Street dancers Diversity won this year’s Britain’s Got Talent. IMO, they deserved to win after that scintillating dance act in the finals. 48-year old Hairy Angel Susan Boyle for the finals sang “I Dreamed A Dream”, same song which made her an instant star after the first round. Initially ridiculed for her appearance and later for Everything-is-planned ploy which also included the planned shock reaction of audiences and judges alike, she decided to quit the show mid-way. However, she stayed on and came second in the third season of Britain’s Got Talent. I loved her singing but I guess she was hyped way too much. That apart, she has got impressive voice.

My personal favorites Shaheen Jafargholi and Stavros Flatley did enter final but could not reach the final three. In particular twelve year old Shaheen was an absolute delight to hear. Like Susan, he too chose the song he sang in the first round; Michael Jackson’s “Who’s Loving You” and boy was he good? He was enormously attention-grabbing. Greek Irish father-son duo of Stavros Flatley completely entertained with their uncanny dance manner.

Other findings which I enjoyed were: 10-year old Natalie Okri and 11-year old Aidan Davis. Natalie rocked with Jamelia’s Superstar song and Aidan wowed everyone with his delightful dance.

Thanks to talent.itv.com and live commentary by Sujoy on his blog, I was able to watch all these great acts on internet. There were many more amazing performances; I have listed only my favorites.

In my last post, many people asked me the source of those movies. Pirated? Downloaded? Well, nopes. I do not download them from net. I am way too impatient for that. And forget finding those movies in your local dvd library. I am member of DVD rental sites Seventymm and Bigflix. And that’s where I get the movies from. This doesn’t work out cheaper but ultimately I it’s worth it. I had been member of 70mm for over two years now. I am not too demanding, in the sense I do not look out for latest blockbusters or famous ones. I look out for movies which are hard to get otherwise and which we hardly get to hear of. There are so many movies being made all over the world and we get to hear of just 15-20%. Where else could I have seen Iranian/Korean/Mandarin/French/German/Persian/Spanish/Japanese et al language movies? In the name of foreign language films, all that gets released in India are the blockbusters of Hollywood, half of which I found absolute crap. Yes, I am talking of Superman/Spiderman, ye-man, wo-man, Harry Potter and many such. They might be having huge followings but I do not like such movies. Of late, the scene has changed and we do get to see some lesser known good ones releasing in India too, ‘The Revolutionary Road’ for example. Yet, the scene is pathetic when it comes to the release of Non-English movies in India.

Am I happy with them? I have heard from few friends from north that 70mm service sucks. Well, I haven’t found any reasons whatsoever so far to discontinue my membership. And definition of suck varies from one to another. My look-outs are usually the Non-English foreign language films and 70mm comes with a good collection of them. For English, I am trying to watch as many old classics as possible. I am going by the decade and I am still on 50s/60s/70s. I half-way through watching the movies of Marlon Brando, Gregory Peck, Cary Grant, Montgomery Clift, Paul Newman, Audrey Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor et al. I do not see any other way to watch their movies as I yet cannot afford to buy DVDs of all these movies.

Serviceability too is an important factor, and my experience says these providers have improved a lot in last couple of years. Initially I did face few hiccups but I was patient. Bigflix I joined recently because I wasn’t getting few movies on 70mm. Though, 70mm remains my primary provider. Cinema Paradiso is another DVD rental site, but I haven’t checked out them. My queue in the former 2 is more than 100+ which will take some time to get exhausted. However, Cinema Paradiso is another good one if words of few of my friends are anything to go by.

I do not go by the fact which site provides maximum number of titles. What is the point if you have more number of titles but what you want to see is not there? These are web based, you can check out the kind of movies you wish to watch and decide whether you want to take the membership or not. Makes sense?

Btw, did I tell how Bangalore is progressing backwards? The deadline for pubs/clubs to remain open is 11.30 PM, killing the nightlife. And, not many know that dancing here in pubs/clubs is banned. This wasn't enough that the show timings of the movies have been revised and the last show of the day will be screened at 8 PM. Can anyone beat that? The last show here till now started by 10 PM and in order to reduce the crime (words of Shankar Bidari, Bangalore Police Commissioner), they have decided to end the show at the most by 11 PM for which the show must be at 8. Now, is that rational? I do not even wish to get into the pros and cons of this as I feel there are many people (working ones usually) who would prefer to go for late night show after day’s work. And if not just that, there could be hazaar other reasons. And why any reasons? Do not we have any say in anything? Ending up show 2 hours early than usual will reduce crime. Mashallah.