The girl with the dragon tattoo

Read the book recently. It took a lot of time for the main story to take off. If the author had been alive may be they'd have polished the book a little. I kept putting the book aside during the initial period. Later it gets interesting - so much so that I got glued to it and couldn't put it down.

The story is not for kids - at one point deals with gruesome murders. The bad guys were a little predictable, not a lot of suspense. The book doesn't have one single climax. It has 2! And then still the life goes on after the 2nd one. May be the author knew he was going to write a sequel.

I've read some series in books before I watched them as movies (Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, DaVinci Code). The twilight series - i've only seen the movies and never read the books (I heard they're not that big a deal anyway). But I guess I'll probably just read the Stieg Larsson trilogy and probably not watch the movies and they are in Swedish too.

I guess the Swedish don't know how to make money like the Americans do! All 3 movies based on the trilogy of books have been released in the same year (2009) with a gap of a few months in between! If it were left to American production companies, they would hype the book, remind people that the book was published posthumously and add a little background story about the author to get people buzzing. And then made movies to be released on 3 successive years with the last movie in 2 parts! :))

hallelujah

i heard there was a secret chord
that david played and it pleased the lord
but you don't really care for music d'ya?

on most days when i get up, a song keeps playing over and over in my head.. hallelujah is a recent one that did.. it's the song from Shrek (part 1 - the only movie of that franchise i like).. the choreography for that song in the movie was great with the fade-in and fade-out sequences.. has got to be watched..

BBT

novelty's beginning to wear off... storyline sux.. starting to cater more to the pretentious wannabe nerds..

chemistry

have you ever adored an on-screen couple? and cheered them on if they were also involved in real life?

have you ever wondered why and what it all means to you? its puzzling why people do that... paparazzi getting all crazy for pictures, no privacy... why does this all happen?

nightmare before christmas..

wanted to watch it on christmas eve (i.e) the night b4 christmas :) but couldn't.. so watched the day after.. loved the beginning, hated the rest.. imagination n early soundtracks are good esp. the one about halloween town.. it wasn't at all scary.. a little gross may be.. overall maybe worth one watch esp the beginning

something to think about

don't give in to fear. face it. fear leads to anger. anger leads to hatred. hatred leads to the dark side. - Yoda (i might be paraphrasing it)

i think most people flit between the dark side and back..

someone i know once mentioned that Wolverine's (from X-men) special powers not only included getting wounds healed very fast but also forgetting traumatic incidents of the past.. apparently forgetting trauma was akin to mental healing.. i was surprised that mental healing did not constitute facing the past and accepting it instead of forgetting it! when i voiced this i was told that this was apparently the western philosophy's point of view..

i was just reading the similarities between the jedi force and other existing religions on wiki.. that's what triggered this train of thought..

doppleganger

when watching movies while younger on star movies i used to get confused between actors and mistake one for the other.. slowly as i began to see more movies i got more familiar with faces.. i don't think i'm good at placing faces...

i used to think Matt Damon and Mark Wahlberg looked alike.. at one point of time i suppose they were similar.. but later Matt developed muscles and Mark became slim and lanky..

but i swear i'm still confused about Natalie Portman and Kiera Knightley!! i kept 2 windows with pictures of them both side-by-side and i still can't make out the difference! i googled this and this seems to be the opinion of most of the general public.. there's even a facebook group about it.. wouldn't it be weird if they were twins unknown to each other like some hindi movie? :))

P.S: I just found that Kiera did play double for Natalie in Star Wars 1!! How weird is that? I thought there were no camera tricks in the movie.. they would show the queen and her maid together and i was pretty amazed then..

P.P.S: they could be sisters - not twins.. kiera is almost 4 years younger than natalie.

Family Guy & Musicals

I got to know just recently that Seth MacFarlane modeled the way Stewie talks after the misogynistic professor Henry Higgins of 'My Fair Lady' (played by Rex Harrison)! He even made the character sing 'I've grown accustomed to her' song in one episode of season 2.. There are a lot of songs from musicals in Family guy which are a delight to watch..

parent trap

it's one of my favorite movies... its not my fav bcoz its the funniest, cleverest, wittiest movie.. it doesn't excel exceedingly in its genre... but IMHO the most rewatchable movie.. this one gives me a warm feeling everytime i see it.. may be i always wished for a twin sister i would find somewhere who would make my boring childhood eventful.. :))

i guess another rewatchable movie released in 2010 was How to train your dragon..

my fair lady (1964)

was pretty good.. i've seen Audrey Hepburn in 'Breakfast at Tiffany's' before this and though this movie had come before and I was surprised to hear her cockney accent! she did a pretty good job.. The guy playing Henry Higgins on the other hand just plain got on my nerves.. the movie description says that he's a misogynistic professor.. but i wasn't ready for all his rudeness! we who were watching it wanted to throttle his neck! :))

heard the familiar song 'all i want is a room somewhere'.. they made the brittania marie jingle with it - 'all is want is english marie.. oh so english the real marie.. isn't it loverly?'..

didn't really show how much higgins was dependent on eliza.. don't know what happened to the poor guy who lost his heart to eliza.. but on the whole i liked it..

