A half-decent book that is introduced as a collection of wizarding fables (with notes by a Harry Potter character), it soon loses its charm. When JKR buries the voices of the fables’ protagonists under the accompanying notes, the reader starts questioning the book’s length and wonders who the target audience is (definitely not *THIS* Muggle).

And in between all this, I (re)discovered Twitter. And I tweeted about all these events.

I was introduced to Twitter in April ’07, before Twitter became what it has now become. After acting like a curmudgeon about it for the most part of 2007 and 2008, I was forced by an ultimatum from certain friends (you know who you are ) to ditch my clever G-Talk status updates [random sample: Dodge Ram: The official truck of the Sangh Parivar (post Tata takeover of Chrysler)] and switch to Twitter instead.

Since then, it’s been Twitter and thankfully my mother (I had to explain every single clever GTalk status, killing the joke in the process) is not on it and so it has been good. I have totally warmed up to Twitter and don’t seem to have any time to blog. Actually I do have *lots* of time to blog, but I totally lack the enthu and for a change it is not laziness that is the reason. All I can say here and now is that, while the reasons are rather private, I will be back for good, soon. Hopefully.

But in the meantime, i don’t want this space to be idle. My closest friends have, in the past year, heard me lament about how I don’t read *books* any more. The past year or so, blogs (and other online media) have slowly started dominating my reading time and I want to change this status quo. Besides, my (virtual) book case is overflowing with books that I have picked up and have not read at all.

So when a friend pointed me to a 20 Books in 2009 challenge, I decided to take it up. For a lot of you, it is probably not a challenge at all, but for someone like me who wants to kickstart a reading habit again, it is a worthy challenge, I think. So to start the challenge, I cheated. Yup! Conveniently I picked up the shortest book available closeby to start out the challenge.

One of the rules of this 20in2009 challenge is that I have to track the books I read with a blog post/separate page. That offers me an avenue to update this blog. I am making it interesting planning to add my own challenge too. Since I am tweeting mostly these days, I want to limit these reviews fit the Twitter character limit, i.e. to 140 characters and post them on my Twitter stream too. One second thoughts, I don’t think a 140 character tweet can do justice to a book review. So, what say, I do 55-worders instead?

Look out for the review later tonight. Needless to say, the reviews will be irreverant (which means I’ll sound dumb, actually), so don’t bother using my reviews to feed your (non-existent) reading habit.

In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face is that, in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is more meaningful than our criticism designating it so.

- Anton Ego / Peter O’ Toole (Ratatouille, 2007)

One of my pet peeves has always been bad reviews and their reviewers, be it for movies, books or something else. And this line just stuck a chord with me. Reviews and reviewers are bound to be judgmental, but I can’t stand reviews that give away plot details, even if it is with the usage of a single word.

For example, I read a “opinion piece” about the last Harry Potter book recently that managed to divulge a key Bollywood-esque plot twist that had confounded readers since 1997. All that was needed was just one single phrase. And it is funny that that this so-called “opinion piece” came exactly 2 days after the release of the said book, which makes me wonder if the law should prohibit all “opinion pieces” about books and movies till a few months after the release, giving people enough time to form opinions of their own.

My response to the said piece was to ask for the inclusion of a “**spoiler alert**” warning on top of the piece, which went unheeded. Am I the only reader who knew what “unrequited” meant? Or am I the only one who put two and two together?

And then a few days later, I think, there was a “review” of the same book on the same website. And again, with the use of a single phrase, another plot detail was given out. My response to that review would have been the same as the previous one – a plea to include a “**spoiler alert**”. But the futility of the action just forced me to remain silent. But, after I completed the book, I realized that the use of the phrase was questionable.

These are but two of the recent cases that I have come across. I don’t claim to be a reviewer of note. In fact, there are a few reviewers that I absolutely idolize, e.g., Ebert. DoZ swears by Lane, but I don’t subscribe to the New Yorker, so I haven’t read much from him. Our very own B. Rangan comes close, but I have wondered if some of the movies that he as reviewed recently deserve the positive notes that he has sprinkled in about them. Seriously, Jhoom Barbar Jhoom and charming? But that brings us to the other point. Reviews are but the personal viewpoints of the reviewer. So I would never dare to question Baradwaj on his views.

