersweet... exactly as i remember it when I first heard/read it when I was much much much younger.

http://www.worldspace.nu/The_Little_Match_Girl_avi:watch

new home

i think i have successfully migrated this blog and my gallery onto a 'real' webserver from my homebrewn webserver which was jus a poor ole windows box running Apache and PHP and blahdeblah.

And Blogger seems to be behaving itself right now so maybe I'll still around here and see.. before I actually decide whether to make the move to WordPress.

This is also a test post to see if labels will work.. and to test if it publishes these posts as .php files.. and to see if comments work. So please comment even if it is just junk comments for now! :)

Don's finally managed to convince me to try out the GPS enabled phones for some projects..

I'm going to Washington DC for TRB 2007 on Saturday.

Watched "The Queen" last night and it is brilliant.

Amherst is FREEEZING!!

Will blog more if this works out. :D

Bond is back...

Just watched the new Bond flick.. Casino Royale. And it is GOOD!!!!!!!

That's all I'm saying. No more. :)

Enjoy

wait wait.. have to say one line.. It's not a spoiler.

So Bond is not very happy about something (don't ask me what thing) and he goes to the bar for his martini.. and the poor bartender asks him if he wants it shaken or stirred?? And the reply - "Do I look like I give a damn?"

:D

And and and.. the title sequence.. even though it's missing the bond women sihouettes.. it is still so so good!! Man.

I'm gonna go watch that movie again.

behen de takke !!

That (behen de takke) - which was subtitled as "idiot" - was DJ's (Aamir Khan) favourite line in the latest hindi blockbuster, Rang De Basanti.. Lava, Archita and I drove down to Boston on Thursday to watch the movie!! Met up with Burcu, Kim, Nazia and a bunch of others in Boston so had a healthy crowd in the theatre! :) And the healthy crowd stayed behind till the end to applaud for Ashu when his name came up in the ending credits. Hooohaa

The movie is very very enjoyable and I definitely recommend it to anybody. No vested interests believe me. I won't say much of the plotline/storyline coz obviously you want to experience all that on your own right?

All in all, worth the 200 mile drive for a single movie. :)