space: the final frontier

"Space: The final frontier
These are the voyages of the Starship, Enterprise
Its 5 year mission
To explore strange new worlds
To seek out new life and new civilizations
To boldly go where no man has gone before"

so many of us have such nostalgic memories when you hear these lines... of the eagerly awaited star trek series on sunday morning on television (on the solitary doordarshan channel in those days)...

i have never watched a single star trek movie after the tv series... i couldn't even bring myself to watch the new series which did not have william shatner as capt. kirk and leonard nimoy as spock... (i remember all the girls in school in those days being completely smitten by capt. kirk... yeah yeah, i know i studied in an all-boys school and you are wondering how i know this about the girls... well, i am not telling!)

but i finally decided to watch the latest star trek movie which is a chronicle of the early days of capt. kirk and his fellow uss enterprise crew members...

all of us trudged off for the sunday morning show... the big boss and the kids... the kids actually enjoyed themselves... and i don't mean just the popcorn and the fizzy drink... they actually enjoyed the film... though the younger one (daughter) did get a little frightened during some of the scenes... it was their first sci-fi film on the big screen...

i simply loved the movie... even if you have never watched star trek you will really enjoy this film... and if you are even a fringe fan of start trek and don't consider yourself a trekkie you would still be comiting an unforgiveable sin if you do not watch this film!

the movie has leonard nimoy playing the old spock (i am not telling you anything more) and he still can make you smirk with his logical dialogs delivered with a punch...

but for me, just like for another die-hard fan i chatted with earlier today, the most 'goose-bumpy' and emotional moment in the film was during the end credits where leonard nimoy says 'space: the final frontier....'

ah! that was the bestest moment in the film for me... but you have to watch it understand what i am saying...

i will sign off by borrowing spock's customary farewell line (accompanied by the vulcan hand salute of course) - "live long and prosper!"

mamma mia!

just got back from the movie 'mamma mia! the movie'....

you can't help but get the feeling that you've just watched a slickly made bollywood production... except that it was dubbed in english! :P
bollywood's arrived in hollywood!

there's drama & melodrama, romance, music, songs, dances and a wedding! no i am not talking about 'hum aapke hai kaun'! :P

the movie, mamma mia and not hahk, is a 'stage-to-movie' adaptation of the 1999 west-end musical by the same name. the plot revolves around a bride-to-be (amanda seyfried) who's living with her single mother (meryl streep) on a greek island. she wants her father to attend her wedding. she finds her mother's diary and finds out that there are 3 possible candidates who could be her father!

she invites all 3 of them for the wedding using her mother's name hoping to identify her real father immediately... but she can't... and then the rest of the movie is all about a lot of songs and dances and the story unfolding! the plot is weak and limps along between the songs...

most of the songs used are from the successful pop group 'abba'! these include the popular ones like mamma mia, dancing queen, i have a cream, money money money, chiquitita, etc.

the cast includes pierce brosnan (of james bond fame), colin firth, stellan skarsgard, amanda seyfried and others... all the actors have played their roles quite well and have even lip synched very realistically! :P
but the show-stealer is most definitely meryl streep! even at this age (she's close to 60!) she packs so much energy and life into the role... she runs around, prances about and dances with abandon like a 20s-something-year old! in once scene she actually jumps up on the bed and manages a split (i am talking about a leg-split as done by dancers)...
she carrys almost the entire film on her shoulders!

so go for the movie only if you are an abba fan! its a must-see for you...

for the rest of you, its not a bad movie... worth watching even if you are a bollywood movies fan... you will identify with it! :P
and its definitely better than most of the bollywood movies currently playing!

p.s. did anyone guess who's the real father? i don't think even the script writer knows! :P

lessons from a panda

the big boss has 'asked' me to post this... and i post it, no questions asked, obviously! i mean, i am crazy and all that, but i love life. my life being the most loved one, of course!

the guruprasad family watched the kung-fu panda a few weekends ago! mr. guruprasad junior was treated to the movie separately... the rest of the family promptly went and saw it the day after that! (the excuse the seniors used was that ms. guruprasad junior could not obviously be deprived of this movie! :P )

(the murky truth lies in the fact that the parents would go to any lengths to watch such animated movies! in fact the big boss liked it so much that she was keen i post this piece here about the movie... so now you know who to thank!)

well here's the verdict to anybody out there who's still not watched this movie - WATCH IT NOW!!!

and it doesn't matter if you are single, married, divorced, separated, with/ without kids, celibate, etc. or if you fall into any other category! this movie (one of the few non-pixar ones) which ranks right up there with the best animated films! (my list includes finding nemo, the incredibles, monsters inc, the lion king, shrek, aladdin, jungle book, the little mermaid, etc.)

the story is fun for kids, and carries a bag of laughs and a few good hard-hitting messages for us boring oldies as well. its all about a 'fat' panda (do they come in any other size?) who wants to be a kung-fu warrior. and then becomes one in the end, despite all the 'heavy' odds, without any 'secret recipe' for success.

its a fairly simple straight-forward story which is presented very well. the action sequences are a delight to watch. (frankly i didn't pay much attention to the fact that the voice-overs were done by some heavy-weights including dustin hoffman, angelina jolie and suchlike.)

my only advice is that it wouldn't be a good idea to watch this movie before going to the local stamp duty & registration office... whatever inspiration you gained from the movie would be effectively sucked out of you there! but then that's the gory stuff for another post later :)

p.s. read this great review cum career advice post - http://youthcurry.blogspot.com/2008/07/kung-fu-style-career-advice.html

p.p.s. i also happened to watch the latest sequel in 'the mummy' series - the tomb of the dragon emperor. my only comment is that i hope the mummies are well and truly buried this time and are not resurrected any further!

my wife and i finally saw 'lage raho munnabhai'! i am not sure it is oscar material, if you were to comapre it with movies that won the best foreign language film award, but we had a blast watching it.

the funniest line in the movie was when circuit beats up someone and then asks him to get so that he can sorry to him! what made it extremely hilarious was the cool way in which the dialogue was delivered.

there was one loop-hole i found in the picture, i don't know if i misread it. correct me if am wrong. there is one part where 'lucky singh' calls for a press conference to prove that munnabhai has lost his head and is seeing visions. there in the conference the psychiatrist proceeds to prove that the 'bapu' that munnabhai is seeing is his own mental projection. he demonstrates how munnabhai's bapu can answer only those questions for which munnabhai already knows the answer. he does this by producing a list of 3 questions which bapu cannot answer because munnabhai himself does not know the answer!

but my question is - how did the psychiatrist know that munnabhai did not know these facts in the first place? he was not the one who provided all the other facts in the first place!

i couldn't come up with an answer. could you?