She was a blonde, vivacious at that. He was a cricketer, hoping to make it large.

He said he had a T20 match in the evening and had to go practice. She said she’d be there to cheer him on. He kissed her goodbye and left.

He toiled hard in the nets. (He felt good). A good performance today in front of her and he was gonna propose.

She spent time in front of the mirror. She was going to go early and give him a surprise.

She reached the stadium, made her way in. The match had already begun and she herself was surprised. “Had I lost track of time (standing in front of the mirror)?”, she wondered.

She looked at the electronic scoreboard and searched for his name. Unable to find it, she searched again. Tears came streaming down her face. “Was he cheating on me?”

He was laying prone on the ground, the match wasn’t scheduled to begin for another hour. He glanced towards the hand operated scoreboard. He chuckled, realising he was wrong in assuming they existed only in sri lanka. They were now putting up his name, a letter at a time. Technology kills the romance, he mused.

She ran out of the stadium and out of his life.

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Inspired by Cricket Australia’s scheduling of Big Bash.

And if you’re like “why would she do that?”, put that down to the stereotypical blonde eccentricity or whatever.

Moneyball: Another Brad Pitt film. Jonah Hill’s in the mix as well. Best sports movie of the year. That 20th game? Mindblasting (to borrow a quote from TV commercials)

Warrior: Think of it as an intro to Bane. Tom Hardy is mighty outstanding. Wish he pummelled the kid’s bot from Real Steel in one of the scenes.

Source Code: Simplistic happy ending. Time travel always provides that option. Nothing to take away from the man who made Moon and Jake Gyllenhaal though.

Bridesmaids: 2011′s Hangover equivalent isn’t Hangover-2 but this. Potty mouthed females are so funny. The reconciliation is a bit over the top but you can overlook that one bit.

Horrible Bosses: Am partial to anything with Jason Bateman in it. Helps that it is a good movie too. And Jennifer Aniston, Oh my!

Rango: If I had to pick one animated movie, I’d probably go with this. Tintin and Panda-2 weren’t bad either.

Contagion: The movie deserves praise for the constant tempo it maintains. It doesn’t slow down even when a main protagonist dies. Is it like a runaway train? Well, it’s a runaway train which’s moving serenely at a leisurely 50kmph. And Matt Damon!

Attack the Block: Those funky British accents and the soundtrack alone make this movie a must-see. I didn’t even mention the apes from outer space.

Midnight in Paris: Great city, great literary figures (special shoutout to Ernest Hemingway), lovely film.

The Guard: Another low budget funny export form the UK, Ireland this time. We have villains at home with philosophy and a small rural setting reminiscent of In Bruges.

Ides of March: Every man looks for himself and is ever ready to throw the other person under the train if it stands to benefit them. A cynical, albeit realist, look at the political landscape. George Clooney, Ryan Gosling, Evan Rachel Wood. How can you not watch?

Other Mentions: 50/50, The Help, Limitless, Lincoln Lawyer, 30 minutes or less, X-Men: First Class, A Separation.

Most tiring critically acclaimed movie of the year: Meek’s Cutoff.

Best start to a movie: Drive. The soundtrack, the toothpick, the Ryan Gosling. Enough said.

Best end to a movie: Melancholia. The whole 2nd half is marvelous actually, beautiful visuals. So beautiful that Kirsten Dunst can’t even keep her pants on.

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Haven’t Seen: You should aim to watch all of these in 2012 at least. Do one thing, go to IMDB and add all these movies into your watchlist.

Young Adult (Jason Reitman, Up in the Air)

Martha Marcy May Marlene

Take Shelter (the previous collaboration of the actor-director duo, “Shotgun Stories” will blow you away)

The Descendants (George Clooney taking care of children, won’t happen in real life)

The Artist

Hugo (Martin Scorcese, Hit-Girl)

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (shut up about the Swedish version, it’s mediocre at best, Noomi Rapace the only saving grace)

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (Released this weekend, go check it out, instead of say Sherlock Holmes)

Margaret (Old movie which finally got a release this year, looks shoddy but has been making a few year end lists. And Matt Damon!)

