Sunday TV Conspiracy

For the un-initiated, “Sunday TV Conspiracy” is a conspiracy theory floated not so long ago by yours truly, which says that on any given Sunday there would be hardly anything worth watching on the television. Yes, you read it right…there is a conspiracy going on with most the TV channels involved in it, which forces people to not-watch TV on Sunday, the day when most people have most free time at home.

The motive for the conspiracy is still unclear, but you notice even the spicy news channels would be like aalo-ka-sabzi (fried potato) without namak-mirch (salt and pepper) on Sunday. Some of them will be repeating the same news that you have already seen through the week. It seems like nothing much happens on Sundays, or all their over-excited news reporters (who would even report how many chapaties Mrs. Aishwarya Bachhan eat) takes a day off on Sunday. The cartoon channels tries to became the HBO on weekends and broadcast repeat telecast of the Harry Potter movies that you have seen 108 times already. The Movie channels having shown all the big movies on Friday and Saturday nights won’t have anything interesting to show on Sundays. The so called “entertainment channels” are not worth watching on weekdays, so forget about watching them on a Sunday.

Probably the only interesting stuff on Sunday on TV is F1s and other sporting events of the season like Wimbledon, Premiere League, or the finals of some Cricket series. I think that the sports channel have refused to be part of the Sunday TV Conspiracy.

But me being not very interested in sports and being fully aware of this conspiracy took a precautionary measure and asked my friend to book ticket for the movie ‘Aaja Nach Le‘, so that I won’t be at home on Sunday sitting in front of that Idiot Box and being one.

The movie is just another average movie. But the performances of Madhuri, Kunal and Konkona are good. The story is very predictable and the songs are average. Coming to the songs, although the songs are average and no one would be listening to them second time after the movie, but our dear political leaders in few northern states, instead of doing the public work like trying to get those roads/dams/water canal/telecom infrastructure/schools/hospitals made decided to make noise about a line in one of the songs of this movie. I heard the whole song in the theater but could not make out anything objectionable in it…until my friend pointed out the line, which in my opinion was in no way derogatory to anyone. Still these great Indian politicians are trying their luck hard to create a controversy out of nowhere and helping theaters get more crowd for the movie…good luck to them, atleast it’s good for the movie producers and the theaters.

12 Angry men (1957)

Verdict: Must watch.
After a long time I saw a good movie. 12 Angry Men has got a simple story line. 12 members of jury are in a room to decide upon, what initially appears as a clear murder conviction case for which the punishment would be a death penalty; but as the movie unfolds they began to realise that the case may not be as simple as it looks. And as you might expect, in the end they pass the judgment as not guilty.

The beauty of this masterpiece is that almost whole of the movie is shot in that small room, where the jury is discussing this case after the hearing is over. Each character of the movie is unique and so common that I could associate each one with a real life person.

Shrek The Third

Verdict : very average movie.
All style and no substance, that’s how I would define Shrek 3. If part one and two were espresso coffee of Barista, this third part is like ‘nookad ki dookan ki thandi chai’.

First of all we reached late to the theater and missed around 15 mins of movie, and then this just an average movie disappointed me. The only good thing of the day was I didn’t buy the movie tickets; we got free tickets from a friend, who in turn got it from his employer. Jai ho software companies ki.

Madagascar (2005 movie)

Last night I again saw the hilarious movie “Madagascar“. Earlier I have seen this movie on Flight to Dubai. That time I missed some parts of it during the meals and watching a movie on a small screen on the front seat with poor resolution, along with a below average quality (read poor) headphone is not the best way to watch good movies.

So, last night I saw it again on DVD. It’s wonderful, hilarious, funny, entertaining, and it’s tooo good. I love all the scenes with those cute looking penguins (”Just smile and wave, boys. Smile and wave.”). They run from the zoo to go to Antarctica. And ofcourse Alex is also too cute. The song, “I like to move it” is very good, and so is the birthday song:

“Happy Birthday to you;
You live in a zoo.
You look like a monkey;
And you smell like one too!”

Office Space

Last night I watched this comedy movie called, Office Space. It’s based on software industry in late nineties. The story is about a guy called Peter who works in a software company, Initech. Basically these guys are fixing the Y2K bug in banking software. The office environment that they have created is quite like Dilbert’s…with typical PHB kind of bosses, clueless consultants, frustrated programmers, pathetic infrastructure (those scenes with printer are my favorite), and full of waste and unnecessary paperwork and processes (like the TPS reports).

