viperlair

An Obama Minute

2008-04-09T11:15:00.000Z

http://anobamaminute.com/

Definitely an Innovative way of money making, but too much theatrical. Obama is clearly ahead in Internet campaigning than Clinton, may be this explains why the youth prefers him more than Clinton.

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/mar2008/tc2008035_280573.htm

Schadenfreude

2008-04-02T15:47:00.001Z

Happiness at the misfortune of others; it cant be anything other than GERMAN.aint it!

Berkshire Hathaway

2008-04-02T15:46:00.001Z

http://news.hereisthecity.com/news/business_news/7662.cntns -

Lists the Fortunes Top 20 Most Admired companies. Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway is Ranked No.4; Just out of curiosity I google’d to check out their website. Here’s what the No.4’s website looks like.

http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/

Salaam –e –Ishq

2007-01-27T03:10:00.000Z

SOPORIFIC !!...so boring and disgusting …though good in patches, this film is like never ending , dragged to the extreme and tests the patience of the movie goer to the limit. I went just because of Vidya Balan, and she has delivered. Akshay Khanna and Govinda have put in some brilliant performances. Other than that, the movie is a total dud.

THE SEVEN SAMURAI (Shichinin no samurai )

2007-01-22T02:24:00.002Z

Akira Kurosava movie- that says it all. I rate this a notch above ‘Rashomon’. Hollywood reworked this one into ‘Magnificent Seven’. The plot is about a small peasant community recruiting seven warriors to save them from bandits. What I liked about the movie is the way it depicts the ‘Human Spirit’ to fight and stay alive.
It’s a must watch if you’r are a serious movie buff.

APOCALYPTO

2007-01-22T02:24:00.001Z

Yeah, let me scribble a bit more on this one. GORY to say the least..Is there any word of higher degree than that? Visual Spectacle , slick direction and amazingly poised. The movie leaves you with lasting images of chopped off heads, corpses lying around and astonishing violence. I have seen lotz of bloodstained movies, but haven’t seen anything like this yet. There is scene with shows blood oozing out of half cut brain..eewww…this aint for the light hearted.
Movie talks about Mayan Civilization and its suppression of the other independent and small groups of people living in the forest. The Mayans relentless greed and hunger for bloodshed leads them to capture these small groups. They are intended to be human sacrifices to the SUN god. And from this suppression arises the ‘Jaguar Paw’.
The way the mighty civilization hunts down itz small and weaker counterparts prompts myself to ask one q- Isn’t the same that’s happening now. The human tendency to oppress remains the same – Iraq, Afghan, Vietnam. Open your eyes, the characters might have changed but the attributes remains the same.
Mel Gibson’s command over the movie is quite superb. It’s technically perfect gripping human drama with grotesque humour in between. Forget about Gibson’s anti Semitism and his drinking problems, he is such a stunning and serious movie maker. The movie speaks Mayan dialect –like his Aramaic Passion of Christ – which makes it all the more expressive.
Now, what are you waiting for ?...Go and watch this !!!

GURU

2007-01-22T02:20:00.000Z

Millions might have reviewed this, All I wanna say is, I have seem better movies from Mani. Entertainer- YES with average Quality. Recommended for viewing ONCE.

Insomnia

2007-01-22T02:17:00.000Z

Am I suffering from that?. Sometimes I feel so. Or is it am in too much in love with my laptop and nano. This relentless surfing is leaving me restless. To add to that lack of any serious physical activity –read sports – is leaving me accidious. So, I’ve decided to pen something here , may be u find them soporific. ;)..

aMbACK !!!!

2007-01-20T05:49:00.000Z

Y I turned a blind eye on you.....
Y I left you on the dark.....
Y am I so lazy in writing something to you....
Y did I shied away from visiting you....
Blame my work...Blame my sluggishness...Blame my frivolities..
Of late i realized how much am missing you..
Ive been off track...but now, am back...
my beloved bloG..am bacK....!!!....

2006-05-19T09:44:00.000Z

My weekend Recos

Whenever I go home, its like a habit to watch rented DVD’s. In Bangalore, its always MPlex’s, which are really costly and most of the cases , I never get the movies worth my money.
The flavor is different watching DVD’s in my home theatre, no one to disturb, playing back and forth as you wish. It’s like having total control which u never get ‘n a theatre.

The Rainmaker, Lord of War, Scent of Woman, Cinderella Man, Chicken Little, Taxi No 9211, Malamaal Weekly ….

The Rainmaker, Scent of Woman and Cinderella Man – Must Watch. These movies are stg which u jus cant miss if u r a movie buff.I wonder wat took me so long to watch these.A Coppola movie with a difference-alteast in the shades, Al Pacino teaches how to act and shout :))….Russell Crowe ‘n his elements .
Lord of war- Average,watchable.. a Textbook for Arms dealers and an eye opener into arms deals.
Chicken Little- Awesome movie…awakens the looser in you..:))…
Taxi No 9211- Good 1 …hmm.i started liking those Ramesh Sippy movies, Like RGV he z carving out a niche for himself.
Malamaal Weekly- it’s supposed to make u laugh ..Priyadarshan finally made a Bollywood movie which is not a remake of Mallu movie, but taking the all the comedy scenes from various mallu movies…if the comedy is predictable , it’s not a comedy anymore.

