SAIFF and World Premiere of Aladin

South Asian International Film Festival (SAIFF) 2009 started yesterday and the opening night film was the world premiere of Aladin, staring Amitabh Bachan, Ritesh Deshmukh, Sanjay Dutt and debutant Miss Sri Lanka 2006 Jacqueline Fernandez. This was my first at a film festival and at a movie premier. I once attended an off broadway show premier but never a movie premiere.

I was there with my girl friends and we got there by 6:30 to pick up our tickets and were in the auditorium by 7:00 pm, as the seating was on a first come first serve basis. The program was scheduled to begin at 7:15pm followed by the show at 7:30 pm. The program was delayed by 45 minutes. There was no explanation for the delay and none of the major cast in the movie attended the premier either. There was a press conference at the entrance and I recognized none being interviewed.

The program finally started around 8 pm with couple of speeches by SAIFF president and one other person. They were followed by Erros International President of USA division. The speech by Erros President was boring and he basically apologized for poor scheduling on their part in failing to bring the cast for the premier. According to him, all the planning was done and the airline tickets were purchased for the cast to attend the premiere in New York, but were canceled in the last minute due to scheduling conflicts, prior commits and the premiere of the movie in India, which is today. His speech was followed by a recorded video message by Amitabh Bachan, Ritesh Deshmukh and Jacqueline Fernandez. And finally, the show began.

The movie is a contemporary version of Aladin and the magic lamp. As Ritesh Deshmukh said in his video recorded address, it is their take on Aladin. It is the continuation of the fairy tale in present. Ritesh plays the role of Aladin Chaterjee, who since childhood has been bullied by his friends, one friend Qasim in particular, to rub a lamp to see the Genie. On his birthday, his friends gift him an antique lamp and bully him to rub the lamp. Genie the Genius, played by Amitabh, appears but no one realize he is the genie from the magic lamp. Jasmine (Jacqueline Fernandez) is a new student at school/college, who is there on an international student exchange program and both Aladin and Qasim want her. Like any other Bollywood movie, this one has a villian too, the ringmaster (Sanjay Dutt) and an ex-genie.

I personally thought the movie was very average and at times a little boring. However, I have a feeling that the kids would love it with all the magic that the Genius does, to grant the wishes of his owner, Aladin. The movie did have some hilarious scenes. Jacqueline Fernandez is very pretty and acted well too. Amitabh’s performance was good but the role of genie did not suit him. I was never a fan of Sanjay Dutt but liked his performance in this movie. I do have to admit that his acting skills have improved tremendously over the years. As I watched the movie, it reminded me a lot off Koi Mil Gaya. I would rate this movie 2.5/5.

Overall, it was a disappointing evening. I was disappointed for not seeing any of the celebrity at the event and an average movie. I did not have any high expectations for the movie but hoped to see a few celebrities at the premiere. Unfortunately, I did not recognize the ones who were present .

Happy Deepavali and Diwali Mela

Diwali or Deepavali is a festival of lights, celebrated to signify the victory of good over evil.  There are many stories why the festival is celebrated.   But as a child, all that mattered to us was decorating the house with candles and burning crackers or the fireworks.  After coming to America, I don’t really do anything special for Deepavali and burning crackers in front of the house is not an option anymore…   The least I do is light a candle in the evening, which I did this year too.

Couple of weeks ago, there was a Diwali Mela at South Street Seaport.  At the mela there were many stalls; food, apparel, fashion accessories, music and Diwali puja items.  At the end of the day, there were fireworks.  However, we did not stay for the fireworks.

There were many stall at the mela but I was not particularly keen on purchasing anything.  We, my aunts and I, walked around the stall and ate some Indian chat, Indian street food.  As we were walking by the stalls, a decorative round glass mirror caught my eye.  It was small but a decent size to put on my dressing table to display some of my miniature perfume bottles.  I paid the vendor for the mirror and along with the mirror, he gave me a bowl too.  I was a little puzzled and then he explained that the mirror came with a bowl and the bowl is for floating candle and it was a diya display set for diwali.  So, for this deepavali, that mirror and a bowl is my deepam.

Wish you all a very Happy Deepavali!

On Vacation…

It has been a while, almost couple of months since I last updated this blog.  I startd drafting a post of activities for the past few weeks but never got to finish it.  I will posted it very soon.  I am in London for the past one week and am having a great time so far.  I will be here for another 8-9 days.  I will update you al about my trip once I get back to New York.   Until then enjoy last few days of spring… Here are a few pictures for you.

