Watching Too Many Movies

I have been watching too many movies of late. Like 2 a day. It's vacations and I have very little else to do. So, I just sit and watch movies. (I also sleep quite a lot.) But then I have just been watching too many movies, maybe even for my own good. I have no intentions of stopping just yet though. :)

Movie Review:Knight Rider[2008]

Brief Review:

Saw this movie yesterday. Got it from a friend of mine. I was really looking forward to the movie for two reasons. One, I did not know such a movie had come out. Two, as a young kid, I remember watching Knight Rider on TV. We used to watch it religiously. Even if we liked Street Hawk better. :D I don't remember watching the series itself because it was years ago. Probably more than 10 years ago. In India, it was telecast pretty late compared to it's original telecast (Else, I might not have been born at all to watch it).

I found out from IMDb and later from Wikipedia that the movie was released as a backdoor pilot for a potential new series on TV and hence did not hit the theatres at all. If you are a Knight Rider fan, then you would know that there was a TV series on NBC back in 1982 to 1986. It starred David Hasselhoff (of Baywatch fame) as Michael Knight. David returns in this movie too as the current Knight's father.

To start with, I did not like the movie much. It's not much of a movie really. Once you watch it, you will realise that it's more like a TV series. But then since it was released only on TV networks and not in theatres, that's alright.

Star Cast and their acting:

The movie stars Justin Bruening as Mike Traceur who goes on to drive the car. Deanne Russo as Sarah Graiman. Carrie Rivai is called Sydney Tamiia Poitier who is the daughter of Sidney Poitier. (Whoa!! That's nice to know Trivia.) Most of the star cast does pretty badly at acting. Believe me. I have seen quite a number of movies and by now, I can tell the difference between good acting and bad acting. The people in this movie are pretty bad.

The Car:

Now, some work has gone into the technology with the people in the movie talking about nano technology and complex algorithms, AI and encryption. Something to cheer about. I am an Engineering student myself and some of the stuff like the robots actually look believable. :) So I give them credit for that. The car is awesome and is called KITT which is short form for Knight Industries Three Thousand. It is voiced by Val Kilmer. Now, that's cool. It is actually a Ford Mustang GT500KR.

I'll be watching the series for sure. But you can sure give the movie a miss.

I Signed up for PayPerPost

For people like me who are still pursuing their education and write a blog passionately about something specific, like movies and music in my case, it's a icing on top of the cake when PPP-payperpost approves your blog. Now you can earn money writing those posts you anyway do.

I have heard about payperpost even earlier from friends. So I said to myself, I am blogging anyway. Why not sign up for payperpost ? So I decided to sign up for PPP. What's best about PPP is that they have very well documented guidelines as far as the do's and dont's go. This means that there is no room for misunderstanding or error. Also, I heard from friends that payment is prompt. Also the available opportunities and all that are very clear and lucid.

By now most of my friends are into PPP and all of them recommended it to me very highly. I have made many new friends in my city who also use the PPP service. Reason enough to join their blog network now.

I already have plans for the money I shall be making. First is that since my blog is a movie and music blog, I'll be requiring money to keep buying those movies and music. Maybe in a while even a portable movie player. :) Who knows ? Anything and everything is possible. I also have a few other things in mind to buy.

External Hard Disk-To Store Movies-Part 02

In my previous post I had written about the disadvantages of using optical discs to store your data. They can be summarised as follows:

1. Searching the Disc for a particular movie
2. Sorting long after you have got the movie.
3. More physical space required.
4. Lack of flexibility in terms of storing a certain amount of data.
5. Scratching of discs
6. Expensive re-writable discs.

Keeping all these things in mind, it's better to go in for an External Hard Disc. I would prefer a 1TB (Tera Byte = 1000 GB, Giga Byte) hard disc. Because assuming a movie takes about 1 GB on an average, I can still store about 1000 movies on this. However, I have to be content with a 500GB Hard Disk for now. These are actually pretty cheap compared to their prices a few years back. A 500 GB Hard Disk costs about 125 USD. (Here in India) That's alright. Of course, certain brands cost more and there are also some drives which have an inbuilt Ethernet port. Such discs are obviously expected to cost more than the conventional Hard Disks even if it means that you will be losing some functionality.

Another option is to buy a Hard Disk and then buy an external casing. But then you won't save much doing this and moreover the quality and also the finish of the casing might not be great. So it's always better to go in for proper External Hard Discs. I'll post here once I have made a choice of Hard Disk and also bought one.

