A couple of feel-good movies

Folks, sorry for being away for quite a few days. I was a bit busy with work both in & out of office(TKS). My vacation is due in about 4 weeks for now and still I have some departmental objectives to be finished before year end. The only time pass that's keeping me in senses is a few movies here n there.

Recently, I saw a couple of movies which are worth mentioning. One is "Wake Up Sid"(WUS). I was not interested to watch this one until my adamant friend, Deepak, wanted to watch it. I went into the theater with half mind expecting the worst. The movie opened well with an interesting scene of how our protagonist, Sid, is preparing for his boards. From then on, there was no looking back. As soon as the movie finished, I was thinking of watching it again.

WUS is a perfect example of how to keep things simple and achieve the desired result. The director did a good job in that aspect. The sentimental scenes are handled well, the comic timing was perfect, the emotions are up to the mark. There are some scenes which I liked well:

1. The scene in which Ranbir makes fun of Konkana by pouring water on her and then he asks her in an innocent way, whether she felt bad.
2. The confused look on Konkana's face when Ranbir asks her out for a walk on their first meeting.
3. The scene where they both sit at the beach and Ranbir explains to Konkana about how the ocean looks at the times of monsoon(felt like I was standing in rain after this scene).

The above are only a few scenes out of a whole set. If I write all those that I liked and why I liked them, this post will be as big as a novel. As a whole WUS is a wonderful feel-good movie which reminds us of our college life(if you are not one of those nerdy types). Ranbir is now the new addition to my list of actors to watch out for.

The other movie I liked is the "The Proposal". I picked this one from the DVD store just because I can't find anything interesting there. In fact, I kept even this one pending for a few days before watching it. But when I saw it, I was really impressed. It's been quite a few days since I watched a decent romantic comedy and this one perfectly filled the bill.

The story is simple. An immigrant, yet sort-of-nuts boss, perfectly portrayed by Sandra Bullock, has been issued notice that she'll be deported after her work-visa is not renewed. She immediately puts up an act that she's going to marry her sub-ordinate, a wonderful Ryan Reynolds, and hence can stay in the US of A. Both of mutually agree to help each other provided that he'll marry her(and then divorce her), while she promotes him to a higher position in office. But before that she had to spend a week at his parents house. Everything seems to go well inline with the plan, until they both really start falling in love with each other.

Both these movies are worth a watch over the weekend and gives you a break from the usual pot-boiler masala movies. Happy weekend, folks.

Happiness

I was under a lot of stress yesterday(in fact, throughout the week). The various reasons are:
1. Am suffering form a very bad headache from the past 50 hours or so.
2. We had an unexpected server crash yesterday and nobody has a clue of why it happened.
3. One guy called me over for a snack last evening and I ended up paying for that.
4. Last evening was my fifth straight evening at the TKS office.

Well, I was in a pretty bad shape because of all the above crap n a lot more. But, while walking back to my flat from TKS, there was this lovely little breeze that changed all my moods. It was normally a walk of just above 10 minutes from my house to TKS, but last night my heart wanted to enjoy the walk and it took me more than 25 minutes to cover the distance. Suddenly I felt like a child and did some weird things which included:
1. I was trying to balance myself on the edge of the pavement while walking. This went on for quite a distance.
2. I saw a hump on the road which resembled a landmine in the PlayStation game "Black". I couldn't take my eyes off it and in front of a heavy traffic, I lifted my hands and positioned myself like the protagonist in the game(a soldier) and tried to shoot that hump. Everybody waiting at that signal was shell shocked. I literally looked at them and laughed n went away.

All this made my heart lighter and I was in a cheerful mood for the rest of the night. But today, struggles have started yet again.

Random Ramblings

Folks, had a lot to post but very less free time to do so. So am putting up a brief notes of what's going on these days.

1. Today's the much-awaited India-Pakistan cricket match. Our cricket brothers of the neighboring country are giving too many statements to the press and our guys are calm n composed as usual. So let's see who wins the battle, which's going to kick-off in a few more hours. All the best, Team India.

