Guys, girls and the Gilmores

I often talk about "The Gilmore Girls" – it’s funny, quirky and in a sneaky sort of way it satirizes humanity. All the people in Stars Hollow (that’s the village shown in the show) have some sort of a quirk and while it might seem impossible for so many idisyncratic people to be in one place at the same time, if you think about it, you will realize that most of these quirks are actually exaggerations of characteristics displayed by people all around us. Be that as may be, I’m going to talk about "The Gilmore Girls" in relation to relationships, yet once again :p

I’ve talked before about how Rory while in a relationship with her boyfriend Dean, seems to be attracted to Jess at the same time but seems to be unaware of what all this really implies. (Yes, I know I’m talking about characters in a TV show as if they are real people – bear with me … or you know where the X is, click it :p) This is the kind of attitude that I just can’t put up with though I can find explanations for Rory’s behaviour, I still get angry about it since this is the kind of thing I’d hate to have happen to me in a relationship. But first the background – Rory, is a very intelligent girl – quiet, bookish and dreaming of going to Harvard one day – who normally spends her lunch time with a book and her lunch. Dean on the other hand, is your average active teenager – into sports, cars but not really interested in books and stuff. Their relationship seemed to have nothing in common but still they seemed to like being with each other and very much in love. In to this scenario stepped Jess, dark and brooding, always in trouble but with a hidden-side because he’s actually very intelligent and widely-read.

As the last few episodes progressed, it has become more and more evident that Rory likes spending time with Jess and while Dean can see her slipping away, all he can seem to do is cling on to her even harder – which just drives Rory even further away. All this is about par for normal human relations but what I find reprehensible is the fact that Rory just won’t admit to even herself the fact that she likes Jess and that she now finds nothing in common with Dean. To me, it seems that she should simply tell Dean how she feels and move on since that does not keep Dean hanging on, hoping against hope that things will work out and will save him further heartache when she finally does tell him that it’s over – as she eventually will have to. Yes, this is a TV show and a character has to behave the way it is written but then, I think the writing is wrong – or maybe they thought that Rory would be the kind of person who would delude themselves as to the true state of affairs, but even that seems doubtful given how intelligent and mature she is in other areas. So the verdict? I’m just sorry for poor Dean – but then again, given that I’m a guy, most people would say that that is exactly how I would react :p

On the other hand, I watched a Tamil movie today where this guy and girl get married but the girl finds out after the marriage that the guy had had a child from a previous relationship and she divorces him – it’s a cultural thing, "society" in Asia expects the woman to be "pure" (their words not mine) when they get married and while it does not apply so much towards the man, there is a bit of it there too. Even after the divorce, they continue to be friends and both the guy and girl discover that they love each other – another one of those Asian things, you *usually* don’t know your spouse before marriage. Each one is on the verge of telling the other about their love but circumstances (and perhaps their own fears of being hurt) conspire to make them think that the other person loves somebody else. So the guy tries to do what he thinks is best and tries to get the woman married off to the guy he thinks that she loves and the woman tries to do the same for the guy. In the end of course, they discover the truth and get re-married.

Now that is a state of things I can more readily identify with – maybe it’s all cultural and I can’t understand the Western viewpoint but can empathize with the Indian perspective. I really don’t know if that is the case. But I do understand how you could love somebody but yet would let them go silently – it’s because you love them and want them to be happy and while to tell them first might be wise, there is also the fear that you might put an obligation on them to return your love (well maybe obligation is too strong – just that you would be burdening them to some extent) and you don’t want that because you love them. So you remain silent and try to get them together with the one you think they love. As I said, maybe I’m conditioned but *I* certainly prefer the second story to the first …

Samuel L. Jackson and the Power of Suggestion

Hmm … that title sounds like a Harry Potter novel :p Sorry about that – I just couldn’t resist it since it seemed to fit somehow. Anyway, movies do seem to have a great power over me – the power to pull me out of whatever funk I might be in and make me laugh, clap my hands and start doing roundhouse kicks :p I was in a bit of a blue mood due to lack of sleep and an abundance of dreams (more on that on another entry if I feel up to it …) and I simply sat down to watch "Formula 51" because I had nothing better to do in the evening but the movie simply pulled me out of myself.