External Hard Disk-To Store Movies-Part 01

When you have close to two hundred and fifty movies and counting, not to mention various other videos such as those TV shows and other music videos, etc it's hard to keep track of all your discs and managing them becomes quite a problem. What's more, you always have to search for the disc in which the movie you want is. Other problems include flexibility. That is supposing I want to put all movies according to say either Director or based on the year of the movie, it's impossible to do so when you have them on discs. Renaming movies, or even deleting movies after watching them becomes a problem.

On top of all that, discs occupy more space, need to be stored carefully. Never expose discs to dust. Another annoying thing with storing movie on disc is that when you want to store 6 movies on a disc, sometimes it exceeds disc capacity by some 2MB. Shucks!! You now have to waste space on the disc. Also if your discs get scratched, then you are done for. Doomed. You can no longer watch the movies on the disc. This has happened to me when I lent some discs to friends. I stopped lending discs after that. :)

You can not delete movies from discs either. Yes you can delete it such that you are no longer able to access that movie, but then you cannot use that space back to store anything else. Yes, sure there are rewritable discs available. But they are a pain really. Writing and formatting them takes forever and they are also prohibitively expensive.

Now I don't know what's going to happen once Blue Ray discs start coming out. But till then, I think an External Hard Disc makes more sense. Read about it in my next post.

Making a List of Movies I have

So, I sat down today wanting to make a list of movies that I had with myself. I also wanted to get other statistics like the number of discs I was using to store the movies and how many movies I was able to store on a disc on an average. Also, I wanted to know how many movies I had watched, would like to watch again and how many movies I hadn't watched.

To a little bit of my surprise, I found that I had in excess of 200 movies with me currently. (I am not including movies in my brothers collection in this.) Not to mention TV shows and other such things which occupy a good percentage of discs themselves. Of these 200 movies, I am yet to watch close to 100 of them. (Bad, Isn't it ? ) And of the movies I have already seen also, I would like to watch some of the movies again. It's vacations right now. So I have all the time I want to watch movies. :)

Adding More Movies to My Ever Growing Collection

My exams have just concluded and I already find that I have an amazing number of movies that I need to watch. What's more the list keeps growing thanks to me adding movies to my collection constantly.

These are the movies I have added recently to my collection:

• 28 Days Later
• 28 Weeks Later
• I Am Legend
• Superman Returns
• The Mist

Also added to the list are,

• Beer Fest
• Equilibrium
• Outsourced
• Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines

Yet other additions include,

• Alvin and the Chipmunks
• Death Sentence
• No Reservations
• Rush Hour 3
• Vantage Point

Now, I just need to watch these movies and start posting their reviews. Stay tuned. :)

Thank You-Dido

Absolutely Mesmerising Song. Thank you by Dido is an inspiration for musicians. In fact even Eminem uses parts of this song in his Stan. (featuring Dido) This was a single and was released in the year 2001. It's the biggest hit by Dido form her album No Angel. No Angel also happens to be Dido's debut Album.

The song was written by Dido herself. The song lasts 3 minutes and 33 seconds and is quite short and nice without getting too repetitive. It belongs to the pop Genre. That means you can't expect too much out of it in terms of the music. But the music is nice and soothing and definitely not as irritating as some of the other pop songs.

On a scale of 10, I'd probably rate this song 7. I'd love to rate it 10, but then I am docking points because of the fact that the music is not played by Dido. :)

The Best of Me-Bryan Adams

Bryan Adams is once again at his best. The Best of Me was one of the first English Albums I heard. Back when I listened to it, (1999 was 8 years back you know) we didn't have CD's in India. So I found myself repeatedly listening to the Audio Cassette. (I still treasure the Audio Cassette and it is safe in my house.)

I had heard of Bryan Adams and few of his songs thanks to MTV and Channel V for which we didn't have to pay back then. They were free channels you know. This is also the name of the Album and a song in the Album. The Song plays for about 3 minutes and 33 seconds.

Bryan Adams' voice is mesmerising as always. I would rate this song 7.5 on a scale of 10 for the amazing vocals and the lyrics.

Beautiful Day-U2

Splendid Song by U2. In fact one of my all time favourites. OK that's a long list. So it's hard to say where this song would stand. It depends on your mood really. If I had to rate it on a scale of 10, I'd rate it 7.5. (Which is quite a lot)

The Song sounds different from most other songs. Almost like it's bad quality recording. :) But that's essential to the feel of the song itself and is not to be mistaken for poor quality. The song plays for about 4 minutes and 5 seconds. That means there aren't too many repetitions.

It's from the Album All That You Can't Leave Behind. It's one of their best songs and has won U2 three Grammys.

Bono, Rock on!!

Movies to Watch

As I have written in my previous post, I have some catching up to do on the movie watching front as well. I don’t have a concrete list of movies as such, but I have a few movies with me and I have been wanting to watch them for a while now.

