Data collection for thesis : Pointers, Insights, Dos and Don'ts

One of my frequent collaborators has had some interesting - bordering on exasperating - experiences while she has been on a survey spree. She took the trouble to distil the essence of her acquired wisdom in order to provide insights into what to anticipate while gathering data for your thesis and pointers on how to manage exigencies. This should be extremely valuable to doctoral students, PhDs-in-the-making who are embarking on this venture.


While it helps to be structured and have a robust plan of action, you should be prepared to encounter uncertainty and bucket loads of frustration on a near daily basis. The key to not go insane, while watching your non-progressing Gantt Chart, is to be flexible and keep your eyes on the prize. Big picture. Perspective. Hold on tight to your copy of Murphy's laws.


Read her views at
http://mitushispeak.wordpress.com/2011/11/28/data-collection-woes-some-dos-donts/

Movie Review : The Sorcerer and the White Snake (2011)

Don’t be fooled by name into thinking that this yet another cheesy Chinese take on a Hercules/Xena-Warrior Princess mythic storyline. This is a truly epic, awesome fairytale and totally in sync with what I think a fantasy film ought to be. There are monsters, super powers, epic battles, force fields and kungfu.

Abott Fahai is a demon slayer who, along with his disciple, wanders the countryside looking for devious demons to capture. His chief weapons are his faith and his rosary although he is pretty mean with knives, axes and cloaks as well. His idea of torture for the demons that he has captured is, funnily enough, a strict course of meditation and repentance within a cool containment unit in his monastery. When he encounters a simple village medic and his wife, he cannot control himself from unmasking the woman as a demon and sets off a chain of tragic events.

I won’t give away the plot too much, simply because it is so much fun to watch the action unfold. There are no limits to imagination here and while this freedom is not completely capitalized on, it is an exciting roller coaster for the viewer.

One could get into analysis of the underlying themes here, the more obvious one being a greater need for humans to control their meddlesome intentions and controlling urges in relation to the environment and animals. Had the abbot not interfered with the harmless White Snake, the ensuing tragedy would have been averted. Ultimately, the very demon that he despises comes to his aid.

The other undercurrent in the movie is its slant towards misogyny. It doesn’t help that the majority of demons are in female form as temptresses, seducing the men to their doom. We don’t see any women victims either. Even White Snake is fairly uninhibited and sexually aggressive. Clearly the female form represents desire-slash-evil and the abbot-slash-religion is the instrument to curb and subdue their natural selves. White Snake meditates for over a thousand years and is a higher being –in the grand scheme of things - than the mortal abbot. Yet for all her cool, magical powers and sheer force of might, she must suppress her wild nature and ‘accept’ religion in order to truly redeem herself. All this is when the abbot forces his way into her life even though she is not really causing much harm. Despite that, when she finally breaks down and ‘admits’ to her ‘sins’, she is ‘rewarded’ with separation from her beau. Woman, suffering shall be thy lot.

One doesn’t really know if these were unintentional because an adventure film such as this usually doesn’t descend into moralizing. I should like to put that down to my over-trained brain, because I really liked the film.

The movie is awash with digital effects, not all rendered very nicely, especially towards the climax. There is an adorable talking mouse though. Even the wirework can get excessive – though I can’t really stomach ANY wirework in a movie.

Based on looks alone, the willowy Eva Huang shouldn’t have made the cut. However, she is a surprise package. After a few initial awkward scenes of frolicking in the meadows, she gets into the skin of the character and is alternately vengeful and loving as the script demands. She is given a meaty role and is more than a match for Jet Li.

Jet Li has never been famed for his acting prowess. He is given a less demanding role here. As the wry, duty bound, stern demon-slayer-abbot, he is in his comfort zone. He looks the part and completely kicks butt with his own brand of action.

Raymond Lam’s role is undemanding and he is required mainly to play a good-natured foil to both Jet Li and Eva Huang.

Charlene Choi and Wen Zhang have strong supporting roles and I found myself rooting more for this couple than for White Snake and Xu Xian.

In order to make it a truly perfect film (for myself), I would have snipped the ending by about 10-15 minutes. I don’t really subscribe to the (Chinese) view that an individual’s tortuous route to salvation needs to be depicted in excruciatingly, torturous detail. By the time the abbot and White Snake get into their self-actualization states, I was rolling my eyes ready to scream ‘Yes! I get it! Enlightenment has found them”

I would have also changed the ending because COME ON! How could you not.?

However, you get your money’s worth and more with this movie. There is something for everyone and I can’t urge you enough to go have a look.

One of the best entertainers of 2011.

