The Wimbledon Magic

There is a certain charm about Wimbledon that no other annual sporting event has. You can't exactly pin-point it to any one particular reason.

• The adherence to the traditions,
• the all-white dress code
• Taking the middle Sunday off (not caring for TRPs)
• the Royal touch with players bowing towards Her Majesty's representatives in the Royal Box
• addressing the players as Mister or Miss rather than just their surnames
• the wait for a British champion
• Unllike the other Grand Slams it does not need its country's name just the locality name

Most likely all of the above. For me personally its the the fact that my first tennis watching memories are associated with Wimbledon.

The Year - 1989. 

Both Singles finals played on Sunday and the winners - the German duo of Steffi Graf & Boris Becker. Instantaneously making a 6 year old me their fans for life.

There are other tennis tournaments, 3 other Grand Slams, the year-end Masters, the Davis Cup. but none of them quite come near to matching the charm that Wimbledon has. Only French Open with its distinctive red courts & use of French terms in the scores comes close.

I write this on the eve of the finals of the 2013 Championships. And recollect the Champions in the past 20 odd years gone by - Becker, Edberg, Sampras, Federer, Hewitt, Nadal, Graf, Navratilova, Hingis, Davenport, the Williams - Wimbledon champions all of them. My favorite Wimbledon champions.
Goran Ivanisevic in 2001 - Ranked outside top 100, Wild Card entrant, 3 time former runner-up. As fairy tales go, it rarely gets better
Jana Novotna in 1998 - Famous for choking in 1994 final & crying on Duchess of Kent's shoulders, losing in another final and then finally winning on the 3rd attmpt. That's what I call redemption.

And now we are in 2013. Whom would I love to see holding the winner's trophies. Lisicki (A German victory - my old favorite Tennis playing country) & Murray (the lad deserves to get this Brit-not-having-won-since-World-War-II monkey off his back).

But whoever wins - the Wimbledon Magic will continue on and on.

MovieNotes - Man of Steel

Movie - Man of Steel

*ing - Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Russel Crowe, Michael Shannon, Kevin Costner, Diane Lane & Others

Director - Zack Snyder

Language - English

Preamble

Confession - Haven't watched any of the Superman movies before. And not a big comic book fan either.

However the interest level in watching the resurrection of the Superman series was quite high. Mainly due to Christopher Nolan being attached to it. The trailers looked promising. Nolan's touch along with Hans Zimmer's music prophesised a Superman struggling with his own identity, a darker villain and a good background story with big name actors playing the minor characters.

Basic Premise

Superman and his Kryptonian origins are explained. He is yet to become the hero known world over but taking his baby steps towards becoming one. Also a titanic clash to save the world and establish his superhero credentials (for the forthcoming movies).

Notes

The High Notes

• Best Scene - When Superman goes on his first flight. Full-on Goosebumps
• Performance of the film - by the two fathers of Superman - Crowe & Costner, incidentally both also known for playing Robin Hood.
• A villain whose intentions are not necessarily wrong. General Zod was trying to save his race.
• The back-story of Krypton. Probably won't be mentioned ever again.
• The climax battle between Superman & Zod.
• The Easter Eggs hinting at Lexcorp & Wayne Enterprises for forthcoming movies.

The Not High Notes

• The conclusion of the climax battle. If it was this simple, why was hell wrecked on Metropolis. Probably a million died in this battle to "save" Earth.
• The portrayal of Lois Lane.
• The Superman Character Destruction - The S does not stand for Superman; he doesn't wear his underwear outside any more; Lois Lane knows Superman's real identity before he joins Daily Planet. The true comic book fans must be seething on seeing all this.
• Superman finding a ready-made suit for his world-saving role.
• There is nothing worth remembering in the movie. No memorable dialogues, action sequence etc.

The Random Notes

• The Superman Pose - After you become "Super", you need to stand straight, hold your arms into your body and then (most important) look towards your side with the head slightly bent and wearing a serene smile
• Henry Cavill finally breaks his unlucky jinx and gets to play a major role.
• The term "Superman" is hardly used throughout the film.

Rating - 7/10; Overall the movie left me a bit underwhelmed. Mainly due to the higher (almost unrealistic) expectations set by the The Dark Knight Tilogy.

Previously on MovieNotes - Zalzala

Deja Vu - Issued In Public Interest

It felt like the opening scene from Hangover II. It had happened again. The questions were why me? And again?

Losing a mobile is not a nice experience. Losing repeatedly is even worse. Feels like I have been "marked" as a serial victim.

Now to the event itself. Got onto a BEST bus as per my daily schedule. After some time, say 15 minutes, decided to check the phone. And the phone had disappeared. As simple as that. Heart sank with the feeling of deja vu.

Asked the neighbouring passenger to dial my number. As expected, phone was switched off. The thieves are quick, both at nicking the phone, and manually removing the battery.  Tried to recollect the incidence of the theft.  This is probably how it had happened.

