Have been watching this serialised version on the History Channel.
Robert Carlyle is amazing as hitler, can't believe that he is the same guy from The Full Monty.
Watch this one for some fantastic lessons from history, acting and high production values.
5/5 for this one.
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Bollywood Support for Aamir...
A little late in the day, however bollywood has come out in full strength to support aamir. Hrithik's open letter is commendable in lieu of the fact that KRISSH is about to release.
Shotgun Sinha finds himself alone after calling Aamir egoistic.
I had once attended a shoot of shotgun's talk show. The topic was banning of alcohol advertisements.As part of the audience, i reminded shotgun about his Bagpiper Advt, to which he replied in a stern tone that he had already apologised for it earlier.
The best part is this segment was editied out and your's truly was not even visible in a single shot throughout the episode [Sob!], anyway wifey got a close-up and my day was saved.
Jokes apart, this incident clearly proved that shotgun believes in censorship i.e censorship of criticism, adverse opinion etc.
Shotgun Sinha finds himself alone after calling Aamir egoistic.
I had once attended a shoot of shotgun's talk show. The topic was banning of alcohol advertisements.As part of the audience, i reminded shotgun about his Bagpiper Advt, to which he replied in a stern tone that he had already apologised for it earlier.
The best part is this segment was editied out and your's truly was not even visible in a single shot throughout the episode [Sob!], anyway wifey got a close-up and my day was saved.
Jokes apart, this incident clearly proved that shotgun believes in censorship i.e censorship of criticism, adverse opinion etc.
Aamir Vs BJP
BJP has proved once again that they are bereft of any political acumen and thrive on chaos and chaos only. The one point agenda is to make someone a scapegoat or make a mountain out of a molehill and confuse people by misleading propaganda and hog the media spotlight. It is a sad state of affairs for the BJP.
I have observed the implications of such propaganda. Recently i was having a discussion with someone about the whole issue and the pal was vociferous in his criticism of Aamir and also used unsavoury words for the actor. The person being gujarati was hurt and felt that Aamir was against the Narmada Dam, which is not the case.
I was asked why i had not blogged on the issue to which i explained my stand that even if i did, either i would be branded as aamir fan or as a fanatic that supports violent protests.
Right from the beginning Aamir has clearly said that he has no idea about the technicalities of raising the height of the dam as he is not a engineer. Infact Arundhati Roy too ridiculed him at one point, initially because of his cola liasions.
He had just voiced his concern over a villager whose house and fertile land was submerged and said that they should be PROPERLY compensated by the government.
Now MY POINT is - isn't this the same as when we swear at the BMC and the MMRDA for the pathetic condition of mumbai roads, When we abuse the railway for late and cancelled trains, when we abuse the BSES,MSEB, Govt for power cuts in summer etc.
Suppose you were offered by the mentioned authorities that 50% of the above problems will be resolved, and 50% you are expected to tolerate, would you take it lying down. NO!!
SIMILARLY you cannot offer a tribal a barren land or move him somewhere far [ like offering you a flat in Virar in exchange of your current one in Andheri! ], it HIS RIGHT to ask for a PROPER compensation. And Mr.Khan has just voiced his concern over the same.
My Pal also said that Aamir should be shamed that anti-reservation protesters were caned in a similar manner by the police as was shown in Rang De Basanti Climax !! [What the...!!]. He is surely not aware of Gangajal being made on Bhagalpur blindings...
Initially I was under the impression that maybe this was all a gimmick for getting publicity for FANAA [Conspiracy theory :)] but threatening kids who came to watch the movie from baroda to mumbai is too much.
Aamir will emerge as the winner and BJP the loser from this controversy.
And note please Mr.Modi has smartly kept away from the controversy...By the way FANAA [pirated copy] is available for 150 bucks in Gujarat...Please BAN them too...
I have observed the implications of such propaganda. Recently i was having a discussion with someone about the whole issue and the pal was vociferous in his criticism of Aamir and also used unsavoury words for the actor. The person being gujarati was hurt and felt that Aamir was against the Narmada Dam, which is not the case.
