Entries Tagged 'reviews' ↓

Watching Fareed Zakaria’s new show on CNN. It’s called GPS– Global something or the other. He assembled a good panel to discuss global issues. I love shows like this because they follow an interview format with people who actually know what the hell they’re talking about; they’re actual scholars, not just political hacks.

The debut episode’s panelists include China scholar Minxin Pei, Christiane Amanpour, former Irish PM and European Commission President John Bruton, and the asshat (and Bushie) Doug Feith. I’m both enjoying and squirming at the muffled insults being tossed at Feith (and Bush, indirectly). Those of you who remember may know that that Feith was a DoD intelligence man, who cooked the Iraq intelligence and is so ridiculously neoconservative that it led Colin Powell’s chief of staff to claim “I’ve seldom in my life met a dumber man.”

Bruton, Amanpour and Pei are good. I find their perspectives refreshing, especially Pei. I don’t know much about China nor have I heard much from Chinese scholars so it’s interesting to hear a China scholar talk so bluntly about how the Chinese perceive Obama (not on their radar yet), how China is handling Tibet (stupidly) and press access in the recent Chinese earthquakes (unprecedented, but not as big a deal as people would like to believe).

Generally when people I abhor talk, I tend to tune out– especially in this case that wicked buffoon Feith. (Why is he teaching at Georgetown? Is he serving as a living example of what not to do?). But nowadays I am trying to listen to these whackjobs (or “differing voices” as some might like to say) because of an article written by Samantha Power, where she decries the way we read things online (the echo chamber of only the opinions/ stories that reinforce our perspectives rather than the wide array of differing opinions in a newspaper). So I did try to listen to Feith even though it did feel all nails-on-a-chalkboard, to me.

Anyway, back to Fareed. He’s a good questioner and clearly knows the issues, whether it’s China, India, the middle east or the US government’s policy toward various African nations. He’s also written a very good book recently about the growing marginalization of the US government in global treaties and deals.

Two things about Zakaria that I find interesting still:

One, that he has done no mea culpa ala Andrew Sullivan, for his flawed, arrogant support of the war. It’s one thing to have supported the Iraq war with a measure of humility, and on the basis that you were supporting it based on the facts you had. But to breezily and harshly dismiss critics as peacenik pansies and then to be critical of that same war a few years later without having the decency to apologize, is just ridiculous.

Second, and completely unrelated– he’s still an average host. His transitions and segues are weak, his intonation, elocution and pacing of words is choppy and uneven. I think a lot of Indians who’ve lived in both the US and India, sound like that. We lapse into our faux-English pronunciations one minute and a US pronunciation the next, and the overall sound is awful. He needs to practice with some news anchors and he can smooth that out.

That said, I have hope for this show. It’s the closest thing I’ve seen to an intelligent discussion on foreign issues, on a US TV station. Which means it probably won’t do very well outside of the Charlie Rose set *cough* me *cough*.

Yesterday I watched “Before the Rains.” It’s a movie set in southern India about an English spice baron who tries to develop (and exploit) a spice-rich area. Along the way he gets entangled with his married maid, encourages and patronizes his Indian foreman and more.

I’d heard that the movie was panned by critics, but I decided to avoid reading the reviews and go anyway. After all, I’m a sucker for inter-racial romances, especially anything involving Indians.

I thought the movie was pretty good. The director, Santosh Sivan, did a really nice job of steering clear of easy stereotypes– the callous, brutal white man, the servile native, etc. It’s funny how a lot of the reviewers called the acting stereotypical, because I thought it was anything but. There was no grand message or great big theme– there was no big message about the important of Indian independence or what the true meaning of the word “development” is. The movie just aired everyone’s perspective and enabled the viewer to sympathise with each character in his or her moment of woe, fear or uncertainty. As a result, I had a hard time condemning or hating any character.

The acting overall was good. Rahul Bose does a good job of being the conflicted assistant– stuck between the world of his traditional family and his English boss. Nandita Das was surprisingly effective in her minescule role of paramour. Linus Roache was good, but the actors who played his wife (Jennifer Ehle), son and the banker, were just as good if not better. The British characters weren’t cardboard “Sahib” cut-outs. They had more heart and concern and conflict than one would associate with people from this time period.

That said, it’s not a movie I’d recommend to a lot of people. I think it would come off as insipid to a lot of people. The kind of movie that would make them wonder “why should I care?”

Fact is, you don’t have to. In fact, I think the reason I appreciate it as much is because I’m Indian, and I can appreciate what a departure this is from other narratives about colonialism in India.

Aside from the Indian-ness.. as I said earlier, I have a weakness for inter-racial romances. That’s why I loved Mississippi Masala, Bhaji on the Beach and of course Bend it Like Beckham. (I also liked the Namesake for similar-ish reasons).

So today I went to the JCC to watch a free movie. It’s Helen Hunt’s directorial debut and it’s called “Then She Found Me.” I mostly went because it featured Colin Firth AND it was free, and there’s no way I can say no to a movie that has two such stellar features. It was surprisingly disappointing. I blame that on a mediocre story and the fact that I’ve never really liked Helen Hunt’s acting. To top it off, she’s ridiculously gaunt, and I couldn’t focus on the words sometimes, because I was so distracted by her bony neck and stringy hair.

