anarchius.org

All my Flights

Ravi kiran Nagavarapu — Sat, 09 Mar 2013 17:16:00 +0000

Till now, I have flown a total of 481,333 miles. That is more than 19 times around the world, and twice the distance to the moon.

I have done this via a total of 187 flight segments, passing through 37 airports, in 11 countries and utilizing 24 carriers.

I have flown as north as Edinborough (EDI), as south and east as Kuala Lumpur (KUL), and as west as San Francisco (SFO).

The longest flight I have taken is the 14 hour leg from Dubai (DXB) to New York (JFK). The shortest is the 37 minute hop between Milwaukee (MKE) and Chicago (ORD).

All these stats are thanks to two things. One, my idiosyncrasy of keeping a log of all the flights I have ever taken. The second is the site for people like me called OpenFlights.org

All I needed was a bit of excel transformation to convert my existing flight log into a format acceptable to the site, upload and done.

That is how I know that if I had taken all the flights one after another, I would have spent 43 days, 22 hours and 39 minutes in the air. In reality, if I include all the check-in and waiting times, you could call it about two months in airports and flights around the world.

Powerline ethernet and HW design

Ravi kiran Nagavarapu — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 21:24:00 +0000

Powerline Ethernet is a relatively new concept, that uses the existing electrical wires within a house to deliver wired networking capabilities to different parts of a house. I had been following the development of the standard with anticipation for a few years now, but I was not apparently paying attention as the technology was commercialized relatively quickly.

I came upon the commercial implementations anew, when I was looking for a solution to help extend the wireless range of my ageing router. Wireless repeaters were a potential option, but the idea of taking a degrading signal to re-broadcast it was not something that I appreciated for just an aesthetic point of view. Further, that would also constrain the location of the repeater and leave me open to the need for additional repeaters.

Enter Powerline networking and in particular a company called TP Link. After a bunch of research, I figured I was not sure if this would even work in my house and was not willing to pay the premium of a recognized brand. TP Link was a good balance between positive reviews and price.

Turns out, using the electrical wires in the house to transmit Ethernet signals is ridiculously easy.

You need a couple of pieces of hardware to get things going. The first is the base unit, that plugs into a power socket next to the broadband router. The port on that base unit plugs directly into one of the router ports. This essentially makes the entire home “live”.

You then need a client unit, that you can take anywhere in the house and plug into another power socket. Now, on that unit is an Ethernet port that effectively works as a live network port, that can route packets through the electrical wires, through the base unit, the router and out on the the internet.

If you were only looking for an extension of your wired network, you are done. If however, you are looking to have the second unit act, also, as a WiFi access point you have additional work to do.

The additional work is because the default access point is a cryptic SSID, running an unencrypted signal. I wanted it to have the same SSID and authentication parameters as my original WiFi router, so I could roam upstairs and downstairs between either access point. Figured I'd just configure the TP-Link Powerline client access point that way.

And all hell broke loose.

TP-Link essentially hard codes the configuration IP of the second access point. The address unfortunately was the same as the base of my home network. This resulted in a few hours of mental and networking gymnastics, just to be able to configure the second access points with the SSID and authentication parameters that I liked.

Which brings me to the second point of this post - good core technology but crappy hardware design. The two Powerline plugs were not elegant by any means, but they were functionally simple and effective. But an underlying assumption that one would be OK with default access point parameters, led to some questionable hardware design choices ultimately rendering an otherwise attractive product cumbersome. If only these smaller companies took some of these underlying assumptions seriously enough, there is almost no reason why their products cannot easily compete with the big dogs - in not just the marketplace, but also the social marketplace of the star counts on Amazon.com.

Seriously guys, you should just fix it.

All on Jelly Bean

Ravi kiran Nagavarapu — Sun, 06 Jan 2013 22:02:00 +0000

Officially off stock firmware on all three Android devices at home.

The Toshiba Thrive is running a CyanogenMod 10 build (JellyBean) called Dastardly Dingo. The UI is a Go Launcher HD app.

Just as the warranty on the SII ran out, I rooted and upgraded the firmware to the latest JellyBean build. An AOKP JellyBean build.

The UI is a Nova Launcher, providing additional functionality to the stock launcher.

The final device, a Nexus one, is running Android 2.3.7 (Gingerbread), limited only by it's hardware specs from upgrading to ICS or JellyBean.

The biggest difference, of course, is the really powerful Google Now application, that syncs itself across both the JellyBean devices. More details post on Now at some point later, but safe to say, one of the first, well polished, functional and useful personal assistants on today's phones.

Whew - all aboard on JellyBean.

Hang in there, it gets better...

Ravi kiran Nagavarapu — Sun, 06 Jan 2013 00:32:00 +0000

At around 60 page views a day, I must have reached a 100,000 page views for the site about 10 days ago - December 27th, 2012.

It has been a crazy few months, but the blog has been churning out page view on autopilot. I was not even paying attention as this milestone crept up on me and the site.

Hang in there, it gets better - is the constant encouragement I've heard over the last few months. And it does, in some ways. And one of those signs of getting better is me thinking about this blog again.

But this time, I am planning for this to be a little less social - not private, just not broadcasting. And towards that end, emails subscriptions are shut off and the Twitter updates have been put on hold as well.

Over the last few months, I have definitely missed checking in on the site. But more importantly, I am missing keeping a log of some of the things I have been able to sneak in on the side. Hoping I get enough time to get back to this again.

And a Happy New Year to all!

ICS Power Management

Ravi kiran Nagavarapu — Sun, 08 Jul 2012 14:50:00 +0000

Moving to ICS on the Samsung SII has been underwhelming for the most part - partly driven by the fact that the UI has been kept relatively stale by Samsung, and made worse by the fact that ICS while powerful, has more than a few hiccups during operation.

But there is one aspect that ICS is really good with - memory management. ICS comes with a Honeycomb inspired task switcher that also doubles as a task killer. Flicking an application in the task switcher kills it, releasing the memory and plausibly making battery usage better.

Well at least that was the theory, till I tried to put it in practice and presto - it worked! Check out the screenshot showing a run time of a day and eight hours with more than 40% of the juice still to go. Yes, the usage was not as heavy as I normally do with the phone, but still a 32 hour run time was not something I had frankly expected.

Some Carat Juice

Ravi kiran Nagavarapu — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 19:30:00 +0000

Finally, looks like there is a potential solution for the battery drain problems within the Android eco system. Carat is a research project that aims to detect energy bugs - app behavior that is consuming energy unnecessarily - using data collected from a community of mobile devices. It is an active research project, run out of Berkeley.

For the first week, the tool merely sits around, waiting for you to run it so it can report usage data back to the mother ship. And once you have enough samples sent back, the tool begins to give you personalized recommendations. My biggest recommendation was to kill the “Accuweather” weather widget. I did that and - presto - my battery use graphs seem to have gone flatter than usual.

The most interesting part is the approach taken by the team - not with an analysis of the API calls an application makes or their abuse of wakelocks etc. Instead it is statistical, based on a massive data mining effort of similar devices. Innovative and for the moment, seems effective.

Finally - ICS for Galaxy S2

Ravi kiran Nagavarapu — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 18:05:00 +0000

AT&T had been hinting at the Ice Cream Sandwich upgrade to the Samsung galaxy SII for a while now. Last week it even went so far as releasing the update and then rolling it back after some customers were able to get it.

Looks like whatever kinks Samsung had in producing a custom version for the US market seems to have been taken care of and my phone is now running ICS. Here is a screenshot.

The upgrade process itself was smooth - took all of about five minutes once the backups and such were completed. The only nit-pick, was that you had to install Samsung Kies to actual do the update instead of doing it over the air (OTA). But considering this was a major version upgrade, I did appreciate the backup opportunity Kies presented.

First impressions - not that many actually. Because the version of ICS is a Samsung customized, AT&T pre-loaded version, it is not that different from the Gingerbread copy. But, just beneath the surface there are differences. The biggest being the smoothness with which the interface seems to be working. And of course the subtle UI elements, like in the settings menu. It seems like someone actually spent time thinking about the end user while putting these together.

More details later, but for now, screenshots of the upgrade itself.

Rooting Thrive ... Done!

Ravi kiran Nagavarapu — Sun, 27 May 2012 19:44:00 +0000

Thanks to dalepl and his unbelievably awesome Universal Easy Flash Tool - I now have root on my Thrive.

The best part is the process to get there, it was as easy as

Install the correct ADB drivers on your laptop (available within the same zip file from dalepl)
Connect the Thrive to the laptop via USB mini and ensure it is connected to the charger at the same time.
Run the batch file Universal_Easy_Flash_Tool.bat

Confirm the fact that you want to root the device...

And pick the correct ROM that you are currently on...

And after about 4 reboots of the device - you are done!

Thank you @dalepl and @TurnYourBackAndRun - honestly Toshiba should be paying you for keeping their devices relevant. Now to kick some pre-installed crud off the device.

Abstract interfaces

Ravi kiran Nagavarapu — Mon, 07 May 2012 21:27:00 +0000

Gimp 2.8 - an important milestone in the road to Gimp 3 - is out. But this post is not about the new single window UI, or about the fact that saving an image is easy for the first time. This post is about the path to get to version 2.8.

Gimp is powerful - not entirely Photoshop powerful - but more than sufficient to handle anything an amateur photography enthusiast might want to throw at it. But overshadowing it's power is a user interface that feels piecemeal and awkward. If I had to summarize it's problems - it would be this: the interface lacks abstraction.

When a programmer builds user interfaces, it is a bit like an engineer trying to sell a product. A programmer knows exactly how piece of functionality works - what the variables are, what the functions do. The user interface reflects that - a list of inputs for the variables, organized into groups of functions. This would be perfect, if the goal of a user was to run the various functions - but when the user comes in to perform a task, the interface begins to get in the way.

A great abstraction bridges the gap between the user task and tool functionality.

And Gimp is taking it's first steps in that direction. Starting with a brutal evaluation of the current state of the interface, the Gimp team is doing what any good built-by-consensus project would. Reach out to the community for ideas.

But there is many a step before Gimp begins to resemble a polished UI. While that in no way means copying the Photoshop interface, but it involves coming up with a way to interact with the user in such a way as to provide capability and not functions. Of taking all available ideas and distill them into a coherent experience. But again, just like consensus might not be the best way to build a program, it might not be the best way to polish an interface. Maybe it just takes singular vision.

News Limericks - II

Ravi kiran Nagavarapu — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 11:24:00 +0000

Apparently some of the Limericks I write are funny - why not milk it for all it is worth?

Also, there is a new News Limerick icon to accompany the posts.

The first is a news item that would not mind being included in The Hangover - Part 3.

A man in Sacremento should have been distraught
Over an argument in a bar he shouldn't have sought
but he did pick a fight
to end an epic night
And woke up the next day to realize he had been shot

For all the headaches produced by the Borat movie, there were some unexpected upsides.

Officials hated the image Borat produced
Of Kazakhstan in the eyes of the world reduced
including a fake national anthem
which was more fun to hum
But he unwittingly gave their tourism a big boost

The next news item does not require much introduction.

Residents were clamoring for cameras in the elevator
Giving up privacy for the sake of this good greater
coz they wanted to thwart
and force him to abort
By catching this nasty perp - a serial defecator.

A heroic tale is a great counter balance to the poo story.

A dog they say is a man's best friend
A label this woman's seeing-dog did transcend
when a robber did attack
the dog fought him back
And called the cops to tie up the loose end

Just when you thought buying lottery tickets was a waste of money.

Many in the world are desperate for their lottery fix
It is all in the numbers or maybe some other tricks
this store in Arizona rural
sold successful tickets in plural
Of million dollar winners, not one or two but six

The next story is quite self-explanatory, but reading it in prose does not make it less funny.

So here is a robber's story you will find quite strange
Interrupted during theft, he fled before the challenge
then was horrified to find
that he left his ID behind
And called the victim's family to propose an exchange

The Cyanogen Mod

Ravi kiran Nagavarapu — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 09:55:00 +0000

It has been about two years since we bought the Nexus One. Which is great timing for the two-year itch - that starts something like “Now that the phone is not under warranty, do you think we should ...”.

To add to the itch was a real problem - Nexus One's fatal flaw so to speak. The phone has a minuscule amount of memory on board - a paltry 512MB which not only included the entire Android installation, but other pre-installed crud disguised as system applications. This meant even after moving some of the applications to the SD card, we were forever playing a game of whack-a-mole trying to free up just enough disk space for the phone.

That is when I decided to replace the original firmware with CyanogenMod 7(CM7). And since this was a phone that was not going to be customized heavily - the reasons to modify were fairly light.

Because I could
So that I could uninstall the various system applications like the Amazon MP3 for instance
So that I could get App2SD capability inbuilt
Because I could

The process I followed was the official process prescribed in the wiki over at the CM site. Here are some notes to go with the instructions in the wiki, that I am not planning to leech over.

Backup

Always important to backup. Especially since the process of unlocking the bootloader will reset your device to factory settings.

I used GO SMS Pro to backup SMS. Which by the way, is a great replacement for the custom SMS app. Astro File Manager to backup all applications. Then connect the phone to a computer and copy over the entire SD card as well.

Unlocking the Bootloader

A couple of things to keep in mind while unlocking the bootloader - firstly the phone is going to reset to factory settings. Don't ever think that you will be able to keep it like-for-like. Secondly a by-product of the reset is that if you have had to enable the developer mode to access the SD card via USB, you will need to re-enable that.

Custom Recovery Image

While the wiki mentions this in passing, once you reboot this step is essentially undone. So moving from this step to the next must occur without a reboot. Which brings us to the second question - how does one then “boot into recovery”? The process varies by phone, but in the case of the Nexus One - briefly click the power button after installing the recovery image. This will refresh the options on screen giving you a recovery mode to boot into.

