GOD's DEBRIS- Book review

A 132 page thought experiment, "GOD'S DEBRIS" is no Scott Adams usual Dilbert comic series. It's a thought provoking master piece creating illusion in the name of illusion. It’s for readers' brain to comprehend such logic.

"WHY do you believe what you believe...?" is what the book is all about. It effectively takes hold of the question and spins it around some deceptively simple answers.

Don't think there is no premonition for the orthodox believers of GOD. Don't ever think this as a atheist's work either.

The Author introduces you to the book with some flabbergasting lines.

"The target audience for God’s Debris is people who enjoy having their brains spun around inside their skulls"

He takes a precaution not to offend any.

"The story’s central character has a view about God that you’ve probably never heard before. If you think you would be offended by a fictional character’s untraditional view of God, please don’t read this"

By now you must have understood what the book is going to deal with?

Picking up the threads of popular science and philosophy, God's Debris gently weaves them into a captivating story.

A young man who delivers packages meets an old man in order to deliver one. The old man not just intelligent, an equal or more to Einstein in his perception stops him with a more highlighted question.“If you toss a coin a thousand times, how often will it come up heads?" and there starts the conversation in the form of questions and answers bounced back and forth with the reader listening.

The first half of the book is undoubtedly awesome. The old man consistently keeps your brain at work with some unconventional thinking and concept, especially when he questions God's omnipotence. Then he introduces you to a completely different perspective about God. He always intrigues you with such a challenging logic sometimes even questioning Einstein's and Newton's laws. He gives a feeling that he has got comparatively wider perception. If you're the kind of a person who finds novel reinterpretations of God's nature threatening, read no further. But his answers to life's big mysteries the nature of God, reality, free will, probability, science, creation & evolution and religion - all sound plausible.

BUT, But, but.....

Along the lines, something is wrong. There lies the author's challenge. Why the old man’s answers wrong? You will hear him say that when there's more than one possible answer, the simplest one is probably right. But how often have you actually found that to be true? If it isn't true - if the simplest answers are, quite simply, wrong - why? Questioning the free will of human, he gives you a free will to judge his answers by asking a question "why"?

Plus:

- The unconventional thought experiment.
- Interesting discussion about the theories of science.
- Tricky philosophical reasoning..

Minus:

- Few explanations are absurd.
- Not so interesting at the end.

My rating: 4.5/5

Written by: Bonzo
(bhanu_jovi@yahoo.co.in)

YAMA DONGA : The Trio Strikes Back!

(Movie review)

After a series of flops and average rated movies, Junior NTR would have been waiting for a movie that would set him on the hit-streak. RAJAMOULI, the director, who gave Jr. NTR his career defining hits would obviously be the ideal choice for him to get a fresh start to his retarded career.

After two block busters “Student no.1” and “Simhadri”, the awesome - NTR, Rajamouli and Keeravani ‘trio’ is back!
Firstly, this is not a typical Rajamouli movie. He navigated through a new territory from his regular revenge, drama and action films. This time he chose a socio-fantasy subject.
Story:
Raja (NTR) is a petty thief. He sets out to steal a gown on the insistence of a businessman (M S Narayana). He meets Mahi (Priyamani) who runs away from her house due to the harassment shown by her family members towards her. Raja brings that gown. When he is about to get paid, the businessman dies of a heart attack. So Raja abuses Lord Yama in frustration. Yama (MohanBabu), who boasts that the people on earth are afraid of him because of his unbiased judgments, listens this and gets angry. He asks Chitragupta to bring Raja to Yamalokam though he has many years to live. Raja comes to know that Mahi is a very rich girl and plans to get a ransom from her relatives for her release. In the process Raja is killed by goons and is taken to Yamalokam. How Raja makes Yama's life miserable in the Yamalokam and comes to Earth again forms the rest of the story. There is a love angle to this between Raja and Mahi.

Positive aspects:
The first half is very interesting and especially the pre-interval sequences are amazing. As Lord Yama in a brief role, NTR’s acting and dialogue delivery is excellent. Indeed, he surpassed Mohan babu in those scenes. The major attraction in the movie is the graphical work of Late NTR’s scene with his grandson NTR and the Yamalokam.

