The Fine Young Cannibals were an early 80s British pop-rock group. This song of theirs is the most anthologised- She Drives Me Crazy circa 1988.
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Music has *always* been a part of my home. Later on when I moved out of home and started living on my own; it became more so.
The last few days I’ve been down Nostalgia Lane and there’s always been a soundtrack or two or ten running in the background. So this is it…the new series: Songs Of My Youth. With a new song featured everyday till I run out of steam or get bored of this and start on something else.
Let the music play!
Londonbeat are a British pop band who scored a couple of chart toppers in the early 1990s.
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The word solitude often conjures up images and notions of being lonely and morose but that’s far from the truth. The word is derived from the Latin word ‘solus‘ meaning alone but as many of us have discovered, alone does not necessarily equal being lonely.
Our lives, even the ones orchestrated and managed by us, can accumulate a lot of noise.
The daily dances we do with our family, friends, colleagues and everyone else can and does cause a lot of sensory overload. And sleeping on it doesn’t always prove adequate either. Imagine if all it took for our stresses and stressors to get wiped out was by a few nights of sound sleep, the world would be a better place all around!
Owning your solitude doesn’t need one to excise themselves from their family and daily lives in a drastic way but the first thing to do is accept if you genuinely want to see where it could lead.
It may not be something that you are cut out for; you might be able to recharge yourself better while in the midst of a group of people or more high octane activities. ‘You do you‘ being the mantra that gets doled out more frequently these days and it actually does make quite a bit of sense.
But when taking stock of life and the responsibilities that each individual takes one; willingly or unwillingly, it is often necessary to have the time and place where you give yourself the gift of solitude. It could from meditation, trips far from the madding crowd or just carving out a bit of time for yourself where your mind isn’t running to-do lists all day long and you can just BE.
As we grow older, the need to know oneself better becomes imperative and the ways of doing this may be varied but still need to be prioritized for our own wellness. If solitude is what beckons to you, don’t turn away from it…it could lead to rejuvenation, realization and a much-needed release.
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If I was being pithy, I’d say that the Lost Kingdom should’ve stayed lost! Jason Momoa becomes terribly typecast with his tattoos, wild hair and overall untamed look but there’s a shift from the Arthur Curry he played in the first standalone Aquaman movie to this one. He’s indolent, his acting is subpar and he’s just sleep walking his way through the entire movie. His chemistry is off with everyone- the female lead, the other supporting actors; the movie is just a mess that never should have been made.
After the events shown in the first movie, Arthur is now a husband (Amber Heard got herself another tattooed, bearded drinker who mouths off) and a father. He also falls asleep during the terribly important and utterly dull duties that have befallen the King of Atlantis. So while he moans and groans and whines his way through the council meetings, never does he think about conceding power to anyone else because he’s so damn hung up on duty.
Patrick Wilson is slightly more believable as the erstwhile powerful Ocean Master, now imprisoned for his hubris and crimes against Arthur and joining hands with Manta. But even then, an actor can only do so much with the role they are playing if the dialogues are hokey, cheesy, OTT and utterly predictable.
Amber Heard gets to show off her figure in the figure-hugging bodysuit but does little else because Aquaman is a boys’ movie all the way. She is incapacitated fairly early on in the movie and spends her time recovering and showing up in little cameos along with Nicole Kidman who also does justice to her bodysuit but not much else.
Yahya Abdul Mateen is wasted in the role of Black Manta. When a movie is being prepared for a sequel and the supervillain and the superhero will go head-to-head in what is surely going to be a fight-to-the-death kind of a situation, the action scenes, the dialogues and the overall vibe of the movie need to be on point! Which this movie sadly was not.
Aquaman 2 is droll and will appeal only to the die-hard fans of the superhero genre aka teenage boys and other less-discerning mortals. Save your money and wait for it to premier on an OTT platform. Watching it in the theaters and in 3D no less, isn’t worth wasting the money.