Flashing CyanogenMod

If you were following along, here is where you need a lot more preparation than the wiki lets you in on. In reality you are already in step 4 of this section by the time you are done with the previous section. So if you were planning on downloading the zip files at this point - tough luck. Maybe that is something you do when you backup? Or at least when you get the recovery images in, make sure you copy the CyanogenMod version you want to install onto the root of the SD card. Otherwise, you might have to re-boot into the factory fresh device to do that.

Restore from backups

Final bit of a heads-up. When you restore from backups using Astro File Manager, it has a tendency to restore all applications to the phone internal memory. So after the first few, the rest of them are going to fail. So you might have to restore them one-by-one, moving the big apps to SD along the way.

That is it, more than a week into the installation, and the phone is still going strong. A detailed view of CM is probably going to follow - but so far really good.

News Limericks

Ravi kiran Nagavarapu — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 12:45:00 +0000

A few friends had a “poetry night”. I decided to write a few topical limericks as my input to the evening. Here are my five.

The first related to this news article talking about a recent competition in England, that judged contestants based on the technical perfection of their facial features.

Some ascribe it to your genes, others to your fate
Mathematicians came up with a formula to describe this trait
with pupils spaced at 44%
and eyes to mouth at 32%
The most technically beautiful face belongs to one, Florence Colgate

Pizza is an important food group. Otherwise how else would one explain the next limerick.

There was a man getting dinner in Omaha
Was so engrossed in saving the box with his pizza
his car hit a pole
and went into a roll
This the is the time for you to go ha ha ha

The next news item happened in 2011 but the results of the investigation came to light this year.

Passengers of Air Canada were in for a fright
The pilot it seems, caused their terrible plight
when he took the plane into a nosedive
with neither a warning or five
Because he mistook Venus for an oncoming flight

Southwest airlines joined in the fun for some more airline related news that could be made into limericks.

It is difficult for flights to be that calm
Though the pilot’s announcement meant no harm
he wished his ma whom he adored
unfortunately he said “mom on board”
And the passengers mistook the first word for a bomb

Finally, Santa might not quite agree, but sometimes reindeer also have to be transported.

Police in Norway pulled a car over in the street
The driver it seems wasn’t that discreet
his Subaru was laden
with a cargo quite brazen
There were five reindeer sitting in the back seat

Yes, there were poetic licenses taken with most of the news articles, but if you were looking here for fair and balanced reporting - maybe you shouldn't worry a distortion of facts.

Configuring PPTP VPN

Ravi kiran Nagavarapu — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 08:44:00 +0000

This post is the last in the series of upgrades I completed on my router running the new TomatoUSB router firmware. Most data for this post is thanks to this tutorial

Requirements:

A router running TomatoUSB
Install and configure Optware on the router
A way to address the router from outside the home network - like setting up a dynamic DNS maybe
A VPN client to connect to the router

Installation

Log onto your TomatoUSB via SSH and run the following on the shell

ipkg install poptop

That is it. Wait for ipkg to do it's thing and you are done installing.

Configuration

Edit the file /opt/etc/pptpd.conf

I installed what is called a Single-Net configuration, after logging in, the entire network is available to the VPN. This was a home network, and I wasn't going to implement any sort of zoning on it.

Ensure the following line is commented

logwtmp

Establish the list of available IP addresses. Here is what I have

localip 192.168.1.1 #This is the local IP address of the router remoteip 192.168.1.245-254 #These are the available remote IPs to be used when a remote VPN connection is made

Edit the file /opt/etc/ppp/options.pptpd

Here is what I have as the final configuration. I have removed the prompts & help text to keep it clean(er).

name pptpd #chapms-strip-domain # BSD licensed ppp-2.4.2 upstream with MPPE only, kernel module ppp_mppe.o # {{{ refuse-pap refuse-chap refuse-mschap # Require the peer to authenticate itself using MS-CHAPv2 [Microsoft # Challenge Handshake Authentication Protocol, Version 2] authentication. require-mschap-v2 # Require MPPE 128-bit encryption # (note that MPPE requires the use of MSCHAP-V2 during authentication) require-mppe-128 # }}} # OpenSSL licensed ppp-2.4.1 fork with MPPE only, kernel module mppe.o # {{{ #-chap #-chapms # Require the peer to authenticate itself using MS-CHAPv2 [Microsoft # Challenge Handshake Authentication Protocol, Version 2] authentication. #+chapms-v2 # Require MPPE encryption # (note that MPPE requires the use of MSCHAP-V2 during authentication) #mppe-40 # enable either 40-bit or 128-bit, not both #mppe-128 #mppe-stateless nomppe-stateful # }}} # Network and Routing ms-dns 192.168.1.1 #ms-dns 10.0.0.2 #ms-wins 10.0.0.3 #ms-wins 10.0.0.4 proxyarp # Logging #debug #dump # Miscellaneous lock nobsdcomp

Authentication & Credentials

Create the file /opt/etc/ppp/chap-secrets with the VPN setup credentials. My file looks like below, of course with a valid username & password.

# Username Server Password AllowedIPs myusername * myawesomepassword *

As with any password file, ensure it is only readable by root by running the following as root.

chmod 600 /opt/etc/ppp/chap-secrets

Configure Firewall

Create the file /opt/etc/config/vpn.fire and put the following in it

#!/bin/sh iptables -A INPUT -p gre -j ACCEPT iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 1723 -j ACCEPT iptables -A INPUT -i ppp+ -j ACCEPT iptables -A FORWARD -i ppp+ -j ACCEPT iptables -A FORWARD -o ppp+ -j ACCEPT

Make the script executable by running the following

chmod +x /opt/etc/config/vpn.fire

Restart the firewall service

service firewall restart

Start VPN server

This is the last step. Create the file /opt/etc/config/vpn.wanup and add the following

#!/bin/sh if [ ! -f /tmp/ppp/chap-secrets ]; then mkdir -p /tmp/ppp ln -s /opt/etc/ppp/chap-secrets /tmp/ppp fi /opt/etc/init.d/S20poptop restart

Make this script executable

chmod +x /opt/etc/config/vpn.wanup

That is it, this will ensure the vpn always runs whenever the WAN comes back up. The VPN is up and running.

Testing it may end up being a bit tricky. You cannot log into the network while you are on it. I used my phone, disabled WiFi, and configured it to log in via the mobile network to ensure that the VPN was indeed accessible and working. Presto, I could log into my home network from anywhere in the world.

Check out the original post about ways to configure a VPN client on an iOS or Android device.

Drive (movie review)

Ravi kiran Nagavarapu — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 09:05:00 +0000

Finally! A movie that is able to convert a gritty subject and violent screenplay into an intense, brutal and poetic thriller. Drive is movie making as the art form it is supposed to be. Every scene is honest in it's storytelling as it is dreamy in it's execution. A sheer cloak of fantasy helping soften the blows of scenes that would otherwise rival Casino in their fetish for testing the boundaries of the human form to take punishment.

The Driver (Ryan Gosling) is the unnamed protagonist of the movie, who excels at cold-as-steel getaway driving. The movie begins with the Driver manning a souped up Chevy Impala, waiting outside a building where two masked robbers are committing a crime. What follows is a display of calculated urban run-away driving that is probably one of the best I have seen. It is not the high-speed variety like, say, the car chase in Ronin, but it is an equally heart-pounding cat and mouse variety - in the streets of downtown LA.

The Driver seems to have everything going for him, a part-time role as a movie stunt driver, a car mechanic and an emerging opportunity as a stock car racer. As luck would have it in these cases, he meets someone. A neighbor and her young kid, with whom he develops a genuine chemistry - softening an otherwise stark and empty life. When her husband unexpectedly returns from prison and is caught up with debts from his past, the Driver decides to help.

The second part of the movie is dedicated to the realization that in his desire to help, he had signed up for something that was deeper and more sinister than it had seemed. As he begins to peel the onion of the conspiracy, the Driver realizes that he may have to sacrifice everything to see the sequence of events through to their logical completion.

The scenes of Drive flow together beautifully. There is nothing static about any of them. Either the camera or the subject is always in motion, a sort of underlying sense of flow through the entire movie. In contrast dialogue is deliberately awkward, scenes wantonly go a tad too long. The resulting sense of discomfort makes every scene magnetic. Don't be surprised if you find yourself holding your breath after each sequence, or if you come out of the movie exhausted.

There aren't that many violent movies that can make a claim to be realistic yet fantastic at the same time. Drive comes close. There is just enough style between the violence on screen and the audience to take the edge off. But not so much that the message is lost. Even if you are squeamish about graphic movies, this might be the one you might want to take a chance on. And if you do not like it, you could just - Drive.

Extending Tomato with Optware

Ravi kiran Nagavarapu — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 19:59:00 +0000

I had waxed eloquent about the flexibility, freedom and capabilities extended by open source tools in general, and the Tomato USB in particular. Little did I know, that this was just the tip of the iceberg of capabilities offered by the third party firmware on my Netgear router.

The big extension to the core capabilities offered by the firmware is available via the installation of Optware. At its core, Optware is an advanced package manager, built for distribution of software packages across a number of platforms, including the TomatoUSB router firmware.

Optware comes with a variety of packages compiled and available in it's repository. This repository extends the capabilities of the router firmware, from their stripped down, small-footprint cousins to the full featured Linux box tools.

Tomato has inbuilt support for Optware. But it needed a bunch of work, to prepare the setup for Optware. In particular there were two things that had to be done:

Format the connected storage in EXT3. My terabyte RAID had been originally formatted in NTFS. While TomatoUSB has support for NTFS, but it is slow and painful, and fundamentally missing capabilities. Not something that lends itself for Optware.
Figure out where /opt is going to mounted.

There is no easy way to convert NTFS to EXT3 - other that the slow and methodical approach. Take files off the NTFS file system, format the disk as EXT3, and copy the files back. There are several tutorials out there, like this one - the only tweak was that I ended up using the mkfs.ext3 script available on the router to format the disk.

An aside, the cheap Terabyte RAID survived and is thriving through this all - including the EXT3 formatted drive.

Now mounting storage on /opt where Optware will be installed, seemed tricky at first, but ended up being pretty simple. The reason it seemed tricky was that I created only one partition on the storage when I formatted it as EXT3. My worry was that I'd have to re-size the partition and add a new one, which could then be mounted on /opt.

Turns out, you can mount the same device on multiple mount points. And given that I am already automounting the USB device, I figured all I had to do was to mount a sub-folder on /opt. Adding the following in the “Run after mounting” script-box, did the trick.

if [ -d /mnt/Teranarchy/optware ]; then mount -o bind /mnt/Teranarchy/optware /opt fi

Once I had space available on /opt - installing Optware is simple. As simple as running the following on a shell after logging in via Telnet or SSH.

wget http://tomatousb.org/local--files/tut:optware-installation/optware-install.sh -O - | tr -d '\r' > /tmp/optware-install.sh chmod +x /tmp/optware-install.sh sh /tmp/optware-install.sh

That is it. Optware does a great job of obtaining and installing all the packages. And because Tomato already has the correct folders in $PATH variables, all the tools and capabilities are available instantly from any shell.

Now that I have Optware, it is time to start doing something more interesting. Like installing a VPN on the router. Coming up next.

The Human Factory

Ravi kiran Nagavarapu — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 21:41:00 +0000

Ira Glass has the most absorbing tales. This one is no different, and it is about a topic that I am familiar with. The whole show is embedded below, and if that does not work - the link to the original story on This American Life is here.

Favorite quote from the show: Shenzen looks like Bladerunner threw up on itself.

Over a period of 35 minutes, the narrative evolves slowly, from a funny self-effacing confession to a pondering, visceral narrative designed, not as much to shock, as to prod new life into a story that has almost nothing new to give. To round it all up, Act II of the show is typical NPR - the other side of the story - including this opinion arguing the benefits of sweatshops.

Finally, it is easy to see this as something specific to Apple, while it is not. Having Apple on the headline does bring in the eye-balls, but the story is no different for Samsung, or any of the other makers of electronics. Once again, it is the Apple side of the camp, that put it together in an easy to use package.

The whole story is an hour long - but well worth it.

Android design standards - Finally!

Ravi kiran Nagavarapu — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 20:33:00 +0000

Google just announced design standards for applications on Android. Having three different Android devices at home, I have first hand experience of the UI fragmentation on the platform. However, Google needs to go beyond Android for design unification. Google is broader than mobile, and having design consistency is going to be crucial for a standard user experience across all Google properties.

Consider the Gmail app, and in particular the menu item to “Report Spam”, for example. I use three different flavors of GMail, and the design across the three avenues is not only non-intuitive, but inconsistent. Even with an abundance of access, I have yet to develop the sort of muscle memory that I would associate with the typical Google user interface.

On the desktop, it is part of a grouped threesome, and looks like a happy stop sign. And it's relative position remains the same whether I am in the inbox view or the message view. That feels like a UI that I could get used to.

On my Galaxy SII, the SPAM icon looks like an alien, with a varying location on the menu. When I select a thread from my inbox, it shows up as an option in first menu page. When I am within an email, however, it takes two menu clicks to get to the option.

Finally on my Thrive, it is an option available only on the overflow menu. While that might say a lot about how good Google thinks it's filters are, it still makes for a very annoying user experience.

Three form factors, and three different ways of thinking about Spam. It is time Google thought about design standards for across it's solutions, and not just for a platform.

Dynamic DNS on my Tomato Router

Ravi kiran Nagavarapu — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 20:46:00 +0000

Here is the problem statement - now that I had my router running a custom TomatoUSB build, I wanted to open it up to the Internet so that I could access my music and data from anywhere.

The first step though, was to establish a way to address my router via the Internet. Now, I get a dynamic IP address from my ISP; so I had to find a way to keep track of the latest address. The answer, of course, was to use a dynamic DNS (DDNS) solution, of which there are dozens available. But as it turned out, my case was more complicated than that.

