Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Early adopters get to shout: 'The emperor's not wearing clothes!'

I love early adopters! They help save my time and energy. Google+ has arrived with the same fake 'invitation' business that makes you feel like you are amongst the privileged few to have access to some path-breaking technology. We think of ourselves as 'visionaries' and 'early adopters'. Just a more marketing friendly name for Guinea Pigs. This seemingly irrational behaviour of standing in long queues to buy a product that will not only halve in price in a couple of months, but also have significantly fewer defects (à la iphone), apparently has a reasons.
Studies show that people do this because of what it conveys about them to others. Not sure why studies were required to figure this out, but there you have it.
But again, I am not complaining too much, since these people saved me from the likes of Google Wave. I am just quietly smiling :P
The one place I am an early adopter in, are the movies. I love to watch most movies before somebody else spoils it for me with a review. But there are some movies where I do wait for a review.
Other than this, I am happy for someone else to see the proverbial emperor in the nude and tell me about it, so that I can give the spectacle a miss.

Sunday, July 17, 2011

First movie in Delhi and a review of 'Zindagi na milegi dobara'

We headed out to Movietime in Westgate mall, in the Rajouri Garden area. Quite easily accessible via the Delhi Metro.
Now, the first thing you will notice in malls in Delhi are kids bouncing about on bungee trampolines. Most kids are expressionless during the whole experience. I am guessing this is because it must be a weekly routine for them. Parents take them to the mall and then trampoline time for 10-15 minutes. Must happen every Saturday/Sunday, experimenting with gravity must only be so much exciting.

Any which ways, the mall we did reach and due to it being super crowded the harried looking attendants let us into the hall with us just showing the sms we'd received when we booked tickets online.

So here's what I thought about the movie...

Firstly some sweeping generalisations and gyan:
Our parents' generation was one where the middle class folks had one aim: a good job and a simple, happy family life. So most movies were about bad people trying to take this simple life away from the protagonists.
Our generation seems to have more disposable income at hand and almost all of us want to break the shackles of our seemingly boring lives and get rid of the daily monotony, by traveling the world (a lot of which we have seen and read about from a mouse's length away via the internet).
'Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara' is aimed at just that. Three friends enter a pact. They will do a trip where each one will choose an adventure sport -which will be revealed to the other two only at the last possible minute- and they will have to partake in the adventures that follow.
Kabir(Abhay Deol) proposes to his girlfriend (Kalki), leading to the trip materialising, in the form of a bachelor party trip to Spain. Imran(Farhan Akhtar) a seemingly happy go lucky chap "with sad eyes" and the Workaholic, serious, running behind money, London based financial broker, Arjun (Hrithik Roshan) complete the triad.

Most road movies have a script where the protagonist have some challenge to face and end with the protagonists getting to know more about themselves than they knew before. This one follows the same rules and does quite a good job of it.

Farhan Akhtar gets most of the good lines, Abhay Deol underplays his role and Hrithik fits right into the character of a serious guy who wants to make as much money as possible before he retires at 40.

Kalki has a bit part really and is average. Katrina adds a bit of freshness to the film, but then this film is not about romance and love. There is a bit of that too, but this is a film about travel and broadening your horizons. So if you love to travel, then this is a movie for you.

Will you identify with the characters à la 'Dil chahata hai?' possibly not, for the whole set-up does not seem very real.
Will you enjoy the movie? Yes you will. But be aware that there are some parts where the movie just drags along at a slow pace.

But overall, this is a movie worth the watch, who knows you may just head out for the trip that you've been postponing all this while :)