WHO SAYS TOLLYWOOD IS NOT CATCHING UP WITH INTERNATIONAL STANDARDS IN THE GRAPHICS DEPARTMENT??

The EFX has done a splendid job and hope they win an award for their work. As usually the comedy king Brahmanandam and Ali were good. The character of Yama was very active and Mohan babu has added a flavor to it with his style of dialogue delivery. Keeravani’s music is very good especially for the songs ‘Noonugu meesalodu’, ‘Nagamalli’ and ‘Nachore’.

Minus points:
The post interval proceedings lack fizz and the climax is predictable. The film runs over 3 hours and definitely needs trimming in the second half.

Performances:
NTR was excellent. His new physique will attract many people to this movie and his hairstyle was stylish. His body language, dialogue delivery in the mythological role and his verbal exchanges with Mohan babu definitely need applause. His dance performance in the songs ‘Nachore’ and ‘Nagamalli’ is a real feast to his fans. Mohan babu is best suited for the role of Yama and has carried it off very well. Khusboo plays the role of Yama’s wife.
After NTR and Mohan babu it’s Mamatha Mohandas who steals the show in the second half. Priyamani plays a rather subdued role.

Cast:
NTR, Mohan babu, Priyamani, Mamatha Mohandas, Khusboo, Brahmanandam, Ali, M.S.Narayana and others. Rambha, Navneet Kaur, Preethi Jhingania and Archana make a special appearance.

Rating: 3.5/5

I am not a die-hard NTR fan but, after this movie I salute to his acting and determination to come back strong!

written by: Vinaykanth N.
nvinaykanth@yahoo.com

Transformers rocks!

(movie review)- watch the trailer before reading the review.



Making a movie out of a super successful comic series is challenging and intriguing. Fortunately the director-Michael bay was better off this time. His last movie was “The Island”, which was total bakwaas.

“Transformers” has nothing to talk about except the Robots. The story is nothing special or new, it's a war between good vs evil. Transformers somewhat reminds you of Terminator. The best part of the movie comes at the last displaying spectacular visuals.

The performances of the actors were decent. Screen play is fair and free flowing. Editing is a bit tacky here and there.

If “Transformers ” can be summarized into good, bad and ugly then:

Good : Breathtaking special effects – Transformers truly stands for its name. The transformation from cars to robots is simply awesome and there are many jaw dropping special affects and action sequences. The new Linkin park's single-"what i've done" is played at times and it fixed perfectly to the movie.

Bad : Few of the action sequences are too fast. It’s hard to know what is happening on the screen at times. In addition, there is too much talking (dialogues) when we want to see robots in action.

Ugly : Stupid comedy showing some racism and America’s domination.

On the whole Transformers is exhilarating and great to watch. It’s a must watch for all the movie goers only for its special effects and don’t forget to watch it only on the big screen.

Rating 3.5/5

Yamadonga (only for fans)

(movie review)
Yamadonga! When heard seems to be a reminiscent of Yamagola. Yes of course, a part of Yamagola’s storyline is included along with other movies like Yamudiki Mogudu and Maya Bazaar. Director, Raja mouli took a major risk to combine all these movies into one and his work was also very ordinary. The movie Yamadonga has got some routine scenes which we have seen during NTR times, making the movie normal again. I believe majority of the audiences won’t connect with the movie because few of the lines in telugu are hard to comprehend and most of us would struggle. On the other hand, this movie is a big feast for Jr. NTR fans. They can expect everything they ever thought of, right from his very complicated dance moves to his dialogue delivery, his slim body and to his change in hairstyle. There was great applause in the theatres for his quick dialogues in old telugu ( grandhikam) on the opening day.

Brief Story:
A normal guy (raju) does small thefts to get his life going and happens to swear yamadharma-raju once when he is in bad mood. Having heard this from Suvarlokha, Yama is ridiculed in front of his Sabah and wants to take revenge on this Raju, who has full 100 years life expectancy. Yama asks chitragupta to some-how manipulate Raju’s fate and kill. Raju learns that he has been brought there even though he had a longer life. From there on Raju troubles yama in suvarlokha and finally returns to his normal life. The rest of the story is all about how Raju escapes from Yama.

