Oppenheimer - The Movie review.

Oppenheimer.(The movie) 

Watched on July 21st,2023at Prasadz IMAX, Hyderabad 

Cinemas in India are hugely for entertainment and many times the important human moments are traded for crowning glory moments. But for many storytellers cinemas present an excellent opportunity to narrate a perspective that makes us read about history, invest emotionally into the characters that we are transported to that world effortlessly. It takes immense amount of self confidence and meticulous planning to show that world which we do not perceive. That's where Christopher Nolan bhaiyya enters making the quietest moments the loudest ones.

He has successfully made a generation read before going to watch his movies and 

also re-watch it to understand it better He has made some of my favorite films and also the movies I did not want to watch one bit like Tenet.

Oppenheimer - This movie is about the most significant invention which changed the course of future wars, meant to stop the great war and put USA in a position of super power - This is about the making of The Atomic Bomb and everything that was happening around it. Its an adaptation from the book "American Prometheus".

"Now I Am Become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds." This quote summarizes the story. This is a quote from the Bhagvad Gita. India has had a movie Parmanu which showed how India became a nuclear power, I loved that movie, it was Indianized for easy consumption. Same way, this movie is about how America became the first nation to develop a nuclear weapon. It does not glorify the dastardly acts of Hiroshima and Nagasaki but the human side of the man who is popularly called the Father of the Atomic Bomb. 

It has a lot of drama, court room dialogues, and has interactions of military personnel, liberal scientists, free thinkers and power seekers who interact with the protagonist.

Acting: When you have Oscar winning actors doing side roles imagine how good the main role must be. Cillian Murphy's biggest praise would be I forgot he was the "Scarecrow" in the Batman movie. Robert Downey Jr is not the Ironman in this movie, he plays his part with such restraint that this shows what actors are meant to do to give meaning to their role without bringing in the flair of their most popular work (Ironman). 

A house full audience at an afternoon show at the biggest screen in Hyderabad shows people are willing to come to watch a 3 hour drama with engaging background scores( Ludwig Göransson) that keeps you absorbed. Don't miss Oppenheimer's interaction with Einstein what a roar that got. :)

What did I not enjoy - I really expected some more Visual effects about the atoms, how the scientist thinks and visualizes it sparks a lot of interest in the minds of people wanting to get excited by this field and its potential. But Nolan bhaiyya is more about recreating scenes naturally and showcases the human side of Oppenheimer dealing with his emotions and decisions and does not delve deep into the making of the bomb. 

If you have a liking towards Drama, an important slice of history served in Nolan style with nuances without Akshay Kumar acting as a lead in a biopic ;)

Watch Oppenheimer but read a little bit about Trinity Project, Manhattan Project, World Wars and maybe Manipur too...to get a full hit of the movie.

 

Happy Weekend!

Cheers,

After 11 years ;)

Arvind ( I confess I was not involved in any Nuclear planning to stay away from this platform for so long ;) ) My Facebook Link

I'm back !!

Ahh! The world of bloggers!

After a gap of nearly 2 years and 6+ kgs , I'm back!!! Heavier, stronger and kind of wiser to enter the world of blogging again ;)

The internet has drastically improved the speeds of communication , information passing , entertainment etc but at the same time it has faded away a few of the basic things we all did well in our 90's and 2000's!

Handwriting  ( I was so proud of my calligraphic skills where my strokes in cursive writing would be so smooth that those 'curves' would make any Hollywood actress jealous :D )
Now all I can do is choose fonts ( my handwriting variation) to watermark my pictures or write emails or  documents which are read by humans and bots.

Out of the other things that has advanced to advanced stages of extinction is  our attention span!  I don't think anyone is willing to read beyond a smart punchline or not more than 140 characters thanks to Twitter ( A person with over 8K tweets and a winner of atleast dozen Twitter contest saying this you have to believe him :D ). My attention span has also been reduced to that of a fly!

This might just be the reason I would have not blogged for so long!
Apart from that I had to find some motivation and a very good friend of mine recently has provided me with that to kick start my writing habit. 

I fell in love( for the first time) with writing(again) and I shall post on this space *very very soon*.

Just wanted the humanity which lives on Facebook who keeps watching my pictures to know "The writing is on the WALL for you "If you don't read the 100000's of words which is equivalent to 100's of pictures [ Do the math of how many word's a single picture speaks ;) ] , else you shall be poked !!!

