iPod Touch Rocks… iPhone Sucks!

This battle has been going on since the day Apple launched iPhone. iPod Touch came into the market a bit later. And it seemed like Touch is the lite version of the full-blown iPhone. It was always dicey whether to go for iPhone, which initially seems like a sensible investment as it has everything that iPod Touch has and it also has something more to offer. But again it comes to you at a price.

When I was planning to buy one of these devices, I did a preliminary research on the two products. On the face of it, iPod Touch has two major features missing as compared to iPhone – a phone and a camera. Secondly in India, iPhone is not officially available. In the gray market, you either get an unlocked/modded US made phone… or a Europe-made pre-unlocked phone. Any which ways, you got to shell out around 25-28k and you don’t get a warranty when you buy an iPhone in India. On the other hand an 8GB iPod Touch costs 12.5k and comes with a 1 year warranty. And I went in for an iPod Touch.

It’s been almost 3 weeks since I bought my iPod and I’m very satisfied with it. And then I read this month’s PC World and it had an article – 10 Things iHate About the iPhone. So I thought I will express my pleasure in taking the right decision by going for the iPod Touch!

1. Single Carrier: The legal version of iPhone works only with one carrier – AT&T in the US and when it comes to India, it will be Vodafone
2. Not-so-good Camera: iPhone has a 2MP camera which is not really good enough. A mid-range Sony Ericsson phone has a better camera than an iPhone.
3. 3.5mm Headphone Port Missing: The headphone jack is not like the traditional port than iPods have.
4. On-Screen Keypad: The keypad is supposed to be a state-of-the-art onscreen keypad. But state-of-the-art stuff means it is experimental ;) In short, not satisfactory!
5. Toothless Bluetooth: Tell me why do you use Bluetooth? To transfer files with other phones, to transfer files from PC, and in rare cases use it with the PC Suite. But the Bluetooth with iPhone can be used only for calls. This means that your Bluetooth headset would work, but apart from that nothing else would work. Y.U.C.K!!!
6. Non-Removable Battery: This problem has been prevailing with iPod since its first release. And it still continues even with iPhone!
7. No MMS: Howzzat? No MMS! Even an ordinary 5K Nokia mobile has MMS capability. And its missing in iPhone.
8. No FM: Apple filled in so much into iPhone seemed to have missed the good ol’ radio. FM is an integral part of every phone of today’s generation. And iPhone lacks it.
9. Un-user-friendly Navigation: Every time you want to swap between applications, you gotta press that HOME button. What the hell! You have a touch-screen keypad but there is no link on the screen for going back HOME!
10. Non-Multi-Tasking Safari: If you are browsing and you decide to change the music that’s playing in the background, you will lose the webpage you were in when you come back to Safari after changing the music. Safari needs full focus when in use.

And thus I feel that I took the right decision of buying an iPod Touch rather than buying the iPhone!

The Showman

“It takes to be a showman to host a successful show.”

Seems like a sensible but absurd statement. But that’s the fact of life. There are plentiful of people who attempt to host shows. A show could be anything from hosting a roadside “nautanki” to hosting international tournaments. The amount of money involved could be anything from a cipher to billions of dollars. The audience could be just a few bystanders to the entire six billion people in the world. And none of these factors actually guarantee or rather even decide the probability of success. But at the same time, you can’t give credit/blame the luck factor completely.

Take an example… in the November of 2007, a movie starring Shahrukh Khan was released. Yes, you guessed it right, it was Om Shanti Om. Now you can call it luck or co-incidence or whatever. Om Shanti Om was released on the same day as Saawariya which was the worst movie I have seen the last decade. At the same time, a wonderful movie – Jab We Met – was released a month before Om Shanti Om. If Om Shanti Om had a stiff competition by Jab We Met, it had an encouraging audience because of Saawariya. Personally I would rate Om Shanti Om as an average movie. People who love SRK would love it, people who hate him would hate it and people like me who don’t mind the King Khan would not mind the movie either.

Given this scenario, Om Shanti Om was a big hit. Even bigger than Jab We Met; in spite of the fact that Jab We Met outclassed Om Shanti Om in every aspect. But it was SRK’s diligent marketing that actually resulted in Om Shanti Om being a bigger success. Its not that Om Shanti Om was bad, but it did not certainly deserve to be a blockbuster. But Shahrukh made it happen. How? Pure Marketing.

