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After seeing and writing about a classic movie like Graves of the Fireflies, I couldn’t believe that I watched this movie “Hall Pass”. It is not the plot that’s bad about this movie, the plot is fine for a comedy movie – which is about married men dreaming about a chance to have an affair with a beautiful women and thinking how great it will be. What is bad is the artificial scenes, humourless acting, wasted twists & lack of any real joke. After the first half I had to literally force myself to finish the second half. I am surprised how this got 35% in Rotten Tomatoes.
You may skip this movie and save yourself 100 minutes of your life.
My friend shared the DVD of this movie, with two questions – are you a movie lover and do you see animated movies?. I was puzzled a little with the questions, anyways being a true Indian & someone who never turns down the opportunity to get (borrow) something free, I said “YES” and came home with two DVDs in my hand. One of them was “Grave of the Fireflies”, at that time I never realized the impact this movie will leave in me.
Grave of the Fireflies is a 1988 Japanese animated war film written and directed by Isao Takahata. Taking place toward the end of World War II in Japan, the story is about the tale of two orphaned children, pre-teen Seita and his young sister Setsuko. Their father is in the Japanese navy, and they live comfortably in Kobe despite rationing, but when their mother dies from burns due to an American bombing raid, a distant aunt takes them in — and conflict eventually forces the children to try to survive on their own. The movie is all about their struggle in a war-torn town with no roof to their head or income; their little joyous moments in beach and with fireflies.
The movie was amazing, as one of the reviews had said “a must in every list of anti-war movies”. Due to the the storyline and brilliance of the Director you hardly feel it was an animated work with the two main characters especially the young girl portrayed so beautifully. In the last 15 minutes I couldn’t control water rolling over my eyes.
The Rotten Tomatoes rating of 96% is less and 8.4 rating in IMDB are both less, the movie deserves 10/10. A must watch movie.
Today in one sitting I finished the book How STARBUCKS saved my life? by Michael Gill. The book is a Riches to Rags story of a man, who had it all, then lost it all and found it again. Michael Gates Gill was born in Connecticut, son of renowned New Yorker writer Brendan Gill. After twenty-five years working as a creative director at J.W.Thompson he was fired, entering his seventh decade, he was offered a job at Starbucks.
Michael Gill makes the book interesting to read, covering his story from the day he was offered a job in Starbucks and ends it on the day he completes a year at the store in 93rd and Broadway, mixing with flashbacks from his advertising days, his kids, his affair and his brain tumour. Gill’s recall of his advertising days on how he made his best presentations start with some surprising visual or prop were interesting – shooting of a bow and arrow when presenting to Military, Shooting an empty rifle at his colleague to prove how the company will never forgive mistakes, throwing a ball up in air and hitting it which went very near to the Chairman of the Airline company.
His days in Starbucks stores needing to match with the teenagers working, makes us feel for him. He starting from cleaning the toilets, getting nearly stabbed by a rude customer, his hard work during the closures and openings (I couldn’t believe that you have to do so much work in so little everytime in a Starbucks store during openings & closings), his fear of working behind the cash register, though they had machines to weigh-in the currencies and coins. The last few chapters reads more like a Starbucks Public Relations work, but the overall story makes us forgiving to the author.
The book is both a good story and inspiring for the reader. I recommend this book to be a good read.
Carried by the TV Series, I watched the movie “Sex and the City 2” today. The regular characters makes the movie watchable, the plot around the visit to Abu Dhabi was initially exciting and then turned boring. I would have liked to see more of Abu Dhabi outdoors and the girls mixing with people of the city, rather it turned out to be inside the hotel only and the one market scene they had was clearly shot inside Hollywood studios with a bad recreation of the Middle East city. The movie was too long too, which made me wonder how some stories are fit only for 20 Minutes TV Series format and not suited for 90-120 Minutes full-length film.
Microsoft has been offering its Dreamspark program for various universities around the world & in India for some time. The program which is signed between the University & Microsoft, enables the students of that University to have access to a wide range of Microsoft Software, Training Materials and expertise – all free of cost. Today I was happy to see Microsoft has signed an MoU with Anna University which allows about 5.7 Lakh Students studying under various colleges affiliated to Anna University to benefit on. I hope the students take best of use of these to enhance their skills.
Following are some of the software that is available under this program:
I have been reading the book Googled- “The End of the World As We Know It” by Ken Auletta for many months now. Half-way through the book I wrote my early comments on the subject in this February blog post, completing the second half of the book took a long time. The Author has done extensive research on Google, over 150 interviews with the top management and people in Google over 2+ years and the book is the best biography of Google written till 2009. But the book reads more like a management report & interview quotes. It would have been more readable and enjoyable had the author told it with a story, yeah story-telling is what that was missing in the book. Otherwise a good biography especially for those in Media & Publishing industry. The last few chapters covers in detail on how Google sees Media Industry, how Google impacts the Media & Publishing Industry and so on.
Now I am looking forward to next books about Google – In the Plex and I’m Feeling Lucky.
I am a fan of P.G.Wodehouse Jeeves and Wooster series of novels. You simply can’t go wrong with any book from the series, all of them are classics created by a master craftsman for whom English language is the wet clay to be moulded and shaped the way he wants. And the resulting product is not something that is physical, but is created in the mind of the reader and that’s the brilliance of P.G.Wodehouse. Unlike other fiction works, you can’t skip even a single word or read between the lines, because the whole point of reading a PGW work is the language. To enjoy them I definitely needed LIFCO’s Mega English Dictionary next to me, but you don’t feel the extra effort needed, it only adds to the overall fun experience. The storyline as such is always very simple, but it is the language which flows like a water in a waterfall from sky.
