Carpool Cheats, unlicenced plumbers, resume liars..

Most of you know that there was a site called carpool cheats, that made an example out of folks violating carpool lane rules because they thought no one was watching..

The initial reaction was along the lines of "vigilante justice" in the carpool lane, but later we heard that the site organizers were threatened by the cheats and they backed off for fear of retaliation..

Around the same time(might be wrong on the timeframe here) a website called Angie's list was started which got feedback from users on electricians, contractors and plumbers so one could check their background. This was free if I remembered right but now you have to pay money to do a fact check on a plumber! Guess they don't want free feedback anymore and have gone to verifying the feedback. They are all formal now and have to worry about competitors bad mouthing each other. Guess that costs a lot of money to keep that straight.

A recent observation on "Linkedin", there are many folks who exaggerate their resumes and have even found an instance where a recommendation I wrote for someone has been cut and paste into a recommendation someone else wrote. Now what do you do? Copyright your recommendations?

Why isn't there a site that fact checks resumes that are posted? In other words collect a 360 feedback on anyone registered on the site. If you say you did something or accomplished something, have someone who was on your management chain e-verify it and also have someone who worked for you e-verify it?


Wouldn't be a bad idea to have people rate you on a scale of 0 to 5 stars as an employee, individual contributor, manager, leader, inventor etc.... no?


If such a site already exists, do let me know! If not, should patent this idea and start a site like that.. then again, one has to worry about being attacked by everyone from the local chef at the desi restaurant to the CEO's who happen to drive on the same freeways as us..




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A new genre?

After a long time, wife insisted I get out of the house and watch a movie on Friday night.

Guess the gray hair and visually obvious stress was a concern to everyone at home. So off they sent me to watch a new release Tamizh movie called "Sarvam". Did not understand even the title or the context, didn't know who was acting etc. etc.

Went to watch with the cousin and MIL. Before the movie started asked the cousin "so what is this movie about?" and the answer was "romantic thriller".

I was stumped. Romantic thriller? Did not know that there was a genre of movies like that.

In any case, the movie had a romance section in the front half and a disjoint supposed thriller section in the second half. It was a crying shame that the songs were done so well, with fantastic picturization and special effects, although in one or two places the locales and backdrops were so good that all the hero and heroine had to do was walk gracefully to carry the song and they screwed it up with some real bad dance moves. If you have seen the movie, you know exactly what I am talking about.

Sometimes you can give an architect the greatest of Italian Marble, Venetian stained glass, ocean floor sandstone, Burmese teak wood, etc. etc. but he could completely blotch it and make a freaking random heap of rubble out of the whole thing!

Sarvam brings to mind an old grandma adage "kurangu kayil poo maalai" (give a flower garland in the hands of a monkey). The monkey does not know how to appreciate the flower garland and will eventualy rip it to shreads. Someone gave this director a lot of beautiful elements to piece together or he did create a lot of beautiful pieces himself and he eventually......

made Sarvam out of it!

It was good that we went with no expectations. The first half of the movie was entertaining enough to compensate for the second half.

This movie is not just a romantic thriller, it also belongs to another genre, a nonthrilling thriller.



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By chance, if you are lucky *

You get to watch Luck by chance on DVD.

Maybe my expectations were too high after watching "Rock On"?

Konkona was great, even Isha was tolerable. Farhan was barely making the cut, and the music did not carry the movie.

Somehow my taste in movies has one lowest common denominator. No matter what the genre, the movie should keep moving forward! It should hold my attention. Any movie where I doze off or pull out my phone and have a temptation to check email, has disappointed me.

The first half of this movie was very well made. It was witty, funny, very natural and had everything going for it.

The second half was so predictable and at one point was just suspended .. it was like a feather hovering just before it takes another drop.. except it just hovered there, a little too long!

The last movie we (MIL and me) watched was Spellbound (the Hitchcock 1945 B/W movie) and watching this after that was not a good idea. We both came out saying "hmm.. that guy made a movie for almost 2 hours with 4 main characters and kept us engrossed and here we are dozing off in a 2009 movie".

We are now hoping for Delhi 6 in the coming weeks. We know the music is awesome..hope it moves us as well!


* Ps. I should add that in the second half the senior artists who were playing supporting roles were really showing off their acting talent and by comparison Farhan pales.

Moral of the story, dont have seasoned veterans play your supporting casts when you are making a movie about moviemaking with young leads!

pps. Note to self : going forward, lower expecations a tad before walking into a movie... dont expect much and be surprised!


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Mums the word

Well that is a very cliched title, you say?

