"Jaati Ratnaalu" review: The non-stop comedy super fast express movie..

"cricket lo nenu goal keeper ni".. This is the exact dialogue that this 2021 movie "Jaati Ratnaalu"(Telugu) ends with.

And this makes you go crazy and at the same time makes you laugh at the way this script was written from the beginning to the end. Not a single minute goes by without punch dialogues and pj(pakaau jokes). Some may say there isn't much of a story, but no one expects story in a movie which has comedy as its only strength. And it capitalises on it very well.

"Play to your Strengths"

What this move teaches us in terms of movie making is irrespective of which genre you are looking to make, give complete dedication and focus on it and you will see the results. I heard similar critics blasting #Baahubali when it came out, saying it doesn't have anything new to show and it is just another masala movie. But the director of that movie SS Rajamouli played to his strength instead of trying to satisfy the so called critics. I am not comparing the director of Jaati Ratnaalu to SS Rajamouli, but this is just a similarity that caught my attention. Its been a long long time since we saw a 100% comedy movie that makes you laugh so much that your stomach will start to pain.

Voice modulation by the lead actor

The film's lead actor Naveen Polishetty roles the ample screen time that he gets. Yes, all the supporting cast does well but the way his character keeps the energy up even during the twists and turns is just unparalleled in recent times.

Story: Do we even need it?

Coming to the story, our lead protagonist wanted to be a software engineer instead of working in his ladies emporium. He term comes to Hyderabad and what happens there after he meets the girl "chitti" forms the crux of the story. Lots of funny chases actually give us a feeling of watching the evergreen "Tom and Jerry"and kind of "Mr Bean" live action movies. There may not be much logic in the happenings, but we don't care since we get enough of laughter to forget all that.

I know it's a little late to give out a review of this movie after more than 2 weeks of its release.

Director Anudeep KV had a winner in his hands and he has delivered exactly what was promised. That is very rare in any movie industry where audience expects something and the director delivers something else! Just go watch, have fun and forget everything else.

With love.. Anil

Review of "The Falcon and The Winter Soldier Episode 2: The Star-Spangled man"

Disclaimer: Even though there are lots of dialogues and character reveals, this is a completely "spoiler-free" review. I can only give you the points on the canvas. You have to connect them yourself to form the big picture! Still, this review gives pretty much everything that will catch viewers' attention when they stream the episode. I ll only give the highlights of each top moment and character reveals here.

Introduction of Captain America(John Walker aka US Agent):

It starts off with a dive into the new Captain America's mind and his way of handling things. He does seem to be very friendly and patient with others and also confesses that he is not trying to be Captain America nor does he have any super power except his guts.

In the comics, he is known to be very violent but he is shown to be wise and generous in this episode. This is how Marvel Studios is trying to mislead the audience. At the end, we could see him show his slightly angry moment and it looks like this series will definitely have a face off between him and those who come in his way. At one stage, he gives an advice: "Stay the hell out of my way". You could try to find out why he said these words to whom!

John Walker said these words to _____!

Falcon and Bucky meet and sparks fly: 

The main leads of this series: The Falcon and The Winter Soldier finally meet in this episode. They have many conversations that have that fun factor which viewers will enjoy even more with references to previous movies like "Black Panther" and "Captain America: Civil War", like "Little time in Wakanda and you come out White Panther", "No. White Wolf".

The staring contest feels funny but it helps in breaking the ice between the two. We cannot say that these two did finally bury their differences by the end of this episode, but we do see that they are getting closer with every assignment that Falcon is taking up. Bucky definitely wants Falcon to take up the shield but Falcon disagrees every time.

"One World, One People"

You hear the line: "One world. One People" many times during this episode from the flag smashers who are being tracked by the power brokers!

We are really clueless as to what their motto means and how they have people who could sacrifice their lives for their goal. It would be a challenge to not just the duo here, but to many other superheroes out there when they are dealing with people brain-washed with some kind of belief about changing the world order. They do have some super strength and it needs to be seen how they got this strength from.

"androids, aliens and wizards"

There is also the talk about this line: "androids, aliens and wizards". Watch carefully you will also get references to others like Doctor Strange, which raises questions about how did they forget about Wanda Maximoff who is an equally strong magician, if not more than Doctor Strange. May be there were so many things happening around them and their lives that they couldnt keep a track of each and every super hero that they fought with against Thanos in the battle of earth. We could understand that. Wanda could also be living her own life far away and in secrecy, which means other Avengers(maybe except Doctor Strange) might not be knowing where she is and what is she upto after the local events of "Wanda Vision".

The aliens refer to Thanos' army in the first Avengers movie, androids definitely mean the ultrons in Avengers: Age of Ultron.

But what are the wizards being talked about? Is it the Ebony Maw whom Falcon did not encounter? Falcon did fight against the Black Order but it is not clear if he knew about Ebony Maw in that. He could have witnessed magic being done by Ebony Maw though and thus might be referring to that wizard.

Isaiah:

"Isaiah" is the black super soldier that no one knew about, except Bucky Barnes. Not even the original Captain America knew about him and the things he faced while in prison despite being a "hero". What happened to him and what is his relation to the Falcon and the Winter Soldier?

There wasnt much of a chemistry or dynamics between him and the others in this episode, but he could make a return as a surprise cameo sometime later on as the story evolves.

It ends with Zemo:

Just like the first episode, this one too doesnt have any post-credit scene, but the ending itself is worth it. Helmut Zemo makes an appearance in the most unexpected way. The last minute appearance of Zemo does create many questions: Will he try to do his mind-control thing again on Bucky in the next episode? I guess Bucky will resist with his inner strength this time. Else, how does he grow up as an independent character and be known for good? How and why he comes into the scene at all? Watch the show to find out!

Overview and feel:

Just like how Falcon feels like the shield is someone else's, we too feel that this show feels like it isnt a web series to be seen in a living room, it needs to be watched as a movie in theaters! This belongs to not the TV or small screens, but to the theaters! It has all that big-screen experience that people have missed during these pandemic times. I would rate this episode better than the first due to:

1. The chemistry between Falcon and the Winter Soldier

2. The way the new Captain America's path crosses with these two free-spirited avengers.

3. The pace at which the story is narrated and balances everything so beautifully in true MCU movie style.

ps: check out the new Marvel Studio anthem BGM which is peppy as well!

With love.. Anil

iPhones without adapters: A genuine concern for environment?

Ever since the iphone 12 came without a charger in the box, there has been a massive level of discussion among the users and critics alike as to the logic behind this and how effective is this in controlling e-waste, which is obviously one of the concerns going forward.

Lets analyze and think more about this:

The launch of iPhone 12 and Apple's claims:

The iPhone 12 was launched on 13th of October 2020 and as usual it brought with it a bunch of enhancements and hype and some flak as usual. Nothing new in that. But the biggest topic of discussion has been the lack of charging adapter. Apple says it has done away with the charger in the box to decrease the carbon footprint by a few million tonnes every year(they say it is equal to reducing over 2 million metric tonnes of carbon every year, according to their own studies). Fine, lets agree with the numbers for time being. Statistics might tell the same more or less. But is it enough to measure just how much cardboard apple packs its products with? Is iPhone all about the phone inside it and the cable it comes with? The answer is "No". Now for any new iphone


user, instead of using the charger with the latest technology if they have to contend with their several years old chargers, will they not order a charger seperately?

The impact of this is that people will end up buying a new charger which comes in a bigger packaging. So if you add up the packaging of iphone and that of the charger, it results in a bigger carbon footprint than the existing one. Let me explain it in further detail:

Will customers get stuck with their old inefficient chargers?

Lets assume that Apple believes that users will continue with their existing chargers. Even if they do stick around with the older chargers, their inefficiency(a significant percentage of the electric power ends up being wasted as heat) will mean more wastage of power and therefore more carbon footprint.

So either way, there is going to be higher impact on the environment if chargers werent given as part of the package.

Why other manufacturers followed suit?

Samsung, initially making fun of Apple's move has followed suit, which wasnt a big surprise since there is a business reason behind that.

What Apple and other smartphone makers who have followed it, have done is that they were offloading their packaging size to third party companies which make accessories. And it feels like a good business deal between them, since it will be a win-win situation, a symbiotic relationship if you could say that. The OEMs make more profits by lesser packaging costs, while the third party accessory-makers will jump up and lap up this new opportunity of higher demand for them.

Another reason could very well be the cost of including the 5G Radio components in their smartphones: It is clear that Apple(and even others by the way) has to reduce its costs by removing certain items from the packaging, and power adapter is the one that faced the axe in this case.

Initially most people thought xiaomi will also go the same way with no charger in the box, but it chose to be different by giving the users the option to include a superior charger in the box. More on this in the next section.

What could be the ideal solution?

Provide the customers with the latest chargers with higher efficiency: Gallium Nitride chargers, in the box.

