The Dragon Tattoo Girl

Girl with the Dragon Tatto is one of thriller movie that also turns out to be hard hitting unlikely take on religious prosecution, misogyny, sexual exploitation and dealing with fascist family past. Movie revolves around an idealist journalist entrapped in his own scoop against a company and awaiting his impending imprisonment. He is invited by a living industrialist living on a private island who wants the journalist to investigate supposed disappearance/ murder of his niece that happened 40 years back.

Jurno is struck by the challenge to investigate a 40 year old case totally written off. He tries to investigate the case but finds no headway but realizes that his computer has been hacked when computer hacker provides him with lead that seems to have connotation of religious persecution. He confronts his computer hacker who turns out to be a young girl with troubled past, he offers the case which is reluctantly accepted by her. They move together to resolve the case.

The movie is slightly slow in nature and takes its own time to establish all the characters and set up and sometimes you wonder where all this is leading to but it doesn’t looses grip. Even the industrialist and his family members who themselves are part of suspects are painfully described and their embrace of Nazi philosophy.

The discovery of religious quotation as inspiration for similar murders in the past sets the movie into investigative mode and much like investigative journalism it relies on past records of public events and audits of financial transactions of a company dating back to 40 years to track the movement of suspects, which I believe would have only been possible in a developed country.

Finally the jurno with help of his unconventional hacker cracks the case, but if it disappearance or murders that is thrill to watch. Amazingly the movie has very old school treatment as it doesn’t end there but it resolves all the conflicts of the characters and subplots at the end be it jurno’s revenge at the dubious corporate house or the hacker’s resolve of family past.

I read that Hollywood is going to remake this classic move in its own fast paced style which may skip some of the brilliant episodes of the movie and its gritty portrayal of characters, I know movie would become a hit but people may never be able to watch the original cult movie simply because it is unheard in non-hollywood environment.

The Shallow Life of Camera Pics

It was airport and two guys were sitting asideme with some distance. They were waiting for their flight just like me, to kill the boredom they took out their camera and aimed it on themselves to make it look cooler- their boring lives. They picked up poses one after another, put on their shades, little brood and there it was the pics that they wanted to put on social networking site to show the world how cool their lives and times were. It was apalling but not unusual.

Just sometime back on friendship day I was passing by a mall near our office, there was group of school kids celebrating friendship day, which involved taking pics of themselves, a guy was busy adjusting rose in a fashionable way between the lips (I still don’t know why loosers use red roses on friendship day) and his PYT on one hand, the moment he clicked his pic I knew he got it, the coolest pic for online snob..to get trail of comments and to boast how cool it the moment was. They all seemed busy in making their moments look cool rather than making it cool.

In last few years ever since digital camera have invaded our personal space with shoot, store and forget mode made it easy to click numerous photos and moblie phone cameras have added to the woes even more. Every one nowadays clicks more photographs than usual even at the times uncalled for, even i have done it on some ocassions and we all have developed a habit of piling up photographs. Social networking sites banking clicking frenzy of this generation allow uncontrolled numbers of uploads.

As a result you go anywhere you would find someone busy clicking pics, you go to restaurant/pubs/parks and you would see not just teenagers but everyone (except the really old fellas) busy clicking pics. Now everyone is so much busy in faking the moments on camera that they less about enjoying the moment. Not long back I could look into pictuers and fondly remember the event or the moment, it didn’t matter if I had posed for it or not, a simple photograph used to remind all about the event even those which we forgot or missed to catch it on camera, but now it doesn’t seem to me that people would be able to recall their moments as we care less about it and more about the people would be watching those pictures. Now people are clicking picuters to make it memorable to others than to themselves; it used to be said picture would tell you thousand stories, not any more.

Who killed the Music Channel?

Now everytime you tune to your music channel you are surprised that it hardly has any music. It has been quite some time that most of music channels have turned to reality and youth programming and have almost shunned the music which they used to concentrate on. It had started last year when most of the biggie music channels started focusing more on youth related reality tv programs.

