The FEVER that has gripped a nation...

Hi everyone.....Cricket in our nation has been religiously watched by millions and this season where the World Cup has been hosted in the subcontinent after fifteen years, the cricket fever has totally caught all of us. It has been a month of some fascinating cricket where in just another week's time we all will witness the finals of the World Cup 2011. After the introduction of the T20 format a few years ago, everyone was skeptical if the 50 overs format would survive or not. But then I can be rest assured that the One-day games are definitely here to stay. The excitement and buzz that the World Cup has created again has been astounding. It has made a major difference this time because we all remember how both teams of the subcontinent India and Pakistan were knocked out in the first stage during the last edition at the Caribbean. 

This time around, things are a lot different.....the World Cup defending Champions (thrice in a row) - the Australians have been knocked out by India in a scintillating battle at the Quarter Finals just a couple of days back and what better could it get for all cricket lovers that the Men in Blue face Pakistan in the semis. So one can easily say that this World Cup has been a true success for the TV viewer, spectators in the stadium and also those whose interest in the game has come back.

One must not forget that the craziest and most inconsistent team of the tournament has definitely been England. They have tied with India, lost to Ireland and Bangladesh (who could believe that), beaten South Africa!!!!! Now when it comes to the South Africans, they definitely lived up to the name they have been rightly given 'Chokers'. Another loss at the World Cup in yet another knockout match must be truly frustrating for this nation. Will we ever see this team ever making it to the finals of a World Cup? Now talking about not making it to the finals are the famous Kiwis as well....They knocked out South Africa yesterday in the Quarters (wonder what the Aussies are thinking) to make their sixth semi final appearance in a World Cup. Now that's an impressive record but they have never made it to the finals.....will they do so this time? Just a few more days to go.

Another interesting aspect is that the Hindi Film industry has used the World Cup as a platform to cash in. They are promoting films in stadiums and also releasing teasers/promos of forthcoming blockbusters (somewhat like what Hollywood does during the Super Bowl).....

So then here we have it.....next week when it matters the most India will face Pakistan and we can all be expecting some high octane drama in this epic battle. After twelve years of supremacy in cricket we are really happy that it will NOT be the Aussies again this time...and we are just waiting to see who is the fourth team to go to the semis....Sri Lanka or England?

Last but not the least this could very well be the last time the LEGENDARY Sachin Tendulkar play in a World Cup....and must I say we all are eagerly awaiting for his 100th ton in International Cricket in the next match.....even at this age of 37, he's been nothing short of extraordinary....his records do the talking.....and of course Yuvraj Singh has been on a roll this time....I wonder what has the bloke been doing....such amazing all round performance.....INDIA should give more than what they have on the field in the next two matches to get the cup back home.....Cheers!!!!!

Movies....Awards

Hi everyone....I've finally started blogging and what better way to start than to express about something I'm totally passionate about....the MOVIES....
Well, today what I want to talk about is this year's Academy Awards at LA. We all know that 'Inception' & 'The King's Speech' walked away with 4 Oscars a piece....with the major big ones swept by the latter. Then a thought struck me - was it a way of the Academy to make Inception not totally left out since Christopher Nolan the genius behind the mind boggling film was snubbed in the coveted Best Director category?
The Academy has done errors before...lets not get into that now.....but overall it was an Award Ceremony that gave the statuettes to those who rightfully deserved it.....
Clearly Colin Firth, Natalie Portman, Christian Bale were the obvious winners in the Acting Category and there were no surprises....what seemed to be surprising in a lot of previous award ceremonies prior to the Academy Awards was the unprecedented hype of the Facebook story - 'The Social Network' which was sweeping the major awards namely Best Picture and Director and it was at the right time that the odds started favoring towards 'The King's Speech.....and it was a matter of time that the Academy didn't fall for this.....and as they say today history was made with The King's Speech winning 4 out of 12 nods.
Anyway over the years that I've been watching the Award Shows (this time it was after 4 years)...I realized that the credibility in our Indian Film Industry Awards is just not there.....its like merit or rather sheer talent is totally ignored and recognition is given to those films based on box-office collections, and sadly most of the movies which do extremely well at the box-office turn out to be absolutely no-brainers to start off with, they lack a strong story and these films turn out to win the awards here in our country.
Films which are well made, intelligent, have a riveting screenplay and above all seem to be realistic are ignored because they are not able to set the cash registers ringing and so these films lose out in the Awards which they rightfully deserve. This wasn't so in the 60's and 70's of Indian Cinema.
What I'm saying is that we should not emulate the Academy Awards but there should be a certain amount of credibility or rather screening process of nominating films and giving due recognition to the films and filmmakers who make sensible and above all GREAT cinema irrespective of box office business.