I chose the FreeDNS service offered by afraid.org. Tomato firmware has native support for their dynamic DNS service built in. But more importantly the tagline on their website read “Why is it free? It's quite simple. We wanted a challenge... that's it.”.

To set my site up, I had to delegate the nameserver function for my domain to my hosting provider. My initial idea was to delegate a subdomain to the FreeDNS service, and then update the IP address directly from my router. Unfortunately my hosting provider did not allow delegation of sub-domains to a different DNS provider. In other words, they did not allow NS records to be created for their inconsequential customers like me. They only allowed A, TXT or CNAME records. CNAME records - that gave me a way out.

I created a sub-domain on one of the free domains provided by the FreeDNS service - in my case it was mooo.com. The name of the sub-domain did not really matter, any available one worked just fine. Then I set up my Tomato router to update the IP address of this sub-domain automatically.

Finally, I set-up a CNAME pointing a sub-domain from anarchius.org to the newly created sub-domain on mooo.com. Presto - sub-domain.anarchius.org now resolved to my WAN IP address. Here is how my DNS records look now:

There you are, Dynamic DNS on my Tomato router up and running, linked directly to my own domain. Bring on the possibilities.

Camera speed on Android

Ravi kiran Nagavarapu — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 11:58:00 +0000

Check out the photograph above. This was taken while traveling in a car. Of particular focus are the lines on the road - they are actually straight, but show up as curved in the photograph.

When cameras were first added to cell phones, they were small, slow and blurry. The sensors were tiny, the lenses were basically plastic and the processors were slow. While the megapixel count has gone up, the optics have gotten better, the biggest bottleneck still remains the processing speed.

At least the Android platform has taken an interesting approach to overcoming this processing speed bottleneck. It seems the sensor is read in sequence, line by line, starting from the top. The advantage with the approach is obvious - the camera can process one line at a time, keeping the picture sharp and well processed.

The side effect is the effect showing up in the picture above. The straight lines on the road, show up as curved because the car moved in the time between when the first line of the sensor was read and the last.

Impulse Purchase

Ravi kiran Nagavarapu — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 10:12:00 +0000

At long last, my Nokia 5800 has been retired from active service.

It has been replaced by my new Samsung Galaxy SII. And all this happened within a matter of a few hours.

I had been eyeing an Android phone for a while now. My first choice would have been the vanilla Nexus series - but they tend to be far too pricey and missing carrier specific frequency capabilities on their wireless chipsets. The next choice was the Galaxy series from Samsung. And that is when I saw this deal from RadioShack:

While this was about $50 more than the Black Friday deal from Radioshack, it was still a full $100 less than the discounted price on AT&T's website. And it hit my key checklist items.

A tried and tested phone chassis - the Galaxy S II is the second in the highly successful Galaxy series.
Minimal UI customization - unlike the HTC Sense UI, TouchWiz UI is relatively lightweight and optimized for speed.
A known upgrade path to Ice Cream Sandwich.
No known carrier hindrances to phone capabilities.
Speed and responsiveness.

The Galaxy SII hit all points on the checklist - making the decision to switch surprisingly quick and painless. And RadioShack was not that bad an experience, as far as the tactical switch went. On a side note, I need to remind myself that RadioShack is probably a better option for buying electronics when I want something outside the standard mainstream products.

RIP: my ageing Nokia 5800 - you were a trailblazer, and were better than you had any reason to be. Yet, the trail was left cold after you, for no fault of yours. You will be missed.

TomatoUSB on Netgear 3500L

Ravi kiran Nagavarapu — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 18:30:00 +0000

Upgrading a Netgear 3500L to the latest TomatoUSB build. This worked for me as of December 01, 2011 - with no guarantees that will work for you or at any other time.

Required ingredients:

The trailed DD-WRT build to perform the first upgrade. Filename: dd-wrt.v24-15704_NEWD-2_K2.6_mini-WNR3500L.chk
The correct TomatoUSB version - Build 54, Kernel 2.6, CPU MIPSR2 and feature-set Extras or Ext. This is what I used, but you might check the latest version here. Filename: tomato-K26USB-1.28.9054MIPSR2-beta-Ext.rar
WinRAR or 7-zip or a related utility to unzip the RAR file.
Some timer - either an app on your phone or a watch with a seconds hand.
A pushpin of some sort.
A printout of a document that looks something like this.
A laptop or desktop of some kind that has a working modern browser.

Procedure:

Ensure your firmware files are identified, available and ready to go. See above for the two files you need to keep available. Use WinRAR or 7-Zip to unzip the .rar file. You will get a .trx file along with a changelog. Rename the .trx extension to .bin.
Connect your computer to the router using an Ethernet cable, if you do not have extra cords, use the one which used to connect the router to the external WAN. In either case, ensure the External WAN is disconnected.
Set your computer to a static IP of 192.168.1.8 (Ensure you are doing this to the wired LAN connection)
Perform a 30-30-30 reset using your push-pin on the depressed reset button on the back of the router. You might want to use the timer to ensure you are actually keeping it depressed for 30 seconds.

Wait for the router to boot back up. Using your browser, head over to http://192.168.1.1, and use your default credentials login: admin and password: password to log in.
Using the Upgrade option on the Netgear admin menu, use the .chk file you downloaded from the DD-WRT site. Note you are not using the bigger TomatoUSB firmware yet.
Wait, no seriously wait. Wait till the lights get back to normal. Wait. Wait to see that you can access the new admin interface.
Perform the 30-30-30 reset. Wait for the router to come back up.

Now head back over to http://192.168.1.1. You should be automatically logged in, but instead will be asked to set an admin account with password. You can set this to be whatever you want, your firmware is just about to be flashed.
Go to the Administration tab and then Firmware Upgrade sub-tab. Select the TomatoUSB file that you extracted from the RAR archive and renamed to a .bin file.
Again wait. For all the frenzy to subside. After you can see the router administration page again, wait some more.
Perform another 30-30-30 reset. Wait for the router to come back up.
Again head back over to http://192.168.1.1. Login using the Tomato default credentials: no login required and password: admin
Set up basic wireless services, located under. Disconnect the Ethernet cord, reconnect the router to the WAN network, get-up sit on the couch and continue configuring your brand new router firmware.
And yes, keep away the push-pin, the timer and set your wired connection back to dynamic IP.

That was it, and if you have been following along, my Toshiba thrive connects beautifully to the new router via SMB and I can now access all the media I have on my RAID, wirelessly over the home WiFi network. Cloud anyone?

Freedom to hack: 1 - Closed systems:0.

Upgrading my Netgear 3500L

Ravi kiran Nagavarapu — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 20:53:00 +0000

The story so far...

My tablet could not access my ReadyShare NAS that ran on my Netgear 3500L. So far, it seemed as if the problem was with the router and it's implementation of SMB. After much wrangling of hands, cussing of SMB and praising the virtues of hackable gadgets, I decided to change the stock firmware on my router.

My Open Router, is a great resource for available after-market firmware. It also has that typical Open Source lack of polish, that makes the process of re-flashing a real journey - filled with uncertainty and trepidation. Here is an example, the initial page for the 3500L has a total of 5 open source options, and the very first article after the review is a “de-bricking” tutorial. If you were not aware, bricking happens when you mess things up so bad, that the only true use of your cuboidal device is to use it as - you guessed it - a brick.

The key with open source projects is to just jump in and start reading. Do not try to form an approach - you will mostly be wrong. The most useful nuggets are mostly hidden - like the curiously named Peacock thread, or Redhawk0's firmware recommendation thread. If you were planning on using DD-WRT, you should not be touching the reset button without reading both these threads.

After about 30 tabs worth of reading, I learnt a few things. In no particular order, but relevant to me were...

Doing the 30-30-30 reset.
If you do not do a 30-30-30 before and after a firmware upgrade, you could brick your device.
There are two kinds of kernels used in firmwares - 2.4 and 2.6, use the wrong one and you could brick your device.
There are different types of builds - using a Mega build could brick my particular device.
If you try to reboot routers too quickly within the flashing phase, you could brick your router.
Trailed builds, are builds specific to a particular router. They do not have all the features or a regular build, but are critical to get off the original stock firmware. Use the wrong trailed build, and you could brick your router.

And everything you learnt above had caveats, which could also cause you to brick your router.

Anyway, after several days of researching, and figuring out what my priorities were, I decided to skip the DD-WRT in favor of a different sort of firmware called Tomato, and in particular a fork called TomatoUSB, that seemed most appropriate. I still had to upgrade to the DD-WRT trailed build to get off the stock firmware, but that was only a rest-stop on the upgrade path.

Next post, doing the actual upgrade.

My little Tablet problem

Ravi kiran Nagavarapu — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 20:10:00 +0000

My Thrive had a problem - no, not the earlier one with the cracked screen, but a different sort of a problem.

About an year ago, I set up an inexpensive Terabyte RAID accessible on our home wireless network - a free cloud if you please. All my photos are on said cloud, and I had hoped to use my new Thrive to actually browse through and check my photos out in style. Part of the reason to get a tablet, was to consume my own media.

Here is where standards were supposed to help. My router was technically capable of sharing the Terabyte via either HTTP, FTP or most importantly SMB (essentially Windows Share). And my Tablet was supposed to be able to browse via SMB. But, try as I might, I just did not seem to work.

I tried all the usual suspects ASTRO File Manager, AndSMB Samba Client, File Manager HD and ES File Manager. All of which had rave reviews, all talking about successful connections to other Windows machines.

But none of them seemed to work. Out of character for me - I created new accounts on two Thrive Forums, to ask for help - no luck there either.

After three days of frustration, I began to realize something. Maybe the problem was not with the Thrive at all. Maybe, the problem was with the router, that was just unable to play nice with all SMB clients, including that on the Thrive.

Luckily, here is where my obsession for freedom began to pay off. My router is a Netgear 3500L. It is about the closest to a poster child for open hackable routers, that one can buy. A fact that Netgear actually advertises on the flier for the router itself. So I figured I'd flash my router, and hopefully make the newer version of SMB play nice with my Tablet.

Whether that worked is another story, but the moral of the current post is this - having freedom is awesome. It opens up possibilities and opportunities. It makes you focus on answers, not problems. And it is green too - who knows, I could have been tempted to buy a new router and chuck this one out, instead of trying to fix it.

Sense of accomplishment

Ravi kiran Nagavarapu — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 12:16:00 +0000

IKEA has always fascinated me.

It isn't just a case of aesthetics - I am not one to care for much in that department. Nor do I have a particular affinity to particle-board furniture. Rather, what attracted me to IKEA was the fact that they offered a rare commodity - a frustration-free sense of accomplishment.

Case in point. We recently bought a regular ol' sofa, and while I was setting it up I came upon a very unwelcome sight. The main drill holes that were meant to attach the base to the back, had been drilled incorrectly. I had two options, pack the whole sofa that I had just unpacked after lugging it into the house from the rented SUV and take it back, or drill a couple of holes and fix it myself. Naturally I chose the latter.

That is when the problems began - the biggest drill-bit I had was too small for the bolts. When I got the pilot holes in, they were slightly off where they had to be. And to make matters worse, I did not have a long enough cord for my drill and had to constantly switch to the nearest power outlet. In short I spent more effort and derived more frustration drilling two holes, than I did finishing up the rest of the assembly.

I am sure most of that has to do something with me, but that is beside the point.

Contrast that with the IKEA experience. No holes to drill, no tool bigger than a screwdriver and every nut & bolt accounted for. Nevermind that every board I pick up is little more than saw-dust compressed together with glue; or that the mirage of the perfect IKEA room can never materialize in real-life. What IKEA sells is the experience - one that starts from impossibly perfect model rooms, to the warehouse with meticulously numbered aisles and bins, to the involved yet easy construction.

A frustration-free sense of accomplishment.

Nokia 5800: the phone never quits

Ravi kiran Nagavarapu — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 11:26:00 +0000

All said and done, Nokia has impressed me with their steadfast loyalty to their first ever touchscreen phone, my Nokia 5800. It has been close to three years since it's release, and over 2.5 years that I have owned it, and the company continues to roll out significant upgrades to the phone.

The latest upgrade puts the firmware version at v60.0.003.

A couple of differences with the present upgrade - this did not happen over the air (OTA) as most of the other upgrades, signifying that this is a pretty important change. Secondly, the notification of the upgrade went through the new Updates module, signifying another milestone for Nokia in having a deployment method that actually works.

The biggest change seems to be the browser. Called Anna - the latest browser has a much better UI compared to the previous one and seems more stable upon initial use. Memory management seems to have gotten better, as there is more free space available. And playing catch-up the current upgrade includes a “Slide to Unlock” option to unlock the screen.

Maybe the Nokia 5800 is the perfect test-bed to check new features on - extra large installed base that are conveniently segregated by Product Codes; a phone with a strong hardware spec that does not seem seriously dated three years in; and a group of customers that Nokia desperately wants to keep in the family and not lose to the iOS or Android camps. Whatever be the reason, the upgrades are rolling out and for that, we are thankful.

My Toshiba Thrive's Screen Cracks

Ravi kiran Nagavarapu — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 08:39:00 +0000

Sunday did not start well for my Thrive. I settled down with a cup of coffee to consume some video material, while using a soft cloth to gently wipe down the fingerprints on the screen. Halfway through the video watching my left hand, which was holding the tablet, started to ache. So I switched hands, when I noticed this hairline crack right under where I had just been holding it.

As I was saying, Sunday did not start well for me either.

We obviously went into a tizzy, trying to figure out what went wrong - did we drop it (no), did we crack it against something (no), was there a goblin in the house that goes about cracking LCD screens (no). Until the answer was fairly obvious, the glass cracked as I was holding the tablet one-handed and cleaning screen while watching a video.