Some of these include:

• Spirited Away
• Hotel Rwanda
• Requiem for a Dream
• LA Confidential
• The Maltese Falcon
• Alien

After watching these, I shall be watching the remainder of the Kubrick movies,

• A Clockwork Orange
• Barry Lyndon
• Spartacus
• Eyes Wide Shut
• Lolita

Well, so a lot many more reviews to come. Stay tuned.

Movie review:Full Metal Jacket[1987]

One way I catch/watch movies is to take a director who is critically acclaimed and start watching his/her movies. This works better than choosing an actor and watching his/her movies. Maybe using an Internet portal like IMDB is a better way of choosing movies if the number of movies you watch is limited and you don’t have all that much time.

Stanley Kubrick more than qualifies as a well acclaimed director and so, I have been watching a few of his movies of late. (He is a celebrity director in fact) This movie in particular was suggested by quite a few people. I have seen 2001: A Space Odyssey by Kubrick earlier. I liked the movie, but as all critically acclaimed movies, I did not get up after the movie with a smile all happy and pleased feeling good about myself or feeling pumped up and motivated in life.

Well, I did not recognise anyone in the cast while I was watching the movie. Adam Baldwin I seem to have heard off somewhere. Matthew Modine who narrates the tale as Pvt.Joker I later on found out has acted in Transporter 2 and Notting Hill. While I have watched both movies, I have no recollection whatsoever of me having seen him. Maybe he looked different and I did not recognise him. Oh,wait I didn’t know him when I saw those movies and hence would have ignored him as just another character in the movie.

Coming to the movie itself, it is the tale of a Marine, his training and later his experience in Vietnam. As a former student of an Army school (though not as intense as he movie portrays), I was able to confirm and appreciate the going ons inside the training centre. That’s how they really work.

As for the Vietnam part, it was very brief and well done. The sniper towards the very end and what happens when you disobey a direct command is portrayed wonderfuly-you endanger your life and also others’ lives. People who play games like Counter Strike should be able to appreciate the strategy of having a lone sniper hidden in a deserted location.

The ending like with the other Kubrick movie I have watched was not one with a message or an inspiration. It was just a normal ending to an otherwise beautiful movie. Watch the expletives though. They are many in number.

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Short Movie Reviews

I watch a lot many movies. The frequency has gone down over the last few days because of other work that has kept me busy. I used to watch anything between 1 to 2 movies a day on an average. Over the last few months, I haven’t watched a single movie. Pretty sad, isn’t it ?

But then, my work is kinda complete and now I can afford to dedicate more time to movies and reviews. However, I did not write reviews for few of the movies I had been watching. This means that I have a backlog of movies for which I shall be writing reviews. Trouble is, I watched them a while ago and while I might still remember the essentials, things are not fresh in my mind. I might actually even have to watch the movies again. So, for now I am going to write short reviews of movies. Once I get the time to watch them again, I shall write longer more comprehensive reviews.

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Movie Review: Mr.Smith Goes to Washington[1939]

Brief Review:

Ok, one more of Frank Capra’s movies. And yet another Black & White movie. Yes, I am obsessed. I somehow like old movies. They always seem to have some value or ideals in them rather than just action and hot actors. While I am not against action and hot actors, Black and White movies come as a welcome change when you watch too many of these new movies.

This movie stars James Stewart and Jane Arthur who are by now for me, regulars in Capra movies. Equally regular are Edward Arnold and Beulah Bondi. James Stewart does an impressive job and is every bit good as he is in later Hitchcock movies.

The movie portrays how Senators or politicians in general are involved in some way or another (even if not sinister) with Businessmen and work things out to their profit. Corruption at its fore. This movie is highly relevant in modern times and especially so in developing countries like India where such things have become so commonplace that we have come to accept it as NORMAL. How very sad ?

It has a very clear message. Let youth run politics and run it without corruption. Something we should all learn from.

A more detailed review will follow later.
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Movie Review: You Can’t Take It With You[1938]

Brief Review:

Another Capra movie. The list seems to go on and on. Yet another Black & White movie. This movie was beautiful and I totally loved it. The concept the movie tries to portray comes once again as wonderful. Full marks to Capra for that.

The movie stars the by now regulars in Capra movies - Jean Arthur, James Stewart, Lionel Barrymore (Drew Barrymore’s grandfather), Edward Arnold and others. There is actually a reason to this and I shall be covering that in a post later on.