I was asked why i had not blogged on the issue to which i explained my stand that even if i did, either i would be branded as aamir fan or as a fanatic that supports violent protests.
Right from the beginning Aamir has clearly said that he has no idea about the technicalities of raising the height of the dam as he is not a engineer. Infact Arundhati Roy too ridiculed him at one point, initially because of his cola liasions.
He had just voiced his concern over a villager whose house and fertile land was submerged and said that they should be PROPERLY compensated by the government.
Now MY POINT is - isn't this the same as when we swear at the BMC and the MMRDA for the pathetic condition of mumbai roads, When we abuse the railway for late and cancelled trains, when we abuse the BSES,MSEB, Govt for power cuts in summer etc.
Suppose you were offered by the mentioned authorities that 50% of the above problems will be resolved, and 50% you are expected to tolerate, would you take it lying down. NO!!
SIMILARLY you cannot offer a tribal a barren land or move him somewhere far [ like offering you a flat in Virar in exchange of your current one in Andheri! ], it HIS RIGHT to ask for a PROPER compensation. And Mr.Khan has just voiced his concern over the same.
My Pal also said that Aamir should be shamed that anti-reservation protesters were caned in a similar manner by the police as was shown in Rang De Basanti Climax !! [What the...!!]. He is surely not aware of Gangajal being made on Bhagalpur blindings...
Initially I was under the impression that maybe this was all a gimmick for getting publicity for FANAA [Conspiracy theory :)] but threatening kids who came to watch the movie from baroda to mumbai is too much.
Aamir will emerge as the winner and BJP the loser from this controversy.
And note please Mr.Modi has smartly kept away from the controversy...By the way FANAA [pirated copy] is available for 150 bucks in Gujarat...Please BAN them too...
Monday, May 22, 2006
Sensex - At Pit Levels
India is shining, booming, and zooming. For all the so called reports from Goldman Sachs and the Merril Lynch, the sensex was literally lynched by irresponsible statements, manupulative FIIs etc.
Were the FII's given a free run of the market so as to give the world a shining image of India.? To give the impression that the indian economy is at its peak and invite more funding from abroad?
This is where china scores, chinese politicians are statesman, they consider their career as a job and they deliver, whereas our cartoon's lifetime job is to squabble over how to keep their seats permanent.
Let's see how manmohan and chidambaram - 2 whizkids clear this mess.
[ I had warned earlier in a post - http://garysellers.blogspot.com/2006/04/sensex-12000.html ]
Meanwhile Arjun can keep playing the royal flush with the Mandal Card.
Were the FII's given a free run of the market so as to give the world a shining image of India.? To give the impression that the indian economy is at its peak and invite more funding from abroad?
This is where china scores, chinese politicians are statesman, they consider their career as a job and they deliver, whereas our cartoon's lifetime job is to squabble over how to keep their seats permanent.
Let's see how manmohan and chidambaram - 2 whizkids clear this mess.
[ I had warned earlier in a post - http://garysellers.blogspot.com/2006/04/sensex-12000.html ]
Meanwhile Arjun can keep playing the royal flush with the Mandal Card.
Thursday, May 18, 2006
Da Vinci Code..Dan Brown
A racy thriller with a shocking plot that's fusion between reality and fiction.
It's human imagination at its best. The idea of secret codes in Da Vinci paintings is itself intriguing.
But it ends at that. The idea of christ being a mortal may seem, threatening to church authority [obviously], but to a normal man it should not matter.
Whether divine or mortal, christ's life and his teachings are inspiring for humans. In fact to know that he was a mortal, who walked earth and died and yet was capable of such a life-morals is more awe inspiring.
So clearly i do not understand what the fuss is all about.All prophets, wanted their disciples to know the difference between right and the wrong, and live a sinless life.
Is the faith so weak that a book or a movie can change you?
It's human imagination at its best. The idea of secret codes in Da Vinci paintings is itself intriguing.
But it ends at that. The idea of christ being a mortal may seem, threatening to church authority [obviously], but to a normal man it should not matter.
Whether divine or mortal, christ's life and his teachings are inspiring for humans. In fact to know that he was a mortal, who walked earth and died and yet was capable of such a life-morals is more awe inspiring.
