Wonder what's been keeping me busy ?

If you are wondering what has kept me busy for the past 8 months.....wonder for a few more days cuz I plan to update this blog with stuff that has happened to me these 8 months.

I just hope that I find time to jot down whatever I remember, just to keep record for my own future references.

A day will come when I can go through all these posts, reminiscent and get nostalgic about.

Having my fingers crossed that I do find time for some personal space and work.

Movie Reviews - Sivi, Katrathu Tamil, MalaiKottai, Cashback, You Kill Me, Lucky You, Breach, Hot Fuzz, Wild Hogs, I think I love my wife

Movie Reviews: The order of this list does not have any meaning. The only reason Sivi is Top of the list is because it's one of my nick names :)

Sivi

New Faces, an interesting story line and some extra-ordinary sound effects. I went in to this movie instead of Marudamalai for the sole reason that this movie had my nick name as it's title.

Only after some time did I realize that this movie is a Thriller. Apart from all the cat calls and the general movie histrionics that can be expected from a crowd that comes to a theatre like Sai Shanthi, this was a decent movie flick (Probably thanks to the only girl in the theater, who was also really good looking, who happened to sit right in front of me :D ). One can watch it once in the theatre just for the histrionics of the movie going crowd.

There were certain scenes which were really scary, though one would expect such a shocking scene, thanks to the background music, you still can’t be well prepared for it though. All round bad acting through out the movie thanks to the new comers. However the story and the way it was told (the screenplay) are really interesting at times. Not a bad watch after all.

November 13th 2007: Just came to know that the Music Director for this movie was a kid who's about 22 or something...Good score...Kudos...

Katrathu Tamil

What can one say about such a movie. The entire movie theatre was agog for the movie to end, right from the 10th or the 20th minute into it. That should sum it up for all. The only reason I agreed to watch this movie was because it starred Jeeva who happens to be the brother of one of my College mate Ramesh. Yes, he’s an actor too, though not a great one today. I’ll wish them both my best for the future. (Okay, I’ve lost touch with him, still I can brag one day that Ramesh, when he’s very popular that he drove me home on more than one occasion :D. Even now I am very sure of the verbiage I’ll use in Tamil when I say this story years into the future J )
I read somewhere that the Debutant Director had brought out the social inequalities prevailing in Tamil Nadu really well. To my knowledge the people I know who have studied Tamil Literature are really doing well because they derive satisfaction in what they do. They love teaching, doing research works on Tamil culture and relish spreading the beauty that is the Tamil language.

Yes it’s given that, not many people respect Tamil Scholars, however they do have their own place in our country and society. The literates revere them. For that matter, not everyone who works in IT or ITES / BPO or Call Center (as one character portrays a Call Center Agent role) earn 2 Lakhs or 40K per month. There are many who still are struggling to make ends meet.

I do not subscribe whole heartedly to the director’s message, not because I am from the IT/ITES industry that the Director is so vehemently against, however for the sole reason that he should have tried to bring it out in a different way. The feeling that I got and that spoke out to me after the movie was the feeling of jealously and hatred. Nothing more and nothing less.

I wonder why the Director chose this subject, when one who’s not even that successful in the film industry can earn in lakhs and crores. Probably 10% of the people working in Films will be able to live a lavish life while the rest 90% will be still making their ends meet. It’s prevalent in all walks of life. Lots of people in my industry do struggle to meet up with the Maslow’s Safety needs even after working their ass off for many years.

Total waste of money this, if you ask me. And I can hear some of my friends asking me after reading this post “Nejamathan solluriya da” (Watch this movie and you’ll understand the context of these words :D )

MalaiKottai

Totally unbelievable movie (the action is not at all believable). Action packed. Some really good and literally un-believable action scenes. The same old Vishal masala movie. I guess Vishal has learned to act a bit better than his earlier movies. How unfortunate the song’s in the movie has no relevance in the context of the story. You can watch it once just for fun and to me only that matters. Having fun for 2 to 3 hours while you are in a theater.

These are the movies I watched over the last couple of months. I want to keep a track of some of the not so famous Movies I watch. Therefore, posting them here. No time to review these at this time. Sorry.

