An Observation (Updated)

SRK is the new Rajinikanth.
Edit all references accordingly.

An Observation.

Rajinikanth is the new Chuck Norris. 
Edit all references accordingly.

And they even threw in some Baphomet.

So, the man who captivated me for ages and years, the one who haunted my imagination for the longest time, the one whose wit and charm I have been enamored by and obsessed with, the one who made history with the words "Elementary, my dear Watson", Sherlock Holmes-of the insurmountable talent for the art of deduction...

...is now Sherlock Holmes-The Action Hero in Love. 

And this, is why I never watch movies based on the books I like. The world is supremely disappointing to my imagination.

From the Life of the Marionettes...

"Patience is the only thing in life that calls for absolute morality."

-Smiles of a Summer Night(1955)

Ingmar Bergman is incomparable. Brilliant direction + brilliant scripts = Beautiful, beautiful movies. Right from Through a Glass Darkly, The Silence, and Wild Strawberries to the one up there, all of his works have a certain quality that I have never chanced upon anywhere else. There are layers to every story, and there's always so much more than what meets the eye.

Go watch, if you haven't already. You have no idea of what you're missing.

Amusing Pop Culture Moment of the Month.

Gay black guy(aptly titled Miss J): Go girl! You look so mean honey, that you've got what it takes to become America's Next Top Model!

Girl(bursts into tears and) babbles: I'm for Jesus Christ. Y'know he wants me... to help the world. And I... will do whatever he wants me to do! *Attempts to brush non-existent tears off without ruining makeup*
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I do not watch crappy television. I don't watch television at all. But this gem of a thing was on youtube's homepage. I couldn't resist. And I ended up watching all of it. Which at one point also included a cheerleader with a broken leg, hopping down a ramp with crutches. With a STILETTO on the one surviving foot!

Considering the doses I receive on a regular basis, I was convinced that I had definitely acquired an immunity towards stupidity. But this is just overkill.

There was also this woman who claimed she could castrate a hundred cows a day. And went on to describe the procedure. With the hackneyed hilly-billy southern American accent. That, was the golden moment. She's a frikkin' messiah by those standards. It seems, the day is saved. Hallelujah!

Truth Hurts?

"Parliamentarians on Wednesday demanded that TV reality show Sach Ka Saamna be banned, terming its content as against Indian values and morality."
Source : India Today

"NEW DELHI: Hours after the furor in Rajya Sabha over the reality show 'Sach Ka Saamna' broadcast by Star Plus, the government on Wednesday issued a show cause notice to the TV channel.
Source : The Times Of India

The TV show in question is an Indian spin-off of the American one "The Moment of Truth". It features participants being hooked up to a polygraph machine and asked questions about their lives, which may vary from being slightly embarrassing to highly controversial. And as long as their answers tally with the results of the lie-detector test, they move on to win greater sums of money. So yes, there have been disclosures tantamount to people admitting to peeing in a public swimming pool and cheating on their spouses. Ordinary people, that are exactly what our society is made of.

By no means do I think the show deserves applause. I personally hold the opinion that this trend of large-scale dirty-laundry washing is just plain tacky. But this is what this multi-million dollar industry of reality TV churns all the moolah out of. Voyeurism sells. Period.

And this is what society is about. People making personal choices regarding their lifestyle. And instead of cowering under a guise of dutiful adherence to what is considered "decent", if they have it in them to unapologetically speak about it, then so be it. No one has any business telling them what they should or should not do. It's a free country.

Having said that, I wonder what caused Mr. Maini to file a public interest litigation in this regard. Does he really think that a shroud of feigned sanctimony does not amount to hypocrisy? Would he rather have people pretend to be pious little heaps of virtuous jackshit, while their days and nights remain tales of culpable damnation? Or rather, what he likes to call "culpable damnation" in his view of things. Is the concept of Indian morality so vague and non-existent, that it needs pretense to support itself? Is it so fragile that they can't hold its own in the face of true-to-life fact?

The way I see it, any purported sense of values that completely excludes facts of urban existence is, in effect, nothing more than play-act. So, what character do you want to be?

Eternal Sunshine of the Inscrutable Mind.

"Blessed are the forgetful: for they get the better.. even of their blunders." -Friedrich Nietzsche

Needless to say, I love the movie.