Brown Motion

Directed by a Greek this film has some good reviews and its screenplay got a nomination for an Oscar.  The cast I read was fairly seasoned and I decided to check it out. So what do I think of the film?  At least I finished it.  That is 1 star.  The comedy although mostly dark is fairly intriguing.  Another star.  Beyond that though it is an alternate alternate cinema genre if there is such a thing. It is a make believe world where the protagonists get imprisoned in a surreal environment after loss of a partner and where they are to find a way out of their predicament or turn into an animal.  They have 45 days to accomplish it. It is a sort of (from what I hear of the Hunger Games concept) a mash up of a fantasy world meet Freudian thinking with metaphorical scenes to depict our human condition. Cast includes Colin Farrell, Rachel Weisz, Sea Leydoux (recent Bond girl) and John Rielly among others.  The admitted have to choose an animal who they would rather be if they were not

As in - What exactly is an innocent bystander?  I want to specifically listen to news involving guilty loiterers. Who exactly are these good Samaritans?  Where can I find the bad ones?  Is there a club that they hang out? What was Scorsese thinking?  I could not take the Silence for too long.  I gave it 30 min and the Occam's razor but switched off.  Too much for an atheist to handle. Same with Moonlight.  An Oscar worthy title, it could not hold my interest for more than 35 minutes.  I could not handle the repetitive mental beating.

Touted in the local Marathi community (that which hails from the western Indian state) as an evening of music with local talent and a special guest from Pune, it was marketed through social media to those that crave said entertainment. Myself not an avid listener and marginally enlightened about the Indian classical style, was not as intrepid as the spouse who was excited at the prospect of some socializing and getting an earful (of melodies). But being the Memorial Day weekend in the states (honoring war veterans) and us being in the local zip code (not having left town) for the entirety of it, I complied and we made it a date night. Drove to appointed venue which was a Yoga Studio when not used for sundry gatherings.  On the second floor in an office complex not far from home.  Warmed by the setting sun and poorly ventilated the desi gathering was quickly appearing to be a quagmire.  Couple that with largely carpet seating - remember the audience otherwise was the floor huggin

Not a bratwurst at a ball game.  Not a US open tennis match in summer.  But the title of an email that I found in my junk mail.  Clearly categorized as SPAM.  Not from the tin but of the intangible kind.  Until of course you click on it salivating to get hooked with what your imagination can cook up and bam - you tangibly stand to lose your life savings. I decided one fine evening to go through all my junked category of mails to see what it is that the desperate phishing scammers are offering.  And more importantly what sort of goofballs are actually succumbing to this invitation. So these spammers blast cyberspace with their millions of messages working with the law of numbers.  For every million smart users there is 1 sucker.  That is all they want.  I am being generous in that they probably get way more than 1 per scam. The titles of these items in no particular order were - 1.  Enlarge your penis 2.  Lets hook up tonight 3. Mrs. Helen 4.  Apple Cider 5. Coupon for oil

Oakland is a city in the east bay, as in east of the San Francisco Bay.  As a family we had trepidation about visiting this part of the universe.  Geographically so close yet seemed not to click in our conscience as something we would enjoy or feel safe or clean.  Lot of negative press stems from this part of California and it has not been on our radar like some other towns.  Not being fan of any ball games also precludes a visit to the Coliseum or its neighboring Oracle Arena where basketball is played. Uncertain is how we felt about visiting and hanging out and exploring things we cherish like history and food.  Food, which to us is the whole purpose of being. That changed this weekend.  A few more tips from the social circle (or is it social polygon given we do not have that many friends to make a circle?) and we decided we will take the plunge.  Some strong ethnic hunger lured us in.  It was to be either great Korean Galbi or the goodness of some Berber spice in the form of Et

Ever wonder why cosmetics and accouterments sell so well worldwide?  Appearances. Vanity.  the collective human lust for this elusive of all naivety.  Call it what you will but someone's external characteristic's have long been considered a proxy of what the actual individual might deliver or be - as an individual.  I don't get it and don't care for it but hey, who cares what I think. Our president travels this week to a mysterious part of the world described simply as the middle east - which in itself begs the question - how does a direction have a middle?  And if so what is the early east and latest east?  Is the latest east so late that it is the early west?  But I digress. The reason for his visit is literally touted by the touts aka media as to 'Appear Presidential' on the world stage.  First of all who decided that the world stage is in the middle east?  It is like saying the dining table is in the dining hall.  Except this arrangement is totally bogu

If you did not find a rock to hide under this past week you inevitably got bombarded by the news around a variety of snafus, hacks, intrusions, and modern day buccaneering. It started with a popular streaming service called Netflix getting in the spotlight.  Netflix started as an online business model serving its subscribers with movies and shows for a monthly fee.  More recently Netflix expanded its scope to produce its own content.  More businesses in America now are expanding their envelope to become everything to everyone.  Look at Amazon - former bookstore and now for a large part of the American public their end-all be-all in terms of obtaining all manners of goods. So Netflix decides to make its own shows and serials - a popular one called 'Orange is the New Black'.  Turns out some hacker in a former eastern block nation decides to hack into their servers and steal the newest episodes of this popular show.  Their threat - to release this to millions for free.  It is

