Bean-bagging.

I ended up watching 3 movies back to back last night.

First up, Mike Judge's Extract. Which is not as pornographic as it just sounded. The movie's isn't as awesome as Office Space, nor is it a satire like Idiocracy. Which isn't to say it's bad really. Most of the performances are good, even if the characters themselves are a bit loosely defined. Case in point - Mila Kunis's role. It isn't what I'd expected, and not in a good way. They really should have eliminated her character, and written around it. The funniest character by far, however, is the super-dumb male gigolo Jason Bateman's character hires to seduce his wife. The movie is kinda down-beat, on a very slow burn, with the humour not coming from one-liners, but from the character interactions. A one time watch, I wouldn't want to rewatch it anytime soon.

Then there was a Julianne Moore + Pierce Brosnan movie on tv, with both of them as opposing divorce lawyers. This was Laws of Attraction, with a fairly funny first half, until it suddenly and inexplicably became a somber, sappy, romantic train-wreck of a movie.

Not wanting to get up from the bean bag, I put on Funny People. Lonely People would have been a better title, it described the characters better. Adam Sandler is quite good here, and Seth Rogen has lost a lot of weight, so good for him. There was about 30 minutes of dead weight towards the end, and I'd have preferred to see more stand-up routine in the film, but it was a decent watch really. Not Judd Apatow's best though.

Uninteresting Basterds

I used to like Quentin Tarantino. His movie were in a league of their own. Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction wer, and still are, brilliant. He was also a great writer of dialogues and scripts, and I enjoyed From Dusk Till Dawn and True Romance all the more for it. I haven't, however enjoyed any of his recent works. Kill Bill 1 and 2 was an exercise in self-indulgent, and the first half of Death Proof was a crashing bore. So I wasn't really expecting much from his supposed "World War II epic" Inglorious Basterds, and that's a good thing, because I left the theatre less disappointed for it.


What I liked, a somewhat idiosyncratic list:

Hans Landa: Wow. Just, wow. I haven't seen a more chilling, creepier villain in recent times. He was an outstanding character, and fantastically brought to life by Christoph Waltz. He's going to storm hollywood oon, having already landed the role of the villain in the new Dreen Hornet movie. Awesome! He rightly deserves his Cannes best actor award.

Sgt. Hugo Stiglitz: The only interesting Basterd. Which is ironic because he wasn't even one of the nine of the original American squad. He's a German recruited in Germany. A traitor, really. Til Schweiger did a fabulous job, and would have single-handedly destroyed the rest of the Basterds in Mortal Kombat. Hah!

Bridget von Hammersmark & the clandestine basement operation: A very short, yet pivotal part, played out way better than deserved by Diane Kruger. it certainly helped that she was absolutely gorgeous! This Clandestine Basement Meeting was hands-down my favourite sequence in the movie. It so aptly demonstrated Murphy's Law, wherein anything that can go wrong, will. It was an incredibly well written scene, that reminded me in some ways of the what-if car-crash sequence in Benjamin Button. Anyway, this scene also had one of Tarantino's directorial trademarks, the Mexican Standoff, and the shoot-out at the end was simply fabulous.

Shoshanna's plot: The only parts of the movie that felt like a cohesive story. If Tarantino had elected to completely edit away the rest and make the movie only about Shoshanna, I couldn't be happier. Infact, if I will ever get 'round to watching this movie on tv, I'll skip through all the frivolousness and just watch her scenes.


What I didn't like, an unfortunately more complete list:

The Basterds: The movie title is misleading, because the basterds are hardly in the movie. but I'm not complaining, because this uninteresting bunch of rag-tags felt more like charicatures, than serious characters. Brad Pitt's Aldo The Apache talked and behaved like a redneck hick (which he probably was, seeing as how he sold bootleg liquor, and apparently escaped a mob lynching), and was a very bad choice to be the face of the movie. The Bear Jew, supposedly an important character, was reduced to a symbol that played out in exactly one scene, and spent the rest of the movie merging in with the scenery. And the other seven in the squads, heck they were faceless cannon-fodder.

Old wine in a new bottle: That's what Tarantino's direction felt like. There really wasn't anything fresh or exciting here. It just felt like he was recycling his older tricks, with less success. Quirky characters that turn out to be inconsequential, older American Music totally out of place in a movie set in Germany, a half-baked effort to get in some retro graphics, and so on.

The Score: Seems like Tarantino can't look beyond his favourite record collection. I was expecting some really good German music, or something suited to a World War II movie, but no, we get some more retro American stuff. Which in itself isn't bad, but an absolute misfit here.

Character Treatments: All through this movie, major characters are built up, and then do absolutely nothing, and something totally out of character. The Bear Jew appears as a terriying baseball-bat-psycho in exactly one scene, and does nothing for the rest of the movie. Aldo The Apache shows no realy leadership abilities, nor does he do anything that really distinguishes him. Sgt. Hugo Stiglitz is the only Basterd who gets an awesome back-story, but is once again reduced to mere cannon-fodder, and knocked off without real glory. Worst of all, is what happens to Hans Lands. His ending was atrocious, and a major disservice to him. The whole idea that he would even consider surrendering to the Americans seemed kind of lame. He just didn't seem like the traitorous or turn-coat types to me. Basically Tarantino built up his character, and had no idea what to do with him, so he got one of the worst endings possible. Pathetic.


In closing...

This is a juvenile escapist fantasy, and not a very interesting one at that. I am, ofcourse, in the vast minority that didn't like it, as most of my other friends seem to act as if this movie is the cure for cancer. Cure for insomnia is more like it. I think Tarantino ought to stop hyping himself so much, and maybe skip directing for a while, in favour or writing. That's his strength, really. As a director, he's lately been just too self-indulgent.

Someone shares my love for the Watchmen movie..

I was going to post a rant about my "love" for "visionary" director Zack Snyder's "adaptation" of the Watchmen comic, but really, could I say it any better than THIS and THIS?

Massive Movie weekend!

This was a massive movie weekend for me! Ijust got back from Russia a few days back, and wanted to make sure I caught up on everything I missed. So I went and saw 4 movies at the theatres!

Saturday, first up, we went and saw Ice Age 3 (not in 3D, that gives me a headache). This was pretty much as entertaining as the first two, and there was a steady stream of laughs. For a movie supposedly targetted at kids, there was a fair bit of adult, or rather, non-kiddie humour in there. Which ironically, was when the audience was laughing the most. The new character Buck, voiced by Simon Pegg, was a great addition, and along with the ever lovin' Sid, stole the show. Infact, if they had eliminated Manny and Diego completely from the movie, and focussed on Buck and Sid, I daresay the movie would have been move focussed, and a tad better. Anyway, the direction here is outstanding, the best of the trilogy so far.

We followed that up with The Hangover, and this is hands down the best movie I've seen all year. It's bloody freakin' hilarious! I mean, WHAT THE FUCk HAPPENED LAST NIGHT?? Yeah, I need a t-shirt with that line on it. I'm gonna go see this movie again next weekend.

Sunday, I ran off to the theatre a lil early to watch Terminator Salvation. I had to watch it on the big screen for the effects and the 'bots. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Infact, I pretty much enjoyed it. The fx was outstanding, the 'bots were killer, and Sam Worthington was a worthy (pun not intended really) addition to the mythos. The story did seem a bit convulated, but that wasn't why I was watching the movie anyhow. The only thing kinda off was that the post-apocalyptic setting didn't seem real enough. There were very few 'bots around, and he humans seemed comfortably entrenched. Perhaps the inevitable fifth movie will up the stakes a bit, and show us a full-fledged war, and not just a covert infiltration op. Oh, and the Arnold appearance was sweet!

I came outta the cinema and went back in to see X-Men Origins: Wolverine with my friends. This was easily my least favourite movie of the weekend. There was so much wasted potential here. So many mutants, yet most hardly had anything more than a glorified came. Liev Schrieber's excellent turn as Sabretooth totally ate up Hugh Jackman onscreen. Plus Danny Huston was good as William Cox. Overall, the fights were ho-hum, except the last one with Sabretooth/Wolverine and Deadpool, that was brilliantly executed. Anyway, I'm hoping the sequel will be better (though I can't for the life of me figure out what thet'll do in Japan), and I'm looking forward to the Deadpool movie. Gotta love the merc with the mouth.

See the Moon!

I'm a Sam Rockwell fan. I think he's a terrific actor, and he's always been entertaining in the scant few films I've seen him in. So I'm always happy to hear about any new projects he's involved in.

Like, Moon. It's a story of a man who's been on the moon for three years, mining Helium-3 - a rare gas which is the solution to Earth's energy crisis. He's got two weeks left before he gets back to Earth, when things happen that shouldn't.