I just took a quiz “What Office Space character are you?” and to my surprise it said the following:

“You are… POST-HYPNOTIZED PETER
You’re a carefree kinda person. you’d gut a fish in
your cubical and still get promated. Way to go!
you just need to ditch the annoying girlfriend.”

LOL..I like it.

Weekend Movies

I saw two movies over this weekend. ‘Brother Bear 2′ and ‘Band of Brothers’. Following are the verdicts.

‘Brother Bear 2‘, Bakwaas. Terrible. Pathetic. Enough Said.

‘Band of Brothers‘, Ok, I accept it’s not a movie. It’s a 10-part television mini-series by HBO, (Co-produced by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks). The series is based on World War II stories. The DVD I got had just first 2 episodes, “Currahee” and “Day of Days“. I am yet to watch the “Day of Days”. But, “Currahee”, the first and only episode that I saw was wonderful. It had a good story, great cinematography, nice performance by everyone and suitable music & sound effects. I must watch the second episode tonight. I hope I get the DVDs of other episodes as well on the CD/DVD rental shop near my house. Read more about BoB here.

Animal Farm

Read the book ‘Animal Farm‘ by George Orwell, it is a great book. I highly recommend this book. It’s hillarious, satirical, and thought provoking and it’s wonderfully written.

It’s about a farm, where animals ousts the farm owner, Mr Jones from the farm and take the control of the farm. A brilliantly written book, in which, while readling I could actually map the events to the real life events of communists nations. Although the book was written a long time ago, sometime in 1940s, still many of the aspects it touches still holds true.

Over the Hedge

‘Over the Hedge‘ (IMDB Link) is an average animation movie. I can easily say that after I have recently watched ‘Cars‘ (see earlier post). The story is just average, too bad.…For animation’s supposed to be the better medium for stories which are too unrealistic.

The characters in the movie are very cute, specially the little squirrel, Sammy. Sammy is a hyper active squirrel and hence is always kept away from coke (or whatever drink is there in those cans). But, when the need comes, they give him a can; and it seems that the world simply stops, for Sammy is too fast/active.

A simple question, Are animals are getting into our house, or whether we have already got into theirs?

Nau Do Gyarah (Dev Anand) (1957)

Last night, I watched the movie, Nau Do Gyarah. One of my friends bought the DVD, and I wasn’t too sure whether I really want to watch it. But when I saw the songs listing on the DVD case, I was impressed. The movie has some good songs, including, “Ham hain raahi pyar ke, hamse kuchh na boliye” and “Ankhon mein kya ji, rupahla baadal”. And after all its a Dev Anand Movie, so thought, I will give it a try.

I liked the movie for its simplicity. The songs are good and the story is just ok. But, if I would be writing about the performances of the lead actors, then I won’t be writing good things. So, I would better avoid that, I hope you would have got the idea by now.

Today, I went to IMDB to check out more info about this movie, and was surprised to see the user rating as 9.5 out of 10. I know the world has decent number of Dev Anand fans, but I didn’t expect them to rate all his movies so high. Anyway, the songs are good. Mr. Burman, Kishor Kumar and Asha Bhonsle has done a fine job.

Five People You Meet in Heaven

Finished reading the book “Five People You Meet in Heaven” by Mitch Albom. The same author who wrote bestseller ‘Tuesdays With Morrie‘. This one is a good book, it made me pause reading at couple of places to think. The book is quite engaging and very interesting. Took me less than in a day to finish.

It’s a story of a guy name Eddie, who is head of maintenance at a fun park at Ruby Pier. The book starts with an end. The story begins by telling that Eddie is just a few hours away from his death. Death or End is also a beginning, just that we don’t see it that way. The story forks into three threads. One, briefly talks about how things happen on earth after his death. Two, about the previous events that happened in Eddie’s life, and three, about the five people he meets in heaven after his death. Albom has tied the three threads beautifully, linking them with each other, making a smooth flow of story.

I won’t go much in the details. All I would say is, I liked the book very much and this is one of the few books, which I would be reading again. A movie has also been made on the book in 2004.

Now, I am looking forward to read ‘Tuesdays With Morrie‘.

Referances :

• Mitch Albom’s homepage.
• http://www.albomfivepeople.com/
• Wikipedia Link of the book.
• IMDB Link for the movie based on the book.