Sherlock Holmes - Movie Review - Excellent movie!

Rating ***1/2 out of 5*. 

Sherlock Holmes is a brilliant movie! It is fast paced, witty, sometimes comic, action packed and ends with a bang.

What is done in this movie is that it has made Holmes a sort of James Bond of the 19th Century. It has been many years that I have read Sherlock Holmes stories. But from whatever I remember, this movie presents to us quite a different man. In fact, this Holmes is an explosive mix of supreme deductive powers and equally supreme physical powers!

Robert Downey Jr. as the legendary detective and Jude Law as his trusted Dr. Watson shine in this movie. In fact everything shines....including the plot.

The movie begins with Holmes and Watson stopping a crime from being committed. They apprehend Lord Blackwood in an act of Black Magic. Blackwood is hanged to death. Blackwood resurrects himself and then begins the game of smoke and mirrors. He challenges and lures Holmes into traps and Holmes continues to investigate for a larger plan. A group of people from a secret society also ask Holmes to stop Blackwood at any cost. They fear Blackwood is upto something immensely sinister and his abuse of magical powers needs to be stopped.

Irene Adler, shown as Holmes' love interest is also a very intriguing character. She has been hired by a mysterious rich man to lead or mislead Holmes to something.

Holmes, Watson and Irene investigate. The investigation is a mind-blowing roller-coaster of action and suspense. Viewers are almost breathless when the movie ends. And it ends well. Ties up all the knots and gives a nice closing to it all.

London of late 19th Century is brilliantly depicted. Hans Zimmer's music is terrific. And the action is fantastic. Guy Ritchie shows how Holmes first plans his action and its effects and then actually executes it. This is done in several scenes and sometimes the effect is humorous. The dialogues are witty. And the suspense opens up slowly and carefully.

Excellent movie. Watch it in a cinema hall!  

Economics, Globalization and News Focus

Economics deals with distribution of scarce resources amongst their seekers. Globalization has brought about a subtle competition between nations in pursuing smart economic policies. Sometimes they group together or raise barriers. Countries often attempt to replicate another country's successful policies. Sometimes desperate times invites pressure from other nations that force a country to follow certain policies.

In the past few years the term BRICS - Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa has been used more and more often. The reasons being that these are the growth markets that attract investors. Also, they attract sellers of various products & services from across the world because of their size and potential.

Now, some very interesting commentary on what long term and short term of economics in human history is and how effects of changes being done today will manifest in future is discussed in this NYTimes article. What I find particularly interesting is the author's comment that a nation should consider the option of being dislodged from being the top one in the long run as acceptable.

The article is also relevant to nations which are aspiring to be leaders in the new world order. It certainly takes courage to make decisions that sometimes feel incorrect in short term but help the nation and the world in the longer run. I guess, when a nation transforms at core, it also is able to muster the courage needed to make such decisions.

The article correctly points out on how news is generally focussed around major events. Now, we in India, exactly know how news on items like Economy and BRICS is played. Hype on everything is the norm, a small M&A activity by an Indian company and media may conclude that India has dislodged every other country in everything including baking croissants. The second problem is the excessive focus by business media on the stock market. Stock market is one of the indicators on how the economy is doing, but it is not the only indicator. Stock market is also correlated to international markets and foreign fund flows. So using only stock movements to understand the state of economy is obviously not correct.

Missing DoorDarshan on New Year Eve

Yesterday, the last day of 2009, end of decade, moving into new year, resolute on the new decade, optimism overflowing from people's eyes...ok I need to shut up and move on.

So I was seeing TV and the fact is that I could find nothing that would remotely interest me. Mostly it was some rehash of year's headlines, replay of same movie trailers and songs that have been played on channels a zillion times, comedy shows that make most of the content for  most a few news channels. I checked DD National too and what was on it could not stop me from moving to the next channel. It made me nostalgic about the late 80s.

People in 30s, who grew up in India in mid/late 80s have witnessed the cable TV explosion in this country. And they certainly know what DD was before the cable TV advent. DD was like a pizza with all the toppings - pepper, corn, tomato, olives...everything (now you know I am a veggie). It had Chhayageet, Mahabharat, Saturday evening movie, The World this Week, Surabhi and so many other things.

While the above toppings were weekly fare, people also awaited its annual fare - the New Year Eve program, Holi Haasya Kavi Sammelan, Coverage of Grammies and Oscars etc.

