It Happened One Night is a comedy released in 1934, from the stable of Director Frak Capra. The movie was based on a story by Samuel Hopkins Adams, called Night Bus. The movie was very popular, and was the first movie to win all 5 major Oscars
- Best Picture,
- Best Director: Frank Capra,
- Best Actor: Clark Gable
- Best Actress: Claudette Colbert
- Best Screenplay: Robert Riskin
An interesting tidbit is that Clark Gable’s award statuette was auctioned in 1996, Steven Spielberg had the winning bid of $607,500. He got it, and then donated the award to the Academy. No such luck for Claudette’s award; when it was offered for auction in the next year, nobody bid for it.

The movie had a different sort of love story - a mismatched couple; an indifferent out of work reporter out for a story, and a superior acting heiress running away from a protective father. The story of how they came together over a period of time (the title is a bit misleading, no climatic event happens on any one night), and realize that they are in love with each other was skilfully presented, making this an all time great movie. And this was after neither Gable nor Colbert were satisfied by the script, but after starting the movie, they accepted it. The end result was a movie that was reckoned to be smart, sexy, funny, and a great see. Imagine a movie in the 30’s having a scene where the hero claims to be an expert at hitch-hiking, but is unable to stop a single passing vehicle. Then the heroine uses her unfair advantage by lifting her skirt and flashing a bit of thigh, presto, a vehicle stops.
The movie is about this rich heiress Ellie Andrews; spoilt rotten by her father. She falls for a rich money-seeking and handsome weasel, King Westley. Her dad stops her in the nick of time, but the call of love is over-powering and she jumps off from her prison aboard the family yacht and wants to make her way to New York to join her love. Boarding the bus, she meets Peter Warne (Clark Gable). Gable has just been fired from his newspaper. They have a brief skirmish over a seat; when that is settled, she misses her bus the next day (hilariously assuming that the bus will wait for her when she is having a great breakfast). Her purse has been stolen, she has no money, and the reporter has recognized her. He threatens to tell her dad about her location unless she gives him the story, and what a juicy story that will be.
They have to spend nights at motels on the way, and he uses a clothesline with a blanket to separate the single room in which they are staying (staying as a married couple in order to save money). All the time he taunts her for being a rich spoilt girl (when she suspects him of being funny by booking a room as a husband and wife, he turns it around by telling her that he is only interested in the story and not in her). Near the end, he leaves the motel for some work, and the couple owning the motel kick her out suspecting some funny business. Ellie is so disoriented that she calls her dad, who is so relived at getting her back that he agrees for her marriage. In a misunderstanding, she thinks that Peter has betrayed her, while Peter believes that she has double-crossed him.
Peter does contact her dad, but not to claim the large reward, but only the sum that he spent on her. Her father is so intrigued that he gets after the reporter until Peter tells the truth, he is in love with Ellie, although if he were rational, there was no reason that he should be in love with her. The climax, the marriage scene. Andrews tells his daughter that Peter did not betray her, he only came for the expenses, and if she really loves Peter and wants to make her dad happy, she should run away. There is a car waiting at the back, and she does. The happy dad negotiated with Westley to get the earlier marriage annulled, and everybody is happy.

I’ll admit it right away, there are many of Bill Bryson’s books that I really liked. I had read some of Bryson’s later books before I read this one, so there was always the thought that maybe his earlier books would not have the same level of humour, and the great style of writing that I always liked. Well, I felt great while reading the book and did not regret it one bit. He writes a lot about travel and adventure, while presenting a great deal of information. And to tell the truth, I had not heard of the Appalachian Trail before reading this book; by the time I had finished, I knew a great deal more. And it was not only me; after this book was published in 1998, there was an upsurge in interest about the trail, with a lot more people wanting to hike the trail.

