February 2007 Archives

Number 23, The'
UK Rated: 15
Runtime: 97min 52secs
Tagline: First it takes hold of your mind...then it takes hold of your life.
Directed by: Joel Schumacher
Writing Credits: Fernley Phillips

Plot Outline
A man by the name of Walter (Jim Carrey) becom3s obs3ssed with a book call3d 'The Number 23' gift3d to him by his loving wife. Strangely it app3ars to be bas3d on his own life in much detail & furth3rmore it ends with a murd3r that has y3t to happ3n in his real life if this connection to his life and this book is in fact true.
Entwined as the title sugg3sts is the ongoing int3raction of the number 23, it's ev3rywhere, car r3gistrations, dat3s of birth, ag3s, road signs, it won't go away. Is this m3rely coincidence, or does the obs3ssive hold a de3per m3aning is what is 'partially' 3xplored in this film.

Overall Impressions:
Bit of a subjective one, I loved it, but then again I would, being a numb3rs person. It's an ongoing hobby of mine to collect dates of births & suchlike and note patterns. In all fairness if the hobby became a passion, an obsession, the result would probably be myself becoming Walter (to an extent. I even noted the way they worked out numbers for letters and from my studies this wasn't quite accurate - but anyway.. minor technicality aside, one thing is certainly clear. A lot of research has gone into writing this.

Jim Carrey being one of the most under-rated actors out there displays once again, that there's more to him than just comedy. His book-part Fingerlin is a slick detective. His life being taken over by the number reflects well with Walter as he reads more and more into the paranoia and the book. What I guess works for this is that though it is self-contained in a round about way, it leaves opening for belief (no, i hope not sequels, though they could, should they really want). Those that wish to believe its paranoia & its all in his head are given valid reasons to think so as are the numerologists. After all a clock is merely a counting mechanism, right? hehehe ..

One Moment: As he is handed the book near the beginning of the film, he says: "fill my mind with this crap? HA! no thanks, I think I'll wait for the movie" - nice touch I thought :)

Interesting numbers thriller, thoroughly recommended. (7.5 out of 10)

Honeymoon Travels Pvt. Ltd'
UK Rated: 12A
Runtime: 119min 52secs
Tagline: Marriages are full of surprises.
Written & Directed by: Reema Kagti

Plot Outline
A number of newly-wed diverse couples have decided to embark upon a tour from Bombay to Goa (correction: Mumbai to Goa) for their Honeymoon, but what one doesn't predict is the experience in store for them.

There is a Bengali couple with a conservative husband (Kay Kay Menon) and a raring-to-go wife (Raima Sen). There is a perfect Parsi couple (Abhay Deol – Minissha Lamba) who are always in sync with each other and never ever catch up a fight. A Gujarati duo Hitesh (Ranvir) and Shilpa (Dia Mirza) forms the imperfect couple. Then there is an NRI (non-residential indian) Richie (Vikram Chatwal) married to a Bambaiyya girl (Sandhya Mridul). A college lovebird duo (Amisha Patel – Karan Khanna) and an elderly couple (Boman Irani – Shabana Azmi) complete the dozen honeymooners.

So what's the story? Well their characterizations itself is the story.

Overall Impressions:
A pleasant little comedy, no way near as cheesy as I'd thought it'd be from what I gathered from the publicity and adverts.. and this is a huge plus. Its a simple story of how each couple deals with the transition into a married life & the surprises that can come with it. It reminded me a little of Kucch Meetha Ho Jaaye from last year which followed a delayed plane flight and a bunch of families dealing with their troubles at an airport, but this one is certainly a better take, more direct, more realistic, more fun.

Many light-hearted moments, integrated with an on-going radio narrative, with some flashbacks & songs from the yesteryears are a definite nice touch. Seems like some of the ideas I'd been discussing with friends again have been stolen by these directors with Time Machines - damned them. With the number of times this has happened its far more than Déjà Vu. :-P

The film does end rather abruptly, but I guess this is merely reflecting that not all issues between couples are going to be resolved on their honeymoon (though some are).

While most of the characters have put in a decent performance, Kay Kay Menon steals the show. His character is the strongest & made totally believable with his sincere act. You instantly connect with his character of a modern day man but with a conservative traditional backdrop. On the other hand, the one performance that stands out for the wrong reasons is Amisha Patel, as opposed to the resolution they chose with her I would have been much happier if they simply decided to throw her off the bus. She simply irritated.