As large network programming goes I am not a fan,  and cannot remember much of any particular show that I clicked with since coming to America two decades ago. Every person follows something they individually crave or have a deep affection for and seek out a life to live vicariously through the media they watch. In our case both the wife and I love to eat and explore flavors - we live to eat - and try to appreciate the varied lifestyles of the people that inhabit this oblate hardware we call Earth.  To that point we have been fortunate to visit some remote parts of this planet from the southern fringes of Australia and New Zealand to the northern latitudes of Alaska and some parts in between. Food of course comes in many forms sometimes living and mostly dead (assuming it had parents) and can be manipulated in terms of texture and the final flavor profile before it hits your plate and your palate. Growing up with a largely vegetarian diet in a country where a cow is sacred, I

Among the plethora of things in our everyday life there are many unsung heroes.  One of them is the 'shoulder'.  Not necessarily the one some may need to cry on, as a part of the human anatomy but the one on the side of the road.  No I don't mean that of a homeless person either.  I mean the literal side of the road (on the left or right). You see America is the land of plenty and therefore has plenty of land.  Duh!  What that did is that it allowed for the road engineers to think of a situation where an automobile on said roadway would need to park itself, while still traversing this road, in the event that the 'mobile' portion of its ability was rendered not so.  Ergo the 'shoulder'. This is a piece of pavement designed specifically on either side of roadway to allow a vehicle to pull over and out of the way of other mobile machinery that otherwise would have to suffer the same fate - that of being stranded.  But this shoulder idea is awesome. Most

Numbers or data can convey fact or fiction.  Statistics as a branch of mathematics deals with collection and analysis of data.  Since the days of India's Gabbar Singh in 'Sholay', when the inspector chasing Gabbar asks that half his police go right, half go left and 'baki mere piche aao' (remainder follow me) there have also been many a joke written about this arcane science. Three statisticians went out hunting, and came across a large deer. The first statistician fired, but missed, by a meter to the left. The second statistician fired, but also missed, by a meter to the right. The third statistician didn't fire, but shouted in triumph, "On the average we got it!" So it is with statistics about cars.  Cars has been a hobby, area of interest or a profession for me - I spent eight years of my life in Motown, USA aka Detroit helping car companies and their suppliers improve their business processes using software. That was then.  This is now. As i

In Austin Texas.  I hung out in the lone star state for few days this month for a conference on the subject matter that pays my bills.  But there was lot of action outside the programmed event.  Clearly it was more fun. My last trip to the deep south had been over 15 years back.  Austin was on a road trip from Galveston to Dallas - sort of a detour if you will.  It is the state capital.  It has a few things to see and do.  Other than visiting the state capitol building, which is an impressive architectural feat I did not remember much.  I decided to fix it. With all the fixings.  First came tacos.  On a food truck.  Corn made into dough called Masa, rolled and lightly cooked on a griddle or pan yields tortillas which topped with grilled and marinated meat (pig, cow, fish depending on how you lean) from the animal (depending on your mindset you can go exotic and get intestine or brain or head or hoof or tongue or stick to the meatier more known organs) and followed by fresh c

Deadly serious premise.  Hilarious film.  What makes it outrageous though is that it is based on a true story.  The story revolves around two Jewish kids in their 20s who instead of doing their two bit grind of a job decide to get into selling arms to the US government. How they pull it off and extent to which they go to make deals shows the amazing and bizarre nature of weapons and war machine trade-craft.  The brains behind this is a character played by the engaging, rotund Jonah Hill who is rip roaring funny.   He finds out that there is a public site for bidding on contracts for the Pentagon.  They end up securing larger and larger deals until a major deal for Afghan war goes south due to greed and the idea of cutting out the middle man. What ends up is a story of double cross and loyalty and lots and lots of money.  One will be forgiven if left confused as to which is the dirtier party in the whole mess we know as War.

I could not sit through the now famous film production called La La Land.  I get that it is a musical and that in many ways resembles a Hindi movie out of Bollywood where apparently being in love is the only plot. But I only attempted it in deference to the director who had made a film called 'Whiplash' which I enjoyed immensely .  It too had music at its core but was handled differently.  La La on the other hand was wishy washy and all over the map without a gripping tale to engage me.  Having people with long sideburns singing 60s tunes did not create any chemistry as far as my viewing scope was concerned. Individually Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling show promise with versatility in singing, dancing and acting but somehow showing them wearing glossy bright dresses doing a tap dance number on a hill was not motivating enough to keep me glued in my seat. By all accounts the movie did well (over $400 M worth) with audiences and also scored an Oscar for Emma and some more but