Friendship day!

Language is a beautiful revelation that man has experienced in his existence and still I find it woefully inadequate to express something as ------- as "friendship" (no adjective can be found to compare it with). It's said that a human being can attain unprecedented heights or fall to unimaginable depths when he is emotionally charged. Friendship is one such emotion that belongs to the former. In it there are no negatives just positives. No pressure, just relaxation. No jealousy, just joy. No betrayal just unflinching support. No feeling of being ignored but always making us feel that we are important.

It's said that one can tell about a person by the kind of friends he or she has. It emphasizes the influence of friends on an individual. The uniqueness of it is it's a dynamic relationship in which a person influences as well as gets influenced simultaneously and continuously. Such is its presence that there can be someone without a family, without a spouse, without anything but not without a friend. People say that love transcends everything but it is through friendship that it finds perfect expression. Without friendship it is impossible for people to grasp love. That's why we hear that parents should treat their children like friends beyond a certain age. Even in a marriage though husband and wife are the formal names given for the sake of recognition in a society, actually during the ceremony the couple owe to each other to remain a friend for the rest of their lives. Friendship is something which is self sustaining. It needs nothing special for its existence, but everything else needs friendship for their survival.


Considering the tectonic drifts in today's sociological setup where families becoming nuclear and relatives distant and relationships irrelevant, friends have come to fill up that void. In earlier days one's primary source of support had been family and relatives but nowadays it's friends and unlike relatives friends come with no strings attached.

In the end if one's present state is a sum total of all his successes and failures, pluses and minuses, good and bad then in my opinion one's personality is the sum total of his family and his friends. In my opinion there is not such thing as love failure. Only lack of friendliness. So let's try to maintain good friendship with our near and dear ones, love automatically follows!!!!

INCEPTION

When someone begins to read an exciting fast paced story, he or she will find it almost impossible to put the book down unless and until the book is completely read. Quality of the prose, the vocabulary, though enhances the experience are secondary when compared to the style of the story telling and the set up in which the story unfolds. Inception is one such movie where after watching, one feels like having taken a wild ride in a bobsleigh. Breathtaking pace, sharp twists and turns, intersecting subplots all combine to unveil a chaotic yet admirable movie.

Those who have watched the movie "Matrix", will certainly find similarities as far as the plot is concerned and that is the vacillation of human mind between conscious and the subconscious. But then the similarity ends there. Chris nolan the director picks up the story from that point and gives wings to his imagination and they are no ordinary wings, for the story did soar very high or rather very deep :-).

Imagine yourself playing against a master in a game of chess. The opponent is so ahead in terms of the moves that he would have actually check mated you even before you made the first move for he would have planned all his moves ahead against yours. You may think that you are playing well and giving him a tough fight, but in reality you have actually become a pawn in his hands and will be playing just like the way he wants you to play, to make the moves he wants you to make, only to find in the end that you have been checkmated. Though in retrospect you may think that you had all the possibilities in the world to have played differently, you realise that at that specific moment all your intelligence, logic was somehow shut itself down. That's the feeling one would get after he or she had watched this movie.

The director, a master of non linear story telling takes a leaf out of Hitchcock's book to sedate the audience's sense of logic. No time to ponder,no time to pause and proffers unfairly miniscule time to even think before the next scene grips your mind. After a point of time the images on the screen find no relevance simply because they would have transcended the screen and incepted your brain. The movie virtually starts rolling inside your brain and it's like watching a movie from within.

Watch this movie simply for the outrageously intriguing plot. The concept of exploring the different layers of consciousness of human mind is in itself enough to make us wonder. The special effects the performance of all the actors and top of it all: the background music perk up the overall experience.
I have seen people coming out after watching a movie. Mostly they would be talking about a few scenes and simply passing judgement about the movie. But in this case everybody were discussing about the movie emphasising that more than the entertainment, this movie has got cerebral appeal.

VERDICT: INCEPTION- A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.

