Day: February 25, 2012

And Soon The Darkness

- Roshan

And Soon The Darkness is a remake of a 1970 British film of the same name. Instead of English girls in France, this movie is American chicks in Argentina. This Marcos Efron directed movie stars Karl Urban, Amber Heard & Odette Yustman. It’s the 70s & 80s style of horror movies where young girls and young couples in some movies get into trouble in a foreign country when they are not too careful and tragedy happens.

Stephanie (Amber Heard) & Ellie (Odette Yustman) are two friends from the US who are on a holiday in Argentina. On their last day in the country, they decided to stay on their own, away from the tourist group, cycling to a small town and staying in a hostel. After freshening up the girls head to a bar nearby where Ellie, in true horror movie fashion, decided to become the life of the party and changes the songs on the jukebox and proceeds to put the spotlight on her, cooing and dancing seductively with two local guys she just met. Why on earth do these American girls do this when they go out of their home country, I will not know or is it just movies that give me this impression? It’s either the loud flirtatious girl dancing or grinding away on the dance floor or it the loud boorish jock who drinks two beers and is all “yeah, wooo” like Rick Flair on meth!

Anyway, I digress. Ellie is pinning away for a boyfriend she just broke up with and sits mostly by herself at their table. The girls also run into an American male, who acts all brooding & suspicious so obviously he is not the villain right? Anyways, Ellie does a little too much flirting with one of the locals guys, Pedro, gets a little too rough for Ellie’s liking and Michael comes to the girls’ rescue. Pedro is chased away and the girls go to sleep. Unfortunately they oversleep due to an electronic clock getting unplugged in the mele and they miss the bus that was supposed to take them to their destination. Rather than wait for another bus, they begin their trip and head down to the nearby river to relax and enjoy their extra day off. So they cycle to a secluded area and find a lake and outcome the bikinis. Girls sun tan in said bikinis and listen to mps3 on their ipods.  The trip takes a turn for the worse when the two are separated after a heated agrument between the two best friends and Ellie is kidnapped.

Stephanie is distraught and goes to find her and runs into Michael who says he will help. But our girl prefers that a cop comes to her aid so the sole cop in charge of the town & area comes and he says that he will draw up the papers for the missing friend. Stephanie goes off to do her own search and finds an abandoned town in ruins. While there she runs into Michael so says that he is searching for his  girlfriend who disappeared months before. Stephanie finds the hide-out where the kidnapper (the guy who got rough with Ellie the previous night) has taken Ellie, who is disheveled and scared. Stephanie manages to rescue her, but Ellie is later killed by the man who kidnapped her. Later, it is revealed that the lone police officer was behind all the missing girls along with the other guy. The policeman offers to make a trade for Michael’s girlfriend, Camila, if he hands over Stephanie. The trade does not materialize and Michael gets shot.

Stephanie is captured and taken by boat across the border to Paraguay to be sold (it is also revealed that Michael’s girlfriend was also sold like many other girls into slavery) but she escapes and manages to kill the corrupt cop. She stumbles and walks her way back into town where a lady cop who was searching for her (alerted by the hostel owner) comes and gets her and takes her to safety.

6 outta 10! Not really worth getting.

Saturday Spent Outside

- Roshan

There was a couple of things I wanted to do today. And both had a clash in timings. Damn if I couldn’t change the timings for both! It would mean shifting the venue of one meeting and meeting the other person post lunch. Or whatever! I decided to just roll with it and see what happens.

I arranged for a friend to meet me at Cafe Coffee Day for a quick bite in between as I had some free time. I felt hungry as it was almost 1pm by then. We went in and sat at my favourite corner table. Before we could order, he got a call from home asking him to rush back as his uncle was ill, so I was on my own. I thought, no problem, I shall sit by myself and enjoy an hour of relaxing. I ordered a sandwich and a cold coffee and went to my table, waiting until they served me.