Shame (Michael Fassbender has been cornering all praise here. NC-17 rating too)

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Breakout stars of the year: Ryan Gosling and Jessica Chastain.

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Postscript:

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy may be good cinema and it may be fun to say out loud, but having seen it in a theatre, I’d recommend you do not. Watch it on your laptop. It’s basically like a 5 minute scene that extends for 2 hours.

Following the Kremlin bombing, tensions between USA and Russia have reached levels not seen since the Cuban missile crisis. It is in this backdrop, that our villain, an aficionado of nuclear war, steals the code to Russian nukes. His plan is to trigger off a full blown nuclear war with the aid of a single strike on American soil. However, in order to launch a Ruski nuclear warhead, he needs a Soviet satellite which is currently in the possession of an Indian billionaire playboy (Anil Kapoor). He comes to India, and duly launches the missile. Our hero (Tom Cruise) and his gang (Jeremy Renner, Paula Patton, Simon Pegg) now have to race against the clock to stop the already launched missile from wreaking havoc on the city of Seattle. After a fight with the villain, Tom Cruise gets the dreaded Red Button within his grasp but it won’t work unless his team restore power back at the satellite control centre (Sun Network offices). Will they be able to do it in time?

Before the whole circus heads into India, there’s the opening scene in Hungary where the codes fall into the hands of the bad guys, a scene in Moscow where the Kremlin is bombed, a scene in Dubai where the codes go from the hands of the bad guy to the hands of THE bad guy. All this while, there are cool gadgets at work such as a projector which does a neat illusion job, an eye lens which acts as a scanner. These cool gadgets are brought to you by the self-absorbed funny man Simon Pegg. If Pegg is the man sitting behind a desk, Tom is the man dangling out of a window of the world’s tallest building, Jeremy is a man playing with levitation, Paula is a woman seducing Anil Kapoor in order to gain control of the satellite, Tom is also the man running against a backdrop of a sandstorm, Jeremy is also a man tired of playing with levitation, Paula is also a woman not so adept at seducing. (This actually leads Jeremy to mouth the best dialogue of the movie “Next time, I’ll seduce the rich guy”.)

By this time you must have got the drill. The gadgets are cool, the action sequences are okay, but what about the things in between? How do you feel when the characters sit down and talk about the plot? How do you feel when they narrate stories from their past? Do you feel bored and an urge to skip, like when you do while playing a video game and the story line narration comes up? Or even worse, are you reminded of a porn skit where the “plot” exists just because it’s the norm?

That scene with the suitcase in the parking lot, is Brad Bird paying a homage to his alma mater (Pixar’s Monsters Inc.)? Michael Giacchino. What about him? Wouldn’t the movie have felt much better had the soundtrack been more Bourne-esque than opera-esque?

What about the cast? Anil Kapoor makes for a convincing fool, that much is clear.

So, will you regret watching this movie? No, you should watch it for the gadgets and the IMAX shots. Should you go in with high hopes? No, the sum of the parts is lesser than the parts.

(What is it with this string of Q and A’s? I don’t know. Am unable to stop).

Word of the movie: Disavowed.

Rating of the movie: 3/5

They were in the direst of situations. They were staring down an impossibly bleak barrel. They were struck a hammer blow even before the series got underway when their Captain suffered a broken finger and was subsequently ruled out. To make matters worse, they had gone down meekly in the only other match of the series and they were up against it in this one as well. Set a target of 148, they were down in the dumps after 15 overs when they slumped to an embarrassing 87/7. To make matters worse and victory further elusive, they had no batsman of any sort of minimal repute standing.

The two men at the crease had career aggregates of 14 and 1 respectively. It was not as if they were young-and-upcoming-domestically-promising batsmen making their early forays into the international arena either. These two were bowlers, simple folk who run up to the crease, say a prayer and let go of the ball hoping it would be spared.

Funny things happen though.

Novak I-can-do-nothing-wrong Djokovic would’ve become the world no.1 if

a) He reached the final.

b) Even if he didn’t reach the final, Nadal didn’t win the final.