Cashback

You Kill Me

Lucky You

Breach

Hot Fuzz

Wild Hogs

I think I love my wife

Fracture

Diwali Releases : 13th November 2007

Vel

Cast: Suriya, Suriya and Asin

Yep, Suriya in Dual role. Twins who get separated when they were babies. One grows up in the city while the other is bred in a village. Hari is the director of this one. The one who directed Saamy and Kovil. Madan, a movie critic when reviewing Kovil said this about Hari: “ It’s hard to belieive that the person who worshiped Saamy, has built this Kovil. ”

Vel is a masala movie which has some good moments thanks to Vadivelu and Suriya. Asin is under utilized in this one. I felt sad that Asin has also fallen into this category of Heroines. Guess no one can help, as the industry is like that. Her market will be there for 4 to 5 years and probably she needs to make the most of it while her beauty lasts J. Would have liked to seen her in a better role. Don’t think she has done her bit in any movie after Ghajini.

Polladhavan.

Cast: Dhanush.

Disclaimer: This review may be biased as I do not have a liking for Dhanush. Just for fact that his movies are not my cup of tea.

OMG. When I was waiting outside Albert Theater, Egmore, Chennai, India, I happen to notice one of the posters proclaiming Dhanush to be the “Bruce Lee of South India”. I had a laugh riot just reading it. Again a masala movie action packed. Don’t think I remember anything worthwhile in this movie though I watched it only about 4 days back. Music was boring, the action was kind off natural at times. The anti-hero character was good at times. The homosexual villain in Vettayadu Villayadu is the villain here. During the last action sequence me and one of my friends (a misguided soul) had an argument over the title “Bruce Lee of South India”. Don’t think it’s relevant here. However, it’s ok to watch these kind off movies during the opening week in a theater like Albert, where the crowd ain’t shy to dance in the aisles or to whistle throughout the intro song.

After reading the reviews I’ve written, I think I like the Theater experience more than the movies I watch. That sums it up.

Hopefully I’ll get around to posting this atleast today. Think I wrote the first 2 reviews back in October. 11th October to be precise. Am plain old lazy, guess I can’t help it.

Hope is Life...

Another month goes by and I still exist in this world. Though I bring no value to this world, I ensure I don't take anything away from it as well.

Another one of my creations penned way back in 2002-2003, the Golden era (not literally) when I was at my creative peak, so to speak. I don't consider this worthy of bearing my name, however, here it is: (I do need to post something here, the solemn promise I made to myself lives on for another month)


Hope is Life

Once in your lifetime, You would have thought that
What am I doing with my life?
You might think that your future is blank.
You may think your career is in a crossroads.
You may think that you have made bad choices.
You may even think that life is full of shit.
But know this, Whatever happens, happens for a reason.
You are here for a reason.
There is a purpose for your existence.
Think of this whenever you feel down, whenever you feel that that life sucks.
Everything happens for the Greater good,
Always think of this after every failure.
“HOPE IS LIFE.”

G. Siva Shankar

Another mindless Post..just to pass time....

It’s the beginning of a new month though it’s going to be another 30 days of Mundane tasks, I thought why not kick this month off with a new post. By the looks of my previous post my readership has possibly increased by 300%. I wonder whether my marketing and advertising blitz has paid its dividends. If only I had done a better job at the Marketing part guess I could have probably boosted my Blogs readership by another 300% or so. Well there’s always the possibility for this post to surpass the earlier one.

The comments for the previous ones ranged from “STFU” to “You could do better” I take all those Comments from a Constructive Criticism perspective. My family members have suggested that I write something that has got some substance in it, so that it could be more useful to me going forward and also to my readers. I wonder how I can do that. Though I consider myself to have a wealth of knowledge on irrelevant things, I am not sure how I can package them to be useful to someone else. The gamut of knowledge I am talking about is nothing compared to people I have seen blog ranging from dissecting a work of art, be it books or be it Plays. I do have knowledge / information however I do not find it useful for my personal use. Having said this, I do know that a person who’s keen to learn will take away something from these blogs. And that is where my success as a blogger lies.

