TV Linkage

Browsing through the television (read as gossip, celebrity drivel), I cam upon few good articles..

1. EW has posted a link HERE supporting 1984 as the greatest year in movies. The author says that in the year movies like Footloose, Romancing the stone, Friday the 13th -Final Chapter, Star Trek -3, Gods must be crazy, Revenge of the nerds, Nightmare on the Elm street, Dune, Beverly Hills Cop, and many more were released.
The author was lashing out against those who believe that 1939 (which gave us Gone with the Wind, Wizard of Oz) is a year for the movies.
I guess it is a personal choice, but I can see that 1984 will get a popular vote.

2. Similarly, HERE is a list by TV squad of the greatest year for television debuts. The race is tough between 1994 (ER, Friends) and 2004 (Lost, Veronica Mars, Entourage, House).

3. The top TV shows at TV.com HERE shows True Blood with the highest popular rating. TB is followed closely by Entourage, another HBO creation. HBO is doing pretty well and winning acclaim all around.

4. MUST READ: Reviews of New York and Kambakkht Ishq, courtesy Variety.

5. Is it too late to start reading comic books?Any ideas?

What the hell am I watching?

Status: Back from a long hiatus.

In the meantime, I have been watching:

1. The Wire : Exhilarating and thrilling to say the least. For more, read my new blog chroniclesofcriticism.blogspot.com

2. Fullmetal Alchemist: The story of two brothers in search of something that will make them human once again. I am watching this one rather slowly, because it is so good but has only 51 episodes.

3. Shoku-dan : Vampires are the next best thing this year and this one just adds enough taint, drama, guilt and sexual tension (with blood, of course) along with delectable figures to keep one hooked.

4. Dexter :Creepily and silently, we become part of Dexter's world. His world lies behind his air conditioner, trapped in a box, as drops of blood in slides. He is a serial killer, the one with a different agenda, but a killer nonetheless. More on him soon.

Note to self:
Update sooner!

random-ness..and numbness

I didn't know that Charlie Chaplin's body was stolen from his grave and is now cemented...WTF?!!

News and Link-age!

1. For one day the Israeli paper was handled by poets and writers...and it led to amazing results. Read more HERE

2. Watching Naruto Shippuden. Like tall, quit-er Naruto, with the less-thick voice. Gaara is amazing as always. Apparently, animation is growing in India. From 2006 to 2008, it has grown 20.1%. I'm banking on less of cartoon network and more of AdultSwim coming to India.

3. Think True Blood is a scam.. Vampires=nice, but vampires in a socially compromising setting=bleh!

4. Guardian linkage on books again...here

More, later!

Reviews and Linkage

First news...

1. A great list of sci-fi novels HERE. I have read just one of them and that too the ealiest one. Shelley's Frankenstein. It's not exactly sci-fi but more of Gothic and something else...But it includes a lot of cyberpunk and steampunk references, which I really wanna get into soon. There's a huge list on Wikipedia about the influences on the Matrix series, which is also an example of cyberpunk (hightech, low life)..The first step in that direction was watching a Miyazaki movie yesterday, which was extremely fulfilling. I think he's my favourite director. Period.

2. The Tintin movie will come out in 2011... Its like you wait for Potter movies till 2011 July, and then..this long wait...But hope its worth it.

3. Was treading around to find out which was the best anime EVER. Some sites say Neon Genesis Evangelion and some say Death Note... Its difficult to make this choice cause there are so many genres to mangas and anime. I have started watching Sailor Moon, but once you've watched "the way of the ninja" in Naruto or the madness in Paranoia agent, you cant help but dislike the slow pace of Sailor Moon and its reluctant protagonist.An interesting link I found in conjunction with this was HERE.

A man was arrested for his manga collection which contained some child pornography. The question remains whether you can say whether a manga/fictional character is underage or not?

Okay...So i watched a few pilots yesterday and here are some of my views of them.

1. TRUE BLOOD: Based on the famous Southern Vampire series written by Charlaine Harris, True Blood is about the coming-out of vampires. It is pacy, interesting and has oodles of gore and blood, which makes it an interesting watch. Anna Paquin who plays the lead is also an amazing actress and as usual, there is always one vampire who is a gentleman. (This reminds me that I hated Angel, but loved Spike..strange.)

2. THE MENTALIST: This one looks like a CSI/Numbers/x-forensic serials rip-off or spin off but I should probably give it more credit. The case is solved not by too much focus on the science but observation. However, this also leads to fast stereotypes and categories..which might create problems..But this is very similar to Miss Marple's theories of detection...that human nature is same everywhere..

3. MERLIN: In the name of whatever's sacred, this is a BBC hot chocolate. It's a series like no other. Even though the special effects are nothing to write hot about, the story line, characters and the enigma of the series is enchanting.. And Merlin and Arthur are Yumm..

Avatar-the movie

oH MY GOD...

