Question: What did Jackie Chan's father say to him when he was small?
If you can keep your head when all the east asian baddies around you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can dream - of surviving 3 thousand assorted bruises and cuts And yet perform the next stunt, no ifs no buts
If you can cope with Hongkong and Hollywood alike And treat those two imposters just the same
Yours is (every stunt on) the Earth, the legacy of Bruce Lee mixed with Oriental humor and everything that's in it, And--which is more--you'll be Jackie Chan, my son!
* An uncanny flash of PJ struck when coming across an old Jackie Chan flick while browsing channels at my bored apartment in Brussels, missing home and the missus badly. * Note to self - Must.... have.... Chinese food today...
Tweeter ke do peeche tweeter... Bolo kitne tweeter?
Bad attempt at mixing Bollywood nostalgia with a new internet phenomena and squeeze some humor out of it... But you can't blame a man for trying.
Well, Twitter was around a good 18 months ago... And I had joined-in a year back or so, expecting this to be just one of those new jigs in the social networking wave. Suddenly, come 2009, Twitter is THE place to be! Everyone around now is a Social Media junkie, every other person is a Web 2.0 expert, and everyone is following everyone (not in the strictest literary terms, but you get it)
Yes, a few celebrities on the Tweeting A-list means good news for fans. Forget mainstream media, forget agents, forget 3rd party info - you can get the goings-on in the minds of celebrities right from the horse's mouth (or so I'd like to believe)
Blogging was for people with a serious urge to write and reach out. Tweeting came out to be great for those who didn't have time to sit down and blog. But people are doing just the opposite. More time is being spent on tweeting and status updating every day! True, social-media habits of people can take you by surprise. I wouldn't have ever thought people would actually have fun writing small twitbits about themselves, and reading up twitbits about others, totally unknown ones too!
Now if you'd excuse me, I have to go and update my Twitter page to tell the world that I am writing a blog. Then I'd update my facebook status that I am tweeting about writing a blog. Then my LifeStream account will get updated with the useless fact about me that I am updating my facebook status about tweeting about writing a blog! Phew!
image courtesy: http://www.readwriteweb.com
Update: (14.May) Can't help but post this video. Awesome! Thanks to Alina for sharing this.(if your browser cant see this - get flash installed)
This article on a prominent travel site did not surprise me a bit. I'd mentioned in the previous posts how there were 'Slum tours' being conducted in Mumbai. This one just reaffirms it and says, '....Mumbai, and particularly its 175-acre shantytown Dharavi, are experiencing a boost in tourism....'
Slumdog Millionare is now in the league of masterpieces like LOTR, The Sound of Music and Casablanca. * flashes a half unsmile, midway between straightness and sarcasm.
What 26/11 did to tourism, Slumdog is reverting it back equally and more. I'm wondering what we'd say to this...
Much has been said about Slumdog Millionare already. My two rupees:
The movie is entertaining, yes. But is it extraordinary enough to sweep the oscars? I don’t think so. Part of the joy in the movie is in the expectation of what happens next, and you begin rooting for the slumdog as he keeps answering correctly and the viewer is engrossed in unraveling the links himself. That's possibly the biggest achievement of the screenplay. And of course some of the shots of Mumbai, slum-life and the kids are breathtaking. More on this here. However, from a superiority point-of-view, I don’t think the movie should be a huge oscar winner. Even ARR who’s got 2 nominations, has done much more brilliant works compared with the mediocare soundtrack (by ARR standards)
If we discount as creative-leeway, the too many horrific incidents coincidently happening to the same set of 3 kids, the screenplay and portrayal of the slum life was pretty much accurate. However, this seems to be a bit too extreme and would cause a lot of heartburn for proud Indians (like me) in the way the west rejoices at the sights of poverty in the developing world. Believe me, I have even seen ads for ‘Slum Tours’ in Mumbai, promising the curious foreigners a glance into the poverty thats so ingrained in Mumbai-life. Yes, the movie thrives on stereotyping, but then many good successful movies have done so in the past. So maybe if it wins, I wouldn’t be surprised.