Take a 100 cliches, from the Cliched book of Cliches (which I will write if it does not exist already) and string them together within a span of ninety minutes and add some special effects that make no sense, and what have you?

Mummy 3!

There are no "mummys" in this movie. No, I take that back. There are two mummy's. One is the hero's mother and the other one is the heroines mother. One mummy is immortal and the other one is well, just a mummy!

For some reason, there are skeletons in outfits which run around (and are referred to as Mummy's) and Yetis? which are too clearly, men in rubber suits. They did not even bother to make the effect "special". It reminds you of the duct taped monsters in Johnny sokko and the Giant Robot from when I was a kid when computer aided tricks were not around. And three headed Jet Li dragons and, and and and.....

Sentimental mushy family cliches for a full 10 minutes in the middle of what is supposed to be a masala movie with special effects to numb your already dead brain!

An entertainer, they said!
Fancy trailers, with the olympics, they did!
Mummy, they said!

Young Luke, "insult your love for movies", is what they did...

Bah!



ps. Note to self. No more watching sequels with #3 or beyond in their name, unless released in DVD. No more watching sequels, unless anyone and everyone we talk to gives it rave reviews.



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WANTED - updated

Instant review :

WOW !!!



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Now that the movie hangover is gone, more words!
Went to the movie without knowing anything about it. Originally was going to watch the PIXAR movie. Then a last minute change and watched "Wanted". The cousins had already read the reviews of the european release and told me that it was a "good action movie". Knowing nothing else about the movie was actually a plus.


It was a really well made movie. I am tempted to draw parallels with Dasavatharam, but will refrain from doing so.

Assuming that :

Bullets can curve,
Weavers figured out Boolean algebra and boolean representation of the english alphabet a thousand years ago,
the heart can go 400 beats/second (apparently hummingbirds go 1200 and a humans can go 220!)
James McAvoy can be cast as an accountant turned assasin
Angelina can still rock ...

well wait, that last one was not an assumption!, the movie is total entertainment! Keeps you on the edge of your seat, especially after Angelina shows up. The plot, twists given the assumptions are not bad.

There was a certain unique style of displaying everything in this movie (Unique along the lines of Matrix, Sin City, Amelie, etc.) and it was self consistant within the framework of the movie. The director did not violate his own rules, something I always appreciate in a movie. Let me explain. If you are making a movie about flying pigs, and a certain pig is doing sorties, it is within the framework of the movie, because there is a baseline assumption that pigs fly!

This movie has some amazing fight sequences, chases, special effects, and style, and style and more style!

All said and done, came out thinking

a. worth the ticket price
b. If this is an indicator of the summer movies this year, will be watching a lot of good movies.

WallE, Get Smart, Hancock are already on the growing list!


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Guilt free reviewing

There is guilt free viewing and then there is guilt free reviewing!

While I felt that Kamal had gone overboard in Dasavatharam and was so upset that he could have made a much better movie with a lot less effort with the same material he had and promptly wrote a post at 2 in the morning just to vent, today has been a different day.

A post mortem, of sorts, on the movie, the initial reaction and some guilt on being too hard on Kamal.

My mother, holds me to a different standard than by brother or sister! She rarely agrees, but everyone knows. Call it the first child syndrome. I cannot get away with a lot of things that my brother or sister can get away with, even if I already set a precedent!

That said, there is three reasons for the guilt.

1. Did not mention what was good in as much detail as what was not. There are some great Kamal moments in the movie.
2. A higher expectation from Kamal because he is expected to pull this off without flaws.
3. The initial negative reaction has now given way to some reconciliation inside the head that "it was worth watching once!" . One can always point to the million things that could have been done differently to make it Oscar worthy (no pun intended), but what is done is done and that is what got presented to the audience!

The funny part is there are so many reviews out there that actually shower accolades on Kamal playing Fletcher or Bush! The two things that really irked me to no end because the makeup for these roles prevented him from showing any "acting"!

Then my MIL is talking to someone on the phone saying "the chinese Kamal".... and I was thinking "Hmm.. if you dont know the difference between Chinese and Japanese, and if you don't know that NaCl is salt, chances are you might appreciate the movie a lot more!"

In the movie Kamal says "I dont say god doesn't exist! Only say it would be great if he did!" and the irony is, I didn't say this movie is bad. Only said, it could have been a lot better!

Still, never thanked Kamal once in the previous post for :

a. Trying so hard
b. Getting us to sit there for 3 hours and make it feel like 2 hours and 40 minutes
c. Getting a lot of things right, the way only he can!

So, there.. Thank you!

Now Dr. Kamal Haasan, please go and make a Crazy Mohan dialogue based comedy before you make another mega movie! We know you are versatile enough to pull it off! Flawlessly!



