MOVIES I LIKED IN 2006

The Departed
Probably 'The Movie' of the year.. Huge star cast.. Jack Nicholson, Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Wahlberg, Alec Baldwin.. Directed by Matrin Scorsese.. Doesn't that say everything.. The movie talks about moles in the Boston State Police and moles in the mob.. A great story (adapted though) with amazing screenplay made this movie a must watch..

Pirates Of The Caribbean : Dead Man's Chest
Marked the return of one of my favourite characters, Captain Jack Sparrow.. Savvy?? It is tough to match upto a succesfull prequel, but this one did that with effortless ease.. Hats off to the writers for bringing so much creativity on screen incorporating real life legends in reel life (Davy Jones, Flying Dutchman etc).. This was the movie i liked most in 2006.. Lots of twists and turns with a finale that made everyone sit up.. Did we just see what we think we did?? Can't wait for the third movie..

X-Men 3 : The Last Stand
Probably the most anticipated movie of 2006.. So much hype around it given the popularity of the first two movies.. What a way to wrap things up.. Amazing is not the word.. Cyclops was removed from the story and a couple of new characters added.. Wolverine and Jean Grey stole the show.. It's a pity they killed the character of Charles Xavier but that scene did take the movie to a higher level.. The last scene was the best.. Great movie, Great series..

Lucky Number Slevin
I'm not sure how many of you have even heard of this movie.. Still hasn't managed to release in India though Sathyam has had the poster there for a really long time.. Starring Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, Ben Kinsley, Josh Hartnett and Lucy Liu.. This had to be the best screenplay of 2006.. Extremely funny when it needs to be and serious simultaneously.. Josh hartnett comes up with a brilliant performance.. Highly recommended..

Rang De Basanti
Indian movie of the year.. Formidable cast, Rakhesh Mehra at the helm, A.R.Rahman music.. Everything was perfect.. A movie that made every Indian realise that he/she has a voice too.. The impact was mainly due to the cast.. Aamir Khan, Atul Kulkarni, Kunal Kapoor and Sharman Joshi played their parts to perfection.. Maddy was good in a brief cameo.. The man who stole the show though was Siddarth.. A south indian making Bollywood look up to his performance (Kamal still doesn't have that hold over them) is not a simple thing.. Kudos to Siddarth.. To all of you, Rang De Basanti!!!

Lage Raho Munnabhai
Yet another sequal this year.. This year has been really good as far as sequels are concerned (atleast the popular ones).. Great movie, no two ways about it.. Extremely funny and heart warming.. If Rang De Basanti followed Subhash Chandra bose, this spoke about Gandhigiri.. I don't think anyone else could've pulled off the roles played by Sanjay Dutt, Arshad Warsi and Boman Irani.. Great story, excellent screenplay.. This movie would've influenced more people than any other this year..

Don
Now, this is one movie i'm sure will meet with mixed reactions.. I haven't seen the original Don, so i didn't go to the theatres wondering if SRK will be better than the Big B.. Good story, nice twists and extremely stylish.. SRK played both parts perfectly.. Wasn't too impressed with Piyanka Copra.. Boman Irani is becoming really good at negative roles.. This movie may not be highly spoken of or win any awards, but it delievered what it promised.. Entertaiment..

Pattiyal
There have been many tamizh movies talking about gangsters this year.. But this movie stood out due to it's presentation.. A story about 2 orphans and what happens when they become hired hit men.. Perfect casting was the trick.. Aarya as the perenial drunkard was fun to watch.. This was probably Bharath's best role upto date.. Playing a deaf and dumb isn't easy but he seemed to do it with great applomb.. Terrific acting.. Certainly my tamil movie of the year..

It's a pity only one tamizh movie made it into the list.. Here's hoping to another great year of movie watching..

LONE WOLF

I did something last night which i never ever expected myself to do.. I stayed back at IIT for the lone wolf quiz that was supposed to go from twelve in the night till the first rays of the sun appeared.. I do agree, the hope of free vodka influenced my decision more than wanting to stay for the sake of the quiz..