Then Roger came along. Not only does he play like a mad man to beat Djokovic, he also crumbles and chokes on a sea of unenforced errors in the final. Is the sight of Nadal standing across the net that crippling to the Great man? Can Nadal beat the Great man even if he decides to play on a wheel-chair?

Federer’s Soderling is Nadal’s Federer.#RolandGarros

Was Roger sent from the future solely to stop the Djoker from becoming the no.1 player?  He surely played like that was his mission.

Roger’s douchery aside, guess who showed up for both the Men’s and Women’s final? Marat “Dapper” Safin!

Lastly, did you know that Marat holds the record for the most grand slam appearances(14) between the first and second titles? Djokovic reached the no.2 spot on that list after winning the Australian open(12).

Fulham hadn’t conceded in 6 of their last 7 home games, and had also failed to score against Liverpool in 6 of their last 7 meetings (only one of those is courtesy Opta). But what happened next? 7 goals went in. That’s crazy I tell you, and this craziness was only the beginning. At that moment, I was scared and screaming out for an exorcist as Liverpool were playing like a team possessed and I could barely recognize them. Think of me as a dog screaming at its alien-invaded-master.

As if this wasn’t enough, there was the movie as well. A movie called ‘Incendies’. A movie which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. A movie which I wouldn’t hesitate to place alongside the likes of A Prophet, Waltz with Bashir, The Lives of Others, No Man’s Land, Amelie, The Class, your favorite oscar nominated foreign films this list.

The movie’s about two twins who go from Canada to Palestine(?) in search of their brother and father following their mother’s death. It features honor killing, political assassination, religious conflict, amongst other things. The premise at the outset doesn’t seem as crazy, as say, as that of its fellow contender ‘Kynodontas’, but it ends up being miles ahead on the craziness scale, come the end.

Massive influence of twitter on this post. Right from the first para, which is essentially an amalgamate of my last nights’ tweets, and all those film critics who I follow & continue to spoil me with their recommendations. You see people, micro-blogging ain’t all bad news for blogging.

A quick shout-out for Fast Five, which I felt was more deserving of the IMAX screen than say Avatar. Rio kicks Pandora’s butt every single day of the week. Unobtanium, my ass.

Some of the choices may seem random and 1 glaring omission may stand out.

Favorite 2010 Hollywood dishes:

Social Network : You know what’s cool? Placing this movie on top of the year-end list.

Shutter Island : Just so you know, there’s a dream within a dream even in this one and the way it ends is totally wicked! In stark contrast to the gimmicky cheap-ass ending of the other one.

Toy Story 3 : For me, 2 was an improvement on 1 and 3 was an improvement on 2. Fact that I gave 10 to the first one, had me handicapped for the other two.

Kick-Ass : This was the movie I gave most hype to, ever. Gave a bit to Social Network as well, but Social Network didn’t become my twitter background for a good part of 6 months. The thing about this movie is it gets better when the bad guys are being ruthless, and Hit Girl! Unrestrained violence in all its glory.

The Kids Are All Right : Love how Mark Ruffalo thinks he can just come in and steal the whole family away from Annette Benning. Lots of scenes to shed tears over.

Exit Through The Gift Shop : There was this one particular moment which made me love this movie. This one particular moment came after I had finished watching the movie. This one particular moment was when I found out it was all a parody.

The Other Guys : Mark Wahlberg in ‘The Departed’, Fucking Awesome right!? He’s at it again and this time the movie’s a comedy too. So you can actually laugh out loud and not risk disturbing the serious Scorsese fans. The scene with Eva Mendes, ROFLCOPTER.

A few foreign imports, for that exotic touch:

Un Prophete : Some websites had the audacity to claim way back in February that this movie will be the best of the year. Was that prophecy spot on or what! Chances are you’ll dig it all the more if you like the good gangster movies of RGV. French.

Kynodontas : This movie shows how much effect an environment has on the shaping of an individual and how easy it is to con, provided you do it right from birth. Outstanding and slightly disturbing portrayal of how the things we take for granted can be seriously manipulated quite effortlessly in a controlled environment. (If you ask me, I’d say the feeling of ‘patriotism’ in our societies is one such implantation through propaganda in a man’s mind) Greek.

