A load of crap from an idle brain

The Diwali weekend was spent lazing around at home and watching movies.  Caught up on all the ones i had missed.  Inception was really exceptional both concept wise and in the way the director Christopher Nolan shot it.  Was amazed at the way he was able to narrate the movie.

Having read so much about the movie, i thought i would be lost and the movie would be confusing.  But i found it quite engaging and entertaining.  The way the movie races through the different countries, the whole concept of getting into someone’s dreams to steal information or to plant them.  Man, where do they get all these ideas from? 

Avatar on the other hand transfixed me visually.  Its stunning.  No other word comes close.  But nothing great actually when it comes to either acting or the script.  Visually the movie is in its own class and will take a long time for any other director to match it.  Now, James Cameron has announced 2 more sequels to the movie in the years ahead.  Looking at all he has done in this one, the expectations are already quite high.

The Expendables was the usual 80s Rambo kinda movies that Stallone was so good at.  Explosions, bodies getting ripped off, the heroes going to the villain’s den and blowing up the whole place, a sexy woman who is rescued by the hero just as she is about to be raped.  Would have loved to see Arnie and Bruce Willis get their hands dirty though.

Machete was similar to the Expendables.  Mindless action with lots of gore attached.  Its rare to see Steven Seagal and Robert de Nero in the same movie. But was fun.  Another mindless action flick.

Having read so much about the financial meltdown in the US and with so much interest in finance & investing, this movie was a must watch for me for quite some time.  The movie did drag a bit, nevertheless i found it engaging.  Now, it has motivated me to go search for the original that released some 20 odd years ago.

All pictures above courtesy: IMDB

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Prime Focus, the Mumbai based post production company has worked on significant portions of the recent blockbusters, Avatar and The New Moon.

Prime Focus played an essential behind-the-scenes role in two of the biggest Hollywood blockbusters of 2009 — Chris Weitz’s “New Moon” and James Cameron’s “Avatar.” The company established itself as one of the cutting-edge firms in the visual effects business by producing about 10 percent of James Cameron’s path-breaking 3D superhit and a whopping 80 percent of the shots for the second installment of the Twilight franchise.

“’Avatar’ obviously is the biggest of all,” Malhotra said. “We’ve done some exemplary work in ‘GI Joe’ and ‘New Moon’ as well. But when you’re working on ‘Avatar’ as one of the top five vendors you have got to a lot more credible space than working on just any movie.”

The London Stock Exchange-listed company’s portfolio of work runs the gambit from “Avatar” to top Bollywood hits like the Amir Khan starrer “3 Idiots” to Splinter Films’ DVD release of a live performance by Beyonce. The company already owns the lion’s share of the Indian post-production and visual effects market, and the international business is expanding rapidly.

Full article here

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Some great news all round. India has taken a series winning 3-0 lead against the Sri Lankans in the 5 match one day series.  Meanwhile, South Africa  humiliated Australia by winning both the one day and test series.  To rub  salt into the wounds, New Zealand forced a win in the first one dayer against Australia on the last ball of the match.

Brad Haddin lived upto his captain’s reputation as a cheater by dislodging the bails with his gloves instead of the ball and had the gall to question Daniel Vettori when his actions were questioned.  Pricky Ricky Ponting followed suit in defending his co-cheatmate.  I was waiting to hear a classic in the lines of

If you are questioning my integrity, then probably you shouldn’t be sitting here.

but, unfortunately no such pearls of wisdom sprouted from Ricky’s mouth this time.  In other news, Ricky Ponting has been asked to rest. Heh.  Great news.  If Australia are really serious about mounting any challenge to South Africa or India, they seriously need to get rid of Ricky as captain.  He’s still a good batsman and commands a place in the team purely on his batting and fielding.  But when it comes to captaincy, he often looks lost when the chips are down.

Roger Federer lost in the finals of the Australian Open and that’s something iam unable to come to terms with.  Rafael Nadal seems to be his achilles heel. Nadal has quickly moved from being a good player on clay to grasscourts too.  So, Federer has lost his monopoly in Wimbledon now having lost to Nadal last year.  Am sure Federer will make a comeback and break Sampras’ record of 14 grand slams, but the delay is the killer.