I guess the cops knew about the drinking too.. They were there at the OAT till about 1:30.. The quiz began an hour late.. I couldn't believe that so many people were actually vetti enough to watch the quiz.. A major part of the audience were people from Quiz Federation of India (QFI).. Those guys have a pretty good sense of humour..

They went about the quiz in a very slow and relaxed manner which was okay given the fact that they had the entire night ahead of them.. At about 1:45 the QFI guys started passing a bottle of beer amongst themselves and people started smoking.. The guys who conducted had vodka as their theme i guess.. They had a round called absolute round and all of them had brought absolute vodka bottles.. Before the quiz, the caption on the screen read
God made grass,
Man made booze,
Choose your pick,
Main Quiz OAT
Guess their objective was clear from the beginning..

I am not an avid quizzer, so i may not be a good judge of things but i still think the way the guys answered the questions were phenomenal.. I have no idea how these guys are able to corelate all these things and even more surprised by how they came up with such questions.. Adi made us all proud by getting an answer about 'Pulp Fiction' right.. The brilliance here was that none of the QFI guys knew the answer.. Kudos Adi!!!

The Long Visual Connect had 28 images.. Phew!!! Swami (Last year's winner) actually cracked it within 12 images.. The next correct answer came at 24 i think.. The first break was at 3:30.. Think most guys there got high at this point only.. All of us went outside in J's car to a place called 'Hi-Look Cool Bar' outside IIT.. The bread omlette there is amazing..

When we got back, the quiz had started.. The effect of alcohol was pretty obvious in the audience.. The audience prize for correct answer was vodka again BTW.. The best question in the quiz as far as i am concerned was the second Long Visual Connect.. Here, instead of using images, they had used videos.. Hats off to Ramkumar (Kabala) for actually cracking it when he did..

The best part of all this was that it all happened in the presence of 2 professors from IIT who were part of the quiz team.. They didn't seem to care and were enjoying the proceedings.. It was a pity none of us had any alcohol with us.. It might have made the night a whole lot more memorable..

I always had this impression that IIT was Nerd Central.. Yesterday showed me how wrong i was.. Chetan bhagat had shown a similar scenario in 'Five Point Someone' but i wasn't convinced.. These IIT guys know how to have fun.. Work while you work and play while you play seems to be their moto.. Another thing that surprised me yesterday was the number of girls who stayed back to watch the quiz.. I didn't know Chennai had stop being extremely conservative..

We left by five thirty cause we had college that day.. Guess the quiz would've gone on till six or six thirty.. Gau later told me 'Pota' (not sure if that is how it's spelt) won the quiz.. He was leading comfortably anyway.. Nice experience.. Next time though, we need to make sure we don't go there empty handed..

LIGHT MUSIC AT SAARANG 2007

Went for the light music finals last night.. Didn't go with much expectation.. Was vetti anyway, so went there..

The performances ranged from average to good.. Nothing extraordinary.. I personally don't like people performing hindi songs here unless it's a really good track, so didn't like the first performance by the team from Bangalore..

CEG, guindy were okay.. 'Hello Mister' from 'Iruvar' was really well done.. SSN i thought were really good.. They performed 'Chaiya Chaiya' and 'Konjam Nilavu' very well..

Crescent didn't register much of an impact.. I liked only 'Aadat' in the performance by Patrician college.. They could've done a lot better considering they are an arts and science college.. Loyola began with a very old song but i thought the singer was just brilliant in that.. Very well performed.. They screwed up 'Dhoom' though..

When the judges said they had looked for consistency and then said Loyola were the winners, i was pretty surprised.. SSN deserved to win..

The judge was Naresh Iyer, who's been singing a lot for A.R.Rahman off late.. When he came on stage, we realised the night wasn't over yet.. He began with 'Roobaroo' which was nothing short of brilliance.. Followed it up by an energetic rendition of 'Paatashala' that left the audience wanting for more..