Most of the music channels for long time were suffering dearth of music related programs; music companies were bankurpt of reapated remix albums that they had dishedout for almost a decade (most of which had remained unsold) and then item gals who had seduced buyers to boring remixes had moved on their skimpy showcase to reality tv.

Music companies had stopped producing independent music which resulted in vanishing music stars, their stingy sound bites about their album & music videos. So, music channels had lost their item gals, trashy pop music videos and they were left with bollywood movies and music.

Music channels turned with vengence towards bollywood and then almost every channel had similar programming, literally a killing proposition for viewers as they were left with watching same movie promo and movie related programs distruted by movie producers. After a while, music channels were reduced to bollywood promo channels and music was replaced with snippets from latest movie songs.

Unfortunately, almost all news channel, entertainment channel and gossips channels were broadcasting the same program. Music channels had to make last ditch attempt to save themselves so they ditched music to stick with their viewers. Music Channels died so that channels can survive.

Auto Drivers Customer Support Message

Bangalore Auto drivers message to its patrons post fare hike !!

Humpty Dumpty and Humpday

An artist (Andrew) knocks the door of his old pal, Ben,a married man, instantly reconnects with him baffling his wife. His wife tries to comes to in terms with being sidelined in her own home, while the guys bond over conversation. This is amongst the movies which are largely build around conversation, also my major motive of watching this movie. Most of the conversation based movies are largely upredicatble, you don't know where conversation would take the movie to, but in this case, you do.

The couple in the movie are conventional people, who are brought up on conventional line of thinking and living such life, i.e. Finding job/other half, getting married, buying house and planning kids. Suddenly, our pal Ben is overwhelmed with the life, lifestyle and work opportunities of his artist friend; in comparison his life is pale.

Ben warms upto the life of artists and over the conversation decides to be part of the of a movie made exclusively for a film festival that no one has heard of, all he got to do it tell his wife and if she is okay with it. One conversation leads to another and the baffled wife comes to know her hubby wants to make an “porn movie” and amazingly she is the one who tells that the movie fest is all about pornography least about art, which our fren Ben defends as artist's reinvention of pornography as art, an “alternate porn or art porn”. She asks her husband why he suddenly wants to make a porn movie, and like all normal people who are trapped in their conventional role and life, her husband is totally clueless why he wants to make an porn movie.

The most freaky part of the movie: the last part of the movie turns out to be the most freaky part of the movie. The two guys meet to make their porn. Well, i didn't tell you the kind of porn they want to make for art's sake; it's straight guy gay porn, yes, if this sounds freaky to you then you should see the last part. I was praying for lack of action, which would have made it kind of difficult to watch and digest. You would have to watch it to know if my prayers were answered or not. The two straight guys talking about ways to ignite chemistry create attraction and the reason & necessity for making such movie makes even more freaky conversation.

The Smartest thing: the whole damn movie is about a person's or writer's idea about two straight guys attempt to make gay porn for art's sake and the whole conversation which any one would have gone through while pushing this idea and the director amazingly turns this whole idea and conversation into a movie.

And finally, i really never heard of this art porns, i was really laughing at it being casting couch tapes of indie movie producers (anyways all porno producers are independent). But, damn if anyone has, please bring it to light.

Edge of darkness

Edge of darkness (EoD) is definiltely not the most awaited movie but what made me watch this movie was the name associated wiht it, it's Mel Gibson movie. In past few years Mel Gibson's name is more or less associated with gritty, violent, gorry and dark drama kind of movies.

EoD unlike such movies in many ways, its neither dark nor that violent, though it has some blood sprouting scenes in the movie. The movie largely deals wiht Mel's character coming in terms with his daughter's murder, pyschic-spiritual angle, which involves hallucination.

The other angle involves Mel's attempt to investigate his daugther's murder, which turns boring. The most amazing point of the movie is one of the sub-plots, US government sponsored company assembling nuclear arsenal with material brough from other countries, thus absolving US from blame in case such weapons are used.