Even if the phone companies sell the chargers separately, let those be efficient ones like Gallium Nitride ones instead of the same old type of chargers wheather they are normal slow chargers or superfast turbo chargers.

For example, xiaomi is giving a 55W GaN charger in most markets with its top of the line smartphone mi 11 which was launched this year(2021). This isnt to promote any particular company but to bring out the actual truth: Any claim from a profit-making company which claims to save environment by removing some of the items from the retail box is actually a smart tactic meant to mislead the public into believing that they are saving environment, but in fact they are contributing more and more towards environmental pollution or exploitation.

The Analogy:

What Apple did was something like the below:

There used to be a restaurant called "Apple: An Apple a day keeps hunger away" which is heavily popular in its area. One fine day, the restaurant claims to cut its carbon footprint by removing 10 menu items out of its 50. People praise it of being truly a green restaurant. But what this does is create an opportunity for other small restaurants and road side vendors and this lead to even higher pollution with more plastic waste for packaging and serving the removed menu items.

If the smart phone companies really care about environment, let there be no phone launches at all for a certain period! That would cut billions of tonnes of co2 or pollutants worldwide!

Conclusion:

Irrespective of which company started off this trend of eliminating the charger from the box, the announcement should always be taken with deeper thought. Think before following any company's announcements. They are "smart" enough to decide where to make money, where to reduce costs and how to justify that with silly reasons.

With love.. Anil

Falcon And The Winter Soldier review: A deep delve into the post-EndGame world..

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Okay, lets get this straight:

This new Disney+ web series from Marvel Studios isnt meant to be all about what actually happened in the MCU movies but an independent exploration into the MCU. 

This doesnt criss-cross or reference other series that exist in the same MCU, for example the just concluded WandaVision. 

Falcon refuses taking up the mantle: Good or Bad?

This first episode picks up almost immediately with the life of Sam Wilson aka Falcon that continues after he was given the shield and Captain America gets old. Nothing is said about where Captain America is right now, but there are hints that he might have passed away during a conversation he has with the War Machine(James Rupert Rhodes) during a scene.

The scene where Sam is asked the whereabouts with some funny conspiracy theories like "Captain America was sent to the moon", is actually an important indicator of how much Sam knows about the whereabouts of the original Cap. 

There is also another debate that could come up about Sam's decision of not taking up the mantle: Is it right to refuse taking the responsibility of a role that is looked like a role model by the public? Fingers crossed.

Sam does refuse to take up the mantle of Captain America, but the end-result or a twist(a minor one if you could say so) is when the US Govt announces someone new to be the new Captain America.

Whether that is for good or bad will be seen in the coming episodes, but my feeling is this: There is a lot going on in the background.

The first episode starts off on a high energy aerial chase where our Falcon is rescuing a certain Captain Vasanth from LAF and this action seems very energetic and with some thrilling moments, showing off the full powers of the Falcon Suit. And then goes on to delve into the life of Bucky James Barnes, aka "Winter Soldier" as he gets nightmares of his past and attends counselling classes, giving us an insight into things that he is doing to show that he is no more an assassin but trying to do good things.

Apart from setting up the characters, where this episode really excelled is when it showed what it meant to be converted to dust(the blip by Thanos) and then come back with the second blip(Hulk). 

Super Heroes do have their Financial Struggles

One thing that really catches your attention is the scene where Sam Wilson, visiting a bank along with his sister fails to get a bank loan to fund their small business. This scene shows the reality that the world is facing, when the officer says they dont have many options when so many people are coming back after this 5 years of absence.

Being high on octane action is one thing, but coupling with the struggles that "super" heroes face in their daily lives and their respective families face is something that was done very well indeed.

There may not be the suspense that Wanda Vision created but this show feels more grounded and set up to show the lives of Sam Wilson and Bucky Barnes more and more in the coming episodes, including the real enemies that these two will fight.

I, for one would like to see how Sam Wilson will react to the new Captain America and how Winter Soldier tries to clear his past and move ahead.

There are plenty of references to MCU, like the "sleep in Wakanda" that Bucky mentioned during one of the counselling sessions, which is a reference to the post credit scene of Black Panther where he wakes up from a tent after being cured by the technology in Wakanda.

Keep watching this space for more!

Marvel Studios' #FalconAndTheWinterSoldier is streaming right now worldwide on Disney+ and in India on #DisneyPlusHotstar.

With love.. Anil

Wanda Vision: A unique spectacle that drives MCU into a completely different direction!

