Tuesday Talkies – From ‘I Saw The Devil’ To ‘Ek Villain’

Image July 1, 2014 jcisnowjs Leave a comment

I don’t generally like a movie which is inspired from another movie. By inspired, I actually meant, lifted scene by scene, and then adjusted as per the native audience. But, with the catchy promos of “Ek Villain”, I just wished that this time maybe I will be wrong, and movie will actually turn out good. Alas!!!

From 'I Saw The Devil' To 'Ek Villain' — ‘Ek Villain’

“Ek Villain” is an Indian/Hindi/Bollywood movie, just released, which is actually (not officially) inspired by South Korean movie “I Saw The Devil”.

As I told you, that I was eager to watch “Ek Villain”, so when I came to know of it’s adaptation version, I decided to first watch the original one and then the copy/inspiration. Glad I did that!!!

Before I go about comparing both the movies first let me draw you the basic plot of “I Saw The Devil”. In this movie, a girl is murdered and cut into pieces gruesomely, by a Psychotic Killer. Fiance of the girl, who is a secret service agent, was left devastated, and in his quest for vengeance, he decides to find out the Killer. When he finds the killer, it was more than revenge that he wanted to take. He wanted the killer to suffer the way her fiancee has suffered, the way all the other girls who were victim of that killer have suffered. So, he beat him up (insanely), broke his hand, and leave him, along with the money to take treatment for his wounds. As soon as Killer tries to lay hand on his next victim, our Hero, again beat him up to almost death, broke his leg and again set him free. I don’t want to reveal the plot more, but this one was one hell of a revenge drama.

Coming to “Ek Villain”, it is totally based on the above plot, just the Indianized version of it, with less gory details, no bloody stuff here. Infact a love story is woven around, which eats up half of the story time. This is where “Ek Villain” suffers. It is more of an emotional drama, with a pregnant wife, who has just beaten cancer, with the prayers of his loving husband, innocent love birds deeply in love with each other, singing songs and holding hands, committed to make each others dream come true. The time that this movie has spent on evolving this love dramas, should have spent on explaining the mind of killer and feelings of a revengeful lover.

“I Saw The Devil” scored mainly on two points, first because of the chase game and it’s treatment of the whole story of vengeance which is dealt with real emotions. Secondly, the acting of two lead pairs, revengeful Lover and psychotic Killer. Both have acted so well that despite the gory blood work all over, you can not move your eyes away from them. Specially the scene, where hero breaks down crying after killing the villain, is marvelous.

Where “Ek Villain” has scored is, it’s songs, and less gory details, no sexual violence shown. Actors are good too. But on the whole, it could have been a better thriller, if the focus should have been kept on making it a thriller and to not ruin it by making it into a love story.

Here is to copying something and ruining it’s soul.

Food, Health

Mouthwatering Monday – Paneer Tikka

Image June 30, 2014 jcisnowjs 2 Comments

For us vegetarians, Paneer can be termed as delicious and mouthwatering as Chicken is for the Non Vegetarians. We relish Paneer dishes. Karahi Paneer is one of my favorite dishes, along with Paneer Tikka, which I have tried my hands on this weekend.

Paneer Tikka is marinated Cheese/Paneer, with spices and curd, which is grilled or baked, preferably in a tandoor, but an oven will do too.

Below is the recipe for it. I have done this with some variations so, posting my variations too, along with the original recipe.

Ingredients:

1½ cup Paneer (Tofu also worked for me 🙂 )
2 Capsicums (Red Yellow or Green) – I have not used Capsicum coz hubby doesn’t like them 😛
1 Onion
1 Tomato
1 cup Hung Curd
1½ tbsp Ginger-Garlic Paste
1/2 tbsp Red Chilli Powder (use Kashmiri Red Chilli if you want more Red Color)
1 tbsp Turmeric Powder (Optional as per your taste/color choice)
1/4 tbsp Garam Masala
1 tbsp Cumin Powder
1 tbsp Coriander Powder
1 tbsp Chaat Masa
Oil to spray for baking/griling
Salt as per taste (You may also like to use black salt in small quantity)

