Top 10 everything?

Top 10 Anil Kapoor movies

2007-10-05T16:22:00.000-07:00

A paean, then, to the most understated regular commercial hit machine of the Hindi movie Industry.

Haven't watched Pukar and Mashaal, neither Eashwar, and Shakti is NOT an Anil Kapoor movie, so...

10. Nayak - A super movie. Rather underrated, but cannot take my eyes off it whenever it is on the telly.

9. Taal - A nice, standard musical, and Anil absolutely burnt the screen whenever he was there

8. Ram Lakhan - This was during the glory age of Anil Kapoor, wen he was the hottest property in Hindi movies. And it was the archetypal masala movie, and a very good one at that.

7. Tezaab - Talking of masala movies, this was the top of the out and out masala stable from Kapoor A.

6. Lamhe - Overrated as a movie, in my opinion. But Anil Kapoor was superb, in my opinion.

5. 1942 a Love story - His best romantic lead turn? Surely.

4. Woh Saat Din - A forgotten gem. Amazing. Seen it a long while back, and the movie is still vivid in my eyes.

3. Virasat - The Hindi version of Thevar Magan, and I cannot believe that the original was better...

2. Karma - An absolutely superlative action movie. Everything was there, and just in the correct doses. Yes, mostly a Dilip Kumar / Naseer movie, but everyone contributed, and Anil's buffon turn was just right. Would have rated this as no. 1. but of course ther was

1. Mr. India - No words needed, I hope.

Honorable mentions, Saaheb, Beta (which was a complete Madhuri movie) and Deewana Mastana. Even No Entry.

On the roof, in the rain?

2007-10-01T05:26:00.000-07:00

They say, Hindi movies are all about the rains, all about the heroine (in a skimpy sari of course), and the hero prancing about in the rain. Well there is more to Hindi Movies. Ah well, there is more to the rains in Hindi movies, really. So here's my list. The 10 best Hindi songs picturized in the rain.

10. O Sajana, Barkha Bahaar Aayi - Parakh. This is, as per Lata Mangeshkar, her best performance. I like the bengali version more.

9. Rim Jhim Rum Jhum - 1942 A Love Story. RDB's last stand. And what a last stand...

8. Pyaar Hua, Iqraar Hua Hai - Shri 420. The quintessential rain song. How can one have a list of rain songs and exclude this?

7. Tip Tip Barsa Paani - Mohra. Yes! Ah, c'mon, don't be a highbrow now....

6. Sawan Barse, Tarse Dil - Dahek. One song that even apparent Uber-Male I will call Sweet!

5. Aaj Mera Jee Karda (Kaawa Kaawa) - Monsoon Wedding. Sukhwinder at his best. Delhi in the rain. In all its beauty. Isn't it surprising how you will definitely hate Delhi if you have been there for 3 months, and love Delhi if you have been there for 2 years?

4. Rimjhim Gire Sawan - Manzil. The Lata Mangeshkar Version. What Cinematography!

3. Ek Ladki Bheegi Bhaagi Si - Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi. In terms of overall impact, none match up with this.

2. Chhoti Si Kahaani Se, Barisho Ke Paani Se - Ijaazat. Any song from Ijaazat qualifies. And the cinematography was so brilliant, remember? The waterfall, the greens.... and a brimful of Asha. By the way, was there any rain?

1. Lagi Aaj Sawan Ki - Chandni. Absolute Pathos. Absolute brilliance.

Standard responses to Orkut "Wassup"s.

2007-06-30T22:05:00.000-07:00

How we respond to the standard question on Orkut, and what we really mean. The questions in question being: What have you been up to? How was your weekend? Wassup mate?

