An Inconvenient Truth - A movie which needs to be watched by everyone

Last week, our Leaders, the representatives of our human race met at Copenhagen and decided our future, or decided if we should have a future or not. In my personal opinion, they let us down. To an extent, they delivered words, but when it came to actions, we saw none.

So, as a citizen of this beautiful planet, and to my knowledge, the only habitable planet, it boils down to us individuals to help initiate the change we want to bring about. Very honestly speaking, we can’t just blame the Leaders, since in their shoes; we too would take a similar step, since the support from public still needs a long way to go, before a leader can promise drastic changes. Also, a lot of the issue is caused by the fact that people are ignorant, or probably less motivated, and keeping that view in mind, I am writing this “Movie Review”, or should I say Documentary Review.

An Inconvenient Truth
Cast: Al Gore

Director: Davis Guggenheim

Rating: 9.0/10.0 (You really need to see this)

As is known, or would be clear by now, the movie is a Global Warning on the Global Warming issue. Very straightforwardly put, the movie revolves around a “glorified” Powerpoint Presentation on Global Warming that Al Gore supposedly gave more than a thousand times by the time this movie was made (i.e. 2005), along with some of his quiet musings and a decent background sound track, which as an movie would sound pretty dumb and boring, but the some brilliant direction and the catchy and crisp presentation skills of Al Gore keep the viewers interested. On a personal note, I never knew that Al Gore anything more than yet another American Politician, till he was actually bestowed the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007, and the Indian media was abuzz about this movie.

The movie, which on the whole enlightens the viewers (though I had earlier thought of using the word depresses) about what harm the uncontrolled and unchecked human activity is doing to the environment and what will happen when nature reacts back, has its own set of light moments. For instance, while introducing him-self, Al Gore starts by saying, “I am Al Gore, and I used to be the next President of the United States of America”. The obvious reaction is a giggle from the audience, and to this he retorts saying, “I don’t find that particularly funny”. The movie is laden from time to time with such moments, which make us smile, even when we are buying some facts which show us the horrific picture of the future.

Though Al Gore is not a scientist, he has the air of a Professor, who can explain the even the boring parts of studies with a creative use of pictures, animations and jokes. I cannot think of any other movie, where seeing the red lines of the graphs, the audience gasp (I am not talking of office, where CEO shows loss and people sigh). The pictures used for explanation are very powerful and even the future speculations of what will get submerged strike a chord with the viewers immediately. This is coupled with a really cute video from the world of Simpsons, which in a comic way show us the gravity of the problem.

There are a few more areas of concern, which the movie cites with examples. While there is Zero disagreement over the fact that human actions are causing the temperatures to go up, taking a sample of 925 recent scientific papers on this subject, the normal population looks at this possibility with an almost 50% chance of agreement with this fact, showing that a lot of us are still ignorant, or probably possess half-knowledge.

All in all, Al Gore in a very subtle way proves to the viewers, all his view points, and convinces the layman about what went wrong, and what it will result into. There is a part in the movie, where he shows the choices the Politicians have, and shows us a Scale, which has “Gold” on one side, which stands for economic development and prosperity, and on the other hand, we have “The Entire Planet”. And then, when he has to choose, he just looks greedily at the gold, and goes hmmm. Doesn’t this strike a chord with what just happened at Copenhagen, with different countries fighting it over development and emission rates?

Since there is no fear of revealing any plot here, I am putting some of the facts that were put into the movie.
· The ten hottest years in the last 200 years came in the last 14 years.
· The data from Antarctica’s ice show that the current concentration of carbon-dioxide is the highest as compared to all historical data going back million years ago.
· Mumbai had a severe downpour of rain of 37 inches, highest in any city in India.
· There are lot of glaciers and mountain ranges, where we see the amount of ice retreating giving rise to water.

To be really honest, the movie leaves the viewer with a sense of despair, since the facts shown are pretty depressing and though Al Gore tries to imbibe the fact that we still have time and all hope is not lost, it doesn’t really sound convincing. However, in a nutshell, Al Gore’s presentation not only deserves, but also demands the viewer’s rapt attention.