As you can see, Cafe Coffee Day seems to have run out of proper plates and served me my sandwich in a paper plate. How far down the social ladder have I fallen? Kidding! In terms of serving aesthetics the red serving tray more than made up for the looks or lack therefore of my paper plate. It’s blood red and looked much more sexy than the photo here.

My coffee was a cold Mochachillo with more ice than coffee it seems. Funny thing is this drink seems to have some milk added separate to the coffee. And the first sips are always great – as you wind towards the middle it gets a bit watery and yucky, no matter how much you stir & mix the drink. Oh well! Atleast it was cold and refreshing against the hot sun.

My sandwich, as seen here, was another thing altogether. In a class of it’s own, it’s the corn & spinach sandwich with lots of cheese. And it was piping hot, melting cheese just bursting in my mouth as I took a bite – yummy! I love this sandwich and it is consistently awesome the way CCD makes it, although not always this hot & fresh. I was sad when I was done and wanted more but I was to join my good friend Anil Alapatt for beer and snacks later so it would not be good to fill up.

Later that afternoon Anil & I met at the Volga bar & restaurant in Kadavanthara. The sun was blazing hot by then and we were both glad to sit in the cool air conditioned bar. We had a Kingfisher beer each, in these new cute looking tumblers from Royal Challenge. We ordered garlic prawns, dry chilli fish & chicken fry and sat for 2 hours talking about stuff. We tried calling up Madhu (now in Qatar) but he was at the bank and suffering spotty cell service, so we said we’d call him later. Anil & I chatted about the good memories and things coming up ahead until it was time for him to head on towards Thrissur. I went for a brief walk and then came back home.

My All-Time Favorite Authors

- Roshan

Anne Rice : I love her books which I discovered after watching the movie version of her book Interview With The Vampire. But it was a few years down the line when I first got any of her books. I started with Interview, then The Vampire Lestat, Blackwood Farm, Merrick, The Queen Of The Damned, The Vampire Armand, Blood Canticle and Blood & Gold. I enjoy all the books although some are a bit dragging. I’ve always enjoyed reading Anne Rice’s books a a bar near my apartment when I would have either a couple of beers or vodka and then some lunch. The bar is reasonably well lit and with enough sunlight coming in from the large windows, it was a swell place for me to sit & read in their comfy, cushioned chairs while drinking and eating.

John Grisham : It took me a while to get into Grisham because his books deal with the law but after reading a couple, I got into his stuff big time. I have all of his legal drama books uptil 2009 and have read The Painted House, which I didn’t care for. His books are amazingly engaging and I just love The Firm, The Client, the King Of Torts, The Partner, A Time To Kill, The Pelican Brief, The Chamber, The Rainmaker, The Street Lawyer, The Testament, The Brethren, The Summons, the Last Juror, The Broker, The Appeal & The Associate. Whew, that’s a lot of books! I often read his novels multiple times as it is easy reading and the stories flow well.

The late Michael Chrichton : Like most people I became a fan of Mr. Chrichton post the Jurassic Park movie which was based on his novel of the same name. Since then I have read his Jurassic Park, The Lost World, The Andromeda Strain, Disclosure, Eaters Of The Dead, Timeline, Congo, Sphere & Rising Sun. I really enjoy all these books and have read them multiple times. Thank you for giving us such amazing works of words Michael!

Stephen King : And finally, my all time favourite, the King of Authors, the Master Of Macabre – Mr. Stephen King. Responsible for writing my favourite novel of all time – IT! I just love this giant book and have read it 16 times. I also love Carrie (which I first read on a 16 hour train journey from Bangalore to Cochin), Salem’s Lot, Christine, The Shining, Night Shift, Cujo (and the movie), The Running Man, Pet Sematary, Thinner, Skeleton Crew, The Eyes Of The Dragon, Misery, The Tommyknockers, The Dark Half, Four Past Midnight, Gerald’s Game, Needful Things, Dolores Claiborne, Insomnia, Rose Madder, The Green Mile, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, Hearts In Atlantis, Dreamcatcher – Whew!!! That’s a lot and I still want more. I want the Dark Tower series which is 7 novels.