The Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows movies had a lot to live up to when it came to fan expectations. For the book readers, who had been on the journey much longer than the movie fans, it was the final closing chapter of the Harry Potter series. At that point in 2011, no one knew that Rowling would have an equally hard time letting go of the characters and would end up writing a…
British humor has its own identity; wry, genteel, steeped in sarcasm, slightly tongue-in-cheek. All writers have their own style, but there is something inherently similar in the language and narrative. I always find similarities between Charles Dickens, Elizabeth Gaskell and PG Wodehouse with their mostly country house settings, caricaturized protagonists and situational humor. I also measure every other British humorist against them, which probably doesn’t help my reading at all, as it happened with Miss Mapp by…
My thoughts on whether focus on STEM only growth interferes with the overall intellectual growth of the country. Should everyone end up in technology?
https://shadesofwords.com/?p=761&preview=true> Read More…When No Strings Attached was released, Natalie Portman was riding high on the success of Black Swan, and predictably everyone was going gaga over her role in this movie. Catching the movie six months after, it doesn’t look so hot. Let’s talk about the storyline: two people keep bumping into each other and finally hook up for no strings attached sex agreement stating if one of them falls in love agreement ends. Obviously, we all know where…
When I started reading From the Holy Mountain by William Dalrymple, I struggled to put things in context as it covered the history and the current existence of Christian monasteries in the countries of Turkey. I figured to make sense of it all, I needed to read the history of Turkey – Wikipedia wasn’t going to be enough. I chanced upon “A Traveller’s History of Turkey” in the library. This book is a cliff notes version…
With the explosion of technology in the world of multimedia, the possibilities of visual effects are limitless. And because of that, it’s driving the type of movies that are being made. Though I don’t have any statistical data, I am pretty sure that the numbers of sci-fi, fantasy, animated movies that are coming through are much higher than ever before. This also means that there are few movies that stand out. However, when I saw…
I do admit that St. Louis may not exactly be the most happening place in the US of A, but if you keep track, there is always a bunch of stuff happening over the weekend. One of our favorite things is to keep track of the University Theater circuit. There are still student performances and some good visiting actor groups. Here is a round-up of a few that we caught! The Crucible (Production by USML)…
Directed by Kamal Amrohi, Mahal is one of the first gothic horror movies to be made in Bollywood which would later inspire a series of Haweli main bhatakti aatma genre of movies. It also launched the careers of Lata Mangeshkar with her haunting rendition of ‘Aayega, Aayega’ and Madhubala with her expressive face. The review contains spoilers and if you plan to watch the movie don’t read ahead. So, What’s it about? Our hero, Hari…
