2 Days in Paris: I’d rather miss them,

if I’d been Jack, but I’m myself and had a good time watching people being bitchy and horrible, screwing things up more and more, being paranoid, lie to each other, and making their lifes really complicated. I suppose they picked the worst taxi drivers one can meet in Paris (or any other city), and exaggerated. Go and see it!

A Kiwi (not a Chinese gooseberry)

I met Annika at the airport some weeks ago, and she gave me a kiwi. Now it sits on my loudspeaker and tells me “someday, Lisa, you’ll meet my relatives in New Zealand”. Thank you!

Omkara, or: The Use of Talking instead of Assuming

on the other hand, if they’d talked it all over, the movie’d been another, and that’d be bad. I like Omkara (Othello), such as it is. The only thing I’d wish for is that the lullaby love song wasn’t sung in the last scene, and a song where Kareena dances.
I have the same problem here as with Maqbool – the movie is great, and I’ve got nothing to say about it. The actors are great – Kareena Kapoor and Saif Ali Khan are great. Kareena is so much better than in K3G, the first movie I saw her in. Vivek Oberoi – compared to some other films I’ve seen him in, he’s so much better! His character, Kesu, is chosen as Omkara’s right hand because Kesu has all the college students under his control. The funny thing is, I’ve seen him in another movie, where his character protests and campaigns against someone like Kesu.
I hadn’t seen Konkona Sen Sharma (Indu, Langda’s wife) in any movie before. I definitely want to see her again.

It’s wonderful to see Dolly’s and Omkara’s love, in the first part of the movie, but all the time Langda chori chori chupke chupke drips his poison into Omkara, first creating and awakening his jealousy, then to keep it burning.
And, this really is a movie showing how talking about things and honesty could have changed lifes.

Some more screenshots
Item Number 1 – the Beedi song.

Dolly and her sister in law Indu prepare food.

This scene is wonderful. Dolly sings “I just called to say I love you” and strums the guitar though she’s got no idea how to play it. It relieves the tension – Omkara entered the house, expecting to see her with Kesu, and she stands there, singing for him. They don’t really talk, though.

Omkara and Kesu.

Looky, the landscape! And a temple!

Look at those arms. Sometimes, less is more.

Maqbool

I find it difficult to write about a good movie. Maqbool is good. Usually I don’t like gangster movies. I don’t like violence on screen. I hate when people are killed in a movie. I don’t like it when suspense builds slowly, when you know how it’s going to end, you don’t like the ending but you’re unable to change anything, like a really really horrible nightmare. I like this film, though it is like that horrible nightmare where you wake up and need some time to realise you are safe in your bed and aren’t going to die.

So, why do I like Maqbool? The main actors, Tabu and Irfan Khan, are good.
The way Nimmi (Tabu) slowly makes Maqbool (Irfan Khan) fall in love with her, and seeing his jealousy grow; Nimmi is Abbaji’s, Maqbool’s foster father’s mistress. It was painful to see how their web of lies and falsehood grew, and finalley caught them.
And there are so beautiful moments: the pilgrimage, where Maqbool falls in love with Nimmi, or the wedding of Abbaji’s daughter Sameera. Oh, and the songs are wonderful. I love Jhin Min Jheeni, both the song and picturisation, and Ru Ba Ru, a qawwali. If someone wants to see it, ask me for the dvd

I look forward to watch Omkara, another Shakespeare adaption by the same director. And it’s got Kareena Kapoor, Saif Ali Khan, Naseeruddin, and a soundtrack I loved from the first moment I heard it.

they’re so cool

The hipster pda is so cool.
As is the Moleskine hard drive case. But the hipster pda is way easier to make!