REVIEW OF "THE CONJURING"

Horror is a genre that has a way of affecting us, long after we leave for home. Unlike other genres the effect isn't positive and yet we are interested in the next horror movie knowing well what’s in store. Though horror is a widely reiterated genre, very few movies stand the test of time.

Expectations starts to rise from the trailer on wards  especially if the director of SAW and INSIDIOUS is returning for his next venture. And the director has hit it right in the bull’s eye.

The Warrens are called in for help after the Perrons find an unsettling presence in their new home. Add to this, the dog that senses ghosts, a cellar which should not have been opened, the  children becoming the target, you will this movie to be fairly predictable. And that’s where you go wrong.

The screenplay is so tightly knit along with some strong performances from the entire cast. The Warrens themselves have a past with demons, and as they are ready to confront their worst fears, problems rise and ultimately all hell break loose.

The tiniest objects hold the utmost importance in a horror movie. This one is no exception either. From the musical mirror thing to the chain of the Warrens to Mr. Warren’s personal museum of cursed items, everything looks creepy and haunted (I bet, the Annabelle Doll will look right through your soul.)

All this leads to ultimate climax where everything that can go wrong in an exorcism goes wrong. Adding to this macabre is the fact that the exorcism is not performed by the pastor but by Mr.Warren himself.

Having said that, THE CONJURING is definitely worth the price of admission and a must watch for all horror fans.

PS: Don’t buy a Coke for this movie because you will spill more than you drink.

YOU WILL NOT BELIEVE THIS STORY

Living in parts of United States is a group of people called “The Amish”. With a German-English tongue there are mainly populated in the states of Ohio and Pennsylvania. These people live a secluded life till date.

There is no electricity in their village and as a result Television, Fridge, Air Conditioner or even a mobile phone is alien to them. Their marriage is strictly within their society and anyone who breaks this rule is shunned (sent away from their society).

There is a school but education is only till Eighth grade after which the students find domestic jobs or engage in Agriculture which is the main occupation of their society. The quilts made by the women are in great demand in and around the locality. Since they except privacy from the outside world, tourism is not encouraged in their locality.  Crime rate was  Zero until…

A criminal broke into the school and caught seven children as hostage. When the police tried to negotiate, he lost his mind and killed the seven children and took his own life.

But the people did not go red on the killer, instead they responded in a way that served a slap on the rest of the world. The village elders attended the funeral ceremony of the killer and offered to help his family by all means possible.

Since the old school brought in unnecessary pain and media coverage, they razed the building over night and built a new school elsewhere.

In an atomic age where a country’s strength is measured by its nuclear arsenal, we are in desperate need of the maturity shown by these Amish people, if the word “peaceful co-existence” is to have any meaning at all.

HEIGHT OF CONFIDENCE : THE OBAMA STORY

Few years back, Barack Obama (POTUS) & Michelle Obama (First Lady) went to a restaurant for dinner. During the dinner, a man was trying to meet the couple but the Secret service refused permission.  In a moment, the secret service personnel came to Michelle Obama and whispered something in her ear. She stood up in the middle of the dinner and went outside.

When she returned, Obama enquired about the issue. Michelle replied that the person arguing with the secret service was the owner of the restaurant; he was also a friend at college and he had a crush on her. Obama smiled, if you had married him, you would have been the owner of this beautiful restaurant.

Without any hesitation the reply came back, “Had I married him, he would have been the President of the United States”.

Confidence is not about lying to yourself while trying to scare your opponent. It is about the will to make thoughts to reality. If you really mean what you say, then confidence becomes your natural virtue.

Enough bleeding for the day, come back tomorrow, I will lecture you to death in some other topic.

GI TAGS USED IN INDIA

No, this article is definitely not about GI Joe-3. In this case GI stands for Geographical Indication. The term might not ring a bell but its results are commonly in usage among us. Continue the article if the last sentence seems to puzzle.

GI is similar to trademark except that it is issued to products which associate themselves to a particular region. For e.g. Consider TEA, the formula to make a tea can be patented but the tea itself can’t be patented, but tea brewed in a particular region in an unique fashion can be given the GI tag, in this case the infamous “Darjeeling TEA”.

The main reason for issuing GI tag is to preserve the ethnic culture followed in certain rural areas and to give it global recognition.

Many such articles know to us have been issued the GI tag but we were never aware of this so called tag. Even I would not have known about it, if it wasn't for the recent article wherein the Nagpur Orange and Dharmavaram (Andhra) sarees were issued the GI tags.

Interestingly “Hyderabad Briyani” is still awaiting its GI tag due to the delays in presenting the requisite historical documents.

Few years ago a lawsuit was won by Tirumala Tirupathi Devastanam (TTD) for the “Tirupathi Laddu” using the GI tag.

Some of the well known GI tags:

·        Darjeeling Tea

·        Mysore silk

·        Mysore Agarbathi

·        Kancheepuram Silk

·        Coimbatore Wet Grinder ( Yes Even I was surprised to hear it at first)

·        Mysore Sandal Soap

·        Thanjavur Paintings

·        Arani Silk

·        Konark Stone carving

·        Thanjavur Doll

·        Pattamadai pai

For more GI tags used in India:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Geographical_Indications_in_India

TELANGANA- THE REAL STORY

Telangana, the 29^th baby of Mother India has received the due date from our doctors (UPA-II). For the past decade, protests and violent movements were all that came to our mind when we say Telangana. But the history runs deep to almost 57 years, back to 1956 when the state of Andhra Pradesh was created.

Post independence, the Nizam of Hyderabad was unwilling to join the Indian union and wanted to remain as an independent nation. Hence the Indian government annexed the state of Hyderabad through Operation POLO. Lots of drama took place in the following decade as the people of Telangana refused to become part of Andhra Pradesh (yes back then itself).

But the Union Government (Congress, then too) went on as planned and created Andhra Pradesh including the states of Telengana. Several movements arose between 1956 & 2009 but none turned fruitful until this time.

I don’t want to go Vijaykanth on you by giving the Statistic details of Telangana but to be brief; it occupies 42% of the landmass, holds the majority of Rivers Krishna & Godavari and is mineral rich. Above all it has Hyderabad (along with its briyani).

People of Telengana were always locking horns with Seema- Andhra (Coastal Andhra & Rayalaseema) over their treatment in terms of employment opportunity, lack of spending which was supposedly theirs. Ever since Independence, Chief Ministers from Telengana have ruled the state for only 10 years. Also the employment in Government Jobs is also proportionately low.

Now that bifurcation is complete, the new government in Telengana should ensure that justice is delivered for which the state was divided in the first place. It will be a hard time for the people of Andhra Pradesh to come in terms to what had happened to their state.

The biggest problem is that other states will start claiming new states too ( Vidharba in Maharashtra, Bodoland, Gorkhaland, four new states from UP & MP). Most activists see this as a political move by the UPA-II keeping in view the general elections next year. It will take us a year to see whether or not this gamble has paid off.

Though I felt bad about the bifurcation, the happy faces in Telangana clearly indicate that justice is finally in their reach. Let the odds be in their favor.

Review of "MADHA YANAI"

Though Vishal has been in the industry for close to a decade now, this is the first time I went to the screens to watch his movie. I know that Vishal isn’t a great actor but he has quite some potential (Avan Ivan). This movie didn’t bring it out, rather it stuck with the oldest storyline known to Tamil Cinema.

Hero comes to a new city; falls in love in heroine at first sight; fate makes them get along; villain vows to marry her; hero protects her and during a action sequence he comes up with a flashback and u can easily fill in the rest.

While the movie defies logic the action sequences defy gravity. Looks like Henry Cavill (Man of Steel) has some serious competition. If the Indian directors could add some logical sense into the action movies, then we can beat Hollywood in no time. But that’s not going to happen anytime soon.

Santhanam was the only major relief to an otherwise somber movie. This wasn’t his best performance, but he comes up with very few double meaning one liners, making it enjoyable by all classes. In certain cases he demands more sympathy than humor.

The debutante (Aishwarya Arjun) has very limited scope for acting which wasn’t surprising. The songs were not only speed breakers but also irritants as none of them pleased my ear drums. Even Gana Bala’s number could not do the trick.

If you go in expecting anything other than Santhanam’s humor, then you are bound to hate this movie.

My rating: 5/10 

Review of OBLIVION

The Tom Cruise that we know chases Russians, performs some aerobic insanity out of the tallest building on earth and saves the globe in the last seconds. Well, he doesn't have to worry about saving the earth in this movie because it is already dealt with.

The movie starts with a brief story of our moon’s end, resulting catastrophe, shifting the entire planet to Titan (Saturn’s largest moon) and the ongoing fight with the so-called Scavengers, all narrated by Cruise himself.

Clearly Cruise himself agrees that his memory has been wiped after the war to protect the classified information from falling into the wrong hands. Everything goes like clockwork until a shuttle crashes with human survivors and what happens next makes Cruise doubt everything.

If a add word more than that, you will curse me for this review. So I will keep the surprises unspoiled. This movie is a unique blend of various emotional coefficients like Love, Self realization, Sacrifice & Poetry.

The visual effects have been the heart and soul of this movie. You will find the ruins of Empire State, Golden Gate Bridge and if you have your eyes peeled, you may even notice the torch of the Statue of Liberty. Since this is a post apocalyptic movie, grey dominates more than any other color, but you won’t get the irritation out of it because it is well balanced by the High Tech gadgets, drones and a house which everyone wants to put their name on.

The cast have done a pretty decent job and as a result the movie looks even more presentable. With some neat twists at the end, this flick is definitely worth the price of admission.

I would say  7.5/10

ADAMANTIUM ALL OVER THE PLACE.

What makes the Mutants so cool that it has spread into a franchise of six movies along with the seventh one in the making? Some of the fans would say “multiple superheroes at the price of one ticket”. Many others would agree to a different answer:    WOLVERINE.

That perhaps is the only reason why Wolverine features in every  X-men movie, an honor that no other mutant enjoys. Several reasons to this: retraceable Adamantium claw, ripped off body & above all, Invincibility.

“The Wolverine” is a bold attempt in many ways. Unlike other X men movies where you get to see various mutants alongside Logan, this one is pretty much a one man show. This movie also shows the pain he undergoes in almost every scene, something which irritated me at one point.

Logan is almost convinced that “Invincibility can indeed be a curse”. But if living across centuries, not aging one bit and getting the attention of every beauty on the planet can be a curse, then somebody please curse me.

The action sequences do not disappoint but one must have the patience to sit through the lecture class between the action scenes.

On the whole the movie seemed a bit slow, mainly because of the one man show and it was hard to even imagine “pain” and “Wolverine” in the same sentence, but it was all over the movie.

The main consolation for me in this movie was Hugh Jackman himself. Playing the same role in seven (including the one in making) different movies is not something that every actor can imagine of (Unless you are Harry potter & Co). However ironic it may sound, with that huge sideburns, we might as well start calling Jackman as HAIRY POTTER.

I hope the Wolverine trilogy ends on a high note.

END OF THE ENGINEERING ERA?

With just days to go before the counseling comes to an end, things are not looking so good for the Engineering Colleges. The total engineering seats in Tamil Nadu comes close to 2, 50,000 of which 1, 52,979 were called for counseling but 45, 758 did not turn up.

If this doesn't impress you, here’s something else. 63% of seats in IT and 59% in CS still remain vacant. There are two sets of explanation for this scenario.

Explanation 1: Students with low marks have started to prefer courses other than Engineering.

Explanation 2: The recession of 2008 and the recent Euro Crisis have made the parents rethink about their child’s future in engineering.

Whenever I see pedestrians crossing the road during the peak traffic hours, I fully agree with Darwin’s theory of Evolution (We are indeed descendants of apes). But along the line of evolution we picked some traits from cattle, we are always comfortable with flocks rather than moving alone.

This attitude is especially evident when a student decides their future. He/She doesn’t think about what they are good at; they rather look around to see what people do and become copycats. This is not healthy for the student nor is it for the world of Engineering.

But finally people have started to think straight, evident from the trend of counseling this year. But it is just a matter of time before people start following another stream of education like they did for engineering.

The solution rests solely in the hands of the Student. Don’t choose engineering because someone wants you to, Don’t choose engineering because your buddy does, rather choose engineering if and only if your heart and soul lies within it.

If this golden rule is not followed, I am afraid the 48 months of Engineering is indeed a good waste of time and hard earned money.

HOW ONE MAN'S ARROGANCE TURNED LEGENDARY.

A wise man once said " 99% of our problems are caused by the poor choice of words."

This is a real story of how one man's arrogance turned against him and brought out one of the epic rivalries of all time.

Sometime during the last century there lived a small time businessman in Italy. He was primarily a tractor manufacturer but had a sound knowledge in automobiles. Once an automobile giant released their latest model of cars. These received widespread accreditation but the tractor manufacturer felt that the model could be improved if certain modifications were made. And so, he penned a letter to the automobile giant stating the modifications which could make the car perform better than before.

Days later, he received a letter from the automobile giant. The letter insulted the tractor manufacturer and questioned his expertise for making suggestions along with some rude remarks. On the whole, the letter spelt Arrogance.

The tractor manufacturer wasn't heart broken. On the contrary, he took this insult as a challenge and vowed to built his own range of cars to supersede the automobile giant. Did he suceed?


YES.

Tractor manufacturer : LAMBORGHINI

Automobile Giant      : FERRARI.

Such an incident also took place after the millennium. This time it was between two corporate giants. MICROSOFT insulted GOOGLE and made google more than a search engine (It was after the encounter with Microsoft that Google started to work on various projects ie. Android, Chrome etc). Had Microsoft been quite, Google today would have been just a search engine.


The latest such rivalry is going on between APPLE and SAMSUNG. Though the story is not exactly similar, it is well known that these companies always look forward to snub the other.


There is a very thin line separating competitive spirit and Arrogance. One must tread along this line very carefully. If else, not only will you suffer but also help the growth of your competitor.

Act Wisely.

WHY NOT CRICKET? ----- How would India look like without cricket.

The topic isn’t new for Indians, but is debated very little. It’s simply because cricket in India is more than a sport. It’s a religion. It’s what unites us (India –Pakistan Match) and separates us (IPL). But what would India look like without cricket?

Let me start by making this clear: I am not against the game of cricket but I am against the fact that cricket overshadows almost every other sport in our country single handedly. The game & the players are not to be blamed; they are simply doing what they are paid to do. The attention must be paid to action of our Sports Ministry to this fact. Sure they are already aware of the overwhelming power of cricket in India. But shouldn’t we be looking at other sports too.

Let’s start with a simple example. Take any sports channel in our country and evaluate the time allocated of cricket vs the time allocated for Hockey (Our National Game). I can bet that, for days together you won’t find even one hockey match. But has that ever happened to cricket?

In India there are channels dedicated exclusively to cricket (Ten cricket, Star cricket). Is there any other game that enjoys the same royalty here? Long story short: India is not a sporting nation. India is a cricketing nation.

Now that we have our problem in hand, it’s time to look at the solution. Let us have a look at other cricketing nations and their management of sports.

CRICKETING NATION	MEDALS WON AT OLYMPICS 2012
Australia	35 (7G, 16S , 12 B)
England	65  (29G, 17S, 19 B)
New Zealand	13  (6G, 2S, 5B)
South Africa	6   (3G, 2S, 1B)
India	6  (0G,2S, 4B)

Table clearly shows that it is possible to achieve in international arena despite playing good cricket. So, it’s high time that our ministry starts implementing the model of Australia and England. Both the countries have excelled in more than one sport. Australia have excelled in many sports (cricket, rugby, swimming etc.) while the English excel in Football, Rugby, cricket among others.

It is the duty of our ministry to ensure the growth of other sports as well. There is a lot of space in our country for all the sports to grow together. Will the growth of other sports affect that of cricket? Yes, it will. But that’s the sacrifice we must be willing to take in order to become a global sporting super power, if at all our country intends to be one.

What’s mentioned is easier said than done. But that should not stop us from doing what needs to be done. We should take the first step by building the necessary Infrastructure. When the government starts to show genuine concern towards other sports, the sponsors will automatically turn in that direction and ultimately, so will the Media.

I wish there comes a time when we can encourage our children and grand children to pursue sports as an active career.  

DELHI UNDER FIVE FEET OF WATER

    Lord Indra (God of Rain) is all smiles over Delhi. May be he is mocking at the city for its poor maintenance which has been exposed after heavy rains lashed the national capital today. It may be hard to believe but just 4 hours of rain has put the city under feets of water. It's not just the suburbs but also important places like Mathura Road is clogged with water. The whole city looks like a sponge soaked with water.
  Right from Indus valley Civilization, we were the architects of the modern drainage system. Unfortunately our inability in that sector has been exposed today. It is high time that the government realizes that "Prevention is better than cure". Over 70 maintenance vehicles have been dispersed to tackle the situation but with the water that is clogged on the streets, these vehicles might only add up to the traffic jam.
  Let the authorities wake up to the reality that is flowing in their streets as we speak.

 Only silver lining: Temperature has come down by a few degrees. 

Review of WHITE HOUSE DOWN

WHITE HOUSE DOWN:

       Within a span of two months, two movies with same storyline have hit the screens. This is something that doesn't happen in Hollywood often. Evidently anyone would be put in a mind set to compare this movie with "OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN" (OHF). But, to my great relief, I haven't watched OHF yet. So the script seemed fresh. But that's the last thing I would look for in an action movie. I went in expecting high octane action scenes with a twist at the end. And I wasn't disappointed.

   I am carefully choosing my words so as not to turn this post into spoilers. So please read without any hesitations. Time and again an US president has become a main character in a Roland Emmerich Movie (ID day, 2012 and now WHD). But it was unsettling to my eyes to see someone like Jamie Foxx  as the US President who desperately needs external help (Tatum) to save him from his own house. What's unsettling was the helpless look in his face, something which is hard to see in a man who went against all odds to save his wife in his last movie (Django Unchained).

  Tatum begun the movie in a suit and started stripping one by one for each action sequence. To the disappointment of many feminine fans, he kept on to his vest till the end. Very little chance for Tatum to show his acting skills. He has the potential ( The vow, Dear John) for acting. But, personally his build is too good for action movies (GI Joe Series). So, we won't mind if he keeps acting in such roles.

  Traditionally Roland Emmerich brings in a End of the World concept in most of his movies ( ID Day, 2012, Day after tomorrow). This time, the script indirectly touched that area, but no open reference to it. I can't explain this without revealing the plot. So, watch the movie and find it for yourself.




   
   Action Sequences are top notch. My personal favorite is the car chase around the fountains (Yes , the cars run through the White house gardens wreaking havoc to anything in its way). Also, u get to see most parts of White house (But I don't think that's how it is in real).








  Patriotism takes the front seat when Tatum Jr. waves the American flag at the finale. I am sure US fans would enjoy this movie more than anyone else.



PS: If you are expecting hardcore action movies, do jump in. WHD is similar to DIE HARD except that the protagonist has lots of hair.
  

POST NO: 1

   Evident from the name, the blog is all about India & Movies. I will be blogging about the current happenings in Indian scenario from a bird's eye view. Though the above mentioned are the two broad areas, my blog will also focus on other key areas which I start bringing in as my blog develops.

                                                                                               -S.Raj Kumar