Final Verdict:
The best thing about this movie is that it teaches you the same Green House effect, which most of us probably in our school days, and yet it makes you passionate about our planet, in a way you would have never felt before. Also, the movie does an impartial analysis of the human race and doesn’t point to a specific Political Party, Country or an Industry. On a personal note, the line that Al Gore repeatedly said, got stuck into my mind, that Saving the Environment is more of a “Moral concern” rather than a Political issue, and hence, each one of us should do what we can for saving our Home.
All in all, if you ask me, “Should I watch this movie?”
I would like to answer it saying, “Watch it, so your children don’t need to tell you, why did you not wake up, when you could have saved our planet and our existence? When you proclaim to be the most-evolved and the smartest species on this planet, why did you not act responsibly when you still had time?” A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, now it is the time for you to see the movie and awaken.

Copenhagen Conference 2009 – Did it "REALLY" change anything?

Just the last week we had the ONE OF THE BIGGEST event in probably the history of mankind, where all the supposedly important people from the 192 countries of the world, met at Copenhagen, Denmark to decide the fate of humankind. In brief, our so-called leaders met to decide on how to reduce the pollution we are causing and save our planet’s self-sustained ecosystem, before we reach a chain-reaction that causes changes which threaten the existence of a lot of species, including ours. ore so, this meeting is decided to chalk-out a successor to the renowned Kyoto protocol.

What is the Kyoto Protocol?

On Dec 11, 1997, with a moral-view in mind, a protocol was inked in Kyoto, Japan under the realms of United Nations for the reduction in the carbon emissions by the developed nations and the European Union. Now, in 2009, we have 187 countries, who have ratified this Protocol.

Nevertheless, among the developed nations, the United States, responsible for the highest emissions and Australia have not ratified this protocol as yet. Also, a lot of the countries, who signed up for this protocol are not able to meet up with the required figures. Though this was a good beginning, the scientific data shows that the checks are not enough and we will need to go one more step to stop our actions, if we want to stop the nature’s alteration. Thus, with that view in mind, and with the hope that Barack Obama, would act more responsibly as compared to George Bush, who exclaimed that reducing the emissions would hurt US economy, the Copenhagen Summit was organized.

The Change is Coming
The latest scientific evidence seems to suggest that the Earth’s ecological system is changing much faster as compared to earlier predictions. This is also due to the fact that the countries like China and India, which are home to almost 33% of the world population, are developing fast. Due to this, the emissions are increasing rapidly. Moreover, the emission levels from even the so-called developed countries have increased, putting more pressure on the environment. Major issues are expected for the island countries and the countries at lower sea-level. Other issues with increased temperature will include reduction in food production. Moreover, for India, the melting of the Himalayas’ glaciers will result in lack of water in Ganges and Brahmaputra, leading to major destabilization in the region.

The United States vs. China – A Deadlock
It is probably a human-tendency to just blame the others for whatever wrong has happened, and it is in this habit of ours, that we forget to look and gauge the existing situation and don’t salvage what can be stored while we keep fighting and blaming the others. The Copenhagen Conference saw a similar display of this human trait, albeit at a larger level and probably with something as importance as our existence at stake.

There was a tussle regarding the emission levels between the Developing nations and the already Developed nations. While the developed nations demanded equal stakes for all, the developing nations argued that they were at the brink of growing and cannot be equated with the former ones. Also, it was argued that while US and EU were not subjected to such laws when they were growing, why should India and China be.

There was a bigger issue between the United States and China, which are now, by far the highest emitters of green-house gases. While the US asked for independent evaluations of emissions, the Chinese refused vehemently stating it would be a threat to their sovereignty. So while the Chinese refused to budge from their own projections, there was not much that came as an offer from the United States, which instead of reducing their emissions by 15-17% of 1990 levels, only promised about 4% reduction.

The Final Outcome
As a last day measure, Barack Obama offered an aid of $100bn-a-year fund for the developing countries to move to the global goal of halving the emissions by 2050. This is only for the countries who join the Copenhagen Accord, which is the new outcome of this Conference, since nothing really concrete was pledged. Even the Accord doesn’t really boast of specific commitments and numbers, so things are pretty much in the wait-and-watch mode. And if the new agreement doesn’t include China, which is one of the largest emitters of greenhouse gases, it would be a significant drawback towards a Universal deal.

Hence, all in all, the Copenhagen Conference ended with a much inspiration, but no action way. The final conclusion was that the United States, China and India reached a “meaningful agreement”. And as per the officials, a very diplomatic answer was echoed, that though none of the countries was fully satisfied, this Conference was a step, albeit small, in paving a way for the future.