Sounds interesting enough, but the reason I'm salivating like a mad dog, is because of the kickass poster design for the film. It's the most brilliant design I've seen in a very long time:

Click on it to see a bigger, better version.

Movies this month

A quick assessment of some notable movies I saw this month:

The Hunt for Red October: I hadn't seen any Jack Ryan movies before this, and I thought he was more of a hands-on field agent. It was interesting to learn that he was actually a research analyst. The movie had a fairly interesting storyline, but it seemed to drag at places. There wasn't much happening visually on screen really. I'm thinking the book will be a lot more interesting too read. Sean Connery does a pretty good job, but Alec Baldwin is relegated to almost a guest appearance status. Anyway, I'm intrigued enough to someday watch the other Jack Ryan movies.

Being John Malkovich: What a nutter of a movie! Absolutely insane! I must have jumped up astonished and dazed and shouted out HOLY FUCK atleast half a dozen times during this movie! It was fabulous, a real treat to watch. The story: John Cusack is a failed puppeteer, a loser basically (and he plays the role real good) who takes up a job to sustain himself. The job is on the 7 1/2 floor of a building, one of the many bizzare quirks in the movie. He discovers a portal there, behind a filing cabinet, that leads into the mind of the actor John Malkovich. Hah! And they then start seeing everything through the eyes of JM. Bizzare! There's a lotta existential thoughts in there, like what would happen if a man enters a portal that leads into his own mind, and are we all puppets and blah blah, which can safely be ignored if you want to just take this movie for what it presents at face value! This is simply an absolutely trippy movie, with fabulous performances by everyone involved!

Sleepy Hollow: When the movie had just released, I didn't expect the headless horseman to be an actual ghoul. I don't think that's how it is in the original story, but I could be wrong (I haven't read the book, I've just seen the cartoon on tv a looooong time back). I always though the story was more of a character study of Ichabod Crane (kickass name). Tim Burton directs it as a creepy detective movie of sorts, and it's fun. Johnny Depp is once more at home playing yet another quirky charcter - a police constable who's trying to get the police at large to adopt scientific methods to apprehend criminals and solve crimes (he also keeps having wierd dream interludes that I thought added nothing of substance to the narrative and killed the pace of the story really). The ghoul is question, the headless horseman, played delightfully by Christopher Walken, is a real bad-ass. He should get a spin-off of his own, that movie would be a rip-roaring gory fun-filled ride. It would be a great horror-comedy really. Anyway, this was a great movie with trademark Burton visuals and colors. And i really like it.

Dog Soldiers: Rather thrilling, and high on action. It's not really horror, inspite of having werewolves, but it gives you a rush nevertheless. Oh, and it's very visceral, gory. The setting's pretty good. A bunch of Irish (or Brit) soldiers are in Scotland, on what they believe to be a training mission. Turns out they're , up by the Special Forces squad to be bait for werewolves. Whoohoo, let the massacre begin! The characters are all great (i loved hearing them talk), and the creature effects were very realistic. As real as a werewolf can be, anyway. A very engrossing creature feature.

Bubba Ho-Tep: There's a great behind this movie. The Elvis that died was actually an Elvin-impersonator, with whom the real Elvis had swapped placed. The real deal Elvis is now old and wasting away in a retirement community. Among his companions are a guy who believes he's The Lone Ranger and a black dude who believes he's JFK (he's black because the CIA dyed him that color - the greatest cover-up in the world). These whacky bits are fabulous, and good 'ol Bruce Campbell make a fantastic Elvis. The "creature" part of this creature-feature is largely disappointing. It's an egyptiAn soul-sucker, a mummy, who's killing the oldies one by one. It's upto Elvis n JFK to stop him. I suspect the low-budget killed most of the thrills that could have been there. I suspect the original story, by Joe R. Lansdale, will be a helluva lot more chilling (he's a pretty good horror writer, has done some amazing comics for Avatar Press - check out the By Bizarre Hands series, if you're interested).

Starship Troopers - I finally saw the entire movie from start to end. A whole lotta fun. The bugs attacking in humongous numbers as simply insane! On a side note, since the human goal was eradication of the bug world, and not colonisation, I didn't understand why they didn't simply nuke the planet from orbit, or use planet-busters of some sort (I'm sure that if they've advanced enough to develop warp travel and interstellar starships, the weapons development would have kept pace. I doubt bullets will still be used in the far future. After all, the first application of most new tech is in the military).

