My way of looking at the world...

Another Good Online Casino Guide

noreply@blogger.com (raghav) — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 15:58:00 +0000

With the vacations just around the corner, its casino time again! Yeah, hell loads of casino . That's how casino freaks spend their vacations, isn't it? But again, your a casino freak or not, there's nothing wrong in indulging in a little bit of gambling when you have an extra long vacation. I for sure am either playing poker or... playing poker ;) in these vacations. While I was making my 'gambling plans' a while ago, I accidentally hit upon this site called onlinecasinobluebook.

This online casino guide does a pretty good job in helping you find out some of the best casino sites that you should be hanging around on the web. The home page of this site has quick links to top ten online casino sites for experienced gamblers.. showing that its not gonna waste any of your 'precious' time. The rankings are based on bonus size, payout percentage, customer service, game features, software graphics, and ease-of-use.The home page also has links to casino sites with interesting filtering tags.

If you have trouble choosing a casino site, their guides are gonna help you find out a site just suitable for you. Also, there's a forum attached - not many casino guide sites have forums. Hang around the forum for a while and you'll soon learn some cool tricks and it won't be long before you become a pro gambler. Don't forget to see their amex online gambling page which lists all the casino sites which accept AMEX. Now you know where to go with a doubt.

Keep waiting for more such posts and do make the most of your vacations. ciao!

8.0 Score at Blogged.com

noreply@blogger.com (raghav) — Tue, 20 May 2008 22:49:00 +0000

I just got a mail from Blogged.com guys saying that my blog got a score of 8.0 out of 10.This score gives my blog a rank of 512 in its category.I am not sure whether I should be happy with this or worry about it.They said that they evaluated my blog based on the following criteria:
-Frequency of Updates,
-Relevance of Content,
-Site Design, and
-Writing Style.
To be frank I am actually amazed at getting such a good rating(no I am not trying to be humble here).As you can see,I neither have a good blog design nor do I post frequently.I wonder how i made it to 512th rank when there were around 13K blogs that were reviewd.
I thought about it for a while and then wondered if this was some kind of a ploy to get some backlinks from my blog.But when I went to that site I did realise that there were tens of thousands of blogs listed there.I should admit they did put in a lot of effort.I am not sure if I am gonna give them a backlink from my site but i sure got some backlinks from their site.That's more than enough to make me happy ;).

1 Year Hosting+2 Domains for $10

noreply@blogger.com (raghav) — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 22:19:00 +0000

Yes you have read it right.I just bought one year of hosting(250 gb disk space+2000 gb bandwidth) and two domains at just 10 dollars.And mind you i didn't buy this from any Tom,Dick and Harry but from one of the pioneers in the hosting industry,the netfirms.com hosting services.The entire package actually costs around $119.40.And i got it for just ten bucks.Now isn't that great!

Now i know that many of you have already started envying me.But don't worry,you can get a similar deal too.It took me around three days of research on net before i finally discovered about this thing.And here i am,telling you everything that i did to get this through.

1)First,just go to this site, netfirms.com,and go through their "ADVANTAGE Web Hosting" plan.Make sure that you go through all the features of this plan.The steps i am going to tell you are only going to work for this hosting plan.Now if you're sure you want to go ahead and sign up for this plan or you want to check whether this thing's really gonna work,just click on the sign-up button there.

2)Now,in the next page,type the domain name that you want to register(don't worry,its free).Here you can also chose to transfer an existing domain but its not recommended.If your desired domain name is available,just choose that one and also another one which is available.

3)Chose the free packs they offer like Netfirms Starter Package,Wordpess,etc.,(they might charge you $7.95 for shipping the Netfirms Starter Package.So its recommended that you don't chose it)if you want them and click continue.

4)Here's the best part-In the field,"enter the promotional code if available" enter MAX and click on recalculate button next to it.Whoa!You get a massive discount of $109.40.I need not tell you what to do after this.But just for the record ,complete the sign up process and close your deal.
This promo code(i got it from besthostcritic.com) worked for me like magic.I don't see any reason why it shouldn't work for you.

Social Network About Paranormal Phenomena

noreply@blogger.com (raghav) — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 22:32:00 +0000

Are you one of those people who believe in paranormal phenomena like ghosts,spirits,crop circles,UFO's and so on?If you are,then there is some good news for you.I just came across a great social networking site ,called ufogaga.com,which is exclusively dedicated to people who are interested in paranormal phenomena.Now isn't that interesting?
Finally there's a place on net where you can go and talk about that UFO you have seen last night.And the best part is that most of users there will believe you,as there is a great chance that they have seen one too sometime in their life or may be even the same one that you have seen.Though not many people come across UFO's,but a fair amount of people do feel that there are spirits and ghosts.Though i haven't seen one all my life, I would very much love to see one.Yes,you have heard that right!May be discussing with this exclusive group of people on this site would help me in finding one myself.
I know most of you are already excited about this thing but i do also see some skeptics out there.Theres a piece of advice for all these skeptics,just go this site and read about the experiences of some the people out there.You might just just change your mind.

Back to basics

noreply@blogger.com (raghav) — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 21:16:00 +0000

Its been a while since i have made my last post.I have been involved with some other ff all this while and hence couldn't give much time to blogging and stuff.Now that most of it is done i am back to blogging.Though i wouldn't be flooding my blog right away with posts,i surely will do it very soon.But till then I'll make sure that i keep posting every now and then.So keep looking out for some of my new posts which are gonna be here anytime soon.

Online Casino Directory

noreply@blogger.com (raghav) — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 14:29:00 +0000

There is phenomenal rise in the online casino activity lately.May be it has something to do with the new year season.No wonder even i indulged in it,along with some of my buddies.But when i started out,there was this big confusion for me-where do i go?There are so many sites online offering so called 'great casino deals' that you don't really know where to go.That is when i wished if i only knew of a good casino directory then i wouldn't have had to face so much trouble.And then,i found one such great online directory which made my job a lot easier.There is this site called freecasinos.ws which acts as an excellent online casino guide.It makes your job a lot more easier by finding you the casinos which you exactly need.It features popular online casinos, big bonus casinos, free casino games, USA casinos, language casinos, and no deposit casinos,actually the category list is almost endless.You only gotta choose which one you want.Somebody told me that its been seven years since they started out.So you can guess that they know a lot about their business by now.Now you know where to go if you ever want to find yourself the right casinos!

Mac Games And More

noreply@blogger.com (raghav) — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 03:17:00 +0000

All those gaming freaks,this site called macgamesandmore is a must visit for you.The site mainly focses on recognising and publishing the work of independent Mac developers.They support the work and creative minds of shareware developers, game developers and Mac products, as well as appreciate the work of Apple, its computers and all its hardware, software and peripherals and all the news surrounding these products and the community of Mac Users, including participants of Mac User Groups (MUGS).So you have all the news of mac software and hardware which is updated weekly on a single site.I was surprised to know that the site is maintained by a single person(Cate Defrise).
What I coudnt resist doing there was playing games.They have lots of free macintosh games which you can play but what I have been playing most these days is mac solitaire and football games.I am sort of addiced to those games.You have a lot more interesting games to choose from.Click here to start playing right away.

Need Emergency Cash?

noreply@blogger.com (raghav) — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 18:44:00 +0000

Do you need fast, unsecured loans in times when you can’t wait for pay day.I think I have the solution for you.The solution is a pay day loan.Cash advance pay day loan over the internet is a fast way to fund a personal cheking or savings account.Atleast you dont have to worry about bouncing checks, selling personal property for less than it is worth, or facing uncomfortable situations like borrowing money from family and friends.So pay day loan it is.But here comes the other big question,"Where do I go to get myself a pay day loan over internet?".I would suggest cashadvance1500.com.
They have a list of several of the better and more economical cash advance marketing sites on the Web – with a brief description next to each.Each of those sites offer advantages that suit your needs.So you dont have to worry about browsingg hundreds of sites,trying to find what suits you best.All you have to do is just visit this site and choose a site that works for you.They also offer cash advance tips which would be of great use to you.So the next time you fall short of cash and are in need of short term financial assistance,you know what exactly to do.

Close Combat Training

noreply@blogger.com (raghav) — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 00:30:00 +0000

Worried being of being attacked by goons or your foes?Imagine this,you are walking on a deserted street and all of a suuden a couple of roadsise thugs come out of nowhere and start landing heavy blows on you to get that leather piece you carry with you.Scary,right?
Well,not really.If you are trained in self defense,you wouldn't worry about these things anymore as you will be confident enough that you wont let a single blow land on you.now here I tell you about one such effective self defense system called the Close Combat Training system.Read on.

Close Combat Training system is pioneered by Captain Chris Pizzo who has dedicated his life to not only spreading the "truth" about martial arts and self defense, but also to teaching the very same simplistic, and easy to learn answer he discovered after nearly being stabbed to death during a road rage attack.

Learn the art of self defense from the world leader in self defense.Read his article on self defence and martial arts and get your misconceptions cleared.Watch some of their vedios and you'll be surprised at the kind of results it gives.It is said that close combat system is 10 times more effective and 390%faster to learn than any martial art form.If you ever thought that you badly needed a course in self defense you know where to go now.

For All Those Gaming Buffs

noreply@blogger.com (raghav) — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 23:55:00 +0000

For all those gaming buffs who are constantly surfing net to find some good gaming sites,check this site,midoritech.com.They offer mac games and PC games.Check out their solitaire,mahjong,etc.They also offer games for kids like beauty salon,lady bugs,yoodoo,etc।With the kind of collection of games they have,be assured that you are going to have a great time there.

note:this is a sponsored review

Engagement Rings

noreply@blogger.com (raghav) — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 23:36:00 +0000

The other day I was surfing some of the online casino sites and I accidentally came across this site called JamesAllen.com.This is a wonderful site with a great design which is soothing to the eyes but yet effective.This site is basically an online jewelery store which has great reputation behind it.They have a vast collection of high quality engagement rings and weddding rings.JamesAllen.com is the ony online retailer featuring diamond photographs of over 15,000 loose diamonds.Now all those girls who are already hurryimg there,dont forget to check their 3D view gallery

Cool Sites On Net

noreply@blogger.com (raghav) — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 22:52:00 +0000

Sometimes you come across relly good sites and you cant stop talking about them.When I come across some good sites I usually blog about them।I usully like sites and blogs which are unique and standing out and also the ones which are useful to me in some way or the other.Today I came across a couple of them.Both of these are not only uniqe and standing out but are also quite useful sites which you would want to keep visiting again and again.

