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Words can be fatal in China. Zhang Zhixin, a young Chinese woman, was executed in 1975 for “opposing the Great Helmsman Chairman Mao, opposing Mao Zedong thought, opposing the revolutionary proletarian line and piling offense upon offense.” To ensure that Zhang could not cry out at her execution, her vocal cords were cut.
Jonathan Mirsky in a short essay on Nobel Laureate Liu Xiaobo in A Hero of our Time in The New York Review of Books P.7, November 11, 2010
Swaminarayan Mandir Sweets – What Gods Like Us Eat
To hell with Cholesterol issues. Continue reading »
Man, you got to watch this Oriental Western made by South Korean film-maker Kim Ji-woon to understand the difference between the Indian bilge and the films made in the small corners of the world.
As even you schmucks would realize, the South Korean film The Good, the Bad and the Weird is inspired by Sergio Leone’s old spaghetti Western The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.
The movie was playing in theaters in the U.S. a few months back but we missed it in one of our bad decisions.
Hence, when the DVD appeared on Netflix we leaped at the opportunity to see this South Korean film.
We just finished watching the movie and, boy, we got to tell you this – there’s not a single Indian filmmaker among the teeming clowns in Bollywood and Kollywood who can pull off a feat like Kim Ji-woon.
When you are following in the footsteps of an old classic like The Good, the Bad and the Ugly it’s easy to fall short.
Deo gratia, Kim Ji-woon doesn’t stumble, not for one moment.
The Good, the Bad and the Weird is a wild ride and a thoroughly satisfying entertainer.
In Sergio’s Footsteps
The South Korean film broadly follows the outline of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: Essentially, the movie is about three gun-slingers in pursuit of a buried treasure.
The difference is in the setting, details and the Asian cast.
Eschewing the Wild West of America, the film’s makers have opted for the barren deserts of Manchuria in China during the 1930s.
And the three key actors are Song Kang-ho, Lee Byung-hun and Jung Woo-sung.
Of the three main characters, Song Kang-ho gets the most screen-time as Yoon Tae-goo, the Weird; Lee Byung-hun is Park Chang-yi, the Bad and Jung Woo-sung plays Park Do-won, the Good.
All three deliver the goods but it’s Song Kang-ho, with a face that only a mother could love, whose image in his funny costumes is indelibly etched in our mind as he goes about fighting various elements in his relentless pursuit of the buried treasure. Song Kang-ho proves that you don’t need finely chiseled features or a doting father with the last name of Bachchan to make it as an actor in the movie business (not that the bozo Abhishek has made it).
All you need is talent and dedication, both qualities in short supply in the Indian movie business.
With its train heist, horse-chases, the relentless pursuit of Yoon Tae-goo by all for the map, the Jap soldiers, the many fights and escapes and the final Mexican standoff, The Good, the Bad and the Weird moves along at a super-brisk canter that keeps you glued to the screen. And that’s not a mean feat considering the story in its outlines is not new.
The action scenes, and they are a plenty here, are very well executed and a couple of twists keep the movie from being completely predictable for those who have seen Sergio Leone’s work.
SearchIndia.com recommends The Good, the Bad and the Weird. You can get the DVD from Netflix in the U.S. As for the folks in India, well, need we say more. 
Hey, hey, we’re back again with a new edition of Incredible India, those only in India blood-curdling stories.
* It’s no secret that India’s policemen are notoriously corrupt scoundrels, rapists, thieves, encounter specialists a.k.a murderers and big-time crooks.
In the past, some Indian policemen were even known to pour acid into the eyes of arrested youths and then poke a needle in the eye to make sure the victims were blinded (remember the Bhagalpur blindings?).
But some Indian cops have now taken their sadistic acts to a whole new bizarre level.
You see they have gotten into the bobbitizing business. A bunch of criminal cops were recently sentenced to jail by India’s Supreme Court for cutting off the penis of an innocent man with a barber’s razor for allegedly having an affair with the wife of a cop’s relative.
The criminals a.k.a policemen were let off by a lower court.