Turns out, I was not the only case of this happening. Amazon has an eerily similar story, another dealing with a hairline crack and one with a peel-off LCD. Others have stories of shattered glass after a short drop. ThriveForums.org has this heroic tale of a dropped tablet and it's reincarnation.

Now here is my experience. I called up Toshiba on their customer support number (1-800-457-7777) to see if this would be covered by the standard warranty - No. They suggested I instead contact their out of warranty repair services. Turns out their starting quote for repairing the LCD is $354. Which is about $55 more than what I paid for the tablet.

In summation, the warranty does not cover it, and repairing it costs more than what I paid for the tablet. The obvious choice, I thought, was to kiss the warranty goodbye and do it myself. That is when it started to really stink.

NPD (National Parts Depot) is the parts supplier for Toshiba in the US. At the beginning of the year, they carried the replacement touchscreen and (4) sponges for $82 plus shipping. At some point, Toshiba stopped fulfilling orders for that part, and instead started to just sell the top case assembly for $180 plus shipping.

I get that LCD screens crack. I understand if it is too expensive for Toshiba to repair it for me. But when it feels like Toshiba systematically believes it needs to make money by making cheap parts scarce - it is time to stop encouraging such companies. Sorry guys, no more Toshiba purchases from me. I am just going to use the Thrive as-is and see how long it lasts, while buying exactly diddly-squat worth of accessories.

Thanks for leaving a really bad taste in the mouth.

Thrive upgrading to Android 3.2

Ravi kiran Nagavarapu — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 22:33:00 +0000

Just had my Toshiba Thrive tell me that it has a system update waiting for me, to upgrade the Android version from Honeycomb 3.1 to 3.2. This is obviously the first step in the hopes of an eventual upgrade to Ice Cream Sandwich.

The upgrade is a significant one and it is recommended that you do this over a WiFi connection and with the charger plugged in.

All did not start well with the upgrade however. The first attempt seemed to have bricked the gadget. The tablet did not restart and the on/off button wouldn't make any impression on it. However, once I removed the battery and replaced it, the upgrade continued as if nothing had happened.

Here is the new version!

More impressions once I've had a chance to play with the device more.

Pre-installed crud on the Thrive

Ravi kiran Nagavarapu — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 18:33:00 +0000

Now that I've had a bit of time to play with my new fondle-slab, it is time to delve a bit more into what seems to be an odd philosophy from Toshiba in putting together the Thrive. The tablet comes with a near-vanilla version of the Android Honeycomb 3.1 OS, with a few useful Toshiba customizations and utilities. Then there is a curious collection of trial-ware and general crud, topped off with a collection of basic Google mobile goodies. Very little thought seems to have gone into in this - almost as if Toshiba was trying to be recklessly indifferent to its customers.

First the good news - full marks for minimal changes to the stock Honeycomb installation. Keeps the tablet zipping along without additional overhead while keeping the option open for future upgrades (Ice Cream Sandwich anyone?). That said, there aren't too many indications that Toshiba is going to upgrade, unlike Samsung or HTC.

There is then the matter of custom tools that Toshiba built for the occasion. They range from the very useful, like the Service Station and File Manager to the bug-ridden Media Player and the after-thoughts like the App Place and BookPlace™. The App Place is the strangest. It does not offer much more than the Android Marketplace, is not mandatory and yet is an app one cannot uninstall. Clearly as useful as the points system on Who's line is it anyway?.

If Toshiba's app collection is a puzzle, it's third party catalog is a disaster. Outside of the plugins for Adobe® AIR® and Flash, the rest are trial versions of tools that we probably have better, free alternates available for. To add insult to injury, one cannot uninstall them - not even when you buy the full version.

I get that there is an economic reason to include trial versions, but the inability to uninstall is little more than spite. If ever the argument was, “Hey, we think these are must-have apps, so try them out and buy them so we can a cut of the revenue”, there is no sign of it. Instead, the pitch now is, “I don't know or care if you like these apps, but because others have uninstalled them in the past, we are not gonna let you.”. Seems like a rather haphazard way of gaining supporters among your customers. Just try searching for Kaspersky+ Thrive and you can sense the frustration.

Dictating how you want others to use your device is a futile exercise - Apple gets away with it, because they can. Toshiba cannot. So whoever is making the final call on what to include and what not to, remember this - you are not Apple. Don't act like them.

8 post-apocalyptic survival movies

Ravi kiran Nagavarapu — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 15:07:00 +0000

A collection of movies dealing with life after a deadly epidemic. These are stories of grit, survival and the occasional heart-skipping scare. Includes some obvious choices and some obscure ones.

Pandorum

Despite feeling like a breathless tale from the mind of an super imaginative youngster, Pandorum manages to tell a tale of apocalypse, horror, bravery and hope. All the while masquerading as a scifi flick. For the majority of the movie, things happen. Characters come and go, violently. Story is revealed, twisted, hidden and revealed again. And there is a nice quest built into the movie that arcs across the storyline, making this feel, at times, like a space-age Indiana Jones episode.

Pandorum is a quintessential post-apocalytic movie, set in a space-ship at the end of human life on earth. In addition to a gritty bleak setting and scary creatures in the shadows, the movie explores the ability of the human race to survive - not matter how great the cost.

Carriers

Carriers is one of the tamest Zombie movies, if you could even call it that. It is a slow and haunting exploration of survival after a viral apocalypse. Centered around two brothers, and their search for a childhood paradise, Carriers is both noble in it's honesty and profound in its selfishness. The undead of this movie are not animated corpses; instead they are pathetic survivalists united by their unwavering capacity to be infected without recourse.

Two brothers and their girl friends are escaping a world-wide epidemic of an infectious and deadly virus. Their path to survival is based on strict rules - to never come in contact with other infected people. No matter what happens and who the infected may be. When one of them becomes infected with the deadly virus, the resolve of the group in following the rules is painfully tested. It is a simple premise with a heart warming execution.

28 Days Later

What I am Legend is to New York City, 28 Days Later is to London and all of Great Britain. One of those sublime opportunities to see parts of UK completely uninhabited.

Animal rights activists attack a secret Government testing facility, releasing chimpanzees infected with a highly communicable viral disease. In a cruel twist of massive irony, this releases the deadly virus into the open ravaging UK over a period of 28 days, killing most people and leaving a few ravenously hungry for human flesh.

As with the rest of the movies on this list, the story is ultimately about survival - in all its myriad forms. And it is also a story of bravery, and valuing others more than one self.

28 Weeks Later

28 weeks later is the sequel to the more famous 2002 movie - 28 days later. As it turns out, during the initial disaster of the rage virus, Don and his wife Alice try to survive by locking themselves in their own house. When the infected attack and are able to overpower the defenses, Don escapes leaving Alice behind.

Six months after the infection, a NATO army has secured parts of London to set up base for uninfected English citizens to return and repopulate the country. Don and Alice's children return from their vacation in Spain, but escape the security perimeter to retrieve personal possessions from their home. To their surprise they discover a delirious but living Alice.

Their joy turns out to be short lived, as the virus seemingly is not fully extinct yet.

The Crazies

The Crazies is post-apocalyptic, not for the entire world but for an unfortunate town in Iowa, that receives a unexpected dose of toxins from a plane crash. As residents begin to turn into violent psychopaths, the Sheriff David (Timothy Olyphant) has to rally the survivors to fight, while trying to figure out what really went wrong.

The movie has elements of the expected Government conspiracy, nicely intertwined with human monsters and a quest for survival. By setting up the conflict between the innocent and powerless townsfolk and the big bad Government that only wants to weaponize deadly viruses, the stage is all too predictable. What makes the movie different is it's merciless cinematography. There are no long eulogies or subtle point making. Just a frenzied will to escape and survive.

12 Monkeys

12 Monkeys is a scintillating science fiction story, of improbable actions and personal demons. But first and foremost, it is a post-apocalyptic survival movie. A man-made virus, released deliberately in several locations across the world, has destroyed a large part of human civilizations. The survivors have gone underground, but yearn to return to the surface. When they develop time-travel, such an opportunity presents itself.

James Cole (Bruce Willis) is a disturbed prisoner, who is chosen to go back in time to just before the world-wide epidemic and track down the group calling itself "The Army of 12 Monkeys", which is believed to be responsible for the disaster. Cole survives multiple attempts at time travel and eventually reaches the correct time period; while his inner demons have grown more vociferous. As he begins to learn more about himself and the 12 monkeys, he also realizes that there is more to the mission than his briefing.

An atmospheric whodunit set against an inevitable mass extinction.

I am Legend

I am Legend is probably the most expected movie on this list. When a plague destroys most in New York and turns the rest into sunlight-hating blood-thirsty monsters, Robert Neville (Will Smith) and his faithful dog are determined to keep their sanity and lives. Following a strict survival regimen, they roam the eerily empty streets of the city during day, and retire to a fortified house to survive the night.

The plan seems to be working, giving Neville time to work on a vaccine for the infected. Till one day he is caught in a trap, sprung by the infected who are waiting in the shadows for darkness so they can get their hands on him. Even though unexpected help shows up in the form of a traveling Anna (Alice Braga), Neville has to decide between pursuing his tentative search for a vaccine and fighting for his humanity one last time.

This is not the first attempt at making the original book into a movie, but for those of you who have not read the book; the movie is not a bad way to start thinking about living alone in New York City.

9

After a devastating war between machines and humans, all humans are seemingly destroyed. A rag doll named 9 comes to life. After being attacked by a machine called the Beast, 9 meets others like him, numbered rag dolls that are able to survive the wrath of the machines by hiding and sneaking around.

When 2 is taken by the Beast, 9 organizes the remaining rag dolls on a daring and desperate attempt at rescue. As the rag dolls organize themselves and begin to fight the machines, they realize that they are also carrying precious cargo, that could hold the key to human salvation.

9 is a stylistic look at a post-apocalyptic life, without humans. But the rag dolls are, unbeknownst to them, more human than they realize.

Obvious omissions

The list is obviously missing two mainstream movie series - the Matrix trilogy and the Terminator quadrilogy. For obvious reasons - they are among the most well known movies of this genre and I'll not add much by including them to this list. You've either seen them, or this genre is probably not of much interest to you.

There you are - 8 movies with the best advice on what to do when the world ends tomorrow.

X-Men: First Class (movie review)

Ravi kiran Nagavarapu — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 09:41:00 +0000

X-Men: First class is a fitting addition to the mutant franchise; a movie that is an enjoyable tale in itself, while filling in some of the back-story for the major characters in the earlier movies. While it does have some overly dramatic scenes, typical of comic adaptations, the script feels more like a regular science fiction movie. And that is a good thing, especially after the super-intense X-Men Origins. This episode of the saga feels young, fresh and enjoyable.

X-Men: First Class, covers the period in time when mutants were not generally known, and Charles Xavier and Magneto were still young men each coming to terms with their own destinies. Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) is born into a well to do family, and has finished his schooling in London, appropriately majoring in matters related to the mutation of the human genome. Growing up with a young and self-conscious Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) he has always known there were other mutants in the world, but regards it as little more than an academic exercise, until a fateful meeting with a CIA agent. Meanwhile, Magneto / Erik Lehnsherr (Michael Fassbender) has grown up in a very different world. Living in Nazi concentration camps, and having a doctor take special interest in his abilities, Magneto has grown up with a deep-seated hatred for authority of all kinds and an acute awareness of his difference from all other humans.

When the doctor in the Nazi camp Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon) turns out to be a mutant himself, with a goal to push the cold-war era US and Russia into a nuclear war, Magneto and Charles Xavier realize that working together is the only way to stop Dr. Shaw.

McAvoy is perfect as the intellectual Charles Xavier, whose naive charm eventually morphs into the hallmark smile of the character. This was one of the strongest characters in the movie, interpreted well from the character to be. Fassbender's Magneto is a distant second; there are aspects of the persona that shine through, but the magnetic persona of Ian McKellen is missing from his younger self. The remaining characters are interesting in their own right, not necessarily as a continuation of the series. Also the question about origins of X-Men technology is answered - much of it was researched on CIA dollar, during the cash-hungry cold war era. It does make ironic sense.

Being set during the Cuban missile crisis is presumptuous, even for an X-Men movie, but the script does a remarkable job of pulling it off. There are moments of anachronistic irregularity, but they pass quickly into the background. Stylistically, the movies borrows heavily from the original movies, including actual footage of a young Magneto in the concentration camps (from the first X-Men movie). The training session of the first class of mutants, is one of the more well done comic book looks in any movie.

Finally the movie is visually impressive. The initial part of the movie is heavy on the story, leading to the climax of bombs, explosions and two armies standing by.

As far as the mythos of the X-Men series goes, First Class is a crucial piece of the puzzle. With a story that deserves to be told, and a cast that is carefully chosen, there is not much that is wrong with the prequel-sequel. If mutation is something you looked forward to after the original X-Men, this is the movie you would do well not to miss.

Dhobi Ghat (Mumbai Diaries)

Ravi kiran Nagavarapu — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 19:41:00 +0000

Movies about Mumbai are many. Mumbai Diaries (Dhobi Ghat), joins their ranks, not as a pretender but as a rightful contender in the list of intelligent and appealing movies from and about Mumbai. The movie follows four of Mumbai's citizens, each very different from the other, but all inevitably entwined together. The stories are heartfelt and human, thought provoking without being pedantic and in their own way eye-opening without being shocking.

Shai (Monica Dogra) is an investment banker, currently on sabbatical from work and has a penchant for photography. Arun (Aamir Khan) is a modern painter, successful, loner and possessive of his independence. Yasmin (Kriti Malhotra) is a new bride in the city, having accompanied her husband from the north of the country. She is making a video of herself and the city for her brother, who has never been to Mumbai. Finally there is Munna (Prateik Babbar), a hardworking "dhobi" from the infamous city slums, who dreams the quintessential dream, to one day become an actor in Bollywood.