New Avatar pics are out HERE

Dev Patel as Zuko doesnt look that good.... and Aang looks so serious .... How is Night going to pull it off?And do they plan to make all four movies or do they want to finish everything off in the first one..Impossible though..

another Linkage

Left Chennai and am back in Delhi...!Without wasting time...lots to say....
1. Delhi is AWESOME as usual
2. THIS is the new Ssherlock Holmes movie coming to town. I cannot imagine anyone else pulling Holmes except Jeremy Brett cause he was wonderful! Cant imagine Holmes punching people and jumping from his house into the Thames..!On a related note, goddesspharo has a picspam of the trailer HERE.
3. In the middle of watching Gossip Girl...Have finished 20 episodes of season 2 and dloading the rest...Although I do not want to..cause then all the silly-ness will be over and I will have to watch THE WIRE!
4. Similar with HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER...Have seen most of season 4 too...and am too excited now...Wanna watch the leap...I was rooting for Barney/Robin so much...... AWESOME...wowsugarpuss_ has an amazing pic spam of the b/r episode HERE

5. I am currently dloading Sailor Moon, Naruto Shippuden and will start will FullMetal Alchemist soon..Anime brain freeze!

Over Already? : Lost s05 finale

Another season comes and goes away quickly. And what have we learnt this time, I wonder.

Its another season of nothingness wrapped in crafts and wars and internal bickering. Some clues are thrown your way but some are just gift wrapped in complicated messes that will only be cleaned in the next season..

But in spite of all this, this season was interesting and fun to watch. It had everything, especially the final episode.

Bombs are always exploding, dharma stuff is always blowing up and there are always Jears (I think that's the copyright of ack-attack).

What I liked about the finale:

1. Jacob makes an appearance and I love him. Very suave, confident and almost God-like

2. I could see a few similarities with HP and even Batman-Joker and strongly.

3. Juliet...WOW...brave. That's all I call think of... and she made a decision many of the characters would fail to make.. Knowing that doing something will put you in the same rut that you wanted to escape from..selfless...(HP?)

2010 is too far away...

Links: Trailer for Last Vampire movie. The animation was really gory and interesting.. This looks like wall-breaking.

In Delhi...indefinitely

NEWS

1. Back in Delhi: Requires no explanation, except to say that its the most Awesome (as Barney Stintson would say it) city in India.

2. First time Voter: I would be lying if I would say that I did a wonderful job exercising my rights as a citizen. It was a shameful experience voting and an excellent sham. I thought I would read the parties and their nominees' agenda and then go vote, after being totally informed. Turned out that I could not find the name of the nominees standing from my city area and a greater surprise was that the ballot list had only the names of the candidates.

I'm no journalist!

3. Latest Passion: Anime! Have watched Naruto, Ouran high school Host Club and currently downloading a brilliant series called Paranoia Agent by Satoshi Kon (who made Paprika: a must for all). Apart from that, I have a whole list of things that I want to see ! Anime opens up a lot of possibilities that real live things cannot attain, apart from Hentai ;0

4. SHAMELESS LINKING: Posting links that I discovered through useless browsing

- CHECK the speed of your internet connection here. I was surprised!

-I want to watch THIS MOVIE. Have heard that that its wonderful and award winning...

-Discovered an amazing site for books and this trivia test that goes with it.. Will become a member soon

-Watched the movie called The Asphalt Jungle: its scenes of heist beat Oceans' 11, hands down!

More Later!

Reading for the upcoming Tests/Interviews is the only time that I can brush up on my poor general knowledge. As I read on, I realize that there are so many interesting events going on.

1. AfPak situation: Obama is sending about 17, 000 troops to Afghanistan (in the next month, I guess.) And then about 4k later, for the elections. But what propels the Afghan crisis into a larger issue, which will be addressed at the NATO summit this weekend, is the Taliban-Pakistan relationship. The Taliban in Pakistan has already taken over the SWAT valley (NWFP region) and the tribal regions (FATA) as well.
But Pakistan has been brewing with internal conflicts as well. Its shaky government, threatening army and growing corruption have made it vulnerable to attacks.
Read more on it: http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13382077

2. Economic Recession: I know zilch about it, but I know that it is important cause It is affecting us and blah blah. What I fail to understand is that how knowing the name of the RBI chairperson or the Fed Reserve person is going to help us. (at least in interviews!)
I cant understand why nobody took notice of Roubini and Krugman. Roubini, in a recent interview, said that we should make sure that the recession is U-shaped and not L-shaped like Japan's. Japan is also facing gloom; its finance minister resigned and now it is registering huge losses, more than States.

3. Indian Elections: I cant fathom that every few years these politicians rise and fall, and have the nerves to get up again. The third front, the UPA and the NDA!..I think there should be another option as "not worth it."
These days the wrong people are making the headlines for the wrong reasons:
-Varun Gandhi, for his extremely communal speech.
-Sanjay Dutt, for being unable to stand for elections from Lucknow.
-I also noticed that George Fernandes is standing as an independent candidate from Muzzafarpur, cause he has been chucked out of JD (u)...(there are so many political parties!..its hard to remember where they began and where they have ended up.)

Movies galore

Watching : Sidney Lumet's Network

This weekend was spent in watching Oscar nominated movies...Watched Milk, and Reader. But also watched movies like The conversation by Francis Ford C. A brilliant take on privacy, secrecy and loneliness.
Watched Anchorman-legend of Ron burgundy....Just a fun watch...Funny as hell
Superbad - seemingly real teen comedy. Very funny..
And now I'm watching Network... Can think of so many ways to have creative programming.....
More on it later..back to watching the movie..
From an angry old man, venting out his frustrations and pointing out the hypocrisies of this generation, to a preacher man, lecturing masses on an assembly line production show.
We'll tell you any shit you wanna hear - Network

(reviews later..if i got the time :))