Friday, December 26, 2014

{Movie} Review: Slumdog Millionnaire (2008)


 Starring:  Dev Patel, Freida Pinto and Madhur Mittal (2008)

A Mumbai teen who grew up in the slums, becomes a contestant on the Indian version of "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?" He is arrested under suspicion of cheating, and while being interrogated, events from his life history are shown which explain why he knows the answers.

This was the movie that has been on my PVR the longest (2+ years) and this afternoon it was finally time to give it a shot.
It started off slow and I was beginning to doubt my choice but it turned into "feel-good" film as the tagline assured us it would be.Some of the earlier "abuse" scenes were a bit much for me but I understand how it is a necessary part of the story.   The further the story unfolded, the more you are drawn in and at the end, I was a bit divided . . . where would the story lead?  Would Jamal answer the last question correctly . . . I must admit that the story would have worked for me either way.

All in all it was a fun afternoon with the bad guy redeeming himself and the happy ending we were hoping for.  I love happy endings . . . 



Sunday, December 21, 2014

Book Haul!


For the last few moths we have been going through a severe postal strike here in South Africa and it was impossible to get anything delivered.  So what a nice surprise when Book Depository and the Post Office came together and delivered me this beauty for Christmas!  Thank you guys!!

For the past year, I have listening to audiobooks books almost exclusively. In the whole year, I read maybe only one or two physical books.   It has just been so much easier to listen while sitting in the traffic to and from work.  Does wonders for the road rage!

But this book intrigued me, supposedly it is one of the new type of books which is interactive; showing photos, newspaper articles, websites, emails, etc. so I had to buy the physical book.   Which sparked a buying frenzy but more about that in coming posts.

I was planning to save it for after Christmas when I have a few days free from work but I just wanted a sample last night. Loved it! Even in the first few pages, I got a glimpse of the newspaper articles and blog posts and it story is creepy right from the get-go! 


But what is really surprising it that it took some time for me to get "reading" again. Even if I was not reading books, I have been reading or else how would I have been getting by? You cannot live life if you don't read.


But reading a book - it took some concentrating to focus on the sentences and READ. And now I can say that even if I did not notice it before, I missed real books . . . and am definitely looking forward to more.