Review: Star Trek

Official Website

So I’ve been looking forwards to this for months. And by that, I really do mean the better part of the year, since the time they announced it. I was even more excited because this was a JJ Abrahms product (creator of Alias and Lost) as wellas Damon Lindelof (the brains behind Lost). So I organised (a month in advance) a geeks’ outing yesterday  to watch this as soon as it opened in theatres here, comprising of a variety of my friends, both trekkies and non-trekkies. I am told I managed to convert at least one of them into a trekkie after the movie.

Update: I am sorry, I made some factual errors in my review. Spock did not originally choose the Vulcan Science Academy over Starfleet, he went into Starfleet, and then went into the path of the Kolinahru after its 5-year mission. I confused his story with that of Tuvok, the other notable Vulcan in the Star Trek franchise.

Indian Movies: A Primer

This post is probably long overdue, but as with everything else, I’ve been too busy to blog about it. I’ve received enough ribbing in my life about Indian movies, Indian songs and everything to do with Indian culture. People making fun of “dancing around coconut trees”, moving their heads and hands in a horrible imitation of what they consider Indian dance, and laughing at music – all of which I am expected to agree with and laugh at. I don’t confront residual racism directly, and until recently, I myself would have been unqualified to confront it [But that is not really the point].

So, with the axiom that knowledge is power, I am giving all my readers a tour of that great Indian institution: Indian films. Before I start, I must disclaim that I am by no means an expert, and I have not seen every movie out there [that would take roughly 100 years], and I am only able to give my point-of-view from three languages. Yes, surprise, there is more than one Indian language – roughly 20 official languages, in fact, spread out over 26 states. But the languages with an active film industry are not that many – Bengali, Kannada, Telugu, Malayalam, Marathi, Tamil and Telugu and of course, Hindi (popularly known as Bollywood). I am familiar with three of them – Hindi, Malayalam and Tamil. My interest in Indian movies was only recently revived, after having considered most of them in disdain. I still do, but I have learned to appreciate the gems too.

Review: Atonement

 

Zixian talked me into watching this after the LAWR season, so I went in with no idea of the movie, or having read any reviews of the show. Atonement, if you don’t know by now, is a print-to-screen production of the original story by Ian McEwan, which I’ve never read. Starring Keira Knightley and James McAvoy, and directed by Joe Wright, this is indeed a masterpiece of a film, well worth the 10 bucks on a weekend night.