2. The great slogger whom International cricket has ever produced, Mr Shahid Afridi was telling to the press the other day that the GOD(read as Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar) was no longer a threat. Brother Afridi, do you know that he's back into his prowess(mind it, he was never out of it) and made his way back into the ICC top-10 even after missing from the International ODI cricket for quite some time? Did you read in the newspapers a few days back about what happened to the Lankans in the tri-series finals?

3. Well, looks like my parents are feeling bad that they are not able to find a bride for me, even though they are trying hard to do so. Will write a post about that in the next few days.

4. About a month back, the PR manager of Coca-Cola Bahrain, Mrs Leila Rajkumar was kind enough to induct us(me n my friend Deepak) into their elite group, Thirst Quenchers. You all know how hot it gets in summer in this part of the world. So Coke will provide us with water and some soft-drinks. We(the Thirst Quenchers) are supposed to carry these around the island and give them free-of-cost to the laborers toiling out in the hot sun.
It was a very good example of what-a-little-help-can-do. I still remember the thank-filled eyes of those hard-working guys when we told them that we are there to give them free water n drinks. Some locals were curious enough to know why we are distributing them free-of-cost. Long live the human spirit. Find below the certificate that Coca-Cola has given me for doing whatever little I can. It was so kind of them.

We are OUT

Well, it's not a great news to share, but the verdict is out. We are out of the cricket tournament with a loss in the last night's match. The saddest part is - we lost the match by 3 runs. In the tournament, we had 12 groups with 5 teams each. Each team in the group has to play one match with each other and the top 2 teams in a group will go to the next round. Before yesterday's last match, we played 3 and won 2. Our opponent last night were the hosts. So ultimately, they had the home advantage.

One good thing for me from yesterday's match was - my batting. I was surprised with the way I hit some shots. Wait wait, don't think that I'm a good batsman. I'm a below-average cricketer and for a person like me, every single run is like a boundary. And if you play well, when others fail, it boosts our confidence. Right?

Well, looking forward to continue the same form in the coming Friday's match. This one doesn't belong to any tournament, but something that we play among friends. Professionally, though.

Note: I'll post some pictures of yesterday's match as soon my friend hand them over to me.

Cricket n SRK

Being from India, we love cricket and worship cricketers. And sometimes, we like to play too. So, we are participating in a 7-a-side soft-ball tournament here in Bahrain. A total of 60 teams are participating in the tourney and we played our first match last night. We lost it successfully, but at least we did give a tough fight to the opponents(my favs for the title). Batting first, they made a not-so-tough 52 runs in their allotted 6 overs while our side managed a convincing 45 runs in the same number of overs. Well, the nest match is on 28th of this month and wish us all the best.

And now, let's go to a strange issue that raging in some hearts in India. One Mr Shah Rukh Khan(in short SRK) was frisked at an airport in the US of A. Ok, the airport authorities did detain him for a couple of hours and checked his credentials blah blah. The only problem is this SRK guy is a super-star or a Badshah of Bollywood(naah, I'm an Aamir Khan fan). Fans started protesting this act and started burning effigies of the govt of US of A. TV channels started flashing the news of this footage in "exclusive bulletins". Bollywood bigwigs are interviewed, politicians were asked questions and people are made idiots.

But what's the big deal in the airport authorities doing so? Clearly, not everyone knows what Bollywood is or who SRK is. He's just one of those guys traveling through their airport. Is there any point in this whole incident for the entire nation to stand up(or rather sit n watch those stupid news channels broadcasting this)? Aren't there more issues that are bothering the nation?

Just in the past one month, more than 22 farmers committed suicide in the state of Andhra Pradesh courtesy poor rainfall and increasing debts. I saw in a regional news channel yesterday that a farmer set fire to his crop after a very less output(I don't exactly know the term). No one cares about issues like this. All we care is when a celebrity is detained in an airport or a famous cricketer scores a duck or when a politician is making useless comments etc. God save India.

My Idol is back for me to worship

Well folks, first of all, belated Friendship Day wishes to you all. I know that I'm late, as usual, but as long as something comes from your heart, you are never late.

This post is for the return of my idol, known as Micheal Schumacher. Me(in fact none in the world) didn't even think of this dramatic return, even in our wildest dreams. If it was not for Felipe Massa's unfortunate accident at the qualifying session of the Hungary Grand Prix, I would not be writing this post.