Buttons vs Chocolates

I've read in a lot of places, articles/message boards, that The Curious Case of Benjamin Button was actually made 5 years ago, under a different title - Forrest Gump. Now, I admit I didn't really see any hard and fast resemblance, but we could actually very broadly take the plots of both the movie to be biographical tales about two people who overcome terrible adversities to finally find their lot in life. On that basis, how do the two moves compare?

For one, they both travel a lot. Gump seems to have the more interesting life though. Button is implied to have been to a lot of places, but we only see postcards. Maybe he had a postal scam on. Gump on the other hand, had a lot more visibly interesting life. He was in the war, he was a sailor (ok, Button was both at once, he was a sailor in a war. He was also born when one ended, so maybe he was, well, born for it), and he was, most importantly, the original Smiley Face.

Love interest, hmm, hmm. Tilda Swildon first, for Button. I wouldn't like to do the freaky with the angel that sold out to the devil (or some such. A Constantine-the-movie reference.) Gump didn't fare too well with his girl, she got AIDS, and then she died. Button's second, (or really the first, if you believe in, what did she call it, "Kizzmet") Cate Blanchett didn't die, she just broke her leg, and her dreams got crushed. She also alternatingly looks like a ravishing beauty and a CGI blow-up doll in this movie. This is depressing. Let's move on.

Let's see, some similar supporting characters. Forrest Gump had Gary Sinese, one fine actor, he, playing a boat-hand at one point, and Benjamin Button had Captain Mike Lock, probably not so good an actor himself, but a heckuva lot more interesting character. And, well, I don't really care much about either movies to actually do a more detailed comparison, but some years down the line, I suppose I would choose Gump over Button, if they were playing simultaneously.

Also, a box of chocolates is more interesting than a box of buttons.

What I did indeed like about Benjamin Button:

The Cinematography. Beautiful, beautiful colors. Especially when they were at sea.

The Daisy Co-incident Incident. What a fantastic little sequence. Absolutely mesmerising and more interesting than the 75 minutes before and after, either way.

The Guy Who Got Struck By Lightning Seven Times. This says is all.

Brad Pitt On His Bike. He is a God.

And finally, The Blind Clockmaker's Tale. Frankly, David Fincher should have scrapped the rest of the film after this segment. He couldn't top it.

The bigger the badasses, the harder the boot up your @$$

After a lot of research and bloody back-breaking hard work, MTV finally unvieled their list or the top 10 movie badasses of all time. A list that I followed closely as they teased us with one name after another.

Here's the list:
1. Dirty Harry
2. Ellen Ripley
3. John McClane
4. Mad Max
5. Walker (Lee Marvin from Point Blank, not the Texas Ranger)
6. Sarah Connor
7. Pike Bishop
8. Khan
9. Boba Fett
10. John J. Rambo

Were it up to me, I'd have added Leon the Professional, and Mr. Smith (Not "Mrrrr Aaaaannnddndddeerrrsssoooon", but the Shoot 'Em Up guy) in there someplace and taken out Mad Max perhaps. I must confess, with some shame, that I haven't yet seen the movies with Dirty Harry, Walker, Pike Bishop, Khan, and Boba Fett, so I can't really comment on them.

Coming to the point, while that list isn't too bad, not everyone was happy with it. Here's someone I firmly believe should have topped the list:



...except for one slight technicality - he wasn't in a movie.

Red - Proudly shoving a boot up your dumbass.

The Sad State of Bollywood

Part I

I just got home from the theater, where I had gone with mom to see Fashion. With this, I'm pretty sure India has just gotten its first so-called "respectable"/"serious"/"reality" mainstream exploitation director: Madhur Bhandarkar. The man is great at PR, tom-tomming his so-called "research" at every street corner and in every gossip rag. Because a great film-maker, he is not. Madhur Bhandarkar's "research" is just ripping off the headlines. He stole the Carol Gracias wardrobe malfunction, the Geetanjali Nagpal episode, and a bunch of other snippets, and just makes it all so very crass on screen. This is a shoddy, very superficial movie, and the fashion designers and photographers who made cameos in here should be embarrassed to be a part of it.

