Two Dogs In Da House

Posted on by Roshan 1 Comment

Yesterday evening we had a gala time with two dogs in the apartment. My cousin sister Shalini and her husband Mukund recently adopted a Golden Retriever named Bubbles. The pup is now 6 months old and they drove from Mumbai all the way to Cochin, with stops at relatives places in Pune and Bangalore. They brought the pup over to my place.

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She’s great around humans and I loved her. Apparently she is the star attraction at their apartment and in the two places they stayed enroute to Cochin. Kids were asking to play with her all the time.

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My sister brought her pug Barfi to my place so the dogs can meet. Now Barfi, although 4 years old, is a bit smaller than Bubbles and seemed to be scared of her barking and the bits of growling so we kept them separate for a while and on their leash.

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Soon however the pup calmed down and it was all cool enough for them to be close by. But both dogs were drained from all the excitement after an hour or so.

Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them

Posted on by Roshan Leave a comment

I have not watched a single Harry Potter film. Well bits of the first one and a few other clips. I have no interest in getting into the Potter films. No whatsoever. With no other film to go to, I went to see Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them in the theater with my cousin yesterday afternoon. I was told that this film, a prequel would work independent of the Harry Potter films even if it were in the same universe.

A 2016 British fantasy film directed by David Yates and distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, the film was produced and written by J. K. Rowling (in her screenwriting debut), inspired by her book of the same name. The film stars Eddie Redmayne as Newt Scamander with Katherine Waterston, Dan Fogler, Alison Sudol, Ezra Miller, Samantha Morton, Jon Voight, Carmen Ejogo and Colin Farrell in supporting roles. Johnny Depp has a small cameo right towards the end of the film as well.

To be honest I found myself bored through parts of the film. I am not into the magical world and filled with weird little creatures (fantastic beasts if I may) though that a Niffler (a cuter version of the platupus) was adorable! Otherwise all these amazingly though off and wonderfully & digitally created by CGI just doesn’t really work for me. I don’t even find the movie to be that memorable except for a couple of the good cast. The story of Newt Scamander who comes to New York from Britain to capture one of the magical creatures and he brings with him a magical suitcase which can expanded into another realm almost when you get inside it. So why did he bring the suitcase which can be opened by the creatures inside with him? So some can escape and we have scenes to film! At a bank he inadvertently brings in a regular human into the thick of things and their suitcases get mixed up. A witch named Tina takes Newt to MACUSA (boy that is funny) to answer for his lax attitude toward keeping magic under wraps, most notably by neglecting to wipe the memory of affable non-wizard baker Jacob.

There’s a lady, who is terribly abusive, but who runs an orphanage and who speaks out in public against witches and wizards. One of the oldest orphan is Credence Barebone who is used by Percival Graves from MACUSA to find the host of an Obscurus, a dark, brooding force created inadvertently by children who attempt to conceal their magic in fear of persecution, which is unleashed in times of anger and discomfort. Graves believes this to be the cause of mysterious occurrences of destruction in New York, and promises Credence freedom of his abusive life in Mary Lou’s orphanage. The Obscurus is responsible for killing senator Henry Shaw Jr., the son of a powerful newspaper & magazine owner, but MACUSA believes that Newt’s creatures are the guilty ones and sentences him and Tina, who tags along with him, to death. They escape and with the help of Queenie, Tina’s mind reading and deliciously flirtatious sister, and the no-maj Jacob, capture the last of the creatures, returning them to the suitcase.

Credence reveals that he was the host, and, in his rage of Grave’s betrayal and his abusive childhood, unleashes the Obscurus on New York City. Just as he begins to settle into human form, calmed down by Tina, Graves interrupts the process and Credence is killed by Seraphina and her followers, much to Tina and Newt’s despair. Graves gets angry, revealing that he was unleashing the Obscurus to reveal the magical community to the No-Majs, and that MACUSA strives to protect them rather than themselves, in which he was tired of concealing his true nature everyday. Newt, using the Revelio charm, reveals Graves to actually be Gellert Grindelwald in disguise, who is taken away to be arrested. Newt’s large bird like creature spreads a potion onto the people of the city to erase their minds of what they have seen and the MACUSA member rebuild the destroyed property using their magic. Newt leaves to Europe, and promises to return to Tina once he finishes writing a guide to magical creatures. Jacob reluctantly has his memory wiped of the wizarding world after kissing Queenie. Jacob opens a bakery shop in which the food he makes are in the shape of creatures that he remembers but not the exact events. When Queenie visits his shop, a memory seems to spark.

Yeah so there’s a lot of magical things in between some of which I liked but I just couldn’t into this world. The movie is ok but at times I was bored, like I said, and I can’t see myself watching the other 4 movies which they plan to bring out as sequels at the moment. Maybe if they also are in theatres during a dry spell of movies to watch for me. A 6.5 outta 10, 10/10 for the visual effects and a 10/10 for Alison Sudol as Queenie Goldstein who managed to charm me ;)