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How to make a blockbuster -101

To date, this blogger has not made a movie. His entire videography experience is limited to movie maker clips under ten minutes!

As Confusius once said (he said a lot of things and I am not sure if this is one of those things) "Every ass has a hole!" and along those lines, I have a little primer for how to make a blockbuster movie, purely based on watching movies that went on to become blockbusters or bankbusters.

1. Do not go overboard - on anything. Be it makeup, stunts, dialogues, accents, length of the movie, anything!

2. Do not insult your audience - even if you are doing something that is not normal, make it look possible under the assumptions of the movie. In other words, don't violate the rules of your own movie.

3. Find your target audience - You cannot please every type of audience, even if you are a universal hero! Go right or go left!

4. Screen time - One person showing his face for 80% of the movie, even if the face is disguised brilliantly, severely, grotesquely, is still cloying! Give other people in the movie a chance to participate! It is a movie, not a one man stage show.

5. Movies are expected to have a coherent flowing storyline and relevant dialogues. While they are not a must, they do help. A movie is not just a showcasing of acting talent. If one is capable of multiple disguises, you could technically do 36 five minute skits with 36 different makeups and string it all together and call it a three hour...."talent show"!

Why do I suddenly have the urge to write all this? Well, just came back from watching Dasavatharam, the movie.. sorry.. the Kamal Hasan talent show!

I am upset that he did not play Hilary Clinton or Barak Obama!

Well, maybe in the sequel Beesavadharam, where he plays 20 roles in the same movie, he will consider those two characters!


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BARR - Dosa Place

A restaurant review, after a long time. This restaurant made me get back to writing reviews!

After a strong recommendation from Mitr and K, we decided to check out Dosa Place this weekend.

When San told me that it is between Kiely and San Tomas Expressway on El Camino Real in Santa Clara, I immediately reeled off possible locations.

"Either it has to be in the complex which has DiCiccos or the complex that has the Officemax and Java Coffee.. there are no other places there.. unless the Uno Pizza which became a Chinese restaurant is now an Indian restaurant?". For those women out there who are intersted in knowing San's response, it was "Just shut up and drive!"

There are two new Indian restaurants. One called Peacock in the Officemax complex and the Dosa Place, which has actually replaced Dicicco's Italian Restaurant! I have fond memories of the Italian place. When San was pregnant with Jr., she would order me to go get breadsticks from Diciccos.




Location : 2665 El Camino Real, Santa Clara, CA
Wait time : 5 minutes (reasonable crowd but the place is big and we were seated instantly).
Food wait time from order : 10 minutes for all items including Dosa
Check time : 2 minutes (Visa, Mastercard, and they take AMEX)
Average price per person : $8
Rating "I miss my mother in law!".
Service : Excellent.. Really Excellent!


Items sampled : Rava Dosa, Poori Masala, Andhra Thali, Chai.

The old Italian restaurant used to be long and the walls were painted a dark color. Now the whole place is brightly lit, and looks spacious.

The food was excellent. All the items were amazing. But there is more to this review than the food. I remember my mom telling my sister once during a function at home "You should always smile when you serve the guests food. That is when they feel like eating". If you read that and said "hey, that is just common sense", well it is not the norm in most Indian restaurants in the bay area where someone serves you because they are paid by the hour and you can pretty much tell that they don't care about your culianary experience!

Dosa Place has a lot of things going for it.

1. It is brightly lit. The place looks festive!
2. The waiters, waitresses, manager, cleaners all seem to be in the 20-30 age group. They remind you of the singapore airlines air-hostesses. Always smiling and energtic and very polite they made us feel welcome.
3. They play nice fast paced Indian instrumental music in the background.

When we asked the manager she said "this is a kind-of family owned restaurant. We started two months ago and have a branch in Fremont".

We really hope that their service doesn't decline as the crowds go up!

For a second I was sad to see Dicicco's go, but now I am happy that it has found a worthy replacement.

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Out of the blue

During our long weekend visit to the east coast, we stayed in a hotel near the BWI Airport. After a long days sightseeing in DC, we wanted to go get some Indian food.

Called the lobby and they suggested a small Indian Restaurant nearby. It was the only Indian restaurant in that small town on the phone book. We had nothing to lose and so off we went.

We were pleasantly surprised by the ambience and the food!

In about an hour we were seated, we had finished a sumptuous meal and were out!

The prices were reasonable too (12$ a person)

The naan, matter panner and poori's were awesome.





