3 Books and 3 Movies....

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Though the last week was a bit busy one, managed to finish two books and a couple of movies.Here is a short review of them.

Novels:

1.The Inscrutable Americans by Anuraag Mathur:

It's the story of Gopal ,a rich brat from ,jajau,a small town in India who lands in the U.S. for pursuing a degree in Chemical Engineering.His 'atrocious command' over the language and 'his small town' attitude, makes this book a 'laugh a minute' adventure.Genuinely hilarious.Recommended.

Rating: 7/10

2.Phantoms by Dean Koontz:

Spring Field is a fictitious town in California.One fine morning,Dr.Jennifer discovers that all the inhabitants of the town have disappeared.They have been killed by a supernatural force! Will she survive the 'thing'?

With a rather interesting premise, this one would have been definitely worth a read,had the writer shortened the length of this 484 page book a bit.In it's present form,with it's lethargic pace,and repetitive scenes, it tests your patience quite often.

Rating:5/10

3.My Friend Sancho by Amit Verma:

Writing a book is every mainstream blogger's dream. 'MFS' is Amit Verma's answer to meenakshy reddy Madhavan and Ashok Banker(to name a few!).The story as well as it's premise is pretty familiar,a boy(who apparently works in a tabloid) meets a girl..(he) falls in love with her (with a few  topical cliches thrown in between).The book promised to be fun but after going through it, i would be dishonest if i say that i was not disappointed.The language is too simple and at times you feel that you are in the midst of a  conversation with  a sales executive in some random book shop. Anyways, Amit atleast tried to give us a 'fun read' avoiding the popular  'IIT/IIM'  formula...

Rating:5/10

Movies:

1.Kerala Cafe:

An anthology of ten short films conceived by Renjith and directed by nine mainstream directors and a debutant, this movie is definitely one of the best movies of the decade.The pick of the Lot being Bridge by Anwar Rasheed.Shankar Ramakrishnan's Island express,Anjali Menon's Happy Journey ,Unnikrishnan's Aviraamam were also outstanding.Shyaamaprasad's Off season and Uday Ananthan's Mrutyunjayam disappointed.

Rating:8/10..Miss it at your own risk.

2.Swa.le:

Cinematographer P.sukumar's directorial debut is an 'attempted satire' on the life of a journalist of the pre-mobile,pre-internet era.An excellent theme handled in a mediocre manner with an amatuerish script,Swa.le misses it's post by a mile.The second half drags big time and is a pain to watch.

Rating: 5.5/10 (for it's brilliant first half and it's novel theme)

3.Blue:

Akki's latest movie was written off by the critics unanimously.But i still gave it a try.To my surprise, it came to me as a rather watchable one.

Rating:5/10

Image courtesy: rediff.com