The movie is a tale of relationships between the different characters. The most complicated is between Shai and Munna. Munna, a hardworking young man, is used to his place in the stratified socio-economic class system of modern Mumbai. Shai, with a predominantly western attitude towards social interactions, treats him very differently - first as a fellow human being, then as a true friend. This leaves a very confused Munna, seeking something more than friendship. Unbeknownst to him, his understanding of the nature of their relationship also holds the key to his personal redemption.

The relationship between Arun and Shai is, in a certain way, more typical yet just as intriguing. Born of a late night filled with too much alcohol, it waxes and wanes, drifting between rejection and obsession. In a certain way their dance reminds one the relationship between the western world and India - pointedly indifferent and sometimes fascinated.

Finally there is the particularly heart-wrenching journey of Yasmin, as seen by Arun through the un-mailed tapes he finds in his new apartment. The tapes start off with the happiness of a new bride in Mumbai, with its alluring lights and fascinating sights. And then as life settles in, and the realities start to take hold, the excitable child must grow up - no matter how big the cost.

Dhobi Ghat reaches no conclusions. It is a brief window into the workings of a modern Indian city, sometimes confused, sometimes unfair but mostly business as usual.

Restraint

Ravi kiran Nagavarapu — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 22:20:00 +0000

Restraint is a slow, low-budget, psychological thriller that punches way above it's weight class without seeming out of place. The setup was pretty good if not entirely plausible, and the ending was the weakest part of the movie. Yet, with a strong cast, the story keeps the audience well and truly involved right up until the end.

Ron (Travis Fimmel) and Dale (Teresa Palmer) are running from a double murder spree. In search of a hiding place, they stumble upon a mansion in the middle of nowhere, which is inhabited by an agoraphobic man Andrew (Stephen Moyer). What starts off as a house invasion and hostage scenario quickly turns interesting when Andrew offers Ron and Dale forty thousand dollars to leave him alive. The catch is that Dale has to impersonate Andrew's fiancee to withdraw the money from a bank.

At the risk of infuriating Ron, Andrew begins trying to turn Dale against her boyfriend. Slowly the allure of life in the well off society begins to contrast with that of a renegade accomplice, as Dale begins to question her life with Ron. As the high-stakes battle of power between Andrew and Ron comes to a head, Dale becomes the decisive factor.

Fimmel is brilliant as the unstable and reckless Ron. There is a sense of scary naivete about the character that is terrifying. Moyer is equally, if not more, brilliant as Ron's exact opposite. Outside of his fear of open spaces, Andrew is the cultured yet scheming man. In places he is decidedly creepier than Ron. In comparison Dale is the flaky one. Young, directionless, she seems to float towards strength - an idea reinforced by her transformation from brunette into blonde in the movie.

The remaining characters in the movie are just the backdrop for the unfolding story, and never really interfere with the narrative. In that sense the movie has a feeling of isolation. Even though there are some scenes shot outside of the huge mansion, it feels like the mansion was the only location in the movie. While it suffers from less expensive production values, Restraint is a cast-driven movie that is worth watching if you are into psychological thrillers.

Insomnia

Ravi kiran Nagavarapu — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 19:42:00 +0000

"The end justifies the means, right?"

Insomnia feels like a movie you have seen before. Yet there is something compelling about this murder mystery set in the never ending Alaskan summer days, layered with naivety, dishonesty, and malice.

Under investigation by Internal Affairs, embattled cop Will Dormer (Al Pacino) and his partner Hap Eckhart (Martin Donovan) have been sent to a small town in Alaska, to investigate the horrible death of a teenage girl. Situated by the Arctic Circle Nightmute Alaska is a place where the sun never sets during summer. In pursuit of the killer, Dormer accidentally shoots his partner, but due to a series of circumstances goes with the story that it was killer who shot Eckhart.

Dormer is then contacted by Walter Finch (Robin Williams), who not only confesses to the murder of the girl, but blackmails Dormer about knowing that he shot his partner. As Dormer struggles with lack of sleep, he finds himself being pulled deeper into a series of lies, deception and working with the killer to frame an innocent boy for the girl's murder. His only saving grace may be the young officer Ellie Burr (Hilary Swank), who is investigating the death of Eckhart and may hold the moral compass Dormer so desperately needs.

The story is interesting, but fairly commonplace. What makes the difference is the casting of Al Pacino and Robin Williams. With his stone faced expression, Pacino has the unusual knack of demonstrating a wide range of emotions - guilt, frustration, anger and compassion - all the while looking like he just woke up. Robin Williams is brilliant. There is an underlying steel to the local crime thriller writer that makes him way more creepier than one-hour photo ever did with the glasses and ginger hair. Swank is perfect as the starry eyed detective, that struggles with the idea that her idol may have been the guy that killed his own partner.

Christopher Nolan's screenplay is in no hurry. The camera switches between modes of intense character scrutiny, and wide, lazy panoramic shots that make you nostalgic about a place you have never been to. If Fargo was the initial purveyor of the snow covered desolate countryside, Insomnia took it up a notch by adding in the eternal sun. Through out the movie there is a distinct cloud cover, that adds a melancholy undertone, capturing the mood of the narrative.

Netflix had this in my suggested movies list for the longest time, and for some reason I never added this to the queue. I have been a tad skeptical of star-powered movies. But now that I have seen it, I am glad I did. Now I can sleep in peace.

The Adjustment Bureau

Ravi kiran Nagavarapu — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 19:15:00 +0000

The Adjustment Bureau is not the story of the Adjustment Bureau. It is not an allegory that tells you something you do not already know about free will. What it is, is a well-crafted tale that exalts free will, at the same time subtly disparaging it's impetuous nature. It is a character driven science fiction movie, whose approach to story telling is diametrically opposite to that of Inception.

David Norris (Matt Damon) is a successful, brash politician who seems to be on the brink of winning a seat in the US Senate. On the day that he unexpectedly loses the election, he meets a beautiful contemporary ballet dancer Elise Sellas (Emily Blunt). The two hit it off, like a match made in heaven. Unfortunately, as David begins to fall for Elise, he comes face to face with a set of people who seem to hold the invisible strings of fate in their hands. Known as the Adjustment Bureau, they possess singular powers, are able to manipulate luck and are always in the background gently guiding the world according to what is known as "the plan". Because the plan prohibits David and Elise getting together, David finds himself facing insurmountable opposition to his being with her. Eventually David must decide if he can afford to defy those who hold the strings of fate, for what feels like the love of his life.

The bureau itself is both the star and the background of the movie. Represented by the field workers who are responsible for executing mundane tasks called for by the plan, the bureau feels like a vast, bumbling, benevolent bureaucracy. Of all the evil empires in the history of cinema, this is probably the closest that Hollywood got to a real evil empire. Where a single infraction does not get the protagonist an audience with the head of the organization and the clueless minions are the only real face of the villain.

As could be expected, the story also deals with the nature of free will and it's expression. The good thing is that it never gets too preachy. There are no sermons, just personal epiphanies. But what is really telling is when David realizes that his attraction for Elise may just be because an earlier version of the plan called for it. By choosing to ignore this, David shows free will as an expression of the now, unencumbered by its pedigree.

Emily Blunt is the most vibrant part of the movie, the rest of the characters are either politicians or men in black. Screenplay is quick and pacey. The effects are well done, but generally keep out of the way.

The Adjustment Bureau does not have much of a shelf life, I wouldn't watch it a second time. But for the time I did invest in it, it was a thoughtfully made movie that respected my time. And I had more than enough invested in the characters and their love story to stay interested throughout the movie. Don't worry about this being called a science fiction movie. It could be just as easily be labelled romance, without upsetting a lot of people. After all, it is your free will to do that.

Isolation

Ravi kiran Nagavarapu — Tue, 31 May 2011 20:46:00 +0000

There are not many things in the world that can combine the words bovine and terror and get away with it. Isolation does it, and only barely manages to scrape through. Teetering between an atmospheric horror movie and a creature feature, Isolation has a few good scenes, but on the whole falls short of being a memorable tale.

In a isolated farm (hence the title of the movie) a farmer Dan (John Lynch) agrees to have his cattle used for illegal genetic experiments. With a veterinarian Orla (Essie Davis) and the rogue scientist John (Marcel Iures) in charge, Dan quickly realizes that he does not know the world of trouble he has signed himself up for. And when it comes time for the cow to give birth, Dan has to ask for the help of a young vagrant couple for help.

Which is when all hell begins to break loose. What spawns from the genetically modified bovine is part chest-burster, and part scurrying rodent with an ability to "infect" DNA. In the ensuing death and destruction, you realize the number of scary and disgusting places a farm can contain. There are hay filled cow pens, water logged corners, squeaky floor boards and of course the opportune failure of technology.

Despite being predictable, some of the scary scenes are well executed. Add in some realistic gore of animal autopsy, there are enough chills to keep you interested. The creature is old-school animatronics and that shows through. Some of the scenes are almost hilarious to the CGI trained eye. But through it all, what sticks with you is the dark atmosphere that permeates through each of the scenes. Setting horror movies in cloudy Irish weather seems almost natural - wonder why there aren't a lot more set in the cloudy highlands.

Isolation is not a novel horror movie. But as creature features go, this is a well made consistent flick that keeps you expecting something bad from the very first scene. Pity there isn't much that actually happens though.

Hanna

Ravi kiran Nagavarapu — Mon, 30 May 2011 20:53:00 +0000

Hanna tries to be too much in it's allotted 110 minutes. It is part drama, part action. It is a movie about the growing up of innocence, and the bite of truth. It is simultaneously a movie that is clearly inspired by the stylized action genre like Kill Bill or Sin City, yet it is a movie that takes itself too seriously. A movie, no matter how great, can reconcile some of these differences. For Hanna, notwithstanding how dangerously adorable she might be, the extremes it straddles on is one too many. It is no doubt a great movie, but the feeling at the end of it is less of fulfillment and more of abrupt emptiness.

Erik (Eric Bana) is a rogue agent, who is living in the cold arctic tundra, away from all civilization except for his daughter Hanna (Saoirse Ronan). Hanna, under the watchful and tough-love supervision of her dad, is developing the smarts of a soldier even thought she is just 16. The reason for their exile is the ruthless CIA handler Merissa (Cate Blanchett) who is determined at all costs to eliminate the duo. The training of Hanna ostensibly has a single purpose, to avenge the death of her mother, and break the hold Merissa has on their lives. For this, she learns to live off the land, martial arts and weapons combat, along with a smattering of European languages. While she has never known modern luxuries like electricity or music, she has trained hard to know everything that the encyclopedia has about them. This makes Hanna a strange sort of a teenager, knowledgeable and deadly but with no personal experiences.

When Hanna finally decides she is ready for her mission, she finds herself halfway around the world, in Morocco, trying to outwit a gang of killers on her trail while trying to figure out the workings of a electric switch and change channels on a television. One cannot help but question the training methods of her father, who resorted to a singularly isolated approach. Hanna's tentative exploration of the modern world is reminiscent of Mowgli, but for the fact that she also has to do what Jason Bourne himself was barely able to accomplish.

Thankfully, these irreconcilable differences are only apparently in hindsight. The narrative however, glosses over these differences to instead focus on Hanna herself. Ronan is great as the lead character. She has a natural sense of wonder, and quiet determination that serve her in good stead. The deep intensity she displayed in Atonement was definitely not a fluke. Bana seemed a little scattered. While it wasn't clear if this was by choice, it definitely was distracting.

The star of the movie however was Blanchett. Sharing screen time with the lead character, she had the glint of ruthless evil, which alone justified all the training in the world for Hanna. With an obsessive focus on dental cleanliness, Blanchett is stereotypical as the morality bereft CIA operative, and unique as one that seemed to gain nothing personally by being that way - the mark of pure evil. There are others that augment Blanchett's evil persona, and one in particular is Isaacs (Tom Hollander) a flamboyant assassin with a penchant for white suits, whistling and torture.

The movie's screenplay does well to stay clear of any plot explanations, instead constructing elaborate movie segments with little indication of the connection between them. Camera work was notable for one of the shallowest depth of field shots ever, millimeters under what was candle light. Music and the background score was the heartbeat of the movie. The techno funk track, with its catchy leitmotif is responsible for setting the tempo for all the action scenes.

Jason Bourne is the gold standard for rogue CIA operative redemption. It is certain that any future rogue operative movies would only try to up the stakes. But a 16 year old who has never known anyone other than her own father, is probably taking it too far. No matter how much you don't want your mind to intrude, there is only so much your heart can take before it too begins to demand answers. Answers neither Hanna nor her screenplay writers are able to provide.

Limitless

Ravi kiran Nagavarapu — Sun, 29 May 2011 19:45:00 +0000

Limitless is more fun than it ought to be. With an idea as trite as a drug to access the hidden potential within your own head, this ought to have either been a painful super-hero movie or a morality missive about the pros and cons of meddling with nature. In fact it is neither. Instead, it is an absorbing caper, sort of a crime thriller, that has just the right mix of twists and turns.

Eddie Morra (Bradley Cooper) is a wannabe writer, with a severe case of being an abject failure. He is spineless, racked by issues of self-esteem, and is a mute spectator watching his life spiral down the drain. When his gorgeous girl-friend Lindy (Abbie Cornish) leaves him in what can only be described as a subdued break-up, Morra has hit rock bottom and does not even know it. Which is when he meets his drug-dealing ex-brother-in-law Vernon (Johnny Whitworth), who slips him a transparent pill, that is supposed to allow Morra to access his brain's full potential.

The pill, called NZT, does all that it is supposed to do and more. Not only does it open him up to his own mind, it also opens his life up to a series of seedy characters - who either want to take advantage of him or steal his acquired stash of NZT. There is Carl Van Loon (Robert De Niro), the ruthless multi-billionaire who is Morro's one shot at monetizing his newly acquired capabilities. Gennady (Andrew Howard) is Morro's seed capital for when the latter begins to use his new-found prowess in the stock market. And finally there is the mysterious man in the tan coat (Tomas Arana), who seems to know everything about NZT and is determined to do everything in his power to steal some.