I used consider myself as a person with a wide plethora of words in my vocabulary. Nowadays, I doubt that. Guess, when you don’t utilize your so-called talents you corrode them little by little. Certain attributes (I wanted to use the word Trait, however as per a friend and colleague, Trait signifies some character flaws in people) in people can be utilized only in certain situations. Not every talent / expertise can be useful in all situations, that’s what I have come to learn in the past 15 days. Which means to say that my wide vocabulary is not going to help me in all situations. In certain situations I may be able to utilize it and in certain other situation I may have to rely on my supplementary attributes that I might eventually discover hidden within me.

I have spent a considerable amount of time in the past 4 months with people who are not from my line of work. Meaning I cannot, as per them, understand the nuances or the intricate details that they are facing cause I am not from their background or I am not familiar with their current situation. To put it simply, I lack perspective. Though I respect these guys and also admire them, I do not subscribe to their point wholly. Yes not everyone can look at things from the other person’s shoes. Yet, I do pride myself in my ability to perceive and judge empirically. (This is only for Romee, if at all he happens to find the time to read this. No offence meant here Romee :D )

There is a saying “Do upon to others as you would have them do upon to you” I think this is from the Bible. The simple meaning of this is “Treat others as you would like them to treat you.” Though lots of people proclaim that they are non-judgmental, I guess during the course of time, one becomes judgmental. I recently had the opportunity to interact with certain people due to sheer luck and what I observed was that one of my recent acquaintances was very quick to judge me cause of their past relationships with others. And when I pointed out that this is not the case, all they said was “You’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all”. I thought only critics comparing a certain genre of movies used this quote. How grossly I was mistaken.

Since my last post was around 3 pages long in a normal A4 Word Document, I wanted to keep this short, cause I don’t have anything specific to write about this time (As if that has stopped me in the past :D ). This was just to kill time so to speak. I am sure that when my Marketing and Advertising campaigns pays out, I can expect comments ranging from “You better Kill yourself” to “Could be Better” again. Guess I am addicted to taking risks and challenging certain people’s patience or their tolerance level (the 3 people who I am talking about are sure to understand this). One thing I could say to these impatient guys is that, reading my blogs you are sure to better your tolerance levels :).

Well, after another endless and pointless discussion or post I am going to end the readers agony and mental duress here. May God bless you all and May you live long enough for me to pester you more in the forthcoming days and years.

A Horrifying Experience.....

I never thought I'll go through such a horrifying experience in my life. Yesterday morning was one of the most forgetful days in my life. Though it was a horrendous, horrifying, horrible, hair raising and all the words starting with H signifying terrifying experiences. I pray to God that none will be subjected to this kind off experience in their lifetime.

After close to 5 months, only this incident has egged me to write a post here. Think what kind off an experience this should have been. To wake me from my Blogging slumber and share this experience with all my readers. Probably not more than 3 people will read this, still this is a fair warning for the future generations who inadvertently might stumble on my blog :).

One thing that's good from a blogging perspective is that you can learn a lot of things, personal experiences, career guidance, way of life, etc. And this will remain open for the entire world till time infinite or at least till Google is around. As always, let me not digress.

Yesterday was like just another day in the offing, or so it looked till around 11am IST. (Again this is for the benefit for all my International Readers, not that I know of any, but still one can always hope.) This dreadful incident occurred thanks to the Indian Government and their not so perfect 5 year plans. Had they been a little meticulous and a little more future looking, even more so than they were, it would have spared me from going through such an experience (Think I need to look up some synonyms for experience, I have used it way too many times already. 9 till now.).

Had the Infrastructure of this country been more robust, don't think I would have undergone this kind off a horrible incident in my life. Not that I am trying to build any mystery or anything on this event (hmm..actually I am trying my best to shroud this in mystery till the last possible minute :D. I don't even have a shred of humility in me.). Either ways, one of my friends has asked me to look at things from a Positive note, so I think the positive thing here is that this event however horrible, terrifying, horrendous, heinous it may have been still has made me write this post. Which in turn will help a lot of people who'll eventually end up reading this. So there's the Positive outlook for this bit. :)

Anyways, coming back to the original occurrence. At around 11am IST (GMT + 5:30 for highly educated folks and Indian Time for simple minded folks ) on 9th August 2007, Thursday in 13.04 N & 80.17 E (Chennai for simple minded people), I was intently watching one of my favorite movies, The Bourne Supremacy, there was a Power Outage (Current failure for simple minded people again :) ) in my neighborhood. Unfortunately this power outage affected my house as well and since neither me or my parents thought that a Genset (Generator for simple minded folks and UPS for Technically inclined folks.) was a neccessity in our lives, I had to bear the brunt of the smoldering heat of Chennai.

