My not-so-great experience @ Tribeca Film Festival

I was *overwhelmed* by the number of people who had turned up at the Tribeca Film Festival last Saturday. I thought it would be one more of those festivals where I could walk in to watch any movie I wanted, with loads of empty seats in a theater that should have been packed, for an indie movie as delightful as some of the ones I have watched lately. Wanted to watch this one called Power of Nightmares, about Islamic fundamentalism, but so did 500 others - sold out! Then moved to the line for Devil's Miner - 15 mins later sold out! Then stood in line for Rikers High - 30 mins later....yes, sold out!

Looked around for the shortest line and waited for this one called "13 Lakes" (bad move, driven by impatience and chilly winds!). 15 mins later....got in this time! The movie was about that - 13 Lakes - this dude had traveled all around US, camera in hand, and filmed 13 Lakes. Hmm..this I knew before walking in, but I was disgusted by what I saw. No characters, no audio, no background music even, just the sound of gurgling water.. He didn't even move the camera around the lake to give us a "view", it was placed in the SAME place for 10 mins, focusing on water, sound of gurgling water.. Supposed to have a meditative, visually captivating effect - my a$$! I gave him his time, 6 lakes - that's all I could take. I have a fascination for still water, but it was still too much for me, had to get out of there before I lost my fascination!

The next Apprentice

This is the ONLY reality show I have ever followed (yes and the papal elections recently :)). I thought the first one was very entertaining, the last one was alright at best, but hardly watched any of the 3rd season. Down to the last 4 and maybe I will now..if all else fails me the next 3 Thurs nights, I have the Apprentice to look forward to..

So, we have 2 women, a white guy, and a black guy in the last four - this is dead easy - we know already that Trump is going to hire the white guy. I say call the winner right away and move on to the next season, which is supposed to have Donald Trump AND Martha Stewart together (that’s right!) - spending time in jail did more good for Martha Stewart's image and stock value than all the time spent on her afternoon TV shows..

Magic Malik

Magic Malik Orchestra was the name of the French band, whose concert I saw at the Knitting Factory. The lead performer in the band, Magic Malik was your absolute radical (even by French standards!). In a finger-showing gesture to convention, he had hair on his head only along where most people would have a parting - can you imagine - just a line of hair sticking up in an otherwise bald head..? His music seemed to defy convention further (it may have fallen in the ballpark of jazz, but had very little structure about it), but it was superb!

Malik primarily played the flute, but he also took jabs at the other instruments on stage. The saxophone added a great sound to the ensemble. The percussionists were superb - the drummer and this other, guest percussionist who seemed to almost be playing a speaker or a stool - still don’t know what instrument he was playing. The band would pick up a very simple tune, improvise over and over on it, build up to a frenzy, and then slow down again.

Hate to admit, but to throroughly enjoy certain kinds of music, its necessary to be somewhat intoxicated. Couple of glasses of wine down, the music seemed to do some very good things to me :) - during some of the slow, soothing pieces, just had to close my eyes to have visions of people/places/events from my past that the music brought with it..(trust me it was ONLY wine! :))

The band left back to France the same evening, don’t know if anyone reading this would ever get a chance to listen to them, but if you ever do, go for it! (*after* a couple of drinks mind you :))

Drinking my way to good health

..and spirits (needless to say..) - was able to get rid of an annoying cold (at the outset of Spring) by drinking beer...lots of it! No am not gonna get into the medical uses of beer..

Brewtopia - Craft's Beer Festival last weekend was an evening very well spent - breweries from all over showing off their stuff. I had subjected myself to Pavlovian experiments by beer-starving myself for 3 weeks straight and then letting myself loose at the beer fest (yes, there was some salivating involved). Tasting glass in hand, the beer connoiseur in me was in fine form from 6pm to 10pm - through 25-30 glasses of fine beer! Favorites? Best beer of the night was this one called Mojo (India Pale Ale) - had a slight citrus flavor about it that I absolutely loved! Another non-beer drink was honey-wine - that's right - aka 'nectar of the Gods' - made not from grapes, but by fermenting honey - I thought it was awesome (but again, beyond a point that evening most things were AWESOME) - check out LIMeadery.

The place was packed initially with the white frat-boy crowd (never losing a single chance to let out a scream YAAAAAY, in an overt, albeit unwarranted, show of masculinity), but it thinned down after 8pm (considering the first glass broke in the hall at 7pm, not everyone can drink for 4 hours straight like yours truly - modesy be damned!), the live music was quite good, the women only got better as the evening progressed - good times..

Movie Reviews

Watched quite a few of them in the last week. Here goes:

Sin City - in one word, *perverse*! We all have that perverse streak in us, but takes one sick, freakish, brilliant mind to bring it out on the screen in such a stylish way. As you watch the movie, you think ahead, and think that something disgusting just might happen, and then something worse than you can imagine happens! Not many movies have left me transfixed in my seat even after the credits are half-way through, wondering what the hell that was - this did it. Highly recommended watching, but be warned about what you are getting into...

Sideways - Ironical that I *finally* saw it in the theaters a day before it released on DVD - expecting to be the only stupid soul spending 6$ more than I needed to, to watch it a day before it released on DVD, but was a packed theater. One word (again) - "delightful". I don’t know if anyone else noticed the background score, but I loved it - soft, relaxing, apt! Had a few cheesy moments (think Virginia Madsen talking about how she likes to think about the rain and the sun shining on the grapes before the wine is made), but on the whole, a *beautiful* movie. If you waited as long as I did to see it, wait no more - catch it on DVD for sure!

Melinda & Melinda - my first Woody Allen movie (yeah, really!) - loved it! Its awesome how he straight-shoots philosophy at you, so matter-of-factly, in normal conversation between the characters. Laugh-out-loud funny at times, but subtle humor straight through. And those dream, palatial apartments in NYC - where are they?! One word? - hmm.."revealing" - opened me up to the wonderful world of Woody Allen movies - looking forward to watching more.

Maria, Full of Grace - Catalina Sandino Moreno looked stunning at the Oscars in a white gown (well, I didn’t know her name then) and her acting in this one is awesome too. But the Spanish movie is slow in parts and as much as the acting was brilliant (and, she looked spectacular), it wouldn’t rate it too highly in my books. But yes, the female lead has acted very well and looks simply superb! (did I say that before?)

New blogs on the left

Been following these blogs for the last few weeks and am convinced enough about their content to link them from mine.
Shadow Warrior = Rajeev Srinivasan, a rediff.com writer
Dave Barry = Miami Herald writer = usually tends to be a bunch of funny links (not all of which are suitable for viewing at work)
Newyork intern = this blog has really impressed me with its humorous content.

Enjoy..