Movie Review : I Don't Know How She Does It (2011)

Often, the appeal of a film lies less in itself and more in the viewer’s viewing circumstances. You could watch a well made movie – Jane Eyre (2011) comes to mind – and find it uninteresting because you were thinking of the next day’s work deliverables to send out while gingerly massaging that sore point on your spine that was throbbing a little too much after driving over dust paths and rocks to reach your remote factory site. May be that was just me.

Or you could watch ‘The House Bunny’ and LOVE it just because you had a wonderful day and it was a good way to end it with a bunch of laughs. Again this could is a specific personal circumstance.

Hence, I must be indulged when I say that IDKHSDI is a good example of the latter. Having not watched a movie for a long time (a week IS a long time for me), I popped this into the video player with trepidation. Reviews have been overwhelmingly negative, even for a chick flick.

The movie is based on a bestseller chick lit of the same name, hardly a seminal look at women’s travails at balancing family and career demands when published in 2002. With zero to negative expectations, I warmed to the plot and found myself suitably invested in Kate’s problems and her self-inflicted pressures to be everything to everyone.

Kate Reddy is pitching a major investment fund idea to her bosses and she must juggle her increased workload and ensuing travel with the demands of her husband and two little children. No surprises here, there are a couple of obstacles but all goes well and Kate ends up with a promotion AND more family time.

Sarah Jessica Parker is her usual anxious-to-please, likable self here. Forever stuck in Carrie Bradshaw mode, she really seems to have no other approach to playing her characters - which is not really a bad thing. She doesn’t usually feature in intellectually stimulating fare anyway, so when you watch anything that she features in, you know what you are getting yourself into. Here she licks batter off her cardigan, frantically scratches her lice-infested scalp (very realistically I may add), goes bowling in a frock and generally saves the day. The aging process isn’t being kind to her though and she looks a little too haggard here. 

Christina Hendricks is the obligatory best friend and Olivia Munn is the stereotypical, driven career-woman. Both are cardboard cutout characters, but the roles clearly are good breaks from their television day jobs for both actresses.

Greg Kinnear and Pierce Brosnan are oh-so-good eye candy. They just seem a little too much for the roles. In a chick flick and SJP vehicle, the men don’t really matter as long as they are hunky and appear suitably impressed and charmed by the female lead’s – often ditzy – antics.

It’s meant to be a comedy but is not very funny. I did smile a bit – more at the moviemakers’ attempts to accurately portray a corporate, investment banker feel by randomly dropping jargon all over the place. Having the actors constantly break the fourth wall was something I didn’t really like as well. I associate that tactic more with television and combining that with SJP, made the movie seem like back-to-back episodes of some a generic TV Show.

In all, it is rather mind numbing and cliché ridden, but it is 90 minutes of watching SJP prance around doing her thing. There are worse ways to spend your time.

Movie Review : Rockstar (2011)

Janardhan Jhakad wants to be a musician and a legendary one at that. While his talent is unmistakable, his music has neither soul nor passion in it. His friend/manager muses that unless he experiences pain and tragedy, his music will never have the necessary fuel to rise above the ordinary. Janardhan/Jordan sets out to seek heartbreak - and finds it in spades. He loses most everything that he takes for granted – family, livelihood, love – and, in one touching scene, realises that music alone is his salvation if he chooses to give it his all. Yet, when he fulfills his dream, he also realizes that he would give up everything in the blink of an eye for love.

Rockstar aims to be a blend of a love story and a look at what drives talent to succeed and get enmeshed in the trappings of success. The first half takes a look at how Jordan finds his muse and sets about on his calling. The second half is a chaotic mess as we watch how he copes with loss and sorrows, even as his star is on the rise.

It is difficult to reconcile the boy who has known rejection and privation with the rockstar who repeatedly looks a gift horse in the mouth. Sure, human beings are complex characters, yet here we are not treated to sensitive insights on why this man is so. Jordan doesn’t mature over the better part of three years or come to terms with life and too often he resorts to venting his frustration through being rude, violent and destructive. Yet, the lingering question is - does the pain experienced at being unlucky in love truly warrant such a crude display of bad-boy behavior? One too many times we are left with the feeling that a silly, self-centered, rebel-without-a-cause, man-child is posing for the cameras.

The pain he feels doesn’t appear to translate into markedly better music or better writing either. We think of him as less of a musical genius and more of a well marketed artist. As the music company owner declares, ‘image’ matters more than talent, and Jordan’s fame is fed by photo shoots and media coverage of his ‘rebellious’ behavior.

The female lead, Heer is meant to be the epitome of femininity and passion. She comes across as parasitic, selfish, bored and under sexed. The antics that appear quirky, free spirited and rebellious for a college girl simply appear weird for a, presumably happily, married woman. We are not given to understand what exactly she is looking for and why she re-bonds with Jordan who is boorish and earthy when compared to her suave, affluent, understanding husband. If she seeks him out for his ardor, she has few qualms about letting him go and getting on with her life. Effectively, she seems to be looking to have the best of both worlds – hardly an ideal muse for a sweeping love story.