So clearly i do not understand what the fuss is all about.All prophets, wanted their disciples to know the difference between right and the wrong, and live a sinless life.
Is the faith so weak that a book or a movie can change you?
Wednesday, May 17, 2006
Da Vinci Code...
Dan Brown's controversial book has triggered lot of emotions among christians across the world. The book itself is based on Holy Blood, Holy Grail and the authors were involved in a lawsuit too for plagiarism.
I got a mail from a buddy...his take on the controversy....
===========================================================
Hi Gaurang,
The whole stuff about Jesus marrying and having children is unjustifiable if one actually knows the reason for him to come in this world, live like a normal human and then die for no reason.
Christians normally curse The book “Davinci code” but I actually look at it as a boon to Christianity, If the book and its discoveries wouldn’t have been out , I wouldn’t have been typing this mail and telling you some thing more than what a church going Christian would tell you.
Many people out there who have questions and are confused about this book and its discoveries are basically ones who don’t know Jesus, or people who are already confused about him lots of Christians are also included in the count in fact the major chunk are Christians themselves.
If they knew what the idea was behind Jesus’ coming then there would have been no questions.
God created humans and the world to have fellowship with. He wanted us to be with him for ever, we never were supposed to die. God’s creation, that is you and I have a unique feature in us and that feature is the “right to choose”, we were not robots but human beings who can choose. Now when you have the property to choose you need more than one thing to choose from I mean you can only choose if you have 2 things, so God showed us what is good and what is bad but we human’s chosed bad and we sinned. Now because of sin we were separated from God, god being a righteous person wud not stay with the unrighteous, because of Sin we became a Malfunctioned creation, and you very well know if we create something and it malfunctions we either try to mend it or crap it out and start with a new one. Now God chosed to mend this malfunctioned creation rather than crap it out, he loved his creation.
So…..
if you read and know that the ritual of sacrifice is observed in almost all religions, God made a rule that if you sin you need to sacrifice a young animal to cover the sin that you committed, but the worlds sins were too huge to be just forgiven by some animals blood, only a sinless human’s blood would take it all, and sadly there was no human sinless to be such a sacrifice, cause we humans are born out of sin (Sex). So he send Jesus, now as I said earlier the sacrifice should be sinless, that’s exactly why Jesus was born from a virgin, he lived a sinless life till the age of 32 and he did his job by dying for the sins that we regularly do, he paid for our sins and died for no reason.
NOW
Coming back to the point, If Jesus was married and had children then he is not the savior and not the perfect sacrifice, if that was the case then God would have used many mighty and religious men from the past like Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, and many more as a sacrifice. They were very holy and religious and they obeyed gods command there was then no use to wait till Jesus comes in. If you read the Gospels you will see Jesus’ behavior and his thoughts and his powers which showed all the characteristic of a perfect human being.
Secondly the society Prieure de Sion, was from the 18th and the 19th century almost 2000 yrs AD. They are researching and following the books that Romans wrote, Romans were the people who killed Jesus to take the truth away from the people, So when the disciples were writing the gospels Romans on the other side had their own history books to falsify Jesus’ death as a sacrifice and they wrote books which said his body was fleed away by his disciples and they kept the blood with them in the holy grail, they made proofs that would clash with the truth that had happened. There are many other controversial text found about Jesus.
So I would say the Davinci Code is actually right but the matter that is coded itself is based upon wrong books and discoveries.
From James - james.manasseh@gmail.com
I got a mail from a buddy...his take on the controversy....
===========================================================
Hi Gaurang,
The whole stuff about Jesus marrying and having children is unjustifiable if one actually knows the reason for him to come in this world, live like a normal human and then die for no reason.
Christians normally curse The book “Davinci code” but I actually look at it as a boon to Christianity, If the book and its discoveries wouldn’t have been out , I wouldn’t have been typing this mail and telling you some thing more than what a church going Christian would tell you.
Many people out there who have questions and are confused about this book and its discoveries are basically ones who don’t know Jesus, or people who are already confused about him lots of Christians are also included in the count in fact the major chunk are Christians themselves.
If they knew what the idea was behind Jesus’ coming then there would have been no questions.
God created humans and the world to have fellowship with. He wanted us to be with him for ever, we never were supposed to die. God’s creation, that is you and I have a unique feature in us and that feature is the “right to choose”, we were not robots but human beings who can choose. Now when you have the property to choose you need more than one thing to choose from I mean you can only choose if you have 2 things, so God showed us what is good and what is bad but we human’s chosed bad and we sinned. Now because of sin we were separated from God, god being a righteous person wud not stay with the unrighteous, because of Sin we became a Malfunctioned creation, and you very well know if we create something and it malfunctions we either try to mend it or crap it out and start with a new one. Now God chosed to mend this malfunctioned creation rather than crap it out, he loved his creation.
So…..
if you read and know that the ritual of sacrifice is observed in almost all religions, God made a rule that if you sin you need to sacrifice a young animal to cover the sin that you committed, but the worlds sins were too huge to be just forgiven by some animals blood, only a sinless human’s blood would take it all, and sadly there was no human sinless to be such a sacrifice, cause we humans are born out of sin (Sex). So he send Jesus, now as I said earlier the sacrifice should be sinless, that’s exactly why Jesus was born from a virgin, he lived a sinless life till the age of 32 and he did his job by dying for the sins that we regularly do, he paid for our sins and died for no reason.
NOW
Coming back to the point, If Jesus was married and had children then he is not the savior and not the perfect sacrifice, if that was the case then God would have used many mighty and religious men from the past like Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, and many more as a sacrifice. They were very holy and religious and they obeyed gods command there was then no use to wait till Jesus comes in. If you read the Gospels you will see Jesus’ behavior and his thoughts and his powers which showed all the characteristic of a perfect human being.
Secondly the society Prieure de Sion, was from the 18th and the 19th century almost 2000 yrs AD. They are researching and following the books that Romans wrote, Romans were the people who killed Jesus to take the truth away from the people, So when the disciples were writing the gospels Romans on the other side had their own history books to falsify Jesus’ death as a sacrifice and they wrote books which said his body was fleed away by his disciples and they kept the blood with them in the holy grail, they made proofs that would clash with the truth that had happened. There are many other controversial text found about Jesus.
So I would say the Davinci Code is actually right but the matter that is coded itself is based upon wrong books and discoveries.
From James - james.manasseh@gmail.com
Monday, May 15, 2006
The Ghost of Mandal Commission
I am sure that PM Manmohan Singh is a person who can never ever favour reservations being a person who has acheived everything in life through merit and merit only.
It would be a great tragedy for this country if at all the reservations are put in force specially when we have Dr Singh and Dr Kalam at the helm of affairs. And it would also be the biggest blot in their otherwise spotless clean and inspiring life.
Arjun Singh, desparate to be in the good books of Sonia, wants to gift her a vote bank, but at what cost and whose cost?
Rahul Gandhi should understand the current outrage considering his age factor and hope he makes the elders understand too...
But will he bow down to the pressure of politics...
It would be a great tragedy for this country if at all the reservations are put in force specially when we have Dr Singh and Dr Kalam at the helm of affairs. And it would also be the biggest blot in their otherwise spotless clean and inspiring life.
Arjun Singh, desparate to be in the good books of Sonia, wants to gift her a vote bank, but at what cost and whose cost?
Rahul Gandhi should understand the current outrage considering his age factor and hope he makes the elders understand too...
But will he bow down to the pressure of politics...
Review => Gangster....4/5
Yea Yea...Dont crib! The movie deserves a 4, if you want to know why just see the remaining Akshay/Viveik etc starrers.
The music/songs are fantastic, I liked the song Tu meri Shab hai, but it could have been shot in a better manner as the camerawork reminds you of Rahul Roy's Ashiqui - pub song.
Ya Ali rocks man! What a song! Mujhe Mat Roko reminded me of Reshma of Hero[Jackie] fame. Bheegi Bheegi is also cool.
The Soundtrack can get a 5/5.
