Transition of Thoughts

Weaving thoughts into words

Month: October 2010

Movie Review – The Social Network

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On October 31, 2010

In Movie Reviews, Uncategorized


The Social Network has been one of the most keenly awaited movies of recent times not only because its supposed to be the “TRUE” story of Facebook but also because of its tagline – “You don’t get to 500 million friends without making a few enemies”.

The important characters include: –

# Jesse Eisenberg as Mark Zuckerberg
# Andrew Garfield as Eduardo Saverin
# Justin Timberlake as Sean Parker
# Rooney Mara as Erica Albright
# Armie Hammer as Cameron Winklevoss/Tyler Winklevoss. Josh Pence acted as a body double for Hammer.
# Max Minghella as Divya Narendra
# Rashida Jones as Marylin Delpy
# Joseph Mazzello as Dustin Moskovitz

The movie starts with Erica breaking up with Mark because of his nerdiness and poor attempts at getting into the different clubs at college. This leads to Mark getting drunk and sitting up that entire night in 2003 making a site called “FaceMash” by hacking into the entire system at Harvard and downloading the pictures of the girls in all the houses. FaceMash involves comparing photos females in groups of two according to their hotness and also comparing them with farm animals. In addition to this he blogs about Erica (obviously in a very nasty manner) on Live Journal; probably some sort of precursor to Blogger / WordPress. All this brought his image at Harvard down to zilch in addition to an enquiry by the Harvard Disciplinary Committee.

To win back his image among everyone else, he came up with the idea of Facebook. But not before the Winklevoss brothers and Divya Narendra come to him with a request to develop the programming for Harvard Connection (A social network for all the individuals at Harvard – something like Facebook). After Zuckerberg initially agreed to work on it, he didn’t meet them for 42 days, after which he himself came up with a new website called –“thefacebook”.

And then, there is also Eduardo Saverin, the co – founder of Facebook who from a level of 34% ownership is reduced to just 0.03% after Sean Parker (Founder of Napster) and other angel investors start coming in.

The Social Network whether its true or not, I would like to believe its true from what I have read. And to tell you the truth, it is brilliant in its depiction of the web of deceit, manipulation and mind games that were played during the launch and formative years of a company which was to change the way people communicated with each other. The basic premise is about the two lawsuits filed against Zuckerberg – one each from the people behind Harvard Connection (later renamed ConnectU) and the other from Eduardo Saverin. But never does it seem to be a documentary. Instead it is more of a drama on how the business world really works out there.

Jesse is fantastic in his portrayal of the techy, nerdy, shy Zuckerberg. Andrew Garfield matches Jesse in many parts and has done a really good job too. Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake) is apt for the flamboyance and extravagance of the character. The trio behind Facebook and the others support the movie really well.

At the moment, Facebook is having a lot of privacy issues to contend with as millions of complaints from users are pouring day in and day out. This movie looks to spoil the privacy of its owner itself! Whether its true or not, this is one movie which is sure going to have more than

500 MILLION FRIENDS!

RATING – 4/5 (Awesome! Must watch!!!)

Music Review – Break Ke Baad

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On October 27, 2010

In Music Review, Uncategorized


Break Ke Baad starring Imran Khan and Deepika Padukone is Kunal Kohli’s next offering (though as a producer). From its looks it seems to be another mushy love story in the mould of Anjaana Anjaani or I Hate Luv Storys. The combination of Vishal Shekhar as music director, Prasoon Joshi as the lyricist and Kunal Kohli (known for pretty good music in Tara Rum Pum and Hum Tum) makes you look forward to the first song.

“Adhoore” sung beautifully by Alyssa Mendonca and Vishal could be in any of love stories mentioned above. The song is an expression of how one person is incomplete without the other. But rather than the regular Judaai songs, the amazing husky vocals by Alyssa and combination of Vishal with a good choice of instruments makes this a fantastic hearing. The remix version is too high pitched and spoils the song quite a bit. Sad 🙁

“Ajab Lehar Hai” is sung by Neeraj Shridhar and Rhys Dsouza and supported by Vishal and Shekhar with the English lyrics. Talking about the beautiful neighbour which most likely would be introduction of Padukone, this song makes for interesting hearing. The jazzy, rocky and trumpet feel of the song makes one go back a couple of years. “Ajab Lehar Hai Meri Padosi, Ajab Chheete Ajab Ishaare”

Dhoop Ke Makkan is a soft number about life, love and journey sung by Shekhar and Sunidhi Chauhan with background vocals from Caralisa Monteiro and Mikey McCleary. Though the number is slow, the crescendo it reaches is really great. I am sure it would sound even better during the movie. The acoustic version of the song is an unplugged version with the music mostly on guitars rather than any other arrangements of music. The new vocals by Shekhar sound interesting.

