Inception, the movie in pseudo-code

Posted on July 20, 2010August 24, 2010 by bach

When flows get too complex, we write flow charts and pseudo codes. That’s what I did for “Inception”. The plot goes something like this:

Psudo code

Even after these levels design, program won’t compile, because somewhere someplace there is open flower brace. Now its up to you to figure out that

Well, that’s about the plot. Not exactly a spoiler is it? Please see it yourselves (twice) to enjoy the movie. I highly recommend it because I enjoyed debugging every bit of it.

I have few questions on this movie. Please help me understand, if you could. Thanks in advance.
(Well, I would rather call these “code review comments”)

How is dream time enhanced compared to reality or previous dream level? On what basis they calculate it? Let’s assume Nolan took it from some scientific journal but I still doubt that if the duration can be pre-calculated to precise units.
How can Eames change his appearance? It’s someone else’s dream he is in.
How does that machine work? How can you be injected into someone else’s dream. Is it just by vicinity with the person who is dreaming or is it some sort of mind signal?
If protection mechanism is enhanced to every level of dream they go in, why not other things too. If they loose gravity in hotel room just because the truck is falling down, then why is the third level dream so stable?
How does a totem work? Why can’t one dream that totem falls down?
How can death wake up someone from dream but not pain?
If one can listen to music in dreams why not gunfight?

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Movie review: Raavan

Posted on June 20, 2010June 20, 2010 by bach

By this time you would have already read about the review on both versions of Raavan, mostly discouraging. Yes, I am here backing them up. I am writing this review to those who still want to try this. Guys, there is still time, it’s never too late to cancel the ticket. And for any reason if you cannot cancel your tickets, join the party after 90 mins. Tadaa!!, you still caught the whole movie!

Direction sucks! But I still forgive Mani Ratnam. People should be allowed to do mistakes not repeat it, that’s all. Abhishek overacts his way through the movie. His madness seems to be sinusoidal. In a way it is good, at least you can predict when he is going to bray next. Aishwarya and her makeup kit were always attached; wish somebody explained her that she is not supposed to, at least not in this plot. Vikram! I am not impressed. Now I think I can extrapolate the level of over acting in Ravanan.

Cinematography is fine. But can you tolerate beautiful clips with some “star”s trying their “act”ing in foreground? Would you rather not watch “national geographic” 🙂

This movie did not do well in almost all departments. But at the same time it is not stupid. It does not consider audience as stupid either. For this reason alone I would still rate it more than most of Akshay, Shah Rukh and Salman movies.

Graphics sucks! Technology back to 80’s.
What’s up with the rain? It rains almost every scene!
Monologues! Are we officially back to Shakespearean plays ?
Falling off the cliff. How many please? This is not a movie on mountaineering. Please limit it to less than five next time.
Please do not shake freaking camera! This is not “Fast and Furious”.
Aishwaryas’ eyes are beautiful, we get it! You don’t need zoom it in every other scene! Try ears or nose next time.
Song and dance! Are you kidding me? I am going to write this for the last time. Synchronised dance spontaneously is never possible in reality.Period.

My list of ten best documentaries

Posted on June 14, 2010January 23, 2014 by bach

I highly recommend this set of ten documentaries. I rate all of them above 9.5/10. I know there are many more which may be as good as these; I just did not have a chance to watch them. Please feel free to recommend them to me.

An Inconvenient Truth, by Al Gore. You already would have seen this. If not, shame on you 🙂

Capitalism – A Love Story, by Michael More. This gives a complete picture on “how capitalism works”. Basically this is about industries maximising profits with optimal resource utilisation with minimum ethics.

Earthlings: All the things you need to know about meat, fur, leather etc. It’s the story of human exploitation of his fellow earthlings for food, clothing’s, and entertainment. Recommended only for people with strong stomach.

Food Inc. by Robert Kenner. A fantastic movie on how food goods in supermarket shelves are generated in assembly line. Shocking information, a must see.

Home, by Yann Arthus-Bertrand. It’s a collection of areal videos, arranged in coherence to narrate a compelling story on our Home- earth. Superb presentation on how small we are, how big we have screwed it up. This movie is free on youtube.

Religulous – This is a fantastic movie from the director of Borat, Larry Charles and presented by Bill Maher, obviously you can expect this to be satirical and hilarious at the same time. The name says it all – religion is ridiculous, and this is the most interesting topic for me. In this movie, Bill roams around places (mostly USA) visiting religious people, debating them. Various encounters and the argument they put forward are simply ROFL.

