March 16, 2006

The Usual

I am @ hyd right now, enjoying my holi holidays :)
Bunking three days of college too to extend my vacation ;)
Travelling by train takes around 28 hrs (if trains run on time that is). I haven't yet graduated to flights but plan to do so soon. But maybe not soon enough as I have just one year left at B.Tech.
Maybe that last statement sounded a bit sad. Lemme rephrase it.
:o :o :o I have just ONE year of B.Tech. left !!!!!!!!! (yoooooo hoooooo).
hehe, thats better.
Like counting down the final days.
We hostel guys hoped till 2nd year that these 4 years shud never pass. Now, we just wait for em to die out :))

Neways, enuff of criticism.
I sometimes blog when I have finished reading a book and am dying to say a few words abt it.
But lemme also tell u bout a few movies that I have seen (the entire list is too long and hence I won't bore u with it. If u wanna get bored tho, chk out the list at http://home.iitk.ac.in/~ganshul/movies1.htm).

Been at hyd for 3 days now and haven't stayed full day at home even once :D
Don't plan to for the rest of the days either (hope mom ain't reading this :D)

Finished reading "The Godfather" by Mario Puzo and thoroughly enjoyed it.
But two things contained my enjoyment tho.
One, I had seen the trilogy and tho I didn't remember every detail, I did remember the first movie very well and that is the part that is covered in the book. What this does is it takes out a bit of the excitement from the book. It could have been more severe but luckily this book doesn't count on the twists alone to help it out.
Second, I had read a book on a similar topic, "My Life in the Mafia" by Vincent Teresa (http://home.iitk.ac.in/~ganshul/My%20Life%20In%20The%20Mafia.htm) and I must tell you, this was an awesome book.
Due to the above reasons, I found the godfather not as GOOD a book as readers claimed.
It was good, no doubt. Awesoem actually. But not as phenomenal as I thought :
I will go on to say that I enjoyed My Life in the Mafia better, but then again it might be that the above two reasons have tilted my judgement.
There are two things about a book that are generally watched for. The CONTENT and the WRITING. The content is basically the storyline and the twists and the characters. The writing is the way it has been presented and depends totally on the writer.
Many a times a book becomes brilliant majorly due to its content (like "It's not about the bike" http://home.iitk.ac.in/~ganshul/It's%20Not%20About%20The%20Bike.htm) and at times due to the writing style (like "love" http://home.iitk.ac.in/~ganshul/Love.htm).
It's so rare when both of these come together (like LOTR http://home.iitk.ac.in/~ganshul/LOTR.htm and maybe "A Walk To Remember" http://home.iitk.ac.in/~ganshul/A%20Walk%20To%20Remember.htm).
Sadly, The Godfather does't exactly come into the second category. But it's close. Almost home.
I will post a full review later on my website.

The good movies I have seen lately:
We Were Soldiers: Brilliant war-time movie starring Mel Gibson who totally dominates. The movie is sentimental and is abt war time tradgedies and how the men at the warfront relate to each other in times as desperate as war.

Hide and Seek: A good horror movie after a long time. De Niro is back and the girl, Dakota Fanning is just brilliant at her work. Nice spooky story with a good twist.

Anatomy of a Murder, To Kill a Mockingbird: Two awesome black and white classical court room dramas. Didn't think I wud enjoy them that much :)

The Name of the Rose: Greatest thing about this movie was the sets, the costumes and the locations. They had to show a catholic setting where church was everything. Brilliantly done. Horror/Mystery btw.

Elizabethtown: Superb music. Light romance.

I can hear the sea: the BEST of em all by far. Wrote this movie to CD immediately.
Romantic animation, typical of Ghilbi Studios. So much feel in it that u just get lost. This movie totally stayed.

Special Mention for "In Her Shoes": Finally saw this cameron diaz starrer and tho it was a nice movie, CD smiled so beautifully that I wrote this on CD too instantly :D
God, did she look awesome........


Must mention. Met this real sweet girl on the train and gosh, was she sweet.
I was rather shocked that I managed to talk to her and, did I tell u, she was real sweet :D
But somehow, I couldn't take her immediate contact (email or cell no). Mayb it wasn't right to do so at such a short meeting either but still, now that I feel a bit bad (thats my heart) I feel it was the right thing to do. Whatever, glad for that experience.

Adios.