Same is the case with the Indian Premiere League. The original concept of Twenty-20 is of the British. The first company to implement the concept at the commercial was Zee with ICL. But it is quite evident that today IPL is very very successful as compared to ICL or England’s internal Twenty-20 cricket. Again it was excellent marketing strategy of the BCCI that has resulted in the success of IPL.

What I am trying to explain is that India has produced two text book cases for management students where a product has been sold which the costumer did not want to buy. No one wanted to see Om Shanti Om and still it was a success. No one initially liked the concept of IPL, yet it is a success. And that’s why I would like to repeat the golden statement that I mentioned in the beginning of this post:

“It takes to be a showman to host a successful show.”

Michael Clayton - A Masterpiece

I generally do not watch Oscar-nominated movies. The reason being that they are usually the typical drama-type movies, with long never-ending stories that run for over 150 minutes. But this year, the Oscars panel seems to have a change in taste and the movies that have been chosen have a lot of commercial flavor in them. All the movies have stories that have the capability to pull audiences of different choices to watch the movies.

So coming back to Michael Clayton, this one is a complete George Clooney movie. From scene one where he makes an entry as a gambler, to the scenes where he is shown as an efficient lawyer till the last scene where he a judicious decision, he carries the entire movie on his shoulder. The mind blowing climax is what makes the movie so good.

Acting wise, Tom Wilkinson and Tilda Swinton have also done a good job. The movie starts off by showing a few cut scenes that are someway related (Clooney being the common factor in most of the scenes) but it does not make any sense at that point in time. It is only in the last half an hour that all the puzzle pieces come together and you understand the plot of the movie.

The cinematography is also amazing. Some scenes like the ones where Clooney stands near the horses, the one where he sees the photo-copied pages of the secret report, are some of the scenes that get glued to your memory.

I have not seen the other Oscar nominated movies. But my heart says that this one will grab the throne!

Jodha Akbar

Just after the release of this movie, the media seems to be all set to make this movie a complete flop. I read in the newspapers today that the general masses don’t like to see historical movies. So what do they like to see? A masala movie like Om Shanti Om… or a senseless comedy like Welcome! If this is what the choice of the Indian masses is, then I’m sorry but the choice of the Indian masses has turned really really bad!

Coming back to the movie, I believe that this movie is a very well-tailored movie. Excellent cinematography, excellent direction, and a well performed role by Hrithik. Overall it is a very good one time watch. And it has to be watched in the cinema hall to get the feel of the Mughal forts, the Rajput palaces, the battlefields, etc.

The movie was not exactly what I thought it would be. This movie emphasizes more on the relationship between Emperor Jalaluddin Mohammed Akbar and Princess Jodha Bai and the historical events surrounding them. It portrayed Akbar as a king who loved his queen beyond all bounds and could break any custom, any tradition to please her and make her comfortable. But was this how the real Akbar the Great was? I doubt… I seriously doubt about it. But as they say, Indian films should contain that extra tadka of love to make it digestible to the masses.

Although a few of the facts were not shown accurately, it may have been purposely done so to bring out the love quotient in the movie. For example, Jodhabai was the third wife of Akbar. But the entire movie, the first two wives were never shown or mentioned about. Another problem I found was that when Akbar killed Adham Khan (his cousin brother who stabbed Atkah Khan – the person who was auditing the finances of the Mughal Empire), Akbar was 19 years old then. So this incident would have happened in the year 1561 and Akbar got married to Jodha in the year 1562. But in the movie, when he ordered his commanders to throw Adham Khan with his head facing downwards, Jodha was present at that time. I guess Ashutosh Gowarikar got it wrong here!

Overall a very nice movie and I enjoyed the movie. Maybe it was a movie of my type. I don’t think it was a movie of the masses anyway. For that case which Ashutosh Gowarikar movie was for the masses? Lagaan was different but people enjoyed it for cricket. Swades was different but people enjoyed it for projecting the rural India. And Jodha Akbar is again different. Irrespective of whether the masses like it or not, it is a wonderful movie.

Rating: 7.5/10

Mithya – Amazingly different

I had no plans to see this movie today. I was planning to watch Superstar (it stars Kunal Khemu in double role) but then just before I went to book the tickets, I decided to read the reviews on the net to check which one was better. And all the reviews drew a clear line and Mithya was supposed to be a better movie.