Wanda in Wanda Vision

MCU is taking a big turn. Yes. For those of you who know what MCU stands for and who has watched the just concluded "Disney+" series "Wanda Vision", it would be 

For those who dont, MCU stands for Marvel Cinematic Universe.

It is a dynamic content adapted from the Marvel Comic books and has a long drawn fictitious storyline with lots of thrills, comic references, twists, fun, tragedy, optimism, family-friendly content and variety.

You might think that to understand a movie set in MCU, you need to watch those that came before it, like for enjoying "Avengers Infinity War" movie to the fullest, you need to be aware of what happened to Iron Man, Captain America, and their team(s). But even those without a knowledge of MCU could actually like the just ended web series "Wanda Vision" purely based on the emotional aspect of it. It is basically a deep dive into the life of Wanda Maximoff after she loses her partner Vision, feels lonely and despair and creates her own small world within a real world town called "West View".

Without going deeper into the earlier events related to "Avengers Infinity War" and "Avengers Endgame", it would be fair to say that this web series stands on its own for a change. The same cannot be said about previous MCU content like Endgame or Infinity War or "Captain America Civil War"(The movie that made a big impact in MCU's future).

Wanda Maximoff goes through so much pain that her actions seem to be valid and understandable. She doesnt look like a villain despite keeping the residents of WestView as hostage within a space isolated by a strong virtual-energy-filled wall called "hex", named to simplify its appearance which looks like a honeycomb with lots of reddish hexagons joined together to block anyone coming from outside.

Though giving the complete review isnt possible to avoid spoilers, one can definitely say something on a wider perspective: MCU is taking a new direction with this series and there will be ramifications that will be felt in the upcoming movies and series, like the "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness" scheduled to hit theaters in 25 March 2022.

In short, this series is an exploration of Wanda's relationship and dynamics with her love: Vision and the outer world. Her kids: Billy and Tommy. Ultimately she had to sacrifice her reality to free the residents of WestView who, atleast 4000 of them were held captive inside the hex for several weeks. This is obviously not a positive sign for someone called an "avenger". So Wanda is moving further away from being an avenger and more of a magician.

With that being said, Wanda could be changing the way she handles grief when we look at the final end-credit sequence. She could be trying to learn more about herself and controlling her emotions and her attachment to her kids. This also sets up a promising duel with Doctor Strange, either as an ally or as a foe. Some of the actions of Wanda were definitely not nice and wise, and Doctor Strange will have many questions when he comes to know of this.

Instead of giving a "happily ever after" ending that most MCU blockbuster movies have, Wanda Vision has a mixed bitter-sad ending with many directions in which the story could go from there. Wanda could get wiser or get trapped in her emotions again in a different scenario.

With love.. Anil

Aakaashame Hadduraa (Soorarai pottru) : A roller coaster of a ride!

Going into this movie, I expected something similar to other biopics that have come off late:A failing protagonist, lots of challenges, wicked antagonists, gradual rise of the hero, and a big, nail biting finish where the hero succeeds.

Aakaashame Hadduraa (the Telugu dubbed version of Soorarai pottru) does this too, but in an extremely nuanced and wild manner, with lots of fictional elements added to real life incidents.

You may call it yet another biopic like movie with lots of exaggerations and masala elements, but the screenplay and handling of actors and situations was done extremely well. It never strayed away from the plotand everything came together in the end, though what happened in real life later was opposite(air deccan being bought away by kingfisher airlines and later closing the operations completely).

Watch it for surya's performance and the story and thrilling moments.

With love..

Anil

Bolo: An insight into Google's learning app

There are a ton of apps these days to help kids learn something new. It could be a new language, it could be science, it could be history, or it could be about maths or to learn about something just out of curiosity.
But Google has done something that's an instant success and an evolving tool for not just kids but also adults to learn a language.
Initial reports in the media said that it is an app to learn reading Hindi, which is wrong. It is a multi lingual app and supports the below language/language-pairs as of today:
English only,
Hindi-English,
Telugu-English,
Marathi-English,
Bangla-English,
Urdu-English,
Tamil-English.
Spanish-English,
Portuguese-English

The first thing you notice about bolo is its user interface which is very simple and doesnt need too much of navigation. Just tap the story that you want to read/learn and it starts off sentence by sentence.
The screen scrolls automatically as the kid reads out the sentence appearing on the screen.
Another feature that is surely going to create interest among kids is the mini games that were included: simple games like pop the balloons, jumbled words and speed reading are available right now, but may get accompanied by many others soon.
Being an early access version, the app could have some bugs here and there, but so far during my 1 week of testing, I found none.