Dooriyan Hai Zaroori is the one of the raciest tracks of the movie if I may call it. It talks about couples who keep breaking and making up again and again and the necessity of giving space to each other in a relationship. Sung by Monica Dogra and Vishal, the song has the potential to be the theme song and be played at the loudest volume on the highway in a convertible. The English version is more of a situational number.

Main Jiyoonga is a pretty decent number sung by Nikhil Dsouza (Mere Bina from Crook). It is more of a situational number and it is to be seen where it would be positioned in the movie.

Dont worry about me is an English number sung by Vishal. It’s a decent hearing but being in complete English will have a bearing on its chances of mass appeal.

All in all, one can say Vishal Shekhar know what the youth expect. And all said and done, they deliver again!

Rating – 3.5/5 (Good)

Movie Review “Crook – Its Good to be Bad”

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On October 26, 2010

In Movie Reviews, Uncategorized


“Crook – Its Good to be Bad” is a movie starring Emraan Hashmi and newcomer Neha Sharma (acted in two Telugu movies before) directed by Mohit Suri. It had been heavily publicized as a movie based on the racial attacks against Indians in Australia in 2009. With the racial attacks affecting a number of Indian students across Melbourne and much of Victoria, it was only a matter of time before Bollywood readied itself to make a movie on this issue. And who better than Bhatt to make this right? WRONG!

Jai Dixit’s (Emraan Hashmi) father is an underworld don who is killed by the police after he confesses that RDX from his smuggled consignment was used in the Mumbai blast. He is brought up by Gulshan Grover who out of worry that Jai would fall into bad things sends him to Australia with a new identity. And as you expect, he meets up Suhani (Neha Sharma) there and immediately falls in love with her / or shall we say love to get Permanent Residency. But then the racial attacks begin wherein people are attacked, killed, mugged and what not. The rest of the story deals with the reasons for the attacks and the problems from both the sides.

Emraan Hashmi sleepwalks through his role. He has played the bad boy character a zillion times and now audiences are seriously bored. Dude! Get a life maan! Neha Sharma has nothing to do other than walk in short dresses on the streets of Melbourne or shall I say Cape Town 😉 (disguised as Melbourne). Everything about the movie is half hearted be it the love sequences, the songs or the racism issue. Mohit Suri doesn’t know whether to concentrate on love or racism and he seems torn in between.

“Mere Bina” sung beautifully by Nikhil Dsouza is the only thing going for the film. Another problem about the film is that it gets too jingoistic against the Aussies. I mean yes they are racist, but then is the whole country like that? It’s just an attempt at sensationalism by the Bhatts. Even the bare back scene of the foreign female is just for 2 seconds. And you wonder what was the hullabaloo all about?

Final verdict – Poor!

Rating – 1/5

Movie Review – Endhiran / Robot

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On October 15, 2010

In Movie Reviews, Uncategorized


Any movie from the Rajnikant stable is bound to create frenzy not only in South India but also other places across the world from Singapore via the Gulf to the USA. But then Endhiran / Robot made at a budget of more than 200 crores spanning locations ranging from Kathipara Junction in Chennai to Machu Picchu in South America is no ordinary movie. Release in Tamil, Telugu and Hindi across 2000 screens worldwide, Robot is India’s widest release in terms of number of countries / theaters ever. It released in countries as far as Sweden (An Indian movie released for the first time on the very first day). There are also plans of dubbing it in Japanese.

Everyone is talking about the special effects. But more on that later. This movie is not all on technology or high tech gadgets. It has a story as well. Vasigaran (Rajnikant) is a famous scientist who develops an andro – humanoid robot (Chitti). It has a speed of 1 tera hertz and 1 zeta byte. He aims of developing such robots for the army to protect from enemies. But he has to get the approval of a committee headed by Danny Denzongpa before he can do that. Sadly he doesnt approve it for various reasons and finally Rajnikant is forced to teach the robot human emotions. But this has an effect which he couldn’t have ever imagined.

The extended climax is what holds you spellbound. You really wonder whether you are watching an Indian movie or a Hollywood one (I am not kidding on this!). Godzilla + Jurassic Park + Terminator + Anaconda and much more is what Chitti can do. From turning into a one headed monster to a snake to cloning himself into millions, there’s nothing he cannot do.

