New Moon

Whee …. we are going to check this movie from the Twilight Saga tonite. I sincerely hope it’s better than the last one.

In fact B and I had decided we would not catch any more movies from the Twilight series after being bitterly disappointed with Twilight. The movie just did not live up to the book. But here we are, a year later, with great promos playing a big role in changing our minds (at least mine).

Hope it turns out to be a good end to the long week.

Hilarious

This “Wonderful Pistachios” advertisement had me and B is splits for a long time even after it ended. Enjoy!!

Quote

“Willpower is like a muscle: it needs to be challenged to build itself”

Read this interesting quote from an article in TOI:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life-style/health-fitness/fitness/Blame-will-power-for-missing-post-office-workout/articleshow/5054506.cms

Dassara – Sona watne

In Dassara, we have this tradition of giving Aapti tree leaves to everyone as ‘Sona’ (gold). I remember I would cherish the ones given by my grandfather and hold on to those leaves for a long time after Dassara.

Found this interesting link on the origin of this tradition:
http://www.panditjiusa.com/Dasara_Info.htm#Kautsas%20Gurudakshina

Just stumbled on the link while trying to learn more about Dassara, its associated mythological tales and traditions.

Just curious ….

As to how copyright works with television.

Examples:
1. This morning to advertise “Wizards of Waverly Place – The Movie” the channel used the Harry Potter theme music
2. KT Tunstall song – “Suddenly I See” – usage in the movie “The Devil wears Prada” and the Chase commercial

Few of the mister’s discoveries:
3. Clair de lune’s piece used in Ocean’s Eleven
4. A million of Mozart’s and Beethoven’s symphony’s used in advertisements and background scores in movies (If you think you haven’t heard Mozart and Beethoven, you will be surprised when you start listening to their music.)

So does the original composer get credit, when his/her music piece is used? How does it translate to monetary benefits?

Books and their movie adaptations

The past three movies I have seen have been adaptations from best-selling/prize-winning books:

- Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince
- Confessions of a Shopaholic
- To Kill a Mocking Bird

#1 – Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince – There was a lot of hoopla around this movie. I must say I was rather excited too. Re-read the book all over again (I have lost count of the number of times), in preparation for the movie. Unfortunately, the movie was a bit of a let-down. While I would see the movie again and tremendously admired Hermione’s and Snape’s acting, I would still not rate this as the best Harry Potter movie. I would rate the book as one of the best book in the series, though.

#2 – Confessions of a Shopaholic – Loved the book and liked the movie too. Though the movie was a fair bit different than the book (the book is based in London and the movie was based in NYC), I think it was adapted well. It made me want to re-read the entire series all over again (Just love the Rebecca Bloomwood character, cause I suppose, I could never be like her!). At least it was engrossing and did not miss the big events (clearly the HP sequel, lacked a whole lot in this department).

#3 – To Kill a Mocking Bird – Oh! Wow! Classic adaption of the book! All the characters played their roles to perfection. And Gregory Peck! The most brilliant actor I have seen! I have yet to see a movie starring Gregory Peck that is not good (Ok, you sadists, you need not take this seriously and point me in the direction of some!). Black and white, clean music and clean scenes do hold their charm, to-date.

Oh, and the reason I chose to talk about these three books and their movie adaptations, is because all three books are fantastic reads. And if you like the books, do not forget to catch “Confessions of a Shopaholic” and “To Kill a Mocking Bird”.

One of my favorite songs

Absolutely love this song from Guddi. Would love to learn how to sing it without derailing!

Singer: Vani Jayram
Music Director: Vasant Desai
Lyrics: Gulzar

Performed on screen by the lovely Jaya Bhaduri

HP is on my mind!

Harry Potter mania caught up with me about 3 – 4 years back! I have read most of the books multiple times (except for the 5th – just one perusal for that one!). Loved all the books and loved all the movies! Though I must say I was not very impressed with the Chamber of Secrets when I saw it for the first time (Dobby and his antics did not go down well with me and my entire group).

I am eagerly waiting for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Even caught the re-runs of the movies on ABC family, last weekend!