Watched Vicky Cristina Barcelona last weekend.  Scarlett Johansson is yummy and so is Penelope Cruz.  I still cant get over the evil role of Javier Bardem in No country for old men and had a tough time thinking about him as a casanova in this movie.

Meanwhile, i will have some great 2 weeks starting this sunday.  Biwi ji will join me here in Singapore

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Considering the amount of movies i watch, i felt that a separate page is needed to justify it.  So, i have put up a listing of all the movies that i have watched this year in the new page called “Movies“. Yes, its just 11 days into the year but i have already watched  13 movies.  Am a movie maniac you see

Its difficult for me to write detailed reviews for each and every movie i see because sometimes i end up watching 4-5 movies over a weekend. And by the end of the week, i have no patience to write anything about it other than rating them on a 1- 5 scale. Though if i do have the energy, i might write a few lines about them.

I soon plan to put up another page that will track all the books that i read.  Not that i read a lot.  Weekends are spent watching movies, so the only time for me to read a book is when iam travelling to and from work.  Also that depends on how tired iam.  So, most of the time, i just plug in some music into my ears and doze off (if iam fortunate to get a seat).

Above picture courtesy: Tinypic

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A lot of good things and humongous amount of ugly things happened in 2008.  The global financial meltdown, terror attacks in Bombay and the rest of the country, millions of job losses, more than 20 banks going bust in the US.  Big investment companies like Lehman, Merrill Lynch, Bear Stearns etc down the drain.  All the bad things were very promptly covered by the world media.  So, let me look at some of the best things that happened to me this year.

Best thing to happen to me in 2008

I got married.  Is there anything better than this?

Travel in 2008

I made 4 trips to India this year and contributed my part to global warming.  So, other than the regular trips home, 2008 has been a pretty dry year when it came to travel.  2009 seems more promising as i already have lots of travel plans lined up now that i have my wife as my travel partner.

Movies in 2008

Have lost count of the number of movies i watched this year.  It should be more than 150.  That means around one in 2 days.  Fortunately, i dont restrict myself to any particular genre or language,  so i have had the honour of watching some truly remarkable movies across languages

Let me emphasize that all the movies mentioned below are not necessarily released this year.  These are just some of the movies that i saw this year which impressed me.

Aamir
A Wednesday
Mithya
Oye Lucky Lucky Oye
Jodhaa Akbar
Tahaan
Subramaniapuram (Tamil)
Dasavatharam (Tamil)
Gamyam (Telugu)
Slumdog Millionaire
Dark Knight
Children of Men
Death at a Funeral
Before Sunset
Taken
21
3:10 to Yuma
Transsiberian
Rebel without a cause
The Towering Inferno
In Bruges
Traffic
Gran Torino
28 weeks later
Rang-E-Khoda (Colour of Paradise) – Iranian
Bacheha-Ye aseman (Children of Heaven) – Iranian

Books in 2008

Kaoboys of R&AW – B Raman
Eleven Minutes – Paulo Coelho
Reluctant Fundamentalist – Mohsin Hamid
Freakonomics – Steven Levitt
Barefoot Investor – Scott Pape
Undercover Economist – Tim Harford
It happened in India – Kishore Biyani
We are like that only – Rama Bijapurkar
The World is Flat – Thomas Friedman
Intelligent Investor – Benjamin Graham

Investments in 2008

At the begining of the year even though there were predictions that the world economy was in for a rough ride, no one would have believed if the markets would be at a situation where it is now.  From 20,000 to 9000, the Sensex has been on a mother of all crashes.  My portfolio is totally in the red.  But then as some great soul said…

Buy when everyone sells and sell when everyone buys

Iam buying and have built up quite a bit of my portfolio by now.  I averaged out quite a lot of my losses and surely dont need the market to climb back to 20k to see a positive portfolio.  I still cant believe why people keep advising me that i should start buying only when the market is stable.

How does one judge when a market turns stable?  The worst thing you can do is to time the market.  Its practically impossible for anyone to guess the top and the bottom of the market. The only thing a long term investor can do is to religiously invest a bit of his savings in the market and cash out when he hits paydirt.

Career in 2008

Nothing interesting happened in my career during 2008. In fact, hanging on to the job one has is the mantra in this gloomy economy. In fact this is a good time to start studying and get certified in some courses that can make a difference when the economy rebounds.

My resolution for 2009

…. is to have no resolutions

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