Chiranjeevi Bhava!

Star Gold has brought real gold for its viewers this month. They can relish a delicious feast of Chiranjivi movies.

I was fortunate enough to catch a few flicks- Bajarang-The Heman (its the hindi version…original is called Bajrang-The killer), Diler-The daring, Naya Don. Looking forward to Indra-The Tiger.

Chiranjivi is my favourite south Indian actor. Most of you must have seen his very famous Horse Skid and Tractor Fight

This trailer of Bajarang-The Heman takes this to a new level. The movie was a typical revenge story (it was kind of lame 1 too!) with Chiranjeevi touch. Action was, as you must have seen, out of this world. Believe me, he is a fantastic dancer. But songs were irritating with Sameera Reddy around. Movie had a full time character devoted to vulgar jokes. A pleasant experience!

icarMijaiva Bava!

MTV on U, Me aur Hum

1] This is in Fond Memory of U, Me aur Hum.

2] Kajol refuses to act in Ajay’s next.

3] Ajay refuses to act in Ajay’s next.

4] Rodies’ next task is to watch U, Me aur Hum.

5] Health minister says cigarette packs will come with new warning- U, Me aur Hum is injurious to health.

6] Jaipur student survives Jodhaa-Aabar…Doctors strongly advice him not to watch U, Me aur Hum.

7] Pirated DVD walas refuse to sell U, Me aur Hum.

8] Ajay blames stunt double for directing U, Me aur Hum.

9] Did you join U, Me aur Hum survivors’ group on Facebook?

10] Even Nyasa says movie not nice.

Quote from H2G2

“My doctor says that I have a malformed public-duty gland and a natural deficiency in moral fibre,and that I am therefore excused from saving Universes.”

-Ford Prefect, in ‘Life, the Universe, and Everything’

Scarlet Weekend with a White Lining

In an action packed start to finish Bahrain GP, Ferrari managed a stunning 1-2 with Massa opening his C’ship account in style. BMW continued to appear on the podium with pole holder Kubica finishing 3rd. Check out Results

Ferrari did a flawless job today, thats all I have to say about them. Mclaren had a hard weekend. Lewis Hamilton had a disappointing race due to initial transmission problems and a collision with Alonso resulting in an unscheduled pit stop. Kovalainen could not improve his grid position. So after this weekend, its BMW leading the Constructors’ C’ship. Heidfeld jumped to 2nd spot in Drivers’ C’ship with a consistent performance, behind Kimi.

Both the Force India drivers finished the race, which is a very good sign for their Ferrari engine. Fisichella drove splendidly to finish 12th. FI is definitely showing some signs of ability to gain a few C’ship points if they continue to finish the races.

I noticed one thing about this race. Overtaking maneuvers, be it for positions or just leaders passing the back markers, were very eventful. Alonso expressed his disapproval when he was held by Timo Glock for 9th position. So did Hamilton when Fisichella defended his positions against the Mclaren for over 3 laps! ‘Ferrari’s and the ‘BMW’s also had an unusually hard time passing through the traffic. The collision between Alonso and Hamilton was a little a curious one. It looked as if Alonso braked on a straight path to block Lewis. Sounds dumb, but with Alonso behingd the wheel, you never know! Sadly,T no action was taken, so I guess that was genuine.

F1 enters Europe with Spanish GP on 27th April. So be ready for the Italian national anthem more frequently after the checkered flag!

Highlights

This has been a very curious week. Here are two highlight events-

1) Alonso has spoken. He has said that he has an option of moving to Ferrari at the end of this season. Thats classic Alonso for you! Spoken like a true loser. Now that he knows that he stands no chance at all to win Championship with Renault, he has made another of his old tricks and increased speculations at the start of the season itself. Though both the Ferrari drivers are under contract till 2010, you never know. But just imagine what that would do to Ferrari followers. It will be a nightmare come true. I don’t think there are many people out there who support Ferrari as well as Alonso at the same time. I will be caught in a practically unsolvable dilemma. Ferrari should really consider this aspect of the move.

2) Obnoxious News Channels. Thats what they are. Remember little Prince?? The kid who was trapped in an open bore well gave a hot topic to the everHungry media. A déjà vu. A girl named ‘Vandana’ was the victim. The innocent thing had no idea what was going on. No offense meant, but don’t you think that it was hyped just too much? Sure it was a significant news, but wasn’t there anything else happening in and around the world that was remotely important? ( I had to wait for half an hour to get the score!) What was even more angering was the way they presented the news. Hyper-excited tones, mindless descriptions, and above all pathetic animations.

