Long, Winding, Confusing and bloody B O R I N G

If you were smarter than me and actually waited for a week after release to watch V3.0 of POTC - do yourself a favour. Save your money. And more importantly - you bloody time. Having booked the tickets a month in advance, I watched this horrible nonsense on Wednesday (23rd) itself. It was also the first day of my 5-day break before I got re-assigned to the Marketing Division at Mediacorp Radio.

Half an hour into this 'equally crap as Bollywood' and 'equally confusing as Rushdie' began, I had a strange feeling. Something I've never had in the past, despite opinions from Fred and Co, for teh first time, I actually felt that I was being fed nonsense by a studio that was out to milk the last cent out of a hugely successful franchise ... and the stupid audience that I was part of.

Every single cent spent was wasted on this shit. It was long, it had long boring dialogue sessions, it had stupid comedy (minus a few genuine laughs thanks to JD), it had crap action sequences and worse - it makes V2.0 look great. The ending shamelessly suggests that there might be a V4.0 out there.

Anyway, I am so fucking put off by the experience that I will use my 10 GV vouchers to watch movies from now till the end of July. By then for sure, I'll know if we plan to stay in Sinagpore or will be on our way back to Bombay.



http://www.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/Movies/05/24/review.pirates.end/index.html

Spizza: A pure delight!!

This is a must visit food joint.

The pizzas are the best you can have in Singapore.

My recommendation: Olivia (large, minus the chillis, with an egg on top) with ice lemon tea.

Why?

This is the only place in this city where the quality of the service actually matters to the staff and owner. The staff is cheerful, honest with opinions and most importantly - remember your face if you make that repeat visit. They greet you with a smile, a hand-shake, and ask you stuff about yourself. If you are a regular like me, they ask - 'the usual?'. And it thrills me.

Once when they changed their supplier of peperoni, they told me about the drop in quality even before i ordered my Olivia.

Amazing bunch - especially at the outlet at Holland Village.

My (usually food-fussy) wife loves the place as well!!

Movies

Watched Infamous at the movies and rented The Machinist and 11:14 on DVD.

Sukesh accompanied us on all. All three are a must-watch. Infamous is a master-piece on acting. The Machinist is a fantastic brain teaser - and a msut watch for every wannabe actor in India (especially). 11:14 is a gritty Crash-esque movie. short, snappy, witty and wierd.

Also, I overcame a big hurdle (F E A R) in my life and finally swam in the deep side of the pool.

Will be watching Pirates of the Caribbean on Wednesday!!

Give the 'Devil' his due...

I am sick and tired of people rattling off on Jose Mourinho. I think he is the best Manager in Club football today - and on Saturday, he showed the old geezer Ferguson how the game had to be played.

All season long, critics and fans (of the other top three in England) have gone on and on about how Chelsea lack flair and rather play like a well-oiled machine. And I used to think - Is it necessary to always have flair in the game? Is it important to feel good about how you played the game - or play to win?

I believe that teams should play to their strengths. If physical strength, strategy and planning are key to Chelsea's success (rather than Arsenal's passing around, and Man Utd's 'flair'), then they should stick to it and not try to emulate anybody.

On Saturday, it was clear from go that Chelsea had a a better plan - or rather were the only ones with a plan. Inhibit the irritating moves by Ronaldo, kill Rooney's quick bursts with multi-person defence and most importantly - hold off Manchester United's biggest weapon (implemented throughout the season, ignored by every other manager except Mourinho and a certain fan watching the games in Singapore) - The Counter-Attack. Do your research - a staggering percentage of the goals scored by Man Utd was on the counter-attack mode.

And Chelsea killed that by holding their defensive line in such mathematical precision. A tame game - but well planned. Bad for flair - good for strategy.

And to those idiots who keep complaining that Mourinho is a sore loser, and he mouths off non-sense all the time (especially when he loses or draws) - Alex Ferguson is a lot like that. So is every manager out there. Its just that people keep talking about what Mourinho said more.

Each time Ferguson speaks after a defeat - I wonder what has his long experience really taught him? http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/fa_cup/6668517.stm. The goalkeeper spilled the ball?? Is he blind??