2006-04-17T07:01:00.000Z

V for Vendetta and Being Cyrus

It’s not worth writing a review independently for these two movies. So am just confining it to a one liner – Utter failure by directors in spite of a good plot. It’s often said about direction – Frames don’t make a movie. Both these have fantastic frames, but it fails in building up the plot.

Both these movies have some things in common – a nice script, good dialogues , average cinematography and horrendous direction. Am using some harsh words on the directors because they spoiled a storyline which would have been made to a fantastic movie.
I just cant bear the fact that they made of a mess of it and I spoiled my 150 bucks. It’s not worth writing further so am just wrapping it up- Both these movies are worth viewing for 50 bucks (Metro stands) and not a penny more. Hmm am a scrooge huh …but if this Blog saves ur money, u better pay me back by posting ur comment :) .

2006-04-17T06:19:00.000Z

Bangalore on April 13- Hell it was !!!!

Always there has to be something wrong with the number 13. You always can expect something to go wrong if it has anything to do with 13.

This time the whole Bangalore felt the jinx. It started on the 12th when thespian Rajkumar passed away. I was in the office when one guy came to me and told “Annavuru passed away”, my initial reaction was “Who’s Annavuru ??”. Later I realized , what a blasphemy it was !!!!.

April 13 was declared a holiday , and as usual I got up around 10. The first shocker came up when I tried to surf the channels- Nothing except some news channels and Local Kannada channels. And the good thing is that no one was fighting for the remote anymore.

The news channels were full of action that day, albeit some clips were repetitive and felt boring viewing the same atrocities. It was total chaos, those hoodlums wrecking havoc in the streets. And I can’t stop wondering how a 78 old actor can have such mad fans aged 20-25. No matter what the fan following, it should have been stopped. They torched buses , pelted stones on whatever they came across and thrashed police personals . Sometimes I feel they deserve it considering their inability. It was a total failure of the administration , and as the CM , it was Kumaraswamy’s fault. And very next day , he started blaming the Police Officers. It was a total mismanagement in the way they handled things. Anyways things have settled down pretty quickly after that , but it exposed the in capabilities and the in efficiency of the administration .
I badly wanna get out of this horrible place.

2006-02-28T17:14:00.000Z

The Motorcycle Diaries

It’s about two Argentinean youngsters -Ernesto Guevara and Alberto Granado – who set out on a trip to explore Latin America. The name Ernesto Guevara may not be familiar to all but ‘Che’ Guevara is.

It’s about the revolutionist’s younger years, when he was a 23-year-old medical student specializing in leprosy. Ernesto and his friend Alberto,29, a biochemist leave Buenos Aires on a knackered 1939 Norton 500, optimistically named La Poderosa (The Mighty One).

The movie starts as a sumptuous travelogue, taking the viewers through a splendid ride of humor, youthful vigor, ideologies and benevolence.
The travel leaves them physically exhausted, hungry and cash-strapped.
Apart from that ‘La Poderosa’ breaks down intermittently leaving them no option but to hell with her.
They rely on strangers for food, money and lifts. Slowly they get the feeling of what the real Latin America is – a different and rather ugly face. Each encounters with the poor and neglected souls touches them deeply and you can see a very disturbed Ernesto in the later part of the movie. The transformation starts there –a Political Awakening. The Director portrays it brilliantly with Snap-Shots, which leaves the permanent impression on the viewer’s mind.

Che was a philanthropist. A man who fought for the poor and the dispossessed, a man who stood up against the mightiest of the forces. It’s evident in the movie when he swims across the Amazon to celebrate his Bday with the leper’s.
It’s one of those handful of movies that urges you to do something different and is gonna haunt you for long.

2006-02-20T08:12:00.000Z

Just Like heaven

Well after the movie the viewers feels exactly the opposite, JUST LIKE HELL. esp if you are spending 150 bucks to watch it.
Damn, Am I spending too much to watch these craps? . But sometimes it’s hard to resist to watch a movie on weekends.

Just Like Heaven is supposed to be a ghost story. Elizabeth Martinson (Reese Witherspoon) is a doc and on the way home from the hospital, her car has a head-on encounter with a truck. When next we meet Elizabeth, she's a spirit haunting her old apartment, which is now occupied by David Abbott (Mark Ruffalo), a morose man who always has a beer in one hand. Eventually, David comes to realize that Elizabeth is a ghost. The only person who z able to c her is David and they eventually falls in ‘Love’. For Mallu’s the storyline is quite familiar- ‘Vismayathumbathu’.

There are some frames which really captures your imagination but the movie as a whole fails to capture any. The actors have put up a good show, but Director fails miserably. I don wanna write too much since it’s lunch time for me and am really hungry.

As I’ve said, try to avoid watching it .But if you are with your GF (if she z a dumb one and you are in a MPlex), u better go and watch this, u may get that Eternal feeling.

