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Gone Girl (2014)
Today I saw the much-talked-about movie of this season “Gone Girl” starring Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike. Both have done their roles very well, especially Rosamund Pike as the neighbourhood girl a whole city loves. The story is about the disappearance of a man’s wife, with blood stains in the kitchen and soon after, the police suspect the husband. The twist is on what really happened, is the husband the real culprit or not? It’s not a unique storyline, but the screenplay and the direction were captivating. Until the last 30 minutes, you are left guessing the real motives. Neil Patrick Harris has underplayed his supporting role well, not much…
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The Steradian Trail
After reading publisher, commentator and a friend Badri Seshadri’s post I bought this book and finished reading it in two days. The book is “The Steradian Trail” by M N Krish, a mystery fiction involving technology and my city “Chennai”. Being a resident of Chennai, I always felt left-out that most of the English fiction (those written by Westerners or Asians) have their story in New York or London or Hong Kong or Mumbai, why not Chennai-a city of 4.7 Million residents with its own share of history and crime. Thanks to author M N Krish for fulfilling my wish on recognizing Chennai in this book. If only Krish could…
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Now You See Me (2013)
Continuing on the movie list I was watching on my return flight from USA, I saw the movie “Now You See Me“. After reading about how good this movie was from a friend’s posting in Facebook, I have been wanting to see it. The film is starred by Jesse Eisenberg (who played Zuck in Social Network), Morgan Freeman & others. The story is on how four brilliant magicians pull off some of the most audacious robberies right on spotlight on stage watched by thousands of audiences. As an audience our interest level increases as these four are not operating on their own, but masterminded by a fifth person who is the…
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The Laughing Corpse by IBN-E Safi
This weekend I read this fiction, The Laughing Corpse by famous Urdu detective story writer of last century IBN-E Safi. The last book I read by the same writer was English translations of his popular Imran series. Most of IBN-E Safi detective books are small in size, they are less than 150 pages which you can finish reading in one or two sittings. The story of The Laughing Corpse is a young lady (orphan), suddenly inheriting a huge estate. All rich men of the city are courting her and then suddenly she is kidnapped. The famous Colonel Faridi and Captain Hameed are on the case. The entire case is handled…
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Imran Series by IBN-E Safi
After the book “Invitation” by Shehryar Fazli, this is another fiction I am reading that is happening around Karachi, Pakistan. This time what I read was two books from a popular series “Ali Imran” set of detective novels written by South Asia’s popular write IBN-E Safi who was a celebrated author in Pakistan in last century. The first book in the series of 79 novels was published in October 1955, IBN-E Safi (meaning Son of Safi) is the pen name of Asrar Narvi who was borh in 1928 in Nara (Allahabad District) in British India, he started writing in 1940s while in India and then moved to Pakistan during partition…