Tom & Jerry

Well it's time to give a standing ovation to one of the greatest if not the greatest entertainment icons on their 70th birth anniversary: TOM & JERRY. Even is someone is an adult he or she can not help enjoying this eternal cat and mouse game. Whether they admit or not even the heavily tattoed, macho men will be bursting their bellys out laughing, while watching these two comic superstars in action. The greatness of this cartoon series is that they still appeal to current generation of kids and adults alike as they had, to the previous generations. Even today's state of the art 3D life like animated characters find it difficult to connect to us like those two did to us instantly. It has got all the ingredients for great entertainment: simplicity, colour, funny, high in action. Kudos to the creators for they just didn't draw the characters, but made the characters perform to perfection. Though there is some criticism that it actually shows violence, masquerading as fun and entertainment and that it may negatively influence young and impressionable minds.

As we all know, in any case, much can be said on both sides. Just like a coin has two faces, this cartoon too has some good and bad in it. But in the end looking at the popularity of these two, I tend to believe that good certainly outweighs bad at the end of the day. Hope it carries the mommentum further and may it outlive our lifespans!

World's happiest couple!

Recently I was busy in finding the happiest couple in the whole world. Well to some skeptics the two words 'happy' & 'couple' may sound like an oxymoron, but sarcasm apart, I still tried to find out one such couple. I was about to give up this endeavour which was turning out to be futile, but in the last minute much to my relief I found out one such couple. You may ask why one should put so much effort in a relatively not so important matter. On the contrary I believe that this information will be like a beacon of light in the darkness for all my newly married friends and for those who are awaiting their turn.

And as per my findings the happiest couple in the whole world were Adam & Eve. Simply because Adam didn't have to listen to Eve about all the men she could have married and Eve didn't have to listen to Adam say how well his mother cooked. :-)

To remain as a happy couple, this is the recipe!

Raavanan!

The limitation of being a master craftsman in what one does, is that the person can not afford to be just ok or for that matter even good. He has to be more than good. That's the quagmire in which the master director Maniratnam finds himself in, with the release of his latest bilingual extravaganza "Raavan" in Hindi and "Raavanan" in tamil. Having clearly been stated that this movie is a contemporary take on the ancient epic Ramayana, it was supposed that it would portray the myriad shades of the wonderful character "Raavanan".

As per the epic Raavanan is a learned, able and strong king and a great devotee of lord Shiva. In fact, except for the misdeed of kidnapping Sita, I have never heard of him being notorious like some of the other characters like Kamsa, dushaasana etc. Rama-though the lord incarnate, is still a human being and is bound by the cycle of karma. As a result he undergoes all emotional turmoils like dilemmas, suffering and happiness and sorrow. Now the drama heats up! Raavan with such an exceptional track record meets with his downfall with one act of imprudence. Raam too, whom we eulogise, too commits a blunder of suspecting his wife's chastity and forcing her to take a idiotic fidelity test. Though the reason for this stupid action is mentioned in the epic, it's sheer stupidity nevertheless especially when looked at from today's perspective.

My expectation from Maniratnam was that he would build the plot upto a point where he will let the audience decide as to who was great:Raavanan or Rama. Raavanan though kidnaps Sita, an act which is immoral still makes us admire him with his decision to first win Sita's heart before having her. On the contrary though Raam is revered to be a perfect man, in my opinion no one else had inflicted so much pain to any woman as he had to Sita. Moreover what would be the thought process of Sita if she were a modern day woman? I guess she may even take Raavanan's side instead of jumping into fire just because her husband has asked her to jump! :-) This drama, crossfire of ideologies, social beliefs, characters is what I expected and I have to reluctantly admit that I was disappointed in the end. I had this expectation based on his previous movie Guru in which he weaved that magic.

But no one can complain about the performances and music. They are top class. Cinematography is truly amazing and there is no point in mentioning separatley this aspect in a Mani's film. Though the deliberate camera shakes to build the tension of a scene resembled Jason Bourne movies, in my opinion they weren't as effective as the later.