Trustsource.org :
If you are not sure what products on the net really work for you but are not sure how to know it yourself then this is the right place for you. At trustsource.org you can read reviews from people that have used the products you're interested in.They rank the products after gathering all the data and key inputs.Recently I wanted some help on cash advances and payday loans.I was almost caught in a fix as I was not sure which is the right place for me to go.But trustsource.org solved my problem almost instantly.I just went there and saw their reviews which helped me immensely in making my final decision.But there is one problem with this site and that is they dont have many products reviewed.Hope I'll get to see some more products reviewed by them soon.

JustSayHi.com :
If you want to get some cool widgets,quizzes and other things to stick into your blog then you'll find plenty of them here.Most of the widgets here are hilarious like this one for example "How much is your dead body worth?" would make any one coming to your blog not leave without taking notice of it.And the language they use throughout the site is really worth mentioning.

Online Tutoring

noreply@blogger.com (raghav) — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 21:58:00 +0000

Online tutoring is the way by which knowledge is imparted from a tutor, knowledge provider or expert to a student or knowledge recipient over the Internet.Students and tutors can now engage online at the same time as in a physical classroom.A student can get himself a tutor for any subject,be it Maths,English,Physics,etc or can opt for only specific topics like algebra or something like that from any subject without missing the comfort of his home.

Recently I was searching for some good online tutors to get myself some tutions on math.
I went through many sites offering online tutoring but one of them which is worth mentioning and is a leading online tutoring company in the world is tutorvista.com.I recommend this as students can use their service as much as they want and whenever they need it.Here tutoring is available 24X7.Apart from regular tutoring they offer students homework help services and help them with their test preparation.

Tutors at Tutorvista at least have graduate degrees.They undergo months of training and pass a stringent certification process before they become certified TutorVista tutors.If you are planning to take tutions online just try this one and then pay them if you are satisfied.

BloggerWave

noreply@blogger.com (raghav) — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 11:18:00 +0000

There are many ways for a blogger to earn money through his/her blog.One among them is earning money by writing reviews and opinions.This is my personal favorite way to earn some extra bucks through my blog as writing reviews is what I love to do and getting paid for that is a bonus. I recently enrolled to bloggerwave which brings to me the advertisers who would like me to write about their products or services.As soon as I enrolled,I started getting tasks right away.
If you have blog and are willing to make some extra bucks just like me then bloggerwave gives you the right opportunity. Bloggerwave is aiming to be Europe's biggest advertising media on blogs and you can help them grow so more and more jobs are likely to come your way.Fot more information visit bloggerwave.com
and start making money right away.

Light FIxtures

noreply@blogger.com (raghav) — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 10:32:00 +0000

Recently I have been visiting a lot of sites and have come across some amazing sites.One among them is Farreys.com They offer hundreds of thousands of light fixtures and outdoor light
fixtures in a wide range of styles and at the lowest prices from dozens
of top manufacturers like Ambience, Fine Art Lamps, Flos, Fontana Arte, George Kovacs, Hinkley Lighting, Kichler Lighting, Maxim Lighting, Minka Lavery, Murray Feiss, Quoizel, Sea Gull Lighting and many more.One can shop by brands or by application or by style of the light fixtures.

Well,you might ask,"why Ferry's?" .Fair question.It is ome of the oldest wholesale hardware co.,inc.,founded in 1924. Today, Farrey's is a $40 million international company.They offer a wide variety of lighting products including chandeliers, pendant lights, wall mount sconces, lamps and other light fixtures for home lighting, accent lamps,bath vanity strips, desk lamps, pendant fixtures,fine art lamps, mini-pendants, floor lamps, desk lamps, picture lights,forecast lighting, wall mounted sconces, flush and semi-flush ceiling light fixtures, wall mounted fixtures, task lighting, landscape and outdoor lighting like including pier mount lanterns, post mount lanterns, flood lights, deck lights utility and specialty lighting.The list never seems to end.So you have a wide variety to choose from.Also dont forget to browse their extensive selection of energy saving lighting for indoor or outdoor applications.

Whats even more appealing is that they have a 30 day return policy.Thats is if you are not pleased with their products you can ask your money back.Shipping is usually done in 1-2 business days.And if you are planning to make bulk orders,be assured of good discounts.For more information visit Farreys.com.

Mac Poker Online

noreply@blogger.com (raghav) — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 21:03:00 +0000

Many of us love to play poker online.Poker sites form a big chunk of internet.There are plenty of sites out there where you can go and start playing poker.But the problem is that most of them are not trustworthy.So it is hard to find a good poker sites which you can completely trust on.The problem is worse if you are a Mac user.Well,not any more! few days back I came across this amazing site called macpokeronline. This site solves most of the problems of Mac poker lovers.

This site has a very well organised list of best online poker sites to play poker for Mac.Whats even great is that you can play for free or for real at all of these sites.going through this site you will realise that the author has done a lot of hard work in gathering all the data,so that we don't have to do it r. Its a one stop site for all the poker needs.

The categories like Pacific Poker,Fulltilt Poker,PokerStars,
Poker Bonus,Online Casino Bonuses would surely leave you wanting for more and make you go there again and again.

Google Page Rank

noreply@blogger.com (raghav) — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 08:40:00 +0000

What is PageRank?
PageRank is a numeric value that represents how important a page is on the web. Google figures that when one page links to another page, it is effectively casting a vote for the other page. The more votes that are cast for a page, the more important the page must be. Also, the importance of the page that is casting the vote determines how important the vote itself is. Google calculates a page's importance from the votes cast for it. How important each vote is is taken into account when a page's PageRank is calculated.
PageRank is Google's way of deciding a page's importance. It matters because it is one of the factors that determines a page's ranking in the search results. It isn't the only factor that Google uses to rank pages, but it is an important one.

Google describes PageRank:
“PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page's value. In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But, Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves 'important' weigh more heavily and help to make other pages 'important'.”

Note:
Not all links are counted by Google. For instance, they filter out links from known link farms. Some links can cause a site to be penalized by Google. They rightly figure that webmasters cannot control which sites link to their sites, but they can control which sites they link out to. For this reason, links into a site cannot harm the site, but links from a site can be harmful if they link to penalized sites. So be careful which sites you link to. If a site has PR0, it is usually a penalty, and it would be unwise to link to it.

WARNING:

Keep reading only if you are sure that you want to read more about technical details.

How is PageRank calculated?
To calculate the PageRank for a page, all of its inbound links are taken into account. These are links from within the site and links from outside the site.

PR(A) = (1-d) + d(PR(t1)/C(t1) + ... + PR(tn)/C(tn))

That's the equation that calculates a page's PageRank. It's the original one that was published when PageRank was being developed, and it is probable that Google uses a variation of it but they aren't telling us what it is. It doesn't matter though, as this equation is good enough.

In the equation 't1 - tn' are pages linking to page A, 'C' is the number of outbound links that a page has and 'd' is a damping factor, usually set to 0.85.

We can think of it in a simpler way:-

a page's PageRank = 0.15 + 0.85 * (a "share" of the PageRank of every page that links to it)

"share" = the linking page's PageRank divided by the number of outbound links on the page.

A page "votes" an amount of PageRank onto each page that it links to. The amount of PageRank that it has to vote with is a little less than its own PageRank value (its own value * 0.85). This value is shared equally between all the pages that it links to.

From this, we could conclude that a link from a page with PR4 and 5 outbound links is worth more than a link from a page with PR8 and 100 outbound links. The PageRank of a page that links to yours is important but the number of links on that page is also important. The more links there are on a page, the less PageRank value your page will receive from it.

If the PageRank value differences between PR1, PR2,.....PR10 were equal then that conclusion would hold up, but many people believe that the values between PR1 and PR10 (the maximum) are set on a logarithmic scale, and there is very good reason for believing it. Nobody outside Google knows for sure one way or the other, but the chances are high that the scale is logarithmic, or similar. If so, it means that it takes a lot more additional PageRank for a page to move up to the next PageRank level that it did to move up from the previous PageRank level. The result is that it reverses the previous conclusion, so that a link from a PR8 page that has lots of outbound links is worth more than a link from a PR4 page that has only a few outbound links.

Whichever scale Google uses, we can be sure of one thing. A link from another site increases our site's PageRank. Just remember to avoid links from link farms.

Note that when a page votes its PageRank value to other pages, its own PageRank is not reduced by the value that it is voting. The page doing the voting doesn't give away its PageRank and end up with nothing. It isn't a transfer of PageRank. It is simply a vote according to the page's PageRank value. It's like a shareholders meeting where each shareholder votes according to the number of shares held, but the shares themselves aren't given away. Even so, pages do lose some PageRank indirectly, as we'll see later.

Ok so far? Good. Now we'll look at how the calculations are actually done.

For a page's calculation, its existing PageRank (if it has any) is abandoned completely and a fresh calculation is done where the page relies solely on the PageRank "voted" for it by its current inbound links, which may have changed since the last time the page's PageRank was calculated.

The equation shows clearly how a page's PageRank is arrived at. But what isn't immediately obvious is that it can't work if the calculation is done just once. Suppose we have 2 pages, A and B, which link to each other, and neither have any other links of any kind. This is what happens:-

Step 1: Calculate page A's PageRank from the value of its inbound links

Page A now has a new PageRank value. The calculation used the value of the inbound link from page B. But page B has an inbound link (from page A) and its new PageRank value hasn't been worked out yet, so page A's new PageRank value is based on inaccurate data and can't be accurate.

Step 2: Calculate page B's PageRank from the value of its inbound links

Page B now has a new PageRank value, but it can't be accurate because the calculation used the new PageRank value of the inbound link from page A, which is inaccurate.

It's a Catch 22 situation. We can't work out A's PageRank until we know B's PageRank, and we can't work out B's PageRank until we know A's PageRank.

Now that both pages have newly calculated PageRank values, can't we just run the calculations again to arrive at accurate values? No. We can run the calculations again using the new values and the results will be more accurate, but we will always be using inaccurate values for the calculations, so the results will always be inaccurate.

The problem is overcome by repeating the calculations many times. Each time produces slightly more accurate values. In fact, total accuracy can never be achieved because the calculations are always based on inaccurate values. 40 to 50 iterations are sufficient to reach a point where any further iterations wouldn't produce enough of a change to the values to matter. This is precisiely what Google does at each update, and it's the reason why the updates take so long.

One thing to bear in mind is that the results we get from the calculations are proportions. The figures must then be set against a scale (known only to Google) to arrive at each page's actual PageRank. Even so, we can use the calculations to channel the PageRank within a site around its pages so that certain pages receive a higher proportion of it than others.

Internal linking
Fact: A website has a maximum amount of PageRank that is distributed between its pages by internal links.

The maximum PageRank in a site equals the number of pages in the site * 1. The maximum is increased by inbound links from other sites and decreased by outbound links to other sites. We are talking about the overall PageRank in the site and not the PageRank of any individual page. You don't have to take my word for it. You can reach the same conclusion by using a pencil and paper and the equation.

