Self-Indulgence is not a principle..

..at least Hobbes thinks so. But what the heck, I am a man of principles (a la Calvin!) and I say self-indulgence is a principle in life. Ergo, I indulged myself on the weekend just gone by, by watching 7 movies. A record for me. Watched all of them on my computer (except the one on Friday). Started with Quatre cents coups, Les (400 Blows), a 1959 Oscar winning French movie. On Saturday, it was back-to-back three brilliantly fantastic movies: Good Will Hunting (1997), Dogma (1999), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004). After this fanbtabulous Saturday triology, two of the three Sunday choices High Fidelity (2000), Northfork (2003), turned out to be not so good. The third Sunday flick Deewaar was neat though.

Interestingly, came across these neat Indian references in three of these mainstream movies: In Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, three Indian movie songs are playing in the background when Jim Carey and Kate Winslet are talking in their apartment: Tere Sang Pyar main nahi chodna (Nagina), Mera Man Tera (Guide?), Wada Na Tod. Then, Good Will Hunting has reference to Ramanujan and to "Dots, not feathers" by the way of explanation about his being Indian. And lastly, High Fidelity features the composition "This India" , written and performed by Harbhajhn Singh and Navinder Pal Singh.

Even though I didn't like the movie itself, here are some witty quotes from High Fidelity:

* What came first? The music or the misery? People worry about kids playing with guns or watching violent videos that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands, of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery, and loss. Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?
* She was nice. Nice manners, nice grades, nice looking. She was so nice, in fact, that she wouldn't let me put my hand underneath on even on top of her bra. Attack and defense. Invasion and repulsion. It was as if breasts were little pieces of property that had been unlawfully annexed by the opposite sex. They were rightfully ours and we wanted them back. Sometimes I got so bored of trying to touch her breast that I would try to touch her between her legs. It was like trying to borrow a dollar, getting turned down, and asking for 50 grand instead. I wasn't interested in Penny's nice qualities, just breasts. And therefore, she was no good to me.