The Good, The Bad, The Weird : This one’s just a silly action oriental western. Not half as silly as Shaolin Soccer, but you get the idea. Total fun, total action. Korean(?)

Movies which stood a good chance of making it, if only I got to watch’em:

True Grit : Pity how the Coens always end up in this section. Last year, it was ‘A Serious Man’, this time it’s Matt Damon cracking the hell out of everyone.

King’s Speech : Colin Firth’s last year effort ‘A Single Man’ was beautifully shot and brilliant. This one’s been making a whole lot of positive noise too.

127 Hours : Not a big fan of either Danny Boyle or his overly rated Slumdog but.. who wouldn’t like James Franco, and who wouldn’t like a desperate trapped mountaineer chopping off his own hand to set himself free in a mainstream movie?

Blue Valentine : Was originally rated NC-17 and promises to be depressing.

The Fighter : Mark Wahlberg’s here too but he’s gonna have to take the back stage. Christian Bale FTW!

Jackass 3D : Watching Jackass 1 and Jackass 2, there are a few scenes where you are convinced Johnny Knoxville is the MAN! I regret not getting to watch this one on 3D. (3D was made for movies such as these)

Flipped : Don’t know zilch about this one. Been making a few year-end lists. Should be worth checking out, no?

Lastly, a few other mentions: The Town, The American, Easy A, She’s Out Of My League, Youth in Revolt, Scott Pilgrim.

In case, you are still wondering about the glaring omission, NO, it’s not Black Swan, it’s the other one.

Last year’s corresponding list can be found here.

In light of opening week’s sub-par returns, many fantasy managers have turned to science for help. They are reportedly seeking the aid of psychiatrists* to help pin down the reasons behind short-term memory loss. In the long run, ‘short-term memory loss’ has been found to lead to behavioral discrepancies like not including players in fantasy teams even though they might have served the cause very well in the past season or in some extreme cases, the past gameweek.

Based on stats coming in, the majority of these disgruntled souls seem to be afflicted by, what the specialists are now calling, ‘The Chelsea Chaste Syndrome’. The affected fantasy managers, when affronted by our personnel, were at a loss to account for the absence of players like Drogba, Malouda in their teams. What makes this study fascinating is about 95% of these managers had at least one of the two in their teams for the majority of last season, 55% amazingly had both. This bizzare behavior would have gone unnoticed had Chelsea failed to score more than twice, say our in-house medical counsel.

Our football pundits, meanwhile, have taken the wholesale liberty to question the sanity of these people. Last time we heard from them, they were busy preparing a press-release to rubbish the ‘Chelsea Chaste Syndrome’ as an insidious mask designed to shield insanity. They vehemently proclaim that no sane person would have a fantasy team without at least one of Drogba, Malouda. It should be duly noted that we don’t endorse that opinion in any which way. We just think our football pundits are secret Russian agents planted amidst us by Abramovich.

So what we suggest to budding fantasy managers is, pick your fantasy team only after you’ve considered the musings of our friends over at NCNB. Either that, or be ready to have your sanity questioned.

*Distinguishing between psychiatrists and psychologists is beyond the scope of our seasoned staff.

Dear diary,

My name is Gareth Barry and this is my first entry. It is no coincidence that my first entry comes on the day of my team’s exit from the WC. You see years from now whenever I feel down, whenever I feel like I don’t have what it takes, I want to look back upon this day and this entry to reassure myself. This day will always be the day I achieved what I set out to do. It may not have been in the most inconspicuous manner as I had hoped for but Success is success come which way, don’t you agree?

Playing in a WC is mighty stressful thanks to the English media. So when we pulled off that spectacular win against Slovenia and progressed from our extremely competitive group I was mighty chuffed. I expected the pressure to ease off and the games to get easier from then on. But bust my balls for what I saw in the papers next day blew my panties off. I saw that we had to face ze Germans in our next game and in the unlikely scenario that we won, we would go on to face Argentina and more or less face Spain in the semis and then Brazil in the finals. Believe it or not, me and the boys were hoping to avoid those 4 very teams and a couple of other teams like Holland, Portugal on our way to win the trophy. So you know how disappointed and depressed we were and how much more depressed and disappointed we were likely to get as we started winning each of them matches and stepped on to the pitch the next day to face another bigger and better opponent. I decided there and then that we overpaid professionals need not bear this torture and play our guts out. I promised to do my best to let the Germans prevail over us.