The characters have a healthy dose of the familiar characteristics. The thug is thuggish, the billionaire is ruthless, the girlfriends are supportive yet oblivious and the ex-girlfriends are mysteriously shy. Yet, played by a well chosen cast, this quickly gets the introductions out of the way, keeping the focus firmly on the unfolding story. And it is an interesting story. In the high of NZT, Morro makes new friends, money and enemies. While he is still sorting out which is which, he realizes that the drug does have a side-effect, massive blackouts and unbearable withdrawal symptoms. While the plots to obtain his stash materialize, Morro realizes that he is counting down to madness or death.

The screenplay is light and quick, never getting too bogged down by the story. This leaves enough ends unresolved, that is both annoying and intriguing. The visuals are well suited, one particular effect is the difference between pre and post NZT ingestion, as the world perceptibly brightens from a dull dinginess. Or the zoom in effect as the lens travels through New York - a bit different from the other ways this has been done before. The visual cues are reinforced by the sound track that is quick and pacey.

Bradley Cooper's self effacing commentary is spot on, setting the tone for the rest of the movie. Robert De Niro is as rugged as only he can be. Except for maybe Michael Douglas. While this is not intellectual thriller extraordinaire, the characters make the tale convincing. Limitless - is the number of ways this story could have been messed up. Thankfully, in choosing to be limited, Limitless was way more fun than it ought to be.

Beneath the Dark

Ravi kiran Nagavarapu — Sun, 08 May 2011 23:21:00 +0000

Morality tales couched as supernatural movies are a dime a dozen. While some movies focus on the supernatural, others on the horrific nature of the moral transgression. Beneath the Dark takes an underwhelming, egoistical tale of morality, and wraps it in a road-side motel thriller. The thrills are limited, the plot thin and the narrative tentative. Yet as horror-thrillers go, it keeps away from cheap thrills, making it a lot more watchable than many in the genre.

Paul (Josh Stewart) and Adrienne (Jamie-Lynn Sigler) are driving to LA to attend the wedding of one of Paul's fraternity brothers. Tired and after a close call running off the road, they decide to check into a motel deep in the Mojave desert. The motel, while seemingly unoccupied, has a variety of strange characters and stranger occurrences. All the characters seem to know a lot about Paul's past. Slowly Paul realizes that there is more to the motel than it let on, and that a dark secret in his past could hold the key to his redemption.

The movie has all the hallmarks of a slasher flick, and you keep expecting one of the characters to go all psycho. Instead, the characters are strangely reticent and restrained, which, feels a little underwhelming. The owner of the motel, Frank (Chris Browning), feels forever on the edge between contrition and vengeance - a feeling the back story wantonly encourages. Equally unsettling is an unnamed man (Afemo Omilami) who manages a fair bit of menace while trying not to sound forced. Frank's wife Sandy (Angela Featherstone) rounds out the trifecta of strangers. As a character she is one of the most important for the plot, yet manages to barely be in the spotlight. This takes away some of the mystery and punch.

The screenplay starts off slowly, always seemingly on the edge of breaking free. This gives us enough time to care about Paul and Andrea, and the story enough time to set the plot pieces up. There are several Christianity elements peppered in, but it does not commit to be fully Biblical. The background score is also there.

All in all, Beneath the Dark feels like a movie better than it is and in reality is a movie worse than it ought to be. There is a lot of promise, but it falls short of execution. Maybe it's genre-straddling lack of commitment had something to do with it, but you find yourself hoping something really bad happens. Something momentously horrific that would almost justify the building suspense. When that doesn't happen, it seems petty. While that is not particularly a great term to describe a horror movie or a psychological thriller, ultimately it was the pettiness beneath the dark that prevents it from becoming a really good film.

The King's Speech

Ravi kiran Nagavarapu — Sun, 08 May 2011 08:31:00 +0000

I'll run the risk of spoiling the ending; the king does do a great job with his speech. And even before you start the movie, you are well aware of this historical inevitability. However in the long and torturous path, leading the man with a stutter to the kingship of World War 2 England, lies a fascinating story of friendship, bravery and self-realization. Such is the story of King George VI, who came to the throne after the death of his father and abdication by his brother. The King's Speech is an account of one man's struggle with his own daemons, and the story of a reluctant king's rise to power during a time of incredible trial.

Colin Firth is unbelievable as the King. There is little that can be said about his performance, that hasn't been said before. He was almost perfect struggling to put his thoughts into words, and the abject, stifling fear that public speaking or even attention brought upon his person can only be seen to be believed.

The screenplay focuses exclusively on the speech impediment, often juxtaposed with an account of the personality of the Duke and ultimately the King. Almost too exclusively. By design this lends a one-dimensional aspect to the film, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but it unfortunately paints the man with just that one stroke. As a result the emotional drama is significantly emphasized over historical context, which again may not be a bad thing. Because this makes the movie appealing at a very personal context without the distraction of accuracy.

Which brings us to the speech therapist. Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush) is the enigmatic man that is as important a character in the story. Rush is positively inspired as the Australian man who developed his techniques assisting shell-shocked soldiers during the first World War. Peculiar, patient, amusing and irreverent, he makes you wish you had a teacher like that.

For a movie that did not care about historical storytelling there are several choices that were surprising. The one that stood out the most was casting and actually showing a Churchill on screen. Arguably one of the most well-known faces, casting Churchill is a challenge. Timothy Spall was a surprisingly good pick. Even if he did not look like Churchill, he definitely was not distracting by not feeling like Churchill. The king's wife, Queen Elizabeth (Helena Bonham Carter) was probably more cliched than most, as the strong yet supportive royalty. In a way she was the royal standard that measured the lack of congruence among the rest of the relationships.

The movie is a fascinating look at the pressures of expectation. That the pressures were for, arguably, the most important job in the world is only incidental. The movie is an emotional journey with travails and triumph. But at the core, it is a simple feel-good story that is both poignant and inspiring.

Salt

Ravi kiran Nagavarapu — Fri, 06 May 2011 17:46:00 +0000

Salt starts off as a movie trying too hard to be a slick action flick, then settles into a series scenes that are actually slick, before suddenly realizing it's success and becoming incredibly self-absorbed. It begins as a Bourne wannabe, but ends up as a Angelina Jolie adore-fest. While the movie wins no points for originality, it definitely makes it up with hard work. The screenplay works hard, the actors work hard and despite the ending our imaginations work hard. And like a hardworking puppy that wins you over, Salt compels you to keep watching despite all its inadequacies.

Evelyn Salt (Angelina Jolie) is a spy working for the CIA. In reality though, she is a secret double agent, planted by the Soviets as little more than a child. For decades she grew up in the US, successfully infiltrating the US spy service. Till one day her spymaster Orlov (Daniel Olbrychski) shows up to suddenly expose her. Finding herself between a rock and a hard place, Salt has to sort her own loyalties out, and deciding if she was going to stay true to her adopted country or heed the call of her motherland past and act as the trigger for "Day X" - an operation that includes punitive strikes against the US.

Yes, it is a good old sleeper cell story, spanning decades, with a strange throwback to the foes of yore. I am certain that part of the reason for making the movie PG-13 was because no one below that age would even care about Russians as the enemy. This anachronism isn't the only dissonance. The movie seems surprisingly short on extras to play security agents. As if the recession got to the Secret Service. This results in fight sequences that consist of long periods of running through empty corridors without meeting anyone.

All action movies require, no demand, a certain amount of naïveté. And they add a certain nugget of "knowledge" to the audience. Salt's is the use of a taser on the driver of a cop car to twitch his legs into stepping on the gas. Tase on low for 40 miles and hour and medium for 60.

Jolie is the earnest glue that keeps the movie together. Not knowing what her motivations are, keeps the entire sequence of events from sounding silly. Thankfully there are not too many background stories or clarifying voiceovers. That said, the term "Day X" could have used better nomenclature. A couple of action sequences are dizzyingly well done, explosions are limited, fights are meh, and the chases are mostly on foot. But all said and done, the movie stars Jolie. And that alone, as the producers would have surmised, makes the movie worth adding to the queue.

And they are not mistaken.

Just Go with It

Ravi kiran Nagavarapu — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 19:15:00 +0000

What happens when Adam Sandler stops squealing like a surprised pig in every scene? You get a comedy movie that is actually watchable in Just Go with It. While the screenplay is as predictable as they come, there is a certain simplicity to it that actually makes it fun. And with an adorable cast, this is a surprisingly heartfelt and funny chick-flick.

Danny (Adam Sandler) is a smart-mouth serial-womanizing plastic surgeon, who uses a made-up story about a horrible wife to make his move on women. His assistant is the stunningly hot, yet under-appreciated Katherine (Jennifer Aniston), who is a single mother with two adorable kids - Maggie (Bailee Madison) and Michael (Griffin Gluck). When Danny meets a stunningly hot dumb blonde Palmer (Brooklyn Decker), and gets caught up in the story about his imaginary family, he has to look to Katherine and her kids to stand in.

The plot is as expected. The hot chicks are curiously hidden in plain view till they buy expensive clothes and high heels. Guys can be all the pigs they want, till they meet the hidden hottie and suddenly become amenable to settling down. And the kids are all grown up till there is a game night, and they suddenly break down yearning for a missing parent.

The kids perhaps are one of the best aspects of the movie. Between them faking a British and mafia accents, the two are hilarious. Between them they manage to carry most of the scenes with aplomb. And where the kids are absent, a quiet(er) Sandler cracks a few funny ones himself. Aniston is just herself; and by that I mean Rachel from Friends. The rest of the cast pitch in with their own brand of crazy that includes German accents and gay husbands.

Sandler comedies started going downhill right after he realized he was funny. Somewhere after Click, I decided not to watch a Sandler movie again. This movie however, was a surprising and welcome change. Not only was it funny, it added a few memes to pop culture - like "making a Devlin". And when you have to do something like that, listen to the advice from the movie - and just go with it.

Intacto

Ravi kiran Nagavarapu — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 12:36:00 +0000

There is fate, and then there is luck. But what if that wasn't always so, and luck was something you could use to change what can be. What if you could choose to deploy your luck to make the finger of chance point your way. Intacto takes that idea and runs with it. Inhabiting a world populated by a cast of mysterious characters, uniquely seedy games and obsessive cops, Intacto is an bewitching look at a life of pure luck and chance.

The premise of the movie is unique. Everyone has a certain amount of luck, some more than others. The luckiest are those who tend to take the luck of others around them - like the lone survivors of plane crashes for example. Some are inherently lucky while others have the ability to steal luck from those around them. And when you pit these supremely lucky people against each other in games of pure chance you get you find out the most fortunate of them all. For over 30 years it has been Samuel (Max von Sydow), a secretive old man who lives under a casino and has never been beaten in a game of chance.

Samuel had an apprentice, Federico (Eusebio Poncela), who had lived in the same casino, and made his mark stealing the luck of patrons who were beating the odds of the house. When Federico decides to move on, Samuel, affronted, reacts by emptying the former of all his luck. Stripped of his strength and turned into a pariah, Federico begins to search for a challenger. Someone who can help him beat the old man in a game of chance, and redeem his humiliation. He gets his chance, when he meets the lone survivor of a horrific plane crash - Tomás (Leonardo Sbaraglia). Unfortunately, Tomás is a bank robber who is being relentlessly pursued by a cop Sara (Mónica López). Chance and destiny come together in an explosive ending that is no more certain than a roll of dice.

The movie has a curious style. The scenes are heavy and oppressive. Dialog is limited, which is a good thing because with all the depth brought out by the atmosphere of the movie, anything said could only sound trite. Screenplay is choppy, in a disconcerting deliberate way. Most scenes are not set up, but unfold for the characters as they do for the audience. There is a certain machismo to the games of chance, that borders on the excessive. The storyline, beyond the premise, is not entirely plausible. The net result is that the movie tends to gravitate towards being more of a graphic novel. Which is not particularly a bad thing.

Equally interesting are the games people play. They include running blindfolded across a highway, dousing the head of contestants in molasses and seeing if a bug chooses one over the others and the ultimate - firing a loaded gun with five bullets in six chambers at an opponent's head.

This is a truly original movie. It might not be the most well adapted, or the most brilliantly made. But it has a certain charisma to it. Like a craggy old man with piercing blue eyes, it is oddly disconcerting and keeps you intrigued. There are moments of brilliance, and moments of silliness. But as luck would have it, it all works out to be deeply engrossing.

The Machinist

Ravi kiran Nagavarapu — Sun, 17 Apr 2011 18:44:00 +0000

Talk of Christian Bale movies led to a re-watch of The Machinist. Even for a second viewing, the movie was just as intense and gripping as I had remembered it. Over the years, psychological thrillers have become relatively commonplace, bringing with them a plethora of novel mental diseases into public limelight. Yet, there is something about the power of something as commonplace as guilt, that can take an unbelievable toll on the human mind. And when it is accompanied by a harrowingly gaunt 120 pound Bale, there is something tantalizingly concrete about the experience, that sticks with you. Through the movie and beyond.

If you have not heard of the movie yet, you probably may not know that Bale starved himself for the role. Allegedly, consuming one cup of coffee and an apple each day, he lost 62 lb, dropping to a mere 120 lb. This leaves him, for most part of the movie, as little more than a skeleton. Sunken cheeks, ribs sticking out, eyes unnaturally protruding, barely covered by the stretched eyelids, Bale presents an image of insomnia that is hard to imagine let alone replicate. The most incredible part is that he had to regain the mass plus 60 more pounds for his role in Batman Begins.