Fact: The maximum amount of PageRank in a site increases as the number of pages in the site increases.

The more pages that a site has, the more PageRank it has. Again, by using a pencil and paper and the equation, you can come to the same conclusion. Bear in mind that the only pages that count are the ones that Google knows about.

Fact: By linking poorly, it is possible to fail to reach the site's maximum PageRank, but it is not possible to exceed it.

Poor internal linkages can cause a site to fall short of its maximum but no kind of internal link structure can cause a site to exceed it. The only way to increase the maximum is to add more inbound links and/or increase the number of pages in the site.

Cautions: Whilst I thoroughly recommend creating and adding new pages to increase a site's total PageRank so that it can be channeled to specific pages, there are certain types of pages that should not be added. These are pages that are all identical or very nearly identical and are known as cookie-cutters. Google considers them to be spam and they can trigger an alarm that causes the pages, and possibly the entire site, to be penalized. Pages full of good content are a must.

What can we do with this 'overall' PageRank?
We are going to look at some example calculations to see how a site's PageRank can be manipulated, but before doing that, I need to point out that a page will be included in the Google index only if one or more pages on the web link to it. That's according to Google. If a page is not in the Google index, any links from it can't be included in the calculations.

For the examples, we are going to ignore that fact, mainly because other 'Pagerank Explained' type documents ignore it in the calculations, and it might be confusing when comparing documents. The calculator operates in two modes:- Simple and Real. In Simple mode, the calculations assume that all pages are in the Google index, whether or not any other pages link to them. In Real mode the calculations disregard unlinked-to pages. These examples show the results as calculated in Simple mode. pagerank, page rank

Let's consider a 3 page site (pages A, B and C) with no links coming in from the outside. We will allocate each page an initial PageRank of 1, although it makes no difference whether we start each page with 1, 0 or 99. Apart from a few millionths of a PageRank point, after many iterations the end result is always the same. Starting with 1 requires fewer iterations for the PageRanks to converge to a suitable result than when starting with 0 or any other number. You may want to use a pencil and paper to follow this or you can follow it with the calculator.

The site's maximum PageRank is the amount of PageRank in the site. In this case, we have 3 pages so the site's maximum is 3.

At the moment, none of the pages link to any other pages and none link to them। If you make the calculation once for each page, you'll find that each of them ends up with a PageRank of 0.15. No matter how many iterations you run, each page's PageRank remains at 0.15. The total PageRank in the site = 0.45, whereas it could be 3. The site is seriously wasting most of its potential PageRank.

Example 1
Now begin again with each page being allocated PR1. Link page A to page B and run the calculations for each page. We end up with:-
Page A = 0.15
Page B = 1
Page C = 0.15

Page A has "voted" for page B and, as a result, page B's PageRank has increased. This is looking good for page B, but it's only 1 iteration - we haven't taken account of the Catch 22 situation. Look at what happens to the figures after more iterations:-

After 100 iterations the figures are:-
Page A = 0.15
Page B = 0.2775
Page C = 0.15

It still looks good for page B but nowhere near as good as it did. These figures are more realistic. The total PageRank in the site is now 0.5775 - slightly better but still only a fraction of what it could be.

Example 2
Try this linkage. Link all pages to all pages. Each page starts with PR1 again. This produces:-
Page A = 1
Page B = 1
Page C = 1

Now we've achieved the maximum. No matter how many iterations are run, each page always ends up with PR1. The same results occur by linking in a loop. E.g. A to B, B to C and C to D. View this in the calculator.

This has demonstrated that, by poor linking, it is quite easy to waste PageRank and by good linking, we can achieve a site's full potential. But we don't particularly want all the site's pages to have an equal share. We want one or more pages to have a larger share at the expense of others. The kinds of pages that we might want to have the larger shares are the index page, hub pages and pages that are optimized for certain search terms. We have only 3 pages, so we'll channel the PageRank to the index page - page A. It will serve to show the idea of channeling.

Example 3
Now try this. Link page A to both B and C. Also link pages B and C to A. Starting with PR1 all round, after 1 iteration the results are:-
Page A = 1.85
Page B = 0.575
Page C = 0.575

and after 100 iterations, the results are:-
Page A = 1.459459
Page B = 0.7702703
Page C = 0.7702703

In both cases the total PageRank in the site is 3 (the maximum) so none is being wasted. Also in both cases you can see that page A has a much larger proportion of the PageRank than the other 2 pages. This is because pages B and C are passing PageRank to A and not to any other pages. We have channeled a large proportion of the site's PageRank to where we wanted it.

Example 4
Finally, keep the previous links and add a link from page C to page B. Start again with PR1 all round. After 1 iteration:-
Page A = 1.425
Page B = 1
Page C = 0.575

By comparison to the 1 iteration figures in the previous example, page A has lost some PageRank, page B has gained some and page C stayed the same. Page C now shares its "vote" between A and B. Previously A received all of it. That's why page A has lost out and why page B has gained. and after 100 iterations:-
Page A = 1.298245
Page B = 0.9999999
Page C = 0.7017543

When the dust has settled, page C has lost a little PageRank because, having now shared its vote between A and B, instead of giving it all to A, A has less to give to C in the A-->C link. So adding an extra link from a page causes the page to lose PageRank indirectly if any of the pages that it links to return the link. If the pages that it links to don't return the link, then no PageRank loss would have occured. To make it more complicated, if the link is returned even indirectly (via a page that links to a page that links to a page etc), the page will lose a little PageRank. This isn't really important with internal links, but it does matter when linking to pages outside the site.

Example 5: new pages
Adding new pages to a site is an important way of increasing a site's total PageRank because each new page will add an average of 1 to the total. Once the new pages have been added, their new PageRank can be channeled to the important pages. We'll use the calculator to demonstrate these.

Let's add 3 new pages to Example 3 [view]. Three new pages but they don't do anything for us yet. The small increase in the Total, and the new pages' 0.15, are unrealistic as we shall see. So let's link them into the site.

Link each of the new pages to the important page, page A [view]. Notice that the Total PageRank has doubled, from 3 (without the new pages) to 6. Notice also that page A's PageRank has almost doubled.

There is one thing wrong with this model. The new pages are orphans. They wouldn't get into Google's index, so they wouldn't add any PageRank to the site and they wouldn't pass any PageRank to page A. They each need to be linked to from at least one other page. If page A is the important page, the best page to put the links on is, surprisingly, page A [view]. You can play around with the links but, from page A's point of view, there isn't a better place for them.

It is not a good idea for one page to link to a large number of pages so, if you are adding many new pages, spread the links around. The chances are that there is more than one important page in a site, so it is usually suitable to spread the links to and from the new pages. You can use the calculator to experiment with mini-models of a site to find the best links that produce the best results for its important pages.

Examples summary
You can see that, by organising the internal links, it is possible to channel a site's PageRank to selected pages. Internal links can be arranged to suit a site's PageRank needs, but it is only useful if Google knows about the pages, so do try to ensure that Google spiders them.

Questions
When a page has several links to another page, are all the links counted?

E.g. if page A links once to page B and 3 times to page C, does page C receive 3/4 of page A's shareable PageRank?

The PageRank concept is that a page casts votes for one or more other pages. Nothing is said in the original PageRank document about a page casting more than one vote for a single page. The idea seems to be against the PageRank concept and would certainly be open to manipulation by unrealistically proportioning votes for target pages. E.g. if an outbound link, or a link to an unimportant page, is necessary, add a bunch of links to an important page to minimize the effect.

Since we are unlikely to get a definitive answer from Google, it is reasonable to assume that a page can cast only one vote for another page, and that additional votes for the same page are not counted.

When a page links to itself, is the link counted?

Again, the concept is that pages cast votes for other pages. Nothing is said in the original document about pages casting votes for themselves. The idea seems to be against the concept and, also, it would be another way to manipulate the results. So, for those reasons, it is reasonable to assume that a page can't vote for itself, and that such links are not counted.

Dangling links
"Dangling links are simply links that point to any page with no outgoing links. They affect the model because it is not clear where their weight should be distributed, and there are a large number of them. Often these dangling links are simply pages that we have not downloaded yet..........Because dangling links do not affect the ranking of any other page directly, we simply remove them from the system until all the PageRanks are calculated. After all the PageRanks are calculated they can be added back in without affecting things significantly." - extract from the original PageRank paper by Google’s founders, Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page.

A dangling link is a link to a page that has no links going from it, or a link to a page that Google hasn't indexed. In both cases Google removes the links shortly after the start of the calculations and reinstates them shortly before the calculations are finished. In this way, their effect on the PageRank of other pages in minimal.

The results shown in Example 1 (right diag.) are wrong because page B has no links going from it, and so the link from page A to page B is dangling and would be removed from the calculations. The results of the calculations would show all three pages as having 0.15.

It may suit site functionality to link to pages that have no links going from them without losing any PageRank from the other pages but it would be waste of potential PageRank. Take a look at this example. The site's potential is 5 because it has 5 pages, but without page E linked in, the site only has 4.15.

Link page A to page E and click Calculate. Notice that the site's total has gone down very significantly. But, because the new link is dangling and would be removed from the calculations, we can ignore the new total and assume the previous 4.15 to be true. That's the effect of functionally useful, dangling links in the site. There's no overall PageRank loss.

However, some of the site's potential total is still being wasted, so link Page E back to Page A and click Calculate. Now we have the maximum PageRank that is possible with 5 pages. Nothing is being wasted.

Although it may be functionally good to link to pages within the site without those pages linking out again, it is bad for PageRank. It is pointless wasting PageRank unnecessarily, so always make sure that every page in the site links out to at least one other page in the site.

Inbound links
Inbound links (links into the site from the outside) are one way to increase a site's total PageRank. The other is to add more pages. Where the links come from doesn't matter. Google recognizes that a webmaster has no control over other sites linking into a site, and so sites are not penalized because of where the links come from. There is an exception to this rule but it is rare and doesn't concern this article. It isn't something that a webmaster can accidentally do.

The linking page's PageRank is important, but so is the number of links going from that page. For instance, if you are the only link from a page that has a lowly PR2, you will receive an injection of 0.15 + 0.85(2/1) = 1.85 into your site, whereas a link from a PR8 page that has another 99 links from it will increase your site's PageRank by 0.15 + 0.85(7/100) = 0.2095. Clearly, the PR2 link is much better - or is it? See here for a probable reason why this is not the case.

Once the PageRank is injected into your site, the calculations are done again and each page's PageRank is changed. Depending on the internal link structure, some pages' PageRank is increased, some are unchanged but no pages lose any PageRank.

It is beneficial to have the inbound links coming to the pages to which you are channeling your PageRank. A PageRank injection to any other page will be spread around the site through the internal links. The important pages will receive an increase, but not as much of an increase as when they are linked to directly. The page that receives the inbound link, makes the biggest gain.

