Netflix

Quotes from ‘Steve Jobs – The Lost Interview’

December 7, 2017 Design Technology

Steve Jobs - The Lost InterviewThis is one of my favourite documentaries on Steve Jobs, an interview with the legend who’s at his best reliving his time at Apple, NeXT, and beyond. It’s full of anecdotes from his thought process on product design, and why Microsoft is after all…Microsoft and I thought to reproduce some of his insightful quotes. This interview was conducted by Bob Cringely in 1995, it was lost until the director of the series found a VHS copy in his garage, and released to theatres in 2012.

At a time when technology has virtually seeped into our psyche, this interview brings a tremendous insight as to how far we have come, and especially for Apple as a company as it continues to innovate.

On Becoming a Millionaire at a Young Age

“I was worth about over a million dollars when I was 23 and over $10 million when I was 24 and over $100 million when I was 25. And it wasn’t that important because I never did it for the money. I think money is a wonderful thing ’cause it enables you to do things. It enables you to invest in ideas that don’t have a short-term payback and things like that. But especially at that point in my life, it was not the most important thing. The most important thing was the company, the people, the products we were making, what we were gonna enable people to do with these products.”

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‘One Heart’ Is A Melodic Pilgrimage with AR Rahman

November 17, 2017 Movies

I have been an ardent fan of the Oscar-winning music composer AR Rahman since the ‘Roja’ days and I feel particularly sorry for admitting that I haven’t been to any of his live concerts! But all is not lost and I still have my hopes high. Meanwhile, I was privileged to watch a movie on his life and times through a concert called ‘One Heart – The AR Rahman Concert Film’. It’s a film for anyone who has missed the chance to experience a live performance.

The 90-minute documentary consists of footage from AR Rahman’s ‘The Intimate Concert Tour’ in which his cherry-picked 10-member band performed in 14 cities across the US. Though I could not ignore the fact that this movie appears to be produced as an afterthought by including additional footage, in the end, it was the music and the live performances that mattered. It revealed the maestro’s melodious journey through a rare interview of the legendary composer himself, how he engineers those tunes, his inspirations, and associations, etc., also a never-before-seen Rahman opening up on his personal life. The live band consists of AR Rahman himself, with Ranjit Barot (percussion), Annette Philip (jazz/vocals), Marie Calhoun (violin), Jonita Gandhi (from Toronto! Yaay!!) and Haricharan (vocals), Mohini De (bass guitar/prodigy), Keba Jeremiah (guitar), Devi Rani Najev (dancer), along with Shiraz Uppal, Sanket Athale, Ashwin Srinivasan, and more, most of whom you might have caught jamming on the MTV Unplugged (India) season. I imagine I may have missed a few names, but then again, the concert was very engrossing.

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Mindhunter

Mindhunter Is A Lesson In Criminal Psychology

November 3, 2017 Movies

My obsession for retro is well-known, and it’s a particularly gratifying experience being in North America to observe the nuances of this geography from the 70s in a web TV series. The fashion, the architecture, the make of the classic cars, and the means of communications (obviously no mobile phones in the 70s) is a revelation of sorts & a journey back in time. It was fascinating to watch ‘Halt and Catch Fire’ in the backdrop of the 80s more specifically for its anecdotes related to the pre-PC era. Then again, the CNN series on the 60s, 70s, and the 80s which took me on a nostalgic history of North America. And a couple of days ago I binged watched ‘Mindhunter’ on Netflix, a crime psychological thriller from David Fincher and Charlize Theron.

Set in 1977-79 years the series is based on the book ‘Mindhunter: Inside the FBI’s Elite Serial Crime Unit’ by authors John E. Douglas and Mark Olshaker following the adventure of FBI agents Holden Ford (Jonathan Groff), and a seasoned agent named Bill Tench (characterized by Holt McCallany). Ford and Tench are FBI agents from the Behavioral Science Unit interviewing a bunch of serious killers (not “serial” killers) incarcerated for their gruesome crimes in an attempt to understand their attitudes which made them commit those heinous acts! The entire Season 1 was a fun nostalgic ride back into the 70s (I can’t wait for Season 2), it’s unlike any other TV series or movie you may have watched in the detective/murder mystery genres, it’s engrossing, and without question it introduces a new narrative about criminal psychology.