The movie revolved around the life of VK (Ranveer Shourie). He has done a marvelous piece of work. I loved his acting in Khosla Ka Ghosla and Traffic Signal, but in those movies he was overshadowed either by actors who had better skills or had a better role in the movie. But Mithya is all Ranveer’s. And I must say that he has done full justice to the role. His expressions, dialogue delivery (the “hmmm” especially) and his body language was marvelous.

The movie starts off on a very comic note and remains a complete comedy movie almost till the last 20 minutes. VK is a struggling actor who does his best to get into films. He accidentally gets trapped into the hands of Naseeruddin Shah and the movie goes on as to how his life changes because of this.

Some of the comedy scenes are just amazing. The scene where Ranveer is shot on his hand after giving local anesthesia – its simply amazing. The comedy scenes are very natural and they do tickle the funny bone!

Neha Dhupia is there just for the sake of a heroine. She could have done a far better job if she knew what acting was… alas! Naseeruddin Shah was at his usual best. Its very difficult to get a bad performance out of him! There were other characters like Vinay Pathak and Saurabh Shukla who also did a very good job.

The climax of the movie turns into a serious mode and ends on a very harsh realistic note. Although many people did not like the climax (I overheard people cribbing as they were coming out of the theatre), I felt that it was the best climax that the movie could have got. Anything more “happier” than this would have taken the entire charm away from the movie.

Overall a very good one-time watch and certainly worth spending money in the theatre of watch this one.

Rating: 7/10

India does a Scorpion Act

Yesterday was the second day of the 4th test with Australia at Adelaide. We witnessed a spectacular batting performance by the Indian tail-enders. Led by the captain himself, Anil Kumble put on a mammoth ## runs 7th wicket partnership with Harbhajan Singh. What we got to see today is not something that happens very frequently. The Indian tail wagging to its very best and giving the Aussie bowling attack a real sting was really heart-warming!

India is playing their natural game, as they have played for all these years. But there is some difference in the way the Aussies are playing. They are now forced to play without their Bramhastra – or rather… their Cheat Code – SLEDGING. Since Ricky Ponting took over as captain from Steve Waugh, I don’t remember a single game where the Aussies were not involved in sledging. With the kind of performance that we are seeing on the field now, it is pretty clear that this Australian team are world champions, but only when they are actively involved in sledging. Without this cheat code, they are just another team… a team that can occasionally win… and not perform with utmost consistency as a champion team is expected to perform!

You can see that there are other sports too where the champions play the game with so much skill and so less mental apprehension of the opponent. I have never seen Roger Federer or Pete Sampras screaming at his opponent. And moreover cricket is supposed to be a Gentleman’s game. Why unnecessarily spoil the legend and bring in the violence and anger in the wrong sense. Rather give us a game that we can remember for a long time. Something that we can be proud of and show it to fans of other sports and say – this is what cricket is all about!!!

BTW, after reading the blog, if you are still not sure why I had named the blog as “India does a scorpion act”, it simply means that India’s tail stung the Australian bu**s like a SCORPION!

Dhan Dhana Dhan Goal: Why? Why? Why?

Before I saw the movie, I had read somewhere that this movie is somewhat like Chak De. My God!!! Who the hell did even think of making this comparison. Its like comparing Brazil’s and India’s football teams. Yes, you guessed it right… this is not even worth a comparison. The direction was seriously not up to the mark. And the movie dragged a bit in the second half.

When I went in to see Chak De, I thought that I would not like the movie as it was about hockey and I am no big fan of hockey. In fact, I have not seen even one hockey match completely. But the movie script, direction, and SRK made the movie such a fun that I never felt that I was watching a movie based on hockey. So when I went on to watch Goal, I unfortunately had a similar pre-notion in my mind. And as compared to hockey, I love football much more. But this movie was so badly directed that I felt that I would have rather watched some pakaau football clubs playing rather than watching this piece of shit. Yeah, in this movie, except for Boman Irani, nothing else was up to the mark. Arshad Warsi, John Abraham, Bipasha, everyone could have done a better acting (I agree that the director did not give them a platform for giving a memorable performance… but still!!!)

Even the final match that they showed was also so predictable. All the matches were more of a filler than being the actual part of the movie. And even if the team won the last match, the feel that the team has been transformed from an ever-losing team to becoming the champions was never felt. And that was where the movie lacked punch. Even a person who knows nothing about football can make that out.

Well I would suggest that if you don’t have anything else to do and don’t have literally anything to do and have a lot of money to waste, then go watch the movie. Otherwise its not worth a ticket of multiplexes.