Here’s an excerpt from an Indian newspaper on the incident:
The brutality of the case, in which cops of the Sadar police station in Rajasthan’s Barmer district chopped off the penis of an innocent man for allegedly being in an illicit relationship with the wife of a cop’s relative, angered the Bench comprising Justices Markandey Katju and T S Thakur. Some uniformed personnel are still suffering from a “colonial mindset”, said the judges, seen to be a reference to the cops’ apparent certainty that they could get away with the savagery.
The main accused, constable Kishore Singh, who is said to have used a barber’s razor to chop off the organ of the victim in 1994, got the maximum punishment — five years in jail and a fine of Rs 50,000. ASI Sumer Dan, who had caught hold of the victim was sentenced to three years in jail and asked to pay a fine of Rs 50,000. SHO Sohan Singh, in whose presence the crime happened inside the police station, was sent to jail for six months and fined Rs 10,000. The fine amount would be paid to the victim as compensation, the SC directed.
Source: SC jails cops for bobbitizing man
Folks, the next time you makes eyes at a pretty girl in India make sure she’s not the wife, sister, daughter or friend of a cop’s relative if you want to keep your dick. Continue reading »
Fasten your seat-belts, folks.
Your favorite vigilante hero Batman is coming.
Again.
As in The Dark Knight Rises.
Yes, the third installment in the popular Batman series is scheduled to hit the screens July 20, 2012.
As with the earlier Batman films, this one too will be directed by Christopher Nolan.
Apparently, the movie will not, not be in 3D.
Good.
We’re not great fans of 3D.
Often the gee whiz effects of 3D mask the absence of a solid, gripping story like all those song-dance sequences in our Bollywood and Kollywood movies in Iceland, Peru, Namibia, Switzerland et al are intended to hide the lack of a story.
Related Stories:
The Dark Knight – Heath Ledger’s Dazzling Swan Song
Hundreds of millions of dollars seems destined to go down the drain in the great Table rush of 2010 and 2011.
It seems every little digital media twit has got his knickers/her panties wet over the Tablet phenomenon.
We can’t scour over a publication without reading another gushing, drooling piece on these cool new Tablets.
Blame it all on the Apple iPad.
Ever since Steve Jobs launched the iPad in late March 2010 and the device gained some traction, there’s been no end to the hype about these consumer electronics devices.
With few exceptions like the HP Slate 500, most Tablets are targeted at the consumer entertainment market.
Often, these tablets (iPad) also double as e-book readers. Some like the Dell even include a phone. But who buys a Dell phone. Really, who?
Here are the major Tablet vendors:
Will the Tablets Fly?
No.
Despite all the hype by the digital media twits and the journalists (triggered largely by the iPad’s initial success) we expect to see a bloodbath in the Tablet segment. Continue reading »
Folks, it’s no secret that we’re great fans of the actor and director Clint Eastwood and went into acute depression after his 2008 film Gran Torino failed to snag even a single Oscar nomination (goddamn it, JFK was right about life being unfair).
For some unfathomable reason, we did not see Eastwood’s subsequent film Invictus.
Eager to make amends for the slight we set forth to NYC the other day to see the old man’s latest shot at direction – Hereafter (Matt Damon, Cécile de France and Frankie and George McLaren).
The Afterlife
No sooner did we arrive in NYC, we rushed to AMC 25 on W.42nd St (between 7th Ave and 8th Ave) to see Hereafter.
We know most of our readers get their jollies only at the sight of Rajinikanth wooing a gal 35 years younger than him or one of those incompetent Bollywood Khans and the idea of watching an 80-year-old Hollywood director’s new movie is hardly enough to stimulate their cojones.
Be that as it may, our appetites were adequately whetted by the movie Hereafter.
Three Lives Changed
Hereafter is actually three different stories that alternate throughout the movie and come together toward the end.
There’s the pretty French TV journalist Marie Lelay (Cécile de France), who is in Thailand with her boss and lover.
