RedDevil's Turf

If you believed that sometimes people forget giving credit where its due, time to think again. The Dark Knight, aka TDK, has been breaking records and is going to hit the $1 billion mark at the box office soon, and the fans and Warner Bros are making efforts that Dark Knight atleast makes it to the nominations for the 2008 Academy Awards aka the Oscars. The latest from this effort has been the “Dark Campaign“, which has been making news. Especially for that poster which got the Joker treatment and their video. I’m a big time Batman fan and for me The Dark Knight was some kind of a Batgasm. It was really a superb sequel to a already superb movie Batman Begins; more on the superbness in my Batman Begins Review & Dark Knight Review. Anyways Dark Campaign has a very strong message in their About Page, and it surely is a great effort at the grassroots levels.

Watch the video for the campaign on the Dark Campaign page:

Please popularize this video and lets bring the message infront of as many people as possible. This movie deserves the recognition.

Also the poster which I was talking about is created by Josh MC

Get the full size version from here.

My personal view is that this movie should get the nominations and then go on to win them, primarily for Christopher Nolan in Best Director and Heath Ledger in Best Actor in a Supporting Role. Heath Ledger especially deserves the award for his superlative performance in the movie. With news about Warner Bros to Re-Release The Dark Knight on Jan. 23, it should only add weight to the whole idea.

The Dark Knight for the Oscars!

Movies batman, christopher nolan, heath ledger, the dark knight

What is wrong with the system, the things related to normal functioning, its all missing. The world is going absolutely crazy and the people who take care of the law is even crazier.

Watch this video for a start.

Read more…

General

Twitter logo

Finally I have registered on Twitter, not sure if I’ll be regular there or not, but just for the sake of it.

Follow my Tweets

About Me, Internet twitter

Holy Smokes! Congress has an ad on Yahoo! India. Now since when these politicians started advertising on internet portals! See for yourselves if you don’t believe me.

This is the first time I have seen any Indian Political Party advertising on the internet and asking for vote. The Indian National Congress (INC) has an ad on Yahoo! India where a Delhi Metro train passes by leaving a streak of the tricolour, and then leaving a message…”Because progress is visible here” and then comes the message, “Vote for Congress”. Now I expect the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders to take note of it and launch their own campaign. The United States presidential election campaign recently saw the huge amoung of money spent in the campaigning. Now I expect slowly these super rich Indian politicians to start spending huge on their campaigns in areas untouched, like the internet. The youth is ofcourse the main target here, and its a well thought of strategy to get votes from them. Lets see how successful it goes when the elections take place.

General congress, politics, yahoo

YouTube logo

As with all the digital displays, the plasmas, the laptops, even the desktop LCDs, now even the YouTube player is going, drumrolls please!, “Widescreen”!. Yes, YouTube has changed the player to a widescreen format. YouTube today announced that along with the player, the YouTube webpage is also going the “widescreen aspect ratio” way. Happy Viewing!

Internet youtube

Yahoo! Logo

I was browsing Mashable, where I found this post about Yahoo!’s redesign of their homepage. Check out the post on Yodel Anecdotal about the new design. They have a screenshot on the page too, or you can get a bigger version of it on Flickr. Like they mentioned in the post, the Yahoo! logo is now purple on the page, and it looks cool. The overall design is also pretty good. I like the clean layout and crisp fonts used everywhere. Its very much with the current design trend. No word about when its going to made live.

Internet redesign, web design, yahoo

Dostana movie poster

Directed by     Tarun Mansukhani
Produced by     Dharma Productions
Written by     Tarun Mansukhani
Starring     Abhishek Bachchan, John Abraham, Priyanka Chopra
Music by     Vishal-Shekhar
Distributed by     Yash Raj Films
Release date(s)     November 14, 2008

A movie based on a subject based on homosexuality? Its got to be just a lot of those “Kantaben” jokes like in Kal Ho Na Ho right? Wrong! Dostana is not ridiculing or just making fun of the subject, instead its just a theme, which has not made fun of but rather shown pretty normally and very well handled by the debutant director Tarun Mansukhani. Its a story about how two friends pretend to be gay to find a place to live. Read the complete plot here (Spoiler warning!).

So its ofcourse a relatively very new theme, and a first movie completely dedicated to the idea of homosexuality (not counting that Girlfriend movie which come out sometime back starring Amrita Arora and Isha Koppikar and turned out to be a disaster). So it was a fun ride all the way, well not all the way for half way for sure, and then on occasions in the second half. But I guess the first half makes the movie worth watching. It was filled with hilarious scenes surrounding the actors. Everyone just burst out laughing on numerous occasions, especially when Abhishek narrates his and John’s lovestory, that was really funny.

The movie as such didn’t have a great story, its just that the humor content saves the movie from a average film. Its just the amazing first half that makes it a very good watch. The location is set in Miami, but I wanted to see more of it as its a very beautiful. And when normally Bollywood movies show a lot of the town in the films set in foreign locations, Miami well known for its beaches, only showed well in the opening title song of the film. Direction was fine but had some places to improve. The first half was a fun ride, but second half was a big let down, should have been better. Songs were nice, “Maa Da Laadla” was a funny song. “Jaane Kyon” and “Desi Girl” are also good songs. Good music overall.

Acting wise a great performance from Abhishek Bachchan. He was really good and handled the funny sequences and role splendidly. John Abraham was also quite good, but he was better in a comic role in Garam Masala. He wasn’t bad mind you, and yeah he looked great. Priyanka Chopra, boy she looked sexy and stunning, and acted pretty well too. Shilpa Shetty also looked amazing in the song in opening credits. Boman Irani was funny, but his role was very short, same for Kirron Kher. Kirron Kher normally plays a lot of time on screen, but this time her appearance was very short, should have been more. Bobby Doel is credited for a special appearance but he was pretty much in the main starcast I believe.

