Next Floor

I recently made my first visit to the Sonoma and Napa valleys. I loved the trip despite not being wine savvy. Every single one of the wines smelt and tasted the same to me - but I went through with the swirl-aerate-sniff-sip dance - just to fit in :).

Anyways, this post is about the something else I enjoyed in Sonoma. The Sonoma International Film Festival! Thanks to K for picking that particular weekend! We caught a series of short films of which one stood out - Next Floor by Denis Villeneuve. The plot reads:

During an opulent and luxurious banquet, complete with hordes of servers and valets, eleven pampered guests participate in what appears to be a ritualistic gastronomic carnage. In this absurd and grotesque universe, and unexpected sequence of events undermines the endless symphony of abundance.

The film clearly stood out from the rest on account of its looks - spectacular. It was quite disturbing and odd. I don't think I got the point - but liked it nonetheless.

Thank the Paalkaran

In the days where regular-full-fat-milk is so passe, lets take a moment to thank the much maligned paalkaran who with a lot of foresight was always handing out diluted-with-water, non-fat or 2% fat milk.

P.S. Paalkaran = Tamil for milk man, usually the kind that carries the aluminium cans on his Hero cycle.

And the "weirdest video of the day" award goes to...

Check out this video by this musician called Devendra Banhart. Very irreverent. But its also too funny to take offense.

And in case like me, you were trying to place the actress - that is Natalie Portman.

Just did it!

Since when does *everything* have to be done for a reason? Did I miss the memo?

I have been noticing that whenever I act on a whim (yes, I'm old - does not mean I'm boring. Not yet.), I have these people who try to read some very convoluted reasoning into my action. And the reasoning is mostly somthing like .. "Oh, you did that because you wanted blah". And when that said "blah" happens in the future they feel rightly justified! Very pissing off.

People...the "cause" was a whim and the "effect" was just chance. Let it go.

Another link in the chain

I am liking being here. Very much so.

Amen.

Scenes from a marriage

Yes, watched it at last. And yes, I'm slow sometimes - hardly surprising if you know me :). But better late...

I'm still in awe. How does one write such magnificent script? And just how do you get the actors to give that kind of a performance? Stunning.

Every scene was so real, so natural, so honest - almost as if the movie was real and I was fake - the actor.

Tough Love

Hard Conversations.
Positive Reinforcements.
Hard Cuts.
Let it go.
Credibility cannot be lost.
Own the conversation.
Manage across.
Smell the warning signs.
Perception! Perception! Perception!