Thursday, September 4, 2008

Rock On

Fresh. Just like Eau De Cologne.

Those of you who still smile to yourself watching Dil Chahta Hai and like the non Punjabi hurling subtlety of Lakshya, you would probably want to watch this movie.

The script though loose at places has an over all nice and pleasant feels throughout and the execution is superb.

I have always rued at the lousy sets we put up for performing artists in our country. Any of you remember that ghastly set they put up when Michel Jackson performed in Bombay? I was embarrassed. And then there were the sets at the rock shows in this movie. I enjoyed them as much as I enjoyed the music and the rest of the movie.

The ‘rock star’ do was’nt over done – just perfect it was. In their bid to touch on realism, the background of all the characters was very well depicted. My personal favorite was “When have the Mascarenhas ever done anything of substance?! This sure did clear a lot of my doubts on Anglo’s :) Farhan plays an investment banker and can be seen advising his clients to invest into infrastructure. Clearly, the scriptwriter was clued on in the mid 2007 rally. So what if my ICICI Infra fund is down 20% now? Of course, the scene where he switches on the NSE screen ‘just like that’ was a bit too much. The attention to detail was again missing when the ‘long lost’ music notes are found. It looked as though it was just torn from a new matrix note book. But come on.. these things don’t matter.

The sets are wonderfully designed, and Farhans apartment was wow! I notice the Buddha statues quite often in the movie and am wondering if I missed a clue. Like the ones Google leave here and there. This has to be one of the better designed rock show sets I’ve seen in India. Very aesthetic and the sets were clued on to the signature of the entire movie. The lighting was good, very nicely capturing the intensity of the scenes and you can see all the work that’s gone behind this.

Farhan - Farhan’s rock star do would make you smile just like DCH did. I notice though, the dramatic and intense scenes had the camera cutting away from his face. They focused on him in short bursts and had several back to camera portions. But otherwise, his do was great. Remember, its not the easiest of things to capture the energy one associates with a live performances and look natural at that. It was superbly captured and could easily pass over as a real professional rock concert. And Farhan the singer? He was awesome and you have to hear him croon!

Purab Kohli – Without doubt the film’s stand out actor. Most of the time it looked like he was doing his usual Channel V stuff. Super screen presence.

Arjun Rampal, probably it was his toned down character that didn’t quite add to his screen presence. But nice stuff as the lead guitarist. Except that I didn’t notice his fingers strum.

Luke Kenny – This dude was awesome! Very subtle and marvelously held his own against the other three.

Prachi and Shahana the lady leads were very good.

On a microscopic view, maybe the sum of the parts didn’t quite convincingly add up, however the parts in toto very brilliantly executed.

The entire rock concert scenes were very will shot. Not only did they bring out the naturally contagious energy a rock concern usually serves up but used the different zoom in tone they use at the real rock concerts to capture the crowd enthusiasm.

The last cheer among the audience was when the movie ended rolling - “Don’t download the music, buy the CD”

Thursday, August 28, 2008

JC Cafe

Non descript – decent food

Two reasons for checking out this place: (a) Reviews by fellow burrp’ers and (b) its close to my office.

The first question on seeing this place was ‘Whoa! This is good real estate.. whats a non descript café doing here?’ Of course, then came the missionary back ground and things fit onto place.

The interiors are pistachio green and furniture a mix of plane Jane diners and a sofa set. It was after office hours and I crashed on the sofa. They had some good reading material and lot of biblical literature. They had nice gospel music playing. ‘Its South (U.S) so the lyrics are good’ I was told. Oh, like ah? I thought.

I began chatting up the owner and ordered my food. I ordered a club sandwich and lasagna.

Club Sandwich – the menu screamed ‘tough to handle’ or something like that. ‘Good’ I thought. I was hungry and nice portions were welcome. But what came was a disappointment. Though the French fries were good, the sandwich in itself pretty ordinary. A club sandwich is well…. a CLUB sandwich! Mammoth volumes of fillings with an evenly toasted exterior is what a clubbie is – not three toasted slices with mid some filling’s! Was’nt too happy.

Chicken Lasagna – Remember that last ball six that Javed Miandad hit at Sharjah? The chicken lasagna was some thing like that and came just in time to salvage what ever the sandwich had let me down on. It was sooper awesome. The portions were great and no kanjoosi with the chicken. And honey, garlic bread is not ‘modern bread’ toasted with butter with a garlic essence. It’s a wholesome piece of bread by itself. Anyways, it was good and nicely priced at Rs. 125. If you go for the combo you get some more stuff @ Rs. 150/-

If any of you want to ‘get lost’ and don’t want to be seen, this is the place. Catch up with all the magazines, listen to some music and generally laze. Am a bit confused with the rating.. between 3 and 4 is what I would say. I don’t wanna give 4 coz at that price the sandwich was lousy, how ever the lasagna deserved a 5. So I’ll be good and give it a 4.

Oh, yours truly could not resist giving the owner a few tips on what menu should be like J “Lebanese and Arabic would be exotic” said me. “Oh thanks, we’ll keep that in mind”.