Kangana Raut succeeds in looking like Monica Bedi and has put in a sincere attempt. Where as Shiney Shines [This guy is gonna be the big star], as for Emraan the guy just succeeds in kissing again.
As for the movie plot - Throughout the movie i liked the director's concept of making it look like a narrative from the moll's point of view, without glorifying the don as usually gangster movies do, but at the end instead of making Emraan give a speech that made him look like a villain, the director could have made his character also look as exploited by the authorities. I sincerely doubt that a policeman can pass of impregnating a moll also as his duty towards the nation !!
I am off to buy a Audio CD of the movie....
The music/songs are fantastic, I liked the song Tu meri Shab hai, but it could have been shot in a better manner as the camerawork reminds you of Rahul Roy's Ashiqui - pub song.
Ya Ali rocks man! What a song! Mujhe Mat Roko reminded me of Reshma of Hero[Jackie] fame. Bheegi Bheegi is also cool.
The Soundtrack can get a 5/5.
Kangana Raut succeeds in looking like Monica Bedi and has put in a sincere attempt. Where as Shiney Shines [This guy is gonna be the big star], as for Emraan the guy just succeeds in kissing again.
As for the movie plot - Throughout the movie i liked the director's concept of making it look like a narrative from the moll's point of view, without glorifying the don as usually gangster movies do, but at the end instead of making Emraan give a speech that made him look like a villain, the director could have made his character also look as exploited by the authorities. I sincerely doubt that a policeman can pass of impregnating a moll also as his duty towards the nation !!
I am off to buy a Audio CD of the movie....
MMM - Over and Out....
Well not exactly, Results are not out yet.
Was not able to blog due to exams, but still am relieved that the 3 yr part time commitment is over. Although will miss the wonderful friends that i made.
Yaar - pak gaya tha...the commuting was getting on the nerves.
I felt like Rodney Dangerfield [hope got the name correct] from Back to School, the last 3 years.
But got my hands full...
Kaaphi hisaab-kitaab dekhna hai...
Was back in touch with a Indonesian Pal after a long time - And we talked so much that mostly a trip is due within 6-8 months, if time and money permits...But anyway we chat every 2nd day now.
Back to Timepass books now....
Five Point Someone was not bad at all...not great too...
next on the list - Toyota Way, False Impressions, Shantaram, Maximum City...whoosh thats a lot to catch on. Also a book by Gursharan Das - highly recommended by a cousin.
Came across a vengeful sher, not bad.....
Kafan bandh kar aaye hai,
Kafan Odh kar jayenge,
Safina rahe na rahe,
Teri Kashti ko hila kar jayenge.
Was not able to blog due to exams, but still am relieved that the 3 yr part time commitment is over. Although will miss the wonderful friends that i made.
Yaar - pak gaya tha...the commuting was getting on the nerves.
I felt like Rodney Dangerfield [hope got the name correct] from Back to School, the last 3 years.
But got my hands full...
Kaaphi hisaab-kitaab dekhna hai...
Was back in touch with a Indonesian Pal after a long time - And we talked so much that mostly a trip is due within 6-8 months, if time and money permits...But anyway we chat every 2nd day now.
Back to Timepass books now....
Five Point Someone was not bad at all...not great too...
next on the list - Toyota Way, False Impressions, Shantaram, Maximum City...whoosh thats a lot to catch on. Also a book by Gursharan Das - highly recommended by a cousin.
Came across a vengeful sher, not bad.....
Kafan Odh kar jayenge,
Safina rahe na rahe,
Teri Kashti ko hila kar jayenge.
Review - Ong-Bak!
Caught this movie on Star Movies.
Thought it might be those regular c-grade Martial Arts movie, but the lead guy's sincerity and mind blowing choreographed action make this worth a watch.
Its about a village guy on trail of antique smugglers who have beheaded a idol of buddha [Ong Bak] whom the villagers revere.
3/5 for this one.
Thought it might be those regular c-grade Martial Arts movie, but the lead guy's sincerity and mind blowing choreographed action make this worth a watch.
Its about a village guy on trail of antique smugglers who have beheaded a idol of buddha [Ong Bak] whom the villagers revere.
3/5 for this one.
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