I don’t typically question reviews because I have a choice. The fact that Variety called Marigold “charming” or that Baradwaj Rangan trashed it makes no difference. I still wouldn’t see it because the sight of Salman Khan always brings to mind that old Hey, I know you. You are the tellaphone man line that has left me totally scarred. I know the Krishs and the Dhooms are crap, but I still saw them. Either because it is totally a personal perspective or I am forced by association to go along with friends to ensure future company when I need it. Like I said, I have a choice.

So, I am sure you are wondering what I am doing here ranting about bad reviews, when I have a choice. Of course, like always, you have a valid point. But I do have an excuse. My feed reader, that’s what. Most of the time, I am deep into a post when I realize I have read too much.

So, my friends, bloggers and reviewers, next time you decide to write a review or blog about something you have read or seen, don’t worry about telling me that the subject sucked. Or that the subject rocked. I don’t care. But please do refrain from describing the subject minute by minute or word to word. As Ego writes about Remy’s cooking in Ratatouille, the average piece of junk is more meaningful than our criticism designating it so. So, don’t make make it worse divulging plot details.

While Gizmodo does say that this could be a hoax, I read the spoilers in the email announcement and this seems to be a really surprising way to end the book. Let’s just say that I can see a Bollywood type ending involving puppy love and sacrifice.

Here is the sender explaining why he/she/they did it.

Yes, we did it.
We did it by following the precious words of the great Pope Benedict XVI when he still was Cardinal Josepth Ratzinger.
He explained why Harry Potter bring the youngs of our earth to Neo Paganism faith.
So we make this spoiler to make reading of the upcoming book useless and boring.
The attack strategy was the easiest one.
The usual milw0rm downloaded exploit delivered by email/click-on-the-link/open-browser/click-on-this-animated-icon/back- connect to some employee of Bloomsbury Publishing, the company that’s behind the Harry crap.
It’s amazing to see how much people inside the company have copies and drafts of this book.
Curiosity killed the cat.
Who kill curiosity?
To protect you and your families
God bless you
Gabriel

Some funny shit, I say!

It is a well known fact that Speilberg is a Tintin junkie and had optioned the franchise in 1983.

The move caps a quarter century of negotiations involving Spielberg, a lifelong Tintin fan. He first bought an option to film the character just before Tintin creator Georges Remi — known as Herge — died in 1983. At one point, an agreement was in the cards, but Herge then read in the contract that Spielberg might not direct the films personally and refused to sign on the dotted line. [Link]

But Spielberg was not dissuaded. He paid homage to Herge’s work with references to Tintin in his Indiana Jones movies, filming in the same locations that Herge captured in the Tintin books. He also kept negotiations going with Herge’s estate.

And in March this year, it appears that the Herge Foundation and Dreamworks finally arrived at an agreement. But wonder of wonders, while these negotiations have seemingly gone for years, this announcement seems to have gone under the radar this side of the pond. And today, it broke.

In the past, Leonardo Di Caprio was linked to play Tintin. Comics Alliance even speculated Angelina jolie would play Tintin’s love interest. But Jackson and Spielberg now say that the trilogy would be filmed using “full digital 3-D using performance capture technology”, the same technology that James Cameron Robert Zemeckis used to make The Polar Express a few years ago.

“We want Tintin’s adventures to have the reality of a live-action film, and yet Peter and I felt that shooting them in a traditional live-action format would simply not honor the distinctive look of the characters and world that Herge created,” Spielberg continued.

In my eyes, the train conductor in The Polar Express had nothing in common with Tom Hanks, apart from his voice. So I still am viewing this with some trepidation. But Spielberg and Jackson are too good a pair to take their words lightly. So I shall be on a wait and watch mode.

Way to go Oz bhai! Looking forward to seeing more of your work on print.