Movie Fest

I have re-started my movie marathon sessions, and am now watching a couple of movies per day. As I might have mentioned earlier, back in my college days I had planned to watch the complete IMDB Top 250 movies. But like so many dreams from the college days, this one too remained just a thought. This year, I plan to give it another shot, and hopefully will be watching a lot more from it. 

Saw quite a few movies recently, and here are my mini-reviews:

Gangajal - Had heard a lot about the national award winning movie, and the performance by Ajay Devgan. And I wasn't disappointed either. I'm not a great fan of Ajay Devgan (specially in a comedy movie), but this was one of the movie where perhaps no one could have played the role better - just like Company, Once Upon A Time In Mumbai, etc. Certainly worth a watch. 

Patiala House - I had expected this to be trash, just like the other AK movies in recent times. And I was happy to be proved wrong. This was a Yash Raj/K Jo formula movie, and after zillions of years AK did a sensible film. However, it fared badly as I guess he fell pray to 'Bhediya Aaya' syndrome - and no one expected a nice movie from him. 

7 Khoon Maaf - If its Vishal Bhardwaj, anything is Maaf. Not many people have 'really' liked it (5-star level), and its not a classic in the same league as his earlier works. However, its still a very nicely made movie, and Priyanka is certainly one of the best actress today (not that she has much competition with industry filled with Sonam Kapoors, who can't even act to save her life). 

Black Swan - Not a typical movie, in fact may not even qualify as being a movie. It could very well be a personal diary of Nina (the lead character). Natalie Portman is awesome in her role, and portrays the character wonderfully well. Not many people will like the movie, but its powerful, and meaningful cinema. If you are a Cinema lover (and not just 'movie fan'), then you may like it. 

Interesting Blogs

I have been reading quite a few interesting blogs over the past few days, and it leaves me completely amazed. Some people have wonderful writing styles, and/or a sense of humor. I'm always in awe of people who could write pretty well, and think about varied topics to write about. I have never quite been able to get out of 'myself' mode - I do have my views on the world, but can be written in a line. I like cricket, I love movies, I hate XYZ, etc. I can't analyze things in details over a few paragraphs - life is very black and white for me. And thankfully my profession doesn't need me to think in anything other than digital options. 

Of perhaps all the blog I know, I find mine the least interesting (from a 3rd person's view). Coz it has nothing for anyone - I hardly write anything with anyone else in my mind. Most of the time, its me talking to myself. And its not even like me writing about my life and experiences - its almost always incomplete. I know about the context, and I end up writing about a sub-part of it. Most of the stuff is written so that I could read back after say 10 years, and realize how different I was earlier. So that I could understand how I felt at an earlier stage of my life, and how events unfolded. So, I write about my experiences when I started learning driving, or bought my first car, or got married. One can capture the moments in pictures, but one can't capture their feelings and thinkings that way. 

World Cup: First Impressions

World Cup has started, and most of the teams have played their first matches. This time the schedule is much better than most of the earlier times, and with more matches in the league stages, the possibility of shock-exit are much lower. With each team playing 6 matches in the first round, best 4 (out of 7) in each group move to the next round. If any team fails to clear the league, than it would be because of bad preparation and not because it had one bad day. 

By the first looks, South Africa, Australia, Pakistan and Sri Lanka appear to be the teams to beat. Not England, and not India as well. India has a middle order which is prone to collapse, and fast bowlers prone to be taken to cleaners. However, the other four teams had matches against much lesser opponents than India and England (Bangladesh and Netherlands are certainly the better teams among the associates), and hence one can't draw a really clear comparison. But I still like the looks of those four teams - they have their plans clear, and strategy in place. If you want to beat the Aussies, beat them now - they would raise the bar in the next round. 

Pop-Ups

I believe in simplicity and perfection, and hence quickly get frustrated with some shabbily designed websites. One of my favorite website to read India related news is the TOI (and ET). I like their content - they are a proper masala paper and both of them cover most of the stuff I want to read about - Business and Markets, Sports, Bollywood and Politics. However, the most annoying thing about their site is the pop-ups which blocks the whole page for a good 6-8 seconds before you can read the news. And to make things worse, if you open multiple news item in different tabs (which I end up doing - opening all the news items which I want to read), they end up opening as many pop-ups. 

I guess someone at the company needs to make changes quickly. I know its all about making revenues and meeting the quarterly targets. However, they need to think big - they are the biggest newspaper in the country, and could well end up being the most visited web site here. And given our population and growth rate, I think that would be some opportunity. But that would be possible only if they get out of their cash-cow mentality, and go the google/Facebook way. Both of them have consciously avoided glaring pop-ups over their products, and allow only subtle advertisement. And mind you, these two are perhaps the most successful story in online advertisement and revenue generation. I would love to see a TOI (and ET) designed in the same perfect manner as a Facebook site (take a look at careers page in Facebook, its simply awesome. I was looking at it for completely different reasons, but realized I didn't fit in). Users would love to have a similar clutter free experience. 

I don't know how difficult it is to make such websites and designs. And if it is not, then why aren't others doing it? God knows, may be the same reasons why Sreesanth can't behave like Sachin. 

The Social Network: Movie

Today I finally saw the movie - The Social Network. And this totally does justice to the phenomenon of Social Network. The best part about the movie is that its timely, and not a decade late - like its case for most of them. 

(Spoiler Alert)

Its a chronicle of the making of Facebook, and while not sure how credible and accurate the events are, the movie surely makes for one gripping watch. Its a story about its founder, and his years at Harvard where he accidentally stumbles upon a few ideas leading to Facebook. Dumped by girls for his geeky and arrogant ways, he finds a way to get back at them. He hacks into the university network, and gets the pictures of all the girls. He creates a webpage where users could rank the hottest girls, comparing two girls at a time. This leads to the servers crashing, and makes gives birth to the idea of Social Network. 

Poster: The Social Network

From there, the movie takes some more time detailing the journey, and how he may have been inspired by few others along the way. It talks about some of the underlying ideologies of the company - no flashing ads, let users decide what to use it for. These are essentially the same principles which made Google what it is today. It also touches upon the dilemma for an entrepreneur about when to sell the venture - the timing is seldom right, and you are either too early or too late. 

My only wish is the movie were a little longer - it didn't touch upon the personal lives of any of the protagonists. So, we do not know anything about the background and family life of the people. It seems to be intentional - and the movie only focuses on the company and its growth. Its a good watch for anyone hooked on the Facebook, or any other network for that matter.