He then performed 'Munbe Vaa' with just his vocals.. Beautiful.. The next song was a pleasent surprise.. 'Breathless'.. I'm running out of words for praise here.. The IIT guys said time was over and he had to stop performing now.. The crowd wanted a lot more.. The airtel sponsor was nice enough to request IIT to let Naresh perform one more song.. And what a way to end it, 'Dil Se Re'... I may not have been too impressed by his judging skills but his rendition ensured he won himself a new fan..

CHENNAI DREAMS

Yes, Chennai finally got a match that wasn't rained out.. India Vs West Indies.. Though i've got bored of seeing these two teams play so much against each other in the past one year, i still went cause i was sure we would have a match..

Chepauk never ceases to amaze me.. Each time u enter the stadium, it's just breathtaking.. Gau and me got there an hour and half before play thinking there would be too much crowd.. The roar that greeted the players when they came for practice and warm up was unbelievable..

Indian innings began badly with gambhir getting out the second over.. It was all fireworks after that.. Uthappa's innings was one of the best i've seen by an Indian in recent times (Dinesh Karthik's innings in the previous match comes close).. His timing was so perfect and he seemed to play with so little effort..

I thought Sachin and Dravid did a great job by staying there long enough and taking India to about 230 in 34 overs.. Both played beautifully and got to well deserved half centuries.. An interesting point to note is that Sachin hit just 2 boundaries in his knock of 60 and still managed a strike rate of 91.. Terrific running between the wickets..

When Dravid got out, all hell broke lose.. The famous Indian batting collapse began and i still can't believe we were bowled out for 269.. Horrid performance considering the start we had..

It was a dream start for India in the bowling department too.. Getting Chris Gayle LBW first ball.. Morton followed soon but not before Sreesanth bowled what was possibly the worst over of the innings(22 runs with 10 runs as extras).. I still can't believe Ajit Agarkar has become India's pace spearhaead (Barring Zaheer Khan of course)..

Samuels is an underrated cricketer.. Economic bowling and he showed us today that he can weave magic with the bat too.. Amazing balance and placement.. Terrific innings to watch.. Pity he was dismissed at 98..

Lara is just style personified.. There is so much grace in his batting and today he showed why he is considered one of the best batsman ever.. Super innings by him and his partnership with Samuels ensured a Windies win.. Windies of course have a reputation to keep up and hence still managed to lose 7 wickets from the comfortable position they were in..

The only sour point of this match was a kid in front of me who kept jumping right through the match and kept blocking my view.. Idiot.. His dad must have given him an entire bottle of glucose before bringing him here.. So much energy..

Chennai crowd is just amazing.. They applauded not only the Indians but also when Windies made good stops etc.. It was very nice to hear them chant 'Lara Lara' when he was batting.. Great atmosphere for cricket..

Actor Rajnikanth was in the pavillion and apparently everyone there spent more time looking at him, than at the match.. Like they have a rule that each bowler must bowl only 10 overs, there must be a limit on number of times a trailor is played on the big screen.. They must've played the trailor of 'Pachaikili Muthucharam' like a million times.. I wanted to watch this movie badly but now i think i'll reconsider my decision (I know, i'm gonna end up watching the movie anyway)..

All in all, a great day of cricket.. Five really good innings that kept us entertained.. Samuels might have ensured his team a victory but it was Uthappa who won our hearts with a spellbinding performance.. This may not be the fairy tale ending that we hoped for but hey, it atleast didn't rain.. Thank God for that..

CREAM CENTER

Heard a lot about this restaurant called Cream Center in R.A.Puram, so thought i'll go there for dinner.. A few friends of mine and me went there today..

They had told me there are a lot of people waiting there everyday but we were lucky and got a table pretty quickly.. The ambience was pretty good.. Very well designed.. We happened to see actor Aravind Swamy there.. The menu was pretty similar to New Yorker's..