I'm just glad that this season of injuries is over - looking forward to next season!!

Great job boys!!

2 Thumbs up...1 middler... and 2 all the way down

The Thumbs up:

Blades of Glory
Watched this comedy with Renu and Sukesh on Friday night. It is a laugh riot. The story and the concept was simple (stupid actually)... and the sequences were predictable. But the one-liners and expressions were super. Must watch on nothing-else-to-do days. The moment: the boob-handshake.












Bridge to Terabithia
Took a day off from work to clear my head. After all, its my last week at work and I had 4 days carried over from last year that I had to use anyway. Spent the day shopping for a few accessories for & with Renu. Was nice. Topped the day off with this movie. A coming-of-age classic. I kept remembering how my brother and I would create imaginary world's with our toys and really amuse ourselves. As we got older, the imagination just died.

The Middler: Metro. I thought this was a good movie - minus the trio of weird rockers who kept showing up each time something dramatic happened. I just couldn't stand that aspect of the movie. Otherwise, it was a good one all round. Irfan Khan gets into my Top 5 actors list.

Now for the real embarrassment of the week:

This is how the whole thing unfolded - Sukesh comes home. He and Renu decide they want to watch a horror movie. I am ill-advised by Akshay that 28 Weeks Later is a classic scary movie. So, instead of watching this sequel, I head off to the DVD rental store and pick up 28 Days Later.
After a sumptuous fried chicken dinner (AFC - not KFC), we take our positions and switch the lights off. 25 minutes into the movie, we were looking at each otrher wondering what the fuck was the movie about. It was bizarre, not even remotely scary. I was trying hard to be thrilled and hoping that something would happen... right up till the last minute. I fondly remembered another friend - Nydia - who told me something superlative about another movie - only for me to get so mind-fucked about it that I almost stopped speaking to her.

Now the real downer - before we watched the ill-fated 28 Days Later, we booked the tickets to the sequel (online).

Being one's who value Uppa's as well as our caash, we had to go for this. You know, for good ol' hard-earned money's sake.

28 Weeks Later was slightly better than the prequel - the saving grace was that we actually watched the prequel, so we knew why the fuck these bloody-eyed zombies were running around necking each other in the first place!!

Please avoid both these shit-packs. They are not worth a wart.

An interview happened. So, hopefully there's good news this week.

Up on Cripple Creek...

I'm partly shocked that I bought this album (The Band, self titled) so late in life. Another part of me is just plain thrilled. Why?

This 1969 classic (fondly called the Brown Album for its super sleeve) followed their Music From The Big Pink (1968), an album many believe to be the best ever recorded. Eric Clapton, in the liner notes of Blind Faith's deluxe edition, sums it up when he described Music From The Big Pink as having the most significant impact on him "whose versatility and harmonious unity seemed blissfully free of the corrosive intensity which had fueled Cream".

But for now, let me focus on this one. Like MFTBP, many believe this to be the most perfect rock album ever made. And I mighthave to put this up with Moondance and Born To run.

The Band are Levon Helm, Richard Manuel, Garth Hudson, Rick Danko, and Robbie Robertson. Among them, they have mastered 27 different instruments. Like Elvis (White guy who made super black music), these guys were mostly Canadian (4 of 5) but managed to create a unique style of music that is genuine American.

I never heard another album which such a flow from start to finish like this one. Maybe Van Morrison's Moondance. But this is truly unbelieveable. The lyrics are simple and very intelligent at the same time. The harmonies are the best I ever heard - and the guitaring is so understated that you'd beg to hear more. One only has to watch The Last Waltz to see how talented these boys were. To hold it all back and give a tight recording like this is truly immortal-like.

My favourite tracks so far include:

Across The Great Divide *****
Rag Mama Rag*****
The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down*****
Up on Cripple Creek *****
Whispering Pines****
Jemima Surreneder****
Look Out Cleveland*****

I got Moondance when I was going through a slightly low phase in my life - and it lifted me out of it. This album arrived into my life under similar circumstances. And I feel so much better. Thats why I'm glad I got this now. And I'm so glad I have so much of these classics to discover and appreciate.

Its a beautiful world.