Archive for March, 2007
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Great movies from Iran – list and brief descriptions
Posted on March 7, 2007 | 26 CommentsIran has produced some of the best world movies in the last decade or two. This is a short note on some great movies from Iran. I have listed below some of my favourite Iranian movies. These movies deserve detailed review that I’ll try in the near future. I’ll link them to good reviews when possible. For the moment, I’ll leave you with a list of movies, and a few links. List of movies Colour of Paradise: A bright blind child who enjoys school is forced by his father to quit school and take up carpentry with a blind carpenter. The story... -
Best of Google Videos at Hub Pages
Posted on March 7, 2007 | No CommentsMany talks and interviews with well known people are now available online. I’ve put together a series of them that I have specially enjoyed. To see the rest, click here I bumped into a page called the best of google videos at hub pages dot com. The list of videos is interesting and varied, and it’s growing. You may wish to check it out at hub by clicking here. -
List of Indian movies for my non-Indian friends
Posted on March 4, 2007 | 9 CommentsThis list consists of some formulaic movies and some that are innovative. I am working on the list and hope to build it over time. Some of my most cherished Indian movies require a contextual knowledge. The best of Tamil movies involves a play of words that cannot be captured by subtitles – and in any case the subtitles of most movies leaves us wanting. So, each time a friend asks me what’s a good movie to watch, I am left dumbstruck. I’ve finally decided to put together a list on which I can receive some help – and some... -
Moving beyond the formula: Bold new Indian movies
Posted on March 4, 2007 | 1 CommentThe last few years have seen some dazzling movies that have boldly departed from the mainstream. A movie historian in Tamil Nadu once said (perhaps Randor Guy) that most movies in the language (and I am sure in Hindi as well) revolved around 8 basic plots. These new movies have a bold new plot – but that’s not all. Many of these have given up a formulaic approach of making commercial movies in India (atleast in Hindi and Tamil): a little glamour, some songs, some dancing, some comedy (even if it’s totally unrelated), a macho hero, sexy heroine, fights (called... -
Shwaas: Dazzling Marathi movie of a grandfather’s dilemma
Posted on March 4, 2007 | 1 CommentShwaas IMDB Year: 2004 Director: Sandeep Sawant Category: Drama Rating: 5out of 5 This is a simple movie by a debutant director. An old man is confronted by the necessity to tell his 6 year old grand child that he will loose his vision after an operation. The director, who is a seasoned theatre person, made this every day drama in real life into a touching story. It is one of those rare movies without a villian. Every person in the story is positively represented – all brought together by a boy suffering from cancer. Sandeep Sawant, the director, has... -
Webcast of conference on institutions and development
Posted on March 4, 2007 | No CommentsMany talks and interviews with well known people are now available online. I’ve put together a series of them that I have specially enjoyed. To see the rest, click here. This conference held at the Princeton has many interesting speakers including Amartya Sen and Douglass North. The session is called “From the Coffee House to the World Bank – Institutions and Development”. Like most conferences there are interesting moments and long dull moments as well. What I “enjoyed” most was listening to the questions in the conference. The webcast of the conference is available here. Other talks in Princeton are... -
Amartya Sen’s critique of Samuel Huntington’s “Clash of civilisations”
Posted on March 4, 2007 | 1 CommentMany talks and interviews with well known people are now available online. I’ve put together a series of them that I have specially enjoyed. To see the rest, click here. The argument that Sen makes is complex and I will not attempt to recap them here. But as a pointer, I’ll just mention that this talk is based on his book “Identities and Violence”. Sen questions the notion of Clash of civilisation by Samuel Huntington from different dimensions. He questions if any group of people can be neatly identified as a “civilization”, if animosity has to be the basis of... -
Interesting interview on civil rights with African-American Judge – Justice Henderson
Posted on March 4, 2007 | No CommentsMany talks and interviews with well known people are now available online. I’ve put together a series of them that I have specially enjoyed. To see the rest, click here Justice Henderson started as a sports person and with some mentoring graduated in Law. As he was finishing school he had an interesting offer to work in the Kennedy administration on civil rights issues. The interview interlaces Justice Henderson’s biography with the tumultuous years of civil rights activism in USA. The path he took – African American sports person who finally went on to become a Judge in a US... -
The peace movement in historical perspective with Linus Pauling – Webcast
Posted on March 4, 2007 | No CommentsMany talks and interviews with well known people are now available online. I’ve put together a series of them that I have specially enjoyed. To see the rest, click here This is an interview by Harry Kreisler taken in 1983 with Linus Pauling who got two Nobel Prizes, once for chemistry and the second time for peace. The interview is a reflection of the context in which Linus Pauling got into peace activism in the United States. The opinions of Pauling were slightly uncommon to me, atleast from a peace activist. He for example would talk of the importance of... -
Webcast of interview with Amartya Sen: Reflections on theory in social sciences
Posted on March 4, 2007 | No CommentsMany talks and interviews with well known people are now available online. I’ve put together a series of them that I have specially enjoyed. To see the rest, click here Amartya Sen, in my opinion, is the economist who has probed the limits of economics as a discipline. In this interview he talks of nature of theorising, especially in economics, and makes many interesting observations. The interesting feature of Sen’s analysis is that he rarely dismisses the philosophical basis of the discipline. Instead he brings out the limitations involved and the need to bring in greater diversity to the informational...