A large sized fellow was the first to get onto the bus. Near the top step, lots of coins "slipped" out of his hand which he stopped to collect blocking the way. Meanwhile I was directly behind him on the next step, with both hands on the bus handles for balance. Felt a sudden surge behind me due to others trying to get on. Probably this was the moment when the phone was nicked. Also noticed that the big fellow who had dropped the coins got down after a couple of stops. Pretty sure this was an organised operation. One person creates a distraction while blocking up the path and someone else uses this precise moment to pick the pocket.

Another bitter lesson learnt. Do Not get distracted in crowded, public places even when the distraction is right in front of your eye. "Constant vigilance" is the only way to keep your belongings safe.

Losing a phone is major nuisance. The worst bit is that the cost of the phone itself is the least concern. The value of the personalization and memories attached with the phone is much greater than just the phone cost. Contacts, messages, pictures, your personal high scores in various games are intangibles which have no use to the thieves but cant be replaced.

And a suggestion - Always keep the phone locked with a pin/password. You might never see your lost phone again. But at least your "personal" data will not be accessible to anyone else.

Sharing this, so that others maybe alert in such scenario.

P.S. Hoping & Praying that this tragically epic trilogy of losing phones has reached its conclusion.

Rains - Likes & Dislikes

Has there been any weather phenomenon more romanticized than the rains? More paeans have been written about, more songs composed in the praise of and in the wait of rains than for any other natural occurrence. And as with every other feature of life, it comes with both positives & negatives. 

After about two and a half days of the monsoons, I have already begun liking & disliking the rains in about equal measure. 

• Like - The first pit-pat-patter of the rain drops, the smell of the wet earth, escape from the summer heat. WOW
• Dislike - Getting stuck in the office commute
• Like - On an early morning drive with just a slight drizzle.
• Dislike - The dish signals disappearing during live sports programming. Already affected - Champions Trophy cricket, French Open finals & ironically a rain-hit F1 Grand prix.
• Like - Sipping tea while watching the falling rain outside.
• Dislike - The almost non-stop drizzle forcing a stay-at-home Sunday.

As the season progresses, the list can go on and on. Already beginning to dread the to and fro office commute from tomorrow.

P.S. A little rainy day song compilation from some three years back.

Truth - The Versioned Tale

Was reading Pritish Nandy's latest article on media's obsessive coverage of the IPL sopt-fixing/betting saga. Mr. Nandy comments on how the media is obsessed with the murky dealings in the IPL while ignoring other more serious issues. Well I agree that our media does tend to go over-the-top in its coverage. But that is only till the moment the next issue arrives. And then the focus moves on to the new show in town. Never does it take any issue to its closure. And the "truth" rarely come out

Our over-the-top breaking news media follows up "stories" trying to uncover the "truth".  The "Nation demands to know" - thunders the news anchor. But what exactly is the truth we are talking about.

To me, any event which has happened has four different versions (at least)

• A's version
• B's version
• What I want to believe.
• And finally, what actually happened

And because of the first three, the fourth one generally goes missing.

So, to the so-called seekers of the "truth", this is what I would have to say

"You want the truth. You can't handle the truth" - Jack Nicholson,as Col. Nathan R Jessup, A Few Good Men.

MovieNotes: Zalzala (1988)

Movie - Zalzala (1988)

*ing - Dharmendra, Shatrughan Sinha, Rajiv Kapoor, Danny Dengzongpa, Anita Raj, Kimi Katkar, Vijeta Pandit, Gulshan Grover & Others

Language - Hindi

Preamble

(a) I am hibernating on Sundays.

(b) I am boycotting watching IPL since the spot-fixing scandal emerged.

Given above conditions, landed on Shara One (yes I shocked myself) while channel-surfing. And found a movie just starting which I ended up watching from beginning to end.

Basic Premise

A secret and ancient Shiv temple made entirely of gold and whose path is known to only one person. And there are many villains after the treasures. And there are good guys after the bad guys. All these combining to form a recipe for a typical 80s Bollywood masala pot-boiler.

Movie Notes

• The story has surprising twists and turns - mainly on account of all characters having some inter-connect with each other.
• The Shiv temple element had the promise of an Indiana Jones but the premise wasn't even explored
• Police directly hand over large sums of reward money to bounty hunters.
• Mediums of transport are three - Police jeep, Police Van and horseback
• Dialogue of the movie: Question - "नाम क्या है तुम्हारा?"; Reply - "गाँव का मुखिया"
• Character of the movie: A horse who likes to drink hard liquor.
• Lots of shooting and killings
• A song can apppear any time. e.g. The good guys performing puja while the bad side loots the temple.
• A 34 year old Tiku Talsania plays the role of 50-year old Jagdeep's father. Guess the casting agents mixed up the roles.

