My Memories

A few days back I got this email saying there is a software called My Memories and these makers of this software want me to have this software for free. But in return they want me to host a "giveaway" of their software on this blog. After minor investigation , you know these days people will a lot Billions of dollars everyday, I found out that this is a genuine email and these guys actual mean what they are saying and probably find my blog interesting enough to use it for the publicity of their software and in return will give me that software for free. Wow!!

So it's a Digital Scrapbook software called My Memories. You call can go to the following link to download the software: http://www.mymemories.com/digital_scrapbooking_software

But if you want to learn a little bit more before you decide to buy this software then check out the following links:

Blog: http://www.mymemoriesblog.com/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/MyMemories/140359372717593
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/mymemoriessuite
Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/user/MyMemoriesSuite

I have successfully downloaded the software for now but I'm yet to organize my pictures properly in order to use this software effectively. But after a few trial rounds it really looks good, the slide layout and everything is really fancy. In fact, I'm thinking that I'll make a nice scrapbook for our anniversary and get it printed also. 

Amir Peterpan Khan

Amir Khan is definitely from Neverland. The actor never seems to grow old. It has been 22 years since Khan first got noticed in 'Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak' in 1988 as a young college graduate. And 22 years later when most of the kids that were born in that year are now graduating from colleges, Amir is still doing college flicks (he also did a movie as a school student 'Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikander'.) To put it simply it's absurd. Oh wait... Amir is from Neverland, he has decided to never grow old.

I saw 3i a few days back and I think Chetan Bhagat did a good job by creating a controvercy. because if it wasn't for the controversy, I would have not been able to connect 3i with 5PS. The two stories, except for a few parallels, are totally different. I guess Chetan must have felt as if he got kicked in the nuts when the movie started making billions where as he had sold the story to Vidhu Chopra Co. for a meager sum of 1 million rupees (before taxes).

Gross revenue generated by 3 idiots may be highest ever by any Indian movie. But I personally think that even though 3i and Ghajini (the 2nd highest grosser) have been the most financially successful Indian movies of all times yet they cannot be kept at par with movies like Sholay, Deewar, DDLJ etc. I can illustrate this with a simple example, how many of you can recall even a single dialogue from Ghajini? I can't. And even in 3 Idiots, "Aal iz well" was force fed to us. They devoted a whole song to this phrase and Amir Khan kept repeating it  through-out the movie. Consider, Sholay on the other hand, "Tera kya hoga kaliya?", "Kitney aadmi the?" and many more such dialogues have become colloquial. Movies like, Deewar, DDJL, Lagaan, Sholay, Mughal-e-Azam have proven the test of time and have stood out from the crowd. But same is not true for Ghajini? We don't even talk about Ghajini anymore and neither will we talk about 3 Idiots in a few years.

Anyway, 3i did touch a critical subject which is very close to my heart i.e. our education system. But I would like to talk about that in a new post.

The Avatar Experience

Yesterday, I went to Toho Cinemas to watch Avatar. About Avatar, all I can say is that James Cameroon knows how to create a lot of hype. On top of everything, I am surprised that these so called movie critics 'the experts' got carried away by the hype. Or are these critics a part of the publicity machinery? Anyway, I didn't feel the 3D the way I was expecting. I was told by the media that Cameroon had invented a new 3D technology for this movie. The Titanic's famous "I'm flying" scene was much more exhilarating than any scene that 3D saga Avatar had to offer.

Here are some fun facts about the movie Avatar:
1. The Man-mounted killer robots were exactly same as the ones in Matrix III
2. The rituals that Jake (the Avatar form) had to perform in order to mount the flying creature was a complete rip-off of the rituals that Harry Potter had to do in order to mount Buckbeak in Prisoner of Azkaban.
3. The style of narration by Jake (the paraplegic) during the entire movie reminded me of the narration in Max Payne 2 (the game).
4. And at the climax when Eywa suddenly sends the entire wildlife of Pandora to attack humans is totally Chronicles of Naria.
5. And yeah one more thing, over all it was sort of reverse of Independence day.

Anyway, this was my first 3D movie and I'm guessing that this is just the beginning of 3D movie era. A front line movie maker, such as James Cameroon, has entered into the 3D movie making business, I'm sure that other movie directors will join in too and soon 3D will completely replace the existing technology. Isn't it amazing to see that in period of just over 100 years we've traveled from
Silent >> Talkies >> Color >> Digital >> Animation >> 3D (My grand ma still refers to the Movie Theaters as Talkies).
And I do think that 3D is the next-gen movie technology and I'm really excited about it except for the heavy and annoying glasses. Somebody will have to do something to get rid of the them . They are annoying and stupid and I got a severe headache after the movie because of the glasses.