The book is about the attempt by the author and his old college buddy, Stephen Katz, to walk the 2100 miles of the Appalachian Trail from start to finish. Neither of the 2 is in top physical condition, with Katz in a much worse physical condition. By the end, neither of them has done anything like what they attempted to do, having covered a very small section overall of the trail (and for which the book was criticised to some extent, as a travel book that did not even cover the whole trail).
In addition, the book was also criticized to a large degree because of the depiction of fellow hikers, with the author having been accused of turning them into absurdities.
However, the fact remains that this is not just a travel book. The book is not supposed to be a guide for traveling the trail, instead it is a humorous depiction of a journey, with the focus on the effort and the adventures while on the trail. The book is chock full of humour that makes you laugh, and makes you want to read more. About the travel of the author with his old friend, the entire adventure from the start (preparing what to take, and what to discard), and how whether their physical condition is adequate for the trip that they are considering.
The fear of bears, and maybe of mountain lions, is apparent in the writing, and the time where the author described how a bear came into the camp makes for some riveting reading. The book also tries to explain a lot of geological information (how the mountains and its various aspects came into existence), how the trail was formed due to the efforts of 2 dedicated people, and a lot about the fauna and flora along the trail. You also get to read a lot about the various stops, towns, and fellow hikers that they meet when on the trail.
The only time when the book deviates from the light reading and humour is when you can perceive the author’s anger against the mismanagement of the trail by various administrative bodies such as the Parks and Forest Services of the federal Government, as well as the ineptitude of the US Army Corps of Engineers. He is downright hostile to their mismanagement, and when you read the way in which the information is presented, you can tend to agree with him.
Overall, this is a book that is worth reading, and you might find yourself chuckling along with the author.

Groundhog Day is a movie released in 1993 that was a sleeper hit; praised by critics on its release but not exceptionally. It was with the passage of time that the movie got more praise, and became much more famous, especially on the DVD circuit. The movie is based on the concept of Groundhog Day, a holiday celebrated in the United States & Canada on the 2nd of January. So what is the concept of Groundhog Day ? It is an irrational method of determining whether winter will soon end ? So, on January 2, supposedly a Groundhog is observed when it comes out of its burrow, and if it sees its shadow, it will return into its burrow implying that winter will continue for 6 more weeks; if it fails to see its shadow as it is cloudy, winter will soon end. One of the most famous groundhog is Punxsutawney Phil found in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, USA.

Using this concept, a delightful movie was made. The movie, released in 1993 is a comedy, starring Bill Murray and Andie McDowell, based on a story by Danny Rubin and Harold Ramis and based on a story by Rubin. The movie did well on release, grossing over $70 million in the US itself, but was not rated to be nothing very great. It was a much bigger hit on the DVD and home video circuit, and was evaluated to be among the top 100 funny movies. The movie is a lot about being able to get away from being focused on only oneself, and learning more about what other people want, and understanding them. Accordingly, the movie has also struck a chord with religious leaders who play on the film’s theme of slowly moving away from selfishness to a sort of rebirth where you can focus on others, and become more selfless.
The movie also made the concept of Groundhog Day, (a day that keeps on repeating itself without end and without variation) a very popular term among the US military, where it is now refers to a repetitive, unchanging and unpleasant duty. Some examples of the use of the term by military personnel ranges from Somalia, Bosnia, and Iraq.
The movie itself is about a weatherman who gets stuck in a situation of no change, where the day keeps on repeating itself over and over again, and only he is able to understand that the same day is getting repeated; slowly he changes from being a self-centered person to a person capable of understanding others and appreciate them. So, Phil Connors is a Pittsburg TV Weatherman, not very happy about having to cover the 2nd of January Groundhog Day in Punxsutawney. He reaches Punxsutawney along with his producer Rita (Andie McDowell) and cameraman Larry (Chris Elliott) to cover the event (celebrated as a festival in Punxsutawney. Once the celebration ends, Phil is unable to leave since a blizzard envelops the town (ironically, Phil had predicted that the blizzard would miss the town). However, in a major shock, when he gets up at 6 AM to the song on his alarm (Sonny & Cher’s “I Got You Babe”), he realizes that it is the 2nd, and not the 3rd. He remembers the previous day, but everybody else thinks that it is the 2nd (without any memory of already having spent the previous day). This cycle keeps on repeating itself.
Initially he realizes that this repeat gives him great power, so he is able to steal money, drive drunk, lead police in a chase, and seduce beautiful women, but he is not able to seduce his producer Rita. Soon, he tires of all this, and gets frustrated. Not able to see an end, and tiring of this repeating of the same cycle, he soon tries to commit suicide many times, and succeeds, but with ultimate failure. He just gets up the next day at the same time, on the same song.
Soon, he turns a new life, trying to improve himself. He is able to convince Rita of the truth by telling her about more and more things that he learns, and also turns more compassionate towards other, including savings the lives of many people. He also learns a number of complex tasks such as learning jazz piano, sculpt ice, and know about everybody in life. Finally, after much self-improvement, he is able to profess true love to Rita, and she accepts. And this causes the day to finally move to January 3.