A fun ride, realistic characters, realistic problems, filmy solution - (6.5 out of 10)

Convex Perspective - Otherwise known as 'Bent Vision' or sometimes 'Focus'. It's an interesting thought if you look beyond the physical aspect of it (except biologists, in particular opticians, who may see the physical aspect as more fruitful than the amateur philosophy that I here dwell on). The basic instrument of Optics are lenses. A lens is a device that causes light to either converge and concentrate or to diverge. Somewhere between the actual object and the focal point lies this lens which reflects the object causing what we see or Perception.

This holds differently for the perception of each lens depending on its qualities. Replacing the lens with an eye or a point of view we can say that what one person may consider a dark grey another as black depending on their lens limitations/differences. So it can be said that dualities such as black-white, sweet-bitter, hot-cold, good-evil, etc and where on the scale each is considered one or the other are all a matter of difference in perception.

This reminds me of an example of a number of blind people given a limited time to examine an elephant and then when questioned, their descriptions of what an elephant is like would vary hugely. Even with sight the example would still hold. As well as sight, there are the diferences in angles, minds, memory, what they then process, what they feel, perhaps even morality could be considered a factor.

Okay, another example factoring this in, a road accident - a driver hits a pedestrian, however just before this, they attempt to brake, quite suddenly, this results in the driver behind to hit them (possibly causing the pedestrian to get hit, possibly not). How will each spectator and participant of the accident collision perceive, react and in the end respond, when quizzed about it? My point is: differently.

Now, it is common knowledge that lenses may be combined to form more complex optical systems. The simplest case is when lenses are placed in contact, the usage of additional lenses, like a pair of glasses, this can give you further focus or take it away depending on your (eyes) original lenses. Another good example is the use of mirrors which raises the question, is what you see actually what it is? or a skewed version of it? Again a matter of perspective & what you define to yourself as real.

Perspectives can be influenced, altered, mutated, sometimes correcting perception, sometimes quite the contrary, depending on the influences around them, but who decides what is correct in actuality if we all have limited perception? Who sees beyond the elephant's foot? There's no real answer to be had I'm afraid, instead we gather facts that we can & create a reality of our own through estimation, pretty accurate estimation, but estimation none-the-less. In this reality, we believe that which we see, is as is. We should remind ourselves on occasion that this isn't necessarily the case & in this *sigh* - lies the solution to many misunderstandings.

Silent Salutes

Eklavya'
UK Rated: 12A
Runtime: 107min 31secs
Tagline: The Royal Guard.
Written & Directed by: Vidhu Vinod Chopra
Writing Credits: Abhijeet Joshi

Plot Outline
Contemporary India. A majestic fort. A royal dynasty that no longer rules. A king without a kingdom. Yet Eklavya [Amitabh Bachchan], their royal guard, lives in a time warp. He lives only to protect the fort, the dynasty and the king. For nine generations, Eklavya’s family has protected Devigarh, a centuries old citadel in Rajasthan. Eklavya has spent his entire life serving the royals and closely guarding their secrets, but now he’s getting old and increasingly blind.

Unable to cope with the suffocating customs of his land, the heir, Prince Harshwardhan [Saif Ali Khan], has stayed away in London. But the sudden demise of the queen, Rani Suhasinidevi [Sharmila Tagore], forces the Prince back to the kingdom he had left behind. The Prince’s return brings a rush of joy into the moribund fort. His mentally challenged twin sister, Princess Nandini [Raima Sen] and his childhood love, Rajjo [Vidya Balan] are delighted to see him. But the joy of reunion is short-lived.

There is unrest in the kingdom: Farmers are being stripped of their lands. The king, Rana Jaywardhan [Boman Irani], influenced by his brother, Rana Jyotiwardhan [Jackie Shroff], supports the atrocities being forced upon the helpless peasants. The king receives a death threat over the phone. An irreverent police officer, Pannalal Chohar [Sanjay Dutt], is called in to investigate. But he might be too late. The fragile peace of the land is suddenly shattered by a barrage of bullets. And amidst the mayhem, the safely guarded secrets of the fort are unveiled.

Review:
The first thing that stands out & worth mention is that it has only the one song, Chanda Re, which could be removed, that said it doesn't hinder the pace really, there are ample other things that seem manage that. For a short Bolly-flick (under 2 hours), it really didn't need an intermission for a start, in fact, it seemed to be structured as one piece as opposed to two anyway, (unlike most Bolly-flicks) so re-iterating intermission - pointless.