Why the Conference Failed and the Errors
I believe the Conference failed because they had too many leaders to decide who was to do what. In fact, I read a few articles on the internet and found that, for this Conference 1,200 limos and 140 private planes were used to ensure the leaders and their delegates (15000+ people) were catered to. According to the organizers, the eleven-day conference, including the participants' travel, will create a total of 41,000 tonnes of "carbon dioxide equivalent".

Most of these people are not needed at the Conference, but they are present because none of the Leaders want to take the accountability of the issues. Moreover, instead of giving figures, which can be tracked and noted, say 8-10% reduction in 5 years, the World-Leaders are talking about Pledges of reducing the Carbon-emissions by 80% in 2050. I wonder if any of them (knowing the average age of the leaders), would be alive at that time, and leave alone, being in Power.


My Take on this Issue
All I can suggest we do is, reduce our carbon emissions as responsible species of this planet, encourage the use of alternative sources of energy, plant more trees and do whatever else we can for saving our Home – Planet Earth. In the end, if nothing works out, just move to Lands away from Seas and at higher sea-levels, with a few Air-Conditioners and a stock of Electronic Batteries, which lasts your lifetime.

Rocket Singh - Salesman of the year

Oh well! Here I am, back with another post this weekend, which is kind of funny after my long period of estivation, but then there is logic for that. ;-)
Well, what has happened is that a group of us friends have taken initiative and have formalized a Synopsys Group for weekend leisure and the two activities we sincerely follow are playing Volleyball and watching a movie. And I kind of gave myself another commitment, to write about any movie I see in the Synopsys Movie Club as we call it. ;-)

So, for the movie I saw this weekend; here goes nothing...

Rocket Singh - Salesman of the Year

Cast: Ranbir Kapoor, Prem Chopra, Gauhar Khan, Manish Choudhary, D. Santosh, Mukesh Bhatt, Naveen Kaushik, Shazahn Padamsee

Director: Shimit Amin

Overall Rating: 6.5/10.0 (A good movie to watch, if there are no other plans)

The movie Rocket Singh, revolves around Harpreet Singh Bedi (Ranbir Kapoor), who is a happy-go-lucky Sardar. Just cleared his B.Com., with borderline marks, and having a futile year in study-life, Harpreet is still optimistic about life and dreams of becoming a great “Sales Man”, the job he thinks doesn’t need qualifications, but needs quick thinking and persistence.

So, armed with his confidence and enthusiasm, and of course, his credentials, he starts looking for an appropriate job, and finally lands at AYS, a firm, which sells computers and provides service-contracts for computer maintenance. However, once into the job, he realizes that the “ideals” that his Grandfather (Prem Chopra) had imbibed into him are non-existent and he sees around him the complete opposite. One reason why every Professional, who does a job, will like to see this movie, is that, this is probably the first movie, which very effectively captures and shows the day-to-day office politics, cut-throat competition and the bitching, that exists in office environment. Also, this is shown very brilliantly by excellent acting from the bosses Nitin (Naveen Kaushik) and Sunil Puri (Manish Choudhary), who want absolutely no-nonsense, very competitive and at times even rude.

Harpreet tries his hand at learning the “new” tricks-of-the-trade, which include things like filing wrong information, spying on the competitors, and using everything, from bribes to office politics in your favor for getting your deals and meeting the targets, but fails miserably, since the ideals imbibed into him, cannot be undone so easily. This leads to a mistake, leading to more aggressive targets for his co-workers and in the wake of anger, his colleagues not only make fun of Harpreet, but also keep throwing rockets (paper-planes) at him, and if this was not enough, he gets some “real” criticism from his superiors; which leads to dynamic change of events in Harpreet’s so far silent and straightforward life.

The plot has been well-managed by all the co-actors, and their acting is definitely worth mentioning. All the actors, D. Santosh as Giri, a computer expert, Gauhar Khan as Koena, the ambitious and talented receptionist and Mukesh Bhatt as Chhotelal the Peon live upto their characters. Newcomer Shazahn Padamsee adds a romantic twist to the tale, but her part of the act actually doesn’t have much, to judge her acting capability. However, Prem Chopra’s role as Harpreet’s GrandPa is as refreshing to watch as ever.