It’s a tale about a collection of unusual characters – people you would not normally meet in day-to-day life. A master chemist named McElroy (Samuel L. Jackson) who is on the run in England after blowing up the drug lab of his employer "The Lizard" – played by Meatloaf, whose every movie appearance I enjoy if only because I enjoy his music … this was a bigger part than he normally plays .. or at least, I remember him playing – is the main character. He is joined by a female assassin hired by the The Lizard and a British gangster who is helping McElroy and who just happens to be the former flame of the assassin. The movie is violent, fun and full of sequence which just kept me wanting more – unfortunately all the fight sequences were pretty brief. But overall, it was an interesting movie – not a deep one mind you but an interesting one … which is always not the same :p Oh the title of my post? If you watch "Formula 51", you’ll understand …

Movies and other miscellanea

What do you do when you watch a movie and it leaves you wanting to twirl and flip around in the air like in "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon"? :p I’d had the "Coyote Ugly" DVD for at least a couple of years but for some reason or other, never got around to watching it. I really felt in need of some good, light-hearted entertainment today after watching a couple of intense movies – first a Tamil movie and then "Carlito’s Way" – and so gave "Coyote Ugly" a try. For some reason or other, Piper Perabo reminds me so much of Jennifer Garner of "Alias" fame and while I enjoyed the movie and the soundtrack even more, I couldn’t totally get into it … OK, Piper Perabo’s appearance had no relation to my enjoyment of the movie – pardon my sentence structure :p It did however leave me thinking about a few things.

The first thing was basically related to the story line – "Coyote Ugly" is about a songwriter who goes to New York in search of her dreams. I’d just heard a couple of days back from my friend Meraash who’s also in New York currently and following his dream – to be a film maker. He worked here with me in Sri Lanka and always wanted to make movies and now he tells me that he actually might get to work on "Spiderman 2" and I was really happy for him and proud of him since he went after his dreams and made it happen. However, watching "Coyote Ugly" and the conditions under which Violet, the protagonist in the movie, lives under, I was thinking that maybe Meraash had to live the same way and that I could never do that. That also made me realize that I could never go after my dreams the way that Meraash and Violet did – that I would always hold back either because I was too afraid, too lazy or just didn’t have a goal that I wanted to reach that bad … makes me (or rather, my life) feel so pointless all of a sudden. I’m doing what I love – I love coding and I am in computers, I love movies and do watch a lot, I love writing and do write all over the place, I enjoy music and do listen to music from time to time … but where is the big dream? The big ambition? I guess the only thing that would qualify in that category was me wanting to be a successful writer. But would I drop everything, risk failure and a life of doing part-time jobs while looking for my big break? I don’t think so. So maybe I don’t have the vision or the commitment. I don’t know …

The other thing that struck me is totally unrelated but also something I’ve been thinking for a while now – do television and movie writers write women the way they perceive them to be or are these really women as they are? The reason I wonder is more so because of a couple of my favourite TV shows than because of how women are portrayed in "Coyote Ugly" though there were a few instances even in the movie which made me wonder. The two shows I’m talking about are "Gilmore Girls" and "Nikki" – I liked both the shows and the characters in them when I originally started watching them but recently (these might not coincide with the US episodes since we get them really late – just a note :p) some of the characters have been getting on my nerves because of the way they behave and since all the characters are women, I was wondering if this is just some man’s interpretation of how a woman would behave or if this was actually written by a woman and if it’s the latter, then why are so many women being portrayed as being so bitchy all of a sudden? Yes, I know, it’s just TV shows and none of these people are real but their actions still bug me … yeah, maybe I’m weird :p

Take Lorelei Gilmore for instance – she dumps her fiance the day before she is to be married, gives the guy no explanation and takes off for parts unknown. Then she keeps on leading this other guy who obviously has feeling for her on – yes, the guy could simply tell her how he feels but just as obviously, she should be able to tell that he feels something for her out of the ordinary since he behaves completely differently with her than he normally does. Then there’s her daughter who does not seem to realize what she’s doing or her own mind since she’s got a boyfriend but also is dallying with this other guy, while claiming that it is "just a friendship" whereas some of her actions seem to indicate that it is not. Or take Nikki from "Nikki" who dumps her husband who can’t dance and gets another partner just to win a dance competition and then thinks she can make it all better by being all sweet and lovey dovey and her husband who actually falls for it. Ok, I’ll stop now :p I know all this is just make believe but the actions of each of these characters bothers me and it bothers me even more as to who conceived these particular actions and if they really think that this is how women normally behave and I do wonder if this is *actually* how a majority of women feel/act …