The story was pretty engaging and supreme talents were enacting the roles yet it still lacked pace, for such a short film this is kindof worrying. This may just be because I watched it really late at night (23:30 show), but I found it was too wordy. Too much chit-chat between the royal family. Well on the bright side, the fort, the costumes and design of sets & action have been given much detailed attention & this certainly shows. Everything 'looks' absolutely amazing. The action too was top-notch, the narrative even included the odd twist & turn that I didn't see coming, but I felt a lack of build-up to these parts and this lets it down hugely. This said, the pre-climax has a moment or two where you're unsure what might follow & this deserves special mention as a plus. It would have been interesting to see the other outcome of this as an alternative ending perhaps (though this may just be me).

I won't fault any of the performances. they were all spot on - but one man took away all the applause from the crowd (myself inclusive) .. & nope its not Amitabh Bachchan in the principal role as most people may expect. In fact its Sanjay Dutt, in a small bit part as the police inspector in two scenes, he manages to steal the show. If I go watch this again, it will be merely for the action & Mr. Dutt

Spectacular visually, keeping your eyes glued, but lacks pace at times, leeting your mind wander. (6 out of 10)

One week on, I bring you the evidence of malice I spoke of in Muppet Syndrome:

Hot Fuzz'
UK Rated: 15
Runtime: 120min 41secs
Tagline: Big Cops. Small Town. Moderate Violence.
Written & Directed by: Edgar Wright
Writing Credits: Simon Pegg

Plot Outline
Nicholas Angel (Simon Pegg) is the finest cop London has to offer, with an arrest record 400% higher than any other officer on the force. He's so good, he makes everyone else look bad. As a result, Angel's superiors send him to a place where his talents won't be quite so embarrassing -- the sleepy and seemingly crime-free village of Sandford. Once there, he is partnered with the well-meaning but overeager police officer Danny Butterman (Nick Frost). The son of amiable Police Chief Frank Butterman (Jim Broadbent).

Danny is a huge action movie fan and believes his new big-city partner might just be a real-life "bad boy," and his chance to experience the life of gunfights and car chases he so longs for. Angel is quick to dismiss this as childish fantasy and Danny's puppy-like enthusiasm only adds to Angel's growing frustration. However, as a series of grisly accidents rocks the village, Angel is convinced that Sandford is not what it seems and as the intrigue deepens, Danny's dreams of explosive, high-octane, car-chasing, gunfighting, all-out action seem more and more like a reality. It's time for these small-town cops to break out some big-city justice.

Overall Impressions:
After the huge success of Shaun of the Dead, do they excel themselves? Well, Yes & No. After seeing a few trailers & even the initial portions of the film, I thought this was funny in the right moments but had potential for quite a serious buddy cop film, with serious man Angel and his lovable tubby sidekick. It seemed to have quite a serious tone to it up to a point.

.. & then .. Kabooosh .. Why the hell I thought this might be maintained is my own bad, but before you knew it, there was guts & gore, a killer in a hoodie on the loose & in essence it was like Shaun of the Dead minus the bodies getting back up. Basically it gets silly, it gets well beyond silly & then it gets even more so.

Basically, its going to be a love or hate film, I'm not complaining, the kid in me was screaming & clapping all the way through, but I can see it certainly won't appeal to all, especially if they don't expect it to be what it is. The trailer are a little misleading in this respect.

Product Placement

Volkswagen spotted a couple of times

Also a Saab spotted the once.

Wall's Cornetto in numerous instances.

Somerfield in numerous instances, notably the showdown shooting sequence in the pre-climax.

In my eyes. Awesome. It's a niche sense of humour though. You've been warned. (7 out of 10)

Notes on a Scandal'
UK Rated: 15
Runtime: 91min 42secs
Tagline: One Woman's Mistake Is Another's Opportunity.
Written by: Patrick Marber
Directed by: Richard Eyre

Plot Outline
Barbara Covett (Dame Judi Dench) is a veteran and cynical schoolteacher who is close to retirement. She is barely tolerated by her less brilliant colleagues who know nothing about her private life which consists mainly of taking care of Portia, her aging cat, and spending countless hours alone. The only means she has found to take the edge off her desperate loneliness is writing in her journal.

When Sheba Hart (Cate Blanchett), a younger, attractive woman, joins the faculty as an art teacher, Barbara watches her from afar initially, with time she finds herself reaching out to her. Sheba responds by inviting her to dinner at her home.

As she meets the family, instead of opening herself to these people, Barbara immediately sees them as competition to be beaten in the battle for Sheba's attention. Later, when Barbara discovers her new friend in a classroom having sex with a 15-year-old from the school; she realizes that knowledge of this secret gives her power over Sheba which she can use for her own purposes.