Performances:
Jr. NTR as a brat did a good job. He almost looked like his grand father when he was like young yama. His dance moves are outstanding. Audience can see a new NTR in this movie.
Mohan Babu as Yama is also good. Nothing has stopped him from using his signature dialogues even as yama.
Priyamani is just normal. Her role is a bit deglamorised. There is nothing special about her role. Audiences get a feeling of watching a character they have been seeing for years in telugu cinema.
Mamtha Mohan Das is Ok. Her role involves both good and dark shades. She is more suited for her dark side. She is supposed to have a Nellore dialect but audience don’t get a feeling of that.
Rambha, Veda, Navneeth Kaur and Preeti Jangiani are good as glam dolls.
Ali’s comedy is excellent in the first half. Brahmanandam is adequate to his role.
Audience can no where believe that this movie was directed by Raja mouli. His direction is pretty ordinary. He just sumed up few old telugu movies to make this movie out.
The best part of the movie is the art direction. He did an exceptional job. The sets are very lavish and I think art director has a passion towards detail. The Yamalokha set is a gigantic one and is a bit new compared to the old ones.
Graphics are very good compared to what we have seen in other telugu movies till date. Music by M.M.Keeravani is good. Background music is also decent.

Analysis:
This is a movie for Jr. NTR fans for sure. They thoroughly enjoy watching this. The good parts involve Jr.NTR’s acting, his dance moves, a song showing Jr. NTR with his grand father - NTR, Ali’s comedy in the first half, and art direction. The bad parts involve the story itself. It is nothing new to telugu audience. Direction is also a major drawback. I seriously felt this movie could have been directed by any potential direction in the telugu industry. There isn’t much hard work involved in the direction.

As a final word, Yamadonga is strongly recommended to all the die hard fans of Jr.NTR.
Rating: 2.5/5


Manohar Vanamadi
(v_manu1@yahoo.com)

pics: andhracafe.com, teluguone.com

CHAKDE! INDIA

(movie review 2)

Ever Imagined Yash raj movies without the mutiple star cast, conventional Indian drama with songs in expensive foreign locations and big sets? Heroines with the chiffon sarees on, running in slow motion when it suddenly rains, hero hold their hands to kiss intimately? Well, wondering why I said all that? Because, yash raj films is back again with their new venture – Chak de India, that has proven a movie can do well even without all these elements.

Yash Raj Films proved that they can get out of the conventional way of making a movie in India. This time they are up with a movie on sports. Yes, as we all know by now, Chak de India is about hockey. The game which was invented by us INDIANS and yet there is no support and encouragement that it deserves for a national game. Yash raj films dared to do a movie on this subject and that too have chosen the toughest part of it, women’s Hockey. But guess what? They made it so beautiful and interesting that we shouldn’t be surprised if we see a lot of people playing Hockey in our neighborhood after watching this movie.

Brief story:
The movie - Chak de India, revolves around a coach and his women’s hockey team. He tries to show the world what people can achieve as a team with a little bit of effort, no matter where they come from the country. Coach motivates and inspires the team to play as a whole for the nation but not for an individual’s welfare. The captain has a downfall in his career for which he was dropped out of men’s hockey team at his time. His immense love towards the game pushes him to take up the job to coach women’s national hockey team. The rest of the movie is all about how the team excels and makes their mark with the help of the coach.

Performance:
Shahruk khan was exceptional as a coach. His dialogue delivery and body language suited flawlessly for his role. He did complete justice to his character.
All the 16 girls performed well as needed for their roles. Although, some of them even did act so good that it’s hard to say they are new comers.

The music and background score by saleem- suilaman adds to the whole mood of the movie. Audience can expect adrenaline rushes quite a sometimes.
Cinematography was good. The depth of the clarity in the film is way too good. And the camera work is also impressive.
Screenplay by Jaideep Sahani was exceptional. It is well-matched to the audience who can’t sit in the theaters for as long as 3hrs. It was fast and keeps audience stick to their seats.
Direction by Amin is good. He was smart to make this movie short without dragging any further. He did handle the scenes involving the hockey matches well, capturing player’s emotions perfectly. He would have gotten what he expected from his crew. After having directed a movie like “Ab tak Chappan”, he was dexterous in not only changing his genre to sports but also executing the movie to its best.