Of love and other matters of the heart

I just finished watching a Tamil (Indian language, also one of the three major languages used in Sri Lanka) movie that moved me and also made me travel back in time. It was about this guy named Hari who is loved by a girl – Sapna – and who rejects her because he doesn’t love her but is in turn rejected by the girl he loves – Raji – because she doesn’t love him in return. Sapna is bitter and wants revenge but Hari is not bitter at Raji but instead wants to continue his life but says that he will always love Raji and want to see her happy. Added to this mix is Raji’s childhood friend (I forget his name) who also loved a girl but was rejected and is now slowly wasting his life away thinking about her. Hari advices this guy and tells him that the best respect he can show his love is for him to live his life with his head held high but the guy commits suicide because he can’t face the fact that the girl he loved is getting married. (Yes, committing suicide on the failure of your love, or even because your parents oppose your love, is fairly common in this part of the world …) Hari says that he cannot respect that guy because he took the coward’s way out. And of course, this being the movies, Hari finally does win the love of Raji but that’s another story …

The movie evoked a lot of feeling in me because I was in Hari’s position at one time in my life and I do understand his stand and agree with him. I loved a girl once for around ten years but in my case she loved somebody else. I did tell her that I loved her (after ten years), or I think I did but am not too sure since I wasn’t very coherent :p Anyway, she and I continued to be friends since I felt the way that Hari did but maybe I wasn’t as strong as Hari and so needed an excuse to blame the girl anyway or maybe it really was so (I can’t be objective since I am involved in it ..) but I felt that the girl took advantage of the fact that she knew that I loved her and would do anything for her still. Be as it may be, I left the country and lost all touch with her and so don’t know how things are with her anymore, even after my return.

I’ve loved others since then but have yet to find the kind of love I seek. I often wonder if this is because I expect too much from love – I expect it to be the way it is portrayed in books and the movies (at least some of the movies – probably not the Hollywood ones <g>) where love is not a passing infatuation and an excuse to jump into bed but is rather a strong bond, a true understanding between two individuals. Almost a linking of minds you could say. A union between two individuals who understand each other totally and want to spend their lives together because they can’t imagine living life apart from each other.

Of course, that does beg the question of what would I do if I found such a person but she didn’t love me? I guess the only thing I could do would be to cherish that love and go on, maybe things will change in the future and she might love me or maybe she won’t. Either way, there is always the memory of what you had and if you stay friends, you at least have a good friend even if you might not have a lover. Of course, I just have no idea if such love exists or if I’m just chasing a pipe dream. I know that such love exists from my end but is it just limited to me? Or are there others who feel like me? Others who search for such a love? Or is the rest of the world just jaded people who know that all such things are just fine confections woven for our entertainment and I am the only naive fool around? :p I don’t know and to be honest, I don’t think I care either. What I feel and what I dream of will always be real to me and even if I don’t find the kind of love that I look for, there is at least the hope of finding such a love to keep me going …

Movies and more movies …

I spent the weekend watching an eclectic selection of movies – both old and so brand spanking new that I don’t think they’ve even hit the theaters yet :p I started the movie marathon off with a really old movie – a Steven Segal movie called “Hard to Kill”. Personally, I though it looked dated and that most of the acting was terrible and the action was only passable but it was watchable enough to be not a total waste of time :p I then went out on a DVD buying spree with my brother since I had a couple of DVD’s which weren’t working properly and so I actually needed to go return them and in the process I ended up with a few more DVD’s though fortunately it wasn’t as bad as the last time when I came home with 25 DVD’s <vbg>