The New Year programs were a grand mix of everything. It was like an abridged version of what DD was. A bit of news, some songs (and by some I mean 10 at most), lots of contextual comedy stuff and some live programmes.

In particular, I remember the first time I was mesmerised by Javed Jaffrey doing his "I do not have bones" dance. There used to be those spoof shows. There was some controversy over BVO, on which I think it was, Harish Patel cracking some hilarious jokes or Raja Bundela trying to construct the spelling of Czechoslovakia.

The best part was all this was a compact package of 2 hours or so. Starts at 10pm, finishes at midnight, the channel says Happy New Year and off it goes. Amazing.

No, that was not the best part. The best parts were the discussions on these programs on the following day in school, some idiot getting caught trying to pass one of the jokes from the program as his own and the attempt to show off who remembers the most of the program.

Well, these days the TV does not stop, the viewer has to muster the courage to go to the power off button. These days there is no need of news wrap because you have been fed the same news 24x7 till you have learnt it to the last headline and you no longer wait for that 5 minute magic from Jaaved Jaffrey because there are like a million copies doing rounds on 50 channels.

I guess I had a great new year eve remembering those good old days. Perhaps they are good old just because  I was young then and am slightly older now.

3 Idiots - Movie Review

3 Idiots - Raju Hirani and Aamir Khan's new offering is a good movie.

It is light, entertaining and gives the right messages. In some sense, it is also one of the many forms in which art in our country is trying to convey the change in people's mindset.

The movie begins with 2 friends trying to meet their third one who has been missing for some time. And then the story moves back in time when they meet first time. Three engineering hostel roomies - Farhan Qureshi, Raju Rastogi and Ranchhoddas Chanchad become best friends during their studies.

The gag fest begins there. Non-stop. Some of them outrageous, some picked from many of the jokes / anecdotes - of these some are contemporary and some very old. At times, you laugh (and really loudly) and at times you can only smile. But the good part is that the message is always delivered.

There is that element of suspense built up in the middle of the story that is good. But the climax feels contrived and, therefore, slightly stretched.

Aamir is good but his role, as an all-knowing, cannot do anything wrong fellow, seems stretched after some time. Madhavan seems wasted in a rather small role. Boman continues his only-needs-change-of-heart villainy.

Who shines? Sherman Joshi in a more sensitive role, Kareen Kapoor in a small but great role and their Uganda-born Pondicherry educated enamored-with-marks classmate (I don't know the actor's name).

The movie has some fantastic campus scenes, great dialogues and locales.  Raju Hirani continues his mission of spreading the right messages. This certainly looks in line with the earlier Munnabhai episodes. All-in-all, good watch.



Added later to post
The movie has elements of various sources from around the world. The ones I see obvious connections to - Earlier Munnabhai episodes, Taare Zameen Par, Kite Runner (the book), Forrest Gump

The very interesting "Missed Call"

This article in WSJ shows the power of technology through this innovative use of mobiles by the fishermen  in Tamil Nadu. This article points finger to the miserable weather forecasts of traditional agencies that makes fishermen feel the need of above SMSes. In developed countries the forecast is quite accurate and there is no need for such services.

But then, India is a market full of innovative uses, especially in the mobile space. The earliest innovation being the missed call. For readers from outside India, a Missed Call is where a caller calls and disconnects before the call is picked up. With mobile users, the caller's number is displayed on the mobile of the called party. It is quite widely used in India.

Now what is the use of a missed call? I will list few scenarios, but I am sure there are many more depending on the inter personal communication protocol (IPCP). I will come to IPCP a little later.

Scenarios:

1. Caller does not have money to spend on a call and wants the other person to call. He/she makes a missed call. The other person calls and speaks. This is probably the most basic of the uses.

2. Both parties have agreed to meet at some place. Whoever reaches first will give the other person a missed call.

3. A missed call is made to economically convey nice emotions like, "I miss you" or "I love you".  The thoughts reach the destination without costing anything to the entrenched parties.

So what is IPCP - Consider scenario 2 above. Now the 2 people have decided that a missed call means "I have reached". IPCP is established and will expire with the missed call.

Similarly, say A and B are going to a wedding. They are reaching the venue directly and they need to buy a gift on the way. Whoever buys a gift first gives a missed call. Similar to above, yet different.

One can think of hundreds of such examples. The idea of IPCP is the users decide the meaning of the missed call. And who framed the concept of IPCP....well that would be none other than yours truly :)

And, IPCP also leads to some really amusing and sometimes embarassing situations. More on that in some other post.