Runaway (Airhead # 3)

Book Two( Being Nikki (Airhead #2)) ended with Em Watts getting a nasty surprise. Like having your brain transplanted into the body of beautiful but less-than-congenial supermodel - Nikki Howards wasn’t bad enough, Em discovered that Nikki’s brain was very much functional and it had been transplanted into the body of an average teenage girl. The original Nikki had overheard a secret about Stark Enterprises which had led to her so-called “accident”. To discover the secret and keep all the fugitives safe, Em is now forced to accompany the obnoxious Brandon Stark (Stark Ent. Owner, Robert Stark’s son) and convince all, including Christopher (the love of her life) that she is Brandon’s girlfriend.

So now, Christopher is spitting-mad at Em. Sleazy Brandon is doing a fantastic impression of an all-hands octopus. The original Nikki has decided that she wants her old life back and insists on another brain-transplant operation to be done with Em. And the group of reluctant sleuths have yet to figure out the deep, dark secret that led to Nikki’s accident (read : murder).

In a race against time, obnoxious teens and boyfriends who morph into super-villains, Em Watts has her job cut out. Is she ready to give up the Size Zero, porcelain-perfect body that she had despised until now? All this and much more in Cabot’s engaging finale to the Airhead series.

Again, I reiterate my earlier claim that Meg Cabot is comfort food for the soul. I love her rambling writing style, the manner in which she pops in juicy gossip slap-bang in the middle of a tenuous situation and her utter enchantment with New York City which shines through in all her books.

Fun, whacky and with a female lead who is an endearing blend of ditzy teenager and woman-girl ready to take on the world.

See also : Airhead (Airhead # 1)

Airhead (Airhead #2) : Being Nikki

Being Nikki (Airhead # 2)

In Book One (Airhead (Airhead #1)) all-around reject and class geek Em Watts died in a freak accident. But her brain was still functioning. And said brain was transplanted into the body of teen supermodel Nikki Howards’ body (who was also present at the time of the accident). Nikki Howards was the brand ambassador and *Face* of Stark Enterprises; the company which conveniently enough, conducted the brain-transplant operation.

Now...in Book Two, Em is well and truly entrenched in a supermodel’s Size Zero body . Life is a dizzying whirl of killer heels, designer togs, amorous boyfriends popping out of the woodwork and fashion-shows where she might have to prance about in nothing more than the bare essential bits o' clothing. And while her brain may belong to a hoodie-wearing brainiac, her body and it’s reactions are(unfortunately and promiscuously) all Nikki!

While she has been forced to keep mum on the whole brain-transplant operation, she uncovers a few mysteries that threaten to burst upon secrets, whether Stark wants them to or not. Suddenly she discovers an elder brother, a missing mother and a revamped Christopher (the unrequited love of Em's life) who seems have gone from mild schoolboy to super-villian intent on avenging Em’s untimely death.

Meg Cabot’s sequel is funny, well-paced and quite the page turner. I read this book on the same day that I watched Inception…so what with the sub-conscious invasions to the brain transplants, you can just imagine the crazy, Burtonesque dreams that I had last night!

See also : Airhead (Airhead #2) : Being Nikki

INCEPTION

All you toffee-nosed intellectuals, mega-brains and (questionable) descendants of Einstein….let me know if you “get” the entire movie the first time you watched it. Me, I had gone armed with Wikipedia’s cut-by-cut plot breakdown and my friend had been well infused by her husband's seen-it-the-day-before review. And despite our respective revisions, it took us some time to grasp the madly spinning plot.

Dom Cobb (Leonardo Di Caprio) is an espionage agent with a difference. He is an extractor: a person who can enter into the dreams of others and extract hitherto inaccessible information. But this ability has cost him dearly. He has lost his wife – Mal (Marion Cotillard), isn’t allowed access to his children and has been banned from his home-country.

However he gets a chance to alter this bleak scenario when a client – Saito (Ken Watanabe) has a new job for him…a job with a twist. Instead of extracting ideas, Cobb will now have to implant an idea into the mind of Saito’s business rival’s son, Robert Fischer (Cillian Murphy). The job is to enter Fischer’s mind and plant the seed of an idea which will make him dismantle his father’s business and thereby prevent it from becoming a Global Energy monopoly.While Cobb’s right-hand man, Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is sceptical, Cobb agrees since he has done it before.

And thus begins the heist of unimaginable boundaries with a team comprising of:
~ Cobb – The ‘Inceptor’
~ Arthur – the Point-Man
~ Ariadne (Ellen Page) – the architect who will construct the world of the dream.
~ Eames (Tom Hardy) – a ‘Forger’ who will take on the identity of a target in the dream-world as and when required
~ Yusuf (Dileep Rao) – the chemist who formulates the sedatives needed to transcend different layers of the dreams.

A plan takes shape with the best minds at work, but no one has accounted for Cobb’s personal demons …..the dreams…the memories which he has buried deep in his sub-conscious…..dreams that intrude in the form of his late-wife, Mal....Mal who has the ability to put a massive spoke in the plans.

What follows is a tantalizing maze of shifting dream worlds….a sub-conscious labyrinth where dreams nest within dreams and no part of the brain is safe from invasion. But co-existing with supreme intelligence is also the Achilles’ heel of emotions. Cobb may formulate the best and most intricate of plans. But what happens when his dead wife makes an unwelcome entry into his job area….his simulated dream world….and wrecks untold havoc?

Moreover is Fischer’s mind so easily penetrable as the team has assumed? Will his mind not throw up antibodies to resist the invasion?

The movie isn’t only about the actors. It’s more about an ingenious plot….a wholly original concept that hasn’t been on the screen till now. Christopher Nolan has presented a movie that befuddles, shocks, awes, amazes and leaves you scratching your head in bemusement.

I had to come back and read trusty ol’Wikipedia’s monologue on the plot (again!!!)to understand what I just saw. And read it, you must….to understand how Nolan executed a venture that was ten years in the making.

INCEPTION is all about astounding sfx, commendable acting, fast-paced sequences and the biggest strength of it all: An Idea