Hollywood

I am here and LA reminds me a lot of Bombay - the evil skyscrapers still leaving a piece of the sky to reach out to, the horrendous traffic, the proximity to the ocean and yet miles away from it, hell even the weather and of course the film industry with its beautiful people, and not that beautiful on the inside crap that beauty contest winners subscribe to, but pure physical charm that you can get a front seat view of at any Starbucks or participating locations: "Hello. Give me all your money for a 'tall' analgesic (no pun intended) and a chocolate dipped atom and feast your eyes on your beautiful fellow suckers."

Almost all Indian restaurants in the area are owned by Bangladeshis. They lure you in with names like Madhuban Tandav or something very creative like Bollywood Cafe 1 and Bollywood Cafe 2. You go in expecting some obscene non-eastern Indian accent and then they buflax you with their eastern charm. The food's a wee bit pricey, but simple, non-rich and yet tasty. The W would have freaked out here, in a good way.

I am shooting my "mis-en-scene" this weekend. I was thinking of being the high fart intellectual and leaving it at that and letting you guys figure it out using Wiki, and then I felt sorry and I like to reward loyalty (some of you have been reading this junk for a while), but then a college buddy just messaged me from seven seas away and since he knows me longer, he takes priority. Plus, Agastya's waiting too - the last eigthy or so pages - like a high speed burn on the last leg of a five hour drive. So I am not even proof reading this post.

Hollywood Weekend

George Clooney caused a lot of grief to three twenty somethings who paid him for what seemed like 5-6 hours of their Friday evenings. No, he didn't make a house call for us. I am alluding to his new movie that hit the theaters this weekend - Michael Clayton. It is probably the worst movie I have seen in a theater. Even the leather jacket over the arm rest of the seat, serving as a makeshift pillow refused to allay the pain. The editing was pathetic with the movie having substantial substance only in the last 45 minutes or so. There was also no trace of a funny dialogue in the entire movie.

As a result of this catastrophic movie watching experience, I was shuddering as I put in Clooney's Three Kings into my DVD player. And this movie was the complete compliment of his last caper I had watched. I am not usually a big fan of war movies (though my all time favorite movie is Apocalypse Now), but this one combined humor and adventure very well. True to his name, Ice Cube turned in a calm and composed performance, complimenting Mark Walberg's usual brilliant intensity very well. I later learned that he actually got himself electrocuted in one of the torture scenes, while watching the documentary about the making of the film. It is really a heist film in the backdrop of war. Clooney played a good leadership role in the whole sand adventure like in the Ocean movies.

Finally overcame my laziness and made the call to Prof. So, now my 42" is mounted on the wall and there's space to walk around in the apartment without any threat to any of the toes. Also placed the dwarfs (the little speakers of the home theater system) in acoustically strategically proven positions so that they look like little snipers perched at high altitudes. This dash of activity mainly resulted from watching Star Wars Episode I on my cousin's 52" plasma LCD and Bose home theater system. Needless to say the whole experience was awesome. My already great amount of respect for Anakin Skywalker increased exponentially as a I learned he was hitting on elder women since he was a kid. I was also glad Kita, my 6 year old neice loved the movie. The three of us (Didi, Jijjajji and I) may very well end up succeeding in our common yet silent dream of turning her into one of us - a geek!

If you are a fan of the Western genre and one of your biggest regret is not seeing Clint Eastwood on the big screen, go watch 3:10 to Yuma. I am not saying it will erase the regret, but you are guaranteed to have a good time. It's got it all - great intense acting by Christian Bale, some bona fide bad ass-ness by Russel Crowe, who didn't have to act too hard I guess, some inspirational climactic Western music and a great cameo by Ben Foster as the notorious Charlie Prince. He actually stole the show in my opinion. However, the movie does take on the role of Morality Professor towards the end and you get a little pissed off as it takes some of Crowe's bad ass-ness away.