Stranger Things Have Happened.

If only I had a little more talent and skill and could play this song well. It’s off Foo Fighters’ latest Album which cleaned up at the Grammys this year. Since Grohl announced that the group was taking a break from recording, now would be a great time to realease this song as a single. It’s probably one of their best songs ever and thats saying something.

Also.

Foo Fighters. Better than Nirvana. There, I said it.

I said it and you can’t make me take it back.

Music David Grohl, Foo Fighters, Nirvana

This is how i’m feeling today.

Random Snoop

As a child growing up in the city and as an adult working there, Bombay has always been a place that gives me a very real, physical, buzz. There is a magical energy about the city that gets under my skin. Yes. it also smells stinks of shit and fish and the economic disparities are so in your face that its like a swift, unexpected nut-kick sometimes. But you have to love the city.

Not anymore. Not for me.

Read more…

Rants Bal Thackeray, Delhi, douchebag, marathi manoos, mumbai, mumbai terror attacks, twitter

1. Maine Pyaar Kiya - Sooraj Barjatya

2. The Mask - Chuck Russell

3. Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels – Guy Ritchie

4. In The Mood For Love – Wong Kar-Wai

5. Before Sunset – Richard Linklater

The dating tips:

1. Don’t give boys that you like a copy of Anne Frank’s ‘The Diary of a Young Girl’.

2. Ever.

Films, Fives Guy Ritchie, Richard Linklater, Wong Kar-wai

Highly talented recording artist and just plain fucking cool guy, Q-Tip’s second ever studio album came out this month. It’s called ‘The Renaissance’, the first single ‘Move’ came out a while back and the video is a throw-back to MJ’s ‘Rock with You’.

You can look at the video here.

Though cool is the video better than the symphony of gyrating bodies in black&white that was Vivrant Thing? Maybe not.

Is the song as good as Breathe and Stop with its unstoppable, freight train like bass line?  Maybe not.

Will it make you get up and shake you ass? For sure.

(Q-Tip seen here with Erykah Badu, whose own excellent album ‘New AmErykah, Pt. 1: 4th World War’ came out earlier this year, but thats another blog post.)

P.S. Why talentless, tone-deaf fucks like Akon and Will.I.am ever got recording deals while artists like these two are still alive is beyond me. One less reason to listen to the radio I guess.

P.P.S. And what kind of a name is will.i.am anyway? Someone please teach that guy some grammar and punctuation. And how to write half decent lyrics while you are at it.

He should call himself LAME.i.am

Music Erykah Badu, q-tip

I listen to this cheesy song waaaaay more often than I’d ever like to admit to anyone. I even sing along to it in my car. People often stare. I should probably invest in darker sun film.

Music

More than a few people have asked me this recently since I use and love macs at home. So, here are all the reasons in decreasing order of importance:

1.  36K INR. I dont want to be identified with the type of douchebag that would pay that much for a cellular telephone.

2.   36K INR.  That is about 30K INR more than I am willing to pay for a cellular telephone no matter how cool it may be thankyouverymuch.

While we are on the subject. Click here.

Rants, Tech apple, douchebag, iphone

Emirates Airlines just bought the rights from ESPN Star Sports for my show ‘Million Dollar Babies’ for their flights. WOOT!

Will I receive any royalty/payment? Some air miles? A fucking hot towel even ?

Fat Chance. 

Random

Reasons I love this song.

1. Sometimes I feel that when Donald Fagen and Walter Becker wrote it 1972 they knew that two and a half decades later I might need a soundtrack to my life.

2. The most bitchin’ electric sitar solo ever.

Reason I might commit murder while this song plays in the background.

1. I just read that ‘Do it again’ is on Guitar Hero World Tour 2008 and if I ever see some stupid wannabe rocker dude pretending to be Denny Dias and play guitar to this song I will have to kill him.

Music Do It Again, Donald Fagen, Guitar Hero, Steely Dan, Walter Becker, World Tour

So last week I watched what is probably my favourite film this year, ‘Chop Shop’ by American filmmaker, Ramin Bahrani. Now I had never heard of him before and I happened to watch the film almost by accident but it reminded me of another favourite film of mine, Uzak (Distant) by Turkish filmmaker Nuri Bilge Ceylan.

Like Uzak, Chop Shop is brilliantly understated and economical in its storytelling. There are a lot of quiet sequences, people doing work, the monotony of real life, something that few filmmakers get right.

Another reason to like the fim is where it ends. Often, when halfway through really interesting books and films I wonder how or where the author or auteur is going to end the  story without taking the piss out of it. The simplicity with which Bahrani ends Chop Shop would have brought a smile to the face of one of my film school professors, SB. ‘This is catharsis!’ he would say excitedly.

I also watched Bahrani’s earlier film ‘Man Push Cart’ but it didn’t live up to my expectations after watching Chop Shop.

Also whats with the bullshit taglines and blurbs you always see on the US release covers of films? Specially foreign language ones? The americans can dumb down just about anything.

Films Ramin Bahrani