Mo's list:

Work's been hell ( I have no life)
I am waiting to climb up the corporate ladder, so I can cruise once I reach there (was talented and known in college, now being a plebian is killing me)
Oh the usual weekend (I spread out in front of the comp chatting with people, and got out only to get groceries/food)
Ohh brilliant fun (got drunk on Friday and Saturday. Not much left of Sunday)
You know, movies et al (Did nothing!)
I signed up for Spanish lessons (No, I didnt, I am planning to, but thats what I have been promising myself for ten months)
I like to relax (I cant get my butt off the chair in front of the comp)

Sin's list

Am good. You? (don't really care about you, and would not have pinged you anyway, now can you leave me alone?)
Same ol', dude. Nothing's changed. (Am very bored, and nothing has been happening in life. Will you use your contacts and get me an interview for a better paying job please)
Man! Those days were the best! (It's been all downhill from then on. I need mommy daddy and a trust fund. Infact, only a trust fund will do just fine)
Ah I did X at work, and got Y promotion and got referred in Z business magazine etc etc etc.... (what a stud I am, are you green yet?) (alternately if it is a relatively unknown woman scrapping, all this is to impress you so you will go out with me)

Book Meme

2007-05-11T15:25:00.000-07:00

Saw this at Baker's dozen.

There's this list of (100) books below. Bold the ones read. Italicize the want-to-read ones.
leave blank the WFT ones. And discount movies.

Nice! Very middle-of-the-road-brow... OK, so here goes.

1.The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Rowling)
17. Fall on Your Knees(Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban(Rowling)
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25 . Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie(Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. 1984 (Orwell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. Bible
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrey Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy)
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According To Garp (John Irving)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)
81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down(Richard Adams)
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)

So what are the numbers?
43 read
18` want-to-read
39 not read

Mo, go ahead....

The cliche(d) list...

2007-04-11T18:14:00.000-07:00

The easiest list one can ever make is a list of clichéd dialogues from Hindi movies.
My favourites -

Kalmuhi, kahan muh kaala kar aayi.
Ab inhe dava ki nahin dua ki zaroorat hai.
Naheeen yeh nahin ho sakta. Keh do yeh jhooth hai.
Bhagwaan ke liye mujhe chhod do.
Kanoon ke haath bahut lambe hain.

Kanoon ko apne haath me mat lo.

Main tumhare bache ki maa banne waali hoon.
Bees saal pehle ki baat hai....
Hey Bhagwaan, yeh din dekhne se pehle mujhe maar kyon nahin daala.
Mummy main pass ho gaya.
Jaggu, Gaadi ghumao.

Uplifting Tunes

2007-04-08T03:29:00.000-07:00

Once in a while, in an album one finds this little instrumental piece - which the composer has written in a moment of quiet inspiration. It doesn't get the attention of the title track - and is usually not more than 3-4 minutes long, but is very catchy and uplifting nonetheless.

My top five favourite tunes for uplifting the soul:

Signe, Eric Clapton
The Ecstasy of Gold, Ennio Morricone - in Metallica's S&M
Paddy McCarthy, The Corrs
Song for George, Eric Johnson, Ah via Musicom
Bombay Theme, from the movie Bombay, AR Rehman
Heer, Junoon

Ok, now it is six. Six is good for now - I need help to think of four more to round up the list.

Update: Added by consensus:
7. Bourree, Jethro Tull

Ten best hindi (or semi-hindi) movies of 1997-2006?

2007-03-26T14:23:00.000-07:00

Of the ones I have seen.... listed in terms of year released.

Sarfarosh ('99)
Dil Chahta Hai ('01)
Monsoon Wedding ('01)
Lagaan ('01)
Company ('02)
Waisa Bhi Hota Hai II ('03)
Maqbool ('04)
Iqbal ('05)
Hazaaron Khwaishen Aisi ('05)
Lage Raho MunnaBhai ('06)

The ones that just missed out were
Astitva('00), Omkara ('06), Viraasat ('97), Velu Nayakan ('99), Vaastav ('99), Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam ('99), Hey Ram! ('00), Hera Pheri ('00), Raaz ('01), Krrish (’06),
And the big ones: Satya ('98), Page 3 ('04), Black ('05), Rang De Basanti ('06)