The reason the script begets a deeper look is due to Imtiaz Ali’s name being attached here. He has proven himself to be adept at delivering fresh, intelligent, commercial cinema with well fleshed characters. Here he chooses to ride on the goodwill he has garnered till date by filming a patchy, uneven script populated with unlikable people who are difficult to empathize or sympathize with.

For a musical, the score is a major disappointment. Except for the epic ‘Sadda haq’ the other songs are forgettable.

Nargis Fakhri is lovely, but she is no actress. She must be fortune’s favourite child since there can be no other explanation for her landing the lead role in the face of all the home grown talent that can act in circles all around her.

Ranbir Kapoor is a revelation. He switches between shy, charming, dashing, rebellious, arrogant, spoilt, petulant and charismatic at the drop of a hat. This is his show all the way because Imtiaz Ali mislaid his thinking cap somewhere.

Considering the quality of talent attached to this movie, this was a potential classic in the making. Ideally it should have been a unique affair that could hold its own, anywhere and anytime; it feels immensely disappointing to recommend this movie only because it is a better film when compared to the stuff churned out recently.

Movie Review : Dzhentlmeny udachi / Gentlemen of Fortune (1972)

Studio Mosfilm’s 1972 comedy Dzhentlmeny udachi was a massive blockbuster on release. Now a Russian classic, it deals with the shenanigans of a group of thieves - gentlemen of fortune - who must relocate an object that their gang leader has hidden away.

A bunch of small time crooks steal an artifact – a helmet belonging to Alexander the Great - from the site of an archeological excavation. They are captured by the police who have a tough time getting the leader to reveal any information about the priceless artifact. They send in a doppelganger of the leader to impersonate him and extract information from his henchmen regarding the whereabouts of the stolen object. The imposter, who is really a soft spoken kindergarten teacher, must adopt the mannerisms and language of petty criminals in order to successfully find the relic. He pretends to have lost his memory and stages a jailbreak. On the way he realizes that ‘his’ henchmen are really simple folk who don't necessarily relish a life of crime and sets about to reform and rehabilitate them.

The movie is primarily a comedy but there are a few dark moments – the most of serious of which occurs when the troubled Gavrila realizes he has let his family down and attempts suicide believing he is beyond redemption. The distinguished looking Georgy Vitsin, who plays Gavrila, brings the despair of the character to the surface. It is an uncomfortable scene for the viewer.

Yevgeny Leonov plays the dual roles of the nasty gang leader and the genial school teacher. He transforms from a kindly character to a sneering, scheming brute with aplomb. He must constantly struggle to maintain the façade of the tough criminal for his increasingly suspicious henchmen and these situations make for funny sequences.

Yet again, this is a movie where familiarity with the native language will make or break the deal. There is little slapstick and only Russian language speakers will appreciate the slang and street language that is generally lauded as the highlight of this film.

Even if you must resort to the subtitles to understand it, this is a pleasant, old fashioned entertainer to while away an afternoon with.

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Movie Review : Snow Flower and the Secret Fan (2011)

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan is an exotic tale of friendship between two girls in China. The relationship is initiated formally by their families and the girls themselves continue to nurture the friendship despite their lives leading them on different paths. At its core it’s a tale of a relationship that doesn’t always survive human failings. We are given fascinating insights into the lives of 19^th century women in rural China with glimpses into food, clothing, travel, rituals, ceremonies, songs and of course, the secret language of nu shu. The women must come to terms with their lives. They are constantly on edge, trying to navigate a complex web of relationships that bring much heartache but simply cannot be broken.

It's plain to see that the filmmakers were also enthralled by the story. So much so, that they decided to have it repeated TWICE in the movie – one is the original tale and the other is set in contemporary Shanghai. The same actresses portray both sets of laotong (sworn sisters).

Lily is born into a poor family. Based on the size and quality of her feet after the process of foot binding and also as predicted by the stars, she is destined to marry well and have a happy, prosperous life. In order to kick start her good fortune, she is contractually bound as a laotong to Snow Flower, a girl from an affluent family.

The girls grow to love each other dearly and strive to stay close even when Lily is married into a wealthy family and Snow Flower is wed to a lowly butcher.

It may be unfair to compare the movie to the book. Perhaps if you watch the movie without having read it, you might enjoy it. However, having watched the movie with the mater (who hadn’t read the book) I find that unlikely.

Comparisons to Memoirs of a Geisha are inevitable. The mater found that movie and her subsequent perusal of the book to be vastly enjoyable. This movie didn’t really pique her interest to have a go at the source material. That’s due to the fact that most of the elements that added to the pleasure of the book have been omitted here.