Back to square one, if this movie had been directed by any other director it would have been a great movie. Though the movie is good in many aspects, just because it was directed by avgreat director, Raavanan has out as a normal movie.

Golden age for sports fans!

Don't ever make the mistake that this could be somehow related to cricket by a mere cursory glance at the topic. No, not in the next million years. Looking at the quality of cricket that's being played, all sports enthusiasts like me would certainly be in a state of deep depression. So instead, let's look towards Europe and Africa and there they are!
Tennis- the ultimate individual game and Football- the ultimate team game both are ready to feast our eyes, excite our minds and inspire our hearts. Of course the wheels had already been set in motion two weeks earlier when the French open at Rolland Garros kick started. Now the Football world cup which starts on 11th of this month and Wimbledon which will probably start on the third week of this month will continue the momentum, carry on the excitement well over into the month that comes next. For a sports fan the feeling is like that of a normal person acquiring a home and getting married at the same time (I can find no better example than this one:-) ).

Both the games impose tremendous pressure and test one's technique, fitness and of course one's mental strength. One interesting point is that in French open Rafael Nadal is considered to be the favourite which he did win yestereday. In wimbledon Roger Federer is considered to be the favourite albeit with some reservations because of a looming threat in the form of Nadal. But this time in Football no team is considered to be a clear favourite to win the world cup and this adds some zing and suspense to the proceedings.

No matter who loses at the wimbledon or whichever team loses at the football world cup, one thing is for sure; Tennis and Football will win hands down. If the fans don't have any allegiance to any particular team or to any particular player, they can be winners too! So let's just invite the the golden age of sports that's in our doorsteps ( of course it's just a figure of speech). All you have to do is to just flick the remote on!

Kites

Actually in my opinion, there are two aspects to a movie. One is what is being told, and the other one is how it is being told. After a century, that the motion picture came into existence, it's becoming progressively difficult of the former part about what is being told. Because it's almost next to impossible to say or to show something radically new on the screen after having so many stories brought on to celluloid by all the film makers on this planet. That leaves us with the only option left which is how it is being told.

Kites is one such movie where the first aspect doesn't apply at all because a love story in which the two lovers try to overcome all the hurdles only to realise that everything goes in vain, is not new at all and this theme has been used and done to death by our film makers. So the film makers of this particular movie zeroed in on the second aspect but it is now the turn of the audience to realise that this effort too has gone in vain.

I heard that the chemistry between the lead pair is good and I agree to some extent, having watched the movie. But it ended up being an incomplete chemical reaction as there was no catalyst at all, to speed it up. The story and the other characters who constitute the catalyst, were all ignored. The problem with this movie is that it tried to fit into all possible genres, romance, action, drama and tragedy. The film makers would have thought to make this movie appeal to a global audience but I believe that it's a terrible mistake. Because you need not ape others to be global, but can remain local and still be global. As Kamalhasan opines that when it comes to movies, as one becomes more ethnic it becomes more global.

Off late a disturbing trend is springing up in our movies and that is importing foreign actresses (read white actresses). Though I have no complaints with the casting of this movie, movies like "Love aajkal", "Aladdin" etc have female leads who are foreign and don't know the language at all. Even in kollywood and tollywood the trend has been to cast north indian actresses who don't know the language at all. I leave it to the film fraternity to ponder over the true intention behind this trend. If the reason is to have an actress only if she is fair skinned, then I have no reservations to say that ours is a racist film industry.

Coming back to Kites, the positive in this movie is the romance between Hrithik and Barbara mori-the spanish beauty, lightening up the screen. All the guys would have wanted to trade places with Hrithik, and all the girls would have done anything to trade places with Barbara mori. Well some guys would have even wanted to trade places with Barbara mori too, such was the beauty and sex appeal of Hrithik and Barbara. It reminded me of "Meet Joe Black" in which Brad pitt and Claire Forlani sizzle to our delight.

Verdict: Hrithik has given a wonderful performance, but watch it only if you are his die hard fan.