Final Verdict:

On the whole, the movie is pretty straightforward, and relatively dry as compared to what the trailers depicted. The one loss I had while going to see this movie is to go with a mindset of a comedy movie, and finding none in return. And yet, the film has some pretty catchy lines, which keeps the audience amazed, but they are too few. My personal favorite is the line which goes, “Risk to Spiderman ko bhi lena padta hein, mein to phir bhi Salesman hoon.” (Even Spiderman needs to take risks; I am just a salesman), and then it has the catchy background music, which goes “Pocket mein Rocket Hein… Rocket Singh”, which is the only lip-synching sound track in the movie.

Another thing the movie lacks is a decent sound track. On a personal note, I felt the story went too slow at times, making it almost a documentary on the lives of Sales-men, and that it could have been made more amusing. Rocket Singh may not fit everybody’s idea of having a good time at the movie, nevertheless, the message the movie sends is very good. If you don’t go to see the movie expecting a comedy flick, you’ll realize, the movie delivers a much needed wakeup call to our conscience.

The Lost Symbol - A Sneak Peak

Overall Rating: 7.5/10.0

I finally managed to get down reading and now reviewing Dan Brown’s Latest Book “The Lost Symbol”. The problem with writing a critique on this Latest Best-seller, which sold more than one million copies on 16th September, i.e. the day of its launch and also reaching the #1 position on Amazon.com sales, is that there needs to be a lot of care taken to ensure that the review is useful, and yet doesn’t reveal the slightest things about the plot. However, I am trying to take care to ensure, I have no spoilers here, which may spoil the fun of the blog-readers, who haven’t had their share of reading this book as yet.

Like all of Dan’s novels, even the Last Symbol, has hidden groups, shady enclaves and hidden secrets, which unfold at each and every turn. The story moves with our dear Prof. Robert Langdon (who is now 3 books old), moving in yet-another quest, which challenges his in-depth knowledge of ancient societies and symbols.

The story this time is about the “circles-inside-circles” in the Free-Masons society, which is hiding some secret, which yields un-imaginable power to the person, who can solve the mystery and reach the conclusion. However, as with his other books, Dan Brown, includes some facts of history, which are probably also mixed with some of his creative fantasies, which creates a fusion, the readers would find completely invigorating. One major difference here is that, the story happens right there, in the heart of Washington D.C., the Capital of United States, and yet, we find the reading as fascinating as it would have been Venice.

One point I’d really like to mention here is that, in this book, the role of the villain here is very well managed. You may find the villain early, and may not get the shock-value, like in the older books, because you know Dan Brown, but the actions are so villainous and kind of brutal, that you feel like dumping the villain in front of an Express train and see him getting trampled. This very fact is a definition of a villainous job well-done.

Why I liked this book?

The Lost Symbol is a page-turning thriller – but the main reason why I loved this book lies in the fact that unlike his other books, in this book, there is a revelation. The book kind of reveals the importance and opens the readers to the thoughts of “tolerance” towards other people, their customs and religions, and also makes the readers ponder about the existence of “the Supreme Element - God”.

This is done, in a self-realization, when Langdon tries to defend the Free Masons society, whose customs are first shown kind of satanic and a cult, till Langdon gives explanations and forces the readers to not be judgmental since, all customs will look the same way unless properly explained and looked at a bias.

What I did not like in this book?

One major drawback that turned me down was the constant self-denial the character of Robert Langdon had for the happenings around him. He keeps trying to fight out everything stating, it cannot be real and that all this is just a myth. I had hoped that the character would have matured to believe anything, especially after what happened to him in the earlier books (Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons), where he found truth, which was even stranger than fiction.

Final Verdict:

I guess, here I need to answer the question most readers will probably be posing. “Is this book better than Da Vinci Code?”

Well, in my humble opinion, the answer is “Yes, the book is better than Da Vinci Code”. However, my personal favorite still remains Angels and Demons. Yet I believe, Dan Brown has done excellent work in this book (barring Grammatical mistakes). Some of the points he puts really makes us have self-realizations, while others make us have thrills. Take a copy and read the first chapter, I won’t ask you to read more. And while enjoying this “dessert for the brain”, don’t forget to have your meals for the body.