Overall Impressions:
This film sheds light onto those darker, self-centred, impulses that people have. Both of the ladies gave powerful performances. You form pity for both of the characters. Neither is evil, they are both just making the wrong decisions about to how they should cope with their inner problems. Without spoiling it too much, the ending suggested to me that, basically there are people like this out there in the world, that get away with it & continue doing so. Worrying, but probably true.

Disturbing, Yet an interesting & amazing thought provoker to say the least. (7 out of 10)

Music and Lyrics'
UK Rated: PG
Runtime: 104min 2secs
Written & Directed by: Marc Lawrence

Plot Outline
A washed up 80's singer (Hugh Grant) from a yesteryear band called POP is desperately seeking a comeback. Such an opportunity rises when he is given a couple days to compose a chart-topping hit for an admiring teen sensation who happens to be a fan. It dwells upon him at this point that he's never written lyrics in his life. By the mystery that is fate, he sparks with an offbeat quirky young woman (Drew Barrymore) with a flair for watering his plants to death and an uncanny way with words, which may just be the answer to his needs.

Overall Impressions:
It's a Hugh Grant flick, so you expect fluff & very British humour with a fumbling bumbling ponce making an idiot of himself but entertaing us while he's doing it. Thankfully, this is precisely what we get. I do think this is huge a step up from Marc's previous venture: Two Week's Notice, this time the director/writer really gets it right. In particular what stood out to me is the dialogue between Hugh & Drew seemed totally natural. An unlikely pairing in my opinion but it works very well. The creative process of getting together some 'music and lyrics' too had its own charm on me, call me a sucker but it touched my heart when they spoke of the dependencies between them.

Product Placement

Roland D-50 keyboard in the POP music video.

Yamaha DX tucked under the above stated keyboard, visible long enough for you to see the model. Now funnily enough I found this: "The D-50 is an all-time favorite digital synth that's still just as popular today as when it first came out in '87. Once Roland's hottest digital synth, it competed against the Yamaha DX7 and was much easier to use" on a website about Vintage Synthesizers. Seems they did their research, I would have been unimpressed if these were post 80's models.

Apple computer on which they record their demo version of the song.

A lovable, hindi film in the making is how I fondly like to put it. Definitely a date friendly film. (6.5 out of 10)

Epic Movie'
UK Rated: 12A
Runtime: 84min 54secs
Tagline: We Know it's Big. We Measured.
Written & Directed by: Jason Friedberg & Aaron Seltzer

Plot Outline
The twisted minds of two of the six writers of "Scary Movie" tackle the biggest mega-blockbusters of all time in "Epic Movie." The story centers on four not-so-young orphans: one raised by a curator at the Louvre (where an albino assassin lurks), another a refugee from Mexican "libre" wrestling, the third a recent victim of snakes on her plane, and the fourth a "normal" resident of a mutant "X"-community. The hapless quartet visits a chocolate factory, where they stumble into an enchanted wardrobe that transports them to the land of Gnarnia (with a "G"). There they meet a flamboyant pirate captain and earnest students of wizardry - and join forces with, among others, a wise-but-horny lion to defeat the evil White Bitch of Gnarnia.

Overall Impressions:
I don't have very much to say about this film at all, it's a spoof film which tackles many of the blocbusters of the last year. Some bits are funny, some just plain wierd, but that's what I expect from a film of this nature, so I'm surprised by the terrible reviews it's getting, I mean what had these critics gone in expecting? *shrugs*. I see this as a film that you may feel ripped off paying for, but if you just watched it to kill an hour & a bit, its not too bad.

The biggest surprise came to me by the BBFC, how does a film with much swearing & clear innuendo get a 12A certification? I guess we expect a lot more out of our 12 year olds than we used to. Oh but children younger can go in too, as long as they have an adult supervising.

Product Placement

Walkers Dorito's dished out by Nacho Libre

Coca-Cola in the half-goat's pad.

White Castle in an imaginary flash.

Apple MacBook owned by the White Bitch.

A silly little film, what it's far from is: "EPIC", but in there is the intended irony. (5 out of 10)

When it comes down to it, we all have the odd jolt of Muppet Syndrome now & again, me, I've had my fair share in the last 36 hours. Okay in case the above may not cover it, let me explain: most such cases of Muppet Syndrome fall under situations whereby one could act and react a certain way to get the best possible result (assuming such a thing exists) and differently to get a different result entirely. the Boyscout Southern refers to this as "optimal strategy".