2006-02-06T08:01:00.000Z

A Night to remember

It was indeed a night to remember, the night when Bryan Adams rocked Bangalore.
It’s get special when you are so close to the man, you crave just to touch him. May be it’s long since he had delivered a hit, may be he’s a li’l old now, may be he don’t have the fan following as in the 80’s , but that doesn’t take away anything from him being an entertainer. We sang with him, swayed with the tunes(esp when he played ‘Heaven’,’Everytg I do’, ’Please forgive me’),we did all that man said, because we just loved him.
When he came to stage , people took a sec to get to the realize the fact the man is in front of their eyes, once they did that there was a huge uproar. He started with ’18 Till I die’ followed by "Kids Wanna Rock," "All For Love," , "Hearts on Fire","Back To You", "Cuts Like a Knife", "Night to Remember", "I'm Ready", "Please Forgive me", "Can't Stop This Thing",”Cloud No:9”. Apart from these, he also sang his two new numbers, "Room Service" and "Open Road" from his 2004 album, Room Service. He sang for 2 hours and people were craving for more, the once more request was in for ‘Summer of 69’.
The most breathtaking was his voice, it’s so pure and clear and you just do want to miss them. We don’t want him to go ,we asked for more ,he gave some but denied some. If I have any complaints it’s just that he didn’t sang ‘Here I Am’. We asked for it a number of times, we made sure that he heard it, but still he didn’t perform it.
The last number was ‘Room Service’ and then ‘Goodnight Bangalore’. It was the night no one there will ever forget their lifetime. Thank You Bryan , You Rocks !!!!!!!!!!!!!

2006-02-02T11:38:00.000Z

When Roger looked human (for a while though)

Very seldom you can see Roger in trouble.And if it’s a slam final,we’ve never seen him under any real pressure. He was too good for the rest.The fact that none of his slam finals went beyond a 4-setter is a testimony for that.
The year 2005, apart from the few hiccups, he was awesome, to say the least.
The last defeat against Nalbandian, which I feel, was due to his ankle rather than any of David’s abilities.
I reckon the most hurting one was against Nadal.He badly need that French slam to get into the all-time great list.
He’s still a great, but there’ll be always a ‘but’. We say Sampras is great, but he don’t have a French Open.Eventhough he has 14 slams,to become that complete player or that elite-all time great one need a French Open too.This thought will be lingering in Roger’s mind. And with all-respect to Sampras, Roger is better than him.

Watching that final against Baghdatis was really scary for a Roger fan like me.Baghdatis reminded me of Nadal- wild,raw,young……
The first set read 7-5.The big problem was that Roger was loosing his serves.
The start of the second set was horrible for Roger.He was trailing 2-0 and Ad-Out on his serve.I felt that this is all over for him, if Baghdatis makes it 3-0.Then he came up with a forehand winner, not far away from the line though.That was the Turning Point, Roger was transforming- into that rare genius.

I saw a very human Roger in the first set,sweating profusely,a bit jittery with some uncharacteristic unforced errors. It was only for a while though, well you can say that till 5-5 in the second set.
After that he raised the bar, and when he does that , boy , he’s unbeatable.
He won the next 11 games, stamping the authority.He did that like a true champion,playing audacious shots,some of the backhand winners were breathtaking.

On receiving the trophy from the legend Rod Laver he sobbed like a kid. He said “It’s all coming now”, the King of the court showed how humble he is, and like Laver said – 2006 will be the year remembered as ‘RogerSlam’,and if anyone who is capable of doing that after Laver, then Roger is the man.

2005-12-05T12:29:00.000Z

viperlair

Apaharan Movie : Review

Movie Rating- Average- watchable .

Apaharan – The movie portrays the booming kidnapping ‘business’ in Bihar and how it runs on the illicit Politicians-Gangster –Police axis. It reflects the state of the unemployed youth which takes the shortcut to success and meets the inevitable end.

If the first half of the movie depicts Ajay as a simpleton who’s even afraid to take a sip of beer infront of his girlfriend ,in the second half is a suave criminal who gulps whisky.
He’s forced to have a re-look at the principles and ideologies in which he’s brought up and plunges into the other side of the world - the darker one.
May be to give a lighter shade to Ajay’s character he’s in love with a girl- Bipasha.
And everywhere in the movie you can see dark contrasts in the characters .For instance , a lamenting Tarbez Alam after killing his brother’s son –even though u get a feeling that it’s fake.
The actors have done a wonderful job. The casting is also very good- u just cant find anything wrong with the acting anywhere in the movie.
But I have a feeling that Manoj Bajpai would have been a better choice to Ajay Devgan.
Nana Patekar is the natural choice for the role, and he has justified that.

The cinematography is average , as is the script. The script tries to depict the inner conflicts of the characters , but fails to deliver. There are loose links –which you always find in a Hindi movie. The director is desperately trying for trade off’s with the characters which leaves the audiences in a conundrum. He’s unable to strike the right chord. You can feel the drag towards the end , but still the political drama at the end is gripping.
You cant compare this movie with his previous one – Gangajal .

Unnecessary ad promotions for Aaj Tak is another annoying thing. The promo is getting too bored for the audiences sometimes.

Overall the movie is Average and since nothing else better is screening thesedays, u can have a go at it.