Trevor Reznik, hadn't slept is more than a year. He works in a factory as a machinist, handling precision cutting tools. Through the year, he not only loses weight, but finds himself increasingly isolated from everyone else around him. His only two companions are a waitress at an all-night airline diner, Marie (Aitana Sánchez-Gijón) and a prostitute named Stevie (Jennifer Jason Leigh). Things take a turn for the worse, when he meets a new coworker named Ivan (John Sharian). Ivan is a guy Trevor has never seen before, but it seems as if none of the others that work with him know him either. Figuring out who Ivan is becomes an ever present distraction for Trevor, and in one such distracted state he accidentally causes one of his coworkers to lose a hand.

Uncovering Ivan's identity now becomes an obsession for Trevor that nothing else, not even losing his job and his sanity, is able to stop. Already on the edge, Trevor's reality begins to crumble, scene by scene in front of the camera. This is probably one of the most compelling portrayals of psychotic self-destruction in movies. As goes Trevor, so does the audience, till the final unraveling of the mystery along with the last shred of reality.

There is more to the movie beyond the haggard Bale. The story is well done, the screenplay and editing are the right level of uncomfortable. Lighting is harsh, accentuating the bone-structure of the lead insomniac. The whole movie sports a flat, desaturated look, through which patches of color seems to burst forth as if in a dream. There are so many other details that add additional dimensions to the movie. Like upon finding an unexplained post-it note on his refrigerator, Trevor proceeds to begin analyzing it, ignoring the apparent bucket-full of blood that seems to be dripping all around it. These and other dissonances between Trevor and the audience work to enhance the feeling of disconnection with reality.

The Machinist is not a scary psychological thriller. It is introspective thriller, riveted on a character that seems larger than life and pitiful at the same time. It is a private study of reality, at the center of which is Trevor. By the end of the movie, the abnormal begins to feel so normal, that it takes a while and conscious effort to reset the baseline for reality. And that is when you will be most thankful for a good night's sleep, and a fresh start the next day.

Hall Pass

Ravi kiran Nagavarapu — Sat, 16 Apr 2011 13:53:00 +0000

Hall Pass is no comedic genius. The jokes are infantile, scatological and R-rated shocking. There's pot, booze, chicks, cheesy pick-up lines, uncovered body parts and a stereotype cornucopia. Yet, it isn't half as bad as it could have been. With a shockingly aged Owen Wilson, and a rather bemused Jason Sudeikis, Hall Pass seems to take the mission of extracting a snicker from the audience as its one and only objective. Which it manages to achieve, even if it is at a significant cost.

Rick and Fred are the two middle aged men, played by Wilson and Sudeikis, who are firmly stuck in the geeky college obsession with sex and women. In their self-perpetuating mythical image, they see themselves as conquerors of concubines forced to settle into lives of married American suburban males. Powered by each others ability to blow hot air, and oblivious to their childishness, they find themselves in more than one silly escapade that exasperates their spouses - Maggie (Jenna Fischer) and Grace (Christina Applegate). This finally earns them a strange sort of mental cleanse - a week's pass from marriage that they could use to do anything at all. And get "it" out of their systems.

On cue this releases the two sets of characters required to drive the week to closure - the loser friends and the hot chicks. Powered by Stephen Merchant, Larry Joe Campbell, the friends help prove how out of touch the lead characters are with the world. Right from hunting for chicks in Applebees (a family restaurant) to playing golf after consuming "special" brownies. The jokes are somewhat predictable, but manage to work. The chick-brigade is led by Leigh (Nicky Whelan) and the baby-sitter Paige (Alexandra Daddario). Predictably the moments here are awkward and cheesy.

But the bulk of the comedic heavy lifting is managed between the two main characters and some scenes with a very high shock value. Yes, the movie is R-rated for a reason. And no, without those scenes, the movie would have been left with nothing else of significance.

We went to the movie to make up for last week's disaster of a chick-flick: No Strings Attached, because this, apparently, was a dude-flick. While that classification of the movie displayed a considerable misunderstanding of the term, there is a certain idiocy in the movie that can probably only be enjoyed by men. It is an obstinate refusal to grow up, coupled with a inexplicable attraction to bodily functions, that barely redeems this movie to half the human population.

Source Code

Ravi kiran Nagavarapu — Sat, 09 Apr 2011 13:54:00 +0000

Remember the movie 50 First Dates? Source Code is nothing like it. Apologies for any unpleasant memories that reference may have brought about. Instead, Source code is an intelligent story about having more than one chance to get it right. It is a story about the dignity of human life, and an indulgence of the hope of a better life elsewhere.

Capt Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal) is a former helicopter operator for the US forces in Afghanistan. As a result of injuries suffered during a mission, he is severely incapacitated, to the point of death. He is however kept alive, as the unwitting pawn in a top secret military program. Through his brain which is on the throes of death, the program, known as Source Code, is able to tap the last 8 minutes of other people that had been recently killed. Source Code works by inserting Stevens into the body of a suitable candidate, and through him re-live a phantom version of their last 8 minutes. Stevens could interact with people around him and bring back that knowledge with him, as many times as required.

Stevens wakes up on one such instance, in the body of one Sean Fentress. As he learns over time, Sean was killed in a train explosion outside Chicago that morning, and Stevens' mission was to find the bomber, because it was suspected that the bomber was planning a second attack in downtown Chicago shortly afterward. As Sean, he meets his friend Christina Warren (Michelle Monaghan), along with a bevy of characters in his car of the train - characters that form a stereotypical background to this thriller stretching eight minutes at a time and bookended by a wrenching wake up and a violent explosion. Orchestrating the episodes is his controller Colleen Goodwin (Vera Farmiga) and the obligatory mad scientist Dr. Rutledge (Jeffrey Wright)

The mechanics of the movie, while vital to the story's existence do not play that much of a part in the plot itself. Stevens does stray from the path proscribed by his controller, but the motivation isn't as much to test the capabilities of the mechanics, but it is more to save the people on the train and particularly the girl he just met, who seems to know him so well. As a result, the story starts off at a disadvantage - there is always only one way for the story to end. Curiously the relentless unveiling of the truth feels more satisfying than it should, almost like destiny fulfilled.

Technically the movie is subtle. The explosions are understated and always in the background. Editing is mature and purposeful. And while the Q-word is used, one could safely ignore most of its' ramifications with no impact to the story. The dense explanatory dialogue takes care of that.

Overall Source Code is a tightly woven tale, a star in the new pantheon of accessible main-stream Science Fiction fare. It almost feels like a new era, one reminiscent of that of Star Wars. While the Source Code is no Star Wars, it is one where you get to meet the characters, sympathize and identify with them, and more important invest in their well being. Once you do that, it does not matter if it is the same eight minutes over and over again. You will be right there, cheering them on, hoping that something more complete is just round the corner.

Monsters

Ravi kiran Nagavarapu — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 23:11:00 +0000

As a movie title, Monsters is highly misleading. As a story, it could almost have passed for a chick flick. But as an overall movie package, it was understated in conception, gritty in evolution and excellent in execution.

Six years ago, NASA, the poster-child of extra terrestrial boo-boos, sent a probe to collect samples of potential life in the Solar System. Upon re-entry into Earth's atmosphere, the probe crashed, presumably spilling it's contents into the dense jungles of Central America. Whatever was in the probe, rapidly evolved into large tentacled aliens that infected the region between the US and Mexico. The entire area is now cordoned off and the populace on either side of the infected zone is slowly coming to terms with living in an alien-infested world. And these aliens, by the way, are the large octopus-like namesake monsters.

Andrew Kaulder (Scoot McNairy) is a photo journalist in uninfected Mexico, who is unsuccessfully looking for a story within the biggest event in Earth's history. As luck would have it, the daughter of the owner of his publication, Samantha Wynden (Whitney Able), is injured in a recent Monster attack. As a result he is commandeered to check on her and make sure she is on her way back to the US. On their way back, they miss the last ferry for the next six months out of Mexico, and decide to instead take the land route back to the country. And this route, unsurprisingly, passes through the quarantined area.

As they bribe their way into a passage back to America in this new twist on fence jumping, the two encounter the infection, terror, attacks and beauty. During the process, they also discover each other.

The movie is luxuriously slow in progressing the story, but rarely feels cumbersome. It is no adventure quest movie, but instead it is trained squarely on the humans finding their footing in the new world. Shot entirely through hand-held camera, the movie has a very strong documentary feel to it, but thankfully eschews ugly fast-paced shaking for more refined movements. Some of the scenes around the enterprise that has sprung up against the background of suffering is well portrayed, forming the intellectual bulwark for the story. Music naturally forms a big part of both the narrative and the backdrop, successfully building the base to create an absorbing if not tense feel to the movie.

Alien and Science Fiction are evolving past the combative alien narrative and the apocalyptic destruction movies into the more mundane coexistence narratives. District 9 was a great example, and Monsters is a worthy inclusion into that list. The key to this movie is expectations; keep them low. For it isn't much of a genre movie as it is a well put together tale, in a world that could realistically come true.

A Peck on the Cheek

Ravi kiran Nagavarapu — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 19:00:00 +0000

Have you ever wondered why 9-year olds do not get to make life-or-death decisions? Or why we humans give so much weight to experience? Or why researching about a place is good before you end up there? If you missed the basic common sense course right after birth that covered these important questions, here is a refresher - A Peck on the Cheek. The movie an emotionally conceived idea that lacked any connection to reality, which in turn was produced by someone that had never been exposed to any form of mortal danger. It is an empty story masquerading as intellectual insight, that trivializes the real issues it purports to explore.

The movie is set against the backdrop of the Sri Lankan conflict. G. Thiruchelvan (Madhavan) and Indra (Simran) live in the South-Indian city of Chennai, and are raising three children. The eldest, played brilliantly by P.S. Keerthana, is Amudha who was adopted by the couple. On the day of Amudha's ninth birthday, in a fit of misguided honesty, the parents reveal this to her, and that she was left by her mother who originated from the conflict ridden region in the north of Sri Lanka.

As the child fixates upon the identity of her birth mother, the parents decide, in another fit of propriety that they are going to take the girl and see her birth mother. Never mind that all they had to go were the name of the town and the first name of the mother. Also, forget the fact that the region is an active war zone, which has produced one of the deadliest civilian casualties in modern time. Once in the country, the three begin the search, surviving suicide blasts, artillery fire and a small arms ambush. Again, it is never clear if this is merely misguided ideology or some sense of guilt that causes the parents of three children to take upon this perilous journey to satisfy the fantasies of a 9-year old.

Notwithstanding the child-rearing faux pas, the movie is stuck somewhere between an award hunting indie movie and a populist Bollywood flick. That results in these random uncomfortable songs, in the middle of a maddening narrative. Unfortunately A.R. Rahman fails to work his magic with the music for the movie.

What does redeem the movie are the performances. Even with a hole ridden plot, the main characters work their magic. Madhavan does a good job displaying his character's stubborn strength with a driven sort of love. Simran is not terrible. But the best of the lot is the 9-year old, that makes you want to scream out in frustration. And thank our stars that their lot does not run the world.

Gosford Park

Ravi kiran Nagavarapu — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 19:04:00 +0000

If you ever needed confirmation that the British society in the middle of the 20th century was a model of waste, corruption and decay - you need to watch Gosford Park. The stratified society, built upon a crumbling edifice of self importance and ineptitude, is depicted brilliantly in this rather languid portrayal. Unfortunately, as a narrative, the movie lacks punch. A multitude of red herrings, dead-end plot moves, and a confusing cast takes away from the period piece. There is a thin line between brilliant and mind-boggling, and unfortunately the movie tends to boggle unreasonably. Foreign culture is always bewildering to the outsider; the mark of a great movie is not just to stay true to the culture but to make it more accessible to those on the outside. Unfortunately, Gosford Park makes little attempt to do that.

This is not a whodunnit. Yes, there is a murder, and there is a mystery. But the who is as irrelevant as the why. What matters instead is the delicate maneuvering, intrigue and corruption that surrounds the event itself. And the absolutely lack of empathy and basic moral decency, that characterizes the cast of characters. There isn't much to keep from the movie, unless maybe if you are British. But even then the movie is probably more provocative than cathartic.

The year is 1932, and the world, according to the British system is divided into two halves - the upstairs of the lords and their ladies, and the downstairs filled with their valets, butlers and assorted servants. One such allegorical structure is maintained by Sir William McCordle (Michael Gambon) and Lady Sylvia McCordle (Kristin Scott Thomas) in their idyllic country house. The two have invited a number of guests for a shooting party; the list includes an assortment of family members, their spouses, and Hollywood celebrities. Through the movie, the party moves from meal to meal, punctuated by a round of shooting birds, and a murder.

What follows was something out of the P.G. Wodehouse books, without the narrator or Jeeves. To be fair some of the conversations are witty - British witty - particularly those involving the aunt of the lady of the house. Constance Trentham (Maggie Smith) is the stereotypical patient zero when it comes to snobbishness. Her cringe-worthy retorts and too-loud comments are funny, yet juxtaposed by her abject need, serve to provide a commentary upon the two-faced nature of aristocracy.

There are two other characters that define the story. There is an American producer that seemed to serve two purposes through the movie - make it more accessible to American audiences by making fun of the British, and be the foil upon which to prove that the society was decadent at best and rotten at worst. The second character is Mary Maceachran (Kelly Macdonald), Lady Trentham's maid. A young impressionable girl, she is the closest to a narrator who is the single source of sense and innocence in the characters of the movie.

I began to lose the movie when following the characters became difficult, which was about 5 minutes after checking into the country house. The presumably accurate and heavy British accent did not help. In the end the movie runs more like a documentary, like a time-capsule of life between the two wars. Which would have been great if I could have done some pre-study or had a program to follow along. Without either it just became a challenging watch, with lots of promise but no actual reward at the end of it all.

