staying.cool

i’ve always dreamed of making movies.

not acting, not composing.. actually making them. i’ve imagined placing the camera at that corner, and have it pan across the scene as it happens in my life. i have played out endless chase sequences, millions of scares and too many fight scenes to count. with very distinctive and yet realistic sound effects. there have been times i have wondered what life would be like were i star of my own truman show. there have been other times i have wanted to recreate a car chase down to the smallest detail.

but i don’t have the money.

it never stopped me thinking about them though. my sequences were grandiose, my scenes were spectacular. any battle of my gi joes with the evil forces of evil never ended on a tame note of the leader being knocked over. no, there were long drawn out battles… with many mini-battles happening within them. the evil overlord took a lot of killing though. there were never enough bullets or missiles to do it. it took a couple of hundred explosions to get parents riled up about all the sound that was being made though.

i have formed ideas for movies, formed trailers, formed whole acting careers about these movies. the genius that lay in every one of them had to be seen to be believed. no-one ever saw. i gave voice-overs, i acted, i directed.

i have a list of movies to watch that never seems to diminish. it doesn’t take a lot to get on the list, just the fact that the movie might exist has sent me on insane hunting sprees. i indulge it, it is a mania that i enjoy. the movies always deliver. there is the final takedown sequence in ‘the dark knight’, the final attack of the lions in the ‘ghosts in the darkness’, the velociraptor in the kitchen of ‘jurassic park’, the horse race in ‘ben hur’, the war from the ‘lord of the rings’… the list goes on.

which is why when i watch 2 guys start with a camera, some duct tape and some streamers and end up with ‘ghost busters’…. it means a lot. thinking up the angle of the camera so that you can shoot a pianist playing his final song… blowing up a mini-city to simulate king kong — it doesn’t matter.

its all possible.

as the movie closes to a captive audience watching a projection on a screen.. applauding every dialogue, believing everything they see.. it shows you the magic.

the magic the movies have always had. and always will.

From Be Kind, Rewind.

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The Las Vegas flights are known for the unavailability to book flights at the last minute. Most of the airline’s tardinesses makes it possible for one to get seats on Orlando flights and even the flights to London.

watching a little boy dip, swim and dive on the back of a water-horse in the waters of the scottish lochs strikes a chord deep within. how many times have i wished that i would find a magical creature, and raise it ? when you watch e.t., you barely wonder if its possible to harbor an alien in the house. you dismiss the possibility that such a creature may exist, and may actually give you magical powers.

that such a creature may be extremely untenable to take care of be hanged, just having one around reminds us of the many truly magical things we explain everyday. how often have we notices the flashing fireflies in the twilight, putting in specks of light that remind you of the set-up sebastian makes in the little mermaid. we keep moving, not noticing the final rays of the sun illuminating water in the distance.

suddenly its no longer about whether the magic truly exists, but about whether you want it to exist. we cannot wait for secrets to be revealed, we need to necessarily ensure that eyes can play tricks on us. will it take a monster rising out of the loch to make us realize the truth that stands in front of us all the time ?

the only way to make the world a better place for those who truly matter is to look at it as a kid. for the kid, the toys in his room can come alive at night, and a rat can make the worlds’ best chef. for the rest of us, its about the beauty of animation. maybe water-horses don’t exist, maybe cupboards don’t open out into new lands, maybe the ministry of magic doesn’t have an office anywhere at all, maybe people don’t get bitten by radioactive spiders, maybe a ring never had to be destroyed lest it take over the world. maybe.

but that doesn’t mean that they can’t exist. or that they won’t exist in the place they were always meant to be found.

in a child’s eyes.

Due to The Water Horse

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There are not many fun travel deals to choose from. Although there are a few hotels offering special packages for children, many cheap flights don’t. The flights issue is quite severe. The car rental has no such problems though.

its finally done. harry potter 7 is out. 72 million copies have been sold in 72 hours, including nearly 150 copies a second in the first hour of release.

i still remember my mom plonking down books 1-4 all the way back in 2000. ’twas when ‘the goblet of fire’ was released, and i plunged into the world of wizards, witches and magic. for a kid who has long tried to levitate playing cards having seen kered do it in the strips, this was a bit of a dream. my sis and i launched into a reading competition, to which there was an obvious winner.

the world was beautifully detailed, something i recognized as being a gift of tolkein. and now that the series is done, i can say that it contained something more too, the additional element of the jigsaw puzzle. and dollops of my beloved sense of english humor.
mind you, no real comparison can be done to tolkein though: similar worlds, but the approach and the audience are very different.

i did not anticipate book 5 and 6 like everyone. there was no pre-ordering for me. get the books within the first week seemed good enough. then of course, a 2 year wait for the seventh ensured much more on my part.

one very obvious point i realized within 30 pages of the book is that ‘this is a book‘. to me the sixth was a glorified screenplay. the work and effort in this book are obvious from the word go. this has been in the making since book one. most importantly, this was probably part of the sixth book before she realized she had put too much into it (or maybe it was the publisher). and so we had an average sixth with choppy writing, obvious screenplay notions etcetera. and now the seventh. in all its grandeur. and completely worth it.

the series is finally over. the fifth and sixth undoubtedly had some very heavy-heart moments, but this one - this one had shock and sorrow unmatched. i had to re-read some passages to let them sink in completely.

i’m sad.
but now i’m trying to figure a way to read all 7 together. for the sake of some very memorable characters. and some great page-turning.

after all, it always about finding that little bit of magic.

every child dreams of seeing his parents ecstatic. and its even better when you’ve been instrumental in making that happen.

my biggest regret since i came to the states, was the fact that it meant missing my parents’ 25th wedding anniversary. considering i couldn’t actually be there for the wedding, it would have been pretty rocking to really make it memorable.

i couldn’t be there. there was just no way. damned high pressure grad school. [trust me, this would have played out slightly differently if i had been there :)]

i tried. got people convinced. sowed germs of ideas, and watched as the occasion became what it should be - a celebration that 2 people deserved. granted, i’m biased - they are my parents. but they deserved to have a day where they could look back and say - ‘there. everyone celebrated the fact that we are together. its all been worth it.’

we remember the ‘munnabhai‘ USP, and it was something that i could actually say ‘i told you so’ about to my family.

now taken to the next level :

i love the idea. i love this guy. and most importantly, i love the fact that he made the campaign happen despite being banned. yes, they tried to ban ‘hugging’.

hug someone, its good for you

[via riri]

for all the posts we’ve read about christmas, or happy baby-jesus day as some call it.. one still must remember that for many of the kids out there; its all about the magic.

that the magic is concerned with waking up in the morn and opening all those presents is a different matter. that christmas eve is the busiest day of the year for 90% of the superstores out there.. that too should be overlooked. that for many its nothing more than a day to eat, laugh and make merry.. i guess we can look away from that.

maybe we should try not to judge it.. maybe we should just believe in good ol’ st nick.. and have that magic in our minds again. try to hear the jingle of the bell.

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The flights to Germany as well as the flights to India, both offer special flight deals for holidays, Hanukkah and Christmas. Most of other flights don’t, and in airline links, such actions matter in the long run.