I have a complaint against J K Rowling. Why did she build the character Fleur and make her loose terribly in all the three tasks of the Tri-Wizard championship?? Now, I am not a staunch feminist. But why have a character, who is the only woman in the championship, and make her suck so badly? Anyone else feel the same?

Vaaranam Aayiram – misery of a movie

So, Brat & I saw Vaaranam Aayiram this weekend. I guess the title of this post about summarizes what I felt about the movie. I think the director was confused as to whether to make it a romantic movie, or a lessons-learnt based movie.

The movie was snail-paced. Nothing really happened, for the first half of the movie and more. It was about how the hero’s dad inspired him to become what he was, and his remembrance of the events at the time of his father’s death. I wonder why it had to heavily feature two of the hero’s love interests. And honestly my father has inspired me much more than the dad from that movie, and we don’t have a movie about our lives.

I wish director’s wouldn’t take good stars like Surya and Simran and make miserable movies like this one. That is a huge waste of talent.

Another thought on Tamil movies, why do heroes feel the need to do all the important roles in the movies, like Kamal Hassan in Dasavataram and now Surya in this movie (he is both the son and the dad). I think its an overkill.

Anyways, just felt like launching a complaint about a very bad movie (and I have great patience with movies)!! Do not see Vaaranam Aayiram, if you haven’t wasted your time doing that already. I wonder why I sat through the entire three hours??!!

Hello

Wow! This is the weekend of dusting cobwebs, literally and figuratively. Just noticed that my last post was on April 1st! Been a busy yet wonderful time the past couple of months – mom was here for a whirlwind six weeks, Brat and I made our yearly anniversary celebration trip (this time to Orlando), saw a new city on Memorial Day weekend – Indianapolis, learnt the art of mowing (that would be Brat, not me ), revived our lawn (phew!), read a few books, faced a few dissapointments, learnt new recipes. That’s life, isn’t it?

I am going to talk about “Marley and Me” first. I read this fantastic book while vacationing in Orlando, and it taught me a whole bunch of things. I have never had a pet (don’t think I ever will), so I was not sure if I would like the book or not. But it was very well written, I would recommend it to everyone who reads regularly and who does not. Simple launguage, and more importantly, positive attitude just drips out of the book. Very often we get hurt by an individual event in our life, negative/weird comments from people. This book taught me that life is much bigger than a single evening, a single comment; it is much more complex, we will have tons of good and bad things to face in our life. So let us not let an event or a comment affect us negatively. Focus on the positives and march ahead!

Other reads worth mentioning – Unaccustomed Earth, by Jhumpa Lahiri and To Kill a Mocking Bird by Harper Lee.

I had a superb 10 day vacation in Orlando. The mister had a 4 day conference, and I decided to tag along. I was a little skeptical initially (haven’t done this before, just being a trophy wife , even if it meant being one only for 10 days), but decided I deserved the break from work (my last real vacation being the India trip in February 2008). It turned out to be one of the best decisions I have made – loved getting up when I wanted to, have breakfast by the pool, eat in nice restaurants. The good thing about being away from your home is that you do not have to do the cleaning and the cooking. With the way our lifestyle is in the US, all of us deserve an away-from-home vacation. I even visited a theme park all by myself, and I must say given the vacation mood that people are in, you don’t feel like you are alone at all. Evenings used to be great (had to be, they were spent with Brat), fine dining , strolling without an objective. We visited a beach (how I miss Bombay!), did parasailing! I had a little bit of me-time and a whole lot of us-time. Can life get any better?! I guess I could have continued that way for another 10 days.

Another very interesting thing we did in the past couple of months was to witness the Pandit Shivkumar Sharma and Ustad Zakir Hussain show. Time just flew through the show! I was surprised that it was a whole three hours when we left the auditorium. Glad we are getting these opportunities in a small town like Lexington!

Sorry if this was a jumbled post! Two months of silence can lead to some weird writing! I need to get back to my dusting of cobwebs in other places. Have a good weekend everyone! (Aren’t you glad summer is here?)