Surrogates

Ravi kiran Nagavarapu — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 22:42:00 +0000

Surrogates is a sloppily put together, sappy tale about the inhumanity of robots and the problems of spending all your time on the internet. The central theme of the story is mildly interesting, which could have been handled well and nurtured into a truly entertaining tale. But in the suffocating confines of the script, the story became less of an allegory and more a literal reason why you should not hide behind a robot that impersonates you. Noted. We will try our darnedest not to do that.

Surrogates are humanoid robots, that look and sound like younger versions of everyone. All surrogates are controlled by their human counterparts, from the comfortable confines of a recliner. Surrogates and their controllers are connected so perfectly, that the controlling person can experience everything through the eyes and ears of the surrogate. This, over a 14 year period, has made a major part of humanity into a certain form of uncontrolled couch potatoes. Everyone has begun staying back at home, and having their surrogates replace them, at work, for pleasure and even to pick up chicks.

Naturally, there is a part of the populace that has taken umbrage to this proliferation of robotic personas. They have virtually broken away from the rest of the country, forming their own reservations, which are robot-free zones. And anyone that dares enter is hunted down, in typical neo-luddite fashion.

Tom Greer (Bruce Willis) is a surrogate cop. With a distant wife Peters (Radha Mitchell), and a tragic past, Tom unsurprisingly finds himself torn between the comfort and safety of the surrogate life and the fact that it is pushing him further away from his wife. When he begins investigating a murder, that seems as if it was committed through a surrogate, he has to begin peeling the layers of deception and dependency.

Everything in the movie seems fake. The only natural thing about the characters is that their surrogates are pleasingly unnatural. The backgrounds of the cop with a distant wife seems overdone. The prophet and the human-only reservations sound good in theory, but come across as a cross between rednecks and people that cannot work computers. The brilliant scientist forced out of the company he created - cliché. There are few original ideas - like jacking through surrogates - which too manage to sound hollow and made up; being surrounded by so much expected boilerplate.

Surrogates is based on a graphic novel. Just based on some of the lame attempts at authenticity by the script, I can almost guarantee that the novel will be great. At the end, the movie is yet another bad attempt to summarize good science fiction literature as a movie, because the concept sounded good. But what makes a movie tick are the characters. Even if, in this case, they are just robots.

Outbreak

Ravi kiran Nagavarapu — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 22:07:00 +0000

Watching Outbreak is like getting under the covers with a familiar paperback. You know exactly how it is going to end, but you just want to let things unfold anyway. The couple passages you had forgotten and are unexpected, seem to provide more joy than they really ought to. And when all is done and you're drifting off to sleep, there isn't much you can recollect about what just happened.

Based on the novel by Robin Cook, Outbreak is the story of the outbreak of an infectious disease in the US. A disease that is so quick and deadly that it has a mortality rate of a 100% within a matter of hours. Not only is it dangerous, but the disease seems to develop an uncanny ability to morph into something completely different in a matter of a few generations. And yes, underlying it all is the rogue officer and the supposed penchant of the military to weaponize everything they can lay their hands on.

What really rescues the movie is its star powered cast. Col. Sam Daniels (Dustin Hoffman) is a brilliant, neurotic and surprisingly out of touch military doctor who specializes in the study of viruses of the more deadly persuasion. He is in the process of finalizing his divorce from his wife and colleague Robby Keough (Rene Russo). Both presumably met during work, fell in love and got married, before Keough discovered that her husband's IQ did not necessarily translate into a great EQ. The Colonel's boss is Brig. Gen. Billy Ford (Morgan Freeman), who saddles the fine line between the demands of the military during the cold war and this thing called the conscience. Yes, the characters are exactly as they sound, which is what makes the movie seem so effortless. Who, in their right minds, can resist Freeman barking orders while having monologues with his inner demons?

Oh yes, and Kevin Spacey was there as well, as Maj. Casey Schuler. As the footnote may indicate, this is not the science fiction Spacey you are looking for; this is. Cuba Gooding Jr. as Maj. Salt and Donald Sutherland as Maj. Gen. Donald McClintock rounded out the star power.

Robin Cook made his bones writing mysteries laced with passably accurate medical know how. However, all pretense at being accurate was tossed out of the screenplay during approximately the third scene. The virus was little more than an mass emergency, that justified mobilizing a number of armored vehicles and helicopters. As a period piece, it did reflect upon the craziness of an era where the pursuit of biological weapons seemed like a good idea. But beyond that and the usual bashing of "the man" there wasn't much one could take away from the movie.

What Outbreak lacked in story, it made up in a star cast. What it missed in accuracy, it made up in surprisingly genuine chemistry between the different characters. Outbreak is further proof that good science fiction movies do not come with good science. They are fiction first, the science is merely gobbledygook that makes up the dialogue and justifies the use of super cool explosives.

Rango

Ravi kiran Nagavarapu — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 19:00:00 +0000

Rango is Johnny Depp's latest attempt at portraying a quasi-capable, hero figure that is high in self deprecating humor and is forever threatening to break the fourth wall. Bookended by the most adorably sinister, strigine mariachi quartet, Rango is a funny tale about an accidental hero, his dramatic follies and his redemption.

The story is by no means wildly inventive. Picture a man (or lizard) who is predisposed to self-indulgent fantasy, that does something unexpectedly heroic and is instantly the savior of the populace of a small town in the middle of the desert. Then a mystery comes along that requires the hero to actually do something, and while he is still trying to come to grips with it, a series of unfortunate circumstances exposes him to be the fraud that he is. He then has to fight his own insecurities before solving the mystery and exposing the evil doers while winning the heart of the dame that always believed in him. Yes, I know, that could have been any number of movies.

What makes Rango different is that it does not hide behind the storyline, instead has the cast take digs at it irreverently. As if they are with you in knowing how ordinary the plot is, yet imploring you to come along for the ride because, hey, it is fun.

And fun it is. The first thing that strikes you is the detail in the movie. Yes, Cars has done this before, but there is a certain rawness to the desert renditions in this movie. The characters - all animals a la Animal Farm - are pockmarked with experience and dearth, yet are simple at heart. Jake the rattlesnake (Bill Nighy) is one of the favorite characters in a long time, not just for his most awesome rattler, but also because his serpentine nobility at the end. Beans (Isla Fisher) and her defense mechanism are hilarious. The turtle Mayor (Ned Beatty) is gravelly and spot on.

The other reason I loved the movie was the way it was able to portray the stark contrast of absurdity that is Las Vegas. When we had gone to Vegas last, I was struck by the unbelievable difference between the natural habitat of the place and the verdancy created by man. Rango at its core tells the same story but with no sermonizing and zero finger pointing. It is just a tale of animals trying to survive in the harsh water-less environs.

This is a fun Depp movie. If you like irreverent westerns you will love this movie. When you have a chameleon, that has a taste for the thespian, and is trying to blend in - there is not much that can really go wrong. Or can it? Guess you will have to watch to find out.

The Jacket

Ravi kiran Nagavarapu — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 19:00:00 +0000

The Jacket is a tall tale, of time travel, hallucinations, amnesia and love. It is cast as a blockbuster and produced like an indie. This and other discrepancies make the movie seem as if it is stuck in an identity crisis. A paradox of extremes that seems to taint everything from the story to the acting.

The trailer for the movie is surprisingly complete in describing the story. Jack Starks (Adrien Brody) is a veteran of the first Gulf war, who returns to the US after being shot and miraculously surviving. Hitchhiking in Vermont, he is picked up by a local, but in his amnesiac haze finds himself accused of murdering a cop. After being found not guilty for reason of insanity, he is locked up in a psychiatric institution, where he is exposed to brutal alternate therapy by Dr. Thomas Becker (Kris Kristofferson), who pumps him full of drugs, straps him in a straitjacket and shuts him for extended periods into morgue drawer.

In the course of this "therapy" Jack finds himself hallucinating and seeing things that should not be. He repeatedly interacts with a girl Jackie Price (Keira Knightley) and her mother, whom he had helped prior to hitchhiking. Very soon his reality neatly spans across time and he finds himself capable of helping others even as his own death looms large.

Brody and Knightley are brilliant, because of who they are and not because of their roles. Their individual intensity is lost in their characters who are little more than the clichéd troubled minds. The pair lack chemistry. The rest of the characters flit in and out of the narrative, appearing more like signposts or riddles than as three dimensional characters that have a connection between them. Maybe it is brilliantly metaphorical, as a representation of life in a psychiatric unit. Or maybe it was just a flat assembly for the purpose of telling the story.

That said there are several moments of brilliance that made this movie such a cult hit. The cinematography and screenplay are alive and engaging. The story on screen has a dreamy quality that juxtaposes well with the tense characters. The psychiatric unit has pieces of narrative that are reminiscent of One flew over the Cuckoo's nest, without the depth of the latter.

While The Jacket is a well produced mainstream sci-fi thriller, it misses the inventiveness of Being John Malkovich and isn't quite a nerdy extravaganza either. It is a well made middle of the road thriller, that does well to engage and narrate. As long as you do not have too high expectations, and do not really care why the movie is named as such, you could do worse with 103 minutes of your life.

The Vacation

Ravi kiran Nagavarapu — Sat, 05 Feb 2011 19:00:00 +0000

It was a month after the funeral that the envelop arrived. It wasn't too heavy, but was made of thick, yellow paper and had a curious red wax seal on it. Inside was a single key, a brochure for a vacation resort, and a scribbled note from his deceased uncle.

Reunion

Ravi kiran Nagavarapu — Sat, 01 May 2010 15:30:00 +0000

John lounged in a corner of Lucy's. John never sat; he lounged. His right arm was thrown over the back rest of the booth, while the rest of his body seemed to hang down from it. His left shoulder rested comfortably against the wall and the right foot peeked out from under the table. The ever-present cigarette dangled from his finger tips. He was clean-shaven, which was the only remarkable thing about seeing him in his usual corner of the diner.

Untouchable

Ravi kiran Nagavarapu — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 15:27:00 +0000

The dappled shade under the mango trees triggered two very conflicting emotions. Firstly, it signalled the possibility of juicy fruit. Secondly it signalled fear - he was somewhere he ought not to be, and must therefore, be very careful. The dry leaves from the trees threatened to crunch underfoot. The problem with leaves crunching wasn't so much as giving his existence away; a regular crunch-crunch meant he wouldn't be able to hear others approaching. He had long mastered the art of walking in spurts, with dragging motion, continually listening for any approaching footsteps.

Word of Gods

Ravi kiran Nagavarapu — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 15:24:00 +0000

The morning light dappled across his face as he sat bare-chested, meditating. There was calming silence about him, it was almost as if even the wind and the waves knew to be restrained. The room was small and bare, a single block of stone wide enough for a man to sit on, a pot of water in the corner and two massive windows with grills to the north and east. The room itself was at the north eastern corner of the hillside, the last human accomplishment before the abrupt fall of the hillside towards a sheer cliff and the sea.

Alice

Ravi kiran Nagavarapu — Sun, 11 Sep 2005 13:00:00 +0000

I

I sat by the window of the local coffee shop, early Wednesday morning, sipping the first of what would be several cups of espresso on a day like this. It was early but the sun was already beating down, promising a scorcher. I swore under my breath - a wonderful day to pick for my beat.

5 a.m.

Ravi kiran Nagavarapu — Mon, 18 Feb 2002 15:22:00 +0000

This one was after a long time. And a lot had happened in the meanwhile. And it was 5 in the morning and I was dog tired. Sleep was nowhere in sight. And mentally, things were feeling like fun. And sarcasm was dripping all over me. This happened.

Just a Crazy love song

Ravi kiran Nagavarapu — Mon, 18 Feb 2002 15:20:00 +0000

Have you ever been in love? Mebbe this will help. (PS: No Tune, at least none that sounds unlike the earlier ones)

Charade

Ravi kiran Nagavarapu — Mon, 18 Feb 2002 15:17:00 +0000

It had started differently but ended as this. You have seen The Matrix. I don't suffer from such manic proportions in delusions, but well a small helping never hurts. What if the whole concept of governance is just a facade? (PS: I love The Matrix) (PS2: And I do have a tune for this too.)

Grown Up Now

Ravi kiran Nagavarapu — Mon, 18 Feb 2002 13:18:00 +0000

I love this one. You know it has become fashionable to say, "I am still a child inside me.". And believe most of the time you have a sniggering idiot, who is just waiting for you to turn your back to the child. But when there truly is a child, you will not see him. Because he is a child. And children don't advertise. So what happens is this, and people thing otherwise.

Go To Hell

Ravi kiran Nagavarapu — Mon, 18 Feb 2002 13:15:00 +0000

I was on a roll, after the last one and decided it was time to expand my horizons. So decided to jump into songwriting for a change. Blame it all on the follies of youth and you will hit the nail on the head. Any ways. Have you ever loved and wanted to hate at the same time. Imagine the rose, and the hand responding to the incredible beauty of the rose almost on its own accord. Then the thorn cuts right in between you and the beauty, and you finger rushes for the safety of the mouth. What did you feel? And what did you feel if this was just metaphorical. (PS: I think I have a punkish tune for this too)

What

Ravi kiran Nagavarapu — Mon, 18 Feb 2002 13:12:00 +0000

Statutory warning: Don't read this if you are feeling down. It just might push you over. This from someone other than me.

Spent Dreams

Ravi kiran Nagavarapu — Mon, 18 Feb 2002 13:06:00 +0000

Well this was the first one in the current binge of poems. Started with no reason other than the fact that this title sounds cool. And, well, developed into well a postmortem of success. I am guessing here, not that I have been there. Tell me if you think this is, or is not, the way you felt. Got different reactions for this one. One friend actually thought of making this sound more upbeat. That is optimism for you.

The Purse

Ravi kiran Nagavarapu — Fri, 27 Jul 2001 12:30:00 +0000

A PURSE is where you keep things. A BOX is also where you keep things. But a purse is not a box. A purse unlike a box has many uses. A box is also very useful.