Sicko, by Michael More. This movie addresses problems in American Medical care, being manipulated by insurance and pharmaceutical companies. In coming few years this documentary may not be as strong as it is now, democrats may end up changing the system for good. Anyways, both the countries I lived in had (kind of) socialised medicine, which also mean receipt for medicine does not hurt when you are sick, it happens only in America.

Story of the stuff, by Anne. This is story of all the stuff, starting from raw materials till it becomes rubbish i.e extraction, production, distribution, consumption, and disposal. It is criticised to be inaccurate, but hey, the story is still true and compelling.

The Age of Stupid, a British movie on climate change. This is set in future where whole earth is already disturbed by climate change and remaining humans do causal analysis using all stored footages.

Zeitgeist – This has two parts, one addresses Christianity, the other on capitalist economics. Compelling arguments, must watch.

Movie review : Raajneeti 2010

Posted on June 8, 2010July 17, 2020 by bach

Raajneeti was a neat and decent movie, one more from Prakash Jha. I dint feel it was fantastic, definitely not a masterpiece as most of blogosphere felt. It wasn’t bad either, considering most of the Bollywood movies of this genre are disasters. I would rate this 6.5 out of 10 overall. Movie is well presented keeping story fast moving, the only reason why audience managed to sit back for three hours. I still feel they could have cut down the length without harming the gist of the movie.

I am a big fan of Ranbir Kapoor, for the fact that he always puts his best. He has beautifully managed his big character in this big movie. I can’t think of any other actor in business who could fit to this role of being young blood and smart. Katrina Kaif is not made for this but I could tolerate her anyway, no harm done. Nana Patekar, Ajay Devgan and Naseeruddin Shah were okay, but Manoj Bajpai and Arjun Rampal lost their pitch couple of times. There were definitely scopes of improvement in both acting and direction departments.

Movie is made for Indian’s with orthodox Indian masala genre. Good to see this presentation after a long time, since most current day Bollywood movies are made for NRIs with customised ‘butter chicken masala’. The language was good, classic Hindi(with some flaws). Something you can recall from the days of Doordarshan TV serials Chanakya, etc. presentation of thousands of supporters campaigning in open fields of a political arena was fantastic. Producers did not hold their selves from spending a single rupee.

***Spoiler alert***

Thumbs up for

Kabaddi: Cricket wouldn’t have given same punch.
Sound effect: The cinema I went to watch had very good sound system especially after effects of car explosion.

Thumbs down for

Language: sometime it became too much classic, sounding as if they are speaking some ancient knowledge. Few Urdu words also crawled in, which sounded odd.
Mother of the movie (Kunti) changes her political stands from ‘far left’ to ‘far right’. This rarely happens in real life, looked like Karl Marks selling ‘asset based securities’.
Sex, violence and pregnancies: Sex can be justified that Bollywood is moving ahead from “kissing flowers”. Violence is Jha’ movie signature, but what’s up with pregnancies? Does it prove Banks of Ganga is most fertile land in whole of India?
Fight: all four (Nana, Ranbir, Ajay and Manoj) can aim so well, looked amazingly stupid. Ranbir is supposed to be a PHd student.
What happens after epic war is over? Media is up to the neck of every character throughout the movie, but nobody cares after evil is dead?

By this time you already might have read about plot of this movie being inspired by ‘Godfather I’ and Mahabharata. I am attempting to list down the similarities, feel free to add if have missed any.

With Godfather I

There are Sonny Corleone (Arjun), and Michael Corleone (Ranbir), Tom Hagen (nana) and a character vaguely similar to veto Corleone.
Sonny’s character is of an established goon from the beginning, but Michael’s character (initially reluctant) gets dragged into Mafia after deaths of Vito and Sonny’s death.
Tom’s character masterminds most of the criminal activities, including one death on mate of Babulal. It was a horse in Godfather.
Assassination of Sonny, retaliation by Michael.

With Mahabharata,

The summary of movie: Dispute between cousins (for power) lead to ugly war, where state and royal family getting split between themselves. Survival of the smartest.
Notable incidents: Karna’s (Ajay) illegitimate birth to Kunti, who is mother for Pandavas (Arjun, Ranbir). Dalit family adopting Karna after retrieving from river Ganga, Kunti approaching Karna on behalf of Pandava’s (without Pandava knowledge). Karna rejecting this offer quoting friendship with Kauravas, constant support from Krishna to Arjuna including one minute Bhagavad-Gita on final stages of war, bullet proof car being symbolic to Kavach.
Characteristics of characters: Arjuna’s ability to win (hearts of) women, sharing Draupadi with brothers (singular here) on Kunti’s approval, Krishna’s cunningness, Karna’s friendship, Duryodhan’s rage, bedridden Dhrutarastra.