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 :))

Watching the screen
Listening to: Gemini-hypnotised, Sade-no ordinary love, Sean kingston-take u there

Watched Dog Day Afternoon, Burn after reading and a few episodes of Byomkesh.
But more riveting than all of this was Lost, season 5, episode three. Time travel, subterfuge and meeting with the young Charles Widmore...ahhh...TV pleasure!

I used to love Byomkesh in my childhood and I think its an important component while I was growing. I used to get up in the morning at seven, (sometimes it was only saturday, then daily) to watch the Indian sleuth or satyanveshi, as he likes to be called. He was riveting, strong and handsome...apart from being clever. And Ajit, "mere saathi"...oofff....brilliant and just a bit short of being homosexual..Ajit never marries by the way and Byomkesh's wife is never a constant companion in his adventures. Anyway, I think I am relegating her to the shadows..

Burn After Reading is a through-and-through black humor movie. Coen brothers are good at being different from the run-of-the-mill types. John Malkovich and Geoge Clooney acted well, and so did the rest of the cast. A lot of anger/ire/humor is directed towards the government that ultimately doesn't learn anything from all its run ins..

Finally, Dog Day Afternoon is a brilliant movie about a real life bank robbery. (I seem to keep collecting brill movies...cant help it!), starring Al Pacino as Sonny. I love the movie's portrayal of media/journalism. As I am studying this at the moment, its criticism is all that I keep thinking of... The movie shows that journalism is just getting the story and that is all that I have learnt from the course as well. There's no in-depth analysis of why something happened...only in op-eds (which I consider are like 2-penny novels..anyone can write them or buy 'em).

I also realised that nothing beats Harry Potter fan fiction. Ever. (Yay for pairings and smut!)

Random Thoughts

Looking at: the pc screen!

Listening to: Script session in college


1. Have to edit a few stories tomorrow and I don't know how to be polite and still get the point across. It is so tough to tell any author that I don't understand what they've written or If they could re-structure a sentence. Not trying to be sweet, but nice. :(

2. Missing home! as usual..

3. Studying International issued daily is painful. Especially when you can't listen carefully, as you are busy making notes..(which I painfully and diligently do, because I am a stenographer! :P)

4. I am so excited that LOST is returning! Just dying to watch it....I wanna see Sawyer and lap up all his hotness....Kate and take in all the lies...Jack and watch him drink his tears...
.....Wonderful

5. I watched Fight Club a few days ago and I think I should read the book soon...If the movie was so powerful, ecstatic, wrenching and zapped me awake, imagine what the novel will do?!
I hail the writer (Chuck Palahniuk) and the director(David Fincher) !

"This is your life, and it's ending one minute at a time"

" We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our great war is a spiritual war. Our great depression is our lives."

Wonderful