Up In the Air

 I don’t want to write about every movie I watch and just fill in dozens of articles on this blog. And then there is a time factor as well. But UP IN THE AIR made me to write this.

First I must tell you that I'm a fan of Clooney (who isn’t?). His work is just wonderful. A skilled actor with a capacity of range or characters. That’s why I like him.

The movie is about a person name Bingham who work for an agency who fires people for a living. That indeed sounds like a weird job to start with. He travel almost 365 days a year and have nearly a 10 million fly miles! Which proves his lifestyle almost. A person who works hard, has less friends, no family life at all!

The story is trying solve his life and bring in new hope with involvement of Alex (Played by Vera Farmiga) (Oh she is nice). And its all about finding new relationships, polishing up the old one and changing for good. I want to you watch the movie so that I don’t have to spoil the ending.

I simply love it. Not because it has a fancy story line or just good actors but for the way it makes you feel. We all are victims of our own loneliness and solitude no matter how involved we could be with the outside world. Bingham on the other hand is practically that lonely person who does not know that he is lonely. That’s where the real story is.

Good cinematography, script and editing all the way. A drama which makes you warm. 

Terminator Salvation

Directed by MCG (We are Marshall, Charles Angels)

STARRING
Christian Bale, Sam Worthington, Anton Yelchin, Bryce Dallas Howard, Moon Bloodgood, Common, Jane Alexander and Helena Bonham Carter

Being a big fan of Terminator from childhood I never thought I would be fortunate to see more coming from this superb series of movies. After the final Terminator – Rise of the machines the movie was sure to change the story line and it sure did made big hope in minds of all terminator fans around the globe.

First of all I want to say that I'm not disappointed. Maybe the movie have places to improve but as a whole this sure does kept me on the edge of my seat from the beginning. Speaking of stunts and visual effect this sure is a one big joy ride. Starting from the very first battle sequence which brings down some real big helicopters smashing in to the ground like dead birds, up to the final battle which reminds me of the battle in the second terminator movie (Terminator 2- Judgement day) the action is wonderful. One of my favorite is the car chase sequence which actually a high speed motorbike like thingy (Robot) chasing Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington) and Kyle Reese (Anton Yelchin).

Speaking of the cast there are no two words that Christian Bale rocks as John Conner. He is the sole of the battle and the story both which put him in a very impossible yet thrilling place. His previous action roles such as Bat Man have proved his rugged willingness to play such action characters and yet again he stables himself strong. And I was impressed to the see the role played by Anton Yelchin as a Soldier in the front against Sky Net machines after his mild yet heart breaking performance in Alpha Dog in 2007. It seems like Sam Worthington got a good break portraying a strong character as well which is a novel yet interesting addition to the series.

As I mentioned the places which this movie needs improvement is the story. For instance its seems like it’s little too easy to get in to the Sky nets HQ for John Conner. As if the machines does not have limitation of access levels programmed in their system. That’s a little lame for a high-tech movie such as this.

Overall I loved Terminator Salvation. I wanna think of it as another memorable Terminator chapter and nothing else. Since the war is not began and more big things yet to happen all I can do is to watch the next movie when it hits the screen.

Who killed THE UNIT?

I haven’t seen much of US action tv series to date but this just made me glued to the screen for a long time. THE UNIT is one hell of an action ride with lots of entertainment in between. I may have kept a note about UNIT last year when I was watching the season 2 or 3 and from there onwards it just got better. Only few TV series can do that wonder and make me really say it.

UNIT was different from other action series because even though it had individual stories which filled the daily 42 minutes it had a more solid and touching story line running underneath. This story which is not severely strong and filled with action but had the ability to keep the viewer wondering for its next turn. It maybe involving the top ranking officer and the wife of the soldier in the field, or it maybe about the struggle which another soldiers wife put to be with her children. Maybe it’s about a soldier who repent his action when he believe that his time is up. This made me wonder beyond the day to day action which shows on TV and take a step forward toward humanity. And I’m sure many who loved this show felt the same.

Sadly CBS has decided to cancel this show and confirmed that Season 4 is final. I hardly get why it turn that way because the show had a good audience and it was going on well with ratings as well. But the ugly part is that they didn’t make an official ending on the TV. The story seems to end somewhere leaving some pieces behind which yet to be solved.

So this will be the last words about THE UNIT. I hope it will return.

Taking of Pelham or Wasting of time??

It’s of no purpose of this blog if I don’t express my critics over the recent movies which I came upon. Due to my nature of ‘good copy good view’ I tend to watch some of the box-office record breaking flicks somewhat after few months from most of you does. But I don’t regret any thing. I prefer to gasp the most of directors original work in its perfect condition. For a film maker there are several aspects which he would give an extra attention when it comes to serious work. Lights, sounds and clarity is among them. When I watch a movie if any of these elements are missing or not up to standard I rather not watch it. It happens mostly with the pirate copies you get these days. Either they come with 2.0 flat sounds or pixel visible heavily compressed images. So finding a good copy is kind of hard and takes time. But when I watch that movie on my 42” plasma wide screen with 6.1 DTS sounds thumping each corner of my room the wait worth’s a million.