It is easy to think of our site as being a small, self-contained network of pages. When we do the PageRank calculations we are dealing with our small network. If we make a link to another site, we lose some of our network's PageRank, and if we receive a link, our network's PageRank is added to. But it isn't like that. For the PageRank calculations, there is only one network - every page that Google has in its index. Each iteration of the calculation is done on the entire network and not on individual websites.

Because the entire network is interlinked, and every link and every page plays its part in each iteration of the calculations, it is impossible for us to calculate the effect of inbound links to our site with any realistic accuracy.

Outbound links
Outbound links are a drain on a site's total PageRank. They leak PageRank. To counter the drain, try to ensure that the links are reciprocated. Because of the PageRank of the pages at each end of an external link, and the number of links out from those pages, reciprocal links can gain or lose PageRank. You need to take care when choosing where to exchange links.

When PageRank leaks from a site via a link to another site, all the pages in the internal link structure are affected. (This doesn't always show after just 1 iteration). The page that you link out from makes a difference to which pages suffer the most loss. Without a program to perform the calculations on specific link structures, it is difficult to decide on the right page to link out from, but the generalization is to link from the one with the lowest PageRank.

Many websites need to contain some outbound links that are nothing to do with PageRank. Unfortunately, all 'normal' outbound links leak PageRank. But there are 'abnormal' ways of linking to other sites that don't result in leaks. PageRank is leaked when Google recognizes a link to another site. The answer is to use links that Google doesn't recognize or count. These include form actions and links contained in javascript code.

So how much additional PageRank do we need to move up the toolbar?
First, let me explain in more detail why the values shown in the Google toolbar are not the actual PageRank figures. According to the equation, and to the creators of Google, the billions of pages on the web average out to a PageRank of 1.0 per page. So the total PageRank on the web is equal to the number of pages on the web * 1, which equals a lot of PageRank spread around the web.

The Google toolbar range is from 1 to 10. (They sometimes show 0, but that figure isn't believed to be a PageRank calculation result). What Google does is divide the full range of actual PageRanks on the web into 10 parts - each part is represented by a value as shown in the toolbar. So the toolbar values only show what part of the overall range a page's PageRank is in, and not the actual PageRank itself. The numbers in the toolbar are just labels.

Whether or not the overall range is divided into 10 equal parts is a matter for debate - Google aren't saying. But because it is much harder to move up a toolbar point at the higher end than it is at the lower end, many people (including me) believe that the divisions are based on a logarithmic scale, or something very similar, rather than the equal divisions of a linear scale.

Let's assume that it is a logarithmic, base 10 scale, and that it takes 10 properly linked new pages to move a site's important page up 1 toolbar point. It will take 100 new pages to move it up another point, 1000 new pages to move it up one more, 10,000 to the next, and so on. That's why moving up at the lower end is much easier that at the higher end.

In reality, the base is unlikely to be 10. Some people think it is around the 5 or 6 mark, and maybe even less. Even so, it still gets progressively harder to move up a toolbar point at the higher end of the scale.

Note that as the number of pages on the web increases, so does the total PageRank on the web, and as the total PageRank increases, the positions of the divisions in the overall scale must change. As a result, some pages drop a toolbar point for no 'apparent' reason. If the page's actual PageRank was only just above a division in the scale, the addition of new pages to the web would cause the division to move up slightly and the page would end up just below the division. Google's index is always increasing and they re-evaluate each of the pages on more or less a monthly basis. It's known as the "Google dance". When the dance is over, some pages will have dropped a toolbar point. A number of new pages might be all that is needed to get the point back after the next dance.

The toolbar value is a good indicator of a page's PageRank but it only indicates that a page is in a certain range of the overall scale. One PR5 page could be just above the PR5 division and another PR5 page could be just below the PR6 division - almost a whole division (toolbar point) between them.

Tips
Domain names and Filenames:
To a spider, www.domain.com/, domain.com/, www.domain.com/index.html and domain.com/index.html are different urls and, therefore, different pages. Surfers arrive at the site's home page whichever of the urls are used, but spiders see them as individual urls, and it makes a difference when working out the PageRank. It is better to standardize the url you use for the site's home page. Otherwise each url can end up with a different PageRank, whereas all of it should have gone to just one url.

If you think about it, how can a spider know the filename of the page that it gets back when requesting www.domain.com/ ? It can't. The filename could be index.html, index.htm, index.php, default.html, etc. The spider doesn't know. If you link to index.html within the site, the spider could compare the 2 pages but that seems unlikely. So they are 2 urls and each receives PageRank from inbound links. Standardizing the home page's url ensures that the Pagerank it is due isn't shared with ghost urls.

Example: Go to my UK Holidays and UK Holiday Accommodation site - how's that for a nice piece of link text ;). Notice that the url in the browser's address bar contains "www.". If you have the Google Toolbar installed, you will see that the page has PR5. Now remove the "www." part of the url and get the page again. This time it has PR1, and yet they are the same page. Actually, the PageRank is for the unseen frameset page.

When this article was first written, the non-www URL had PR4 due to using different versions of the link URLs within the site. It had the effect of sharing the page's PageRank between the 2 pages (the 2 versions) and, therefore, between the 2 sites. That's not the best way to do it. Since then, I've tidied up the internal linkages and got the non-www version down to PR1 so that the PageRank within the site mostly stays in the "www." version, but there must be a site somewhere that links to it without the "www." that's causing the PR1.

Imagine the page, www.domain.com/index.html. The index page contains links to several relative urls; e.g. products.html and details.html. The spider sees those urls as www.domain.com/products.html and www.domain.com/details.html. Now let's add an absolute url for another page, only this time we'll leave out the "www." part - domain.com/anotherpage.html. This page links back to the index.html page, so the spider sees the index pages as domain.com/index.html. Although it's the same index page as the first one, to a spider, it is a different page because it's on a different domain. Now look what happens. Each of the relative urls on the index page is also different because it belongs to the domain.com/ domain. Consequently, the link stucture is wasting a site's potential PageRank by spreading it between ghost pages.

Adding new pages
There is a possible negative effect of adding new pages. Take a perfectly normal site. It has some inbound links from other sites and its pages have some PageRank. Then a new page is added to the site and is linked to from one or more of the existing pages. The new page will, of course, aquire PageRank from the site's existing pages. The effect is that, whilst the total PageRank in the site is increased, one or more of the existing pages will suffer a PageRank loss due to the new page making gains. Up to a point, the more new pages that are added, the greater is the loss to the existing pages. With large sites, this effect is unlikely to be noticed but, with smaller ones, it probably would.

So, although adding new pages does increase the total PageRank within the site, some of the site's pages will lose PageRank as a result. The answer is to link new pages is such a way within the site that the important pages don't suffer, or add sufficient new pages to make up for the effect (that can sometimes mean adding a large number of new pages), or better still, get some more inbound links.

Miscellaneous
The Google toolbar
If you have the Google toolbar installed in your browser, you will be used to seeing each page's PageRank as you browse the web. But all isn't always as it seems. Many pages that Google displays the PageRank for haven't been indexed in Google and certainly don't have any PageRank in their own right. What is happening is that one or more pages on the site have been indexed and a PageRank has been calculated. The PageRank figure for the site's pages that haven't been indexed is allocated on the fly - just for your toolbar. The PageRank itself doesn't exist.

It's important to know this so that you can avoid exchanging links with pages that really don't have any PageRank of their own. Before making exchanges, search for the page on Google to make sure that it is indexed.

Sub-directories
Some people believe that Google drops a page's PageRank by a value of 1 for each sub-directory level below the root directory. E.g. if the value of pages in the root directory is generally around 4, then pages in the next directory level down will be generally around 3, and so on down the levels. Other people (including me) don't accept that at all. Either way, because some spiders tend to avoid deep sub-directories, it is generally considered to be beneficial to keep directory structures shallow (directories one or two levels below the root).

ODP and Yahoo!
It used to be thought that Google gave a Pagerank boost to sites that are listed in the Yahoo! and ODP (a.k.a. DMOZ) directories, but these days general opinion is that they don't. There is certainly a PageRank gain for sites that are listed in those directories, but the reason for it is now thought to be this:-

Google spiders the directories just like any other site and their pages have decent PageRank and so they are good inbound links to have. In the case of the ODP, Google's directory is a copy of the ODP directory. Each time that sites are added and dropped from the ODP, they are added and dropped from Google's directory when they next update it. The entry in Google's directory is yet another good, PageRank boosting, inbound link. Also, the ODP data is used for searches on a myriad of websites - more inbound links!

Listings in the ODP are free but, because sites are reviewed by hand, it can take quite a long time to get in। The sooner a working site is submitted, the better.

Source:webworkshop.net

A Man For All Seasons

noreply@blogger.com (raghav) — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 23:48:00 +0000

A Man for All Seasons is a 1966 film based on Robert Bolt's play of the same name about Sir Thomas More. Paul Scofield, who had played More in the West End stage premiere, also took the role in the film. The film also stars Robert Shaw as Henry VIII, Orson Welles as Wolsey, John Hurt as Richard Rich, Nigel Davenport as the Duke of Norfolk and Wendy Hiller as More's second wife, Alice. It was directed by Fred Zinnemann who had previously directed such films as High Noon and From Here to Eternity.

The plot is based on the true story of Sir Thomas More, the 16th-century Chancellor of England, who refused to sign a letter asking the Pope to annul the King's marriage and resigned rather than take an Oath of Supremacy declaring the King the Supreme Head of the English Church. The King is Henry VIII of England and his wife is Catherine of Aragon, the first of an eventual six wives. Both the play and the film portray More as a man of principle, motivated by his devout Roman Catholic faith and envied by rivals such as Thomas Cromwell. He is also deeply loved by the common people and by his family.

The film opens with Cardinal Wolsey, played by Orson Welles, summoning More (Paul Scofield) to his palace at Hampton Court. Desiring his support in obtaining a divorce from the Pope so that the King can marry Anne Boleyn, Wolsey chastises More for being the only member of Parliament to argue against him. When More states that the Pope will never grant a divorce, he is scandalized by Wolsey's suggestion that they apply "pressure" to Church lands in order to force the issue. More responds,

"No, Your Grace, I'm not going to help you."

Wolsey indignantly suggests that if only More could see "facts flat on" without his "horrible moral squint", he "might have made a statesman." More responds,

"I think that when statesmen forsake their own private consciences for the sake of their public duties, they lead their country by a short route to chaos."

Wolsey declares that until More can "see reason", they will remain enemies.