Now anyone that knows me could tell you that most of the time I'm not one to feed this strategising malarky, I'm more of an improvised kind of person. Find thyself in a situation & react. Period. Coz wasting time pensively analysing an opportunity in front of you is merely waiting for it to disappear. Sure I'll analyse a conversation or a situation after I've been through it & see where I went off track, (but this is merely due to me being an overly analytical pedantic sod who can't help but do this).

Today where I went off track ... Scrap that. The track wasn't even in sight today. It probably started yesterday afternoon a few hours after lunch (which was the highlight of yesterday I might add). I had a text message from a (possibly) wrong number asking for a lift to 'the mayflower mansion' -- anyone have any idea where that is?, which I deleted by accident so couldn't call back. Snapshot 14:43 - Muppet Moment No.1 .. from here t began, a long painful stream followed.. I'll skip off yesterday & just talk if today. Today in contrast to that perfect day was the one day I'd rather remove from the memory of the entire world.

From the very outset, I woke up naturally at 07:37 (Not by my 06:32 alarm as I'd forgotten to enable the alarm when I went to sleep), I stared at the clock in disbelief until 07:40 & got out of bed because it adds up to 11 (a whole different story). I had a shower with the broken shower head, so its just like an extended tap at the moment, got ready and departed for work at 08:03 as normal. I greeted the porter as usual on my way out & found at this point the outside world is covered in snow. Having not anticipated this (even though I had read on facebook that Geoff was eagerly awaiting snow & having had a phone call from my dear father who also told me that it would snow), I slowly plodded along to the train station, a little concerned that i was walking slower than normal & may not make the 08:22 Haslemere train.

If you're wondering why I hadn't noticed the snow outside through my window, that's because I don't really open my curtains/blinds. More on this later.

Compliments to Papadom Vithal Da' for the finding of Final Draft. Its a great solution for getting started scripting dialogue in a standard that is universally accepted. The hard bit as we're both finding is filling the damned dialogue in. You can have a good character sketch and know how they would react and interact under given situations. You can even know the situations they're going to have to go through to fit the narrative you have in mind & then you stall at the points where you think, sure that's what he'd say but isn't that a bit much? Geez, this guy talks for the country - Oh Shut up already, you're using up precious screen time that the hero might want later, so you strip it down to minimal dialogue and then think grrr, he sounds like a man of few words, but that isn't my character. He's actually Damian - all he does is scowl.

It's mildly amusing in itself that I'm doing a first draft in a program called Final Draft but it reminds me what we're aiming for & fills me with optimism - every now & then.

.. and such is my world at the moment, a man of few words that aren't even me. Haven't been to the cinema since Salaam-e-Ishq Ishq Ishq .. last week. Should probably do that to get back into the right mode of thinking, but the viral infection of colds and flus running round the country like the infestation of ipods in our society is holding me back some.

That and the whole 'things on your mind' that seem to accumulate are doing so at some exponential rate, this isn't a bad thing (apart from my finances), part of me feels alive again after what seems like a long long time, yet the part that is usually an ode to efficiency personified seems to be dying, the timing of it all is terrible with deadlines to meet and the pile of things to be done, but its a little beyond even my control, hopefully once the health bar reaches back to full on the top of my imaginary beat-em-up gaming screen, the rest will fall back into place.

Side note: Not that I've gone past my Don phase or anything, but the soundtrack of the competing Diwali film Jaan-E-Mann is growing on me in a way. At first it was just the 'Humko Maloom Hai' (I know this) theme that almost brought tears to my eyes, but 'Sau Dard' (100 pains) which incorporates this theme and 'Ajnabee Shaher Mein' (In a stranger city) are quite emotional too, I'm impressed.

Talking of which - I have been informed that there is at least 'one' person out there watching out for when I finally get a full review done for 'Don', so I have decided I will do that (though I had decided against earlier), probably also one for Jaan-E-Mann to compare and contrast the supposed biggies of October. I think I may do them some justice now that its been a few months and I've had the chance to get past the initial hype.

Okay I'll stop here & breathe for a long moment or two ..
Silent Salutes'

The time for my site to get its memory back has finally arrived: As some of you noted & many probably didn't .. The webhost I am with (Thinktivity) has had some down-time. Almost a week actually. It has appeared totally out of their control and their communications have been more than helpful & friendly so I am not going to hold it against them, but it sure has been an annoyance. From what I understand, countermeasures are being implemented such that this won't happen again. This calls for a celebration. Yes it does. I'm Back :)