Le fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain

The Fabulous Destiny of Amélie Poulain  Initially I thought of putting the review in the PB recommend section. But this movie deserves more than a few random praises. I watched it a couple of years back when I was surfing channels randomly and the narration caught my attention. It is one of those movies which [...]

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Book review-In Spite of the Gods by Edward Luce

In Spite of the Gods. The Strange Rise of Modern India. By Edward Luce.

Don’t get intimidated by the title of the book. It is not a drab, technical documentary on Modern India. It’s almost like a travelogue, absorbing every feeling as you stick your head out of the train window on a tour de India.

Warning – This book is not for the faint hearted Indian who wants to deny the gripping poverty and corruption in India or wants to blame the western media for projecting only India’s wrong side of things. Its not for those who wrote innumerable articles about the ‘ The White tiger ‘ or ‘Slumdog Millionaire’, about how the book and the movie have been meant to titillate the western audience and show India in bad light. There is one diversion thought. Edward Luce, the British journalist, who headed the Financial Times bureau in New Delhi, knows what he is writing. The language is lucid; the facts come out through the numerous interviews he had carried out for the book and the tone extremely insightful, thought irreverent at parts.

What I like best about the book is that the author does not have an agenda. He is not writing the book to win any award, or to score any brownie point with any particular person. The only entity he wants to impress is India, and the many manifestations of this great nation, the cultural diversity, the religious fundamentalism, the tolerance, the yin and the yang (the book also contains a chapter on Indo – China relationship), the bureaucracy, the Nehru – Gandhi legacy, the minorities and the majorities, the modern and ancient, AIDS, the spiritual and the mundane, the slums and the economic liberalization, the bureaucracy and also people like Anura Roy who gave up the esteemed Indian Administrative Services to serve the poor and fight for the right to Information, the US reckless amoralism and the Indian foreign policy, caste system, dalits, the software industry, Bollywood and every thing else that crossed your mind about what makes India tick irrespective of everything that prima facie would signal her downfall.

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Book Review-Predictaby Irrational by Dan Ariely

I picked up the book from Ankita’s place. Ankita is a Brand Manager in a MNC and a lot of the work involves in understanding ‘why people buy what they buy’ and understanding this consumer behavior involves dallying with psychology, sociology and of course behavioral economics. Behavioral economics is a new field and is given lots of importance now days because it differs from classical economics in the way that its treats people not as rational machines but as flesh and blood, whose behavior is fashioned by emotions, confusion, historical baggage and social conditioning. It’s almost like what the philosophers have been saying about reality and perception, that we tend to see the world not so much on what is the reality but through our own tinted glass. Now one of the principal tenets of classical economics is that individuals act in the best of their interest and in the most rational ways.
Now that the context has been set I shall get back to the review of the book ‘Predictably Irrational’ by Dan Ariely. I would say the first example in the book riveted me to the rest of the chapters. The first chapter is ‘The truth about relativity’ and it explains how human beings by nature find it difficult to decide on absolute terms because of what the author describes as ‘ individuals lacking an absolute value meter’. Hence individuals can be made to choose a particular option in a way the option is presented to them. Here the role of the ‘decoy ‘is very important. To give an example from the book-

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Movie Review: BeeGee Movie Guide, a paradigm shift in movie rating…

I haven’t come across any movie critics nor any movie rating system which consistently delivers or meets my expectations, which is also true to most of my friends’ and acquaintances expectations. News paper and websites can be mistakenly lenient on some movie and incorrectly thrifty on some other, anyway now a days some paper has a floating rate system. If the movie does well in Box office, they have the provision for an extra star or half. As for the movie critic, most often, I find them trying to be too harsh (esp. the more popular Mr. Rajeev Masand or Mrs. Anupama Chopra), I mean if their analysis is exactly what their take on movies then seem to be a paradox: If a person has a SIX SIGMA rate of likeness on movies that are released then how does he/she become a movie critic?

I might be wrong, but it’s common sense that one has to be a movie buff first and after watching tons and tons of movies he/she is licensed to be critics. Its like, to comment and endorse the benefits of Green Tea, on should first experience the curative property, which comes only after consistent and prolonged consumption; else it’s just a sort of slip of tongue.

So if these critics loath most of the movie they watched then from where do they have the stamina and motivation to continuously watch those below par movies year after year? And we all know any art form is passion driven rather then need driven, to me movie critic will slant more towards art form then as an occupation. Let’s pause on this paradox here as the reason for this post is on the process rather then the analyzers, though we will cover the remaining in details someday.

In India, the concept of movie watching for family is a form of family outing, an event of fun and frolic away from home for the entire members. Even for single individuals, it has similar connotation though it could be more defined as in dating, won a free ticket, because the group says so, etc. Hence movie watching is not just about the movie per se, people have certain package expectations on the entire experience, e.g. If you go for a date you will go in a PVR and ensure you buy at least a popcorn box with a cola and preferably choose the last line, if it’s your gang you won’t mind a single screen, in the middle and with just nature break.

Therefore, rating score of critics, newspapers and website seems inadequate; they don’t factor the holistic expectations part which is important. They just focus on the movie per se, they dig deep on the unnecessary nuances which most audience would not even spot if made to watch more then a couple of times.

Here’s where there is a need in paradigm shift in the way our rating system works, people need a turnkey answers, which sadly is not available currently.

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Movie Review: Fast and Furious 4…Should I watch it now or wait?

What I can say is if you like a Bollywood caper, just don’t watch Fast and Furious 4 yet…Maybe it’ll come very soon with a better Indian spice…Savor it for a Diwali fall…Don’t spoil your appetite yet!!!

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