I honestly believed Frank would be the first one to echo my sentiments, but boy! was I wrong. He played the game of his life and weren’t it for that blessed linesman we would’ve been right back in the game. I still don’t get why people make that much fuss when the ref fails to spot a ball crossing the line. In my opinion, even a wrong offside decision is just as costly and happens more often. Take for instance ze Germans’ first goal. Wasn’t Klose in an offside position when their goalkeeper launched the ball forward? No one seems to be talking about this mistake or about that other time when Defoe was ruled wrongfully offside and he went on to hit the crossbar having been distracted by the offside flag. If the refs had played it fair, we would’ve gone into the break 3-1 ahead not 2-1 down.

So there we were at half-time in the dressing room with a sense of injustice knocking the wind out of our sails and filling me up with hope. Even Stevie’s never-ending-stream of Liverpool accented encouragements failed to lift our morale and I was sitting pretty smug thinking I wouldn’t be required to do anything special to put the result beyond all doubt. As it turned out, Frank had plans of his own, and posed a threat to my mission.

The moment Frank hit the crossbar from the free-kick, I could sense the spirits of my team going up. I could see that a one goal lead wouldn’t be sufficient for ze Germans. If you take a look at their third goal, you’ll notice that it was I who gave away the ball and in essence, it was I who instigated their counter. You’ll also notice how convincingly I made it look like an honest mistake. In truth though, it was indeed an honest mistake. I’m not that good a footballer to make intentional mistakes seem unintentional. My contribution to their effort (and my ambition) was just a fluke after all, and could I walk away with my head held high knowing my success was not by my own doing? What kind of a man is he whose success is not self-made?, and thus the fourth goal.

Ozil had no right to get to that ball, I was way ahead of him and the pace at which I was initially moving, the guy had no chance of getting the ball. So I slowed down, he got the ball and we went 4-1 down. With this move being an intentional one, I was far less convincing and everyone from everywhere has held me culpable. “I bit the bullet for my team”, I shall one day say to my grandkids.

Some of them disrespectful types have inexplicably dragged Benitez into this. They make fun of him and his interest in me saying,  ’Benitez is a fly‘. You know what flies are attracted to, don’t you dear diary?

Happy Ending: Thanks to the referees me and my teammates need not even own up to our arguably substandard performances (or so I believed)

p.s: Reading my own entry, I couldn’t help but notice that I’ve contradicted my own stance of ‘success is success come which way’.

p.s2: Don’t I look like Ethan Hawke?

Every time a world cup comes around, Brazil invariably becomes the team with most backers. Sure they won the WC the maximum number of times, sure they are the only team to win a WC outside their continent, sure they have the most wins and the most goals in the history of the WC,  still I find this blind faith put in them a bit irksome and largely envious.

An average Brazilian supporter won’t even know which club Luis Fabiano plays for. At best, they might get the names of Kaka and Robinho. But then what kind of seasons are these supposed two superstars coming off? Even Ronaldo’s shadow shone brighter than Kaka at Madrid, and Robinho was unceremoniously dumped midway through the season at Man City. Compare that with the squad of England where, the player who came in as a replacement and subsequently proved to be a better player than Robinho, Adam Johnson couldn’t even make the final cut. Add to that the mighty impressive seasons of Lampard and Rooney, and shouldn’t you be supporting England?

But an average supporter who ‘doesn’t know which club Luis Fabiano plays for’ can be excused for not knowing the superiority of the English squad (on paper based on club-level performances) as well. For reasons, at best described pathetic, I don’t want Brazil to win the WC because it would then vindicate all this blind faith. (However, I’ve got nothing against their squad. They’ve got multiple players from Mourinho’s establishment, Elano from Man City, Kaka formerly from AC Milan.., overall pretty like-able actually.)

*Before you get your panties in a bunch, the supporters taken into reckoning are ill-informed Indians only.