musical movies - part 4

watched 2 more recently.. and i have to say that one changed the scale by which i rate all musicals! The Sound of Music! It was freakin' awesome! The songs were all brilliant and I loved the story. I've heard a lot about it from friends but sadly only got to watch it now. It has now replaced 'Singin' in the Rain' at the top of my best musicals list..

and the other one i saw was 'love me tonight'.. from the description i thought it would be funny but it wasn't really.. dukes, countesses, viscounts, squandering nephews, impostors in the castle, unsuitable matches.. the story could be right out of a Wodehouse book! only difference is this is based in some village in France instead of Shropshire, England. most of the movie i spent in observing the life of the peerage.. the music was not bad.. i loved the starting bit where the sights and sounds of Paris were all blended in to a symphony.. :) a typical love story of two people not of the same class.. and i have to say this for the old movies.. boy! did it take very little to fall in love those days! :))

ROFL! ROFL!

still LOLing for Barney's Christmas message!
not for what he said but how he said it.. i was expecting a regular christmas message and the shock of it was too much!

movie time - part 5

saw beauty and the beast the next musical movie on my list.. it was not bad.. the only fault in the storyline i could find was that they didn't give much time for the beauty and the beast to get to know each other..

why do all the fairy tales have stories where a prince usually saves a very beautiful princess (for ex. sleeping beauty, rapunzel) whereas a girl is always supposed to a save an ugly prince (for ex. 'beauty and the beast', 'princess and the frog').. i didn't notice this trend in old fairy tales until now.. maybe even then they knew that only girls can be expected to see beyond the surface and really observe the inner beauty of people.. :)

movie time - part 4

A Night at the Opera
Found it really funny! the crowded cabin in the ship bit, moving the beds in the apartment bit, converting the opera to a baseball game.. it was all fun.. the silent guy in the movie (harpo marx i think) was the funniest! i think the marx brothers type of comedy has to grow on you.. so would recommend watching 'duck soup' before this one.. also i think this would be more fun while watching it with a group..

chevy spark

i saw the tail light of chevy spark recently.. it looked brilliant! i'm not able to see a good picture of it with the lights on.. until a few days back, i thought the tail light was made of LEDs.. but sadly found out that its regular bulb inside with strategic etches on the silver plating surrounding it.. really sad... LEDs would have looked much better..

movie time - part 3

was watching movie musicals recently.. in India all movies are musicals.. but only some are musicals in English.. my all-time favorite, as I might or might not have mentioned, is 'Singin' in the rain'.. very upbeat and fun.. a few years back in Chicago i went to a musical performance and got hooked to live performances too.. some of the plays i saw were 'Grease', 'Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Raincoat' and 'Cabaret'. I loved 'Joseph'!! very funny and innovative.. loved all the songs.. got sooo hooked that i bought the entire album cd from amazon a few days after i saw the show! i don't know why some people criticize Andrew Lloyd Weber's musicals..

well anyway getting back to the point.. saw some musical movies over the past few days.. have already seen 'Singin' in the Rain' lotsa times and 'Wizard of Oz' on tv many times too.. i saw 'Lion King' (which i've seen before).. it was god as usual.. then i saw this Marx brothers movie 'Duck Soup'.. it was funny, but was too slapstick for me most times.. loved the mirror scene! was ROFLing.. i've seen the mirror scene copied soo many times in cartoons but never as funny as this!

will be seeing more of these still..

returning to origins

when i was younger i used to think that i would not do some things (actions, deeds - whatever you may call them) when i became older and more matured in my thinking.. because i thought some of my (then) current actions were immature... but when i became older i realized that i did the same things and the only difference was i knew exactly why i was doing them.. its hard to explain with a specific example but hope that this makes sense..

when i was younger my habits and beliefs were of one kind.. when i became older i discarded them as immature and changed to a method that made more sense to me.. and later now i see no fault in the things i was doing in the first place but much the wiser for my experience...

i guess i'm rambling - but i'm reading this book 'Eat Pray Love' and every time i read some of the author's observations that i can completely relate to it gets me thinking in these terms..

bewitched quote

Endora says: "the ability to forget is very important to you mortals. you do so many stupid things, a perfect memory would be impossible to live with." do i agree with her or what?!!

apart from the mistakes i do being my own biggest critic sucks bigggg time! not only do those mistakes remain in my memory, they are magnified ten times by my critical mind!

i wish

i could freeze the time when i was reading 'famous five's and 'secret seven's! that would be like 3rd std.. or even 'nancy drew's, 'hardy boy's or 'the three investigators'.. that would be 5th i think... yesterday i passed an old book shop and when i looked in i saw these books and it was kind of nostalgic.. its hard to work up an enthusiasm for those books now but i think i'd like to collect them just for fun..

comparison

on observing the BBT episodes I feel whenever Bill Prady steps in to write the story its a lot more technical (and fun for me) than when Chuck tries to.. the dumb storyline can be credited to Mr. Lorre i suppose.. i guess then in 2.5 men Chuck dictates the entire story and Bill discovers big 'tough' words for the chiropractor guy to utter! brain without sense isn't worth anything..