Anyway, one of the DVD’s I wanted to exchange was “The Gangs of New York” since the disc wasn’t being recognized by my player. The new copy worked and that’s the first thing I watched. It was an OK film again but the characters just failed to capture my imagination or make me really interested in them. I could sort of empathize with Leo De Caprio’s character and see what Daniel Day Lewis’ “butcher” was about through all his racial bigotry but overall, the story just failed to hold me. While Martin Scorsese does succeed in showing these characters as not being black or white but in all their grimy shades of grey <g>, I just could not identify with any of the characters to feel much for the movie – probably it’s just me …

I then watched “DareDevil” – yes, the same “DareDevil” starring Matt Damon and Jennifer Garner which probably has not hit the theaters yet :p It was a really bad camera-copy but I wanted to see if it was worth watching since the trailers had looked promising. I usually make it a point not to see live-action movies starring any of my favorite comic-book characters since it almost inevitably spoils the magic for me – I have not seen any of the Superman movies and only one Batman movie (and even that was because they were playing it on the plane and there was nothing to watch :p) and certainly not any of the recent Marvel movies. But somehow, “DareDevil” was different. I have not read too many of the “DareDevil” comics since I never could lay my hands on them as a child – so I knew of DD only as a guest-star in the comics of other characters like Captain America. So, for whatever reason, I thought I’d watch the movie and while I don’t like some of the changes they’ve made in the movie (I’m a purist – give me the comic-book version, however implausible it may be – no biological webshooters for me thank you <vbg>), the jury is out on the final verdict still :p Again, there wasn’t enough meat to most of the characters for you to invest emotionally in them. I do like Jennier Garner though from her excellent TV series “Alias” and so loved her appearance as Elektra but even there, there were elements to the storyline that I just didn’t like. Just can’t comment on the action or the special effects since this was a camera copy and so I guess I’ll have to see the movie again in the finished form before I decide one way or another …

I can talk about the other movies that I watched “Shanghai Knights” with Jackie Chan and Owen Wilson, the sequel to “Shanghai Noon” – pretty funny and watchable; or the much talked about musical “Chicago” with Renee Zelweger – good music and watchable but I still haven’t seen the full movie; and go into long discussions about each, but instead, I’d like to take the time to briefly mention some movies worth watching which are coming up – mostly so that I’d remember to see them when they are released :p First, there is Ang Lee’s Marvel movie “The Hulk” – not sure I want to see this … and the CGI looks pretty bad on the trailers BTW … but it’s Ang Lee after all and so I probably will end up watching it. Was that Kris Kristofferson playing Bruce Banner’s dad? If so, he might end up in the unusual position of playing father figure to two of Marvel’s heroes – the Hulk and Blade :p Then there is “Basic” starring Samuel L. Jackson and Travolta – I’d just pay to see the movie just for the two actors but it looks to be an interesting thriller. Another movie with powerhouse talents is “The Hunted” with Tommy Lee Jones and Benecio Del Toro – I’m not missing that … or “The Recruit” with Al Pacino and Colin Farrel or for that matter, Farrel’s “Phone Booth”. Then there is Bruce Willis’ (why is Willis doing so many military movies recently – or for that matter, why do we have so many military movies generally recently – sign of the times?) “Tears of the Sun”. I usually stay away from military movies (unless it’s military courtroom drama or something) since I am just so tired of seeing people kill each other and people killing each other on a mass-scale is worse … but this again looks to be an interesting movie … plus I like Bruce Willis 🙂

Of course, there are the usual bunch of sequels that don’t even need to be mentioned – the two “Matrix” movies (I wouldn’t even dream of missing those two and will probably get the DVD as soon as it is out :p), “Legally Blonde 2”, “Bad Boys 2”, “2 Fast 2 Furious” and “The Return of the King” and I’m probably forgetting some others. I probably could go on and on and on with all the movies that look interesting and so I will stop for now … Oh, except for one last movie “Cradle 2 the Grave” with Jet Li and DMX :p I’ve loved Jet Li movies since “Romeo Must Die” but have yet to find a movie equal to that in where I liked the storyline. All of Jet Li’s later movies have failed to capture me as far as the characters and the storyline goes. I’m hoping that “Cradle 2 the Grave” will actually prove to be the exception and that it will turn out to be a great movie. I haven’t checked on this yet but it looks to me as if it could be another movie by “Romeo Must Die” director Andrezj Bartkowiak – I hope it is and I hope that it has as good a script …

