Entertainment
‘While We’re Young’ – amusing mid-life crisis
Film: “While We’re Young”; Cast: Ben Stiller, Naomi Watts, Adam Driver, Amanda Seyfried, Charles Grodin, Maria Dizzia and Adam Horowitz; Director: Noah Baumbach; Rating: ***
Naoh Baumbach’s “While We’re Young” is a slice of life film that deals with the inevitable truth of life — youth and old age. It is a film about mid-life crisis of Josh and Cornelia — the protagonists. The film portrays each perspective effectively with striking characters that are relatable as they are caught up in their predicaments.
Treated as a light comedy, it is the tale of Josh, a documentary filmmaker-cum-professor and his wife Cornelia, who happens to be a documentary film producer working for her father, a seasoned filmmaker, Leslie Breitbart. The couple, childless and in their mid-40s, are in a happy zone doing their own stuff at their pace.
Professionally, Josh has been engrossed with his ambitious project for over a decade and has no intention of wrapping it up.
Their lives cross path with Jamie and Darby, a young couple in their mid-20s, who attend Josh’s lecture. Jamie is an aspiring filmmaker and his wife is an entrepreneur. Soon a mentor-mentee relationship is formed. Josh and Cornelia find themselves weaning away from their friends and peers as they spend time with the youngsters and their circle of friends. This, they find reinvigorating and exciting.
Josh helps Jamie with his documentary. But soon, Josh, the perfectionist, finds himself questioning Jamie’s method of functioning and debates on the ethics between the generations.
What makes the film exceptional is the detailing in the script. The scenes and characterisation bear testimony to the director’s keen power of observation. He makes you notice the minute elements and undercurrents of the relationships. Whether it’s the shortcuts Jamie takes as a filmmaker that infuriates Josh and his blatant acceptance of his insincerity, or Darby’s strange affirmation as a self-defense mechanism — the manner in which theses skillfully crafted characters are interwoven is impressive.
Humour is witnessed in the form of innocuous dialogues that hit a tangent.
On the acting front, director Noah Baumbach extracts brilliant performances from his cast. Ben Stiller as Josh and Naomi Watts as Cornelia are convincing. They have a flare for comedy, which can be noticed in spurts. But unfortunately, the comic quotient in the script is weak and hence their potential is not exploited to the fullest.
With his boyish charm and an overtly off-hand demeanour, Adam Driver portrays Jamie to perfection. With no fault of his, he is irritating to an extent that provokes you to detest his character. Amanda Seyfried aptly supports him.
Technically, the film is well presented except for a few jerky transitions and bleeps imposed by the Indian censor board which mar the viewing experience.
Overall, the film is amusing and will appeal to an older audience with a bohemian attitude who is willing to learn and unlearn about life.
International online casino Casino Days has published a report sharing their internal data on what types and brands of devices are used to play on the platform by users from the South Asian region.
Such aggregate data analyses allow the operator to optimise their website for the brands and models of devices people are actually using.
The insights gained through the research also help Casino Days tailor their services based on the better understanding of their clients and their needs.
Desktops and Tablets Lose the Battle vs Mobile
The primary data samples analysed by Casino Days reveal that mobile connections dominate the market in South Asia and are responsible for a whopping 96.6% of gaming sessions, while computers and tablets have negligible shares of 2.9% and 0.5% respectively.
The authors of the study point out that historically, playing online casino was exclusively done on computers, and attribute thе major shift to mobile that has unfolded over time to the wide spread of cheaper smartphones and mobile data plans in South Asia.
“Some of the reasons behind this massive difference in device type are affordability, technical advantages, as well as cheaper and more obtainable internet plans for mobiles than those for computers,” the researchers comment.
Xiaomi and Vivo Outperform Samsung, Apple Way Down in Rankings
Chinese brands Xiaomi and Vivo were used by 21.9% and 20.79% of Casino Days players from South Asia respectively, and together with the positioned in third place with a 18.1% share South Korean brand Samsung dominate the market among real money gamers in the region.
Cupertino, California-based Apple is way down in seventh with a user share of just 2.29%, overshadowed by Chinese brands Realme (11.43%), OPPO (11.23%), and OnePlus (4.07%).
Huawei is at the very bottom of the chart with a tiny share just below the single percent mark, trailing behind mobile devices by Motorola, Google, and Infinix.
The data on actual phone usage provided by Casino Days, even though limited to the gaming parts of the population of South Asia, paints a different picture from global statistics on smartphone shipments by vendors.
Apple and Samsung have been sharing the worldwide lead for over a decade, while current regional leader Xiaomi secured their third position globally just a couple of years ago.
Striking Android Dominance among South Asian Real Money Gaming Communities
The shifted market share patterns of the world’s top smartphone brands in South Asia observed by the Casino Days research paper reveal a striking dominance of Android devices at the expense of iOS-powered phones.
On the global level, Android enjoys a comfortable lead with a sizable 68.79% share which grows to nearly 79% when we look at the whole continent of Asia. The data on South Asian real money gaming communities suggests that Android’s dominance grows even higher and is north of the 90% mark.
Among the major factors behind these figures, the authors of the study point to the relative affordability of and greater availability of Android devices in the region, especially when manufactured locally in countries like India and Vietnam.
“And, with influencers and tech reviews putting emphasis on Android devices, the choice of mobile phone brand and OS becomes easy; Android has a much wider range of products and caters to the Asian online casino market in ways that Apple can’t due to technical limitations,” the researchers add.
The far better integration achieved by Google Pay compared to its counterpart Apple Pay has also played a crucial role in shaping the existing smartphone market trends.
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