Blind Motor Works?

Seen the latest Honda CR-V? I wish I never did. It looks horrifying. If you see one, you will also pray that you never had. (Hence the absence of links or images here).

Call me old fashioned. But if this is where the future-proof cars are headed, I should rather grab the current - dated, they say - Adventure before FIAT puts eyebrows and bangles on it. Come on, is there anyone who prefers the looks of a 2005 Bangled Beamer (banged is much like it) to a 1998 or a 2002? Probably it was a bright summer day and the bean counter folks were wearing dark shades when they looked at it. Blind Motor Works?

Empty Roads

Reports say that the roads in Bangalore (and Pune) are empty this week.

In Pune, I could get parking at Ozone, on a Sunday evening. Something that I didn't dare attempt in 2 years! No traffic jams on any roads, peak or non-peak hours. It was surreal. Proof that outsiders are infesting these places (I am no insider, BTW).

And in a separate report, there is unbelievable traffic on the Mumbai roads. Now you know whom to catch if your city is bulging at its seams!

A pretty good bake

Just chanced upon Layer Cake. It was the peculiar title that got me interested. Director's name was familiar, but not quite. Then I recalled, Matthew Vaughn is the guy who produces Guy's movies.

Impressive debut, I say. Story revolves around a drug middleman (Daniel Craig), who is planning to wind up his operations after one last big score, but things go wrong. Warning: very English. You may need to turn on the subtitles to catch some dialogue. But very very slick.

Addiction

When one goes, the other comes in. It's interesting and offers some exercise, but not so exciting. Let's see how long this one lasts.

Should you “lage raho”?

I watched Lage Raho Munnabhai after reading all the "go see, must watch, excellent, better than the first" reviews everywhere. And its near miss of Oscar ticket on papers.

It was no where near the MBBS. The first 3 songs were identical, they were over directed. And the first half was so slow. Movie didn't have good characterisation, but for the Munna - Circuit relation. Vidya was wasted, so are the scores of others. Many characters were invisible in some scenes. Some pivotal logic - like Lucky's daughter realising dad's mistake so late considering the media coverage of the fight - lacked it.

Yes, it is a decent/good movie, but not anywhere near the just-missed-the-oscar-must-watch category.

On writing well

Franklin D. Roosevelt was given a memo to sign on the blackout order of 1942:

Such preparations shall be made as will completely obscure all Federal buildings and non-Federal buildings occupied by the Federal government during an air raid for any period of time from visibility by reason of internal or external illumination.

"Tell them," Roosevelt said, "that in buildings where they have to keep the work going to put something across the windows."

Simplify, simplify.