Being a person who has gotten acclimatized to cool temperatures, I was unable to bear the heat and was looking for other alternatives. Now, I had planned a trip to Hyderabad to meet a friend of mine, who has come back from his USA assignment bearing goodies, or so he says :D, which needs to be seen. Unfortunately one of my School friends who is studying for his MBA from an Premier B School known by the acronym ISB happens to be in Hyderabad as well . Now, whether it was my hard luck or lack of luck thereof, I don't get lots of oppurtunities to party with the fairer sex or just to party as such. This long time friend who happened to study in the same school as mine after getting transferred in the 11th Grade (11th standard for the Indians who read this.) and who happened to end up after jumping from the Biology Department to the Computer Science Department to the Sociology Department and finally to the Commerce Department ended up in my section. Fortunate for him and unfortunate for me, just kidding J.

So when I elucidated about my planned trip to Hyderabad to this long time friend, he asked whether I was inclined to meet with him. I, as always, being a nice guy, gave him an affirmation and also enquired about his well being, how he's faring and whether there was anyone interesting he has met (I read somewhere once, that single people going for a MBA will by the time they complete it will be committed). He was kind enough to offer that he’ll introduce me to a person from the fairer sex, whom I was obsessed with (per him and our mutual friends). Being a 26 year old guy with no relationship with the fairer sex that one can boast about I was tempted and intrigued to take up on the offer. However, there was one stipulation that came along with the offer. I need to part with something that I have cherished for the past 2 years. It was a part of me. Something that took me over 2 years to nurture and grow. Something I cared about and have done things that are not in my nature to protect it. MY LOCKS (Hair for simple minded people). He said that he was doing me a favor and all other stuff to make me feel good about it, just to make me feel a little better. Nice try J.

When the Power went out in my house and when I was sweating profusely, I took the decision to visit a Hair Stylist (Note this Hair Stylist and not a Barber :D). Probably I was of unsound mind when I took this decision, the stress of sweating and the heat probably had its toll on my sanity. Unfortunately that day was the first time after a long time that, I did keep up an appointment, regretfully though. Now I guess my dear readers (people who know me very well) would have got an idea (if not the whole picture), what horrific / tragic experience I’ve been rambling about in this post :D.

Things were not working for me. The Powers to be were conspiring against me and what can one mere mortal like me do against the Omni-Potent one so YES, I went and had a haircut. The whole idea was to cut my hair short and get rid of my Macho look (that’s what I call it), while others categorized it as Dhoni Look. People have heckled at me, calling me “Dhoni” and all, on more than one occasion. When I was visiting Pudukottai for a friend’s marriage, I did over hear a couple of people under the influence of alcohol call me Dhoni and also when I went for the India vs. West Indies cricket match in Chennai. At the cricket stadium there was quite a number of “grown-up” folks who did call out to me as Dhoni, thanks to another friend of mine who motivated them to carry on calling me Dhoni ( Thanks K for that, BUGGER ). Much to my amusement and my embarrassment. Not that I don’t like Dhoni or anything, just the mere principle that I would like to be known to the world for my own achievements and not be a shadow figure for a celebrity. There was a lot of fanfare and people derived pleasure by calling out to me.

Now coming back to the horrific incident, as I sat in front of the mirror at the Hair Stylist’s place I was really sad by the fact that I have to get rid of 2 years of my hard work. There were things I had done to grow such long and lustrous tresses, which made me proud and happy. One thing dawned on me as I sat brooding looking at my reflection on the mirror, I love my hair and it’s going to be really hard and very strenuous (mentally) for me to cut it. So I decided to appease my ISBian friend and have a go at it nonetheless. So here I am writing this with a hair length that’s shorter by an inch and a half and still feeling a bit sad for the things I do to meet the fairer sex.