One really silly thing happened at the theater that I must mention here. You see we Indians have a habit of springing out of our chairs as soon as the movie is over and the credits start rolling in. In fact, the minute the movie is over some of the theaters in Delhi even turn off the projector. And frankly speaking I don't really see the point in reading the names of the people who made a contribution in making that film, unless I am an agent or a casting director. But to my initial astonishment which turned into annoyance after a while (because I got stuck in between, next time I'm taking corner seat) these stupid Japanese sit right till the end. Up to the point when 'THE END' appears on the screen and the whole thing goes blank and the lights are turned on. What's the deal with that?

MTV Rock On!

In a recently concluded series on MTV India, finally we got to see MTV giving us a show which was actually based on music. Well congratulation are in order! I hope the success of this series will prompt MTV to remove non sense like Roadies and other such programs and focus on producing more shows based on music.

A lot has been said about the contestants but this post is about the judges.

Well, to me, the guy who impressed the most was Ram Sampat. Before the show, I only knew Ram Sampat as some guy who sued the Roshan's for plagiarizing Sony Ericsson 'thump' soundtrack. I guess just like me there are many others who knew nothing more about him as well. During the course of this show I learned that Ram is famous in the ad. jingle circle and had released a rock album many years back, although it didn't gain much popularity. But this show has brought him out of ranks and established his career for sure. He now has several projects in pipeline that include directing music for bollywood movies and releasing another rock album. Well done Ram.

Kailash Kher, unfortunately for me, came out as a moron who doesn't really understand music. I found him picking up cues from Ram and Nikhil in order to make up his mind about a performance. I found his comments lacking in originality and I found him lacking in confidence and character. Later I checked out his old music videos (not just the hit ones and found a similar trait, I guess we all have overlooked this because of the fantastic voice he has). He is a great singer, no doubt, but I don't think he is a great judge. Also, he was there to judge the desipann quotient (I don't why he kept saying 'deshipann') of the contestants but I don't think he did that at all. Most of the time he was commenting only on the singers, that's just a proof of his limitations. I guess, if anybody has hurt himself in this show then it's Kailash Kher.

Nikhil Chinnapa was a delight to watch. He wasn't messing around with words. I don't think I have much to say about him except I think he lost his interest in the show towards the end, I mean the guy was absent in the last few episodes. But apart from that he was as pagal and as cool as he can be. Nothing more, nothing less.

One last thing, I must mention, is the website. For people like me who don't live in India the only way to watch this show was the internet. MTV India website is really bad. MTV Rock on's website was full of dead links, the videos were being uploaded way too late after the broadcast on TV (ITV's Britains Got Talent show was being uploaded the very next day) and the video quality was pathetic. It seems that MTV has outsourced the website maintenance to an incompetent company. For a media company like MTV, such poor maintenance of the website is unimaginable and unacceptable.

Slumdog Millionare and Whatever

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Slumdog Millionaire won Oscars, how did this happen?
1. Slumdog Millionaire was indeed the best movie of the year.
2. American's love to watch Indian slums and poverty.
3. Danny Boyle cheated.
4. It was destiny.

Not surprisingly many Indians (including the Old B) think that this is definitely not the best movie of the year. I agree too. You see, we Indians are accustomed to such high intensity of melodrama that when movies like SDM are presented before us where almost everything is so subtle we toss it out. But in this case the movie went on to win BAFTA, GG and 8 Oscars and hence the controversy. If this movie was made by an Indian some of the scenes would've had a lot more intensity. One particular example, if the scene where Jamal and Salim lose their mother was followed by a really sad song with tears rolling down from the eyes of the (now) orphan kids as they walk on the roads with dead bodies, burning buildings in the background and with flashes of the moments of their mothers love. We would've applauded and marveled at the skills of the master director. There are many such opportunities in the film. But SDM does not get stuck, it just moves on. How could Danny Boyle simply let tremendous moments like these get by? What was he thinking? You see SDM cannot be the best because it completely missed out on such moments almost all the time.

Most Americans are Dimwits. They think that US is the center of the universe. And what else can boost their ego other than seeing the abject poverty in other countries. No wonder why 'City of Gods', a movie based on the life in Brazilian Slums was critically acclaimed by them. Of course, this year their judgment was completely flawed, they gave the best actor award to a gay and best supporting actor to a joker. But isn't it true that beauty is in the eyes of the beholder? Then if Oscars are the awards given by the American movie fraternity to the movie the deem best then who are we to complain. It's their movie and furthermore it's their award.

I must say one thing here, I have seen a lot of Hollywood movies and with some confidence I can assert that SDM is not the greatest Hollywood flick I have ever seen. So in spite of all it's natural flaws and short comings, how did this movie win 8 Oscars? In this case, all I can say to Danny, in words of Anil Kapoor (from SDM), "What a playa! Ladies and gentlemen. What a playa!".

Sometimes, you've got to give in to the elements of the nature. If I try to draw out the current global economic scenario, particularly in US and Europe as backdrop of the movie's release. I can say that the timing of the movie was impeccable. At a time when the entire rich part of the globe is looking at gloomy days ahead, probably this movie gave a message of hope. Again, the message was to the Americans and Europeans and not us Indians.