Till the *very very soon* post (t)rolls out into your hearts and lungs and kidneys,

Peace out!
Arvind

The 2010 post !! :)

So What's happening guys ?

I'm still staying alive in the world of blogging with this post(My only post of 2010!!) :D

2010 was rough isn't it?( Earthquakes, floods, violence, Economy) - Still waiting for some things to happen fast for me( or rather have to make it happen!)

Almost dying to go to India to visit family and friends. It's been a while and I almost have been dreaming about Hyderabad for the last 6 months.

So here are some highlights of 2010.

Its been an amazing year for me as a Photographer.

Great works concluding as a researcher ( soon..soon to be told..)

Learnt a lot of things by experimenting and travelling to many places.

Thanks to the wonderful friends( whose phone calls I don't pick up, but still give them the best profile pictures :] ) with whom some great road trips have happened!!

I had this wonderful opportunity of shooting a wedding at Boston and New Hampshire(Yes I was the trusted Photographer for a whole wedding ) - A wedding gift from my side to a close friend.

Have motivated more than a dozen ASU(Arizona State University) peeps ( (A little bragging is allowed, since its my blog :D ) to get into serious Photography and have taken many people on Photography 101 walks. ( Canon and Nikon you should be paying me for a spike in their sales! )

Been the year where we successfully passed on the baton of ISA @ASU( Indian Students Association ) to new folks. Managing over 800 people with a team of less than 20 people was fun and probably made me explore a leader in me!

Still maintaining my status as a teetotaler and a Vegetarian successfully - ( 4+ years in US )

This is the year I've watched maximum English movies( Sum of all previous years would be lesser) and have developed a deep appreciation and respect for movie making and direction.

Have been watching a lot of documentaries oflate ( No I'm not getting boring as a person:D)

- "The Story of India" by Michael Wood( which is now my all time favorite in documentaries about Indian History, so many discoveries made),

- Enron( A story about one of the biggest Corporate frauds in the World),

- Conspiracy theories( 9/11 attacks, Moon Landings etc - some of them make a lot of sense and helped me gain different perspectives)

and one of my other favorites

- "An inconvenient truth" ( A great and detailed documentary on Global Warming)

Apart from this - This is the first year where I finished reading 2 Novels successfully each over 300 pages( considering my attention span for things which does not involve jumping and rolling on the ground). Both of them were Dan Brown novels( Digital Fortress and Deception Point - Both the books were average, Enjoyed Chetan Bhagat's 2 states and 5 Point someone more).

With that I'm part of a family which has voracious readers( Yes, I was the lone black sheep who used to ask my dad to narrate the story during dinners)

My best hike till date (in terms of difficulty) also happened this year. It was at Superstition Mountains and was called The Siphon draw trail( till the Flat iron - Google "Flat iron Arizona" ).

Ran Arbor Day 5K run [ my first long run after 2 Hyderabad 10K runs] and was within Tempe's fastest 100 men :D

Bad things were short( and significant ) - Like drastic reduction in the amount of cooking( yes yes increase in weight :P), reduced consistency in playing beach volleyball ( although won a Silver Medal in the ASU Olympics :D ), racquetball or any sport for a significantly long time.
Laziness levels were displayed to ensure a peaceful life ( other than for Non Profits and Photography )

But overall glad that 2 significant things laziness( a great teacher) and passions( also a great teacher) ruled 2010.

Passions rule you inevitably, make sure it compensates for laziness ;)

2011, will be a *very* significant year in my life where major things will happen. Hopeful that it brings a lot of HEALTH,happiness, peace and open mindedness to this world. [ This is the first year I'm wishing all these :D ]

Lastly, not to forget more than a dozen(infact an truckload) of my friends got married or engaged this year ( marital bliss before 2012, when the World ends? ) - so wishing them a very special year ahead.

As they say for good things to happen it has to start first...

So Dear 2011 - Bring it ON! This is the year I'm going to be more courageous and hardworking than ever before. Not to forget, this is the year I'll have my family first over my friends.

Cheers and Best,

Your's truly!

A.R

Randomly interested to see the latest photo updates:

My Flickr Photo collection

Photo Slideshow - for lazy people :)

Fall Colors at Arizona State University - Observed it for the first time :)

Campus Tour of ASU

Just to prove I'm still there ! ;-)

Dear all, (sounds like a E-mail ?? )

This is a reminder that Arvind still blogs and is wide awake in the blogging world ;-)

Apart from writing articles, clicking Million Photographs I was leading a group of very motivated individuals in organizing a wonderful event for the Indian Student's Association at ASU which happened this Sep 19th '2009 .
It was called Jhankaar - A welcoming party to the new Students who had arrived here @ASU that year.

There were lot of thoughts, creative ideas thrown in the air and it needed some meticulous planning, infinitely long email threads and innumerable number of phone calls to make up for a wonderful time 3+ hours and a lifetime of memories.

Its attracted over 500 people for the past 3 year and in short says what College Entertainment is all about !!

Its been the 2nd time I've danced (yes yes..in one of the most popular dances of the evening where I am the lone guy and surrounded by 6-8 girls ranging from Radha kaise na jale to Kajra re to Ramta Jogi ).

But the most satisfying thing was writing short skits again and making new people act in them..Its been a wonderful learning experience for me ! :)

I liked the way we worked as a group and pulled this off successfully !

Here is the link to the wonderful video which in short depicts the Making of Jhankaar :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJrONE3mh-o

Will be there with a post something interesting soon!

Cheers and best!
Arvind

Tagged !!

1. Last movie you saw in a theater?
Read as l(o)st movie - The Bank Job :-|

2. What book are you reading?
Am I exposed..reading Algorithms by Cormen

3. Favorite board game?
Scrabble on weekdays chess on weekends ;)

4. Favorite magazine?
Sportstar - I love the posters of the week in it !

5. Favorite smells?
Nothing to beat adulterated Indian petrol smell ;)

6. Favorite thing to do in weekend?
Racquetball + Volleyball + Talk with parents back home :)

7. Worst feeling in the world?
Make that falling short of people's expectations

8. What is the first thing you think of when you wakeup?
Simple - Sleep again :D

9. Favorite fast food place?
You said fast its Extreme Pita - if fastest My kitchen ;)

10. Future child’s name?
I need to take my wife's advice on it ;)

11. Complete this statement --- 'If I had a lot of money'
Spend it on my dear ones,travel,invest and ofcourse donate.

12. Do you drive fast?
If its online racing, definitely yes :D
If its my bicycle - comparatively yes ;)
If its a car - I need to get my license and I am a law abiding citizen ;)

13. Do you sleep with a stuffed animal?
If you consider pillow as a animal yes ;)

14. Storms -- Cool or Scary?
Cool for the photographer in me
Scary for the human in me.
But photographer beats the human in me :)

15. What was your first car?
It it is Ferrari Enzo in Ghost Racer ;)

16. Favorite drink?
Water - no 2nd thoughts !

17. Complete this statement --- If i had the time i would...
Do the same things I do
Learn new things I need to improve on.

18. Do you eat the stems on broccoli?
Yes if cooked well

19. If you could dye your hair any other color, what would be your choice?
Indian Colors ;)

20. Name all the different cities/towns you have lived in?
Hyderabad / Chennai / Tempe / New Jersey

21. Favorite sports to watch?
Cricket > Soccer > Basketball

22. One information about the person who sent this to you?
Ms. Godbole who has helped me in winning a bet which was worth 1 week's lunch ;)

23. What’s under your bed?
Carpet and the roof of the house below us :D

24. Would you like to be born as yourself again?
If same parents - Heck YES !:)

25. Morning person or night owl?
Morning what ?? :D

26. Over easy or sunny side up?
Sunny side up :)

27. Favorite place to relax?
Racquetball Court :)

28. Favorite pie?
Colorful Pie Chart :P

29. Favorite ice cream flavor?
Anything with Chocolate is digestible :)

30. Of all the people you have tagged, who is the most likely to respond first?
Munmun - Don't let me down ;) else Deepa surely will not :))

Randomness ' 08 !

At last I decided to break the jinx and thanks to some randomness and some useful late night conversations that I decided to post this work. This is also a special occasion as it’s a start of a New Year which is always filled with dreams and hopes for making things better. I would like to say a special thanks to Munmun for the needed motivation :-)

So here is the idea, someone gives you 5 random words and you make a story out of it.
It can be in any order and verb forms can also be considered in place of the word itself.