Ok moving on, I will write modestly about “Taking of Pelham 123”. I read a little disappointing reviews before buying this movie but went ahead because I love the cast. I thought the combination of Denzel Washington and John Travolta cannot go wrong. Sadly that was wrong. No complaint about the acting but the story line sucks big time. A subway train-jack (I don’t know if that word exist) in the big city led by a brutal killer (Travolta) and a train control room supervisor (Denzel) captured in the middle as the hostage negotiator. The story line want to make Denzel looks really intelligent and know what he is doing but its quite overrated. Travolta’s role seems to fit him but at the end he dies like a two cent crook. Big plan A with no backup plan. If you like to watch some little shooting action watch it. If not watch CNN world report. It has more touching stories than this.

PC fixed and firing away with post processing

My home pc was busted for the last few weeks ( I think I should say months since its being more than 6 weeks) and was on repair. I have to admit that I was not putting much effort to fix it as well for reasons even I don’t realize clearly for some extent. Maybe I was giving more priority for my office work and had no time to find a good service person and then at home I was too busy watching movies and Tv series which took most of my free time. And now its fixed at last.


So the last two days I was glued to it post processing some of the photos which I took in the span of last 3 months. I managed to finish up pictures from 2 body building shows and the left of the photos from the Heritons Ahungalla. Heritons was a commercial shoot which gave me an opportunity to go at architectural and interior photography. Guess I have burst over some 2000 shots on that 2 days. The shots have come out exactly the way I expected so feeling pretty good about it.

CHANGE

What a coincidence. I thought of reopening this blog and just realized that the last post was done exactly an year ago in November 2008. PHEW!! That’s a bit scary in a way. Or maybe as I said before it’s just a coincidence.


With time there is only one thing is certain. That is CHANGE. So we change with time and along with everything around us. Some times change is good and acceptable. But sometimes it seems like eternal stability is what’s more comforting. Why I stumbled upon change all of a sudden was that from recently I realized a trend of change within myself. Some may call these as ‘growing up’ but I think it’s just about life’s natural way of observing the surroundings and coming to its own conclusions. Take a thing you like for example. Maybe Lego toys or video games(boys stuff). You pretend like you never liked these stuff after you became an adult which you literally went crazy over as a child. It’s simply not because you don’t really like them but the fear or reluctance to experience how will the grown up society will accept your behavior.

And some likenesses remains just as solid for a long period of time yet the perspective towards it changes. Take movies for example. The taste for movies over a long stage changes as well. When I was a teen I was more a American pie dude but now I may invest more on stories which actually shows the bitter dark side of life. And take woman’s breast for example. As a child what was our perspective about it and what’s now?? or what will it be again in future?

And I don’t see anything wrong with it. But what’s wrong is becoming all of a sudden mature and staring to criticize the very own things which you once thought was ‘cool’. I most of the time pity people like that. Some pretend that they just fell down to earth from the sky. I admit we all become that miserable irritating person some times. But having more comprehension and insight about our own self would save you from being one all the time.

p.s
One more thing about this work CHANGE. Obama used it cleverly and successfully in his presidential campaign. And guess what who have adopt the same bright idea. None other than Ranil of course. I saw yesterday that they have launched their new campaign for their brand new political alliance. Hmmm

CRIMINAL MINDS - QUOTES

Almost every episode of Criminal Minds begins and ends with a quote. This is a comprehensive list of the quotes from Season 1

"The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary. Men alone are quite capable of every wickedness."
Joseph Conrad


"All is a riddle, and the key to a riddle...is another riddle."
Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Try again, fail again. Fail better."
Samuel Beckett

"The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you will see."
Winston Churchill

"Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world."
Albert Einstein

"Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself."
William Faulkner

"There are certain clues at a crime scene which by their very nature do not lend themselves to being collected or examined. How's one collect love, rage, hatred, fear...? These are things that we're trained to look for."
James Reese

"Don't forget that I cannot see myself -- that my role is limited to being the one who looks in the mirror."
Jacques Rigaut

"Birds sing after a storm. Why shouldn't people feel as free to delight in whatever sunlight remains to them?"
Rose Kennedy

"When a good man is hurt, all who would be called good must suffer with him."
Euripides


"With foxes, we must play the fox."
Thomas Fuller


"The healthy man does not torture others. Generally it is the tortured who turn into torturers."
Carl Jung


"A belief is not merely an idea the mind possesses. It is an idea that possesses the mind."
Robert Oxton Bolton


"The question that sometimes drives me hazy: Am I, or the others crazy?"
Albert Einstein


"The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone."
Harriet Beecher Stowe


"Evil is always unspectacular and alway human. And shares our bed...and eats at our table."
W.H. Auden


"What is food to one is to others bitter poison."
Lucretious


"Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves."
Confucius


"What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world, remains and is immortal."
Albert Pine


"It is better to be violent if there is violence in our hearts than to put on the cloak of non-violence to cover impotence."
Mahatma Ghandi


"I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary. The evil it does is permanent."
Mahatma Ghandi


"We are so accustomed to disguise ourselves to others, that in the end, we become disguised to ourselves."
Francois de la Roche Foucald


"No man needs a vacation so much as the man who has just had one."
Elbert Hubbard

Light

I go to sleep,

before the devil wakes and I wake up,

before the angels take all my worldly desires,

all my yardsticks of fear,

all my secrets untold,

all my motives unclearhanging down in the fire,

burning them higher,

won't take them away from here

and long after we' re gone the light will stay on...

And if you bury me,

add three feet to itone for your sorrow,

two for your sweat,

three for the strange things we never forget

and long after we re gone

the light will stay on...

-By the walkabouts http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJpjcYqGjhw