Boredom

I have been reading books, both fiction and non-fiction, for last four months as per one of my new roles as 'Book Critic' and have encountered both good works and bad ones to no one's surprise as our job pretty much entails that. It's not the good things that have left me dazzled and exalted but the bad ones who have rocked me and left me jittery. Doing a book review is a lonely job if you do it right and there have been incidents when I have found myself very lonely but as they say, it's part and parcel of one reviewer's life and you get to learn either way. So let's come to the point now. Recently, I read two books and in the first one, the main character of the book who goes by the name of Arpan was spelled Apran not once but thrice in space of two pages. Narration was first class and I was enjoying it but 'APRAN' put me off. I could only do away with 65 pages of the book out of a good 267 pages. Then there was another book. It's back cover ha...

I remember the first time I watched Denzel on Silver Screen. He was not the reason for my watching, Russell Crowe was and the film was Ridley Scott's hugely underappreciated 'The American Gangsters'. It also happened to be my first dubbed Hollywood film and to be honest, I too didn't enjoy it much partly because of its unsatisfying ending. However, my journey with him continued and next stop point was 'Glory'. He portrayed a field slave-turned-Yankee soldier in the film and although he was 35 years old at that time, he didn't look a single year aged more than an American rookie Private. He won a best supporting actor Oscars for his tour-de-force performance in the movie which also starred our favorite black heavyweight Morgan Freeman and that too in a wonderful role. Denzel became the first back actor ever to win in this category at Oscars. In 1994, during the great run of Tom Hanks where he won back to back best actor Oscars for Forrest Gump and Philadelphi...

Presenting my theories and gumptions after GoT Season 6 premiere on upcoming course of actions: 1) Jon Snow is not 'really' dead. No network producer in USA likes to pay a dead corpse for appearing in almost all the episodes of its flagship show, the least of them all, HBO. 2) Stannis Baratheon doesn't look dead as well. Wait, we have seen enough deaths of class 1 characters of GoT, so why won't it allow us to see the actual and not 'unseen' beheading of Stannis. Besides, Stannis indeed is the only true-blood Baratheon left in the show and appears a real, lost, ambiguous yet passionate character. And Brinne, well ain't she lovely? As much as she was loyal to Renly, she ain't really a great killer. Remember the Lannister episode? 3) Melissandre, the red priestess and headliner of first episode of GoT S06 is not a prophet but a witch. We know and have seen the actions of deviant religious characters in real lives, like those whom Joan of Arc fought i...

Following article is going to be my subject for blog no. 85 and I have been terribly late onto it. The reason for being so late was not one but many and the very first one of them was my approach towards it. Second, my perspective and outlook. I believe it to be a very special article for it's not only going to be celebrating four personalities but also two great religions and one great race. Ladies and gentlemen, this article is going to tell you the stories and deeds of Ray 'The Genius' Charles, Jamie Foxx, Malcolm X and Denzel Washington. There is a thing about filming biopics. You gotta pick the 'right' star to copy and emulate your real icon and subject. Ray Charles started as a country singer in 50s America. He was a southern boy, from Alabama, Georgia and blind from a very young age of 6. But he was gifted. He was a musical prodigy. He was a genius and it took all of 20 years of his career to make the white Americans realize that. Even before the Bob Marley...

Rashomon is a Japanese term that refers to a scenario where we analyze a scenario or an incident with different perspectives and viewpoints. As a noun, it stands for a large gate that once stood at the southern end of Suzaku Avenue, between modern day Kyoto and Nara. The characters it's written with literally mean "the castle gate". The short story and film sharing its name are so called because that is where they take place. Yes, Rashomon, the film is based on a short story written by Ryunosuke Akutagawa and stars Toshiro Mifune and Machiko Kyo. When Akira decided to helm this feature film, no production house in his home country Japan was ready to undertake it for everyone of them thought that this is too western a product to suit for Japanese moviegoers' appetite. It's story was one of the most unconventional and possibly controversial too in 50s Japan but Daiei Film, the biggest movie production house in Japan finally submitted to Kurusawa's conviction wh...

After I finished watching second season of Lost, I asked my friends on Facebook a question whether I should proceed with rest of its seasons viz. Third, Fourth, Fifth and Sixth. I got only one response and it was overwhelmingly negative. I was certainly enamored with Lost's intriguing plot but the finale of season 2 led me into thinking that there was going to be too many things to grasp with Lost's remaining seasons. I decided to take some time off and dwell into some further studies about its remaining seasons. Lost has unarguably been called one of the greatest TV series of all time plus as I mentioned above, I loved its mythological+Supernatural+sci-fi plot, so I had enough reasons to go ahead. And that I did and I'm glad, I made that decision. Lost, over the course of its six season runs, can be said of having the most compelling humane-story that was ever-so-consistent. The one aspect that's been lauded most about Lost was its vast star-cast. It's star-cast ...

Book Criticism is a challenging profession. Many a time you are challenged with a book that tests your patience, other time your comprehension skills and attitude. This debut work of Mr. Ashutosh Srivastav challenged me on the first front. It tested my patience like no other book. The book discusses the youth and youthfulness of a certain Mr. Rudra who meets not one but 17 girls during the said duration. I read about first five of them and that's that. Till the fourth entry, everything seemed logical, even somewhat genuine. In came fifth and some more of the knowledge that preceded with each last chapter and a girl and I was done. Mr. Ashutosh has filled this book with 285 pages. They are a lot of pages for a debutant writer. He can certainly write and plan. He tries to put forth a perspective, a story and plan for each of his girl and chapter but the issues is with the trying part itself. Ashutosh tries to clarify that not each of them Rudra has fallen in love with and neither al...

I wanted to write about this film the day I watched it. I have been thinking of writing about that ever since. If I remember correctly, it's been over two years when I first watched it and almost 9 months when I had the second go at it. It's a special film. More special for it's based on a play that has won both Pulitzer and Tony prizes for David Mamet. That points towards the fact that it's rich in content. Then there is its starcast which consists off Alec Baldwin, Al Pacino, Alan Arkin, Jack Lemmon, Ed Harris and Kevin Spacey. Now look closely at each of them. Except for the first entry in this list i.e. Alec Baldwin who delivers an Iconic opening speech to the three salesmen in Lemmon, Ed and Arkin inducing goosebumps and raised hair on back of your neck, four of them has won an Oscars for their acting prowess and Ed Harris scored multiple nominations. That opening scene will lead you into thinking that why Alec Baldwin so far is devoid of this Oscar distinction. Ch...

Two years ago, I wrote following piece bemoaning the death of legendary film critic, Mr. Roger Ebert: "Today I'm bemoaning the death of one of the true champions of the movies, 'Roger Ebert', an iconic movie critic whose movie reviews have amused us and kept us at the edge of our seats with their 'reserved' sense of humor and tenacity to this day for the last 40 odd years. He was certainly my mentor as whenever I had to decide on a movie, I would simply go to his site and look out for his opinion. Though it may seem a very inappropriate and unethical decision for a young movie enthusiast (and a possible movie critic in future, who knows?) but I have believed in a theory that a man does need a opening somewhere. In my case, It was Roger. I learned a great deal from him. All my knowledge about the movies I owe to him for he was just brilliant, uncompromising in his movie reviews. His movie-reviews were for everyone and certainly not an intellectual bomb-thrower...