Frankly, nuclear weapon could have been major portion of the movie, it would have been more gripping movie. But the movies losses its steam by focusing on Mel Gibson's coming in terms with daughter's demise and really slow pace of investigation. At end of days EoD is long boring movie, it's definitely not for those who want to catch up typical clone of Mel Gibson movie.

A small ‘Update” and A Giant Leap

I know most of you would be thinking its too late to talk about leap year, if there was any. I’m not talking about it anyway. It’s about relationship. Once you get married and a few years pass by, then you see things stabalise around you. Its lot more peaceful as you are pretty sure when and how your partner gonna throw pan at you and you are very confidant that you will be able to catch it. Not only things stablise but also intensity and enthusiasm levels also come down, as every thing can’t remain same.

Once you are done with giant leap of slaying your bachelor life and years pass by then its very easy for everyone to sort life you or shall I say simplify it you…and the solution is always another leap (having kids). It’s the best argument, “what else you gonna do anyway”. But if you have not taken the second leap then you its somewhat different for you as you really need to do something before you start loosing some fizz.

It much like reinventing what you had already invented in your relationship (which described by women in two words is usually – stupid and useless). It’s somewhat similar like what corporates do, instead of launching a whole new version they release an ‘UPDATE’ when they are sure that their product is loosing some charm and they are not ready to take it to next level. Little bit shine over here & there, little bit re -jigging and result is an “update”.

“update” is the real short term solution to bring smile and excitement back in to the life. It’s a small step for man and giant improvement in mankind’s personal life (yeah, I get it its exaggerated). Oh, and talking about ‘leaps’, I saw leap of different kind when I visited a mall sometime back.

To my surprise, I saw a lot of the men holding their kid in hand while their better half enjoyed the outing. I had not seen so many men at same place and in similar condition (yeah its condition). I couldn’t believe it and I really didn’t want to! I cribbed to myself, how the hell men in this country took this leap of being “friendly” to their kids (all this bullshit was largely limited to movies), in my parents generation kids were scared of their father, now I see them hand in hand. Fathers were meant to be strict and scary, which always drove kids to their mothers and gave men free to do their stuff (which largely is doing nothing). Now this gone…gone forever. I couldn’t believe this leap had to happen during my generation only, couldn’t they have waited one more generation to pass by. But now, thanks to this leap by men of our country our lives are going to get screwed. Did I hear someone screaming??

Rush To Flush

Now that all hoopla around sania mirza and shohiab malik is over and they are done with chasing each other. I realised what just had happened and i know that it was result of being in one sceanrio that no one desires to be, i call it 'rush to flush'. It happens when you are just out of a relationship and the most unfortunate & immediate escape route goes towards another relationship.

Fall to 'rush to flush' is aided and abetted by two tools -'Stepney' and 'Open Window'. 'Stepney', as i call it, is mindware programme, it keeps tracks of all the alternate options, be it available or unavailabe in a person's life, it runs in the background while you continue your existing relationship (but remember 'stepney' turns from mindware to malware once you get married and has distructive affects). 'Open Window' as explined by our friend Ted Mosby, (in HIMYM series), is a real time relationship timeline alert tool that reminds you who has who has just moved out of relationship thus making window of opportunity open for the person.

These two tools are though independent of each other but are also complementary.Sometimes, both of these run together on same person and sometimes separaely. In case of sania mirza it was desperate need to escape from aftermath of a disastrous relationship and she turned to 'stepney' to find solace. Sohaib Malik on the other hand waited for 'Open Window' alert to make his move. Both these tools work perfectly fine until your immediate reason to be in one relationship happens to escape ruote from another, as you are emotionally drained mind plays its own game thus leading to 'rush to flush'.

I have seen it happening to two of my friends, one needed stepney and other was waiting for window to open, they hitched in this scenario dated for long even got married but still couldn't save the relationship. And,i also remember thelast big celebrity 'rush to flush', aishwarya rai and vivek oberoi; we all know the outcome. It usually follows the same pattern withperson thinking why the hell i got into this situation.

