Monday, November 02, 2009

Wedding Regulars

Last week, attended a marriage of one of my friend's brother. Even though my D day was approaching, decided to go for it, so that I don't look like a big shot who hasn't got a few hours to spare. Saw some of my friends, whom I haven't seen for a long time. But for the first time I realized that this time around, I had a lesser comfort level while talking to my friends. Didn't feel like talking to anybody at all. Anyhow I spent a few hours at the wedding. trying to socialize with my friends. Didn't even care to notice any chics at the function.

Anyways, after the function, decided to go to our classmates place nearby. while returning from there, bonkers offered me to drop me at Aluva. When I realized he and she were also coming together in the car, I decided to jostle for the front seat(her sitting with me is such a bad idea, coz i am such a boring guy), much to the elation of him though( even though he acted confused; he is such a pathetic actor :P ) . So there starts our trip to Aluva.

He was one of the 'popular' guys among the the girls. Has got more steel plates in him than he has got bones. And has this uncanny habit of acting mandan. And had been a good friend of mine throughout my college life.

I am not at a good position to talk about her, coz, frankly i don't know her much. Anyways gossips had that she was the paro of devd's life. but to my surprise, she herself admitted that there was a time when devd would spend 200 bucks a day, calling her over STD ( well for a comparison, i spend less than 100 bucks a month on my phone).

Bonkers would occasionally chip in with some of his comments, and I was also forced to comment on his rather plain slapstick, and barely managed to laugh. By then we reached Aluva. Bidding farewell to my friends, I returned home. The same night, I got a call for another wedding, the coming weekend, putting me and my plans in limbo.

looking back at the day, I realized how much I have changed. Having no friends for one whole year, does take a toll. Once I would complain that my friends have got new friends and forgotten there old ones conveniently. But then, life has moved on for most of them. Unluckily for me, I have been stuck in the past. All I want to, now, is to break away from the past.

Posted by don paul | 1 comments Links to this post

Labels: , ,

Monday, September 28, 2009

The Laughter Medicine

last year being a pretty boring one, the only thing which made me laugh my heart out was while reading the comic strip 'Calvin and Hobbes'. Thanks to my brother who brought the whole collection home 1 day. ever since, i have wanted to write this blog, so that more of my pals start reading it and 'spread the fun around'.

Wiki page on 'Calvin and Hobbes' describes the strip as following 'the humorous antics of Calvin, an imaginative six-year old boy, and Hobbes, his energetic and sardonic stuffed tiger.' Written and illustrated by Bill Watterson, the strip went on to be published in over 2400 dailies in the world. the strip was first published in 1986 and was stopped in the year 1995 and as somebody said, it left "a hole in the comics page that no strip has been able to fill."

now about the strip.

Calvin is a six year old spoilt kid, who has low grades in school but is exceptionally intelligent and imaginative. His best friend is Hobbes, which is a stuffed tiger for us people, but is a ferocious tiger for Calvin. The imaginative Hobbes is a notch more intelligent than Calvin, and is the only friend of Calvin. The other main characters of the strip are, his neighbour and classmate, Susie Derkins, his parents, Moe the bully, the teacher and the baby sitter.

Calvin's imagination knows no bounds. and the illustrator exploits it to the maximum. He changes momentarily into Tyrannosaurus Rex, Stupendous man, spaceman spiff and what not.

His greatest fears are the 'monsters under the bed', his teacher and his regular and daring babysitter.

And winter too plays a special role. Its when he creates awesome snowman from the snow and its when Santa comes calling.

Its high time you read the strip. You can get a feed of the strip here, which I too am following.


And since i don't think i have done justice to 'Calvin and Hobbes' strip with this 60 minute write up, this is the wiki page for the strip.

Posted by don paul | 0 comments Links to this post

Labels:

Saturday, August 15, 2009

Rithu: My Review

This week there was spate of releases and I was finding it difficult, to decide for which movie should I go. I saw the trailer of a few movies and decided to go for a malayalam movie 'Rithu'. The director was Shyam Prasad, who tends to make different, unconventional movies. The only previous movie I recollect of his is 'Ore Kadal' which too I wanted to see, but could never make it. Anyways me and my friends decided to go for the movie, thanks to my coaxing.

The punchline of the movie goes 'Seasons change, do we?'. It in iteself sounded exciting. The story is about three childhood friends, Sharat, Sunny and Varsha and about time changing their lives and relationships. The three characters have been portrayed by three very promising actors. For that matter, the movie has only new comers, I believe, and hence shows some inexperience and immaturity.

The movie is not enjoyable at all. And the director can be solely blamed for that. It has some serious troubles with the script. The movie attempts to go into several issues at the same time, and doesnt do justice to any of those issues properly. For example, the details about Sarath's communist family was unnecessary. So was the story about the guy whos land was forcibly taken for the Internet City. There were several other drags too, which could have been excluded from the movie.