The movie is ridiculously long and self-indulgent, with no though given to pacing or script. No effort is made to really show a model's struggle. Every designer is gay and speaks with a weird accent that in some cases (Harsh Chhaya) borders on serious speech impediment. Kangana Ranaut is just horrible. This is the first movie I'm seeing her in, and i'm shocked she's getting any movies at all. Her "model-walk" and facial expressions are downright ugly in comparison to the actual models walking around her. Half the time she's doing coke in a dazed fit, and the other half she's using her laughable child-like voice to scream and screech "YOU BUS-TURD" at her abusive lover. Not only is the movie full of stereotypes and cliches, it's rather illogical at times too, with gaffes likes the show-stopper outfit being shown at the very beginning of a show.

Priyanka Chopra looks good, but her character finds success waaay to fast and easily, and then turns super-bitch in a flash. After the numerous fuck-ups she commits both before and after her fall from grace, I'm not sure anyone in the audience would really have felt any pity for her. I must say Mugdha Godse was the best eye-candy on screen. She was hot, and did a pretty good job at her role as well.

All in all: long, boring, superficial, and very, very self-indulgent. This is an outsider looking in, and it shows.

Part II

Of course, this is a fairly common sight in Bollywood, with directors talking bollocks off-screen and screwing up royally on it. Take Goldie Behl and his so-called movie, Drona. What an embarrassment for him, and everyone associated with it.

I was out with some friends last month, watching a play at Prithvi, called Chaos Theory. It's an amazing play, very well written with some fabulous one-lines, hilarious scenes, and some real touching moments. It was a powerhouse of performances by Zafar Karachiwala and Anahita Uberoi, aptly supported by Sohrab Ardeshir and Shaana Levy. The story follows the lives of Zafar n Anahita from their college days at Stephens, Delhi, to teaching jobs at Harvard, right up to their retirement. It's quite obvious they're in love with each other, but never speak out or really act on it. It's a funny play with a lot of quirks, and never slackens in pace, running at and hour twenty-five minutes.

Then after meeting some more friends, we went out on a lark to see Drona. Boy, that was one of the worst decisions in the history of bad decisions. Drona is the polar opposite of Chaos Theory. Such a horrendous, horrible, atrocious, mind-bogglingly bad boring movie. Aaaaack. Abhishek looks a slacker, drunk and puffy with a scowl throughout the movie. Priyanka Chopra is wasted in some atrocious lines and worse costumes. Jaya Bachchan would make a great witch for Hansel and Gretel, and Kay Kay Menon was surely pumped up on the most narcotic cocktail of drugs ever known to man. What a disaster of a movie. Stealing bits n parts from Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, King Arthur's Legend of Excalibur, and a whole lot others that I can't recollect now, the movie really had no coherent script or sense to whatever is happening on screen. Most of the dialogues were obtuse to the point of being incoherent babble. Ridiculous, unimaginative set designs only served to make the whole thing look like some kind of joke. Frankly, if that hack Goldie Behl had actually played the whole thing as some kind of parody, his absolute lack of directorial skills wouldn't have been so blatantly obvious.

My hearts weeps thinking of the colossal amount of money spent and wasted on this. Also, how can I get in on it?

Speaking of epic...

The mantra for the new era: "Comparing movies to LOTR is out of style. Now everything is the next Dark Knight."

Yes, CinemaBlend.com EiC Josh Tyler hits it right on the head.

Let's put a smile on that face...

Yup, i had a tryst with awesomeness today.


You can see me wear my Batman/Joker t-shirt. Coolness!

On the way back, i was attacked.

Movie Time: Go SPEED Racer!

The father of LSD may be dead, but the Wachowskis live!

My friend got passes for the Speed Racer premiere at PVR yesterday (thnxx Haritha!), and i was pretty kicked about seeing the movie two days before eveyone else. The clock stuck 8 and i was there at the theatre. The lobby outside wasn't as crowded as i'd thought it'd be. There were a whole lot of kids though, and some promotion was on, giving away cool Speed Racer stuff, including the Mach 5 replica. I was dying to win one of those for myself, but didn't wanna rob the kids (I'm kinda feeling stupid now). A bunch of minor celebs were getting interviewed, and i was getting quite fidgety. The cold panner-on-toast starters didn't help either, and unlike the Iron Man premiere, there wasn't any alcohol being served, courtesy all the kids. Anyway, about 45 minutes after it was supposed to start, the theatre doors opened, we rushed in, took our seats, and waited with bated breath. The theatre was surprisingly half-empty. Anyway, the movie started soon, and sucked me right in...

