From Calvin To Bacon

Don’t you just LOVE Calvin & Hobbes! I think Calvin is the most irritating, cute, intelligent, crazy and smart-ass kid on the planet. The re-assuring thought is that such children exist only in the world of make-believe. God bless the parents who might actually have such gems in their lives!
Wouldn’t it be interesting to know what he’s like when all grown up and better sill, what kind of children would HE have to bear!

Well, one day while doing a search on Calvin, I bumped into, Bacon, daughter of Calvin & Susie (who else)! Thanks to Pants Are Overrated, we have 4 humorous strips on the child prodigy that is Bacon.  So from ‘Calvin & Hobbes’ we get ‘Hobbes & Bacon’! They’re funny and you can see Bacon has it in her genes. And as for the grown up Calvin, he’s kind of like his Dad. He knows how to handle Bacon & even goes a step further and joins in on her madness.

I wish we could get more of Bacon as we did of Calvin. Created in 2011, for some reason we haven’t got any more.
So I request whoever is responsible for creating Bacon…I want more, I want more, I want more!
And till we get more, make do with these:

Hobbes & Bacon 1
Hobbes & Bacon 2
Hobbes & Bacon 3
Hobbes & Bacon 4

The 3 Mistakes Of My Life by Chetan Bhagat

Rating: 3.5/5

Genre: Fiction

Make No Mistake, Chetan’s Got It Right This Time
I’ve read a few books of Chetan Bhagat & have to admit I am no big fan of this guy. But 3 mistakes was quite alright.
The thing with Bhagat is that his writing is so very ‘mild’. Sometimes you want more than just a good story. The style of writing itself, the presentation. But I’ll leave the negative feedback for his other books. This one was fine.

I basically decided to pick this book up because I had seen trailers of a movie called Kai Po Che! It’s based on the book, so it made the idea interesting. And also, I wanted to read something simple & light.

So, the 3 main characters are solid, clear cut, obvious kind of people. Businessman, failed cricketer and simpleton. Best friends. The story is told by Govind, the typical Gujrati business man. He tells you about 3 mistakes he made in his life and how his life &  the life of those around him get affected because of these mistakes. All the situations are nicely put together. The characters are very likeable, especially Vidya, the only significant female in the book. All the people in the book are very stereotyped but I guess they do exist.

Perfect 10 to Chetan for churning out another script for Bollywood!

Anyway, nice book, few twists & turns and all is well that ends well.

A Great Book = A Great Movie, And That’s How It Should Be

I finally saw ‘To Kill A Mocking Bird’, the movie! And I’m sooooo glad I did. It was such a delight.

It’s a great adaptation of the wonderful book. I haven’t seen many movies from that era, so it was nice to see how things looked in those days, in that part of the world.
Everything was so clean and simple. The surroundings and life.  No crowds, no traffic, no skyscrapers. The children could run around wherever they liked, whenever they liked. It all looked so perfect despite the murky goings-on that are present in the story.

Almost all the characters in the movie (the good ones of course) are such lovely people. The world should be full of such people. I don’t know the actors’ names so I’ll just use the character names. Scout looks every inch as described in the book & acts so well. Jem shows his transition form a naughty-ish boy to one growing mature & understanding his father brilliantly. Tom Robbins has a small part but he portrays the frustration, anger & despair amazingly. And Atticus….I almost fell in love with him. Gregory Peck has given an award winning performance I’d say, and he sure did get those. He is strong, gentle, macho, intelligent, handsome, fragile…all facets equally convincing, awesome actor!
Even Boo Radley was pretty much as I had imagined him to be, mysterious, shy & likeable. Robert Duvall’s debut by the way.

My favourite scenes in the movie are the ones where Scout would fly into a rage and beat up her adversaries!

I had a weird sad-in-a-happy-kind-of-way feeling (guess that’s possible) at the end. I wished I could live in those times but realised it was all rosy and pretty as long as you were on the right side of the fence! Guess I’m fine where I am and I’ll just watch the movie again and again to get the feel good factor.

Sad, beautiful, funny, impressive, inspiring…I could use a mix of all kinds of adjectives to describe this movie. Absolutely loved it, as I did the book!

The Hobbit (There And Back Again) by JRR Tolkien

Rating: 4.5/5

Genre: Fantasy, Children

Dragons, Hobbits, Dwarves & Rings…These Are A Few Of My Favourite Things
I love the fantasy genre. I love The Lord Of The Ring series. But I have to admit I haven’t read all of the book. It’s the movies that got me hooked. So LOTR came first, which made me go see The Hobbit (An Unexpected Journey) and then I just had to read the hobbit book (much more achievable than LOTR size-wise).

It was lovely and so very very different from LOTR. While LOTR is dark & morbid, The Hobbit is pleasant & nice throughout, despite the dragons, goblins etc. Not surprising given it was written by Tolkien as a bedtime story for his kids, or so I heard. It’s simple yet full of amazing imaginary things, thoroughly enjoyable. Having seen the movie helped as you can imagine everything so clearly (almost in 3D)! The only thing I didn’t get was why the movie had stuff which wasn’t in the book. I don’t think it was required at all.  Should have stuck to the original completely.

Starting with a reluctant Bilbo the adventure goes through fantastical twists and turns to the (slightly disappointing & timid) end, by which time Bilbo takes on a deserving hero’s role. The disappointing bit being the slaying of Smaug which I will not detail for people who haven’t yet read the book. I would also have liked some more impressive characters as were in LOTR, I kind of missed them. Having said that Gandalf, the Dwarves, wood-elves, Beorn and many more such characters are quite amusing & entertaining.
Speaking of characters, read an interesting article on ‘Why there are no women in Tolkien’s world’. Interesting!

Anyway, the book is great fun to read, and super quick at that. I think the tiny disappointments are because of the comparison with LOTR which can be easily forgotten. And you should get your hands on the latest edition which has illustrations, maps etc which give you that little bit extra.

A great book for adults if you are the LOTR fan variety and a must read for kids no matter what. I would certainly like my kids to graduate on to a Hobbit from their current favourite Captain Underpants!

Some stills from the movie: