A craving for Rock On

Let me begin by saying that I absolutely love the movie! I think it is one of the most flawlessly made movies - not just Hindi movies - of all time...a timeless classic that I would love to watch even 20 years from now. But that's not the point of the post.

I used to carry the Rock On DVD in my bag so that I could watch it often after it was released. Then a colleague of mine asked to borrow the DVD. No harm, right? WRONG!

I got the DVD back as if it had come back from the dry cleaners...or worse thro a car wash! It had so many scratches, it looked like Baloo the Bear from Jungle Book had stuck it to his back while he was scratching it against a tree. And as with any scratched DVDs, it gets stuck as soon as the plot gets interesting. I f'n hate that!

Now the big problem is that I had not ripped the DVD as soon as I got it...so I had lost a perfectly good movie and I couldn't watch it when I wanted...which is the objective of buying a DVD in the first place.

So I went on FlipKart.com and ordered it...and it landed in less than 3 days with free shipping and at a discount to boot! I was impressed!

Guess what the first thing was that I did? I ripped the disc :) Yep, in Apple TV resolution as well as iPhone resolution. And now that I have it, I can watch my DVD in peace whenever I want. And I'm never lending my movies to anyone. Ever!

Who did you identify with?

As soon as I walked out of the movie theatre, having just watched "3 Idiots", this was the question that sprang first to my mind. It would be superfluous to say that it is a very nice movie and that one should watch it at least once. But all thro the movie, I was seeing my classmates from yesteryears appear before my eyes.

There are so many people I remembered back from my college days while watching the movie. The guy who would pray before every exam and the day of the results; the guy who would cram for 18 hours during exams; the guy who was always scared; the guy who didn't want to be there, but his father wanted him to be there; the guy who would do whatever it took to get more marks.

But I want to know, who did you identify with in the movie? I haven't come across too many Ranchos to believe that many of you identified with him. So am curious as to who you guys identified with the most.

I know one person who in fact was like Rancho. Never studied to get marks, was more interested in learning, was the only person who was calmly sitting having a coffee while everyone around him was doing last minute cramming. But unlike the movie, the system is the one who judged this person's knowledge and eventually he graduated, not at the top of his class, but a lowly second class. Nevertheless, I'm glad to say that he's done quite well for himself since leaving college. So I guess his (and Rancho's) philosophy does work (a bit).

What do you say?

The best of the Part IIIs

I watched Shrek The Third last evening and thoroughly enjoyed it.

After the disasters that were Spiderman 3 (yeck) and Pirates III (double yeck...), Shrek the Third was a wonderful change. Sure all the usual suspects were there and the story was an extension of the last part, it was a movie that made you go "Aww" a few times and laugh a lot more often. I may not have been laughing my guts out, but at least I was not waiting for the movie to finish, something that I was doing all the time while watching both the Spiderman and Pirates installments.

The plot nicely starts where Shrek 2 left off. Shrek and Fiona are still in Far Far Away. The twist starts with the king, now a frog, dies (quite a funny sequence considering that the character is going to die). And that is the beginning of yet another quest for Shrek, with Donkey and Puss by his side.

Some really nice messages in the movie, something that my daughter could take back home. She is getting to an age where she has started noticing appearances and started to react to her own appearance. The message in the movie was heartwarming to say the least, and delivered in a nice and funny way. Sure it was not as funny as Shrek 2, but it was definately worth the ticket money.

PDI/Dreamworks has done it yet again. And they deserve all the success that goes with it. However, I am not sure there will be another Shrek installment. The story has run it's course and I don't think there is anything left in it to have another one.

Of course, that was true for Spiderman and Pirates two installments ago.

Two down, one to go...

After all the buzz about three really big movies release in a short space of a couple of weeks, Spiderman, Pirates III (At Worlds End) and Shrek the Third have been on my list to watch for a while.

We watched Spiderman last week (yawn!) and watched Pirates last evening (yawn again). All three happened to be third installments of highly succesful franchises. And the two that I managed to watch were a complete success in that they made me feel utterly bored even before the movie had reached half time. In case of Spiderman, it was made a lot worse with even my daughter saying that she was getting bored. After you have seen two spiderman movies, the visual effects dont dazzle you any more. Sure, the Sandman looks cool while floating through the air, but then, it's not fabulous. And this from a movie that shot all existing box office records to pieces. Yawn is all that I could do.

The came Pirates of the Caribbean III: At Worlds End. It should have been When Patience Ends. The story goes all over the place with no definate end in sight. A few fights here, a few scraps there and a few more visual effects. It even has Will Turner absurdly proposing and marrying Elizabeth Swann on the deck of the Black Pearl, get this, in the middle of a fight. That to me was the end of imagination for the script. In all, it was a pale shadow of the second part...which itself was a pale shadow of the first part, which to me is the best of the lot. I think Pirates III has managed to become the worst movie I have ever watched. This one was beyond yawning.

Now my hopes are pegged on the ogre from Dreamworks. Of all three franchises that I mentioned, Shrek has been the only one to come out with a second installment which was as much, if not more, fun as the first installment. While Spiderman and Pirates both floundered with their seconds, Shrek 2 was hilarious and a great move. I am hoping for some of the same magic again this time. And there is all possibility that the people at Dreamworks will make it happen.

Fingers crossed.