The best thing about the movie and all Capra movies in general is that they all portray things that make sense. Things we should not be dismissing a silly and taking more seriously. Instead we seem to think such things exist only in movies. How wondrful it would be if we could all pursue our passions without actually having to worry about the money we make or starvation. How wonderful it would be to pursue your interests instead of working for someone and working at something you are not interested in. These are the questions the movie begs the viewers to ask themselves.

Also equally importantly portrayed is the need to love your neighbours and be nice to them. While this may seem cliched by now, it actually is not. It is still the one fundamental thing that would make our lives more pleasurable. Something we think once again exists only in fairy tales and Capra movies. Believe me, you and I can do it too and we should.
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Movie Review: The Third Man[1949]

Brief Review:

Another Black and White marvel. Popularly known as an Orson Welles movie but not directed by him. He plays the lead however. Carol Reed directs the movie and does a good job at it. I am not a big fan of Orson Welles. I can’t say I have seen too many of his movies, but in spite of the acclaim that Citizen Kane received, continues to receive, I did not like the movie all that much.

Things I loved about The Third Man:

• Alida Valli as Anna Schmidt. Absolutely gorgeous looking. Wonderful acting too. It isn’t overdone and comes across as very natural. Yet you can see the pain in her eyes.
• The opening Zither Music. Absolutely captivating. As an Indian who has listened to many a stringed instruments like Veena, Sitar and Violin. (I also listen to guitar by some rock bands), the Zither music comes across as unique and splendid. If anyone has this music and don’t mind sharing it, I’d like to have it. (Maybe I’ll buy it when I get some money.)
• Joseph Cotten’s acting as Holly Martins. Orson Welles is also good as Harry Lime.

However, I did not like the ending all that much. I am not saying it as bad. Just that I didn’t like it.

The best thing about the movie is the fact that it portrays a normal man trying againt all odds to find out the truth. It’s not one of those secret service agent fights the villains stories. It’s above that. Catch the movie. I am sure you will atleast like it in parts. (A welcome relief from Capra’s movies. )

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Movie Review: American History X[1998]

Brief Review:

Splendid movie this. For everyone who wants to be educated about racism and racial discrimination and our prejudices when it comes to that, this movie is a must watch. A few of my friends were discussing discrimination in India the other day. Their bone of contention was how North Indians were being called outsiders by Raj Thackeray and how there seems to be water problems between Tamil Nadu and Karnataka regarding the Hogenakkal issue.

Most of their opinions were limited and I felt sad that they had not gotten an opportunity to watch a movie like this which opens your mind and makes you see beyind the petite things in life. The movie was enlightening.

Edward Norton’s acting makes you feel like you are a part of the movie for every second of the movie. Edward Furlong does an equally good job of playing his younger brother who is influenced by his actions. Elliot Gould plays a Jew who is also a teacher of both brothers.

The movie is very strong and moves you. You feel very very sad towards the end when the younger brother dies and the elder brother is helpless. You got the feeling that something had to give towards the end. Totally awesome movie and worth a watch.

List of Movies Part 02

These are some of the movies I have watched in recent days and shall be soon writing a review on them.

• American History X
• Chinatown
• They Were Expendable
• Meet John Doe
• Mr Deeds Goes To Town
• You Can’t Take It With You
• Mr.Smith Goes To Washington
• The Third Man

I could easily be forgetting some of the movie names, with the number of movies I have been watching. Shall include them when I remember.

Black and White Movies

I have been watching quite a few Black and White movies of late. There’s something about Black and White movies that adds charm to the movie. As Peter Bogdanovich (Actor and Director) puts it, “it’s the lack of distraction”. You focus on the movie and not on the color of the actors’ clothes or eye colour.

The best thing about black and white movies is the female lead actors. They look splendid. Infact, they all look so splendid on screen. I don’t know if they would have looked the same in this day and age in colour cinema.

Discrepancies in Billboard Charts

I found some problems with Billboard charts. Nothing serious though and no, I am not accusing Billboard of anything. It’s just that when I saw “What I’ve Done” by “Linkin Park” at the 38th position in the Hot 2007 Charts, I was a little troubled. It’s a kick ass song and Linkin Park are pretty famous too. Then why was this song rated 38th ?

It’s hard to say in this case as to why the song is rated 38th. I am sure Billboard was accurate with it’s ratings and all that, no doubt. I initially thought that the song might have bene released in late 2006 and still found its way on the 2007 chart. Not the case either. It was released in mid 2007 and debuted number 07 on the charts. (A relief there.)

But there have been cases where a song is on more than one years’ Hot 100 list. And depending on whether the song was released in the later part of the year or early part of the year, its ranking in the ensuing year’s Hot 100 could be higher or lower than the previous year rating respectively.

I think the bottom line is: Inside the Hot 100, it’s hard to compare songs based just on the Chart rankings.