Speed Racer was like one long drugged-out psychadelic acid trip. I mean, the colors just bled off the screen in a way i've never seen before. They must have spent a bomb color-correcting this movie, because everything is bright and neon and solid primary. The race-track sequence the movie opens with is so exhilerating and dizzying, i almost got motion sickness just watching. I almost felt like throwing up, that's how excited i was.

I almost can't believe the Wachowskis made this movie. It's not a masterpiece by any standards of repute, but it's a labour of love quite possibly unlike anything before. They've put their heart, soul, and every other body part right into this movie, and it shows. Whatta rush!

Ofcourse, looking at it a little objectively, it does have some drawbacks. The pacing is off, for one. The races at time seem waaay to fast to discern what's happening. And the parts between races at times seem to drag. They could have chopped off about 30 minutes, because it does seem a bit like self-indulgance (not that i'm really complaining).

The story also unfold in a somewhat convulated manner. I never got all the details, but understood enough of it to not go "huh?". There is a solid message behind it all, - stand up for what you believe is right, and believe in your family.

Pune to Mumbai.. I watched Coolie

Yup, this is so much like old times. It's 3 in the morning and i'm surfing the net, and it's just an hour since i got home.

Did i have a good bus journey? Depends upon what you consider good. See, i had some cheese pav bhaji for dinner before boarding the bus. I could have easily left off the cheese, as i got more than an overdose on the bus. They played Coolie. Atrocious. Appalling. Aggravating. Absolutely lousy. This crap showcases everything that's wrong with bollywood. Insanely bad acting (everyone's hamming it up like there's no tomorrow), cringe-worthy innanities passing off for dialogues, and a plot so contrived, it's incredulous that anyone could actually have watched this without laughing their guts out atleast once.

And bollywood's trademark middle-finger to sense, sensibility and logic. One case in point - Amitabh's character uses the hawk as his election symbol. When he's on stage giving his speech, the bloody backdrop is that of a bald eagle. A bald fucking eagle. Does nobody in bollywood know the difference between a bloody hawk and a fucking eagle?

I swear, if this kind of stuff was played in our screening, i'm willing to bet some of would actually take the effort to stay awake.

The Island

It was a Michael Bay movie alrite. But for a moment there, i actually had hope. An interesting enough plot, competent acting from all involved, and well, no faults in diection.

It's actually half a Michael Bay movie, because things start blowing up only in the second half. That's also probably when he lost all interest in what he was filming, and let it all go to hell.

See, because throughout the movie, there was this constant sense of Deja Vu, if, that is, you've seen the Matrix, or Minority Report. It's the treatment, i suppose, or maybe the story. I can't figure it out. But whatever it is, movie manages to engage you in the first hour.

Supposedly set in the future, one that doesn't really seem all that futuristic, the story (SPOILERS) is about a corporation that's raising made-to-order clones to be used as organ donors and replacements. All this while, the clones are being led to believe that they're the only survivors of some kind of holocaust - contamination, i believe, was the term used. However, Ewan MacGegor's Lincoln Six Echo (yes, his name in the movie, there's a reason for it) begins to question his existance in their perfect, sanitised world.

As for the movie title, it's not really all that relevant. It's just a snappy, catchy title for the movie to have.

There are some logical loopholes in the movie alright, and a lot of times when suspension of disbelief is needed, but if you ask me, the only major conceptual fault lay in the fact that it's hard to believe the corporation's method were anywhere near cost-effective. Just to sell a single organ, an entire underground complex was created, incredibly huge holographic shields were used to hide that fact that they were underground, and the clones had every kind of facility needed at their disposal; the health clubs and swimming pools. I find it very hard to believe that some rich people would pay such a lot for some organs, enough to keep the entire corporation afloat.

That apart, Scarlett Johansen is pretty much wasted in this movie, but you don't hear me complaining.

P.s. Steve Buscemi is still da man!!

Tequila Express

Whatta movie. I stayed up till 3:30 last night watching this.

It starts with the DEA arresting some Japanese dude at this major drug warehouse. Then we cut over to Mexico, where some chick and her girlfriend are arrested on charges of drug possession. They were planted there, by the cops, no less. Turns out that the girl is the daughter of the governor, of the are/state where the Japanese drug guy is being held. His minions want him to be released, of the daughter will suffer.

