Random off the topic.

I don't know if anybody has really given a palaapazha kottai about this, but why is there a nutritional information column for a water bottle? I think even the most consummate idiot on the world(some exceptions remain) knows that water has just a touch of contaminants and is nothing else at all. Fats? Carbohydrates? Really? As if all the fuss that is already around dieting is not enough, we, as a society have continuously succeeded in creating a glut of utterly useless and superficial data and have completely disregarded something called 'common sense'. 

movies.

I usually don't write reviews. That's not true. I don't write well-reasoned reviews. They eventually turn into  lopsided criticism with little/no grounds whatsoever. I do like to be an opinionated ass trying to act all high and mighty. This review may not reflect the actual status of the richness/daftness of the movie, but it definitely is what I think of this movie(don't navigate to the end of the post. its an order. ok, please?)

Unless there is something on the screen that is completely abnormal/astounding, I stick to my original notion that a movie will suck, my basic assumption. This is very much like the mathematical proofs that are demonstrated via reductio ad absurdum, except that, the assumption here is likely to remain intact. 

Take a statement, take up its contradiction, prove that the contradiction is silly and that the original made better sense, and q.e.d. Watch a movie, assume the movie sucks, go watch it, and if something really different is on screen, hey! the original assumption was wrong. So. change of mind. 

I am heavily biased towards nolan, maniratnam and all the other directors who make shots in which light cuts the blades of table fans for six minutes for no particular reason(I can even lie through my teeth that I liked the seven samurai even though I managed to complete the movie across a span of seven gruelling days). 

Rambling.

I am going to write a very small review of the movie ko(in addition to the million other reviews on a very open internet). Here goes.

#There is a scene in which the commandoes/special forces/extras in green uniforms blow up a loose frail wooden door with a c4. Maybe it was to incapacitate the people lurking behind the weakest part of the house-behind the door.

#Songs. There are thirty three thousand songs in the movie. Out of them, thirty four thousand are unnecessary, painfully annoying and sap all your energy.

#Pia bajpai's lips move like the dynamic of a double pendulum (the dubbing is absolutely out of sync). Its like watching a deaf and dumb newsreader dancing to the tune of katy perry's hot'n'cold  to report the news of a death of a leader.

#The harris' template to feature a song with bombay jayashree is very repetitive. One more movie, and there will probably be a mass suicide outside his house.

#stop showing us how much fun colleges are. This is probably why we have so many colleges these days, and the graduates are becoming duller that they seem to be having only fun and are probably doing nothing else.

#Four people, with guns and bags slung over the shoulder, at the corner of an intersection with a traffic police, and with millions of people, get into a bank and create so much chaos and nobody notices this other than a photographer. Yes, thank you for letting us know that we are hare-brained.

Voyeur. 

I am scared of medical examinations, especially when they hand me that tiny cylindrical cup that has to be used to collect my urine. 

#How do I assess how much of the 'sample' they would need to do tests? I am always doubtful, that in the 'process' of collection, I constantly recalibrate my need with a imaginary need of the lab people, and I come to a compromise that I have done justice, but as I see the other samples on the tray, I understand that I have fallen short. Even in this. The only saving grace is, nobody knows the exact measure. 

#When collecting the sample, its often important to er... stop in the middle. I had to be so careful not to spill on the sides of the cup, and also actually stop 'the process'. This is probably the most significant amount of self-control I have exerted in all my life, that I was quite content with the result, given the fact that I had to do it a number of times.

#As readers, you should all be grateful that I was not asked to do a stool test. 

ஒரு குடும்பம் அல்லது குலத்திற்காக ஒரு மனிதனை தியாகம் செய்து விடலாம்; ஒரு கிராமத்திற்காக ஒரு குலத்தை தியாகம் செய்யலாம்; நாட்டிற்காக ஒரு கிராமத்தை தியாகம் செய்யலாம்; தனக்காக உலகத்தையே தியாகம் செய்யலாம்.


-extract for vidura neethi, courtesy this week's thuglak.