Rating - 5/10, Avoid watching unless you have nothing better to do.

Previously on MovieNotes - Jolly LLB

Journeying all year-long

Everyone is on a journey, and its going on and on since birth. Every birthday marks the completion of one and start of the next one. The journey around the Sun.  

And its not a short trip by any standards. The approximate distance travelled during one complete revolution around the Sun is 940 Million km. A number which is entirely unfathomable by human travel standards. Add to this the daily rotation of the Earth. For someone living in Mumbai (latitude ~19 degN) that would be around 37,850 km/day which makes it nearly 14 Million kms per year. So in all, roughly something like 950 million km/year.  Not a small number by any measure. And in comparison to these numbers the "actual" travel is totally insignificant.

We do not even realise how much we have travelled. And yet we constantly complain about the daily commute to work (some 25 km round trip for me), the ever growing distances, living further apart from the near & dear ones. Guess everything is just relative and has to be seen in its own perspective.

Just some things to ponder upon.

P.S. For some other fun and nerdy details refer this wiki page on Earth's Orbit.
P.P.S The numbers are not exact and have been put for a sense of perspective.

MovieNotes: Jolly LLB

Movie - Jolly LLB

*ing - Arshad Warsi, Boman Irani, Saurabh Shukla, Amrita Rao

Language - Hindi

Basic Premise

How a small time lawyer tries to become big through a PIL and then gets sucked into a fight with the big and powerful.

Highlights

The all-round acting. And its not just the leads, its the support cast which makes the film work. You get lots of memorable characters, the judge, the canteen owner, the bodyguard constable, the "auctioneering" hawaldar.

Jolly LLB tries to avoid going into the typical filmy court-room battle and presents a more realistic description of the court proceedings

A practical ending where further proceedings are to take place but are not shown. Could be an opening for a sequel.

What could have been dropped from the film? The heroine and the needless romantic songs.

MovieNotes

You wonder just how much corruption is there in our system. Even the main characters have to resort to bribery to get the evidence out.

The legal system seems to have an in-built delay mechanism leading to the justice getting lost in the red tape and paperwork.

Well I can outrage on and on about all this but thats the perview of another blog post.

All films related to the law tend to be benchmarked against "A Few Good Men". Does it go to the level of A Few Good Men? No, but it does attempt and does a good job of trying.

Rating - 7/10, Good overall watch

Previously on MovieNotes - Kai Po Che

Indian Zombies

An animated corpse resurrected by mystical means such as witchcraft

This is how wikipedia describes a zombie. Like vampires and werewolves, they are a fairly common subject in the movie and gaming world. And unlike other such creatures they are never ever shown in positive light. 

Zombies have generally not been depicted in the Indian context. But all of a sudden there is a spate of zombie related Hindi movies coming up. In fact, in the trailer of "Go Goa Gone", when one character asks  how did zombies come into India, globalization is the answer he gets.

Now the question on why aren't there such "undead" creatures in Indian folklore? Ghosts, spirits, djinns, apparitions, witches, magicians are fairly common in Indian folklore but there is hardly any mention of things which are undead. Maybe because of Indian tradition of cremation of dead bodies rather than burials.As the dead bodies tended to be completely destroyed, hence the likelihood of a corpse being resurrected becomes  very rare. Hence no such things as zombies as part of Indian folklore.

This is just my theory. Any other takes?

Two Thumbs Up, Sir

Its not often that you write a blog about a person whose existence you came to know only through the news of his death. 

Yesterday came in the sad news of the death of Roger Ebert, the greatest film critic. And there I was mostly oblivious about his existence. But then I started reading about him. And slowly got more and more hooked. Here was a man whose work I was aware of, had actually read his reviews, but never bothered reading the name on top of the article.

Certainly I do not claim any qualifications to review his work or life. But there was a lot I can take up as inspiration. And the more I read I about him the more inspiring his story was.

• Writing film reviews for 46 years, that takes dedication. Sitting through film after film, however bad the narration may have been and then telling your take to the world. That is some dedication. 
• Making film-criticism as a journalistic niche means Ebert took his own craft to such a level that others had to make a separate category for it. A Pulitzer for film criticism and a Star on the Hollywood walk of fame are just rewards for the sheer brilliance of his writing.
• And lastly for not giving up even in face of bad health. Ebert simply took on to the online medium when his voice was gone. Thats the true fighting spirit which is rarely seen. He took a "Leave of Presence" from his fans just a couple of days before his death. And that was to be his last blog post . Certainly the best article I have read in recent times. 

"I was born in the movie of my life" - the opening sentence of Life Itself (his autobiography) is now into my favorite quotes collection. 

Two Thumbs Up, Sir for a life well lived and being a inspiration to many.

P.S. Now you have added a new item to my bucket-list. Watch every single movie from your "Best of the Year" Collection.