PS: I am not that shallow, I didn’t cut my hair for the above said reason, however for the sole reason I shall elucidate in the later posts, hopefully no later than end of August 2007. :D

2. All this for a "M" (Tamil speaking guys would be able to enumerate more on this)

Nothing for the past month and a half

It's been hard to find time to post stuff here. Work is getting a little hectic. So as to not wanting to disappoint my regular readers here's a blog of one of my friends, who should be updating his blog regularly as he's Totally VETTI nowadays. Here's the Link: http://alfa-q.blogspot.com/

I know it won't be of my standards, atleast you can have some fun out of it.

The Prestige

Starring: Hugh Jackman (Wolverine), Christian Bale (Batman) and Michael Caine.

Disclaimer: Spoiler may be included in this review. Read on only if, you don’t mind getting a hint to the ending.

When I saw the trailer of this movie, I understood what the plot was. And when I saw who the actors were, I realized this is a movie of Batman Versus Wolverine, because both the lead actors have played those parts and are well known for them as well (at least to me).

Christopher Nolan the guy who directed Batman Begins is at the helm of this movie. Guess, that’s the reason for Bale to be cast in this movie. Not that I don’t like Bale, I thoroughly enjoyed watching him play the part of The Dark Knight in Batman Begins.

Everything takes place somewhere around the 1800’s. The movie starts off with Hugh Jackman being drowned and Bale being accused for his death. It made me wonder how in hell does the lead get killed in the first frame. Then I realized that like some movies, the events happen in the past, something we refer to fondly as “Flashback”. Just the end scene of this movie will give you the chills. “Cloning Redefined”. This makes you wonder if Thomas Alva Edison were born a decade later, would we be living in different times.

Hugh Jackman was spectacular so was Bale, apart from certain occasions. Christian Bale’s accent stood out for me during the entire movie. I never got a hint of this in Batman Begins. Not sure whether he’s trying to play the part or is he really from London. Michael Caine comes and plays his part quietly as always. Scarlett Johansson also stars in the movie. Though I was not particularly interested or impressed with her performance. Till the end it makes you wonder who’s the better man. Who’s the Hero and who’s the Villain.

One real good movie that would leave you spell bound. It’s a movie about obsession’s and how and what an obsessed person would do to satisfy himself. The subject was handled really smoothly and it does have an impact on the audience in the end.

The way the story unravels left me amazed and I don’t think, I would mind watching it more than once, if at all this makes to the Theatres here in Chennai. With the number of Multiplexes cropping up all over Chennai, I am very optimistic of this movie being released in a Theater near you soon.

Creative Genius Within Me - Realisation

I was going through my old works, the poems and all, when I realized that I have lost my Creative side over the years. I used to jot down stuff whenever I feel like it. I penned 5 poems in 2002 in a single day. I was at work and they asked for contributions from the employees for the Companies Internal Magazine. So me and my friends just for the heck of it started writing some things to submit. I was successful in writing 5 poems back to back. They were not great however I would like to think of them as at least good enough for that Magazine.

We refined them a little bit and by the end of the day I was ready with 5 submissions, however I submitted only 2 amongst the 5 and one of them got published in the next issue. I become an instant celebrity in my office, on the day it was distributed in the office. People, who I didn’t know, came up to me and congratulated me for that. I didn’t even know at that time, the Magazine had been distributed and it carried my so-called poem as well. After about 3 or 4 people approached me, I asked around and found out that they have published it, along with my photo. No wonder people recognized me. I was ecstatic. That was my second published work; the first was a poem I wrote during my 11th Standard (11th Grade, for my international readers J), which was published, in my school magazine. Unfortunately I lost that poem since Email, Blogs weren’t that popular in 1996 in India. I don’t have a hard copy of the magazine, so it’s lost to my knowledge.

To be very honest all it takes me in those days was about an hour to jot down a decent poem, which made sense to others and me. However, nowadays even if I rattle my brain for a whole day, I am unable to come up with 4 or 5 lines, which make sense to me, let alone to others. Guess I have lost the Creative Genius in me over the course of time.

Just to reminiscence here is one from the past….