Many of the important characters are given little screen time. The mothers of both girls, their catty mothers-in-law and the matchmaker form a little society of women that keep driving the girls up the wall and pushing them closer, seeking unconditional trust and companionship in each other. All these people are reduced to walk-on appearances in the movie.

The little pleasures each girl derives from the other's company, their annual visit to the temple and fair, Snow Flower’s training in household chores, Lily’s awe of Snow Flower, her horror at the pathetic circumstances that her friend is reduced to and her subsequent rejection of Snow Flower, Lily's inability to derive love and comfort from her gentle husband in stark contrast to Snow Flower's devotion to her brutish spouse, their awful experiences while exiled in the mountains during the rebellion and Snow Flower’s gradual decline into depression on the death of her son are all glossed over when truly, these elements formed the backbone of the story.

Instead we are treated to numerous close ups of the leads staring pensively into space as generic music plays in the background.  Three writers have been credited with the screenplay – is this heavily condensed version the best they could come up with for a movie adaptation? It plays like an extended slideshow.

Li Bingbing looks a little old to play Lily/Nina in the characters’ younger years. She has to steer the movie and puts up a good show while playing the long-suffering girl who must look out for her friend.

Gianna Jun is wet-eyed and demure as the tragic Snow Flower but annoying and self-absorbed as Sophia.

Hugh Jackman has an unnecessary cameo as Arthur. If you can be satisfied with that sort of thing, he sings in English and Chinese and looks handsome in a suit.

My opinion of this movie may be colored due to already having read the book. A friend who judged the movie on its own merits, found it appealing. It is possible that the filmmakers wanted this movie to appeal to both Western and Chinese audiences; hence the dual track. So go ahead and have your own take on this.

Watch for exotic elements and a nice story about friendship and sacrifice. 

But read the book for a better experience.

Movie Review :The Green Lantern (2011)

O Green Lantern team! How you have squandered the budget that was so generously made available you and in an economic downturn to boot. Had the cash been charred in a tragic fire instead of being blown up on this, the world would be in the exact same state. Excluding the heartburn of the producers who threw money at this venture, the film makes nary an impression on anyone.

I must rewrite the story after referring Wikipedia since I have already forgotten it. While, I wouldn’t want to ruin this expensively mounted project for you, simply put, there’s a giant, smoke-octopus that induces fear in good people and eats them. So ‘The Chosen One’ Hal Jordan must fly his aeroplane, help Carol Ferris sell the plane, think back upon his life and kill the octopus by luring it into the sun. And then every body across the universe wants to be his friend. Well, it may be not as bad as that but does feel like it.

Ryan Reynolds is not a big enough star to carry the weight of this mega-production on his shoulders. He smirks, rolls his eyes, acts macho, mouths unmemorable lines and generally behaves like he is in a Top Gun themed sitcom.

Blake Lively is comparatively more comfortable in her role as a test pilot turned businesswoman. 

Peter Sarsgaard was intense and made me feel like he was in a different movie from all the other characters.

Tim Robbins and Angela Bassett are clearly feeling the pinch of the recession having signed on for the pay cheque only.

The visual effects are lovingly rendered – barring the octopus. The travel across the galaxies was fun. The gadgets and aircraft look cool. The octopus, however, is a laugh. It’s just some gas with beady eyes……er smoke, fiery rage in threatening dark cloud format.

It is truly puzzling as to why studios are unable to take a brand that has lasted 60+ years in a visual form, albeit amidst a niche audience, and make a sufficiently exciting popcorn adventure movie.

If I had a penny for every time the death of Bruce Wayne’s parents was rehashed in ANY medium….er I’d have 50 pennies or more. But that’s not my point. Bruce Wayne entertains across comics, movies, TV and video games. That’s not due to the fan relating to a guilt ridden millionaire who plays with expensive toys and has a butler for taking care of his chores. Batman simply works (most of the time anyway) due to smart writing that creates innumerable, interesting variants of the same tale - across media. An exercise that the owners of the Green Lantern brand cruelly compromised on with this movie.

A sequel is unlikely. 10 years down the line, expect a ‘reboot’. The reboot could even take place next year though. No one will remember this one anyway.

Can watch if you have medium-low expectations.

Samsung Galaxy Ace - Screen Capture

In order to take a screen capture on your Ace

1. Click and hold the 'Back' button
2. Simultaneously press the 'Menu'
3. A popup announces that the screenshot has been taken and saved as an image file.
4. Navigate to the 'My Files' folder and locate a newly created folder called 'ScreenCapture' on the SD Card. You will find your screenshot in there.

This will work only on static screens. If you are in the middle of a game (Fruit Ninja!!) and press the 'Back' key, it will likely return to the main menu of the game and not provide an opportunity to press the Menu button. 

You can find apps (mostly paid) on the Market that will help you take screenshots of games. 
Look around and have fun!