The ones that I haven't watched and would really want to , as of now :

Zakhm, Haasil, Paanch, Black Friday, Swades, Lakshya, Yuva, Murder, Water, Hanuman, Sarkar, Sehar, Dor, Khosla Ka Ghosla,

And the slam list of the worst 10 I shudder to have actually watched:

Snip ('00), Boom ('03), Mohabbatein ('00), Mela('00), International Khiladi ('99), Pardes ('97), Kyon Ki Main Jhooth Nahi Bolta ('01), Raincoat ('04), Fida ('04), Phir Hera Pheri ('06)

My team for the World cup

2006-08-04T13:56:00.000-07:00

Buffon
Grosso
Cannavaro
Carvalho
Miguel
Mascherano
Joe Cole
Pirlo
Zidane
Klose
Torres

Reserves:
Lehmann
Lahm
Thuram
Ayala
Zambrotta
Maniche
Ballack
Vieira
Maxi Rodriguez
Crespo
Podolski
Ricardo

Ten favourites of Satyajit Ray

2006-08-04T13:35:00.000-07:00

In no particular order:

Nayak: Watch it to understand that mysterious creature called the star.

Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne : Innocence, thy name is Goopy-Bagha.

Aagantuk: is a very deep movie, something many people miss.

Pather Panchali: Because Pather Panchali was made...

Jalsaghar: Was Chhabi Biswas and Satyajit Ray better than Uttam Kumar and Satyajit Ray?

Sonar Kella: A film does not have to handle a deep topic to be a genuine masterpiece. And this one here is.

Charulata: The best. Not my absolute favourite, but the best Ray movie is this one here.

Kanchanjunga: Probably the most multi-layered movie made my Satyajit Ray.

Aparajito/Apur Sansar: Neither as impactful as Pather panchali, but why are we comparing? Each, individually, are masterclasses in movie-making.

Jana-Aranya: My personal favourite of Ray's Calcutta trilogy.

5 Hottest Indian TV Anchors

2006-07-14T23:35:00.000-07:00

5. Sonia Verma : Elegant older woman. Has this frosty alllure about her that's pretty much irresistable. Is probably intelligent too.
4. Ruby Bhatia : Our whole generation of MTV kids has literally been brought up fantasizing about Ruby during those days of adolescence.
3. Nina Manuel : You need an AC everytime she comes on TV, so hot she is.
2. Malaika Arora : This was a no-brainer. Let's not be different for being different's sake, and keep to honest
1. Tara Deshpande: Because there once was a Tara Deshpande...

José And Pedro Pick Their Impossible Teams

2006-07-07T14:02:00.000-07:00

Impossible Team José:

Michael Ballack Germany, FC Bayern München

Franz Beckenbauer Germany

David Beckham England, Real Madrid

Du-Ri Cha South-Korea, Eintracht Frankfurt

Damian Duff Ireland, FC Chelsea

Steven Gerrard England, FC Liverpool

Kaká Brazil, AC Mailand

Oliver Kahn Germany, FC Bayern München

Juan Román Riquelme Argentina, Villarreal

Bastian Schweinsteiger Germany, FC Bayern München

Patrick Vieira France, Juventus Turin

Impossible Team Pedro:

Djibril Cissé France, FC Liverpool

Jermain Defoe England, Tottenham Hotspurs

Kevin Kuranyi Germany, FC Schalke 04

Frank Lampard England, FC Chelsea

Michel Platini France

Shunsuke Nakamura Japan, Celtic Glasgow

Alessandro Nesta Italy, AC Mailand

Lukas Podolski Germany, 1. FC Köln

Raúl Spain, Real Madrid

Arjen Robben Netherlands, FC Chelsea

David Trézéguet France, Juventus Turin

Zinédine Zidane France, Real Madrid