The beautiful 16-day Olympic dream came to an end on August 24, 2008 at the Bird’s Nest National Stadium. The world looked in awe as the poignant love story came to an end, bathed in a kaleidoscope of color with the mesmerizing dance patterns, breathtakingly spectacular choreography and grand fireworks.

The closing ceremony of one of the most remarkable Olympics the world has seen in recent times was an emotion filled affair. The celebration of unity, brotherhood of humanity and China’s reassertion that there is nothing impossible was all there for the crowd of more than 90,000 and the whole world to see.

The motto of the Olympics, “Higher, faster, stronger” was outlined in the best possibly way by the athletes, who surged ahead with their world-breaking sporting performances and by the host athletes, who showed excellence and dominance in such a way that they redefined the image of the communist nation internationally.

China was on top of the world and there was not a single soul that grudged them their success. For China, it was a journey of confidence and self-belief. The doubts had melted, leaving feelings of euphoria in their wake.

The IOC President Jacques Rogge declared the games closed with the words, “Tonight, we come to the end of 16 glorious days which we will cherish forever. Through these Games, the world learned more about China, and China learned more about the world. These were truly exceptional games.” (more…)

The hype around Christopher Nolan’s “The Dark Knight” even before its release was massive with speculation on whether the success of “Batman Begins” will be repeated. Luckily, this is one release that let everyone concerned heave a huge sigh of relief, as the movie far exceeded the high expectations.

The Dark Knight has outdone every other Batman movie with the superbly crafted scenes and memorable moments piecing the movie together.

Bruce Wayne, Batman (Christian Bale) teams up with the new District Attorney, Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) and James Gordon (Gary Oldman) to clean up the streets of Gotham and get rid of the evil that plagues it, by locking up criminals. A ray of hope begins to shine over Gotham until a vicious criminal mastermind, the Joker, enters the scene. Ironically, there is nothing funny about this “Joker.” The Joker (Heath Ledger) has plans of bringing more chaos to the already downtrodden city.

He plans to kill batman and makes an announcement to the city of Gotham that if Batman removes his mask and reveals himself, he would stop his games and killings. However, as long as Batman does not remove his mask, people continue to die due to the Joker’s sadistic killing methods of subjecting his victims to a slow and painful death.

Batman, in spite of his efforts to clear evil from Botham, is seen by many as a sort of a villain, and this feeling only intensifies with his refusal to give in to the Joker’s commands. They attribute the murders of important people to Batman. Batman is desperate to defeat the Joker and put a stop to him, but initially he has little success against the sadistic Joker. (more…)