Monday, August 4, 2008

The Seasons - Review - Yummmm

This easily is one of the most underrated restaurants in the city. We opted for the buffet, and after a brief discussion on why its ‘buffey’ and not ‘buff-ett’ I maroed my ‘It’s a proper noun’ funda and we started with the soup. Note: Never ever stuff thyself with soup while on a gorging trip. We dutifully stuck to the note and after a few sips set aside the soup tanker.

The place is nicely done up with minimal woodwork, but some how does’nt resonate the old world charm its meant to conjure. I somehow feel tastefully done up wood work should go with minimalist lighting.

The staff were very friendly and efficient. They served crisp medu vada’s with the soup. We had a formality bite at them. The spread was, well, very well spread. The south Indian variety screamed a lot of varieties and we gave them a miss, heading to the continental counter. The counter had good helpings on red meat – and I was very impressed with the Ice Base – all the servings were atop ice rocks. Not sure if Ive seen this before, looked very appealing and nice. While we were gorging on this, the friendly staff served us grilled chicken and grilled fish. The grilled fish, I must say was good. My friend pointed out they ought to have been marinated to give them a more succulent flavor. Point. This was a good marketing tactic as well –when ure served with something in addition to what’s on the spread and the live counter, the feeling of ‘ahh.. what value.. what service’ is conjured. Very clever :)

I had an overdose of my old fave ‘Augration – with just Corn and Spinach’. The chicken meguri was good and the afgani murgh was standard fare. I gave the crushed lamb, aarthuri fish and sarsoonwali machi a skip. In between, I don’t recollect what we had. We asked for the grilled fish refill once again. The rest of the fare included an array of lentils, north Indian dishes, south Indian fare, subjees and the like .. nice elab dressings and toppings... and much more. Oh I forgot, we were served Pizza in the middle and we asked for a Aapam and cheese (i think) Omlette at the live counter. The desert options were on the lower side I thought. All the standards were there, though what stood out was a a simple Nawabi dish - Shahi Tukda. It was rusk thoroughly drenched in think malai and was yummy. Approximately 4 hours, and we were finally done with our lunch. Given the duration of our luncheon, I wish they had more comfortable seats :)

Over all, great food, good service and good value for the dough.

Ps - here's the kicker for those who drink - on Sunday's, ure served unlimited draught beer for free.

Monday, June 16, 2008

The helium surrounding the release of Dasa took me to Sangam theater on a very drab Sunday afternoon. Considering the group reviews it looks like I'll be the only exception. If it has to, so be it - I was much saddened by the movie.

I had the opportunity of working with him on Hey Ram and Anbe Sivam and learnt from him and his crew a few aspects of film making like Continuity, Sets, Lighting, Scripting etc. I defended him after Hey Ram (to my friends) and blamed them for not being able to understand the concept of the great man.

But he's clearly tried to stretch his definition of creativity once more.

The pure novelty of getting to don 10 roles carried him away. The script connecting the 10 characters was very loosely done, bad movie sets, unconvincing background extras, pathetic voice overs of extras, bad make up. But bad make up? Is this not the USP of the movie ??

His makeup was nothing to write home about. He has stretched his novelty with plaster of paris on his face a bit too far. I remember gasping at his do of Indian Thatha and Avai Shanmugi. But the potches on his face in this case seemed very artificial unless you wanted to keep your eyes shut and not question the great man's sense of asthetics of make up.

Thank God for the 12th century priest part of it - he was the Kamal I wanted to see in all the remaining 9 roles.

But why am I looking for sense in a movie?? Ain't I just supposed to see it and forget it?
Well, differentiation has been used by us in every sphere of life... Commercially (WTO Vs Non WTO), Socially (I'll refrain from examples), etc.. and its exactly this that makes us want to set apart a Kamal from the crowd... and chant his name in the same bracket as one would associate a Satyajit Ray or a Akiro Kurosowa. So I guess it was not him, but me, who let myself down.

But yes, if quantity is king then the 10 roles are classic. Period.

Allow me the luxury of a cut and paste job from rediff:
"To tide over the disappointment of watching Dasavatharam, I am going to watch again the DVDs of timeless classics like Nayagan, Moodram Pirai, Sagara Sangamam, Michael Madana Kama Rajan and Pushpak. Let me see the Kamal Haasan I missed in Dasavathaaram."
I would add Anbe Sivam to that list.

The middling Kamal fan,
B.

Sunday, April 20, 2008

Hi ToI

More than 50% of the countries English speaking population is south of the Vindhyas; and a bulk contributory to that is Chennai. I’ve always been intrigued by the absence of the worlds biggest English daily in Chennai. The Times of India (ToI) finally caught up with the times and launched on the 14th of April ‘08 and I caught up with their Chennai edition last weekend.

I picked up the copy after my daily skim of the Hindu and I was fairly convinced that I wouldn’t find additional news worthy stuff (although what is news is fairly relative). I approached the ToI with a view to compare and contrast it with The Hindu. For an old ‘Hindu’ite, I may be forgiven for having approached the new one with a sense of contempt.