This man, Micheal Schumacher(fondly called as Schumi) is not just a human for me. Something beyond that. I don't exactly remember how I came to know about this guy or his hunting ground(F1 races), but since 2001 or so, I've been following up with his races. My heart used to jump with joy when I read about his wins in the newspaper(that time, I was doing my engineering in a rural area). I used to plan my trips to home accordingly, so as to watch the F1 race on Sundays.

Ah, all this is making me feel nostalgic of those beautiful days. None of my friends used to watch F1(as you know, cricket rules an average Indian's brain), and I used to try hard to get into the love of watching this sport. Some used to argue with me that F1 is the most stupidest sport ever, as the same guy(Schumi) wins every race in the same car(Ferrari). That was his impact on the sport. I can vaguely remember that the F1 bosses even changed the rules of the game in 2004, to make it more interesting for viewers(naah, just to end Schumi's supremacy, if I'm not wrong).

It was my dream then to witness at least one F1 race with Schumi in it, but he retired at the end of the 2006 season. I saw my first F1 race in 2008, sadly and his absense is obvious. It's not the same as before. I started confining myself to newspapers and website reports about F1 races, rather than sitting in a couch and watching it tensely on TV. But everything is going to change, if all goes well on August 23.

PS: God, please help me in getting out of the office in time to watch all the races that Schumi is participating.

Love Aaj Kal - Loss of sleep kal night

First of all, I apologize for not being here for the past few weeks. Life seems to be f@#&ed up big time, like never before. But now, I wanted to enjoy life as much as I can and hence I assure you that you are going to read a lot of crap here from now on.

Last night, we had late dinner as one of friend is going to India on vacation and we had to do some shopping. On the way to the restaurent, we saw that there's a premier show of the much awaited "Love Aaj Kal" at midnight(here in Middle East, Bollywood movies release one day before, but this is much before the Indian release as I'm talking abt Wednesday night and the movie is going to release on Friday in India). Anyways, me and the friend who's going for vacation thought of giving it a try, even though I have to get up as early as 5 30AM to get to the office today.

And there it is, a premier show with only 25% of the theatre filled. We can sit wherever we want, put legs on whatever front seat you want - what else do we want? Coming to the movie, it's a matured love story, so matured that the hero first makes love to a girl and then loves her(at least, he thinks he's loving her... yawwwnnnn).

The story is simple: The movie starts when a boy(errr.... man) meets a girl at a party and wins her with a not-so-convincing manner. They end up living together for some days(n weeks and months) and then they decide that they are going to break up. The boy(errr again, the man) is a happy-go-lucky guy(who tries to be super cool) who suggests that they throw a party to celebrate their break-up. Everybody is surprised(except me n the other audience) and there goes a lavish party. The next morning, the owner of the hotel tries to question this man(I got it right this time) about his relationship with the girl(arey yaar, they celebrated their break-up in your restaurent and you are questioning their relationship now) and gives him some tips. He narrates his love story to the hero. The rest of the story is supposed to be a comparision between the Aaj ka love story and Kal ka love story(beleive me, I can't compare even a single instance of both those stories).

The plus points of the movie are:
* Both the lead actors played their roles very well(even though I felt occasionally that Deepika has only two emotions in the movie: Amusement and Sadness).
* The songs of the movie are superb. One of the best in recent times.
* The photography was excellent. The locations(supposed to be UK) were too good.
* The comedy was good in bits n pieces.
* The biggest plus point for me is the duration of the movie, a good 130 or 135 minutes, which is apt.

However, there are a lot of minus points too:
* The narration was too fast paced in the starting few minutes and after that, it lags drastically.
* The movie reminds you of a lot of other movies(which is not good for a movie).
* Felt that the Kal ka love story was more interesting than the Aaj ka love story.
* Also, I strongly felt that there's no need for the Kal ka love story at all. The movie would have been the same without it too.
* The climax gets too predictable.

I rate this movie 3 out of 5 and I would prefer to see this movie when I'm free and really don't have any other movie to watch.

Before coming to a conclusion about this movie, please note that the above expressed views are entirely my own and you may actually like the movie. Different persons have different mindsets and one more important thing is that I saw the movie at 12 midnight.