This book ‘Aunts aren’t Gentlemen” is the last work of PGW in this series written just before his death in 1975. And to think of the fact the series was kept alive and vibrant by PGW for nearly 60 years is amazing – the first Jeeves stories appeared in 1919. The story in this book is about Bertram Wooster going to the country side to get rest on doctor’s advice, but what turns out to be is more an adventure of getting engaged and near death experiences for good ‘ol Bertie. As always Jeeves comes and rescues Bertie. The climax scene is not told, but left to our imagination after being outlined in the scene before that where Jeeves & Bertie discusses the plan in quick sentences and that adds to the brilliance of PGW’s narrative style.
I have been listening to the Audiobook version of this book “The Steve Jobs Way: iLeadership for a New Generation” for last few weeks during my everyday commutes. The book is written by “Jay Elliot” who was Senior Vice President of Apple computer reporting directly to Steve Jobs, not in the recent decade but during Apple’s early days. Owning a MacBook Air (running Windows 7), iPhone and an iPad like many others I am eager to understand the success of Steve Jobs and his presentation skills are legendary. So when I saw this book in Audible listing I immediately bought it.
The book covers extensively Steve Jobs early days in Apple building Macintosh, but has very little on his days in NeXT or after his return – which is the most exciting period. The book is not a complete biography of either Apple or Steve Jobs or about Jay Elliot, though it attempts to be one when talking about the early days of Apple. The book is about the lessons on management Jay Elliot was able to distil from observing Steve Jobs. It goes into length on how Steve Jobs directly managed the team, selected the members, interior of the office (large atrium with a tree) and how he never took a “NO” or “Not Possible” as an answer from the engineers or anyone else.
In the first few chapters, Jay Elliot gives a brief about his childhood days in his ranch in California. He writes about how in age 15, he could single-handily fix his old 1932 Ford Model-A car and how Henry Ford and team had the wooden slabs in which the original parts came used to build the structure pieces for the floorboards, seats & the interior, the part numbers were etched in easy to find places and the car required no manuals to take apart or to be put together. When talking about how to design and use your own products, Jay Elliot mentions about how rust happens in almost all cans of Gillette Shaving Cream cans, all along I thought I was the only one who was having this problem. He continues to write on the Importance of the first experience of the user when he/she takes the computer or device out of the box, how quickly they can start using it.
Jay Elliot lists many of the abilities he has observed of Steve Jobs that led to Macintosh success. Steve’s obsession with perfection, no compromise attitude, identifying the most brilliant people and going for them (including going for John Sculley), caring for his people, attention to detail, wanting to have the best for the company and the product he is building. It seems Steve Jobs build a whole new factory and assembly line different from rest of Apple for manufacturing Macintosh. In the Mac early days, Steve motivated his people by calling them “Pirates” and not as Navy!. Steve has a power of vision that’s almost frightening, that power sweeps aside any problem or hurdles. How Steve Jobs accepted technologies that were not build in-house like Canon, Japan for Apple Laser Writer and the Celebrity status reception he got during his first visit to Sony, Japan. How Steve persisted on getting Regis McKenna to do the Advertisements for Apple and how he went ahead even with Apple board’s refusal on the1984 most popular TV commercial of Macintosh by Chiat\Day agency. Steve is first a consumer, the most demanding consumer and his Buddhist faith probably has lead him to have a minimalist approach to the products he design – simple, intuitive user interface and features. Steve believes every user wants to feel successful, feel good about using the product Jay Elliot talks briefly about how Steve Jobs hired John Sculley, got kicked out himself from Apple, how he passionately build NeXT & Pixar. How Steve betted his whole fortune on Pixar and the first Toy Story, which then became a huge hit and paying him and Disney a windfall. The book then talks about (again very briefly) about how Steve Jobs returned to Apple, build successful products like iPod, iPhone & iPad one after the other, how he will not ship something until the technology is ready.
The author goes into length to praise as Steve’s brilliance on getting into retail and opening the Apple Stores in 2001, then on entering into Music Retailing and iPods. The author showers lavish praises on Steve Jobs to an extend of becoming an unashamed fanboy. At the last chapters the Author talks about his latter years experience of starting Migo & Nuvel.
If you are interested on how Apple got started and early days then a good book to read will be iWoz by Apple Co-founder Steve Wozniak.
I just finished watching the British TV Series – Come fly with me. I like few of the British Comedy for they are good in bringing out a realistic portrayal of the society, especially they are very good in spoof & satires. As a frequently traveller I was looking forward to the series after watching the Pilot which described the story to be about what’s happening in a British airport. Overall I enjoyed the Series but it didn’t cut out to be my favourite. All episodes seem to be from the same cookie cutter, characters were getting stereo-typed. No new fresh story line in any of the episode, though there was much to be talked about in an airport. Almost all the characters were enacted by the same pair of actors (Matt Lucas, David Walliams), though they each character well, they playing even the female roles is making it monotonous. Having said it, many of the individual scenes had good humour in them which made the series overall enjoyable.
I have been planning to see this movie for some time now. Found the time today evening to watch it along with my wife, glad we did it. I was expecting it to be a dragging storyline. But the movie “No Strings Attached” turned out to be fun and enjoyable.
Natalie plays the role of Emma who is afraid of getting to a committed relationship and resulting hurt when it breaks, but she can’t control herself falling in love with irresistible Adam (played by Ashton). Both Natalie Portman & Ashton Kutcher have done their roles well. The story moves at a good pace too. Some of the scenes like the one below where Ashton gives Natalie a Carrot bunch on a valentine day, as Natalie specifically said no flowers.
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