But if you are in the BWI airport area, this place is a good spot for a nice Indian dinner. It is called Indian Delite and is in Catonsville just outside Baltimore. It is on Frederick road (two blocks behind where route 695 intersects route 40 aka National Pike).

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Shah Rukh Magic

Watched Chak De India over the weekend. I came out all teary eyed. I would have gone and watched it anyways being an SRK fan, and sooner if it werent for the hectic trip to the east coast.

It is the only movie which I have watched to this date where I have come out and said "I would watch this again!". I still cannot get the visuals out of my head or the Maula Mere song that still keeps running in the background.

It is a movie to be watched on the big screen. A very realistic sports movie with a message on todays reality when it comes to :

1. how women are treated
2. how sports are treated
3. how sportswomen are treated
4. how religion gets into sports
5. how the general public reacts to sporting events

There are multiple messages that come out in this movie, but they are all told in a very subtle sublime way, without pushing the message across forcefully or melodramatically.

On a side note, if you want to get back memories of being cooped up in a small common room in a dormitory with 100 other students to watch world cup cricket or soccer and you are holding on to go to the restroom.. drink a large coke while watching Chak De India. Makes the movie watching more interesting towards the climax!


SRK rocks!


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Sivaji - Reviewview

Preface : This is about the Tamizh Movie "Sivaji" staring Super Star Rajni!

So what is different about this Re-view-view ?

Well, you have to see a movie to review it! I am going to violate all known ethical codes by writing a review for a movie that I have not yet seen. But I am not the first one. I have actually seen a lot of posts which say review, but talk about the hype and what to expect and promise to write the real review after watching the movie. I will join that bandwagon.

Who is who ? What is What ?

I will now proceed to set minds to rest over the various questions that people might have with respect to this post. Why should it be even relevant ? Well, people are asked a few questions in the United States and binned accordingly ! Are you a republican or democrat, are you pro-life or pro-choice, are you okay with homosexuals or are you a homophobe, etc. etc. But in Tamizhnadu they also ask you, do you like Super Star or not, do you like Sivaji or not, etc. Plus any post with Sivaji in the title is immediately judged. The author is judged on his % Pro Rajni-ness! and is promptly lauded or flamed. Considering I am sarcastic by default, I better answer these questions..

So lets proceed :

Do I like Rajni ? Yes
Do I like movies ? Yes
Do I like Rajni movies ? Mostly!
Do I still like him after he is old and tries to act young ? Yes (except the romance part).
Did I like Baba ? No
Did I like Chandramukhi ? Yes
Did I watch FDFS (first day first show) for Baba ? No
same for Chandramukhi ? Yes
When did I really watch Baba ? After it came out on DVD.
Will I wait for Sivaji to come out on DVD ? probably not!
Then why the $*%& am I waiting ? For tickets to drop to 10$
Have I made up my opinion on this movie yet ? No (seriously!)
Will my wife throw me out if I watch the movie and say it sucks ? No
Will my wife make me vadai, payaasam, etc. if I watch the movie and say I loved it ? No
Do the above two answers prove that I will express my honest opinion when I do see the movie ? Yes!
Do I expect this to be a good movie ? No.
Do I expect this to be a good Rajni movie ? Yes.
Will I watch it only for Rajni and ARR ? Yes.
Will I actually come back and write a real review later ? Hell NO! That would become an insignificant post. "Bay area man writes the 646,259,946745'th Sivaji Review" would be the headline. No Sir, not me.

Now here is my Re?View based on all the gazillion reviews I have read in the one week since this movie has been released to the general public! Practically everyone and their dog has a review of Sivaji!

Ahem...

Sivaji is a mass entertainer, where Super Star still shows that Style always rules over substance when it comes to this genre of movies. If Tom Cruise had half the style of Rajnikant, MI-III would have been a real blockbuster. It had the same hype and the money thrown in, with Cruise Star power, possibly the biggest hollywood could boast at the time, but the results were not even close. .(Well I havent seen Sivaji, but everyone else has and ergo, style has ruled over substance. As for lack of substance, that seems to be in unanimous agreement as well!).

That said, there are still a lot of gripes over the lack of a proper storyline, coherence, poor chemistry between the hero and heroine, songs that come up suddenly, length of the movie, etc. etc. The blogosphere seems to be polarized between two extremes on this one.

Some reviews say that these things while considered flaws for an average movie, do not really matter in a Rajni movie where the audience pays, just to see the man strutt his style on the big screen and utter punch dialogues. As a guy who stood 764'th in line at AMC Mercado to watch first day first show of "End of Days" or the dude who stood 1234'th in line to watch "The 6th Day" at the same theater, just to watch Arnold utter punch dialogues and throw people in the air, I can totally understand this type of review.

