RedDevil's Turf

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

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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

And I’m so gutted to have written that post title. Absolutely shattered and sad about the way things happened. From a neutral point of view it might have been a great season, but for Massa and everyone who likes and supports him, its been a day to forget. Knowing what he had to do Felipe Massa did all he could, got the pole position, drove the the fastest lap during the race and eventually won it, and while winning it in hope that he just won the title too, but for the luck. Lewis Hamilton was behind Timo Glock when at the very last corner of the race, during the uphill climb, he overtakes Glock and grabs that 1 crucial point which sealed the title in his favor. For a moment I felt as if something was fishy in that move, why did the huge lead which Glock had over Hamilton suddenly just vanish over a single lap, and although Glock has said he was loosing grip, which might be even true, its caused an irreversible verdict on the championship. Many a times its been said that sports can be cruel at times, and we once again saw what it meant. I never felt this bad when Michael Schumacher lost the titles to Fernando Alonso, Alonso drove like a champ and won it, although that engine failure at Japan broke my heart when Schumi’s last hope went up in smoke, but still I always hated Lewis Hamilton and this year the hatred reaches supreme levels. Some of Lewis’s fans might argue with me, but then a champion is not just about who has the maximum points at the end of the season, its also about the way he gets the maximum points. Luck has been with him as much as against him, but whenever it was with him he benefitted more than when it wasn’t. And when that happens you have more good days than the bad ones. Anyways congratulations to Lewis Hamilton for winning the title. And Massa will have his day someday.

Sports formula one

Its the final race of the season and its the Brazilian Felipe Massa in his home race against the Brit Lewis Hamilton. The math is simple:
Hamilton will be champion if:
- He finishes fifth or higher
- He finishes sixth and Massa is second or lower
- He finishes seventh and Massa is second or lower
- He finishes eighth and Massa is third or lower
- He fails to score and Massa is third or lower

Massa will be champion if:
- He wins and Hamilton finishes sixth or lower
- He finishes second and Hamilton is eighth or lower

If the pair are tied on points at the end of Sunday afternoon (which would happen is Massa wins with Hamilton sixth, or if Massa finishes second with Hamilton eighth), Massa would win the title by virtue of more victories (six to Hamilton’s five) or more second-place finishes (three to Hamilton’s two).

So there you have it, both know what they have to do, and both know the stakes. Hamilton might be in a comfortable position thanks to the seven point lead he has, but he knows that it aint over till its over, and Massa would love to win the title at home infront of his fans and becoming the first Formula 1 champion since the great Ayrton Senna. Last season too Hamilton was in a comfortable position, he lost the title to Kimi Raikkonen. Constructors’ wise, Ferrari’s 11-point lead should be enough to win their title from McLaren. BMW Sauber is 10-point behind McLaren so they still have an outside chance of grabbing second from McLaren.

Its also the final grand prix of David Coulthard, aka DC. The oldest man on grid and a veteran of 245 grands prix starts, DC has been a popular figure in F1. Never won the title, 13 wins over a career of 15 years, with his last win in the 2003 season. Not an out and out championship material but he’s been always a tough guy to overtake. DC will surely be missed in F1. Farewell DC.

Here is the race schedule (all timings are in IST):
FRI Practice 1      17:30
FRI Practice 2     21:30
SAT Practice     18:30
SAT Qualifying     21:30
SUN Race     22:30

You just cant miss all the action. And I hope its Massa who wins it.

Sports formula one