A love story "Across The Universe"

Never has a story been unfolded with the lyrics of some of the most famous songs of our generation. Based on Songs from The Beatles, Across the Universe is a touching Love Story that traverses a brief tumultuous period of modern American history. And the message is clear at the end; All You Need Is Love.

Music of The Beatles in renditions you can’t imagine and psychedelic scenes that capture the essence of what young America and the world at large was going through at that time. I can Imagine it was like a Revolution. A cameo by “Bono” singing a Beatles track is just superb.

The lead pair of Evan Rachel Wood (Lucy) and Jim Sturgess (Jude) hold the story well. But the character of Joe Anderson (Maxwell) really adds a lot of meat to the story. T. V. Carpio (Prudence) brings to the script a parallel dilemma of confused love, sadness and happiness. Dana Fuchs (Sadie) and martin Luther (Jo-Jo) give the musical punch to the plot.

A must watch for all of you who love music and movies.

The Kingdom

The Kingdom is an action packed poignant movie starring Jamie Foxx, Chris Cooper and Jennifer Garner pricking the very ethos Violence. A well narrated and directed film on the fallout of war and its effects on the people who are afflicted by it. There is no right or wrong, but a very important message questioning all of us. Who will stop the violence?

It is a movie with great cast and a touching story on friendship, camaraderie, revenge and loss of loved ones.

Retro Music Pumped up at The Apartment

Last evening I went out to The Apartment at City Centre in Salt Lake. The place was relatively empty but the music was pumping to decibels that would make your eardrums pop. The good part though was that the music was all old rock’n’roll stuff spiced with some modern beats to make it more night club friendly. Of course the DJ was the only one dancing to his own beat. But what a joy it is to see this young spin-doctor do his thing and enjoy it too. He’s more like a wind up toy that has been wound up so hard that he’s spinning nearly out of control.

We knocked back several beers and ordered some chicken lollipops and fish fingers to go. We kept count of the beers by peeling off the label from each bottle we knocked back and pasting it on the table. That was loads of fun.

Later on the way back home, to my utter surprise, I found that the roads I had been talking about being totally eroded in my story on my Improve Kolkata Initiative had been repaired to a large extent. Yippie!

Bad Kismat, No Konnection!

Last night I had the misfortune of sitting through the worst movie I’ve been for in the recent past. After watching “Jaane Tu” twice, and the other movies recently this was a complete disaster from scene one. Thought the film has been promoted quite heavily across Medias, the end product lands flat on its face. I’ve never seen such a bad pairing of two stars. Shahid Kapur and Vidya Balan just fail to have any chemistry on screen. And in all fairness I’m not going to draw comparisons to the super duper hit JAB WE MET and his on screen chemistry with co-star Kareena but not even once in the film did the pair connect. I felt the pair of Om Puri and his co-star playing his wife had more of a connection than the lead pair. Shah Rukh Khan’s Voice at the beginning also fails to sell the film. Juhi Chawla’s character though nice fails to save the film. Boman Irani might save the day for the plot at the end, but he too can’t save this film.

I doubt it’ll go beyond this week at theatres.

Food, partying and the Usual Stuff

The past couple of weeks have been a bit hectic on the work front, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t had time to go out and indulge myself in what I like most (among all the other things that I like most) FOOD. It’s been Peter Cat, Mocambo, Pizza Hut, Macdonald’s, One Step Up, Big Boss (Tangra) and other street food.

And you’re wondering whether Some Place Else feature in all of this. Of course it does. How can it not feature in my places to hang at least one day of the week? I did hang at Roxy last weekend though. Heka and a party at home were among the highlights of the last week. Thank god I’ve gone past the age of mad partying, so the guests were civil and I didn’t have to deal with a war zone the next morning in the kitchen.

New Communication Weapon

The NOKIA E51. Fully loaded metal body business phone is just jhakaass. I love the sleek design and the whoping functionalities incorporated into this slim device. Its my weapon of choice now. I've retired my NOKIA 6630 which served me well but technology just left it behind. Way behind. But I was impressed with it still at the time when I was wondering how to transfer my data from that phone to my new one. I just had to put on the Bluetooth and sync the phones and my new phone picked up all the data from the old one. Awesome.

Apart from that a 2 megapixel camera is awesome.

Weekend Movie Mania

Hancock leaves so much to be desired from the point of view of a script. Ok the effects are cool but unbelievable at the same time and the saving grace of the film is the “Oh So HOT” Charlize Theron. Will Smith is his usual self but I think he should desist from taking up roles like these in future.

Kung Fu Panda on the other hand is a must watch. It’s a laugh riot from beginning to end even though it also has scenes of drama, action and tragedy. But all in all the animation is superb and the essence of each character comes out throughout the film. PO is the most Lovable Panda ever. You'd want him as a pet, believe me.

Weekend Movies

If you haven’t watched it yet, go do that. Jaane Tu…ya jaane na is what you pay for and enjoy when you think of going to the movies. A cheerful puppy love story weaved by the storyteller so well that it keeps you glued to your seat begging for more. Add to that the music by A. R. Rahman and a fresh cast with Imran and Genelia in the lead.

The other movie is ok. Actually it might just do well with the kids. So take them for a fun filled movie about kids and relationships. Thoda Pyaar Thoda Magic has Saif Khan and Rani Mukherjee in the lead.

Weekend Partying

I had wanted to go to this new place called Charcoal Grill for a while. In fact for the past several months I saw the place coming up and running because it was on the route to and from home to office.

Finally I got to try the place. The ground floor is a bar and the first floor has fine dining. I should say vast dining both in terms of space and the size of the menu. The menu was like an encyclopaedia on food. We decided to go in for some coastal food and there was crab, appam and some goan curry. After all that food the sweet dish was also nice. I think the ambience is simple and the service is decent. Food quality and quantity would get an 8 out of 10 and the space and comfort another 8 out of 10. If you’re wondering if they serve alcohol, yes they do. The restaurant is marginally more expensive than the ones on Park Street.

Charcoal Grill
102 A & B, Park Street,
(Opp Hotel Camac Plaza)
Circus Avenue,
Kolkata - 700017
+(91)-(33)-22806670, 22473226

After that I went to Some Place Else to get my feed of Music. Urban Reflektions was playing and they were doing a decent job to make it worth the visit after that heavy duty meal.

Always a First Time

Yes I tried my hand at buying fish. I haven't a clue how much to pay and what kinds of fish there are except a couple of names like ilish, pabbda, bhetki and pomphret. Anyway I bought some fish and have no clue what fish it was, but its was yum after cooking and it had no bones. I think I'll go back to this fish guy. But this time around will try to bargain and look more experienced about fishy stuff.