Variety is the spice of life

The latest season of Diplomat was probably the slowest and most inconsequential it felt to start with. There are 3 power couples, the president and her husband, the vice president and his wife and the deputy chief of mission with the CIA head of station for UK. It felt like a regular soap opera with so many cribbings and spouse quarrels and never felt like watching a story with politics as its theme. Like the previous season, the series picks up midway when it finally realizes its theme and the second half of the series shoots off vertically. In fact of all the four seasons, this one felt actually true to its title and dealt with more diplomacy than all of the previous 24 episodes put together. In many ways, it felt like a hat tip to the incumbent and his belligerence. Having been shot at early in the series, the American president is airlifted to their warship where she is operated upon successfully. Even before her VP could have a taste of the powerful position she is back in no time...

Of all the titles he had kept for his books, this one felt like asking for a feedback right from the name itself!! Having been touted as a christmas release like last time, probably he is coming up with such setup of releasing a smaller novel every year, towards the end and a bigger one midway. The story like many of his recent ones, has numerous references to several other famous crime thriller stories by famous authors, as if Swanson is giving us some tips as to what to read if we are not liking this book or as a side benefit of reading his books!! The story is split into three chapters with all of them being narrated by the same person but from different context. It all begins with an invite to a beach house of a famous author to the narrator, the purpose being to ghost write or correct the latest novel of the famous author for the agent, who is the common connect between the two, feels it is not upto the mark and needs some rejig before it is released to market. The narrator meets ...

Already sila pala topics la post poda pendinga irunthalum, oru sila sambradhayams take precedence. Like asking "ganga snaanam aacha" during diwali, rajini padam paathacha is a near equivalent whenever his movie releases. The opinion is divided as an equal split about whether it is worth it or not. But if there ever was a classic case of mob mentality, rajini movie releases would be a perfect case study. Irrespective of the movie, even for his worst duds, the first day first show madness is something nonpareil. Jailer one was an industry defining hit and obviously the anticipation to its sequel was very high. But considering his last few movies didn't do that well at the BO, the production house decided to go low key this time. Low key by the levels of promotion that usually comes with Rajini movie. The first review notes were immensly favorable and it seems as if everyone is willing it towards the 1000 crore club, a "proud" marker that no tamil movie has reached...

I recently saw a movie on Prime, which i felt had an interesting premise. Something that used to be staple theme in fairy tales and mandhiravaadhi stories of the past. Only difference being that, those tales were meant for kids and never went into the kind of detailing that these one presented with or explored!! For instance, the movie "Double occupancy", dealt with the case of a baby being girl in the mornings and becoming boy after 6PM in the evening. In fact they are presented as 2 different individuals who never knew what happens in the other form of their life!! The story heads into a situation where in the boyfriend of the girl form first discovers this duo-limbo situation and slowly the girl friend of the boy form gets to know about it as well. The movie has so much adult content that beyond a point, it felt as if the point of making the same person boy and girl was for exploiting those specific situations and what a waste it was of a potential gold mine of situations....

When i first read this book, years back, i felt it was a decent thriller at best and was quite different from the usual science related thriller genre of Crichton, having read Andromeda strain and Terminal man prior. When i re-read it recently, i was amazed at the level of detail he has captured about the japanese culture, mostly the negative aspect or his critical view of their persona and how they deal with business. In fact, till a few years back, most of his caricatuirsh..err..characterisation of Japanese could've been attributed to how US was viewing China. And now with the focu shifting sharply on India, the pattern seems to be consistent, the more a country or its culture is vilified in novels and movies it becomes as much obvious as to the competitive/threat level perceived by the then government. There used to be a punny saying that, whatever Americans invented, Japs sold it better and made money out of it. And automobile industry was one that would've witnessed severa...

If at all there ever was a generation that is more known for being a generation of its own, that would be this zee group i guess!! At times it feels as if they are not our own kith and kin, but as if they landed from an alien planet and needs to be revered!!! Across spectrum of all human kind all over the globe, if there is one group who seems to be on the spotlight for a variety of reasons, its the zee kind! People bend over backwards to accomodate their lingo, their culture, their attitude, their sensibilities and when i say it ranges across all walks of life, it literally is the case. When dyed in lie politicos start noticing and begins to follow them, it can seem like any ambivalent attitude of an opportunist lot. When movies begin to pander to them, it again can be attributed to the gallery playing to the audience. But in the age of mob stream media and goat herd culture, the power of repetition rules roost and when one keep hearing the term gen z, it feels as if we are dealing wi...