1. In a bid to get Chennai centric, they head lines was dominated by news of a robbery in a prominent Chennai Temple; where as The Hindu covered the India leg of the Olympic torch relay while relegating the news item on the temple to the bottom half of the front page.

2. Every thing else in the ToI cover page was Chennai centric (not exactly warranted of a national daily when u have a dedicated regional content) except one item – Prez Vladimir Putin’s girl frieds pic! Having known the ToI I was’nt as surprised. They showed her in a cheer leader’s attire, and to repeat, on the cover page. Just in case you’re wondering where the Hindu places the pic – it was on page 19 with a close up in formal attire – that’d pass for being a first lady or a diplomat. Hindu’s depiction is not because they perceive the region as conservative - going by the absolute trash Kollywood’s generated over the years its anything but that. It’s just editorial modesty.

3. With the overdose of the IPL in the media, ToI or Hindu or otherwise, it was nauseating to read anything more about the league. The same set of facts across different publications had begun to give me eye sore. It was the day before the IPL inaugural and the ToI had an entire supplement complementing the event with aggressive postures of the 6 team captains. They threw in a six pack flaunting Andrew Symonds as well. The Hindu restricted its coverage to 3 pages with the ‘now-boring-high-adjective-column’ of Nirmal Shekhar (to the uninitiated, Nirmal Shekhar is probably India’s best tennis correspondent and his columns post any of Leander Pace’s Davis Cup heroics make good reading), the ever articulate Peter Roebuck and some other guest columns.

4. This apart, most of the news worthy items was on par in both the papers. There were pics of beach wear clad women in the mid pages of ToI and I gave up figuring out their relevance.

5. Lastly, there was a mega page entertainment supplement with a rather average write up on Rajnikanth. The writer was apparently marveled at his stardom and threw in quotes of what his Bollywood cousins thought of him. Was a tad clichéd I thought.

End of day, am not sure what ToI’s trump cards going to be. It’s difficult to wean away reading habits of people and more so ever for readers of the Hindu as it offers a high level of visual and editorial differentiation when compared to the ToI, Hindustan Times, Statesman or the DC. I guess there’s space for all to survive and do well. Would I substitute my subscriptions to the ToI? No.

Sunday, March 2, 2008

Arbit

The past month has witnessed a plethora events that’d make great writing material… the birth of Kosovo, myriad run up to the budget, the sinking sensex, Aussie apology to the Aborgs and the consequent brick bats … .stuff I’ve witnessed in Bangladesh.. and sooo many others…

While am contemplate putting my thoughts down on each of them.. Virat Kholi and Co. have done it! I think Whatmore’e played a very big part in this. It was very professional of him to have agreed to coach a national U-19 considering his illustrious CV… Even otherwise… Its been a great period for Indian cricket… barring performance, it was great to see the on field confidence of the Indian team.. and above all their swagger .. something never ever remotely associated with India.

(Im commenting very late on the below... nevertheless..)

Post retirement, I think the North Block should seriously consider grabbing Kumble for the Diplomatic Corps. His handling of the entire tour has been simply marvelous and am sure he’s left a very many in awe with his articulate off field statesman like skills.

Friday, February 29, 2008

Budget Gab

In what could be P.C’ last for the next few years, he’s kept his Gab on the whole positive, sans the Rs.60, 000 Cr. Drubbing he’s given to his PSU Banks.

My favorites:

1. Hell with other tax chops – my favorite is the Rs. 50 Crore grant for the Tiger Reserve force :) Yayy... these beauties deserve more.

2. Although I detest to imagining what our roads might look like, the excise duty cut on the Motor segment is welcome. Apart from a little boost to domestic consumption, I think it will give a good fillip to our export competitiveness.

3. We can breathe easy for the first Rs.1.5 Lacs… Ummm.. four thousand bucks..

4. Women power re-enforced with a cool tax break for the first Rs. 1.85 L

5. Removal of dividend distribution taxation b/w subsidiary and holding cos.

What he could have done:

1. Ease the FBT mess for companies by exemption a little more services

2. That he’s increased Short Term capital gains to 15%, he very well could have increased the 80-C investment options to Rs.150,000

3. Rs.44 Crores ain’t enough to attract talent to our defense forces. He ought to have increased marketing for recruitment on this sphere. I hope the next pay commission does more for the defense forces.

4. While a lot of investments been promised for Agriculture he should have encouraged lending for Modernization of Agri. India’s agri productivity has been diminishing over the years and apart from power and fertilizer subsidies, more needs to be done on the mechanization front. I am on purpose not commenting on the whopping Rs.60, 000 farmer write off’s due to want of enough facts on the social .

5. Excise on Tobacco’s and liquor ought to have been increased

Lost his mind:

1. Excuse me for sounding blasphemous but Rs.1,000 for modernization of Madarsa’s ? I remember my colleague Chinmayee quoting a bureaucrat from Assam making this demand and I laughed it off. If only I knew what was coming.

2. Infrastructure’s been feeding a huge part of our 9 % growth rates. Nothing for them? The IT and ITeS is in a large way responsible for where we are today. No reference to any breaks for them? While P.C’s been very benevolent with Auto and FMCG this lack of apathy … especially for Infra beats me.