Returning by a River Thames ferry to his estate at Chelsea, More finds Richard Rich (John Hurt), a young acquaintance from Cambridge waiting by the dock for his return. Rich pleads with More for a position at Court, but More, citing the various corruptions there, advises him to become a teacher instead. Entering the house, More finds his daughter Meg (Susannah York) with a young Protestant named William Roper. Roper announces his desire to marry Meg. More, however, a devout Catholic, announces that his answer is no as long as Roper remains a heretic. Roper angrily retorts that Martin Luther has proved to him that Roman Catholicism is "a heretic church." More declares,

"Now, listen, Will. Two years ago you were a passionate Churchman. Now you're a passionate Lutheran. We must just pray that when your head's finished turning, your face is to the front again."

Shortly thereafter, Wolsey dies in disgrace (banished to a rural monastery), having failed to coerce a divorce from the Pope. King Henry (Robert Shaw, in the role which earned him an Academy Award Nomination) then appoints More as Lord Chancellor of England. Soon after, the King arrives by boat at Chelsea to inquire about his divorce. Sir Thomas, rather than admit that his conscience forbids him to play dirty to dissolve what he considers a valid marriage, subtly provokes the King into a raging tantrum, in earshot of his entourage and More's family. The King screams,

"I have no Queen! Catherine's not my wife! No priest can make it so! Those who say she is my wife are not only liars but traitors!"

King Henry then storms off in a huff, returning to his barge and ordering the oarmen to cast off. His fawning courtiers are left to run through the mud and into the river to catch up as the King laughs hysterically at their predicament.

Roper, having heard of More's predicament from Meg, reveals that his religious opinions have altered considerably. He declares that by attacking the Catholic Church, the King has become "the Devil's minister". A frightened More begs him to be more guarded as Rich arrives, pleading again for a position at Court. When More again refuses, Rich denounces More's steward as a spy for Thomas Cromwell (Leo McKern), one of More's enemies at Court. As a humiliated Rich leaves, More's family pleads with him to have Rich arrested. More refuses, stating that Rich, while dangerous, has broken no law. Still seeking a position at Court, Rich enlists Cromwell's patronage and joins him in attempting to bring down More.

King Henry, tired of awaiting a divorce from the Vatican, declares himself "Supreme Head of the Church in England." More quietly resigns his post as Chancellor rather than accept the new order. As he does so, Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk (Nigel Davenport), a close friend of More's, attempts to draw his opinions out as part of a friendly chat with no witnesses present. More, however, knows that the time for speaking openly of such matters is past. The Duke, believing that More is simply paranoid, tries to soothe his fears. He tells him,

"This isn't Spain, you know. This is England".

The King, however will not be appeased. He demands that More attend his "wedding" to Anne Boleyn. When More refuses, he is summoned again to Hampton Court, now occupied by Cromwell. When Cromwell interrogates him on his opinions, More refuses to answer, citing it as his right under English Law. Cromwell angrily declares that the King now views him as a traitor, but allows him to go.

As More returns home he is met by his daughter. Meg informs him that a new oath about the marriage is being circulated and that all must take it on pain of high treason. Unable to find any loopholes in the oath, More refuses to take it. He is then imprisoned in the Tower of London. Despite repeated threats from Cromwell, the more subtle tactics of Archbishop Thomas Cranmer (Cyril Luckham), and the pleadings of his family, More remains steadfast in his refusal to take the oath. When he is finally brought to trial, he remains silent until after being convicted of treason on the perjured testimony of Richard Rich. Informed that Rich has been promoted as Attorney General for Wales as a reward, More wittily remarks,"Why Richard, it profits a man nothing to lose his soul for the whole world... but for Wales?"
Now having nothing left to lose, More angrily denounces the illegal nature of the King's actions, citing the Biblical basis for the authority of the Papacy over Christendom and further declaring that the immunity of the Church is guaranteed both in Magna Carta and in the King's own Coronation Oath. He the cries loud enough for the whole courtroom to hear,
"But it was not for the Supremacy you sought my blood, but because I would not bend to the marriage!"
As the spectators scream in protest, More is sentenced to death.
Later, outside the Tower of London, More declares,

"I am commanded by the King to be brief, and since I am the King's obedient Subject, brief I will be. I die His Majesty's good servant, but God's first."
More then makes the Sign of the Cross and kneels down before the executioner's axe. The axe is raised and brought down off screen with a sickening crack, and a man for all seasons is gone.

A narrator intones the epilogue.

"Thomas More's head was stuck on Traitor's Gate for a month. Then his daughter, Margaret, removed it and kept it 'til her death. Cromwell was beheaded for high treason five years after More. The Archbishop was burned at the stake. The Duke of Norfolk should have been executed for high treason but the King died of syphilis the night before. Richard Rich became Chancellor of England and died in his bed."

Aliens

noreply@blogger.com (raghav) — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 23:21:00 +0000

Aliens is a 1986 science fiction/action film starring Sigourney Weaver, Michael Biehn, Lance Henriksen, Carrie Henn, Bill Paxton and Paul Reiser. A sequel to Ridley Scott's 1979 film Alien, Aliens takes place 57 years after the events of the first film and is regarded by many as a benchmark for the action and science fiction genres.In Aliens, Weaver's character Ellen Ripley returns to the planet where she first encountered the hostile Alien "xenomorph." This time she is accompanied by a unit of Colonial Marines.

Directed by James Cameron from a story written by Cameron, David Giler and Walter Hill, Aliens is a high-paced action-adventure film which is in stark contrast to the atmospheric Sci-Fi horror of the original Alien. Following The Terminator, the film helped to establish Cameron as a major action director.Sigourney Weaver received her first Best Actress Academy Award nomination for her leading role in Aliens.Like its predecessor, the film was shot in England, this time at Pinewood Studios, with a budget of approximately $18 million.The film went on to earn over $131 million internationally during its 1986 theatrical release, making it the highest-grossing entry in the Alien film series.Given the combat-oriented nature of the film, Aliens was promoted with the tagline, "This Time It's War."

Ellen Ripley, the only survivor of the Weyland-Yutani Corporation space freighter Nostromo, is rescued and revived after drifting for 57 years in hypersleep. Ripley gives her report about the Alien to a board of the company's executives, but is met with extreme skepticism, as all evidence of the creature was lost in the destruction of the Nostromo. She in turn learns that LV-426, the moon where her crew first encountered the Alien in a crashed extraterrestrial spaceship, is now home to a terraforming colony. After Ripley takes a position loading cargo on a space-dock, Weyland-Yutani employee Carter Burke informs her that contact has been lost with LV-426, and the company is sending him and a unit of Colonial Marines to investigate, and wants Ripley to go along as a consultant. Despite severe misgivings, Ripley joins the expedition as it travels to LV-426 aboard the warship Sulaco. Arriving in orbit, Ripley gets to know the Marines, led by the novice lieutenant Gorman and the veteran sergeant Apone, and accompanied by the android Bishop. She gives a briefing on her original encounter with the Alien to the group, but her warnings go unheeded by the cocky unit members.
The heavily-armed expedition descends to the planet's surface via dropship. They find the colony seemingly abandoned; the only living things are two of the Alien-implanting "facehuggers" on display in the colony's medical lab, and a severely traumatized young girl, nicknamed Newt, who has survived by hiding in the colony's sprawling ventilation system. The Marines eventually locate the other colonists, by tracking their surgically-implanted transceivers, clustered together in the colony's nuclear-powered atmosphere-processing station. Traveling to the station, the Marines find a large Alien nest, filled with the cocooned corpses of the colonists. When the Marines destroy a newborn chestburster-Alien, a swarm of mature Alien drones awakes and ambushes the unprepared unit. Most of the unit is killed or captured, but Ripley crashes their APC into the nest, knocking Gorman unconscious but rescuing Corporal Hicks, Private Vasquez, and Private Hudson. Hicks assumes command of the mission and orders the dropship to recover the survivors, with the intent of returning to the Sulaco and destroying the colony from orbit, but a stowaway Alien kills the dropship pilots in flight, causing the vessel to crash into the processing station. The surviving humans barricade themselves inside the main colony complex.

Ripley learns that Burke has ordered Bishop to preserve Alien specimens for return to the Company labs. She confronts Burke and declares that after investigation she has discovered it was he who sent the unprepared colonists to the original Alien-infested spaceship; she vows to expose him. Bishop shows them that the damaged nuclear processing station has become unstable and will soon detonate with the force of a thermonuclear weapon. Having no other way to contact the second dropship still onboard the Sulaco, he volunteers to crawl down a service pipe to the colony transmitter array and bring the vessel down by remote control. A recovered Gorman rejoins the team, while Ripley and Newt try and get some rest. Ripley awakens to find they have been locked in the room with the two live facehuggers. She sets off a fire alarm which alerts Hicks, Hudson, and Vasquez, who arrive and destroy the creatures. Ripley accuses Burke of releasing the facehuggers with the intention of using Newt and Ripley as hosts to smuggle the implanted Aliens past quarantine. The debate about what to do with him is interrupted when the power to headquarters is cut off, possibly by the Aliens, who pour in through a gap in the ceiling and attack en masse. During the battle Hudson is swarmed and pulled down through the floor, while Burke's attempt to flee alone is quickly cut short by one of the attackers. Newt leads the few remaining members into the air ducts. Gorman and an injured Vasquez, after being cut off and surrounded, detonate a grenade, killing themselves and several Aliens. The force of the blast pushes Newt down a shaft, where she is captured alive by an Alien.
Hicks is badly injured by the acidic blood of one of the Aliens while reaching Bishop and the second dropship. Ripley, unwilling to leave Newt, gears up to rescue the girl. She finds and frees a cocooned Newt in the bowels of the Alien hive, but while attempting to escape, they stumble into the nest's main breeding chamber, where they are confronted by the monstrous Alien queen. Ripley incinerates the chamber with her weapons--draining the last of her ammo and enraging the queen, who escapes the destruction by tearing free from her huge ovipositor. Closely pursued by the wounded queen, Ripley and Newt rendezvous with the dropship and escape moments before the entire colony is consumed by the nuclear blast from the processing station. Back on the Sulaco, Ripley's and Bishop's relieved conversation is abruptly interrupted when the queen, stowed away on the dropship landing gear, impales the android from behind with her barbed tail and then tears him in half. Ripley distracts the queen long enough for Newt to jump into a hole in the ship's deck plating. Just as the queen is about to pull the girl from her hiding place, Ripley reappears manning one of the ship's exosuit "power-loaders". She battles the queen and succeeds in dropping the creature into a large airlock and expelling her into space. Ripley, Newt, Hicks and Bishop enter hypersleep for the return back to Earth.
Aliens was nominated for seven Academy Awards and won two (Sound Effects Editing and Visual Effects). Sigourney Weaver received her first Academy Award nomination (Best Actress) for this film. Although Weaver did not actually win, it was considered a landmark for a nomination for Best Actress to even be made for a science fiction / horror film, a genre usually given little recognition by the Academy

Fight Club

noreply@blogger.com (raghav) — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 23:02:00 +0000

Fight Club is a 1999 feature film adaptation of the 1996 novel Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk, adapted by Jim Uhls and directed by David Fincher. Fight Club explores themes of psychological emasculation in modern white-collar society, with Edward Norton playing a disillusioned everyman who meets a woman similar to him (Helena Bonham Carter) and a soap salesman (Brad Pitt) who embodies his repressed masculinity. The two men establish a club for men to engage in fist fights, and later, radical revolutionary acts.

