Posting the links for those who want to read them in order:

• 25-21
• 20-16
• 15-11
• 10-5
• 5-1

And finally, we have the very best, the ones that I have and will be playing over and over again, reliving the thrill a million times over.

#5. Kill Bill

I was unaware of who Quentin Tarantino was when I saw this trailer . Needless to say, all that changed fairly quickly. This trailer (and/or its music) has remained on my playlist even after all these years.

#4. The Fountain

There is something hauntingly beautiful about this trailer that makes me watch it again and again, and again…

#3. 9

Another playlist favourite. The music and the visuals are top-notch, and keep you coming back for one more look, every time.

#2. 300

“Spartans! Tonight, we dine.. in hell!!” .. An amazingly well-done trailer that is visually and aurally appealing on so many levels. The song.. the quotes.. everything about this was immensely memorable. Again, a playlist regular.

and, numero uno is…

#1. Sin City

I don’t have much to say except that I can watch this trailer in a loop for hours on end without getting bored. Seriously!!

#10. Batman Begins

Nolan managed to do the impossible – revive a franchise that was almost permanently killed off by one of the worst superhero movie ever made, Batman and Robin. This trailer erased any bad taste left by the previous one, rebooting the franchise in a darker, grittier (and much more realistic) world.

#9. The Departed

Having never seen Infernal Affairs, or any Scorcese movies, the trailer just blew my mind. The premise, the cast, the music. It was just .. ‘wow’! and, ‘Comfortably Numb’..

#8. The Dark Knight

The first look at Ledger’s Joker. An early glimpse at a movie that raised the bar in so many ways. All in all, all things considered, FANTASTIC!

#7. Spiderman WTC Trailer

Though the trailer (and the associated movie bits) were removed out of respect to the victims of 9/11, there couldn’t be a more fitting debut to a franchise that re-invigorated the superhero franchise in Hollywood, than this trailer. Miles ahead of the “alternate” trailer they came up with.

#6. Watchmen

A beautiful look at a visually astounding adaptation of one of the best graphical novels ever.

#15. Star Wars : Episode 1 : The Phantom Menace

Before you shout ‘Blasphemy!’, let me remind you that this is a list of memorable movie trailers and *not* movies. As forgettable as the movie was, the trailer of Episode One was spectacular, exciting both old and new fans, providing glimpes of the boy who would become Darth Vader, and the unforgettable Darth Maul. “Every saga must have a beginning…”

#14. Spiderman

This trailer ushered in (the movie that ushured in) the age of super-hero movies. Finally, a fitting, big screen adaptation of the beloved wall-crawler. Also, amazing music (Pompeii – during the latter half) by E.S. Posthumus.

#13. Superman Returns

This trailer actually got me excited, made me believe that a man could fly (again). Note the allusions to Christ in the trailer. However, the movie turned out to be quite the disappointment.

#12. The Matrix

A trailer that gave an exciting preview of one of the best movies of the 90s. Stunning, slick and exhilarating, the movie turned out to be every bit as awesome as the trailer portrayed.

#11. Mission Impossible

Before he became the object of much ridicule, Tom Cruise was an immensely popular star, and *this* is the one that established him as a A-list action hero.

#20. Rocky Balboa

Surprisingly, Stallone managed to make yet another movie in the Rocky franchise, and one that is heart-warming and memorable to boot. “I think there is still some stuff in the basement”.

#19. The Wrestler

Unsurprisingly, both this and Rocky rank similar, touching up on similar themes. However, Darren Aronofsky and Mickey Rourke manage to push the equally good trailer of Rocky down to #20.

#18. Lord of the Rings : The Return of the King

The trailer of a movie this awesome deserved to be higher up. However, the trailer doesn’t really stay as memorable once the movie is over, despite being an excellently edited one. For this reason, and this reason alone, it has fallen to #18.

#17. The Prestige

Nolan, Nolan, Nolan. You first blew me away with Batman Begins, and as I waited for The Dark Knight with bated breath, The Prestige trailer came out. Beautifully edited, with gripping music, and Christian Bale and Michael Caine,and Hugh Jackman. “Abracadabra”.

#16. American Beauty

Sigh. American Beauty remains one of the most beautiful movies I have seen and this trailer is directly responsible for making me want to watch the movie. Oh, and Baba O’Riley!!

Collecting movie trailers is one of the *very* few hobbies that I have (had in a long time). Memorable movie trailers are those which remain enjoyable even after we have seen the movie. So, I have decided to compile a list of my favourite movie trailers, reverse sorted by preference (though the rankings might not be very accurate for some)

#25. Broken Arrow

My first John Travolta movie. I was totally blown away (at that time) by the movie’s trailer – the uber-cool villain, the concept of a ‘broken arrow’, the exhilarating stunt sequences. The #25 spot was a tie between this and Face/Off, but Broken Arrow managed to squeeze it out by a very slim margin.

#24. Rambo

The trailer gave a good glimpse of the return of Sylvester Stallone as an aging John Rambo. Despite his age, Rambo can still kick ass (slit, tear-out and butcher, to be more precise). The abundant blood, gore and brutal violence is what set this trailer apart from other “softer” ones.

#23. Troy

Always been a huge fan of Greek mythology. So, when I saw this trailer, with its stunning battle sequence, amazing dialogues (ok, I was a lot more impressionable then!), and a bad-ass Brad Pitt as Achilles, I was truly impressed and looked forward to the movie (though how *that* turned out is a whole other story).

#22. Inglourious Basterds

“You haven’t seen war until you have seen it through the eyes of Quentin Tarantino”. Though I am not a big fan of WW2 movies, the music and the premise impressed me, thus earning a spot on this list.

#21. The Notebook

Though the movie seems like yet another sappy love story, the trailer was beautifully edited, with a memorable voice-over.

I need to blog more often. I need to!

I will attempt to post more often – something, anything. Use this a little more and use Twitter a little less.

[Note that this is a re-post of a really old blog post of mine (on a secret blog, no less!) ]

I find myself metamorphosing into something harder and colder. No longer the romantic fool. No longer the playful child who stared awed at the world. No longer the fool who set out to conquer fate with the power of the heart. Humility. A lesson that was slapped onto my face. That man is NOT all conquering. That there are ALWAYS things bigger than you. I have stared at the stars many a time, feeling small, but with wonder. Now I feel small. Insignificant. If I can’t even control my own fate, how dare I be arrogant to think I can change the world.

I have been reclusive a lot in my life. Now it seems I am becoming more so. Social webs shrink unless you weave them often. Looks like I am drawing myself into a shell. Atleast the core of me is. There is a person before the eyes of the people I know. They see me. They do not see the inside of me. No one has ever. Not fully. Now I know, now I see, that it would forever remain that way.

I have stopped questioning why I am the way I am. I have changed bits and parts of me, but the core of me remains the same. Can I change it? Do I want to change it?

Surrounded by love, I know that this cynicism doesnt become me. Yet, there is more, there is more screaming within, than there is smiling without.

Why?

<geek mode alert!>

I have been musing a lot lately, regarding what would be the perfect operating system (IMO), or as  close as it could get. Here it is, in a not-so orderly manner, various characteristics, that I would desire, in my “perfect” operating system.

Kernel

• The kernel would be a microkernel, with everything from the drivers, to applications, running in userspace.
• I liked the idea of the re-incarnation server from Minix. Throw that in as well.
• Every system-critical binary (system files/drivers) will have a stable and a current version (known stable version and latest from repository), and re-incarnation server will automatically bring up the stable if the current crashes at any point.
• Obviously, it would be a 64-bit kernel, with software emulation of 128-bit data as well (not even sure if that makes sense here).
• The scheduler would automagically schedule tasks across CPUs as available. This might necessitate a different programming paradigm than one with a single entry point at main() (be it C/C++/Java.. etc) i.e. the user doesn’t explicitly specify threads or mandate scheduling stuff. He specifies tasks and transcations. Guess this deserves a post of its own.
• A display of VGA@16-bit would be assumed to be available by default. There is no reason for a “text  mode” boot with the DM switching it to a “graphics” mode later. The kernel would boot up and put the display into a VGA@16-bit mode with a graphical boot progress, with the DM switching over to a different resolution and display as and when he gets loaded. Possibly, the DM can enable the “proper” video driver on-the-fly before switching resolutions.

VM

• I personally favour Ruby over Python, but I accept that both are equally capable (with Python being more matured in comparison). That said, I still am gonna pick Ruby as the OS’s “native language”. For/against arguments for this decision are not in the scope of this discussion.
• The kernel would launch a VM, a Ruby VM, who would take care of the remaining “booting”.
• Possibly, derive inspirations from the Dalvik VM. Register-based. Opcode loading. Hmmm.. need to read up some stuff here.
• (Going against my initial impulses) application code would reside in their byte-code compiled forms, instead of .rb text files.
• Provide “compilers” for various languages which convert them to said bytecode. Python, Perl, Smalltalk, Java, Lisp etc. should be relatively easy. C, C++, Objective-C would be tougher, but possible (or so I believe).

Graphics sub-system

• A kick-ass software renderer. With the advent of multi-core CPUs, I think we could have a kick-ass software renderer. Will provide OpenGL as a wrapper over its “native” interface

Window Manager

• <many many thoughts upcoming here.. watch this space..>

System API

• Non-time critical “system” API would be exposed via IPC, possibly D-bus.  E.g. audio, telephony, location, etc.
• Time-critical “system” API would be exposed via library calls onto the VM. E.g. IPC mechanisms, filesystem access, graphics (??), timers, etc.

Applications

• Applications are sandboxed. Period. You can push messages to other applications via IPC but no direct access to another applications resources are allowed. Also to be taken, caged filesystem areas for each application, as well as a global repository (more on filesystems later).
• Central software repository. Catalogue/store application. Screenshots/reviews/ratings etc.
• Delivered as opcode-binaries. Source available for any OSS applications. Closed-source also possible.
• Capabilities. As in, security mechanism. There will be various capabilities and by default, an application will have only the bare-minimum (or logical minimum). Any action to be taken which needs greater capabilities, will throw a prompt for user-permission to continue (a la UAC). The user can configure an application to be “allowed” to do stuff (see Suite settings in Application Manager.. S60 5th Edition.. for Java apps) without prompting.

This post will be constantly updated. Stay tuned.