The story goes like this: Hunt’s character, April, is an adopted child, with an aching desire to get pregnant because she’s pushing 40. Her husband leaves, her, her adoptive mother dies, and she gets involved with the father of one of her students. Meanwhile her birth mother, a talk show host, comes into her life, wanting to get to know her and create some kind of fabulous relationship. But oh things, don’t work out that way do they? So, anyway, Hunt’s character is stll in love with her ex, in love with the single dad and struggling with the birth mom issue, while she herself is thinking about having a child.

That’s a lot of story.

Couple of scenes made me uncomfortable. Firth plays a recently-divored man with children. I get that people who’re divorced can be emotional, especially if recently so, but hoo-boy, did he come off as unhinged. And that’s not so appealing in a romantic comedy. You want to come off pleasantly neurotic, not borderline manic. Another challenging bit was the love scenes between Firth and Hunt. Why would they get it on, on the couch in the living room in house where the kids are sleeping? Wouldn’t they do it in a bedroom with the door shut/ locked?

The dialogues was funny in parts, but every now and then they sounded like something Hunt would say in the last two seasons of Mad About You. (The bad seasons).

The thing that ultimately I find so unlikable is how the movie veers between reactionless to self-indulgent. A woman’s husband leaves her, and yet she has virtually no visible reaction? On the flip side, so much self-indulgence. The husband leaves because he feels overwhelmed. Hunt’s character does stupid shit because she can’t help herself. I think we’ve reached an era now where people no longer feel obligated to restrain themselves– it’s become all about giving in to your foibles and weaknesses, at the cost of everyone and everything around us. We see it in film all the time. At one time, that was compelling to watch, because OMG look how fragile we all are and how susceptible we are to weakness and temptation. But now I’m fed up of it. This  public show of weakness is ridiculous.

I should note that the movie is based on a book, very very loosely. Wikipedia informs me that in the book ” April was single, not divorced. Her love interest is not the father of a student but the also-single school librarian. The biological clock was not an overriding issue.”

So basically, two of the three elements of the movie (i.e. biological clock, single dad) are non-existent in the book. The focus of the book, therefore, must have been the adoption issue. And it would have been very interesting too, if the script-writers hadn’t muddled it up with the single-father and ex-husband angle.

Anyway, 2 stars out of 5. Don’t go unless it’s a free screening.

In the past month, I’ve applied to more jobs than I remember. I’ve also used several search engines, each with a varying degree of success. I thought it would be only fair to write about my experiences.

Monster.com: The granddaddy of job search engines. Or at least, it’s the first one I’d heard of. Monster has a lot of free bells and whistles in terms of advice. They even have a diversity section ( I know! Perfect for those of us who are non-white and/or non-male or any combination thereof). Their job matches didn’t seem particularly memorable, although a couple of employers contacted me on their own after seeing my resume on there. Which means that it is apparently drawing in the employers, if not accurate job matches.

Hot jobs: the only site to help me find stuff that’s entry level. Their filter seems to work far better than most other companies. Their job selection also seems to touch on jobs that I don’t see in other engines. That said, their selection is much more limited than everyone else.

Washington Post: good selection of jobs in the DC area. However half of those jobs are for people with 10 years exp even though I explicitly said entry-level. I later found out that the Post sends me any job that matches even 10 percent of my requirements. Apparently work experience was not deemed to be part of said 10 percent.

Indeed: wide selection, pulls in stuff from everywhere, although each time I use it, the search results keep getting less and less relevant.

Higheredjobs.com: Back when I thought I’d love a career in edcation proper. I still think I’d like a career in education writing. Unfortunately Highered isn’t going to help with that. It tells me that there are no jobs to match my search agent. What are my search agent requirements? Any job in the education field involving communications– writing, editing the like. Yes, I can see why they can’t find me jobs. It’s not like universities have alumni and staff magazines. Oh wait… yes they do.

Careerbuilder: Careerbuilder really tries. It sends me job matches in various categories, from entry-level to close locations. The problem? Same as most of the other engines– it’s filtering system is mediocre. Half the jobs I get are for people with six years experience. This, even though I tried to filter those out. I do like the chipper emails they send me though. Emails that end with “don’t worry if you don’t get this job you applied for! Here’s some more!”

Craigslist.org:
Brilliant for local jobs. It has a good telecommuting section as well. That said, there are only so many jobs on here. So it’s only good as a supplemental job classifieds place.

I have a TiVo. I love it. I use it to record 90s sitcoms, so that I don’t have to watch any modern drivel like 24. The only things I do watch that were made this year, however, are Grey’s Anatomy (yeah, yeah I know it sucks) and reality TV shows. Today I want to talk about a show that premiered last night, season three of the Next Food Network Star.

Season 1 and 2 did not live up to the idea–they didn’t really challenge the contestants in the way a show like Top Chef would. This year they’ve overhauled the format such that there is still the talking/presentation element, but there’s also some high-level cooking going on. Most of this years’ contestants are chefs/ caterers, with the odd home-cook thrown in. Last year, it was an even balance of amateurs and professionals.

That said, I have to say that the aptly named Bob Tuschman and Suzie Fogelson are getting on my nerves in a way that only marketing people can. They are constantly whining about “personality!”, which they seem to rather strictly define as the sort of lunacy that we see on Emeril live. (If I must watch Emeril, I prefer him on that other show he has, where he’s less hyperactive and faux-aggressive).

I also see that Giada De Laurentiis will be on the next episode. I used to love Giada on her own cooking shows, until I saw her on this show’s previous season. She seemed like such a catty little thing that I instantly commenced hate-age.

Anyway, I’m not really sure how much better this season will be from the previous ones. I’m just sticking around for the Nigella Lawson .