Movie Review: Mata

Sandalwood regaining glory

During my teenage years I avoided Kannada movies like plague. There were several reasons for that including the fact that I bought into the popular notion that not watching Kannada movies was cool. Moreover the quality of Kannada flics were quite pathetic and had more or less the same storyline, same old faces, too much drama, unrealistic and badly executed action sequences. All this seems to have changed during the past few years. I have noticed that a new genre of Kannada movies starring actors like Ganesh, Puneet Rajkumar, Sudeep, Ramesh Arvind, Jaggesh, and an entire army of new actors and actresses are comparable with the best in any other regional film industry.

Recently I watched the movie Mata starring Jaggesh and effectively supported by a team of supporting actors such as Mandya Ramesh, Tabla Nani, Shashidhar Bhat, and others. The movie tells the story of a religious institution that cares for handicapped children. The chief swamiji of the institution is also responsible for these children. One fine day the swamiji falls in love and leaves his position to become a householder. This puts the institution in a quandary, the trustee decides to place an advertisement in the local newspaper and recruit the right candidate for the position. Something unheard of in the country.

The candidates who get selected to undergo the rigorous training to qualify to become a Swami are the heroes of this movie. I mentin Heroes because everyone has an equal role in the plot and Jaggesh is the only popular face so one tends to think that he is the hero. The rest of the movie is about the training that the applicants receive and which one becomes the swamiji.

The best part of the movie is its message and of course the liberal dose of comedy that is thrown in. Definitely worth watching and I would give it a 4 star rating.

Book Spotlight: Muslim Mafia

I saw this book in the library screaming the headline Muslim Mafia on its cover. I picked it up and read the writing on the sleeve and about the author. Apparently the book is written by an ex-US military counter terrorism fighter. I am pretty sure it is quite accurate and the concerns expressed in the book are real considering the recent terror attacks on the US.

Book Review: Society the Basics

Text Book makes an interesting read
I had to read this book by John Macionis because it was the prescribed textbook. As I progressed through the pages of this large format volume the exciting content made me anticipate reading this as much as any other book.

Book Review : The Routes of Man

A unique travelogue!!!
The Routes of Man I first heard about this book on the local NPR station KERA. The author Ted Conover was being quizzed about the book's content and his experiences while compiling the book. I felt interested when I heard that the author had traveled to almost every significant nook and corner of the globe to get the data, pictures, and information about the roads he was writing about.

This is a travelogue of an individual who loves the road and explores the culture, society, economy and other aspects that make or mar the road. I am still reading it... in fact I just started and have completed the first few chapters of the 333 page volume.

Initially along I haven't liked facet of his writing, he refers to Native American tribes as Indians, which in my opinion is grossly wrong. I promptly wrote a protest note to the author and he responded in a cheeky manner that these people referred to themselves as "Indians" and that he didn't want to correct them. I don't see the reclaiming Indian identity as his duty but in my opinion he owes the world in general and particularly people from India that much that his words should not reflect that the Native American Tribes are Indians. He could quote some member of a Native American tribe as saying "We are Indians..." or whatever... but him writing... simply not done...

Will post something more once I complete the book pretty soon I guess, because it is an easy and interesting read.

Movie Review: Cop Out

Finally an action movie with laughter
We had an opportunity to watch this move absolutely FREE, thanks to the largess of the dollar theater employees. We were late for the show at the theater and the box office was closed, instead of retracing our steps we went in and asked if we could get any tickets for any movie. The lady out there said just walk-in and watch any movie we wished. Thanking her profusely we walked in and sat for Cop Out, starring Bruce Willis, Tracy Morgan, and others and directed by Kevin Smith.

The way I associate Bruce Willis movies are with violence, lots of blood, destruction of public property, and related stuff. Surprisingly this movie is quite different, there is very little blood, lots of humor and little destruction. The role Bruce Willis plays is quite similar to his other movies, he is a cop, divorced from his wife. His daughter is getting married and he wants to pay for the wedding. His only asset is a valuable baseball card that gets stolen and sold to a drug dealer.

Willis and his partner Morgan catch the thief but the card is with the dealer who cuts a deal. He wants to find a stolen car which has something in it... a live girl... The rest of the movie is some car chases, few shoot outs and ends in the baseball card getting shot through. So finally Willis can't pay for the wedding after all.

In my rating I would say worth watching once.

Movie Review: Tooth Fairy

For lack of nothing else to do on Friday evening we decided to go to a movie at the dollar theater in Plano. The intent was to watch a Jackie Chan movie, but there was none playing at a night show. So we decided to watch The Tooth Fairy instead. This is a fairly entertaining kids movie... apart from a few minutes of fantastic ice skating and a some comedy frames there is nothing much worth watching in this movie.

The story traces the life of an aging ice hockey star who is named the tooth fairy because he knocks out teeth of his opponents. His girlfriend has two kids, the daughter just loses one of her teeth and the mother tells the story of tooth fairy. The protagonist tries to tell her the truth in a rude manner to the chagrin of the mother. The son doesn't like this guy because he is rude, and sarcastic.

The story moves on to fairyland when the player gets called to do some community service and then after some seriously boring drama and some funny scenes the movie ends with a soulful transformation of the protagonist. I definitely wouldn't pay the regular theater ticket to watch this movie....

Book Review: Emotional Intelligence 2.0

Guide towards enhancing self-awareness

I picked up this book at the library and started reading it out of curiosity. As I delved deeper into the book I realized that it is indeed a fantastic resource. It gives useful tips on how to become self aware, monitor our emotions and control our reactions.

Chapters in the book deal with steps and measures to identify our emotional triggers even before they take over and guide our response. The author warns however that readers should not expect overnight changes in their life or actions. This book is only a guide for those interested to become more aware of their emotions. By following steps given in the book it would be possible to control our futures.