Windsor Castle

Windsor Castle

Windsor Castle

From London Eye

Parliament and Big Ben from London Eye

Thames River from London Eye

India VS West Indies @ Lords - Standing for National Anthems

One Year of Blogging……

It all start as a compulsion. Last spring, when I got back from India after a 6 month vacation, I was bored. I joined couple of communities in social networking sites to make new friends and to keep myself busy. Many members in these communities are bloggers . After seeing all those blogs, I was motivated and wanted to start my own blog. However, I had no idea what I wanted to write nor did I have a topic to focus on. More over, I didn’t have a name for the blog. Yet, I wanted to maintain blog. So I went ahead and created an account on blogger, which was the most easy step.

The next step was to decide a topic and a name for the blog. Since I couldn’t think of any creative name, I named it timepass blog… How lame, isn’t it? I still was clueless about the topic though. During that period, we were watch lot of movies, so I thought, what better way to start than with a movie review. So there came my first post on 26th of April and I embarked on this journey of blogging into the world of blogosphere. A few weeks later, I moved to wordpress and am blogging here for almost 10 months.

Since my first post, I have rambled and ranted about everything from movie reviews to restaurant reviews, my travels, politics, this and that, except my recipes.

On an average, I write 3-4 posts a month, which is not that bad, for person who had nightmares about writing, whenever a paper was due in college So, here I am celebrating one year of blogging. Ooh, BTW, I created another blog for my recipes, MySpicyKitchen, where I blog regularly.

Happy 1st Anniversary of Blogging!

Happy 1st Birthday to My World & My Ramblings!

To celebrate this mile stone, I took a short trip to Holland, to enjoy the beautiful Tulips.

Naa… I took a short walk to Park Avenue, to take a picture of these beautiful tulips, that are planted on the road divided…. More flowers from the street side and central park… Enjoy…

This is one of the tulips planted at the entrance of the building across the street

Central Park

Flower Craft Tea & Chocoholics Paradise

Last week, I met my friends at a Japanese tea house Cha-an, in East Village near NYU campus. This place had very good reviews and their desserts seemed to be very popular. Since we met for tea, we ordered all the desserts that had good reviews and the flower craft tea.

We all were curious to see the flower craft tea. They brought couple of flower buds in a ketttle and poured hot water in to it in front of us. With in a minute, the buds blossomed into flowers and we were all excited watching them bloom into flowers, just like little girls in a science lab, excited about the science experiment.. I do not drink tea and hence did not taste it. My friends said it had a nice flavor and tasted good. The longer it brew, stronger the flavor. It did smell wonderful and was aromatic as flowers bloomed.

Flower Craft Tea ~ Blooming Flower

For dessert, we ordered Chocolate Souffle with Raspberry Sauce, Black Sesame Creame Brulee, Earl Chocolate Mochi and Chef’s Dessert Assortments. Chef’s assortment came with an ice cream, strawberry sorbet (i think and it was good) and another dessert. Ice cream and the sorbet were delicious and the other dessert was average. Chocolate Mochi had very good reviews but I didn’t like it very much. It was a chocolate ball covered with a white glue like coating. It tasted  very average to me and some of my friends did not like it at all. The Creame Brulee was good. The best dessert was Chocolate Souffle with Raspberry sauce. It was warm, moist and delicious. It was one of the best souffles I have ever tasted. If you ever happened to be in the neighbor or want to eat a delicious chocolate souffle, stop by to taste it.

Two building away from Chaan is Max Brenner, a chocolate restaurant. I was surprise to see Max Brenner in the Village, which is only few blocks away from the Union Square Max Brenner. They serve chocolate for all courses of the meal and a must visit for a true chocolate lover. The last time I was there few weeks ago, we ordered chocolate Fondue and Chocolate Pizza. They were out of the world, simply delicious.  After eating so much chocolate, one would want some savory food to balance the taste buds and they do serve savory food.  We ordered Mediterranean Platter and pepper fritters and were scrumptious.    If anyone of you happen to be in the East Village or Union Square in NYC and love chocolate, stop to taste their chocolate delicacies.  It is a must visit for all chocoholics.

Macy’s Flower Show 2009

Every year, Macy’s New York, has a tradition of celebrating the major events of the season in its own special style. In Summer, it is the July 4th fireworks, in Fall, it is the world famous Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and in Spring, it the Flower Show in the store.

This flower show is a warm welcome to the spring and as soon as we enter the store, the sight of the colorful flowers is a pleasant reminder of the warm weather a head of us, after the chilly cold winter.

