Boredom

This is an appreciation post for Oscars Best Feature Film Nominee, the number 7th, Room (2016). Every once in a while in English-speaking world, a courageous director comes up with an audacious project that blows your mind away and you just couldn't fathom what you really experienced. These words might sound hollow if I am going to describe the authenticity of Room (2015). Whatever I shall be writing hereafter shall in no way do justice to the brilliance of this movie and I cannot possibly come up with any more adjectives to ornament it for they all would fall short. So let me narrate you the experiences of my fellow colleagues who are more popular, widely read and certainly more accomplished than me: Rotten Tomatoes: Led by incredible work from Brie Larson and Jacob Tremblay, Room makes for an unforgettably harrowing – and undeniably rewarding – experience. Richard Roeper (Chicago Sun-Times) : The most impressive piece of filmmaking I've seen in 2015, and one of the best...

It must be said that when I became routinely aware of the existence of Hollywood films, the one name that always crossed my path and eyes was 'Kill Bill'. It wasn't very hard to guess it's genre from its poster...Uma Thurman in a yellow spandex suit with a 'killer-looking' sword were very much indicating that it was an action film and we Indians LOVE action picchhers . But I wouldn't watch it, not until a week ago and the reason was that I never quite liked those 'action picchers'. It's very UnIndian to say but I was always more into 'Drama' and other genres of movies that unsurprisingly brought me to Hollywood and World Cinema doors. And Kill Bill I had to watch it because of two people that I respect and admire very much from movie fraternity, viz. Martin Scorsese and Roger Ebert. As much as these two people were fond of each other, I was doubly in awe of them. One a master filmmaker and other, the most popular film critic of the world....

3rd time in a year or so that Mr. So-Called-The-Great-Finisher Lost us a tightly contested match. This match, the T-20 match at Harare against Tiripano (who) bowling and the ODI at Kanpur against Rabada. All these matches were India's to lose after the opposition was dead and buried going into the final overs and MS made sure India lose them. Even a novice IPL watcher knows that DJ Bravo always bowles the slower bowl to outfox his opponents and MS doesn't only know this but has even seen Bravo doing that first hand under his captaincy innumerable times. Bravo backed his skills as he had nothing to lose but Dhoni misunderstood his skills, that of a scrapper and not a six hitter, and went for everlasting glory. There is a generation of Cricket fans out there who call Sachin, Ganguly, Gavaskar and Dravid selfish but were these three incidents recalled above and many more that I cannot, aren't enough to qualify MS for the same misbegotten sin? Moreover, T-20s are a game for you...

E.M. Forster's celebrated book, 'A Passage to India' and it's much revered silver screen adaptation by David Lean bears canny resemblance in their plot, yet the methods of storytelling and intentions are vastly different. Forster loved India and always stood against the oppressive British regime which denied the Indians a share of their own history and privileges. David Lean's movie, on the other hand, is pro-British and the court-trial that serves as the cornerstone of both the book and the movie, has been presented not so as farcical and actually quite in reverence of British judicial system in it as opposed to what's the book supposedly points to. E.M.Forster was always hesitant, even reluctant to share his book's storyplay with a movie director precisely for this very much possible 'deviation' and it was indeed David Lean's enviable reputation and his persuasion that led Forster to give his nod. And yet it happened. In spite of this genuine d...

I was busy watching SLs fighting Australians at home and it wasn't really a fight per say.... It was more of an entrance test for Australians to check on their progress as for the preparation of upcoming marquee series with India and they spectacularly failed it. Herath, Sandakan and Dilruwan Parera looted their wickets in broad daylight. Most importantly, they compelled the Ozzie's to think of their approach to play spin bowling of appreciable quantity. This series has also provided us cricket fans with must watch SRi Lankan talent in years to come. The likes of Kusal Mendis, Dhananjay De Silva and Lakshan Sanadakan stepped up at crucial junctures and saved SL blushes when Australians have the opportunity to run away with the game. They are young guns of SL Cricket and their latest exciting finds. World Cricket will be a richer place if they continue to do justice with their exceptional gifts. Amen to that!!!!

