The GREATEST movie EVER!!!

O boy! I just finished watching one of the craziest and weirdest movies ever - Tenacious D: The Pick of Destiny starring none other than the GREATEST band EVER (according to their website). It is a musical comedy, but unlike the genre, the music is rock and the comedy is very very weird. Also its got great music, especially the song Classico which is a blend of Bach, Beethoven, Mozart and rock.

I know that many people will find the movie stupid or even disgusting and I definitely don't expect it to be a big box office hit, but I love it and urge you to go buy a DVD first thing tomorrow, at the crack of noon.

Books, movies and the weather

I have finally completed A Clash of Kings, book 2 of the A Song of Ice and Fire series and can now hopefully move on in life (it was very hard to put down such an un-put-down-able book and do other things). A very strange thing about the book is that the author doesn't seem to show any qualms in killing off well developed characters. While I was reading the book, I began noticing some changes. I never used to notice such things as hot food or warm clothes, but as I read more about sleeping in the open and eating dried meat, I began appreciating things more. Maybe I should stop reading fiction and spend more time on news and things that are actually happening!

I also watched a very interesting movie called Brick recently. It is a teen-druggie-school-mob-detective story, but what was interesting about it was the don't care attitude of the main character, even when he is beaten near death, he just seems to get up and says the first thing that comes to his mind. That and the strange camera work and the overcast-about-to-rain sky when it can get really windy and interesting. That is the weather I like the best, just before the rain when the sky is overcast and it gets very windy. I remember imagining as if we were on a ship caught in a storm and running around on the terrace of the house when it gets like that. Maybe that's the real reason I liked the movie.

Some classic movies

I watched some classic movies recently ('cos I have so much time on my hands), like Rashomon, 8½ and Sunset Blvd.

Rashomon, one of Akira Kurosawa's most famous films, was as expected a great movie. I found the concept of the movie very interesting, and later found out (through Wikipedia, the source of all trivia and knowledge) that there is actually a psychological term called the Rashomon Effect.

8½, by Federico Fellini, on the other hand was the most boring and confusing movie I've seen. I should have listened to the comment on IMDB - "Somebody who is looking for a movie as a two hour piece of entertainment will not enjoy this." I feel that it is like the Ulysses (guess I really have it against that book), which is regarded as a classic more for technical reasons rather than entertainment value.

But for me of the three, the most interesting and the most entertaining movie was the Sunset Blvd. I was really surprised to see that a film made in 1950 could be so stylish and still be interesting for someone like me.

What about Bollywood then?

The snob in me doesn’t even want to be associated with them. But really if you are objective enough then you'll see that there are good movies here also. It is just our (or am I generalizing from my experience) innate urge to criticize everything that prevents us from ever accepting that they can be good or fun to watch.

Of course, all this is the result of watching Lage Raho Munna Bhai yesterday. I wouldn’t even watch it for free and my friends had to force me to! (What are friends for anyway, if not to teach you things). And I did learn a lot. I learned that it is okay to laugh watching a bollywood comedy, that it is okay to hum a sentimental song (pal pal har pal…), that you are not cool when you criticize Gandhiji and most importantly that Bollywood movies can be fun to watch. (Also it is nice to hear Vidya Balan call "Murali..." with love in her eyes).

So that is my advice to anyone who thinks like me (and I think this applies to you), go watch Lage Raho Munna Bhai.

Sensible hollywood movies?!!

Can there REALLY be!! After watching movies like MI3 (here is what my friend thinks of the movie) and very recently The hills have eyes, you'd think VERY UNLIKELY. But joking aside, I have actually watched a few outstanding movies.

Everyone must have watched Crash by now, and if you liked that then you'll really like American Dreamz. It is a satire about America and shows like American Idol (there is also an Indian Idol now grrr...). I felt it was a lighter version of Crash and I really liked it. The other movie I really liked was Thank you for smoking, which is about the spokesperson for the tobacco industry. These movies though funny are also a little cynical and really gets the point across.

Eventhough it is not a big-budget hollywood movie and doesn't belong here, I also liked Primer. What I really liked about it is that it is about a couple of engineers, and so few movies are. It is as if WE are completely ignored by pop culture. Here is a comic from phdcomics on the topic.

Guess you get some idea about how my "research" is going now.

Proof

'Proof' is one of the best movies I've watched recently. The movie is about this great mathematician who goes a little crazy and dies. Now his daughter, Gweneth Paltrow, brings out a notebook containing a proof on some theorem on 'prime numbers'. But no one would believe that she did actually write the proof. The best thing about the movie is it doesn't become trite or over simplified. What I mean is that usually when there is a movie on a technical topic, they just show a bunch of formulae or when they show a hacker, he types a lot of stuff on the keyboard and hey presto the security system is breached. The only complaint I have is in the choice of 'prime numbers', aren't there hundreds of important unproved theorems in mathematics? Its always prime numbers in movies take 'PI' another excellent movie but still its on 'prime numbers'. I guess that is the most accessible mathematical conundrum that everyone can identify