This year the show is from Apr 5 – Apr 19. They have a guided tour every 20 or 30 minutes explaining about the flowers, the arrangements and how the flowers were installed. I never took the tour before but last time I was at the store few days back, I clicked a few pictures which I would like to share with you all. My pictures are not as beautiful as the floral arrangements at the store, yet beautiful enough to enjoy looking at them.

Most of the flowers are displayed on the first floor and it is always crowded. I tried my best to get a as clearer picture as possible of some of the arrangements that caught my eye.

Knowing

We finally watched Knowing this past weekend. The movie is about a Astrophysics professor (Nicolas Cage) at MIT, who uncodes the series of numbers a young girl writes 50 years ago. He discovers that the numbers are the dates, coordinates of the location and the count of deaths that would happen on a particular day due to a disaster. When he unravels the mystery, there are 3 more disasters yet to occur. He tries to stop 2 of the disasters but in vain.

Source: Wikipedia

The story is well written, well directed and very interesting until it reaches the finale. One would imagine that once Nicolas Cage discovers the details of the disaster, he would someway try to stop it. But in this movie, there is no escape from the last and final disaster that wipes out the entire evolution. Aliens rescue Cage’s young son and his friend’s daughter, to start a new life in another world. How silly is that? This is a movie that had the potential to be the one of the best movie of the year so far, until it turned into a silly movie in last 15 – 20 minutes. I rate this movie 2.5/5.

Wish you all a Happy Ugadi!

Teluguites call it Ugadi, Kannadites call it Yugadi, Marathis call it Gudi Padwa and the Sindhi’s call it Cheti Chand.  What ever the name, it is new year for the Hindus who follow the lunisolar calendar.  I Wish you all a Happy New Year! To read what I did today, peep into myspicykitchen. I will catch up with you all later, as I am running late. I am off to see my girl friends for coffee… Enjoy your day!

Dinner and a Movie: Penang & Duplicity

Last night we had dinner at Penang, a Malaysian restaurant, located on the upper west side of the city.  We used to go to Penang a lot when we were in Philadelphia and the food was spicy and delicious.  Food in NY Penang is not as spicy as it is in Philadelphia and the explanation that the waiter gave us is, Philadelphia and NY downtown Penang are more authentic.  This was our second visit to this place since we moved to the city and the first being couple of weeks ago.

Last night we ordered our regular appetizer Roti Telur, and some spring rolls (I don’t remember what they are  called).  I didn’t like the spring rolls and roti telur didn’t taste as good as it usually does.  For main course we order Malaysian Home Style Rice (seafood fried rice) and Kari Sayur Campur (mixed vegetables and tofu cooked in coconut milk).   Malaysian Home Style rice was good but the food that I liked the most was Kari Sayur Campur.  The vegetables were cooked to perfection and the curry was spicy and simply delicious, perfect for my palate.  That was the best dish of the day.  I wish I had a camera to take a picture of the dish..   Dammm, I could have used my cell phone, why didn’t I think of it yesrterday???

From there, we walked down to the movie theater which was only few blocks away, to watch Duplicity staring Julia Roberts and Clive Owen.  I have been waiting for this movie for almost 4-5 weeks, since I saw the preview.  I am a Julia Roberts fan and it has been almost 8-9 years since I saw her last movie, Erin Brokovich (i think that was her last movie).  Last nights movie was a big disappointment and it is below average.  Julia Roberts looked old and at times she looked like a granny.. The movie is about corporate espionage and there are many flashbacks in it.  At times, it was difficult to comprehend if a particular scene is a flash back or not.  When I go to a movie, I want the story to be straight forward and don’t want to strain my brain trying to figure out the sequence of events and the plot.    The climax of the movie is awesome and loved the ending… I think the best scene of the movie is the last scene where Julia Roberts and Clive Owen try to figure out what had just happened to them.  I rate this movie 2/5.

Snow fall on first day of spring????

Yesterday was the first day of spring and I woke up to a snowy morning…  There was no snow accumulation, but snow is snow, accumulation or no accumulation.  I was getting comfortable and enjoying the warm weather the past few days, 40s and 50s, and was even cleaning out my closet. I was putting away the winter clothing and pulling out my spring and summer clothing.   These snow flurries put me in dilemma and made me depressed again, few more weeks of winter… haah..  

We were fortunate that the mother nature heard our sighs and cries and by mid day the sun was out, bright and shiny.  Today is a sunny day and looking forward to more sunny warm days and hope winter is finally over… Don’t surprise us again mother nature….