The reporter was practically dancing around the image behind trying to explain the simple logic of the rescue operation. The whole thing was ridiculous.

Abhimanyu @ COEP

On Friday, 21st March, COEP quizzing circle gathered on BC for ‘Abhimanyu: The Intra-college Solo Quiz’. The quiz was set, monitored and and conducted by BCQC. Last year’s winner Aniket Khasgiwale was supposed to be the quizmaster. But he was unavailable, so it was conducted by Niranjan and Ramanand.

Elims were conducted two weeks earlier…this time by Aniket Khasgiwale in a very innovative manner. He showed tremendous resourcefulness as he carried out the whole session by reading out questions from his i-Pod. 8 finalists were selected at that time- Abhishek, Gadre, Kaustubh B, Yasho, Mohit Karve, me (for the first time), Avnish and Aadinath:the Enthu-Fresher.

The finals were in 2 parts. 1 general round and 1 specialty round. Each finalist had given a topic of his own choice on which he was asked 10 questions. My topic was, not surprisingly Michael Schumacher. I could answer only 5 out of 10. Got 4 wrong out of ignorance and 1 by over-confidence!

Other topics were-

Avnish- Foundation Series:Asimov

Aadinath- Tin Tin (Though his 1st choice was Tour de France, quizmasters refused to set questions on that. So poor guy had to take this 1)

Mohit- Formula-1

Yasho- Yes Minister

Kaustubh- Iron Maiden

Gadre- World Cup Football

Abhishek- XKCD

Finals were very eventful, with quizzers delivering all sorts of performances (ranging from pathetic to excellent). Abhishek won on Gadre’s last question.

Site Review- Zedge

This is an ultimate mobile downloads site-

Check out www.zedge.net

It has lots and lots of rigtones, wallpapers, themes, games and videos for download which are absolutely free. You just have to register and you can enjoy unlimited downloads. It also has various creation tools. Most importantly…it has downloads compatible with almost all the mobile phones. Can find almost anything.

I found a perfect combo for my Nokia 6233. Got all the Ferrari stuff including a msg alert tone of car passing by. It has a huge collection of Simpsons stuff also. Especially Homer’s msg alert tones. Just explore the site. It has something for everybody.

Now the games. A huge boon for backbenchers like me…good TP games, mostly pointless…but more interesting than the lecture!

A sincere request to Marathi Newspapers

In my previous post, I expressed my satisfaction about media covering Formula 1 extensively with the entry of Force India. But Marathi newspapers have done it again. First of all take a look at this headline

Never seen such a cheap headline. The language used in the news article was also very childish. Most of the names of drivers were misspelled. I sincerely request all the newspapers to appoint a decent staff to cover F1 and not just a translator , who would mindlessly translate pages from F1 site(in wrong sense). Or just give away the results. But pls do not publish the wrong info and misdirect the newbies!

16th GP win for Kimi at Sepang

Ferrari dominated the whole weekend from pole to finish with Kimi clinching the victory in a comprehensive manner. Though Massa had pole position, he went off the track into the gravel trap under some mysterious circumstances. The driver and the constructor are accusing each other for this blunder. So we will have to wait for Ferrari to announce the technical reasons. Kimi was brought to P1 by Ferrari in an intelligent pit-stop strategy as was seen in the final race of the last season.

See Results

Some highlight…

Lewis Hamilton was extremely unlucky over the weekend. First it was his 4th position on the grid when he failed to make a last run in Q3. Then it was 5 spot penalty. And finally, a 19 s pit stop due to tyre problem meant he had to be satisfied with only 4 championship points.

Kovalainen and Heidfeld were the most impressive drivers in the race. Kovalainen shown his agression earlier on and was a podium finisher. Heidfeld had a rough day but he showed excellent driving skills, especially during overtaking of Coulthard and Alonso. He also produced the fastest lap of the race on the last lap. Kubica had a marvelous day in his BMW and he managed to equal his previous best finish, a fine 2nd. Trulli and Webber held their nerves to finish in point scoring zone. BMW has gone ahead of Ferrari in constructor’s championship. So if Ferrari wants to be in the race, they will have to make sure that both the F2008 finish the race.

Alonso. Started 7th. Was thrown back to 10th. Overtook a slow Coulthard to reach 9th. Was pushed to 8th with Massa’s exit. Nothing great. Nothing like a champion.

Giancarlo Fisichella was the real winner for me. He managed to finish the race in an impressive 12th position and sealed the first finish for Mallya’s team. Well done! Sutil also exhibited some good driving skills but had to retire with Hydraulics failure. With Force India’s entry, media especially news papers are covering F1 very extensively.Thats very good for the game as such.