What happens when a writer, known so far for travel books and about history, and who tickles the funny bones in your body, decides to write about science. Writing books about science and making them interesting have broken many authors, so when I first picked up this book, I was a bit worried. Well, when I finished the book, I let out a sigh of relief. While imparting a fair amount of education about science (although not about explaining the complicated algebra and geometry), the book does convey a great deal and did so in a very entertaining way.
Of course, if you are a scientist, you would take away almost nothing from this book, since it hardly claims to propound a new version of the string theory; one thing anyone can learn from such a book is how to write books like this that will explain a large number of concepts while keeping the overall subject light; and at the same time, making things more life-like by explaining details about the scientists that hardly ever makes it out.

Typically when you read about a scientist, you will learn about the great inventions that the scientist did, and how great it was and how beneficial it was. Typically such inventors are treated in a very god-like manner, and way above reality. Bill Bryson explains a lot more about such scientists, including their failing and weaknesses, and make them seem more life-like.
You will get to feel about what the situation and surrounding environment was like for such great scientists such as Charles Darwin, Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, and many others. And this is exactly the reason why this massive 500 page plus book was written. Like all of us, Bill Bryson learnt all the facts about science, but again like us, in a very dull manner. He wanted to understand the reasons as to why something was discovered, the motivation of the scientists, the environment around them, and so on; all these help in understanding the development of science in a much more understandable way. This works great - you learn as to how Newton was also an egoist and also responsible for sending many counterfeiters to the gallows in an official role; or how the great Cavendish was such a recluse that he would even communicate with his housekeeper through letters.
In addition to the part about scientists, you also learn about sizes in this universe, from the size of our planet to the size of galaxies, about the development of Homo Sapiens (us) and what separates us from our biological cousins (the chimpanzees) to whom we are more than 98% genetically similar. You learn a lot about such varied subjects such as fields of cosmology, astronomy, paleontology, geology, chemistry, physics and so on.
For writing this book, Bryson spent over 3 years, talking to various scientists and understanding things from them; as a result of his not being a scientist himself, there have been errors that have been pointed out in the book; but overall, I stick to my thought that this was a wonderful book that tried to explain how scientists and science learn about everything (and something that you never read about).

For those of you who have not read books by Bill Bryson before, be prepared for a blast. These books are non-fiction, but are incredibly funny. There has been many a time when I have had to go back and read a section that I just read since it made me laugh (and I wanted to laugh again). Some of the other great books of Bill Bryson that you should read are a ‘A Lost continent’, ‘A walk in the woods’, ‘A short history of nearly everything’, ‘Down Under’, and so on (you get the picture - I have yet to read a Bill Bryson book that did not appeal).
This book is about the development of English language down the ages, so you will find a lot of detail about how words came to be added to the English used in the United States, such as derived from the American Indians who were living there when the settlers first went in, from various languages (or rather from the immigrants of various countries such Germany, French, Irish, British, and so on,) and from whom many words of the language came to be derived, though many times these were twisted and turned in a way that the original speaker would not have realized.