The magic of movies …

It’s been a while since I made an entry here but once again, not due to a lack of material to write about but mostly due to a lack of time to do so. Since I try to write about my development work every day in the morning before I set out for work, I find that I’ve usually run out of time by the time I get done with that and need to rush to work. I usually vow to write once I’m at work and have a spare moment but that spare moment never seems to come by since I get pulled into one thing or another and am on the go constantly till I leave work in the evening. But enough of that and on to what I wanted to talk about …

I’ve been watching quite a few movies over the weekends and while I’ve been catching up on some of the movies from last summer that I missed, last weekend I decided to go on a trip down memory lane and watch some of the older movies in my collection that I had not seen due to some reason or other. So it came to be that quite by accident (or maybe not) that I went through a blood-and-gore fest to rival any butcher’s shop on the corner – but I forget that they don’t have those anymore :p I watched "Fair Game" with William Baldwin and Cindy Crawford, "Get Carter" with Sylsvester Stallone and Michael Caine, "L.A. Confidential" with Kevin Spacey, Russel Crowe and Guy Pierce and to top off the trip down memory lane, re-watched "The Big Hit" with Mark Wahlberg and Lou Diamond Phillips … and all this over just two days mind you, though my usual quota is more like four or five movies a day :p

Of what I watched, "Fair Game" was basic fluff – fun, exciting but nothing substantial to it. "Get Carter" was more solid and I really liked Sly’s acting in it but it was a bit predictable – maybe because I knew Michael Caine had played Sly’s role originally and so the story had to turn the way it did at the end … I will say no more in case there are people out there who still have not seen it and want to <g> "L.A. Confidential" was great in that the characters were all *real* in the sense that they weren’t *heroes* who took the moral high ground but rather ordinary people acting as people normally do – lots of shades of grey. It did take me aback quite a few times to see a character do something totally against what I’d want him to do but I could understand it as being human rather than heroic. However, the plot twists were a bit predictable again but I was struck by the fact that all the main leads were mostly unknown (at least to me) at the time the movie originally came out. I think I first noticed Guy Pierce when "Memento" came out and Russel Crowe when "Gladiator" was released .. I’ve no idea when I first noticed Spacey – maybe "The Negotiator" but I certainly did not remember him from "The Usual Suspects" but that was because I wasn’t watching the names of actors then :p

I’d already seen "The Big Hit" – on the big screen at that – but I wanted to watch that again since it seemed to fit right in with the other movies that I’d been watching. When I first watched it, it had been a Friday evening and I’d been stressed from work and I found the movie to be darkly humorous and laughed a lot but I didn’t find it to be that funny this time – I still smiled at a few things, had a chuckle or two and still enjoyed the action sequences but what struck me most was how pathetic Mark Wahlberg’s characters was – how he was being used by everybody that he thought of as friends or lovers (but then again his job and the fact that he has a fiancee and a girl friend on the side is out of character with his whole I-don’t-want-anybody-to-hate-me attitude) and kept on telling him "you idiot! wake up and smell the roses!" :p I guess if you can get that immersed in a movie, it’s still a good movie :p Anyway, I was again struck by the fact that "The Big Hit" had a major Indian/Hong Kong feel to it but that probably isn’t surprising since I believe the director Che-Kirk Wong comes from Hong Kong and this was his first Hollywood movie 🙂