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A Tasty Exploration of Israeli Cuisine

November 2, 2017 Movies

For my love of discovering new tastes, I caught up with a Netflix documentary called ‘In Search Of Israeli Cuisine’ also due to my keen interest in Israeli traditions and culture. I have always believed a lot has been misinterpreted and misunderstood about the State of Israel given the geopolitical nature of the Middle East, and so apart from the military and tech industry news that I keep reading here was a documentary that presented me with a hitherto unexplored food lifestyle of Israel.

The documentary is guided by Israeli chef and restaurateur Michael Solomonov who is on a quest to find if there is indeed such a thing like ‘Israeli Cuisine’. The film follows Chef Solomonov to over 100 locations (or so I’m told) through the Israeli hinterland in search of unique culinary experiences, and on a scenic tour of Tel Aviv, Nazareth, including a place called Taverna near the Sea of Galilee for the taste of freshwater fish and crabs, and the Golan Heights to indulge in the choicest Israeli wines. It wasn’t until the the early 80s and the economic boom when Israelis traveled great lengths as tourists, experiencing the western world lifestyle and realized they needed to develop and nurture a distinct flavourful identity that is established from locally sourced ingredients only. A cuisine that is their own.

The documentary traces Israeli flavours and texture from the Jewish communities of Ashkenazi and Sephardic and outlines the uniqueness it has brought to local cuisine. Basically, the Ashkenazi Jews have their origins in Eastern Europe, and the Sephardi Jews in the Iberian peninsula (Spain and Portugal), besides also gaining its rich taste from middle-eastern cultures such as Iraq, Jordan, and Lebanon. Chef Solomonov profiles home cooks, chefs, farmers, and even food writers to get to the depth of Israeli food traditions and local recipes with an elaborate history behind its source, and also goes hunting for dishes on the streets and hotels of faraway cities in Israel.

Although there were mostly non-vegetarian dishes (being a vegetarian) it left me awe inspired to learn that Israel is a historically rich land of multi-faceted ethnicities and customs whose food is not just influenced by Arabs, Christians, Druze, and Jews but also Moroccan, Turkish, Uzbek, German, Iraqi, and even French culinary traditions.

River (TV Series)

December 17, 2015 General

My extreme fondness for thriller and suspense stories brought me to this 6-part British TV show called River on Netflix. Just like the other shows I had imagined this to be a mystery drama involving a police cop and his assistant joining forces to fight crime in a contemporary London setting, and the scenes played out exactly the way I had expected. But within minutes into the show the usual cop/thug drama turns into a creepy, supernatural, murder mystery that was successful in keeping me at the edge of my seat for the rest of the series.

Stellan Skarsgård plays a smart senior cop called Detective Inspector John River. A deep, sombre individual barely able to connect with the world outside of his own nonetheless truthfully connected with the voices inside his head. Struggling to revisit the disturbing sequences from his past, and remains fixated in the throes of his murdered colleague, while also getting mired in an immigration scandal bigger than he’d imagined. For the investigation to go ahead under his charge River must undertake scrupulous tests of his mental character and prove his sanity with the help of a fascinated psychiatrist played by Georgina Rich. The dramatizing by Skarsgård of an entity who appears to speak to himself being in a state of denial is laudable, when at times River’s hallucinations driven by his inner voices and conflict also leads him to become violent and aggressive in full public view. A sensitive, and brutal representation of people faced with situations, bordering schizophrenia, and that feeling of being judged unwontedly is quite palpable while watching River. To say the least, Skarsgård’s portrayal of John River is beyond words.

The culminating episode in which River traces the malicious truth was an emotional adventure personally. As unfair as it may seem River faces a numbing fact in realizing that a poignant moment has been lost forever in the sands of time and moving on with life is the only way forward for him. That apart the series lends itself to a particularly melodious disco track of the 70s called ‘I Love to Love (But My Baby Loves To Dance)’ by Tina Charles, which vividly echoes the feeling of mutual admiration between the lead pair. While I am not sure when or how would the next series of River do justice to the characters and the story, I am waiting anxiously to find that out sooner than later.