Movie Review: Page 3 - Life of the Rich and Famous

I watched a bollywood movie called "Page-3" couple of days ago. This movie had made quite some news when it was released, with the claim that this was not a sterotypical bollywood movie, but "hat ke" from the mainstream. As usual, this tag line made me curious.. and I wanted to watch this movie for quite some time, but got around to it only a couple of days ago..

The title of the movie refers to the third page of a newspaper - a page that covers the local glamor news of town - the parties of the rich & famous. The main character of the movie, Madhavi (played by Konkona Sensharma, of "Mr. & Mrs. Iyer" fame), is an entertainment journalist who goes to all these parties and writes about them - the who came with who, the who went with who, the latest hook-ups, break-ups, etc. In due course, she comes to realize the superficial lifestyle of this class, gets fed up of it, and ends up doing something drastic (and stupid, i shld say)..

Though the concept of the movie is good, (and "hat-ke"), the movie has been very poorly made. The movie is too long and boring to sit through.. the music score leaves much to be desired.. the parties are not well shot.. sometimes makes you wonder if the party is glamorous at all.. there are a couple of pathetic fashion shows in the parties.. performance of the cast is terrible, except Konkona Sensharma who tries to carry the whole movie on her shoulders..

One more thing worthy of mention though, is the wardrobe of Konkona Sensharma.. She wears very simple, down-to-earth, middle-class cotton salwars to all the parties.. yet she confidently talks to all the designer-wear-clad celebrities in the party without feeling conscious or inferior.. and the celebrities too reciprocate without making a face at her outfit.. which goes to strengthen my philosophy of dressing.. "Its not important what you wear, but how you carry what you wear"..

This movie proves that just having a good concept is not enough for success.. executing the concept is equally important too.. be it a business venture, a movie, a thesis, a project, or any endavour.. The only good thing I got out of this movie is interesting material to write this blog.. ;-)

Book Review: By The River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept

"By the rivers of Babylon
There we sat down
Ye-eah we wept
When we remembered Zion"

Ring a bell? This is that famous, catchy, pastoral number from Boney M. Until last weekend, I never thought of this song as having historical and religious origin. This, apparently, is one of the Psalms - Psalm 137 to be precise. Psalm 137 is a hymn expressing the yearnings of Jews in exile following the Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem [Courtesy - Wikipedia].

I came across this hymn last weekend while reading a novel by Paulo Coelho - "By River Piedra I sat down and wept". I had read two books by the same author before - "Veronika decides to die" and "The Alchemist". Both of these were good books. However, "By the river piedra I sat down and wept" left much to be desired.

The overall concept, style, content of the book was similar to the other two, but the story was not gripping enough. The entire novel is built on a weak story-line. The novel starts by the main character weeping besides river piedra, and talking about her sad story. The story starts with this flash-back, wraps around to come back to the point where the main-character started, and concludes in a few chapters. I didn't think the wrap around has been well managed, and the main reason for the main-character to sit by river piedra and weep has not come out strongly enough (I wonder if that is a strong reason to weep, anyways!)

In spite of the above issues, this novel has Paulo Coehlo's stamp all over it. For a Paulo Coehlo fan, this book will be worth a read.

Hello World

I have been following some of my friend's blogs for a while now.. they have been trying to get me into blogging.. but one thing always held me back from doing this - the topic of the blog. I wanted my blog to have a topic, a theme, a purpose.. so that my blogs can be coherent, and readers can follow and understand it well..

After months of careful and intense thinking, I came to realize that it is beyond my materialistic capabilities to come up with one.. so I thought of rambiling on the blog.. and rambling would be my topic, theme, and purpose.. so if I do end up rambling, then my blog would have fulfilled its purpose.. If not, then I'd have found the purpose I was in pursuit of initially.. so a new form of catch-22, eh? or russel's paradox.. or whatever... who cares.. i'm rambling.. ;-)