While the film performed below expectations at the box office in the United States, and received lukewarm reviews from major news outlets during its theatrical run, its release on DVD brought it critical acclaim and belated praise from its viewers, and recognition as a cult film.

The narrator (Edward Norton) is a nameless automobile company employee who travels to accident sites for the purposes of calculating whether or not to issue product recalls based on the likely cost of lawsuits that would be incurred otherwise. His doctor refuses to write a prescription for his insomnia, and instead recommends that he visits a support group for testicular cancer sufferers to appreciate real suffering. The narrator attends the group and is able to find catharsis, sleeping soundly without a problem.

Meanwhile, the narrator's routine is again disrupted when he notices another person faking these illnesses (like himself), Marla Singer (Helena Bonham Carter). Her presence at his support groups causes his insomnia to relapse.

During a flight for a business trip, the narrator meets Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt), a flamboyant soap salesman. When the narrator arrives home, he finds that his apartment has been destroyed by an explosion. He calls Tyler and meets him at a bar, where Tyler permits the narrator to stay at his place. Leaving the bar, Tyler asks the narrator to hit him. The narrator reluctantly complies, and the two end up enjoying a fist fight. The narrator moves in with Tyler at an abandoned house, and they fight again outside the bar. After attracting a crowd, they establish a 'fight club' in the bar's basement. Soon, more clubs spring up around the country. At one point, Marla overdoses on Xanax and is rescued by Tyler Durden. The two begin a sexual relationship, and Tyler forbids the narrator from talking to Marla about him.

Eventually, Tyler's fight club becomes "Project Mayhem," which commits acts of anti-corporate vandalism in the city. The fight clubs become a network for Project Mayhem, and the narrator is left out of Tyler's activities with the project, feeling disillusioned and disturbed about their actions. Tyler and the narrator have an argument and Tyler disappears from the narrator's life.

When a member of Project Mayhem, Bob (Meat Loaf), dies on a mission, the narrator decides to take action to shut down the project. He tries to trace Tyler's steps, traveling all over the country and feeling a sense of déjà vu wherever he travels. Puzzled, he calls Marla Singer, and asks her to say his name. When she responds "Tyler Durden," he realizes the truth; Tyler is an alter ego of his own split personality. Tyler appears in his room and explains that he is in control of the narrator's body whenever he is asleep. The narrator falls unconscious, and he wakes to find phone calls made during his blackout. He tracks Tyler's plans to the downtown headquarters of major credit card companies, which Tyler plans to destroy the consumerist financial system. The narrator, attempting to disarm the explosives in the building basement, is confronted by Tyler, knocked unconscious, and taken to the upper floor of another building to witness the impending destruction.

The narrator, held by Tyler at gunpoint, realizes that, sharing the same body with Tyler, he really holds the gun. He finds himself holding the gun and fires it into his mouth, shooting through the cheek without killing himself. The illusion of Tyler collapses, with an exit wound to the back of his head. Members of Project Mayhem, who still see the narrator as Tyler, bring Marla Singer to him and leave them alone, despite being shocked by his wound. Marla, who was warned to leave the city by the narrator, concernedly asks what happened. The narrator explains that he shot himself and tells her, "You met me at a very strange time in my life." They watch as the buildings explode in a collapsing skyline outside the windows, standing side-by-side and holding hands.

Resident Evil

noreply@blogger.com (raghav) — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 22:42:00 +0000

Resident Evil is a 2002 science fiction horror film based on the Resident Evil series of survival horror games developed by Capcom, and the first in a series of film adaptations. It was directed by Paul W. S. Anderson, and was released in the United States on March 15, 2002, and in Japan on August 31, 2002.

The film was followed by two sequels: Resident Evil: Apocalypse and Resident Evil: Extinction. Apocalypse was released on September 10, 2004, while Extinction is currently in post-production is scheduled to be released on September 21, 2007. Neither of these films were directed by Anderson, but Paul did write the scripts and function as one of the producers.

The film mainly borrows elements from Resident Evil and Resident Evil 2.

Tagline: A secret experiment. A deadly virus. A fatal mistake.

The film opens to a man tossing a glass tube containing a blue substance inside a lab. Minutes later the automated security system kills everyone in the facility through various means ranging from drowning scientists in a sealed lab, to suffocating trapped employees with halon gas to dropping an elevator full of people and beheading a woman using elevator doors.

A woman, Alice, later awakens in a shower inside a mansion with no recollection of her identity. As she explores the mansion she is captured by a man and the two are immediately seized by a group of commandos. The man grabbing Alice turns out to be a police-officer, Matt Adison. The commandos open a mirror-door to an underground train-station. On the train they discover another unconscious victim suffering amnesia, a male (Spence). The woman recognises this man from a wedding photograph in the mansion. Looking at her wedding ring the inside of it reads: Property of the Umbrella Corporation.

The two amnesiacs as well as the commandos turn out to be employees of the Umbrella corporation. The train takes them to The Hive, an underground research facility located beneath nearby Raccoon City, revealed to be the place where the horrific events at the beginning occurred. The commando team has been dispatched to figure out why the Hive's defensive computer, Red Queen, killed all Umbrella staff. She is also responsible for launching a nerve gas in the mansion which has caused Alice and Spence's amnesias, but throughout the film Alice begins to have glimpses of her past.

The crew find their way to the Queen's chamber, but as the bulk of the team attempt to disable the Red Queen they are trapped in the corridor leading to the Queen's Chamber and killed through an intricate (and, judging from the way it adapted to their movements, quite possibly artificially intelligent) laser-trap capable of cutting through flesh, bone and metal easily. This leaves Alice, Spence, Kaplan, J.D., Rain and Matt as the only survivors. Alice and Kaplan shut the queen down, but open up the doors of the facility. This shutdown cause a power outage and releases the undead staff and experiments from stasis. As they return to the train the rest of the survivors are attacked by the zombified Umbrella staff. Rain becomes infected after receiving multiple bite wounds. A heated battle ensues in which Matt and Alice are separated and J.D. is killed.

Alice discovers that Matt attempted to smuggle a sample of the T-Virus which has caused the Umbrella staff to change into zombies with the help of his sister Lisa. Throughout the film Alice has had flashbacks of Lisa and knows that she was her contact, but Alice does not know her own full role in the events. The survivors are once more united at the Queen's chamber where they're forced to switch her back on in order to discover the true nature of the virus, the zombies as well as an exit. As security, Kaplan disables her circuit-breaker, causing her to fry if she attempts to double-cross them.

As Alice and the others try escaping through the maintenance tunnels they are ambushed by zombies. Rain becomes severely injured and begins to weaken. Kaplan is separated from the rest of the team and assumed dead. On their way out they pass through the lab from the beginning. Alice remembers that an anti-virus exists that could cure the ailing Rain, but arriving at the lab they realize the tubes of T-Virus are gone. This however jogs Spence's memory who is revealed to be the person who threw the test-tube in the beginning. He traps the others in the lab and makes for the train where the case containing the anti-virus is. Before he can inject himself however, he is killed by a Licker, a mutant-creature created by injecting the T-virus directly into living tissue. The Queen offers to spare Alice and Matt's life if they kill Rain who has been infected the longest. As the Licker attempts bashing through the lab window to get to them, the enraged Alice smashes the Queen's monitor and suddenly there is a power-outage. The lab door opens to reveal Kaplan, who fried the Red Queen and helps the others to escape.

The protagonists hurry to get to the other end of the underground railway before its other end shuts as programmed to do so to prevent the virus from escaping the facility. However, the Licker is on the train and kills Kaplan after scratching Matt in the arm. Alice manages to impale the licker's tongue in the grating on the floor, leaving it stuck over a trap-door. She yells to Matt to open the door and he is forced to kill Rain, who in spite of being given the antidote turns into a zombie (possibly because she received so many various bites and scratches the Antidote was useless). As her corpse hits the release-button the trapdoors open and the Licker is killed by being dragged along the railway, catching fire.

Matt and Alice escape at the last second when the doors close. Matt begins to suffer a mutation from the Licker's scratch and the two are seized by Umbrella scientists (who mention sending Matt to the "Nemesis Project", an allusion to the next movie), then one of the head scientists orders to reopen the Hive to know what really went down. Sometime later Alice wakes up at the Raccoon City Hospital, having gone through extensive testing, and busts out only to find the city in chaos and abandoned. She picks a shotgun from a nearby police car and prepares to face the Apocalypse and the terrors that lie ahead.

Baby's Day out

noreply@blogger.com (raghav) — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 21:59:00 +0000

Baby's Day Out is a 1994 comedy film about one day's adventures of a kidnapped baby in the city. The movie was directed by Patrick Read Johnson and written by John Hughes
Bennington "Bink" Austin Cotwell Jr., a nine-month-old baby boy is scheduled to have a special photograph taken by Downtown Baby Photographers to be published in the newspapers. However, unknown to Bink's parents, Bennington Sr. and Lorraine, the photographers, made up of a trio of bank robbers, Eddie, Norby and Veeko, plan to kidnap Bink and hold him ransom

With Bennington Sr. at work, Lorraine and Nanny Gilbertine dress Bink in his finest clothes and prepare him for the spotlight. Eddie, Veeko and Norby arrive in their photographer disguises; Eddie asks Veeko to go the van and "retrieve a light metre" and demands some time alone with Bink for his full attention during the individual shot. But after Lorraine and Gilbertine leave to change, Eddie, Veeko and Norby flee from the mansion in their van with Bink and Bink's favourite storybook, Baby's Day Out, the "Buubuu book".

At their flat, the trio start their hilarious attempts to properly feed Bink (Norby changes Bink into regular clothes with difficulty and Veeko sprays Norby's bald head with hot milk to avoid risking burning Bink's throat), and Norby is told to put Bink to sleep so as to keep him quiet, but Norby's incompetent singing and reading ultimately drive him to boredom and he falls asleep, leaving Bink to read his book alone. Unfortunately, Bink sees a pigeon on the steps outside the window, and follows it (the steps that lead to the building's roof) after seeing a similar bird in Baby's Day Out.