It’s always been a joke among a lot of people that Rajnikant can do anything and everything in his movies and still get away with. But this time he has a way to justify his actions as a robot can do anything. Can’t it? The best part about the movie is the fact that it has a story and that too an emotional one. Oh wait, there’s Aishwarya too in the movie. How could I forget her? From what I can understand she should be grateful for getting a role with the superstar himself. She has nothing to do other than dance in a few songs here and there and cry a bit and recite some crappy dialogues like “Chitti is my toy friend.”

Though there are a number of irritating songs and some sequences like where Chitti talks to the mosquitoes, the aura of Rajni manages to make one forget all of that. All in all its RAJNI all the way from Macchu Picchu to Chennai! And this time he has taken even North India by storm (Robot has earned the highest amount ever for a dubbed movie!).

Only 1 Rajnikant is enough normally to kill thousands and entertain. But here you get hundreds at the price of a few hundred bucks!!!

Rating – 4/5 (Mass entertainer – Highly recommended)

Circle of Life – What comes, goes away too! (But do I really understand that?)

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On October 6, 2010

In Life & Times at SIBM, Life and Times at VIT, Muscat - My "home town", My friends, My thots and scribbles, Uncategorized

Don’t know why I am writing this post. Don’t know why such stuff is there in my head. But today I feel a sense of loneliness, a sense of feeling that I am gonna lose something, a sense of something going to go wrong sometime somewhere in the near future. This isn’t the first time, I am feeling this way. Actually I can say I am used to it in a certain way. You must be wondering what I am talking about right?

Life plays many games with you. Some you like, some you don’t while many others you have take with a pinch of salt. One meets new people everytime in life be it school, college, work etc. Some stick for life so much that you can’t afford to let go off them and feel scared at just the thought of seeing them off or losing them (because that’s what you think when they leave somewhere right?). While many others don’t even bother whether you die or are alive.

But in the case of love, things are different most of the time. And that’s why the popular slogan or saying is that “Where love comes, friendship goes for a toss”. As in many of my earlier posts I have spoken about how love can change your life in such a way that in love, you end up doing this which you wouldn’t normally do. When one parts with his / her loved one, there is a feeling which creeps up which one cant describe at all. It feels as if one is moving away from something of his / her own, its as if one has lost a part of his / her own self.

Ok so why am I talking about this and blabbering and boring you all? It’s just something which I guess all experience in life and I have too. But there are some like me who keep thinking about such things more than many others. And today was one day I was back to my old self of contemplating about my future, thinking about relations – friends, loved ones and all that.

Movie Review – Anjaana Anjaani

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On October 2, 2010

In Movie Reviews, Uncategorized


Anjaana Anjaani is the new offering of Siddharth Anand (Salaam Namaste, Ta Ra Rum Pum, Bachna Ae Haseeno fame). The movie is entirely based on two characters. Now some of you may wonder what’s so great in this. Yeah it may not be anything special. But its another sign of the coming of age of Bollywood cinema. And interestingly there is one more thing which strikes me when I see the slogan of the film “The greatest love stories are between strangers.” What do they mean by it? Any double meaning thoughts huh :P?

Kiara (Priyanka Chopra) and Aakash (Ranbir Kapoor) meet each other on Manhattan Bridge while committing suicide. At that time itself you understand that the movie would end on the bridge too. Need I say more? Kiara has lost in love while Aakash has lost everything he had in the Wall Street Crash which happened in the US over two years ago. The two of them keep meeting each other in true filmy style and finally after trying many a time to commit suicide sometimes with scotch tape which gets over in between or fire when the gas goes etc. etc. decide to keep the suicide date as 31st December 2010, 20 days after they meet. In the ensuing time they sing all the songs and roam around Vegas and where all. Wondering how they have so much of money to go around and that too without working? No problem! Even I was wondering too.

Truthfully speaking neither Priyanka nor Ranbir are any great in their acting or shall I say the role didn’t demand any histrionics. The problem with Ranbir is that even though he is a good actor which was seen in Rajneeti, he is getting typecast in roles like the one in Anjaana Anjaani. Though there are certain sequences like the Atlantic Ocean one or the male stripper one which make you laugh or interested in the narrative, they are not enough to make the movie too great. The songs are truthfully the best thing about the movie. Though they keep coming fast, they are melodious and all the singers have done a fabulous job.

In the end, its a movie which can be a one time watch with your loved one. That’s it. Nothing more nothing less.

Rating – 2/5 (Below Average)

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