Anyways its a really entertaining movie, havn’t seen a good bollywood movie in recent times, so this is a welcome watch. First half is really amazing, but the second half is a bit of a let down. Still a very good watch overall, nice entertainment.

Rating: 7.5/10

Dostana Official Website

Movies movie review, review

The Pink Panther 2 Teaser Poster

The teaser for Pink Panther is out and it promises to be another laugh riot. I had a great time watching The Pink Panther released in 2006, and with all the cast, other than Kevin Kline, from the previous movie returning, it should be real fun to watch. Like I mentioned earlier, Aishwarya Rai also stars in Pink Panther as a criminal expert. The trailer shows that the pink panther diamond is again lost and Steve Martin as Clouseau is again set on the search of it with Jean Reno as Ponton, his sidekick. So go watch the trailer, cant wait for the movie. The release date is February 6, 2009.

Watch the trailer on Yahoo! Movies

Official web site

Movies aishwarya rai, movie preview, Movies, pink panther

Quantum of Solace movie poster

Directed by Marc Forster
Produced by Michael G. Wilson, Barbara Broccoli
Novel/Story by     Ian Fleming (Characters), Michael G. Wilson (Plot)
Screenplay Joshua Zetumer, Paul Haggis, Neal Purvis, Robert Wade
Starring Daniel Craig, Mathieu Amalric, Olga Kurylenko, Gemma Arterton, Judi Dench, Jeffrey Wright, Giancarlo Giannini
Music by David Arnold
Main theme “Another Way to Die”
Composer Jack White
Performer Alicia Keys, Jack White

I have seen hollywood movies releasing here, in India, usually later than in USA. And if its a big movie, its on the same day as USA. But Quantum of Solace was released here in India on 8th November,  a full week ahead of USA! That’s remarkable!

To fully understand the movie one needs to see Casino Royale, the prequel to Quantum of Solace, because the movie has lot of things related to it. The movie starts off from where it ended in Casino Royale. Read the complete plot here at wikipedia (Spoiler Warning!).

Sequels always bring comparisons to the previous prequels and Quantum of Solace is no exception. And I’ m afraid its not the good news for the movie. Don’t get me wrong, the movie isn’t bad, but somehow the execution wasn’t perfect, or maybe we shall say it wasn’t the way we expected after Casino Royale. Direction was not that good, although action scenes were plenty, and good  other than the starting car chase scene where the camera had lot of jerky movements, and the bond chasing a guy scene on the rooftops had some jerks too, other than that it was fine. Daniel Craig was fine, but I liked him more in Casino Royale. Mathieu Amalric was very good, he plays the bad guy role of Dominic Greene. He played his part very well. Olga Kurylenko plays Camille Montes and was fine. Judi Dench plays M, and was much more visible in the movie than Casino Royale, and was quite fine.

Direction was somewhat poor. The movie could have been better, had flaws in some areas as it was sometimes too fast. The initial chases sequences could have been better shot. Action sequences otherwise were good. It does atleast liveup to the action demands of the movie. Locations were really good. One thing which I saw missing, rather two of them, were lack of real cars and real bond girls. Other than the Aston Martin which Bond thrashes here and there in the initial chase scene, doesnt get close to another exotic Aston in the movie again, and Olga Kurylenko, although is a good looking woman, didn’t appear much as a bond girl, and where bond is usally seen romancing girls, he shares just one kiss with Olga. Casino Royale took James Bond series in a different direction, in a good way, but then this is going in a wrong direction, I hope Bond 23 turns out to be better where Quantum of Solace wasn’t. Music was fine, Casino Royale’s music was much intense and carried more Bond signature with it. But to sum it up, with not many good movies out there, I think Quantum of Solace is a fine movie and will be a entertaining one, under 2 hours and fast paced should be a good watch.

Rating: 7/10

Quantum of Solace Official website

See Also: Casino Royale Review

Movies james bond, movie review, Movies

The Fuel Great Indian Rock 2008

Like I promised in my The Fuel Great Indian Rock XII 2008 Preview, here is the account of my visit to the Great Indian Rock, aka GIR. I went on both the days in the Delhi part of GIR, which were on 1st and 2nd November held in Hamsadhwani Theater, Pragati Maidan, New Delhi. The tickets costled Rs. 250 this time. The queue was too long on both the days but we still somehow managed to get in thanks to some friends. And like last time, this time again there were some security checks. But inside it was less strict an affair, with the bouncers not getting much in the act of stopping moshing. The show started more than an hour late then the scheduled time of 5:00pm mentioned in the tickets.

On Day 1 we had Frequency, Cynaide, Kryptos, Sahg and Freak Kitchen. Frequency weren’t that good, dissappointed somewhat. Kryptos were very good. Cynaide also performed well. Sahg again disappointed me with the locals, guitaring was great. Freak Kitchen impressed somewhat with good performance.

On Day 2 we had Level 9, which sucked big time. The vocals of the female lead singer were more like a pop singer rather than a rock singer. Undying INC was very good, so were Them Clones. Scribe were fine, but the last of them all was the best of them all. Satyricon took a while to come on, after never ending sound checks and stuff. But it was worth the wait. The crowd went crazy the moment they took stage. And they gave a fantastic performance which we throughly enjoyed. They even played Mother North, a very nice track, with fantastic guitaring. I enjoyed day 2 more than day 1 mostly due to Satyricon.

And after two days of attending GIR I have a pain in the neck due to the great deal of headbanging I did.

The Fuel Great Indian Rock 2008 Official Website

Some pictures from the show at my Webshots Album

Music GIR, Great Indian Rock