‘Race’ before ‘Raceday’-Movie review

Before todays big raceday in Sepang, I went to see another race in CityPride. But I waited to check out Sunday Times review to write this post. I was shocked to find out that Race had been awarded 3 and 1/2 stars. Times rating is getting more and more ridiculous. I remember Dhol getting 4 stars, another shocker.

Movie- Race

Directors- Abbas-Mustan 

Star Cast- Saif Ali Khan, Katrina Kaif, Akshay Khanna, Bipasha Basu, Anil Kapoor, Sameera Reddy 

Race is a typical Abbas-Mustan flick, only the script is totally confused. Movie has more twists and turns than a spaghetti. People change their sides and loyalties just like that! Most of the characters are childishly boastful. First half is very slow and has only 10% of the total twists, so naturally second half becomes very action packed.

For complete review check out Indiatimes Review

Now some finer details. Most of them are spoilers, so those who intend to see the film, pls read this after you have seen Race. If you have no intention of watching it in near future…go ahead.

The songs are just….too many. Not a single one fits in the flow (Reminds me of ‘Nehle pe dehla’). The lyrics are contributed by the great Sameer. So its pointless to find out what they mean. eg. just look at this song and his lack of imagination-

“Bin Tere Sanam Is Jahan Mein
Beqaraar Hum Dum Da Dum Da Dum
Bin Tere Sanam Is Jahan Mein
Beqraar Hum”

What is Dum Da Dum Da Dum??? Absolutely stupid!

Choreography is very mismatched with the costumes and height of the actor who is doing those steps. This is highlighted in case of Katrina. Only good background score and music by Pritam makes songs bearable.

Action scenes are very childish. The jump scenes are really pathetic. I mean you can actually make out that the hero is hanging from a rope. Not expected from an action film!

Akshay, Saif, Bipasha have done a decent job. Cant expect acting from Katrina, but she is improving. Anil Kapoor and Sameera Reddy appear only after interval. But they have utilised the remaining time very effectively to irritate you to the maximum extent. Sammera Reddy’s dialogues make you bang ur head on the wall. The shady level of dialogues obtain a new negative height with Anil Kapoor. Some of the jokes were good, but some were really obnoxious. He is shown eating a different fruit in every scene. So, by my count, the fruits were- Apple, Banana, Orange, Pomegranate, Sugarcane(??), Coconut, Water-melon, Strawberry, Raspberry, Grapes, walnut, and finally a fruit dish.

Atleast 25% of the movie is irrelevant to the main story. The whole character of Dalip Tahil is unnecessary. The scene just shows how brutal these brothers can get. Johny Lever has a cameo, but he makes sure that you remember him after the movie as well.

Coming back to the story, Saif’s death scene is ok. But again the director duo has tried too hard to make it look very exciting but ends up being unbelievable.(Again, the same old trick of suicide from terrace is used. Interestingly, here also the victim hits the glass first and then the ground, just like Shilpa shetty of Bazigar. But this trick has a special significance in Race)

An interesting observation. In the song ‘Race….’ Saif is dancing in front of a wall. And the background animation on the wall is the one which you see in Windows Media Player when you play an audio file!

Now some “Readers Don’t Digest” moments-

1) A math problem. Akshay Khanna gives 25 million to Anil Kapoor for his help, out of the 100 million received from Saif’s Insurance. So he is left with 75 million. But as it turns out, Saif is not dead after all. Finally, Saif is shown driving away with Akshay’s remainder of cash + 100 million from Akshay’s Insurance. But both Anil and Saif claim that there is still 200 million cash in Saif’s bag and Saif gives additional 100 million to Anil. What happened to the first 25 million?

2) In the final race, Akshay gives Saif a car that has brakes missing. Saif claims that Akshay’s car has a bomb that will be triggered if the speed goes down 100kmph (Remember ‘Speed’!). So neither can stop! Wait a second….you cant stop if you dont have brakes huh. Ever heard of a term called friction? Just turn off the engine and steer the car till it stops man! But instead Saif continues to race in full throttle. You are brave but you are also very stupid!

My rating- **1/2

Go to see it only if you are a die-hard fan of any of the cast, as each one receives a decent amount of screen footage. If you can cope up with useless songs, terrible action scenes and no need of explanation for some very basic questions like why and how, this movie is just made for you!

(PS- I loved this movie. I like such dumb baseless movies with low budget action and stupid characters. My rating mentioned above is for common people, not for people like me. I thought this was a terrific movie and I am definitely going to watch it again.)