Fool's Day by Politicians

This is for what should be a poster for April Fool's Day celebration by politicians ( if they ever do it to common people). Mr Politician got his name well explained by his workers but forgot got to explain the first two alphabets of abbreviation- N.A HARIS,

which stands for Not Applicable.

The Show-off Toyz of Next Decade

Saw an advt on tv with tag line what was cool yesterday isn’t cool today. True, what was rich man’s prerogative is common man’s mat today. So, in 80s when most of people had black&white television richer ones had VCR and telephone. Then in 90s when most of the people owned VCRs richer people had LD players. So what gonna be rich person’s toys in this decade. I have some of my guesses.

As technology is changing fast there are less chances that any consumer durable product will be top such list as we everyone has seen that how three different products like telephone, music player and camera, all of which were not owned by common man, has now combined into one and is owned by almost everyone. So a phone or mobile equipment is less likely to make it to showoff list.

But, some thing like electric sports car will definitely make it despite any advancement in technology or even with existence of conventional fuel based models if they survive the government onslaught on fuel efficiency.

Air travel has become less expensive compared to what is used to be two decades ago. Not much fad remains in air travel especially in India. I guess the outer space travel tour will be the fad in this decade. It’s cool and it’s expensive, chances of its cost becoming affordable wouldn’t be arising in a decade or so.

Robots, yeah its not a new stuff to this world but it isn’t not much popular either (Japan being sole exception). A good advancement in robotics has led to increased interactivity, mobility and their ability to multi-task, I bet more people will have robots in this decade.

Holographic projection tv, I thought it was fringe of my imagination till I googled it for good. Amused but not surprised that as a concept it already existed. Though, it will take time to come out may be by end of this decade. I would love three dimensional hi-definition holographic images, i would be real surreal everything.

My favorite concept is of smart phone with all the applications - universal remote, air conditioner control, lighting control and all electrical controls. But, then it would still be commonman's handytool (not my problem) than show-off piece.

A Dog's Life

It was usual weekend morning and I was at my apartment’s gym trying to negate the weeklong affects of deskjob with some exercise. The gym is on the first floor and overlooks a large empty plot as it the case with most of the newly developed areas in the outskirts of the city. I was running on the treadmill and I saw few street dogs playing in the ground. They were having the playful start of the day, a few dogs chasing each other, time after time.

Suddenly one the dog got tired and sat down facing our gym. Soon other dogs joined the first dog and started looking at me. They saw me running; there was some distance and a huge wall between us. The dogs were anticipating the running guy will come to them and they will run after him or bite him. Then, after a few minutes and dogs still waited in anticipation that I will cross the wall and they would jump on me. Some more time passed by and dogs started looking at me with different angels by twisting their heads to make out what was exactly happening.

Dogs stood up and they were tired of watching me running but not coming to their side. I smirked, these rural dogs (yeah they became urban because city moved into it); they aren’t exposed to many things and were unaware of changes around. Dogs hadn’t seen a treadmill and they were totally amused and it was culture shock to them, total change of life style they had never seen before.

Just as I was taking shots on those newly urban stray dogs, the “other dog” came out of a big housing complex from the opposite end. I couldn’t have felt better. There it was, a sophisticated dog with knowledge of changes surrounding him, he can distinguish between marvelously carved garden in the apartment and government property, knows where to shit. I was going gaga over dogs knowledge and acquired skills, then I saw the “other dog” being pulled by his owner (dog wasn’t ultra rich, the ones with a servant attached for their service).

Suddenly, I realized his miserable life. So, the “other dog” was forced out in the morning for his morning ritual. I pity the life of “other dog”, he had not much freedom, time everything to owner’s requirement and worse – shit on time and that too day after day. I could understand that the “other dog” was under pressure to maintain efficiency in meeting timely requirement of his owner. Living shity life to shit on time, fun had totally gone out of the life of “other dog”.

By the time stray dogs had given up on me, I was no fun like rural fellas who run into them and then get bitten by them, dogs walked out of disappointment. Finally, as I completed my exercise a thought creeped into my mind about lives of rural stray dogs’ vs “other dog” and us humans. It didn’t seem much different how we live today.