The next type of review goes on to pay its respects to "Thalaivar" (Rajni's nick name), his style etc., and bashes everyone else involved in making this movie with the exception of ARR. Shankar and Sujatha are prime targets with the producer being the secondary target, for wasting his money and not keeping an eye on the quality of the film! Now, how many of you can claim that you have watched two free movies in the same year, by just using your AMC movie watcher card? San and me can. That means, in the year we got married, we watched "at least" a movie a week, in theaters!! One day, we went to the 21 theater complex and found to our dismay that there was only one movie that was playing in all 21 rooms that we hadn't watched. So we watched it as well. As irony would have it, the movie was "Superstar", a film that left us speechless! We considered it an all time low in our movie watching life. As someone who has seen enough and more movies which lack substance or logic, my guess is that these guys are probably right. But a Rajni movie has to have all the Rajni elements or it would cease to be a Rajni movie. It is a self fulfiling prophecy! After Muthu was released, the Japanese have discovered the "Rajniberg Uncertainity principle", which states that it is impossible to have Rajni and Logic in the same movie and any attempt to precisely fix logic in the movie will make the Rajni part questionable!

Finally, we come to the hardcore "nay" sayers, who write, "Rajni is obligated to give his fans a decent movie", "A movie should not insult the audience's intelligence", "who will bell this commercial cat" (okay, okay, I came up with that last one), etc. etc. These are reviewers, who have either tried to judge this movie by the average movie standards or have reviewed it with an underdog mentality or trying to reason with mass hysteria, with an aim of being the sane voice. These are the ones who are promptly lauded for their guts and honesty for daring to say the truth and are also flamed in the comment box. I offer my deep condolences to this type of reviewer. India, or the USA for that matter is not free country. The internet does not have freedom of speech. If you do speak against mass hysteria you WILL be flamed! I can write a book about this! Once again, this is like saying bad things about WWF (and fear getting beaten up by some big dude next to you who is a fan), or saying bad things about Harry Potter (and fear getting beaten up by an angry teenager) or saying bad things about George W Bush (and fear getting beaten up by the government)! Apparently there are consequences if you dont agree with the general public. I would also point out to these reviewers that "Rajni is not obligated to do diddly squat!". He has made his money, and made his die hard fans happy, which were about the only things he was obligated to do, and even that obligation is questionable!

As for fans demanding more from their star and fans making or breaking a star, Rajni would have ceased to be a star a long time ago if his movies are judged by the average movie reviewer standards. The average Rajni fan is more of a fanatic. (Er, what I mean to say respectable Sir's and Madam's, is that you tend to watch Ranji movies with your FAN on in the AtTIC). That means box office logic does not apply to Rajni movies either!

Neenga ellam review than ezhduveenga. Naan reviewvukke review ezhudhuven! Idhu eppidi irukku ?

Translation (without Rajni style): You guys only write reviews. I write reviews of your reviews. How is that ?

:)


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BARR - Chaat Paradise

Had a reader recommend Chaat Paradise! So we decided to go for our evening tiffin last weekend. The place is located at the corner of Grant Road and El Camino Real in Mountain View. It is in the complex next to the 24 hour Walgreens Pharmacy. It is tucked away in a corner of the complex and not visible from the street.

The restaurant is very spacious and has a very nice ambience and is busling with people.

Here are the highlights :





Wait time : 5 minute (resonably crowded for a saturday afternoon).
Food wait time from order : 30 minutes. Real long wait considering our order!
Check time : 2 minutes (Visa Mastercard, didnt check if they take AMEX)
Average price per person : $9
Rating "My wife can cook better".
Service : Below Average


Items sampled : Aaloo Paratha, Samosa, Bhel puri, Vada Pav, Chai.

The paratha was definitely one of the best I have had in the Bay area. These guys have perfected it.

The samosa was also nice. Reminded me of Banaras tea shops. Very tasty but very oily as well.

The Bhel puri and Vada Pav were a Mrs. only exclusive. Her take was that the Bhel puri was good but the Vada Pav was a big disappointment.

Chai was fantastic.

I guess this is one of those places which knows how to make some items extremely well and some other items are a must have in a typical Chaat Menu, but they dont have a handle on these items.

Not once did the people who served us or the ones who took our order or gave our check smiled ! They all looked sad, and reminded me of people working in some sweatshop!

The reasonable tactics for places like this would be to try all the items that other people strongly recommend so you cant go wrong with your order ..

Jr. tasted only the paratha and gave it two "Yummies".

Recommendation : If you know what you are ordering in this place, it is worth it.