Important thing is if you kno how to read a language, even if you are an adult, you can get help from this app to improve your pronunciation in various languages, mainly Indian. for example, I can read Tamil apart from Telugu, English, Hindi and Kannada but to learn pronunciation in that language, this is going to definitely help me.
As the name itself suggests, it is meant to teach you how to speak a language and it is definitely worth trying it out.

With love.. Anil

Custom Site for Share

Add Your Favorite Site To Share

This tutorial will explain you the steps to add your favorite website to the Share extension. We assume that you have successfully installed the Share Tools extension. If not, please install it from this link.

If you have installed it successfully, you can notice its icon on the toolbar as shown in the following screenshot:

To add your website, follow these steps:

• Click on the extension icon, which should open its pop-up panel as shown above.
• Now, click on the last (gear or wheel) icon.

• This should launch the options panel of the extension, as shown in the following screenshot:

• From this options panel, you can set two options for the extension: change the default opening behaviour and add a custom website.
• To add a new website or service, you must provide a valid template in the input box. You can find many valid templates on this page. Detailed list is available on this link.
• For example, if you want to add Skype, you need to copy the line # 29 and paste in the input box. This would be:

https://web.skype.com/share?url={url}

• The extension supports only url and title parameters, so remove any other parameter present, like text in the above example.
• After pasting the code, save the settings. Now, this added site would be available with the Share extension. 

With love.. Anil

SHARE. Simple and Straight Forward

I have been looking at so many different ways by which we can share the websites that we visit daily.
How to make sharing as simple as possible and one that involves just 2 clicks?

That is when I stumbled upon an idea to create an extension or modify an existing extension and enhancing its features.
Being the first of my browser apps, it is indeed a challenge to learn how to do it. Technology? Its ready. Coding expertise? ready.
The only missing thing is the infrastructure and means to publish the idea, however simple it may be.

Thats when I tried my hand at the first chrome web app: SHARE.
Below is the link for the same:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/share/imfnjaolefblebhdphcenbeihpljinkn

Since this is the version 0.0.1, expect many more updates and feature additions as and when needed and based on feedback.

With love.. Anil

MCU's perfect culmination of the Avengers series!: Avengers EndGame.

It has been a long time checking out an epic movie that actually feels epic in theaters.

When I say long, it really felt like a long wait! The last time I felt like this was Avengers Infinity War(April 2018) and before that, it was Padmaavat(early 2018) and the biggest Indian movie of that time and still the highest grossing movie in Indian market: Baahubali: The Conclusion(2017).

But Marvel's Avengers Endgame is completely different in tone and expectations when it arrived: It had massive expectations to reach, massive plots to hide, massive stars' fans to satisfy. In a way, it is the biggest multi starrer in terms of having super stars like Robert Downey Jr, Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, leading others.

When it did come out, it wowed everyone, not just the fans of Marvel or the stars, but even others who might have started to follow MCU from 2018, thanks to the other biggie: Avengers Infinity War.

The experience was perfect: The crowd was able to react in a way that directors want them to: They were pin-drop-silent when the plot was moving with all seriousness. They laughed when the funny scenes seamlessly mingled into the storyline. They screamed when the action started. They whistled when the "Marvel Studios" logo came up. In short, they made it their own movie and started experiencing it much in a much closer and intimate way.

The difference between this and Infinity War is this: There was higher emotional connection with the characters now. The plot was perfectly set to show off the dynamics of the characters not just in the present but in the time travel as well. By the time the intermission break came in, everyone were holding to their seats and discussing the plot and many of them avoided going out.

I particularly loved Tony having the chat with his father as well as how Steve Rogers lived his life to the fullest by finally having the date with Peggy in the past, and also the brilliant emotional moment
between Thor and his mother, how she listens to him patiently, and asks him to eat
salads so he could slim down! There were so many moments to list out here.

Of course when they did find out that there were no mid-credit scenes or post-credit scenes, they were disappointed, but still waited till the end, till the red "Marvel Studios" logo and "Distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures" came up on the screen! This is what it meant to them: Experience the full movie, including the small details!

Such interest was second to none in all my movie experience. The only instance when the crowd was so excited and interested in watching a movie in theater was for the Indian biggies like: "Baahubali: The conclusion" and "2point0".

Now the debate has started about if it will break Avatar's USD2.7 Billion record or not. But as far as I am concerned, it doesnt matter as it has won the hearts of millions of people!

With love.. Anil