Method (fairly simple):

Mix curd with all the spices. Add lemon juice to it. Mix well.
Dice vegetables and Paneer into square shapes or any shape you prefer, just small pieces 🙂
Marinate Paneer and vegetables in the Curd mix prepared above. Put them aside for 2 hours, in fridge.
Preheat oven to 350 F.
Place your onion, tomato, capsicum(I didn’t used them 😦 ) and Paneer onto Skewers (You can use toothpicks too).
Spray with some olive oil.
Put them in oven for 10 minutes.
Rotate your skewers. 10 minutes more in oven and done.
Serve hot with chutney of your choice (preferably Mint chutney). Sprinkle some lemon juice to add that tangy taste to it.

You can garnish them with lemon wedges and onion slices.

Preparation won’t take much, except for the 2 hours of marinated time. Tasty and healthy recipe which my kids enjoyed eating too.

One more variation– I used extra gravy left after marination as separate dish or as Masala for my Paneer Tikka 🙂

P.S. My cooking is experimental. You will find many similar and different recipes, but the idea is to explore your food and do experiments with it. Enjoy Cooking Experiments and Experiences 🙂

Life

Cleaning House While The Kids Are Home, Is Like Shoveling Snow While It’s Snowing

June 27, 2014 jcisnowjs Leave a comment

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Books

Queen Of Babble

Image June 27, 2014 jcisnowjs Leave a comment

What’s a Girl without a big mouth?

Sensible, maybe.

Well, Queen of Babble by “Meg Cabot” is everything a chic lit should be, just not sensible enough. No complains though, as I opted for a lighthearted and fluffy read after going through some serious psycho business like “Along Came A Spider”.

Meg Cabot has written a list of series on “Queen Of Babble”, and I just came to know that a movie is also under production on this one. Great going. It would be better to watch a silly comedy than to read and waste your time on a stupid book.

Coming to the book, this story is about Lizzie Nicholas, who is a silly girl, just graduated from college with major in Fashion (actually not yet graduated, she forgot to submit her thesis, see how stupid :P), and now she is going to London to visit her boyfriend for a month. Problem is, the guy that she says that she has fallen in love with, Andrew; she don’t even remember his face (butt off-course, she remembers).

She met Andrew for a span of, I think, 24 hours and she falls in love with him. So madly that she agreed to go all the way to London (first time alone), to live with him. Unknowingly, that he has no car or even a roof of his own. He is living with his parents, two brothers and a dog, with no bed or room to offer her. So she has to make adjustment with the laundry room/partition. He told her that he wants to be teacher but instead is working as a waiter, and still getting the unemployment benefits from his government. Above all he needs money from Lizzie to complete his education, as he has blown his, on gambling. :@

Enough lies from him, but this is not what deter our romantic girl from leaving him, but the fact that he told his family that Lizzie is fat. What FAT??? You called your girlfriend Fat? Don’t you love your life?

She leave him finally, after much drama of her own (sobbing and losing consciousness and all…).

But where to go? She has no money, her return ticket is non refundable and is scheduled after a month. Saving grace, her best friend Shari is in France, helping out in managing a wedding with his boyfriend Chaz, i a rich chateau. She left for to France, alone in a train knowing little of french and all distressed with a broken heart. Only, her luck have it that she met the handsome dude Luke in the train who not only consoles her but also turned out to be the true gentlemen, and Chaz’s friend and owner of the beautiful chateau.

You will guess, story complete. No, because he has a girlfriend, Dominique, who is rich beautiful and too classy to handle alone by Lizzie. Our damsel, poor girl still falls in love with Luke. Only problem other than, him having a girlfriend, that our girl Lizzie, has a big mouth. Queen Of Babble, you know. I am not elaborating more on the story, don’t want to spoil the most predictable story. 😛

Problem with this kind of chic lit is that it’s a no brainer. A stupid love story, without any story. If you want to read something without using your brain and rest of the common senses then you should probably go for this one. Otherwise, pick something useful.