As Bink crawls about on the roof, he peers down through the broken glass top at Eddie and Veeko who are watching TV and accidentally draws their attention by allowing a drop of saliva to drop down on Eddie's neck. Waking Norby up, the trio chase after Bink to the roof, and Eddie spots Bink crawling toward a pigeon on a plank above a long fall. Worried for Bink's safety, Eddie runs as fast as he can toward Bink, but Bink crawls too far and falls onto the next building, and the other end of the plank hits Eddie and knocks him out. When Veeko angrily throws the plank away, he and Norby try to get Eddie to jump with them onto the next building, but the unconscious Eddie doesn't make it and he falls down into the garbage bin below, seriously injuring himself.

Meanwhile, Bink uses the elevator to get down to the bottom floor, and escapes from the trio (he passes within a few feet of Veeko and Norby, who are busy helping Eddie). Seeing a big blue bus like in his book, Bink boards it and accidentally reveals himself to the nearby trio, who give chase in their van.

They eventually catch up when the bus stops, but see that Bink is gone. However, Veeko spots Bink in the bag of an obese lady who insulted Eddie. They tail her, but she attacks them upon hearing them and unknowingly buys Bink enough time to escape into a nearby department store, another location in Baby's Day Out. But Bink is mistaken for a lost child and taken to the Mother Goose corner, from where he eventually escapes and heads for the exit. Unfortunately, Bink accidentally crawls over the wire of a journalist who is making a report outside the store, and appears on TV for a few seconds, during which Eddie, Norby and Veeko spot Bink and head for the store just as Bink crawls into a nearby Taxi, another location in Baby's Day Out, and escapes from the now-frustrated trio.
Eddie, Veeko and Norby eventually find the Taxi, and to their horror, spot Bink crawling across the busy road. The trio give chase as Bink makes it to the pavement and enters a zoo, another location in Baby's Day Out. After getting their feet squashed by a car, the trio make it to the pavement and jump into an open pit, where they get themselves dirty. But they see Bink's baby tracks and follow them to the ape-house of the zoo, where they see that Bink has somehow made it into a Gorilla Cage. When everyone leaves the ape-house, the trio take turns in reaching into the cage and trying to get Bink, until the Gorilla backs them off by bashing Veeko's hand, sending Norby into the air with a mopstick, and growling hard in Eddie's face, throwing him into the bars into the cage opposite the Gorilla's. Then, Bink bids a tearful goodbye to the Gorilla, and crawls out of the zoo from under the bars of the Gorilla's back window.
Bink eventually ends up in a park, and crawls off just as the trio spot him in their van and surround him. However, when Eddie tries to grab his "nephew Bink", Bink quickly crawls away and down a rabbit hole. Determined to get Bink back, the trio run to the other side of the road and finally catch Bink as he emerges from the other side of the rabbit hole. But the trio spot two policemen examining their van (they left the engine on), and quickly sit on a nearby bench, hiding Bink under Eddie's coat. Unfortunately for Eddie, Bink starts pinching him from underneath the coat and, just as Veeko and Norby finally manage to walk the friendly policemen away, sets fire to Eddie's trousers before escaping into the bushes and out of sight. In probably the film's most hilarious moment, Norby and Veeko try to put out the fire on Eddie's groin, and Veeko ultimately succeeds by stomping his foot hard several times on Eddie's groin, seriously hurting him. The angry Eddie then tells Veeko to follow Bink on foot while he and Norby look around in the van.

Meanwhile, Bink has crawled to another location in Baby's Day Out: a construction site, where Bink crawls onto a girder with a builder's doughnut and goes high into the sky just as Veeko arrives with Eddie and Norby. The trio follow Bink into the air via an elevator, and tell Veeko to jump onto the passing girder to grab Bink. Unfortunately, Veeko's weight causes the girder to tilt, and Bink slides onto the roof of the elevator as Veeko dangles dangerously from the girder. The cowardly Eddie then tells the acrophobic Norby to grab Veeko but accidentally causes Norby to lose footing and hold on to Veeko's stomach for dear life. As the girder swings dangerously, Norby eventually loses his grip and ultimately falls down into a vat of liquid concrete, saving his life, just as the girder swings upward and throws Veeko back onto the platform with Eddie.

Eddie and Veeko then try to get to a lower level and catch Bink, but Eddie suggests that Veeko jump onto the roof of an elevator to avoid being seen. This causes Veeko to hurt his back, and after a series of predicaments, Veeko is ultimately thrown off the building and into a dump truck, where he miraculously survives but is drenched in rotten paint.

Eddie then finds and confronts Bink alone, but he slips on Bink's saliva and falls to the floor, where a hammer hits him in the head, rendering him dizzy and causing him to activate a vat of cement that spills on him. Enraged, Eddie taunts Bink for his mindless victory, but Bink jumps onto a descending platform and escapes from Eddie, who was too late to follow. Now left alone, Eddie attempts to use a crane to get down, but the crane stops and the five o'clock bell sounds, telling the workers to pack up and go home. As Bink and the workers leave, the sun quickly sets, and when the guard closes the site, Eddie is left stranded in mid-air on the crane, while Veeko and Norby look up at him from the ground.

Meanwhile, at Bink's house, FBI Agent Dale Grissom comes up with news for Bennington Sr., Lorraine and Gilbertine regarding the whereabouts of Bink: a bus, a department store, a zoo, a park, and a construction site. Knowing that Bink has been following the storyline of Baby's Day Out, Gilbertine deduces that Bink is now heading for the sixth and final destination in the book: The Old Soldiers' Home. Bink's parents, Gilbertine and Grissom all rush to the Old Soldiers' Home.

At nightfall, Bink arrives at the Old Soldiers' Home, where the old war heroes immediately recognise Bink as the abducted baby and take him in warmly. Later on, Bink's family and friends show up, and enjoy a tearful reunion with their baby.

On the way home, they realise that Bink has lost Baby's Day Out, but Bink refers to an apartment clock as "Buubuu", and Lorraine immdediately realises that Bink is pointing to his storybook, which is at the "Tick-Tock", the home of Eddie, Veeko and Norby.

At the "Tick-Tock", while Eddie, Veeko and Norby nurse their injuries, they joke a bit in triumph and agree to go back to robbing banks when they hear Bink crying "Buubuu" from outside. Horrified, the trio run to their window and see that they are surrounded by an army of policemen who demand that they return the "Buubuu" and put their hands over their heads. Eddie throws Baby's Day Out out of the window, and it lands at Lorraine's feet, on the last page of the story. Eddie, Veeko and Norby are then handcuffed and taken to prison.

That night, Bennington Sr. and Lorraine agree to have their friend, Old Willie, take Bink's picture the next morning. Unknown to them, Bink is still awake and ready to read a new book: Baby's Trip to China

The Sixth Sense

noreply@blogger.com (raghav) — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 00:15:00 +0000

The Sixth Sense is a 1999 Academy Award-nominated psychological thriller film written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan that tells the story of Cole, a troubled, isolated boy (played by Haley Joel Osment) who claims to be able to see and talk to the dead, and an equally troubled child psychologist (played by Bruce Willis) who tries to help him. The film, like much of Shyamalan's work, is known for its twist ending.
As the film opens, Dr. Malcolm Crowe (Bruce Willis) a prominent child psychologist, returns home one night with his wife from an event in which he was honored for his efforts with children. The two discover they are not alone - a disturbed, nearly naked man named Vincent Grey (Donnie Wahlberg) appears in the doorway of their bathroom with a gun. He says, "I don't want to be afraid anymore." Vincent is upset that Crowe has not helped him, and Crowe realizes that Vincent is a former patient he treated as a child for his hallucinations. He condemns Malcolm for his inability to help him and shoots him in the stomach, and seconds later turns the gun on himself. The scene fades away with Malcolm's wife by his side, aiding him.

Months later, next fall, Malcolm returns to work with another frightened boy, 9-year old Cole Sear (Haley Joel Osment), with a condition similar to Vincent's. Malcolm becomes dedicated to this patient, though he is haunted by doubts over his ability to help him, after his failure with Vincent. Meanwhile, he begins to neglect his wife, with whom his relationship is falling apart. Malcolm earns Cole's trust and Cole ultimately confides in him that he is clairvoyant and can "see dead people." Though Malcolm is naturally skeptical at first, he eventually comes to believe that Cole is telling the truth, and that Vincent may have had the same ability as Cole. He suggests to Cole that he try to find a purpose for his gift by communicating with the ghosts, perhaps to aid them in their unfinished business on Earth. Cole is at first skeptical about this advice, as the ghosts terrify him, but soon decides to try it.

Cole communicates with the ghost of one girl who appears in his bedroom and appears to be sick. He finds out where the girl, Kyra Collins (Mischa Barton), lived and goes to her house, where a funeral reception is being held for her. Kyra's ghost gives Cole a videotape (inside a box), which Cole gives to Kyra's father. The tape reveals that when Kyra was bedridden with illness, her mother was poisoning her food, which led to Kyra's death (this behavior has been suggested as Munchausen syndrome by proxy or factitious disorder).[1] Empowered now by his ability to use his gift to positive effect, Cole confesses his ability to his mother, Lynn (Toni Collette). Although his mother is troubled by his story, Cole tells Lynn that her mother (Cole's grandmother) went to see her perform in a dance recital one night when she was a child, though Lynn was not aware of this because her mother stayed in the back of the audience where she could not be seen; he also tells her the answer to a question she asked when alone at her mother's grave. Lynn accepts this as the truth, and her relationship with Cole is strengthened.

His faith in himself now restored as a result of his success with Cole, Malcolm returns to his home, where he finds his wife sleeping on the couch, watching their old wedding video. As she sleeps, Anna's hand releases Malcolm's wedding ring, revealing the twist ending of the film — that Malcolm himself is unwittingly one of Cole's ghosts, having been killed by his ex-patient in the opening scene. Due to Cole's efforts, Malcolm's unfinished business, of rectifying his failure to understand Vincent, is completed. Recalling Cole's advice about talking to his wife while she's asleep, so that she'll have to listen, Malcolm releases her to move on with her life and frees himself to leave behind the world of the living.

Twist ending
All of the clothes Malcolm wears during the movie are items he wore or touched the evening he died, including his overcoat, his blue sweater and the different layers of his suit.

Bruce Willis, who is left-handed, learned to write with his right hand for the film to hide from the audience that Crowe was no longer wearing his wedding ring.[2] Though the filmmakers were careful about such clues of Malcolm's state, the camera zooms slowly towards Crowe's face when Cole says he sees dead people. In a DVD special feature, the filmmakers mention that they initially feared this shot would be a dead giveaway, but they decided to leave it in. The color red is also used prominently throughout the movie in situations where the dead are present, such as the color of the balloon and Cole's sweater at the birthday party, the tent in which he first encounters Kyra, the numbers on Crowe's tape player, the doorknob to the locked closet and the grieving mother's dress. Shyamalan's film The Village similarly portrayed the color red as having connotations with evil and the supernatural — specifically, the mysterious monsters that inhabit the woods surrounding the village.