My 5 words were: Admire, Loathe, Road, Search, Girlfriend

The writing: ( You can post your compliments in the comments and e-mail your critiques :D )

As children we always admire the stars who win public’s heart with display of their special skills. Every child dreams to be a star one day by doing something fantastic. But later in life there is a realization that they have lost their way by taking the road which was taken by most and end up as commoners and cannot do the Fantastic things they dreamt of. This popularly is called Mock Psychology.
But there is also a realization among these set of people that things they do are of importance in the bigger jigsaw which make them stars as well in their own perspective.

This realization is very important and helps in making sure the wheels of development moves smoothly on the road of development. Imagine everyone wants to do the same job which earns them rewards, acclaims and titles? Also imagine there is no one to implement it after the idea has been proposed!
A real life example would be considering there is just one girl in an island and everyone wants her to be his girlfriend. Then things would not move smoothly and pretty soon it would turn chaotic. This is where work division comes into picture where the best guy gets the best job similar to the best guy in the island gets the girl.

But again people might loathe the idea of bias playing a part in this decision making process just like reservations/priveleges for less deserving candidates but this is what harshness of life is but still everyone searches for an opportunity among this chaos to do the fantastic thing, that is what is the true sweetness of life is.

These were my random thoughts which were put up. You should give it a try once too. Its fun or should say its healthy fun !

Happy New Year to everyone ! Wishing everyone peace, love and happiness all throughout this New Year :)

Cheers,
Arvind

Up Up and Away....In the land of dreams

Hey people,

So time has come again for a Arvind special :D so here I start again in my patented style...Its been a long time since I posted blah..blah..and YES !!It again took a special day for this post !!The day is Vinayaka Chaturthi this time.

Looks like my blog has become a bi-monthly event !

So some updates from my side..a lot in fact,can publish a book(which will be the last one for the publisher though :D) on the days I had from the airport send offs till the time I arrived here )

I am not in India now and I am in the place of dreams(not Mumbai..for the people who thought I was going to be the next big thing in Bollywood :-)..United States of America it is)..for pursuing my Masters in at a reputed Institution called Arizona State University.

Its been some 10 days here and I get to learn many things like cooking(in "bold"),managing my resources and all importantly trying to get accustomed to the new environment.Its been a nice 10 days so far with lots of welcoming parties for fresh graduates(where our taste buds gets back to life :D),and lots of freebies provided(which gets us back to life :D )

Some things I love about this place

People slog hard on weekdays and they are very dedicated,committed to their work and are super duper courteous which are somethings which is really appreciable.

One thing which is a little bad is the food(espl with me being a veggie) (Burritos in Taco Bell !!yuck!! ..I call it Taco Hell :) ),but we manage to make some good food and I have really encouraging roomies (people with a big appetite but still fall under HUMAN category :D) who will not disappoint in sweeping away the food when someone is away!!

The pace of education is a fast(thats one of the reasons why they are pioneers in technology).For some people it is like an avalanche when they open their closet door,because it goes at tremendous pace and we always need to be on our toes to stay in par with the crowd.(No wonder people love weekends here ! )What we used to do in a semester is done in an assignment(no wonder people who complete MS are valued :D..*embedded prayer here* )

So from personal point of view I love the place for the people (don't get any ideas here and don't correlate it with the place being HOT and the university being ranked in top 10 Party Universities in the US )

But yes it is a little tough being away from parents,friends and your loved ones who you were with for nearly 21 years and with whom you spent some of the most precious/special/wonderful/unforgettable moments of your life.

But what is life if its going on smooth there is one stage in life where we got to prove ourselves(I am shifting to philosophy mode now :D) and try to show what we are capable of and would like to contribute productively to the soceity.

One good thing is there are lots of people who I know(my roomies,apartment mates who like nullify the chance of me being homesick..vice versa may not be true ). talks till 1-2 in the night are always fun:-)

I have some neighbours as Chinese..who are sweet to say the least ..calm ,organised(and there houses are super clean) and also give wonderful gifts too :D

So in 10 days I have met some very nice people and I guess this is what is International exposure is all about and you get to learn a lot so there are dreams and there are hopes..so hope that they meet !

I am having fun and the photo here is where we were taken to 3 American homes for getting to know American culture and trying to tell them something about our culture as well .So that day was quite special !

So lots of thoughts and feelings which I cant pen down like the mails my mom writes to me and the telephonic conversations..singing of national anthem at the Independence day....man..all very emotional and special !

Have fun while I have fun slogging!

Its show time here!!

Adios and Cheers !