Those were the only things good about the place.. The Cheese Quesadillas was not that great and quantity was miniscule given the price.. I particularly didn't enjoy the pasta.. The worst had to be the starter.. The lesser said about the paneer chilli fry, the better.. Bad would be an understatement.. The channa batura was good..

The only good food we had were the desserts.. The sizzling brownie with ice cream was just amazing, so was the chocolate sundae.. The chocolate milkshake wasn't that good apparently..

This is a place i certainly wouldn't recommend to people.. Extremely over priced, food not that great either.. Disappointing..

GLOBAL RHYTHMS

Just got back from IIT.. Went there for the opening of Saarang 2007.. It began with a performance by a group called Global Rhythms.. They play a lot for Rahman nowadays..

I wasn't too keen on going in the beginning but the article in 'The Hindu' which said Rahman had made a promise to come if he was in town pushed me to go.. Got calls at 5PM saying IIT was jam packed and that there was no point going there.. Was vetti anyway, so a few friends of mine and me ended up there at 6:45..

To my surprise, the place was half empty and the band hadn't even come.. It was a long wait and the show finally started at 8:00PM.. By this time, the place had become full..

They started off with a classical number (which made a couple of my friends leave).. This was followed by a good fusion piece called 'ecstasy' and solo performances on the drums..

They played a mix of rahman songs next but sang only the raaga in each.. Very innovative.. The mandolin performance next was amazing.. The 'Thaniavarthanam' (not sure if i spelt it right) was a brilliant fusion piece on the drums, mirudangam and gadam..

What followed was the best part of the show.. They performed 'Shakalaka Baby'.. Amazing.. When the host said that their chief guest was coming, i was so excited it was going to be A.R.Rahman.. To my disappointment, it was his sister A.R.Rehana.. She performed 'Chaiya Chaiya' which began badly but was pretty satisfactory in the end..

They say the best is always saved for last but it unfortunately wasn't so.. The 'Dol Dol' performance didn't match upto Shkalaka Baby.. All in all, it was an evening well spent.. A little part of me thought Rahman would actually come.. Pity, guess i just have to wait till next time..

OPPORTUNITY LOST

Yet again India missed out on making it into the final five of the oscar list for Best Foreign Film and this time we have only ourselves to blame.. Take a look at the nominations and you'll see Water amongst them as Canada's official entry..

Directed by Deepa Mehta and comprising of an all Indian cast of John Abraham, Lisa Ray and Seema Biswas, this movie has been through all problems that a movie can go through.. Shoots being cancelled, sets being wrecked.. Many would've given up under such circumstances but Deep Mehta gave it everything cause she wanted to finish the Fire-Earth-Water trilogy.. What a way to end it, an Oscar nomination..

You now wonder why this movie wasn't sent as India's official entry.. When Deepa Mehta started shooting for the film in varanasi, Hindu activists protested against the movie saying the movie besmirches India.. I didn't know Deepa Mehta was handing out bound scripts to everyone..

The movie focuses on the lives of widows forced into poverty in the city of varanasi during the pre independence era.. Water was appreciated all over the world getting rave reviews but didn't even manage to release in theatres here.. Not that they didn't try releasing it.. Every theatre that accepted to release the movie were threatened into not doing so.. Every distributor was scared to even buy the film..

On Feb 27, 2007 we'll know who takes the oscar for Best Foreign film.. I sincerely hope it goes to Water, not only cause it is an Indian film but it would some appreciation for the woman who put her everything to make this movie.. The good news is, the film might actually release in India before the Oscars.. It's been slated for a Feb 23 release.. As Deepa Mehta gears up for the oscars, i am sure so are the 'Hindu' activists for Feb 23..

GETTING STARTED

Well, everyone seems to be blogging.. So i thought, why not see what it is all about?? I wouldn't say i'm good at writing but this sounded like fun.. Anyway, Welcome, Namaskar, Vanakkam..

ps: This maybe my only post..