Movie Review "There will be Blood"

Before I start posting heavily about B school stuff let me write a review about "There will be Blood" which I saw this past weekend.

Good things:
-Not sure if y'all like movies where acting is allowed to dominate narration and leave things for viewer interpretation. I have always been a big fan of such movies (Art too). And this is one such movie. Certain acts in the movie are islands which are not dwelt on too much but the effect is great. Powerful, to put in more grandiose words. For example, in the first 5-10 minutes of the movie there are no dialogues and there need not be-it was perfect. The story is nothing fabulous but you will still be fascinated. Screenplay is fabulous, actors are great in their roles, and locations are authentic or give an authentic feel. And dont be fooled by the title, in fact there is very little blood if any. This is not a voilent movie. Trust me.

Really Good things:
-Daniel Day Lewis. They might as well go ahead and give him the Oscar. He is into the role like you can't believe. The way he carries himself, the accent, the body language, the screen presence, everything is just right. I loved him in "In the name of Father" but this one's definetly a level above.

-Paul Dano (the kid from "Little Miss Sunshine") is perfect for his role too. Obviously he wouldn't hold a candle compared to DD Lewis but he held his own. This kid if he chooses his roles right will be a solid stay in Hollywood for quite some time.

-Almost all the actors in the movie performed well. I could not find one actor who was miscast.

Not so Good things:
-Could not find any.

Bottom line: Gripping tale about an Oilman who went ahead and did things his way regardless of the consequences.

Go watch it pronto!

MIT Sloan

Found out at 5 PM this evening that MIT Sloan has admitted me! yeah! Feels good to know that I will go to school someplace this Fall.

Off to celebrate now!

Decision Weekend

So, MIT Sloan releases their decisions for their Round 1 applications on Monday, Jan. 28. I am as I should be anxious about the decision. My prediction for Monday has been changing for the past week or so:

-Sometime this past Tuesday I had a strong feeling that I would be put on a waitlist (which is something that I would absolutely not want).

-Then suddenly this morning I woke up feeling that I am getting in.

Let's see how it turns out on Monday. Decisions will be posted by 5pm on Monday on their website. If admitted the person who interviewed me would place a phone call on Monday afternoon.

Will post on Monday.

whoaah! I didn't see this wave coming!

All of a sudden there are gazillion interesting articles in the FT, WSJ, and NYT about the distribution of wealth, politics, foreign policy, the economy, and religion. All of these topics that interest me quite a bit.

I forwarded the links to a few articles on Monday to a few of you guys. Here are two more from today: (Some of you may need registration to view these articles in their entirity. Email me if you would rather not. I can paste them in the email reply).

- Malaysia's Prime Minister had a cool article in the FT about Islam and how progressive Islamic nations can be. A definite worth-it read:
Muslim nations can pursue knowledge

-A Yale professor has an interesting take on the growing power of what he calls "State Capitalism". Interestingly with the middle east and Asian sovereign funds investing heavily in US financial firms now a few US "think tanks" are worried about its geo-political significance:
The unsettling zeitgeist of state capitalism

-This one is good too. I have always wondered this "What drives political leaders when they run for elections? Are they genuinely into serving people or is it just a case of narcissism?". Well, here is someone who thinks it is the latter:
Hillary Clinton and the thrill of political power

I have lots of things to say about these which I will write about later. Enjoy reading.

Is this it?

Here we are, in the second week of January 2008 and I am still not sure if I will be going to B school. I had hoped I would have atleast one admission by now but it has not worked out. I finished applying to Yale last week and am just about to finish submitting my NYU Stern application. So is this it? Am I done with my applications? Well, for now I think yeah. This should be. If I am not getting into any of the 5 schools that I have applied to, I see no point in applying to other Tier II schools. Will just wait to see what happens.

I gotto write about this though, I thought it was interesting that I received an email from one of my recommenders this evening. He just finished submitting his letter to NYU and then he wrote "I am sure there are lots of colleges in the US but I think I can't spare more time on this. I hope you understand". Whoa! Not sure where that came from! I mean really, I have been drafting most of my letters so that he does not have to spend more than an hour on the submission. I will put that down to Sunday evening, pre-Monday blues on his part. Anyway, this may be it so he can relax I guess.

So what else is going on:

-Watched the NFL playoffs this weekend. Happy that the Giants won. Also enjoyed watching Bret Favruh work his magic on Saturday. Should be a good Championship weekend next week.

-Have been trying to follow the Democratic primaries more closely-dont really know why? Some of my friends have told me how much they hate Hillary Clinton, I mean they really HATE her. Wow! Well, with South Carolin and Nevada coming up in the next few days, it will be an interesting week or so.

-I had my MIT Sloan interview this past week. I spent the past weekend in Cambridge/Boston and it felt great to be back in the Boston area. The interview itself went off well I thought. I was not satisfied with the way I answered 2 questions. The rest of the interview was good. My interviewer complimented about 3 times about my application and essays. Not a bad sign. But you never know with these schools. It all depends on the strength of the applicant pool. And if they have the guts to take a risk with a 30+ non-famous school graduate. Will find out on Monday, Jan 28.

-hey, how about the weather huh? Feels like Spring here in Philly!

-Oh yeah, that "There will be Blood" movie looks good. Gotto find some time to go watch it.

-And finally yes, I am still monitoring my stock picks. I will post about them in detail later.

later

hmmm...how much can the survey polls be trusted?

well, this sounds familiar does it not? Pre-primary polls getting it wrong in an election! Where have we heard that before? Happened again this week when all the so called political "pundits" claimed a landslide victory for Obama. Of course that did not happen. So, now I hear all the excuses for the wrong predictions:
-after noting that Obama would begin comfortably the independants went to vote to McCain instead
-some dude on TV said that "white people" often lie in polls surveys about voting for black candidates 'cause they want to be seen as politically correct
-Hillary Clinton's teary-eyed response on TV swayed the women in the 45+ age group

well, obviously it will be difficult to pin-point what the actual reason was, but I read an OpEd article on NYTimes by the director of Pew Research Center (PRC) which was interesting. Mind you the PRC is considered to be a tad "left-leaning". Regardless, an interesting article. Here is the link:
NYTimes: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/10/opinion/10kohut.html?em&ex=1200200400&en=052def808ec8ac80&ei=5087%0A

NH Primaries - Beginning of the End for the Senator from NY?

My predictions for the NH primaries today:

Elephant Party
1. John McCain
2. Mitt Romney
3. Mike Huckabee

Donkey Party
1. Barack Obama
2. Hillary Clinton
3. John Edwards

Corn(state)holio!

So, the election season begins this evening in Iowa. Like any source of entertainment it would not be fair if we do not do the pre-season predictions. Yeah, I know there are multiple sources who claim to predict how everyone is going to do and what have you but I have the most reliable source right here: my gut feeling! Here goes, my predictions for Iowa:

Iowa Caucuses 2008

The Donkey Party
1. Barack Obama
2. Hillary Clinton
3. John Edwards


The Elephant Party
1. Mike Huckabee
2. Mitt Romney
3. Fred Thompson


I will continue to do this until the nominations for each party are decided (effectively) in February.

Y'all have any predictions?