Realisation

When I started my journey in the path of life,

Things appeared to be beautiful and mysterious,
Everything and everyone excited me and made me anxious,
That someday I would come to understand,
How they work and why they fascinated me.

As I continued down this path,
All these things which fascinated, made me anxious,
No longer did.
And these things and people were different as time went on.

Through my journey in life,
Things often appeared to be different.
And I could never understand why it was like this.
As I reached my destination,
I sat down.
Saw my life pass before my eyes,
I came to realize that

Things never change,
It’s just that,
I have changed through the years.
And so has my way of seeing things.

G. Siva Shankar

Movie Reviews for the week of 15th January 2007 – 18th January 2007

Nacho Libre

Starring: Jack Black

Watched this movie because it had Jack Black in it. Though it was not that great, it was an okay movie. Probably when you are bored and don’t know what to do with the time, you could watch this. I don’t think this warrants anything more than these few lines.

Grandma’s Boy.

Though this movie had no big Superstar cast in it. This was also an Okay movie. The only thing that interested me in this movie was that it was about Video Games. It’s about a Videogame Tester who’s 35, when all the other testers are teens or pre-teens. No plot, no storyline, just another comedy flick, which does tickle your rib at times. The leading lady was good looking. And the Games that come in this movie, I haven’t played any of them. I never knew how the time flew in this movie. It was a short movie, however it was average.

Failure to Launch

Starring: Matthew McConaughey and Sarah Jessica Parker

Another Comedy movie or should I say Romantic Comedy movie. This one is another all right movie. Tripp (Matthew McConaughey) lives with his parents even though he’s over 30, has good job etc. His parents conspire to get him out of the house, by setting him up with Paula (Sarah Jessica Parker), who’s claims to be a professional in doing that. The movie starts of well. However by the end of it you can really, at least I could, predict the ending. Guess, that’s what happens when you watch about 4 movies in a day. Another Timepass movie if you ask me. Nothing more, nothing less.

RV

Starring: Robin Williams.

Another Comedy movie. Probably can categorize it as a Family Drama cum Comedy movie. Again I watched this because Robin Williams was there. Not a big deal, just another run of the mill comedy movie. You get to laugh here and there. However I enjoyed most of the movie. It was fun to watch this and I don’t think it would be a waste of time for anyone watching this. And yes, I knew the ending of this movie as well. J Guess I need to do something about this. You want to laugh for a bit, watch this one.

Matador.

Starring: Pierce Brosnan, Greg Kinnear.

Pierce Brosnan is a Hitman and Greg Kinnear is an entrepreneur of a startup company. They meet at the bar, in an unusual manner, which turns into a friendship and how it goes around. There is no big plot; this just rides on Brosnan’s and Kinnear’s acting skills. The movie is Good. It does have some scenes where you will laugh and at certain point you will feel satisfied watching this movie. I was intrigued by this from the very beginning because 2 of my favorite actors were in it. I liked Kinnear for his earlier movies like As Good as it Gets, You’ve got mail, Stuck on you, etc. Stuck on you probably was one movie I really liked of Kinnear’s.

As for Brosnan, though I was not that fond of his Bond Movies, I liked Tailor of Panama and the Thomas Crown Affair. There was something in those movies, which really made me watch them more than once. However, this movie went on well and I don’t think I will be watching this one more than once. That being said, I guess you could watch this movie once and feel happy about it. I don’t think I regretted watching this movie.

The Howards of Virginia.

Starring: Cary Grant

This is an OLD Movie. It’s in Black & White, that should give you a reasonable idea on how old this is. I watched the movie for only one reason, CARY GRANT. My brother has a liking to Grant and therefore, I watch all the movies of his as well, because I can get my hands on his movies rather easily, without any effort on my part.

This movie was a no-brainer and being an old movie made before Technicolor was introduced. This was not a bad movie, nor was it a good movie. I didn’t like that story line that much. The sole reason being this is a movie about the Colonization of US and why the Americans hated it so much. Since I don’t know the history I can’t understand it.

Once upon a time.

Starring: Cary Grant.