Analysis:
The movie, on a whole is well balanced with all the good and bad parts. The good parts include comedy, lots of emotions, adrenaline rushes and few good lines from the actors. Though the movie is about hockey, auidence do get a chance to see glamor through some of the girls. The story was told in a pretty straight forward manner, which makes it worth watching for. Coming to bad parts,there were not much of the teams tactics shown . Most of the time, the movie focuses on the training rather than team tactics.Towards the end, the director failed to put things intact, one can guess what is going to happen even before the scene.

As a viewer I thoroughly enjoyed watching this movie. It is short and it is about hockey! I recommend not to miss this movie as it is one of the finest sports movies ever made and seen on the Indian celluloid. Infact one can consider watching it more than once.
Rating: 4.5/5

(Manohar Vanamadi)
v_manu1@yahoo.com

CHAK DE INDIA!

(movie review)


CHAK DE INDIA.....! The title itselfs sounds so good, especially the India part in it and the triclolour it bears. My love for India is increasing daily and it definitely pulled me to the theatres.

Chak de India is the second sports film this year coming from Yash Raj banner . With Yash Raj’s Tararumpum bombing at the box-office, Chak de India broke that jinx and fortunately Tararumpum can never be compared to it.

Movie begins with a hockey world cup final match between India and Pakistan. kabir khan(Sharukh) gets chance to make a penalty goal which he misses out and India losses the cup. As it’s seen always, each and every hockey fan and authority members critize him and dig out a false prediction of having friends and connections with the opponents. This leads to self exile of Kabir Khan.
After few years ,India’s national hockey selection committee meet to select a coach for womens team for the world cup. For this job kabir khan appoints himself, as no-one takes it.

The story is about how kabir khan trains his 16 players and their journey till world cup final.

First half deals with the introduction of each player of the team and the second half deals with the matches that they paly against different opposition in their tour.

Coming to performances, Sharukh khan stands out as a coach and delivered a great performance (no one suits this role except sharukh himself). He was exceptional in emotional scenes and was good in the rest of the movie. All the girls were good, without them chak de India wouldn’t be possible. They fitted the groove perfectly and did well even though they were new-comers. Comedy track between few girls did really work out well.

Credit goes to the director - Shimit Amin and Screen writer -Jaideep Sahani who were great at their jobs. Screen play is fast paced, you won’t even bother to know anything but the movie,it’s that gripping. The dialogues are colloquial and inspiring at parts - the best of them comes from SRK and he says - “Maine pehli baar ek gor’e ko janda lagate huve dekha”. Salim Sulaiman scores and scores well with music and background score, the music whenever a match starts is just rocking. The title song is apt and great, it became so famous that the star cricket channel started using it. Inaddition to all these the production values are retained even though it’s a low budget movie.

BOTTOM LINE IS CHAKEDE INDIA WILL SURELY CHAK DE EVERY INDIAN…………….
RATING 4.25/5

(Ranganath Pacha)

Finding work-life balance

Top seven ways to balance work-life


7. One life, one day book.

Keeping separate calendars can easily lead to conflicts between work tasks and home-life commitments. By scheduling everything in the same place, you're less likely to miss out the preparation for assignments and at the same time not miss your mother’s birthday.

6. Cant spare a week, take an hour.

You don't always need an extended vacation to unwind. Instead, set aside an hour each day to enjoy something completely unrelated to work -- a short walk, a workout, or a chapter or two in a book. Quality, not quantity.

5. Audit your weekly schedule.

Keep a log of everything you do during the week, from assignments to commuting to watching TV. With a sense of how the scales tip to one side or the other, you'll be better able to re-balance them.

4.Plan and protect downtime

Don't take leisure time for granted. A day in front of the TV is no substitute for a nice time with family, a trip to the near by mall, or a hanging out with friends. Also, get routine household chores done on workdays, which will free up your days off for bigger and better things.

3.Know your options

More than ever, new technology is offering employers and employees alike greater flexibility with work schedules. This includes everything from a compressed workweek, to flex hours, job-sharing, and telecommuting.

2. Get your priorities straight.

Take the time to decide what's important for you. Then, try devoting your full attention to one thing at a time -- concentrate on work at work, and family at home.

1. Stop being the boss

Entrepreneurs tend to be control freaks, that can be good for business, but bad for downtime. Whether it's paying the bills or organizing a trip, why not let family and friends run the business of your life every now and then.

Source: Inc.com