Red Cliff - A Review of the Western (English) Version

Hi Guys,

I had been BUSY, these last few weeks or months, if you may.
For those of you who don't know, I was off to the United States for some Official work for about 6 weeks. Further more, I visited HOME, for a couple weeks on my return, making me EMOTIONALLY FULL and PHYSICALLY depleted. Giving all the above excuses, what I am sadly trying to admit is that I haven't been able to blog regularly, since my weekends, had been really hectic. But life is back to normal (at least as of now), so I will be trying to get back to my schedule of blogging once-a-week. :-)

To all my readers, Sorry to Keep you waiting, and now, getting down to Business. :-)

Red Cliff - A Review of the Western (English) Version

Cast: Tony Leung, Zhang Fengyi, Chang Chen, Chi-Ling Lin, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Hu Jun

Director: John Woo

Overall Rating: 7.0/10.0 (A good movie to watch)

Before I start this review, there is a Disclaimer about this movie.

Since this is an actual movie of almost 5 hour length, which is compressed into 2.5 hours for English audiences, there are notable areas where movie’s story suddenly seems to go off-the-track. Also, a 50% reduction in the show-time cannot be loss-less and hence there are some things, which happen unexplained in the movie, and the audience is supposed to use its-own-imagination to understand the context.

The Storyline:

The movie is set in ancient China, where there are seemingly 3 kingdoms, one on the North and the other two are relatively on the Southern-side. The Northern empire became stronger and the ambitious Prime-minister named “Cao Cao”, made the “puppet” emperor to allow a full-fledged attack on the Southern warlords Liu Bei and Sun Quan, by calling them Rebels, who were traitors to the empire.

This is followed by a series of battles, first between the armies of Cao Cao with Liu Bei, where the completely outnumbered soldiers in Liu Bei’s side try to fight as long as they can to ensure the peasants and the common men can escape the wrath of Cao Cao, before they are defeated. In this process, the most notable thing that happens is that General Zhao Yun saves the life of the infant, who is the heir to the throne of Liu Bei while fighting in the battle and towards the end of this battle, when he is cornered and running, Cao Cao admires the loyalty the great Generals have towards Liu Bei.

This loss results in a fleeing Liu Bei’s Viceroy to go and convince Sun Quan to formulate an alliance with them, even when Liu Bei’s armies are much smaller, and just defeated. The alliance is a success when Zhou Yu, the most trusted Advisor and Viceroy of Sun Quan gets convinced that war is inevitable, and only joining forces do they have a chance to protect themselves from the threat of being run-over by Cao Cao’s army.

The story now becomes interesting as the Cao Cao makes plans for his attacks in various formulations, whereas Zhou Yu and Zhuge Liang, (the strategists from Liu Bei and Sun Quan), try to reverse engineer Cao Cao’s attacking strategies and try to defend their stands. What is more beautiful to see is the sentiment that Cao Cao harbors, that though he has the strength of armies in numbers, they are all soldiers, who were imprisoned from previous wars, and hence, their loyalties were shacky, whereas though the opposition had fewer soldiers and notably some great war-heroes, they were all loyal to their respective leaders.

The alliance of Liu Bei and Sun Quan, brings a consensus amongst armies, one which is well trained and in high morale, and the other having strong and inspirational leaders, thus making their combination a force to reckon with. The action sequences, atleast the picturization of the armies and the scenic beauty are a pure spectacle to look out for in the movie. However, it is the whole chess-like battle planning and strategizing that awes the audience the most and leave them yearning for more.

Final Verdict:

It is a good war-movie, but the cuts probably took off some of the storyline with it, jerking the audience out-of-sync with the storyline and making the movie difficult-to-comprehend. On a personal note, it made me nostalgic a lot, about “Age-of-Empires”, as I saw similar visuals, same type of infantry and cavalry units, coupled with the siege weapons and even the navy.

On the whole, I walked out of the theatre, pondering, “Damn! That is some war-time strategizing, and some really awesome military formations, but was there anything more in the story except the war?”

If you ask me, “Should I watch it?”, all I can say is,

The action sequences and the cinematography are absolutely awesome. If it helps to know, this is the most expensive movie in Asia-Pacific region till date. However, the real answer depends on whether you would like to see a few hundred thousand men, fighting with medieval weaponry in a historic backdrop and/or if you love “Age-of-empires”, watch it to remember the “good-times”.