Why does Google want to keep changing its designs on us?!!!
Every few months when we get accustomed to a certain way of emailing or blogging, there comes a revision that it decides to term an "improvement" and it is all but unleashed on us. We have no choice.
Its new compose experience is a nightmare and pray, why was it needed??
I clicked on it by mistake and got stuck for a couple of days. Then, there was a feverish struggle to figure out how to get the old style back. Google doesnt help you with that at all. They have sneaked in the return to the old format in a place you would hardly seek it.
And now, this silly blogging page. Once you login, you dont know where to begin and what to do. It's so dammnnn user-unfriendly.
The reason I visited this blog after aeons is that I saw a movie I shouldn't have. This piece of mine should be titled, "Why you shouldnt watch Special 26".
I watched it because I loved Neeraj Pandey's first outing, 'A Wednesday'. The plot was punchy, dialogues crisp, his filmmaking style different and individualistic yet easy without trying to hit you with it a la Ram Gopal Varma. And, above all, I loved Naseeruddin Shah. He carried the movie on his shoulders. Each time I see the movie on TV, I am hooked and watch it like the first time.
I realised that Special 26 -- what's with these names? They are so uninspired I wouldnt watch anything called A Wednesday or Special 26 but the first was a fluke and the second was viewed for the man behind the camera - may not be the same. So I had no unrealistic expectations from Pandey just that it should be smart and sassy.
But the film faltered on all counts.
The direction was limp. The camera panned on every step walked by a character, every turn of the wheel by the driver, every alley and turn taken by every character. It is a painfully long movie for the kind of story it tells and can safely be cropped by an hour.
Now, for the story. The story is full of holes. The finer points of the plot are never fleshed out. How does Akshay Kumar and his gang of crooks work up to the next heist would be the most gripping part of the telling but that is never told. You are directly delivered to the execution of the plot and even there, there are problems.
It is odd to see these gang members, who actually rake in crores in every loot, live like daily wage earners. The two junior members travel by buses and rickshaws,and live in rundown homes in lower class neighbourhoods. Anupam Kher has a middle class lifestyle. Akshay Kumar travels in style but doesnt have the swank of a rich thief.
Where does all the money go? For a moment, I thought -- and actually hoped because I was getting hugely disappointing with the rendition on screen, that that would be the twist in the tale at the end, that these guys will be shown to be doing a social duty by fleecing the black money hoarders and giving it all to charity.But that never happened. And it remained a gaping hole in the story, among others.
The twist in the tale itself is interesting but once it sinks in, you wonder why the person needed to carry out the charade in the first place. There are other holes: how the fake CBI team's special recruitment drive is carried out in a five-star hotel and the gang doesnt half-expect the CBI to walk in and demand an explanation. Or anybody else to bust the fellows.
The songs are a huge bore, eminently avoidable, as is Kajal Aggarwal with her blank expressions, unchalked role and needless romance. The lead pair (she is there in just 3.5 scenes) look like they wont click if they were the last surviving man and woman on earth. Kajal looks too young, too earnest and too simple to match Akshay's 50-plus creases, lack of passion and flambuoyance.
There's more to say but I think I left it at the multiplex. Pandey should take a very long break before venturing into another.
My real crib is for the critics who have obligingly given him a high scoring, even Anupama Chopra. The dishonesty is startling. Surely, they know better?
Every few months when we get accustomed to a certain way of emailing or blogging, there comes a revision that it decides to term an "improvement" and it is all but unleashed on us. We have no choice.
Its new compose experience is a nightmare and pray, why was it needed??
I clicked on it by mistake and got stuck for a couple of days. Then, there was a feverish struggle to figure out how to get the old style back. Google doesnt help you with that at all. They have sneaked in the return to the old format in a place you would hardly seek it.
And now, this silly blogging page. Once you login, you dont know where to begin and what to do. It's so dammnnn user-unfriendly.
The reason I visited this blog after aeons is that I saw a movie I shouldn't have. This piece of mine should be titled, "Why you shouldnt watch Special 26".
I watched it because I loved Neeraj Pandey's first outing, 'A Wednesday'. The plot was punchy, dialogues crisp, his filmmaking style different and individualistic yet easy without trying to hit you with it a la Ram Gopal Varma. And, above all, I loved Naseeruddin Shah. He carried the movie on his shoulders. Each time I see the movie on TV, I am hooked and watch it like the first time.
I realised that Special 26 -- what's with these names? They are so uninspired I wouldnt watch anything called A Wednesday or Special 26 but the first was a fluke and the second was viewed for the man behind the camera - may not be the same. So I had no unrealistic expectations from Pandey just that it should be smart and sassy.
But the film faltered on all counts.
The direction was limp. The camera panned on every step walked by a character, every turn of the wheel by the driver, every alley and turn taken by every character. It is a painfully long movie for the kind of story it tells and can safely be cropped by an hour.
Now, for the story. The story is full of holes. The finer points of the plot are never fleshed out. How does Akshay Kumar and his gang of crooks work up to the next heist would be the most gripping part of the telling but that is never told. You are directly delivered to the execution of the plot and even there, there are problems.
It is odd to see these gang members, who actually rake in crores in every loot, live like daily wage earners. The two junior members travel by buses and rickshaws,and live in rundown homes in lower class neighbourhoods. Anupam Kher has a middle class lifestyle. Akshay Kumar travels in style but doesnt have the swank of a rich thief.
Where does all the money go? For a moment, I thought -- and actually hoped because I was getting hugely disappointing with the rendition on screen, that that would be the twist in the tale at the end, that these guys will be shown to be doing a social duty by fleecing the black money hoarders and giving it all to charity.But that never happened. And it remained a gaping hole in the story, among others.
The twist in the tale itself is interesting but once it sinks in, you wonder why the person needed to carry out the charade in the first place. There are other holes: how the fake CBI team's special recruitment drive is carried out in a five-star hotel and the gang doesnt half-expect the CBI to walk in and demand an explanation. Or anybody else to bust the fellows.
The songs are a huge bore, eminently avoidable, as is Kajal Aggarwal with her blank expressions, unchalked role and needless romance. The lead pair (she is there in just 3.5 scenes) look like they wont click if they were the last surviving man and woman on earth. Kajal looks too young, too earnest and too simple to match Akshay's 50-plus creases, lack of passion and flambuoyance.
There's more to say but I think I left it at the multiplex. Pandey should take a very long break before venturing into another.
My real crib is for the critics who have obligingly given him a high scoring, even Anupama Chopra. The dishonesty is startling. Surely, they know better?
