Klog

I came across this K-log (Kid Blog) of a 5 years old kid. The kind of exposure kids get these days are really amazing.

Cho Chweet....I enjoyed reading.

(I am sure that this kid will start writing on his own in a year. He has it in his genes...)

unclassical CLASSICs

Hithhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Catch-22
Gone With the Wind
David Copperfield
Midnight's Children

Above is a list of classic books, which made it to the top 100 great books in English. I bought these books with a curiosity to enjoy the literary values of these classics and to have a satisfactory feeling of classical readings. But my tiny brain is not yet tuned to enjoy the literary values or the classical contents of these books.

Review said H2G2 (Hithhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) as the funniest novel of the century. I read that book, it was funny, a non-sensical funny. I was not able to enjoy the non-sensical funny. It's true that I laughed out loud many times while reading. And the story was very creative too.
But I wouldn't put it at 4th place among top 100. Recently Hollywood made a movie based on this book, with same title. I think the movie did not go well in box office.

'Catch-22' is at 11th position in top 100. This is also one of the "funniest" novel of the century, as per the reviews. I am half way through reading this book. I am reading this book just because I started reading. I have to admit that this book has a unique way of story telling. Again my tiny brain is too tiny to appreciate and enjoy that style.
(Story runs during the Second World War time, and it goes to Bologna, Italy.....hmm?).

Remaining three books are at the 21,34 & 100th positions respectively. I have read at least 2 chapters from these three books and kept aside before continuing further. It was too difficult to toil over the pages. But still I have not given in yet. Waiting for a good moment to go back and enjoy the 'literary values' of these books.

Recently I saw a classic film 'Taxi Driver' (1976) directed by the great Martin Scorsese and acted (lead role) by Robert De Niro. I did not have patience to watch the movie without Fast FWDing it. Same with another classic 'Ben Hur' (1950's), which won 11 academy awards.

What is a classic? Generally anything's very old seems to be called as Classics. Books & movies, which were made long long ago were made for the target audiences of that period. Over the period definitely the taste have changed a lot. That is the reason why it was so difficult for me to read/watch those classics. I was wondering whether was it only me or other people also have the same kinda difficulties. I checked with two of my friends who, unlike me, are voracious readers. They also have similar opinion as me.

Let me wait till my tiny brain grows up some what big enough to enjoy those classics and come back again.

The 'thing' with Italy and the 'thing' with 3 major American Cities

I am reading 'The Broker' by John Grisham, got that from my friend's collection. I am glad that I did not buy. The novel is not so great to talk about.
Subject matter is the place where the major part of the story is running. It is Bologna, Italy. When the main character of the story lands in Italy, my eyebrows raised automatically.

In my recent reads 'The Da Vinci Code' and 'The Angels & Demons' of Dan Brown, the characters go to Italy at least for sometime. I remember vaguely that small part of the storyline of Sidney Sheldon's 'The Sands of Time' runs in Sicily, Italy.

What's the 'thing' with American authors and Italy?

Similary Hollywood movies, most of them have a thing for Los Angeles. If not Los Angeles it would be New York. If the story is a family drama, plot moves to San Fransisco at the maximum.
Poor Los Angeles; when aliens attack, they attack Los Angeles first, during natural calamity Los Angeles becomes an island ("Escape from L.A" - the stupidest movie I have ever seen).
Most of the movies have their plot only in these cities. If you have not observed this before start observing now, your eyebrows will also raise when you watch movies.

When America is so big with lot of big and interesting cities, what's the 'thing' with Hollywood movies and these cities?

War of the Worlds

I am a big fan of Spielberg and Tom Cruise. I was waiting eagerly for this movie to hit theaters and rushed to watch the movie on the opening day. Was it worth eagerly waiting for? No.
In a way this Movie was a big disappointment to me.

Idea of making an alien movie from the novel written (by H.G.Wells) almost a century ago itself wasn't appealing to me. But this movie isn't about Aliens. Then? This movie is about the feelings of a father (mainly) to guard his Child(ren). Tom Cruise is playing an ordinary man role, he is not a 'larger than life' in this movie. (hmmm....first disappointment. "Why Cruise? Why not some ordinary star"). Not that Tom Cruise did not suit the role. His performance was good in the movie. But the girl played as his daughter (Dankota Fanning) was stunning, her's was brilliant performance). Good thing about this movie is that Spielberg did not picturize as if the aliens destroy historical monuments and important places on earth (like Eiffel Tower, Taj Mahal etc).
Another good thing is that the movie jumps in to the main story line so fast. I sat straight and thought "okay that's it, it's gonna be a movie with lots of interesting stuffs". pooofff...!!!
Who the hell are those aliens, where did they come from, why are they destroying us? Is it only me that couldn't understand the movie or the movie itself was made like that? Steve, please help me.
I agree that for the opening scenes it was great and scary when the aliens came in all of a sudden and started destroying the earth. But I sure wanted to know a little more about their origin (is it Mars?) and purpose at least just before the movie ended. oh gosh, probably Steve would have thought that there were already a humpty number of alien subjects, which all had almost similar purpose to visit planet earth, so why to bother fans by telling the same old stuff again.
If the emphasis were more on the feelings of the father & daughter relationship, I would have accepted not showing the backgrounds of the aliens. But with the help of CGI aliens have occupied a considerable portion of the movie. It was kinda mixed.
hmmm....ending of the movie is another tragedy. Aliends start dying all of a sudden....oh come on gimme a break...!!!