Why The Dark Knight Rises failed

I saw The Dark Knight Rises. I wrote about my expectations earlier. This is my 2 cents on the movie.

It was ok. It’s not that the whole movie sucked (Marion Cotillard was hot and better than Maggie Gyllenhaal), I cheered for Batman to get out of the pit but that didn’t have to be Batman. It was more like a movie about the French Revolution with criminals. The comic superhero feel was lost in all the extended city-going-to-hell montage. It could have been a movie about cops and criminals without Batman (maybe John McLain? I’m kidding).

I think it was a good movie but not a good enough Batman movie. I’m not sure who is responsible for this,  Nolan or Batman. I think the dark and serious tone set for the movie did not allow for fancy stunt sequences like the ones from Avengers or Iron Man (by the way, Iron Man 2 sucked). But there still are ways to do dark-serious-action-stunts. I think the blame falls on Nolan for this one. While character development is great, Nolan tends to take a long time to explain every detail of the story and set up the characters, leaving little room for action.

Will I watch this again on DVD (Blu-ray is over rated)? I don’t know, may be. I hated Matrix when I first saw it but after watching a few times, it kind of grew on my. I know, its weird. I was hoping to see a Superman movie directed by Nolan someday, based on his work on Inception, I thought he might do well. Now that I’ve seen TDKR I am not so sure. He seems to stretch the material a little and I don’t want another Superman movie to suck. The old ones were bright and cheerful (the opposite of dark and brooding) and still kicked ass. I hope Man of Steel rocks.

Save Nokia - A simple plan

It’s not looking good for Nokia. They gambled and  put all their eggs in one basket. Microsoft screwed them and they will lose big time on Lumina 800. Every blog out there is predicting their downfall but I think they still have a chance. It won’t be easy but here’s the plan:

Hold hands with Android: You might be last to join the race but it will give you a fighting chance. Go for the low end and medium price segment, at first. Your brand recognition may help in these areas. Don’t skimp on the design.

Sue Microsoft for losses: Partners sue each other, it happens all the time with big corporations. Sure they might look like a sissy but if Oracle is not shy of suing Google, they shouldn’t be either. And fire your lawyers for not putting in a clause to safeguard against the Lumina 800 fiasco. Don’t drop MS, you can be frenemies and if it works out, you can be friends.

Diversify: This one is controversial. I know you have just started focusing on telecommunication in the last decade and Nokia-Siemens Network is not doing too well on profits. Push NSN to focus on profits and stop bleeding for them. As for Nokia, maybe it’s time to invest rather than acquire. Setup a venture fund and invest in mobile start ups. This will come with its own headaches but if you get the right guy for the job, it will pay off.

Cut the fat: Both NSN and Nokia are too big for their own good. You have to do more with less. I hate to say this but it means fewer plants and unfortunately, lesser staff which also includes the current CEO. Also things like Ovi store and completing with iTunes won’t work right now. Maybe you can try those when you have a pile of cash.

Infosys Executives perform better than Developers

Infosys is often touted as the software industry’s bellwether by the paid hacks at India’s largest newspaper/tabloid rag. It's top executives and head of verticals were considered to be thought leaders and with good reason, the HR and the rest of the executive team might fall short on many levels but they are one shrewd lot.

A few months back they announced that there would be no hikes for their employees. There was uproar, we had a town hall and heard the same old excuses. People went back to their cubicles. Once the employees had accepted their fate, we learnt that the management would get a hike. There was some more noise, but not as much I guess. I guess the management team is working harder than the employees and maybe they are performing better as well, which explains their hikes (even though our results argue otherwise). Since there was some noise, management scurried to make a press release denying the whole thing. Our management team is made of rock stars and they are taking a beating like the rest of us.

In 2008 we were told that we were experiencing a recession. Not to call them clueless but someone decided to go ahead and hire 30,000 graduates under those circumstances. I would have assumed that the management and HR are paid those huge salaries to plan for such situations and that any sane leader would fire the person who made that decision but that’s just me. Since we had to honor our commitment to these 30,000 new hires, we were told it would be a tough year and you know what that means. Just to be clear, I have no issues with these 30,000 new employees but with management’s arrogant attitude. History is being repeated now and management is getting a hike. While the rest of the employees had to scrape through that year, apparently the planet on which the management and the rest of the HR team operates, was not affected by recession which explains why our HR head - Nandita Gurjar’s salary almost doubled to approximately Rs.80,00,000 that year (this is based on data from the annual report). Maybe they need to catch up on their reading.

I am certain that our management will find creative ways of compensating themselves each year, whether we hear about it or not.

When your management thinks they are better than the developers, it might be time to find a better management to work for.

Why The Dark Knight Rises will be boring

I will probably be stoned for saying this but I got bored while watching The Dark Knight and I fear The Dark Knight Rises could have the same effect. The Dark Knight was so looonnng I was waiting for the credits! While I’m at it, let me also add that I got bored watching Inception.

I don’t have anything against Christopher Nolan. The guy is fantastic, I love his ideas, I hope to see more of his movies but I think he needs to let the editor do his job… or get a new editor. Both movies were longer than they needed to be. I think the whole joker-bomb-on-the-boat sequence could have been skipped. In case of Inception, he could have skipped the whole sequence on the snow capped mountain or cut it real short. These are extra/extended scenes that are best suited for DVD’s and Blu-ray. Fan love this shit and I am one, I’ve watched Batman Begins a million times but haven’t been able to sit through all of The Dark Knight again.

Since I’m going to hell, I might as well add that Maggie Gyllenhaal was disappointing as Rachel Dawes :( I wish they had someone else for that part.

I have a feeling that The Dark Knight Rises will be just as long but I’m hoping I will have the patience to sit through it.