Summing up a torrid month!

For the past few years the joy of celebrating my birthday has been on the wane. It used to be such a wonderful day and looking forward to the day was an experience to be cherished.All the planning,expectations, surprises used to hang on almost a month before the D-Day. I can't help but contemplate do things really change when we grow older that one's birthday does not evoke the kind of unabashed joy it used to generate when we turned into our teen years.

And of course there can be other reasons too. We feel that garish birthday celebrations are not the dominion of the mature and so we tone down our celebrations and moods to match up to our mature mindset. What a bore ? Yeah some friends who are still in their golden years might beg to differ.

A month before my 27th birthday, and i had a terrible ear infection which seemed to be getting worse. Just as i was recovering from my ear tragedy,another one was waiting to happen.Having had to no serious infections for the past decade makes one oblivious to the hazards we face today. I contracted Chicken Pox and was out in the cold for the better part of 3 weeks. No oily food,using an assortment of creams over my body and face and yes drink lots of fruit juice and cold water as well as stay indoors and have a lot of rest. Yes rest i did but not without its perils. Work at office seemed to pile on and i had my hands full when i emerged from my illness. But of course my birthday was spent on the bed lying down the entire day and watching the same recycled lot of movies on HBO,Starmovies and Cinemax with occasional doses of NGC and Discovery.

It all seemed to surreal,me an Chicken Pox...i was all so lucky it was not very severe and i was up and running within 3 weeks. I did my own CSI analysis and it came back to me my initial diagnosis was that of a skin rash for which i was to take antibiotics. Having non-vegetarian food the next day aggravated the rash to chicken pox. By Monday the 14th of July it was too late but atleast i had the correct diagnosis and medicine this time round.

First thing after my steady recovery was to gorge on sumptuos mutton biriyani, humus and kebabs at Al Hussein. Well it did me some good, i have stopped having non-veg food every day and limit myself to 2 or 3 days a week. Thats not me but i have managed to do it after my illness has been attributed to too much of eating out and feasting on tender morsels of meat,fish and seafood.

Spider Man 3- The Ultimate Battle Lies Within

Ever since our friendly neigbourhood spiderman exploded on the movie screens in 2002, every subsequent sequel has been awaited with bated breath. What's spidey gonna do next ? Ending months of speculation and rumors spiderman 3 has hit screens across the world in May. Billed as the most expensive movie production ever, spiderman 3 production house Sony pictures left no stone unturned to market the movie. Reports suggest a whopping $500 million budget, of which roughly 50% was spent on marketing the movie. Now we know why spiderman is so popular. No wonder Tobey Maguire and the rest of the cast have been globetrotting for the movie's world premiere.

The Thailand premiere happened on the 1st of May, and the movie was released simultaneously in cineplexes across Bangkok and other provinces. Your's truly had been also waiting with feverish anticipation for this spidey installment. The IMAX experience was amazing, the huge screen, and 3-D surround sound made the movie experience much more exciting.

Spiderman 3 reveals the dark ,revengeful side of the main protagonist Peter Parker. As we have seen in the previous two episodes , Peter Parker is just like your guy next door,happy and contented with what he has, and for the first time seems to have realised what it means to be spiderman. His girlfriend and love of his life Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst) is still facing an uphill battle to be successful in showbusiness.

The storyline does not move at a frenetic pace but seems to gradually grow on you. 2 hours and 45 minutes still seems a long duration for a hollywood movie, but hey who's complaining. The story starts with a meteorite carrying what i would call "black alien scum" crashing in the suburbs of NYC. This alien scum is a sort of symbiotic creature which can only survive if it latches on to a host. In doing so it aggregates the dark and morbid side of the host.
Spiderman is dealing with his own share of problems with friend turned foe Harry Osbourne played by James Franco, baying for his blood. Harry Osbourne as we had seen at the end of part two discovers the gadgets and weapons chamber of the Green Goblin. Now Goblin Junior is out to avenge his father. Misunderstandings with Mary Jane put spidey in a desperate situation.
Spiderman is confronted by the Sandman,or Flint Marko who is the actual murderer of his Uncle Ben. The Sandman as do most spidey villains has a human side to him,as all he wanted was money for his daughter's treatment. Now as an escaped convict he enters a particle physics testing facility and is transformed into the sandman. It gives him the ability to change his body into malleable sand.The transformation sequence was one of the best scenes in the movie. Some comic relief is provided by J.K Simmons as the chief editor of the Daily Bugle.

Caught between love, friendship and revenge spidey is taken over by the alien scum and it reveals his dark and revengeful side to the world. The black symbiote bonds with Peter's costume in his sleep. He awakes to find a strange new level of strength of power that he accepts, but soon influences his behaviour for the worse.Its powers are unleashed on first the sandman, then goblin junior and finally Mary Jane also. By the time spidey becomes self aware,its too late. Soon, he realises he must lose this power to become his better self, and he rips the symbiote off his body.One notable addition to the list of villains is Eddie Brock Junior aka Venom......he is also taken over by the alien scum which transforms him into a ghastly representation of spiderman. As Venom, he wants to get back at Peter Parker for evicting him from his staff position at the Daily Bugle.

Spiderman has to battle both Sandman and Venom and save Mary Jane, but in doing all this he needs help. Yes you heard it, spidey needs some help, and guess what Harry osbourne comes in to help spiderman in his battle. The stunts and visual effects are at a level never before seen in motion pictures.Spiderman conquers his demons and wins the battle, but loses his dear friend Harry Osbourne. The movie had a very well developed story line and the focus was not only on stunts and action sequences. There were many emotional sequences in the movie which showcased the human side of spiderman, and how he could also be afflicted by love, friendship and revenge. Sam Raimi has done true justice to the trilogy, it couldn't have ended better. For all we know maybe a 4th installment might just come out in 2 years.

The movie is a must watch, as to me it is the best one in the trilogy. So what are you waiting for ......go see spidey in action....