Somebody’s comedy is someone else’s tragedy …

I actually was going to write about something else today but then I got this strange tag saying that HostAurora was gone. Not that I see any point in commenting about that since I have no idea who left the tag (they didn’t leave a name) but I guess there must have been some point to that little exercise :p Anyway, on to what I really wanted to talk about today … (actually, I’ve wanted to write about quite a few things but just haven’t had the time to write lately … but that’s another story altogether :p)
I watched "The Sweetest Thing" last night – actually, I’d started watching it last week but finished watching it yesterday. Can’t say that I was too impressed. It had funny bits but for a romantic comedy it was strangely unsatisfying. Don’t get me wrong – it was definitely breaking new ground as a movie since this seemed to really portray things from a woman’s perspective and to tread in many areas most movies wouldn’t even dare to tread :p But overall, it left me unsatisfied. It was realistic but I think realism is hugely overrated. I watched "Serendipity" last week and was entranced – now that is my kind of romantic comedy. If you contrast "Serendipity" and "The Sweetest Thing" you see that "Serendipity" is totally unrealistic as to it’s situations whereas "The Sweetest Thing" actually portrays possible situations and interactions between people in a normal manner but it just left me so, so … unfulfilled :p I guess I just want the dreamy, romantic, unrealistic stuff to escape from the boring, monotony of a humdrum existence :p

To me, there was no romance, no real feeling, behind the relationship between Cameron Diaz’s character and the guy she falls in love with – Pete. The whole love story seemed to be just an incident in a movie filled with incidents – there just seemed to be no meat to it … no passion .. no drama … or maybe it’s just me :p A friend of mine (a girl <g>) called "The Sweetest Thing" a chick-flick :p Now I love chick-flicks but this to me wasn’t even a "real" chick-flick. Yes, it probably is a chick-flick for the girl of today – of the nineties and the … what the heck do you call this decade? the naughties? :p But it isn’t the kind of chick-flick that I like .. so there :p

What is love part deux :p

Hmm … looks as if the timing of yesterday’s post was kind of unfortunate – though I had planned to write that since the day before and it was basically meant to be about what *I* thought about love and what *I* thought it had to be. There are no rules of conduct in this world – each one of us does as our conscience (or whimsy) dictates. As somebody pointed out to me in the GrooupHug mailing list when I said something to the effect "that I always have tried to do what I thought was right", that I would do what *I* think is *right*. Of course, that is basically what I said but I think the other person meant that what I think is right might not be thought of as right by others. I see his point in certain instances but I also know that there are specific things which are thought to be right by everybody in general. Anyway, I digress – as usual :p
Something I had had in mind to mention when I started the whole "What is love" entry was Haddaway and the significance/memories that the song has for me.

Unfortunately, I got caught up in the entry itself and it got a bit emotional for me to actually think about the lighter side of the entry : So here goes the rest of it today … I know that it wasn’t that memorable a movie and that some people said at the time it was released that it should have remained an SNL skit and never made into a movie at all but I still remember that particular scene and the song though I don’t remember much else about the movie at all :p Of course, there are other songs like that that I associate with a movies – for instance there is Gloria Gaynor’s "I will survive" which will always remind me of Keanu and his team of "scabs" mincing around on the football field :p There are other songs like that that I associate with either a movie or a certain situation or moment in my life but I can’t recall all of them or write about all of them here – I’m too busy listening to "What is love?" :p

To me Haddaway’s song will always bring up visions of Will Ferrell and Chris Katan doing there manic dance in front of the bar in "Night at the Roxbury" :p

Movies about children …

I watched "Legend of the Red Dragon" with Jet Li in it. Lots of martial arts action, cute kids playing at Shaolin fighting and some pretty funny moments thrown in for good measure. One thing that sticks in my mind is the mother of the female protagonist (Jet Li’s character’s love interest) saying "If you’re going to court my daughter, you need to have money!" and Jet Li says "I respect her, isn’t that enough?" and she responds "Not in this day and age!" :p I might be being very cynical but while that was supposed to be ancient China, I don’t think that has really changed at all at any time or in any place in the world – not really. A lot of people seem to put money before love and happiness. Maybe they are realists and I’m just an idealist but I can’t but feel that love and happiness should come first. Oh well …
All the movies today seem to be about kids :p I also watched a Tamil movie about a guy who adopts a child after he loses his own wife and child and about their relationship. The child’s father comes in to the picture later on and wants the child back but the child considers the guy to be his father and doesn’t want to go to his real father. While it was drenched in emotion, I still loved the movie and the fact that a person can love somebody else’s child as their own. Some people seem to think this is impossible but I don’t – I think you should love any child irregardless of whether they are your own or not. Children are perhaps the best part of humanity and it’s sad that children are not treated that way instead of being subjected to the whims and fancies of adults – who really aren’t adult at all in some cases.