Vanilla Sky

noreply@blogger.com (raghav) — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 23:57:00 +0000

Vanilla Sky is a 2001 American film which has been variously characterized by published film critics as "an odd mixture of science fiction, romance, and reality warp" [2], "part Beautiful People fantasy, part New Age investigation of the Great Beyond"[3] a "love story, a struggle for the soul, or an existential confrontation with the eternal"[4], and an "erotic adventure, romance, comedy, mystery and psychological thriller, with a dose of science fiction"[5].

The film is a "very close remake"[6] of the 1997 Spanish film [7]Abre los ojos (Open Your Eyes), which was written by Alejandro Amenábar and Mateo Gil. It stars Tom Cruise, Cameron Diaz, Penélope Cruz (a reprise of her performance in Abre los ojos), Jason Lee, and Kurt Russell. It was directed by Cameron Crowe, who produced the film together with Cruise and Paula Wagner.
The film opens with David Aames (Tom Cruise) waking up in bed. He is an affluent, handsome young man. As he drives to work, he finds the streets of New York strangely deserted at rush hour. With growing unease he drives to Times Square and finds the entire city abandoned.

David is in a jail cell describing a dream to Dr. Curtis McCabe (Kurt Russell), a psychologist that has been assigned to him. David has been charged with a murder he has no recollection of, and wears a mysterious pale mask. He and Dr. McCabe discuss the events that led to his eventual incarceration.

Following the death of David's father, he was given 51% ownership of his father's publishing company. The rest of the company is owned by a board of directors that David disparagingly calls the "Seven Dwarves." Each of them believed that they were next in line to take over the company after David's father died. David can have anything his heart desires, and nothing is beyond him.

On the night of his birthday party which also includes a conversation with a drunken Thomas Tipp (Timothy Spall), the company attorney and an old friend of David's father, David considered firing Thomas for what he believes is his incompetence as an attorney, but has a change of heart when Thomas makes a sad confession.

David's best friend, Brian Shelby (Jason Lee), brings with him a girl named Sofia Serrano (Penelope Cruz) that he just met at the library. Almost instantly, David and Sofia flirt with each other, almost completely ignoring Brian. However, Julianna Gianni (Cameron Diaz), a woman that David regularly sleeps with but has no deep feelings for, crashes his party. She stays distant but keeps a close eye on him the entire night. Once David realizes Julianna is there, he asks Sofia to pretend to engage in a deep conversation with him so that Julianna won't come near him. David and Sofia end up hitting it off. He walks her back to her place and they stay up all night talking

he next morning as David is getting ready to drive to work, Julianna drives up beside him asking how his night with Sofia was. Julianna makes David feel guilty about ignoring her and convinces him to get into her car. It quickly becomes apparent that she is obsessed with David. She starts driving recklessly, speeding through busy city streets, all the while insisting that she's deeply in love with him and berating him for treating her so casually. Fearing for their safety, he tries to get her to stop the car by telling her that he loves her. She drives the car off a bridge in an attempt to kill them both.

Julianna did not survive the crash. David did, however, though his face and arm are mangled, and he suffers blinding headaches due to the metal pieces holding his skull together. He spends a long time in isolation before deciding to take back control of his company and see Sofia again. She appears hesitant to be around him, and when they go on a date she brings Brian along. The date is a disaster as David drinks too much and makes Sofia increasingly uneasy around him. The three part ways at the end of the night, and David ends up passing out on a sidewalk. The next morning, Sofia wakes him up and tells him that she will stay with him if he can get his act together. From that moment, David's life is turned around. His team of plastic surgeons is able to restore his face and he finds his soul mate in Sofia.

David's new-found happiness is short-lived, however, when he begins hallucinating. He looks in the mirror to see his face once again disfigured. A mysterious man turns up wherever he goes, and tells David that he has the power to control the world. And one night he goes to bed with Sofia and wakes up to find himself with Julianna, who insists she really is Sofia. He grows violent, convinced that Julianna is alive and playing games with him. He is arrested and told by Tipp that he severely beat Sofia, but Tipp will have the case thrown out. Tipp shows David photos of Julianna with a bruised face, but everybody, including his best friend Brian, tells him that it was Sofia he attacked.

David breaks into Sofia's apartment and finds that every photo he'd seen of Sofia is now of Julianna. Julianna attacks him, thinking he's an intruder but apologizes when she sees it's him, still insisting she is Sofia. She leaves the room, and the actual Sofia returns in her place as if nothing was wrong. They begin to make love, but while they are in the middle of the act, he finds that he is making love to Julianna. In a fit of panic, he suffocates her then realizes he has just killed Sofia.

When David is finished telling Dr. McCabe his story, he still can't bring himself to believe that he killed anybody. Dr. McCabe, frustrated by David's failure to tell him anything meaningful that might help his case, tells him that he can no longer help David and will try to argue for temporary insanity. As Dr. McCabe leaves, David sees an infomercial for a cryogenics company called "Life Extension." The infomercial, and a dog that has apparently been frozen and brought back to life, have appeared at several points throughout the film. David is entranced by the commercial, and McCabe sees that there may be a connection between Life Extension and David's seeming amnesia.

Escorted by Dr. McCabe, David visits Life Extension and realizes that he had signed on as a client, and had opted for an extra feature called the "Lucid Dream," which allows clients to be revived after death and placed in a perpetual coma where they experience a custom-made, self-designed dream life, with no memory of death.

David realizes that he is now living in the Lucid Dream and that the mysterious man is his "Technical Support." The Tech Support explains that the Lucid Dream was "spliced" into his life immediately following his passing out on the sidewalk after his night out with Sofia and Brian. But the dream went awry and turned into a nightmare. Since nothing he experienced after the splice was real, David realizes that he never murdered anybody. Dr. McCabe tells him that the guilt he felt for the way he treated Julianna may have caused his subconscious to merge Julianna and Sofia. But it turns out that Dr. McCabe isn't real either; he's just a character David created in his dream to be the father figure he always wanted. Tech Support tells David that in reality, he never saw Sofia again, and that Thomas Tipp, the attorney that David considered firing in the beginning, had saved the company for David and helped him regain control from the board of directors. But David, suffering constant pain and depression following his disfigurement, committed suicide.

In the end, technical support reveals that they have updated the software for their lucid dream and David can be reinserted into the dream with no memory of the nightmare portion, or he can be awakened 150 years after he was frozen and live in the real world with a restored body. David chooses to be awakened in the future, despite knowing that he will still be disfigured (which Tech Support says may not be an issue, given advances in technology), that everyone he ever knew will be long dead, and that his wealth will be worth far less. After imagining himself with Sofia one last time, he jumps off of a skyscraper. The final shot is a close up of an eye suddenly opening up, presumably David's, with a voice (not Sofia's) greeting him.

Catch Me If You Can

noreply@blogger.com (raghav) — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 23:44:00 +0000

My attraction to Catch Me If You Can was to find out how a real-life con man passed himself off as an airline pilot, a doctor and a lawyer, circling the globe cashing bad checks. And how he was able to get away with it for so many years! It really didn't matter to me who made the movie, who directed it or who the players were. I just wanted to find out how this guy did it. It was an added bonus and a special treat that Catch Me If You Can is chock full of great performances and is so much fun to watch.

Catch Me If You Can begins with one of the most enjoyable and captivating title sequences I've seen in a movie. In a fashion very similar to early James Bond features and other period serials, flat, one-dimensional, 60's style graphics and human silhouettes playfully slide across the screen, revealing the credits, setting the mood, and tipping the story's hand. All the while, a jazzy retro John Williams number builds to a crescendo in the background and the movie opens to the set of To Tell the Truth, further evoking the mood and the mindset of the 60s. We immediately understand that the tone of the movie will be laid-back and fun.

Leonardo Di Caprio is Frank Abagnale, a real life imposter who for years duped airlines, hospitals and banks out of nearly $4 million - all before he was 21 years old. DiCaprio plays his role with such an undoubtful calm and persuasive demeanor that the real Frank Abagnale was convinced that Leo was the right man for the part.

Tom Hanks plays FBI special agent Carl Hanratty who spent several years following Abagnale's trail of fraud and deception. Hanks seems content playing it low key letting the story ferrment around DiCaprio as Abagnale. Although he delivers a pedestrian performance that deserves no special mention, he and DiCaprio make a wonderful pair on the screen, feeding off each other in a way that makes you wonder if either would have been so good without the other. In an early scene, Hanratty has Frank cornered in a hotel room and it is at this point that we learn of Frank's charm and wit that enable him to escape from Hanratty's custody and go on to scam the world for so many years.

Frank leaves his broken family and bankrupt father (Christopher Walken) at the age of sixteen and runs off into the streets of New York City with a checkbook to an account containing $25 and a head full of endless creativity. What started as a ploy to cash a few Pan Am Airlines payroll checks lead to Frank donning a pilot's uniform and hopping around the world in the planes' jump seat. He draws real pilots into his confidence by speaking "pilot speak" that he learned from movies and manuals.

We learn that Frank's real intention is getting his now divorced mother, Paula, played by the stunning Nathalie Baye, and father back together again. To somehow reassemble the broken parts of his family, he buys his Dad a Cadillac and gives him money with the hope that he can get his business out of bankruptcy and win back his wife. This part of the story was the least interesting to me save for the wonderful performance of Christopher Walken as Frank Abagnale, Sr. It's what we expect from Spielberg though - delving into the drive and inner workings of the human mind (The Color Purple and Minority Report). However, being the master that he is, he doesn't overindulge in Catch Me If You Can and we are quickly back on track. Frank's ambition and motivation is not what we are interested in here.

We are treated to more of Frank's sly and cunning behavior after he falls in love with a candy striper, Brenda (Amy Adams), while working as a doctor at a New Orleans hospital. While joining her family for dinner to ask for her hand in marriage, he mentions that he obtained his doctorate from Berkeley Medical School. Upon learning that Brenda's father (Martin Sheen) also attended Berkeley, we get an insight into Frank's quick and masterful mind as he talks his way out of the bind and casually mentions that he wants to become a lawyer - and he does just that. He passes the bar exam by studying for a couple of weeks and goes to work for Brenda's father as an assistant district attorney.

I won't give away the methods of his con games or the techniques of his trade, and I do understand that a lot of the story is fabricated for interest and drama, but once the con is on, it doesn't seem to matter any more. Although Catch Me If You Can is brimming with great achievements, in front of and behind the camera, it is about the story. It takes off from the opening credits, quickly gains altitude and soars high for the full 21/2 hours.