Saturday, April 19, 2008

Life of Pi

For starters, ‘Life of Pi’ is a book that won Man Booker prize in 2002. It grabbed a lot of attention in India for mainly two reasons: the book’s protagonist is an Indian and the story is about survival which Indians quite easily relate to. The protagonist Pi is a devout and follows all religions that are prominent in India viz., Hinduism, Islam, Christanity. The story mainly deals with his survival on a lifeboat along with a Bengal tiger for some 270 days. Being a son of Zoo manager, he explains some interesting facts about Zoo, animals and how to tame them.

The book is a good fictional read, but I couldn’t actually connect to the character and his survival story. The writing is just above average and Yann Martel didn’t impress me as an expert writer of make-believe stories. The story is a good change from other fictional stories that we get to read from our mainstream writers. However reader should not consider Pi as a stereotype Indian, Pi is young, naïve and over-zealous follower of religion. The part that I hate about the books with Indian protagonists is that they take the characters over the roof and end up showcasing them as naïve. And sadly that seems to grab the attention of western world and the books end up winning prizes across the globe.

Friday, April 18, 2008

Assassin’s Creed

AC is really good but only for first 3-4 hours. Then it becomes repetitive to a point that I decided to give up playing. My rating for the game is 6.5 / 10. It is an impressive stealth game though. Best part of the game is:

a) You can climb anything in AC. You feel this immense power of a super-hero, who can climb everything he lays his hands on.
b) Simulation of people wandering in town, that makes the town real
c) Experience of cities like Damascus, Jerusalem is very hard to resist
d) Riding horses, collecting flags, rescuing citizens are good gameplay features but are short-lived

Assassins however are not creative and make player follow the same protocol over and over again. This is a best game to borrow and try your hands on rather than buying yourself.

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Alfred Hitchcock

“You cannot call yourself a movie buff without watching Hitchcock’s work”, this is what I realised in last 40 days. Hitchcock movie festival in Stanford theatre was an enriching experience especially since I watched movies in a theatre that had 70’s style interior. I ended up watching Rebecca, The foreign correspondent, North by Northwest, The Birds and Pyscho. I was bowled over by Rebecca and Psycho. The part that amazed me was the screenplay. You will notice Hitchock slowing down pace of the movie by showing his characters doing some useless chores like Rebacca cleaning up the house, Norman bates cleaning up the dead body. There are lots of mundane details which you would think that they can be skipped, and then suddenly you will see a twist in the movie that will leave you short of breath. Keeping in mind that these movies were made in 60’s and 70’s, I completely agree with critics that Alfred had set a standard which very few moviemakers can match.

Thursday, April 10, 2008

I

I want to be a cricketer, I want to be a quarterback, I want to be a lead guitrist in a rock band, I want to be a vocalist, I want to be a drummer, I want to be a moviestar, I want to be a director, I want to be a politician, I want to be social worker, I want to be creative director, I want to be a CEO, I want to be a producer, I want to be artist, I want to be a designer, I want to remain an engineer, I want to be an adman, I want to be a best-seller author, I want to be a cartoonist, I want to ride a fighter plane, I want to ride a submarine, I want to fly in a space shuttle, I want to be filthy rich, I want to be a homeless, I want to be passionate in life, I want to give up everything and lead a life of a yogi, I want to dream, I want , I……