This one movie was really good; this one triggered me to watch all of Cary Grant’s movies. Nice Story line, good acting and a touch of humor. One thing I needed to remember while watching this movie was that this was released when there was a War going on all over the world. Therefore, in that context it was a good movie. This is about a Theater owner whose recent productions haven’t been that successful. And he is about to loose his Theater if he doesn’t come up with $100,000 within a week. As luck would have it he comes across a phenomenon, which could wipe away all his worries. Now how he handles it and whether or not he gets his theater back is the story.

The way the story was told is really amazing and I liked the way that Grant had handled some of his scenes. Especially the last couple of scenes. One good movie I would recommend, no matter what.

The Talk of the Town.

Starring: Cary Grant.

This movie was really good as well. I think what made it really good apart from the actor’s, was how humor was intertwined with a really serious story. It has a good plot and it was nicely told. The story is about a guy called Leopold Dilg (Cary Grant) who gets wrongly convicted for a crime and everyone in the town hates him for that. Dilg escapes from the law and takes refuge in a house, where by coincidence a great Legal mind, Michael Lightcap (Ronald Colman) will vacation to write a book. How Dilg and Nora Shelly, the landlord of the house, connive to get Michael Lightcap to involve in the Dilg case.

There were really funny scenes in how Colman and Grant play with each other. Their conversations are really interesting. In the end, alls well that ends well. So everything is hunky-dory. The plot and the direction is one thing that really made me watch this movie, though it’s in Black and White, this was a one hell of a movie.

LayerCake

Starring: Daniel Craig

This may be a spoiler for the movie.

I came to hear about this movie by chance when I was chatting with 2 of my friends about Hollywood movies. Though both are originally from Chennai, one did his MBA in Mumbai and currently working there as well. While the other completed his MS in the US and working there as well, calls it HOME now. Just after 5 years of being there he has started calling it his Home. Anyways, let me not digress. While we were chatting intelligently on English movies we drifted to Guy Ritchie movies and eventually they ended up talking about Layercake. Now intrigued I got to know about the story line and what mainly interested me was Daniel Craig. I liked him in Casino Royale and after how these guys described the movie and his acting skills, I had to see it.
I got lucky as well to get this movie in my hands. I was going through some CD’s and DVD’s that I had borrowed from a friend, just to see which and all I need to return to him, I found this movie in that pile. The funny thing is that I’ve had this movie for close to 2 years and didn’t even know it was such a good movie. (Yes I seldom return borrowed stuff and yes I liked this movie as well J)

Daniel Craig in his pre-Bond role is not that strongly built. Looks like he has beefed up after this movie. The movie is about Drug Dealers in London. Daniel Craig is a middleman who is planning to retire. However, his boss asks him to do a couple of things for him. He gets involved in things that go way beyond his control. Now how he manages and how this ends is the best part of the movie.

Craig plays his part really with ease and you find him as a guy who’s afraid and not so comfortable with violence, unlike what he was in Casino Royale. He’s a smart guy who knows his way around the Drug dealing world and. This is about how he maintains a low profile and how he gets the job done without being caught.

The end of the movie only I realized that he’s never been named, in the sense, his role has no name and I really didn’t catch on that. During the end credit as well, his role is credited as XXXX alone. I watched the movie once again to see if they had used any name for his role and they haven’t. This is one thing that I was taken aback on how I didn’t catch on with my entire movie watching experience. Another 2 hours spent well.

Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.

Starring: Jason Statham

I think I would watch any movie that has Jason Statham in it. This is a movie by Guy Ritchie. This has got a lot of humor in it and a lot of accent. I don’t think many can follow what these guys are really saying in the movie, they talk so fast and also with that accent of theirs it’s so damn difficult to understand them.

I watched this not only because Jason Statham acted in it but also because it was Guy Ritchie’s who directed this one. Only now when I am typing this review did I understand why the title of the movie is so apt. Guess, I didn’t realize this earlier. Either ways another good movie to watch. (Looks like I don’t give any movie a bad rating, guess I need to watch some Hindi movies to do that :D ).

Yeah I know it’s a big list and you guys are wondering where I get the time to watch all this. Well, the secret is to be in your bed and get up only to change the DVD. I think I need to get some extra-curricular activities lined up soon. Otherwise, this list may go from 4 per day to 6 per day. There were other movies I watched, however I don’t think they deserved a review. More to come soon….