Book Title: The Color of Love Publisher: Notion Press Author: Jagdish Joghee 'The Color of Love' is Mr. Joghee's second offering and a worthy addition to his repertoire after making an impressive debut with 'In Love and Free'. Love and more importantly, 'selfless love' is again given a central theme here and author builds up his story from two key geographical locations in Sharjah, Dubai and Coimbatore, India. Geography plays a key role in Mr. Joghee's work for I had noticed him using Sri Lanka's picturesque places like Kandy and Bentota for giving his story another twist in his first novel. Our protagonist, Sarfaraz, works as a senior sales manager for Michelin Tyre in Dubai and is a successful corporate personnel but he has got a rough past where he is not only labelled as a goon and thug but also loses (presumably) the love of his life, Meghna who he had come to recognize his true love after much deliberation and several confrontations with ...

Indian Hockey has improved by leaps and bounds in last couple of years but when it comes to facing the stronger European teams, they are still faltering. If our loss to Germany in last 3 seconds was not enough, we again came to standstill after scoring an equalizer against the Dutch and one could sense they were almost praying to Gods that Holland didn't score, having lost S V Sunil and Raghunath to tackles and reduced to 9 playing men in the field. But Holland obviously scored playing aggressive hockey and like all good teams, they were in need of one defensive loophole in our D. But it wasn't that Gods were only with the Dutch....Indians came alive in last 4 minutes and in the very last minute with 6 seconds remaining, gained not one, not two but 6 penalty corners after rebounds and rebounds but unfortunately, couldn't score the equalizer and thus again, after playing such a competitive and hard-fought match, we lost the game 2-1........We haven't still qualified for ...

Synecdoche is a figure of speech in which a part is made to represent the whole or vice versa, as in England lost by six wickets (meaning ‘ the English cricket team’). Continuing from the definition, 'Synecdoche, New York' would mean recreating a part of 'New York' that would represent this mega city in totality and this is what 'Caden Cotard', our protagonist, aims to do while staging his dream play. He is a theater director of repute and has won a 'MacArthur Fellowship' for achievements. MacArthur Fellowship contains handsome prize money and allows a theater director to pursue his dream project. Caden Cotard has led an unsuccessful life so far with his wife, a painter by profession, leaving him with their daughter to Germany. He is also suffering from various physical ailments and doesn't really know what's happening with him. Hazel, a woman who works at his production's box office, is attracted to him but even after knowing that, Caden do...

J.C.Ballard has written two novels of note: Crash and Empire of the Sun.....the latter one is a semi autobiographical work of literature that's based on author's own experience with calamities of second world war. Sun here represents Japan and the book and subsequent film by Steven Spielberg tells the story of Japanese possession of China before their attack on Pearl Harbour. We shall talk about the films later. The books need to be discussed first. Crash is as bizarre a book of fiction as one can ever dream of. It's so freaky a work of literature that I cannot even begin to explain what story it tries to narrate to us. And that's why I decided to watch the movie that was directed by David Cronenberg. Now David Cronenberg is an accomplished director of horror and psychological thriller genres and Crash's material wasn't really related to both of them. The movie was certainly much more explanatory than the book but it's climax again left me clueless. I then...

It's been a while since I came across a quality work of literature that could provide me with enough brownie points. A quality work of literature need not be complex in nature or its constituting elements. It could be a emblematic of simple story narrated with subtlety, nuances, intrigue and just enough emotional charge. One such work I found in Mr. Jagdish Joghee's debut novel viz. 'In Love and Free'. Central Idea of this book is 'infidelity' and that's one topic Indian authors of Metropolitan cities are exploiting relentlessly. And this is not to suggest it's only a tier-1 or tier-2 cities' phenomenon, it's rather an age old infatuation and false thrill that put its practitioners almost always in danger. Our book's heroine Ms. Shruthi is a very strong character who has been fantastic with her studies, family, husband and kids. She has got money, she has got career and she lives without a care in the world but she unintentionally (first) fal...

The 'Hot Rod' Rowdy Roddy Piper has passed away. To all of those who don't know him, he was a pro-wrestling legend, a WWE veteran and in exactly the same league as other icons such as Hulk Hogan and 'Stone Cold' Steve Austin. To a generation of fans, wrestling or non-wrestling regardless, he was the first 'Original Rebel' of an institution. He could very well be the first man to wear the title of ANTI-HERO for, for the entire course of his wrestling career, he defied the company orders and that too by portraying a 'heel' character on national television and even then went on to become the one of the most loved and admired wrestling characters. And I haven't yet mentioned his wrestling skills and work ethics. He once worked 91 days straight without taking a break for a wrestling promotion. 'Working' for a pro-wrestling promotion as an active wrestler is not a 9am-5pm job, ladies and gentleman. It means you have to grapple with fellow wrest...