Books, Movies, etc

I have been highly irregular with respect to blogging these days, and the worst part was that, when I read posts on my reader, my mind was too restless to even consider reading the entire post. Reason, a very hectic schedule at work and wierd timings making it even more unbearable.

Anyways mood today has been great, and I guesss its time I spoke about what I have read and what I have seen over few weeks. I tried to diversify my interests in books, picking up things unknown, and on various subjects, and results have been a mixed bag.

Into thin air – John krakauer
I picked up this one, some time back, thinking this was on of the books by “On the Road” author, but when I came home and found out it wasn’t I had kind of slipped it to back of my shelf. One of these days, I picked this up from the shelf, and started reading, this is about the toughest season of the mount everest climb, and a real life travel memoir, if you want to say that. To say the least, I loved the book, A genre I had never read before, I could picture every single detail the author had highlighted about the climb and the descent. The feeling of the pain, the hardships, the joy of the climb, is very well told. I guess a very good read.

Lunatic in my head – Anjum hasam 
I think I had read about this one some time back on Piya’s blog, and it was on back of my mind, and when I saw the book during the landmark sale, I just picked it up. This one is set up on the backdrop of north east India, Shillong to be particular. I generally like these kind of books, because it gives a great insight to lifestyle of people from different parts. This is inter woven collection of three stories all interlinked in a way, which you realize as you get deeper into the book. I felt the book was pretty average, and I continued to read it only because I had started it, through out the book at no place I felt excited to continue reading. So I guess all in all pretty disappointing venture.

The ninth life of Louis drax – Liz Jensen
This was a book I picked up totally based on my instinct, this was again a genre which I had never attempted before, a psychological supernatural thriller. I agree this isn’t a thriller as the cover claims, and neither supernatural in the true sense, but then a very effective one. Even though it is not one of those books, which you can take away a lot from, but then a book which kept me excited about what happens next kind of way. I felt they could have emphasized a lot more on the emotional aspect of the story, but then may be the author wanted to write more of a thriller. One of those books which can be easily turned into a movie.
 

Speaking of movies, I have been watching a lot these days, both English and Hindi, like books they too have been a mixed bag for me.

Annie Hall
I have never seen a Woody Allen movie before, and this was my first experience of him. I knew he was a ‘different’ film maker, somehow I had never watched his movies. One thing I loved about the movie was the narration style, something I found unique with the movie. The idea of the characters breaking of from the story to speak to the audience excited me. His choice of subject was also extremely good, trying to show the complex intricacies in a relationship. However I thought, the screen play could have been better, and also the story could have been a little more. Final feeling, good, but nothing great.

Romance
One thing that caught my attention was its tagline “Love is desolate. Romance is temporary. Sex is forever”. I wanted to take the risk, it could one of those shady porn movies, or something which really talks about the subject of isolating romance from the physical relationship. Idea of a man loving a person just for love, and having an aversion to the sexual relationship kind of intrigued me. At the same time, idea of a woman, who wants to consummate in her relationship, but having to just settle for someone else, just for the sake of ‘it’ also excited me. It does have a lot of nudity, unimaginable to watch with friends or family, or even your partner if you were me, but then I would still watch it for the concept.

Kung Fu Panda
I am a big animation fan, and this was on my must watch list from a long long time. Idea of Kung Fu, and an animal kingdom setup somewhere in china, was a big draw. Some sequences in the movie are too good, the fight sequences are very well animated, specially the one involving chop sticks and the momos. But the story is a big downer, nothing special, in a way passable movie

2 days in paris.
I saw the movie, only for one reason, Julie Delpy, the director and actress in the movie, she is the leading lady from the movies Before sunrise/sunset, both movies which I like a lot. This is an English movie, and has a lot of French in between, many dialogues I couldn’t make out at all, and in a conversation based movie [which I love always], I felt miserable not able to make out what they were really talking about. Anyways as I did not get most of the movies, I will refrain from commenting about the movie 😀

Oye Lucky Lucky Oye
A surprisingly likable movie, is how I would put it. The actors have done a great job, the actress looks beautiful even though she is just for few scenes, and has pretty much nothing to do, after a long time I felt her as someone genuinely my type ;). The real winner of the movie is screenplay and its slick editing, not even once I felt bored, or had no urge to even go fetch something to eat. Even though the story is ordinary, the treatment given to it is high class. The other big plus point in the movie, is its casting, if they had gone for some star, I think it would have ruined the mood of the movie. If any of you have liked movies I have liked before, you would love this one.

Dil Kabaddi
A boring movie and a complete dud, I kind of lost interest after first 30 minutes, and kind of lazily skipped the rest of the movies, just listening to dialogues, as i read few blogs, and chatted with my friends on gtalk. One good new thing in the movie is that, for the first time, I see a commercial hindi cinema, isolating sex from relationship, and treating it as just another aspect of human life. Causality with which the subject is dealt with throughout the movie is definitely a new thing in this movie. One advice though, please do give this movie a skip, totally not worth wasting your time.

Sorry Bhai
A movie which got good reviews, so kind of had low expectations from it. The movie is very slow, very less story, not great dialogues, and average music. 3 good things in the movie though, 1. Sharman Joshi, I think he has given a very honest performance, kind of liked his acting in this one. 2. The leading actress, Chitrangada singh looks too good, and again, 2nd person to get into my list, which seems to be easily accepting people now a days. 3. Wit in Boman Irani’s dialogues, some of them are genuinely funny, and some over the top.
What would have really made this a great movie, would be some really interesting conversation between the lead pair, I mean these kind of emotional movies, need good words, and deep ones, somehow I found that was lacking in the movie.