The Governor panics, and calls up the head of the DEA. The head then tells him that he's got about 6 undercover agents in mexico, near where the girl was arrested. The Governor's chief of staff volunteers to head south and rescue the girl. There he meets up with the other agents and they go kick ass.

So it's like 6 guys and one girl agent facing off and prevailing against the entire drug cartel. Who really arent as powerful as they should be, because only three guards are knocked out, the door is opened, and the girl is rescued. They they head cross-country, have some lameass final fight with the baddies (the minion boss is dispatched by getting stabbed in the back by the daughter), and escape through some tunnel connecting the two countries. The end.

The movie seems terribly cool, thought i can't figure out a single reason why.

Fight Club Is REALLY Calvin And Hobbes!!!

Don't believe me?

Read THIS.

Aliens And Predators

I downloaded the Alien Vs Predator trailer from Jurassic Punk, and somehow, it isnt really what i was hoping for. It seems like your usual Summer Blockbuster, with gunfights and explosions. There's no indication of stealth anywhere, which is what i primarily associate with Aliens and Predators. They slink in the shadows, and stalk their prey, not jump in the open with full guns blazing. The trailer left them with no sense of menace or awe. Ofcourse, i'm not letting this dampen my enthusiasm for the movie.

Speaking of which, check out this hilarious article over Newsarama, where long-time Alien and Predator illustrator Dave Dorman interviews the two of them. Hilarious! It's here.

Return Of The King

Ok, i'm pissed off. Some dude spends x years on some multi-billion earning movie, and he gets an oscar for his "labor of love"??? Am i missing the point here? Isnt the oscars supposed to be free from this kinda sentiment? Sentiment leading to bias?

Movie Log

Being at home sick would have been a a real drag if it weren't for a few good movies i got to watch...


CONFESSIONS OF A DANGEROUS MIND

George Clooney's diretorial debut. Been wanting to see it for quite some time. Couldn't catch it in the theatres. Got it at home. It's got some real awesome performances. Sam Rockwell is great as Chuck Barris. George Clooney is dead on, and Drew Barrymore chips in too. Though they could have gotten someone else for Julia Robert's role.

At times, i couldn't really follow what was going on, but it did make for interesting viewing. Some of my friends who saw it in the theater couldn't really understand the movie, and i guess you do need to have a certain idea as to what the movie is about, before watching it. And some familiarity with american game-shows wouldn't hurt either. Here's the story. Chuch Barris was a game-show producer, very successful. In his autobiography he claimed the CIA recruited him as a hitman. he killed about 33 people. Simple enought.

The movie has some real offbeat pacing. Barris's rise to fame is portrayed pretty fast. And way too much time is devoted to his bed-time habits, if ya catch my drift. His recruitement could have been more impactful too. But hey, the direction's great! Very entertaining. Makes me wanna read the book..


MATCHSTICK MEN

This one, i just finished it. Had seen the trailer for it when i'd gone to see Terminator 3, and it seemed pretty intriguing. And the was prety damn good. Heck, it was so good it would probably blow your socks off if you wore any..

Nicholas Cage. Man, can this dude act or what! His neurotic, eye-twitching con-artist role is so deftly handled it's hard to believe he's just acting, and that off screen he's just a normal everyday dude. Sam Rockwell as his partner, very understated. Very cool. and finally Alison Lohman (that her name?) as his 14 year old daughter. Very expressive and very convincing.

The story? Cage and Rockwell are conmen. Cage is kinda neurotic. Rockwell gets him a shrink, who convinces Cage to get in touch with his wife, whom he left 14 years ago. She wont meet him, but the daughter will. And then his world turns upside down.

I found it hard to believe that after meeting her dad for the first time in 14 years, and girl could relate to him so easily, but that's explained in the ending. And whoohoo!! What a knockout of a conclusion!! it was great!! Totally made up for the relatively slow pace of the movie. And if anyone's wondering what Matchstick Men stands for, it means conmen.

It was pretty lonely coming home today. For the last couple of months, there had always been someone at home. I step in today, and all of a sudden i realise i'm alone once again. Bro in Russia, grandparents back in Thana, and mom, at work. Kickback to the days gone by, when i used to lap up any time i got to spent alone. Adapt and change, i guess.

I watched Se7en. Pretty damn good movie. And one kick-ass of an ending. Brad Pitt aint too hot on my list, but damn, he makes some good career choices. Snatch, Spy Games, Fight Club, Kalifornia. Definetely among some of my best...