Next, you have a San Francisco factory worker and ex-psychic George Lonegan (Matt Damon) who’s got the strange power of talking with the dead when his hand touches that of another and makes a ‘connection.’
While others rave about his abilities, George himself is unhappy about his unusual powers and once in a fit of anger laments to his older brother:
It’s not a gift, brother. It’s a curse. It ruins any chance of having a normal life. I feel like a freak.
Finally, you have the young twins in London, the quiet Marcus and chatterbox Jason with their alcoholic mother. One of the poignant moments in the film is the desperate bid by the twins to keep the family together in the face of the Social Services agency’s efforts to act against their mum for neglecting her children.
Dramatic Changes
Before long, the lives of all of our characters are changed dramatically. Continue reading »
Another Pakistani-American has been arrested in connection with a terror plot in the U.S.
This time, it’s 34-year-old Farooque Ahmed of Ashburn, Virginia.
The U.S. Justice department said Ahmed was arrested today for attempting to assist others whom he believed to be members of al-Qaeda in planning multiple bombings at Metrorail stations in the Washington, D.C., area.
It seems the FBI was aware of Ahmed’s activities from before the alleged attempt began and closely monitored his activities until his arrest.
If convicted, Ahmed faces a maximum penalty of 50 years in prison.
Here are details of the alleged DC Metro bombing plot from the U.S. Justice Department:
According to the indictment, from April 2010 through Oct. 25, 2010, Ahmed attempted to assist others whom he believed to be members of al-Qaeda in planning multiple bombings to cause mass casualties at Metrorail stations. On April 18, 2010, Ahmed allegedly drove to a hotel in Dulles, Va., and met with a courier he believed to be affiliated with a terrorist organization who provided Ahmed with a document that provided potential locations at which future meetings could be arranged. On or about May 15, 2010, at a hotel in Herndon, Va., Ahmed allegedly agreed to watch and photograph another hotel in Washington, D.C., and a Metrorail station in Arlington, Va., to obtain information about their security and busiest periods. Continue reading »
If you believe the results of a new survey put out by the National Association of College Stores (NACS), college students are mostly showing the middle finger to e-books and e-book readers.
The NCAS, which has a vested interested in print books, says a survey conducted by its OnCampus Research division in early October, found that only 13% of college students had purchased an electronic book of any kind during the previous three months. And of that percentage, slightly over half (56%) said the primary purpose of their e-book purchase was required course materials for class. Continue reading »
For anyone driving a lot in the U.S., there are two things that are as important as the car – GPS to get you to your destination and Radar Detector to foil the cops eager to hand you a speeding ticket.
As you gadget-loving schmucks know, having, charging and managing multiple devices in the car is a pain.
Voila, West Chester, Ohio-based automotive electronics devices manufacturer Escort Inc promises to make your driving experience less stressful with its new Passport iQ that combines a GPS, Radar/Laser Detector and speed camera/speed limit information in an integrated touch-screen device.
Escort is making the bold claim that it’s the first to offer all of the above features in one convenient device.
Passport iQ is framed in landscape profile with a 5-inch full-color touchscreen.
Escort engineers are said to have changed the standard radar detector form by designing a new microwave antenna assembly.
The company says Passport iQ delivers extreme long-range warning on all radar bands, including X, K, Superwide Ka, Ku, and instant-on Pop modes. Multiple front and rear laser sensors are supposed to provide 360-degree laser protection.
The navigation/radar detection gadget features an AutoLearn feature that automatically learns and rejects false radar sources based on exact location and frequency.
Passport iQ also provides warnings if speed limits change and drivers are exceeding the posted speed. The device also overlays red light cameras, speed cameras, and high risk speed traps on the navigation screen.
The gadget features a choice of visual and audio alerts and can be displayed in selectable formats and colors.
Pricey Device
Alas, Passport iQ is not cheap.
Pricing for the device starts at $650. In the U.S., consumers can now buy separately a Radar Detector starting at $30 and a decent GPS for about $150.
Will Passport iQ fly in the current depressed economy? We remain skeptical.
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