There are several attempts to make the movie as realistic as possible. But I think he was overdoing it a bit. He has got a good cameraman on his side, and hence has got a fresh take of the movie. The advertising company also is very good. Because it was the posters of the movie which made me see it. Now I realize that ShyamPrasad has a tendency to create different, unconventional and FLOP movies.

The movie deserves only two out of five. And two only because of his attempt to take a more realistic movie. And a thumbs up for the three new actors potraying the main characters. However when I asked my friends, there were a few of them, who have actually liked it. So maybe now I wonder, the nature of my friends( with whom I saw the movie) and the cynical environment of the movie, might have affected my thought process.

Posted by don paul | 0 comments Links to this post

Labels: ,

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Get Pack Release Self

Last week was when I got my first job. Got a small job in a company in Kochi. Had to move to a small accomodation near to my workplace.

The Job gets over in the evening. Rest of the evening is usually boring having nothing to do(i now really regret not having a girlfriend :D). And to top it all, no internet at the place. Initially it looked like a concentration cell or something.

Then one day, somebody told me about an
Internet pack of vodafone with free browsing for a month. I recieved it with a bit of salt, because of my previous pathetic experience. However considering that meddling with the phone is a good timepass, I decided to use it.
The experience, this time around was much better. Downloaded a gmail application, which runs very smoothly. Configured my RSS reader which also turned out to be very useful. Also downloaded Opera Mini which didnt impress me. Was just a tad better than my inbuilt browser. The most fascinating thing of it all was that I was able to stream Youtube videos on my phone(with some glitches though). Another interesting application was Google Maps, which gave a gps like service on my phone.

Thanks to it, I have been reconnected to the online world. Tweeting has never been so fun, because unlike earlier, its tweeting on the go. Those with big phone screens should definitely give it a try.

PS: a testimony to what I have written above, is this post, which has been drafted and published completely from my phone. And those who are still wondering, what my blog title meant, it is my pathetic version of the expansion of GPRS(Ok. Sorry. Wont commit that mistake again :) ).

Posted by don paul | 1 comments Links to this post

Labels: , ,

Thursday, June 04, 2009

Dev D: My Review

The movie is a contemporary take on the book Devdas, which has already got two movies to its name. To say the movie is an adaptation of the book, would be wrong, because there are many deviations, at least from the story of the Sanjay Leela Bhansali version.

Most important change I felt is that he doesn't die in the end of the movie, doesn't even come close to it, and actually has a happy ending. through out the movie, only twice does it look that he has a disease, once when he dips his head in water and blood comes comes off, and another during a song, where in he coughs heavily.

The movie scores in that it doesn't have much of a negativity in it. His family, especially his dad, had a negative shade, in the previous version, however in this movie, he is a better guy and helps his son in all his needs.

The lead character is played by Abhay Deol, who gives a stunning performance as the drunkard Dev. He doesn't have much to act except being drunk but, there are certain scenes which shows he was the best for the role. Then the biggest find actually are the two lead heroines Mahie Gill as Paro and Kalki Koechlin as Chanda, who give really strong performances.

Paro's role gets over pretty much after the first half. She is more wild, and passionate this time. Remember the scene where she gets a bed in to a sugarcane farm, so that she can have a 'good time' with Dev or the scene where she beats up a guy for telling ridiculous lies about her to Dev. She is a promising actor, and we sure can expect her in more movies.

Chandramukhi aka Chanda's role has got more flesh in it this time around. The movie explores the background and situation of Chanda which led to her becoming a call girl, seeing which I was wondering what happened to the girl, who was at the centre of the MMS scandal, a few years back.The gorgeous actor, gives a sterling performance as Chanda. I liked the scene, where in when she leaves her home, she immediately folds up her skirt along the belt, inside, so that the skirt actually became small, and she looked sexier. or the scene, moments later when she smiles, when two guys go past whistling at her.

However the real star of the movie is Anurag Kashyap himself. He has got such an immense talent, even a normal being like myself could see. The scene where the camera goes all over( when he gets drunk) is an idea Danny Boyle gave himself, and what an effect it is. Then there is this very often mixing of song with the movie, which itself gives a different feel. There is also a select few scenes, far apart, where three guys wearing coats and hats appear, and in a particular song, also dance amazingly. Wonder who they are.

The songs of the movie is too good. Many wont agree but I like the rock version of 'Emosanal Atyachaar' the most. Then there is 'Pardesi' and a punjabi number 'Hiknaal' which are also very good.

I will give 3 out of 5 for Dev D. Only because he has directed it amazingly, because there is nothing much he did with the story. And also request Anurag Kashyap to select scripts more wisely, as movies like 'No Smoking' and 'Gulaal' seems to be suggesting.

Posted by don paul | 0 comments Links to this post

Labels: ,

Older Posts

Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)

Blogger Template by Blogcrowds.