Nerdgasm 0004 – Wonder Woman 2020 : I’m confused.

We’re always shown the past – the 70s, 80s, whatever it may – to be full of colorful clothes, freethinking hippies, hypnotic synth music and strip malls. Wonder Woman 1984 felt like none of those things. It has more in common with 2020 than 1984 – started full of hope and ended utterly underwhelming. At its best, it was a middle chapter in a thick novel where nothing happens and the author sidetracks into the details of numerous things that will never make an appearance again that you get through nonetheless because it began so well and you hope the end will be the same. At its worst, it was a DCEU movie.

2131 Poetry#19 – Who’s happy ?

Who’s happy?
The optimist is overfed on disappointment,
no outcome’s ever up to the mark of his imagination.
The pessimist walks away with his coin still in the air,
the odds are fifty-fifty, but who’s got time to care?
The realist is drenched in sweat for he knows he can never really know,
until the result is out but by then what’s the point anymore.

Captain’s log 08032019 – Spoilers Galore!

Captain Marvel is right up there with some of the phase one origin stories of Iron Man, Captain America and Thor. When the world was a much simpler place and superheroes were still not so established. But its placement after Infinity War and so close to Endgame makes its stakes feel rather insignificant. Ant-man and Wasp came right after Infinity war as well but that had lovable returning characters whose situation we were worried about during the events of Infinity war. Captain Marvel is a brand new character we’re supposed to get to know now so that her presence in Endgame makes sense – she doesn’t enjoy the popularity of Spiderman who could be directly thrust into Civil War after 10 minutes of chatting with Tony Stark. While it is a great story and a wonderful piece of cinema, the cinematic universe format that Marvel has carved for itself has ended up pushing it into the shadow of the looming threats of Endgame.

Rant #22 – Peace out.

We are so used to watching the hero and villain duke it out on screen and cheering for CSK vs RCB on twitter that we have developed no other means of conflict resolution whatsoever. We are so used to being just the audience to performances that we view even war through the same goggles. The movie ends, the match gets over and the participants and the audience return to their normal lives. War is no movie and we are no mere audience in this scenario.

Rant #21 – Church and State.

The question of whether God exists – if there is a supreme consciousness behind the cosmos – primarily belongs to the collective realm of human thought and is in no way exclusive to religion. Early man looking at the stars, modern physicists working on the unified field theory and your best friend with their eyes closed right before taking an exam are all, in one way or the other, trying to figure out God. One uses thought and inquisition, or philosophy, one uses sequential logic and tangible data, or science and one uses faith and will, or religion. There are countless such ways to ponder over this very fundamental question of what was there before everything and man vehemently continues to do so using every tool at his disposal with philosophy, religion and science being the most prominent. At least, most men are. The pioneers of religion – one of the most subjective of these tools, seem extremely content with their answers in spite of having multiple contradicting theories and have deemed this search complete. They seem to be quite impatient people who do not want to wait for the others to catch up but rather want them to quit their pursuits as well since after all, the answer is already here. While God may or may not exist, organised religion most definitely does. Making things worse, it’s infiltrating the ranks of government and things are not going so well.

WhatFourthWall Rewind – 2018.

4,751 views with 2,709 visitors and 69 posts (a happy accident) later, here we are bidding goodbye to 2018.

Captain’s log 22122018 – Revisiting 96.

“Of all the things in the whole world, only photographs have the power to stop time,” says Ram, quite aptly named – for Lord Ram is the trademark of fidelity – who leads life as a travel photographer and mentor. A profession that lets him stay untethered and be constantly on the move while simultaneously allowing him to freeze any moment he deems worthy on celluloid. The juxtaposition of  ‘fleeting moments’ and ‘memories that stand still in time’ follow us throughout the movie: while the characters are physically always on the move – in cars, on late night walks on empty roads and in the metro – their conversation and the heart of the story is all about their past love which will always stay unmoving and unchanging two decades behind in time.

Rant#20 – I’d like to weigh in on this…

Don’t tell people, “You’re not fat, you’re beautiful.” Fat isn’t the opposite of beautiful, it’s the opposite of healthy. Fat here means large deposits of fatty tissue over and between muscles and along the walls of blood vessels, you know? the thing it was supposed to mean. Not people who wish their waistline was just an inch smaller.

Rant#19 – The dark science rises.

Back in the day, pioneers like Copernicus and Galileo faced opposition for their stand on science from both men of religion, who were worried it was disagreeing with their God and men of science, who were more loyal to their predecessors and had a difficult time adjusting to their worldview being toppled over. These people denied science because their trust was placed elsewhere. Today’s scientists face a different kind of deniers, those whose trust lies only in distrusting science itself.

Rant #15 – Gunned down.

The very first post in this blog was about humor, about offence vs intent and the aggressive ‘snowflake’ culture flourishing as of now. But that was people taking offence to a YouTube comedian’s impressions of two famous people, this is regarding a world renowned Hollywood director’s decade old tweets making light of pedophilia and homophobia. So do the same rules still apply?

Rant#10 – The Equality bandwagon

The thought came as I was sitting in an exam hall, for an exam that would decide if I make it into one of the many esteemed engineering institutions in India for post graduation. In that exam hall, there were thirty of us, and out of that thirty, three were women.

Rant#6 – And Man said, Let there be God.

There’s an underlying order to all the chaos in this universe and that order, is my God.

~ Fessonia

Smartphones, the new way of life

Why does the title sound like a topic for an elocution competition put together hurriedly at the last moment for 8th graders, you ask? Because it is, but for college juniors.

I recently attempted to participate in one, and after one too many hiccups, the date got postponed and time limit shortened. So what was supposed to last a full five minutes, now needs to be squeezed into a 45sec to 1 minute window. I got eight days but not too sure if I want to anymore. Anyway, here’s the transcript…

Have smartphones become the new way of life? I do not have a definitive answer for that question currently, so let’s get on aboard the train of thought.

Rant#5 – Pokèmon No!

July 2016

My Facebook feed has looked more or less the exact same for the past 10 days and it is driving me crazy.

What used to be a grand assortment of cheesy TinyTales, embarrassing selfies of friends, superhero news, soulful poetry and most importantly, Cyanide & Happiness’ gloriously dark memes, is now either about 20 year olds trying to be 12 or one 65 year old that the people of this state are convinced hasn’t aged a day beyond 25. (Not going to discuss the latter because I fear for my life.)