But is this just a scholarly exposition of the development of the English language used in the United States ? That would be downright boring. To everyone’s relief, such is not the case. The book delves into the history of the United States and presents a great many facts while reliving the story, at the same time, debunking many myths that we have. The book is a great read for anyone who wants to read about the history of the United states through its culture, not through politics or war. From the starting, the book is a wonder of facts and learning:
- Giving a lot more detail about the original settlers and whether there were people before them
- About the way that the original settlers almost got wiped out, but survived due to the help of the native Indians nearby
- About the nature of the apparently frigid puritans and the easy prevalence of sex before marriage as a way to measure compatibility and how many marriage were formalized after a baby had been conceived
- A great many myths around the American revolution including heroic words and actions ascribed to people who apparently did no such thing
- The womanizing nature of Benjamin Franklin
- The great debates and concerns around having the different time zones and even more so, the concept of daylight savings time
- A lot of description of the many inventions and the different nature of the investors (their human traits as compared to the noble myths around them)
and so on
Too many to tell, it is better read from the book which is a very enthralling reading.

It is in the last 1-2 decades that animation movies have come into their own. And Pixar has had a great deal to do with making them more life-like, more enjoyable, and able to appeal to an adult audience as well. Finding Nemo was made by Pixar and released by Walt Disney Pictures and Buena Vista Distribution in 2003; it was the fifth such combined effort by Pixar and Disney, and was incredibly successful. The movie, surprisingly for an animation movie, has been voted in many of the top 100 films, and been incredibly successful financially. Even though the movie cost in the range of around $95 million to make, it made over $860 worldwide, and is probably the most sold DVD, selling more than 40 million copies.

Finding Nemo was nominated for 4 awards, and won 1.
* Best Animated Film - Won
* Best Original Score - Thomas Newman (Nominated)
* Best Sound Editing (Nominated)
* Best Screenplay - Original - Andrew Stanton, Bob Peterson & David Reynolds (Nominated)
The movie was rated as not just a children’s movie, but a movie that appealed to teens as well as adults. For a start, Finding Nemo has some great animation. It has been pretty hard to make an animation that shows water naturally, and imagine a movie that was all about water; yet the effects were well applauded and the water, whether it be in the water of the Australian Great Barrier Reef or the smallness of a aquarium, always seemed realistic.
The movie also impresses in terms of its story. The elements of an over-protective father, a rebellious son, and the tensions surrounding such a relationship all are a basic part of life, and the movie presented this in a very warm, appealing way. The movie is also very funny, and you can be pretty sure to be laughing at many points of the movie. Also, for parents who watch Finding Nemo, the concept of losing a child, and the desperate effort to find the lost child is something that all parents can identify with.
What makes the movie even more special are the characters, all of whom have their own character, with many of them fighting their own personal battles. Some of the actors who have lent their voices and made the characters so more lovable are Albert Brooks, Ellen DeGeneres, Alexander Gould, Willem Dafoe, Brad Garrett, Allison Janney, Austin Pendleton, Stephen Root and Geoffrey Rush.
The movie, about the clownfish, Marlin, is about him losing his wife and children (save one) to a barracuda. Marlin promises that the one safe child will always be safe. And hence, as Nemo starts to grow up, Marlin tries to live upto that promise and becomes an over-protective father, to the extent that Nemo is embarrassed by Marlin. When Marlin warns Nemo against the dangers of the open ocean, Nemo in defiance, goes to the ocean to demonstrate that there are no dangers against him; and thus starts the adventure. Nemo is captured by a scuba-diving dentist. Marlin soon loses the boat of the dentist, but picks up a blue tang named Dory who offers to help him search for his son (and is also a hindrance many times). They soon are able to figure out that Nemo has been taken to Sydney.
Nemo is now in a fish tank, waiting to be given as a birthday present to a young girl named Darla. The other fish in the fish tank are all enthusiastic about trying to escape, and a fish named Gil suggests jamming the filter (so that the dentist will take the fish out while cleaning the tank).
Marlin and Dory meet a number of creatures on the way, such as the shark who wants to love fish and not be seen as a fish-eating machine, a very old sea turtle totally young at heart, and then a pelican named Nigel who offers some incredible help by taking them to the dentist’s office. Nemo in the meantime pretends to be dead, and is sent down the toilet to reach the ocean. In between Nemo meets up with Marlin and Dory, and then Dory is caught in a net. In order to save Dory, Marlin has to allow Nemo to go back on his own while Marlin saves Dory.

The Devil wears Prada is the classic story of a girl who has to choose between the shortest path to her goal and the right path. After trying the shortest path for a while, the girl finally gives it all up only a short while before she is about to succeed and starts again on the right path.

If you compare the novel and the book, both seem to convey a different message. While the book seem to preach following your heart to your goal, the movie has been twisted to advocate “Good wins over Evil” where Andrea is good and Miranda is Evil. Needless to say, I like the book better.

Andrea Sachs is a graduate in English and is about to start her career. She gets a lucky break in the Runway magazine as the junior assitant of the legendary Editor-in-Chief, Miranda Priestly. Though she joins a fashion magazine, Andrea’s ultimate goal is to work for the New Yorker and she sees Runway as the shortest route to it. But after working with the “boss from hell” Miranda for about an year, she realizes that her priorities rest with her family and friends. She gives it all up and starts out on the longer route by writing short fiction.

All through this, Andrea comes out as a girl who is in a dilemna about what path to take even though her goal is always clear to her. When she is ignoring her family and friends, her conscious always keeps chiding her for this. At the end she has the guts to throw away a good chance of reaching her goal, when she needs to be with her friend. The novel ends with she and Alex, her boyfriend with whom she has a fallout because of her job, staying as friends but taking time away from each other. The movie shows them getting back together as if nothing went wrong.

Miranda Priestly’s treatment of her juniors cannot be called pleasant at any time during the novel. In fact, she makes life perfectly miserable for them. But on the other hand, she is a successful professional woman who adores her daughter and spends considerable time on phone with her husband. This streak of her character has been completely turned around in the movie where she is shown to be divorcing her husband at the end.

Out of Andrea and Miranda, I would say that Miranda’s character sketch is far more interesting.

In case you are in a dilemna over your career and would like to cross over to a field that seems to be closer to your heart, reading this book may give you the strength to take that final step.

Six degrees of separation is based on one important concept: the idea that, if a person is one step away from each person he or she knows and two steps away from each person who is known by one of the people he or she knows, then everyone is no more than six “steps” away from each person on Earth. Think about it; you know somebody who knows somebody and so on to the 6th level, till a person knows George Bush or Cindy Crawford or Vladimir Putin. The movie is actually based on a 1990 play by John Guare, an American playwright, and it was the play that made the term ’six degrees of separation’ a famous term.
One interesting usage of this concept was the game, ‘Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon’, whereby the aim was to connect any actor to Kevin Bacon within 6 steps. Wikipedia link.

The movie had some excellent performances by the lead trio, Donald Sutherland (playing the stuck-up art dealer, Flan Kittredge, who makes millions), Stockard Channing (playing Ouisa Kittredge to perfection, a role of a person wanting to discover more and eventually does change a fair amount) and best of all Will Smith (playing Paul, one of his earlier roles and trying to make an impression after the success of his TV series, the ‘Fresh Prince of Bel Air’).
The movie starts with a dinner in a posh Manhattan apartment, where the rich art-dealer couple of Flan Kittredge and Ouisa Kittredge are giving dinner to a business associate. And who lands up ? Paul, claiming to be mugged, and a friend of the Kittredge children (with whom the parents rarely speak) and also the son of the famous black actor, Sidney Poitier’s.
Paul is a fascinating person, every inch a con man, capable of taking in people with his stories. He entertains the hosts with some fascinating stories and exotic tales, and, tantalizingly, informs them that his father is casting for creating a film version of Cats, and that the hosts can play a role of extras in the films. The film moves in different ways, with a mix of some quirky dialogues, a plot that moves suddenly, and the overall effect is of the unpredictable. The movie also gives the contrast between the have’s and the have-nots, between people at different classes of society. Overall, a fairly watchable movie.

The first time I watched this movie, I was somewhat unsure !! Imagine Stallone doing comedy. Anyhow, I had nothing else to do at that time, and so ventured forth to watch this movie. And in my opinion, it was worth it. I laughed much more than I thought I would, and my image of Stallone changed after this movie. I had more respect for him. The movie has been directed by John Landis.
This movie came out in 1991, so it has been some time since the movie has been out. It has been a sufficiently under-rated movie, but worth keeping as part of the DVD collection. Imagine the pleasure of showing friends this movie, and atleast some of them will really like this movie.
Stallone plays the role of Snaps Provolone, a gangster persuaded by his dying father to go straight. No one obviously can quite believe that a gangster can go straight. He decides to go into banking, and this movie runs on the day that is the day that he would turn straight. This day is the day when an immense number of things happen in his life. His employee Anthony informs him that he has stolen $50,000 belonging to Snaps, and is also going to marry his daughter. Snaps is looking for a way to get the money back, and sees an opportunity when he realizes that Anthony is going to marry a lady who is actually not Snaps’s daughter. In the meantime, Snaps’s actual daughter, Marisa Tomei, is in love with his chaueffeur and is pregnant by him; so Snaps has to arrange for her marriage to keep her reputation honest.
He also has to convince the banking board that he is legit, and deal with an ex-girlfriend, and his gangster rival. In addition, the police believe that he is upto some big deal and are keeping a close look on him. There is a missing bag of money that causes an immense amount of confusion and activities in the film.
Read more about the movie here.

Baby’s Day Out was released in 1994, and was a hit, seemingly continuing in the line of Home Alone. While Home Alone dealt with a young boy planning and scheming on how to ward off thieves, Baby’s Day out takes a toddler who through a series of incidents manages to outwit a trio of kidnappers. Given the age of the baby, it is impossible for these events to happen through deliberate action, but in fact the tale happens on the basis of a book called ‘Baby’s Day Out’. It of course helps that the kidnappers are bumbling kidnappers.
So what’s the story like: Bink is the 9 month old baby of rich parents, Bennington Sr. and Lorraine. 3 kidnappers, Eddie, Veeko and Norby get the idea of kidnapping the baby for ransom. They arrive at the Bennington home taking the place of previously scheduled photographers, and manager to get the baby away by pretending to setup a good photographer. And then starts a series of adventures. They try to feed the baby and make a mess out of it, and when attention is diverted, the baby starts to climb to the roof and eventually climbs on a plank that leads to the next building. When the panicky kidnappers try to follow him, one of them falls down a big fall and into a garbage bin.
Now the baby is away from their clutches, and the rest of the movie is about trying to catch him. They chase him when he gets into a bus, from there into a department store, find him again when he suddenly shows up on TV, into another taxi, into a zoo (where the gorilla beats up the 3 kidnappers), into a rabbit hole. In a park when they catch the baby, he sets fire to one of them, moving onto a construction site where the baby crawls onto a girder and after a series of mis-steps that afflict the kidnappers, escapes. In the meantime, the family discovers that he is following the places in the book and head for the final destination, an Old Solder’s Home, where he is finally reunited with his family.
This was an enjoyable movie, but if I was the kidnapper, after so many accidents, I would realize that fate was against me and given up.