The ‘Talaash’ for a good, Bollywood thriller
The difference between a good suspense thriller and a great suspense thriller is that you can watch the great movie a second time and still have as good a time as you had the first time.
The kind of enjoyment you get the second time will be different from what you got earlier. It’s similar to solving a difficult Physics problem. You know, the kind that you could find in Irodov. You keep looking at the problem for sometime, re-reading it to see if there is a clue in the words that you have missed. If you get it, good. But if you don’t, apart from the disappointment of missing the obvious clue, there is a certain joy that you get on finding the answer. This is similar to the feeling on finding out the suspense in a thriller.
If it is a good movie, once you know the suspense you move on. There’s no real point in watching the movie again. But if it a great movie, you can go back to it and marvel at how you missed the obvious clues, hiding in plain sight.
Talaash is a good suspense movie. Well made, well acted and much better than most of the Bollywood movies that you will watch this year. What lets it down, and prevents it from crossing the thin line from good to great, is it’s script. It’s like it was written by someone who was doing a great job till he realised that he has ran out of time and still hasn’t figured out the answer. And therefore ended up taking the easiest, laziest route to the end.
It’s a shame because it could have been much, much better than it is. Till then, you can only keep waiting.
Rafael Nadal triumphs in grand theatre of artists | ________________
http://sidveeblogs.wordpress.com/2012/06/12/rafael-nadal-triumphs-in-grand-theatre-of-artists/
@sidvee: On sidveeblogs: Rafael Nadal triumphs in grand theatre of artists http://t.co/Pts5PmOO
The Hindu : Opinion / Lead : Salman Rushdie & India’s new theocracy
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/article2817926.ece
In a 1927 essay, philosopher Bertrand Russell observed that theist arguments boiled down to a single, vain claim: “Look at me: I am such a splendid product that there must be design in the universe.”
The time has come for Indian secular-democrats to assert the case for a better universe: a universe built around citizenship and rights, not the pernicious identity politics the state and its holy allies encourage.
The epic warfare of the Rafael Nadal-Novak Djokovic Australian Open final – Grantland
You spend years in the shadow of your rival. You never stop working or believing. Finally it all comes together: you surpass him. For a year, maybe two, you win everything. You turn the game upside down, and your bottomless reserve of will makes you seem unstoppable. All the records are going to fall.7 Then, more or less suddenly, a guy you used to beat comfortably surpasses you. Long before your reign was supposed to end, you find yourself overshadowed again. You lose five straight, six straight, seven straight to the new champion, all in finals, three of them in majors. You’re 25, in what should be the peak of your prime as an athlete, and you’re right back where you started. It turns out that your relentlessness isn’t an unstoppable force. But — precisely because you have it — you keep going as if it is.
I read. What do you do?
Somewhere in John le Carre masterpiece ‘Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy’, someone tells a child, “Everyone has a talent”.
My talent is reading.
That’s it. I read. I understood this in a training session a couple of months ago when the instructor asked me what I like to read.
I read novels, books, newspapers, tweets, facebook posts, signboards, labels anything. Once I even tried to read an EULA. Of course it helps if the text is not something I’m “supposed” to read, like something academic or official.
Yeah I know. It’s not a particularly useful talent, unless you can remember everything you read. Which I can’t. But them we all have to play with the cards we’ve been dealt with. So, no complaints.
That’s why I don’t understand the hue and cry people who love reading make over ‘books’, the dead tree type, being replaced by ebook readers and their ilk like tabs, phones etc. I do understand the fact that ebooks and the like don’t give you a feeling of possession like an actual physical book can, but isn’t a book much more than the medium it is printed on?
A ‘book’ may be an idea or a set of ideas when it is non-fiction, or it may be something less serious like a story or poem when it is fiction. The paper or the electronic device on which it is read is just the channel/medium to bring the idea/story to you. To put it in crude terms, it’s function is similar to that of a middleman or a tout like the ones you see hanging outside RTO offices in India. You pay them for the convenience of getting a driver’s license license (even though you may not know how to drive). The paper or the device provides you a similar convenience by making it easier to get access to the thoughts of the author.
Would you be disappointed if the touts outside the RTO get replaced by someone/something more convenient? Then, if you like to read, why romanticise dead trees?
Some Kweschuns
Assuming that we do manage to invent teleportation, what would happen if there was a man in the middle attack during the process?
And if the teleported packets also take random paths to reach their destination, you know, like data packets on the internet, what if you try to teleport a human and there is data loss on the way? Will he get splinched? Is it how JK Rowling came up with the idea?
I just don’t get fanbois
I’ve noticed a strange trend among people I follow on twitter. Okay, maybe ‘Strange’ is too strong an adjective, but the trend is exceptional for sure.
The trend I’m talking about is people professing their love for some gadgets in their twitter bios. As far as I knew, the bio (short for biography, I think) link was to tell people about who you are, so that they know who they are following. At what stage does your love for a gadget (or a brand, for example) become so strong that you start using it in your bio. In other words, why do people let a gadget/brand define who they are?
The most noticeable brand that I’ve seen appearing on peoples bios is the iPhone. Followed closely by it’s parent, Apple Inc., and it’s other products like the iMac, Macbook etc. The Enfield also makes it appearance but in a reduced number, comparatively speaking.
All of these are brands/products that have achieved cult/iconic status. So it is natural for people to feel nice getting associated with them. And Apple fanbois would’ve existed ever since the Macintosh made it’s debut. But when you have just 140 characters to write about yourself, wouldn’t you resist the temptation to squeeze in the name of your favorite phone/laptop in it?
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