amars movie journal

Raavan (2010)

2010-06-19T12:10:00.000+05:30

Trailer 1 Alice in Wonderland: For a second, I thought that I had entered into the past only to realize that this movie is yet to be released in Hyderabad. By the way, Alice in Wonderland was the 1st post in this blog.

Trailer 2 The Last Airbender: Manoj N Shyamalan (Sixth Sense fame) was once considered to be the most gifted story teller of his generation. That appears to be a distant past now. The Last Airbender is his latest movie. The trailer showed some great visual effects. But I'm not very impressed with it as a whole. Considering his recent track record this is a very important movie for him.

Coming to Raavan, from the trailer and the general talk, you might have guessed the basic premise. Raavan (Abhishek Bacchhan) kidnaps Sita (Aish). Ram (Vikram), with the help of Hanuman (Govinda) tries to get Sita back and kill Raavan. Ofcourse, the motivation for Raavan's abduction of Sita is the insult of Surpanaka (Priyamani). What if this basic premise constitutes the entire movie with nothing else? The movie is going to suck & that is what Raavan is. What makes the original Ramayan interesting is the many many interesting characters and subplots without which even it would be uninteresting. This is where Raavan fails.

The plot is as thin as a razor blade. Screenplay is one jumbled mess especially in the 1st half. Mani Ratnam is my most favourite Indian director & it is really really hard for me to digest that he had directed this mess.

Abhishek Bacchhan was absolutely irritating as Beera. Since his only good performances were in Yuva & Guru which were directed by Mani, I thought he will be good as Beera. But what an irritating interpretation of the role! Aish's only duty in the movie was to look beautiful and scream at regular intervals which she does greatly. Vikram has nothing much to do. His character was badly written. Priyamani is good in her brief appearance. Govinda and Ravi Kishan are the two bright spots as far as acting department is considered.

The locations and cinematography are breathtaking to say the least. Raavan is a heavy contender in the next award season as far as cinematography is considered. The same goes for music. Rahman gave a great music and background score. But since general public wouldn't be interested in only photography and music, I can see empty theaters and a doomed future for the movie. I will be happy if I'm wrong. I really can't believe Mani Ratnam has directed this entirely from his heart.

I've seen each one of Mani's movies of the last 25 years & without doubt Raavan is Mani Ratnam's most uninteresting movie. The first half is as dumb as you can get. The entire 1st half is like one long personal holiday photoshoot of AbhiAsh with some exotic background views. The 2nd half is slightly better but on the whole, Raavan is a 140 minute advertisement for the beauty of Aish & India's forests.

I also wanted to see Villain (Raavan in Telugu) because of Vikram who plays Raavan in this version. But after this experience, I neither have the patience nor energy to do it. May be some time after the DVD comes out.

Vedam (2010)

2010-06-05T20:24:00.000+05:30

In 2 months time, Allu Arjun gave one of the worst movies and one of the best movies of this decade in Tollywood.

Vedam has 5 independent stories in it which are taking place parallelly, and the characters of all the stories converge at the big climax. In my limited memory, I can't remember such a movie being made prior in Tollywood. This could be a risky subject but director Krish (Gamyam fame) pulled it off with great aplomb. I won't brief about the 5 stories but they are very different from each other and there is believability to each one of them although in various degrees.

If an award for the best performance by an ensemble cast in Tollywood is introduced next year, Vedam would be the leading contender. Nobody in the movie messed up there roles. Allu Arjun is an excellent fit in the role of Cable Raju. His performance & emotions at the end where he has a change of heart is the best that he had done until now. After the movie Arundhati, Anushka has become a clear crowd favourite. The whistles and shouts during her introduction scene were only matched by the entrance of Arjun. Anushka has nailed the role of Saroja going from funny to angry to angst with ease. She definitely is one of the best actresses in Tollywood right now. This is my first Manchu Manoj movie. He was an apt choice to play the music loving wannabe rock-star Vivek. Manoj is not only a better actor than his brother Vishnu but he is also choosing his scripts wisely. He created a good first impression on me. I haven't seen Manoj Bajpai fail as an actor and the same goes here. He gives good performance as the victimised Muslim Raheemuddin Qureishi. Nagayya as a poor weaver and Saranya as his daughter-in-law gave some honest & sincere performances as the exploited rural people who wants to educate the boy in their family.

Ravi Prakash has a key role as a sincere police officer who thinks that every Muslim is a terrorist. He did a very good job. Although he has the same expressions in all his movies, this role suited him very well. Raghu Babu has done good job. There are single scene cameos by Brahmandam and Posani Krishna Murali. Former one in a comedy scene while the latter in a very serious scene but both are very entertaining. Satyam Rajesh has done a decent job as the mandatory hero's side kick. Finally Deeksha Seth as Pooja, the uber-rich love interest of Arjun. The speciality of this character is that this requires no performance at all with the only prerequisites being fair and glamorous. So it appears as if the director left her to perform as she likes.

Since there are 5 stories, there are a lot of characters to be introduced. So in the first half, we are introduced to the characters and their motivations. With a conflict in each story, the first half ends. So it may appear to some people as if not much has happened as a whole in the first half but that is only an illusion because we are dealing with 5 stories here. The second half is absolutely gripping.

Generally in our industry when you have a drama with superb performances, the technical aspects are grossly neglected. But Vedam is technically a very well made film. Right from your editing to cinematography to art work to sound effects, this is a wonderfully made film. Dialogues & direction by Krish are great. Krish proved that he is not a one film wonder. Let's hope that he is not a two film wonder. (Am I being greedy?)

Background score by Keeravani is very good but I would have been more happy if every thing is original. Coming to the songs, the songs fit in the movie very well but I don't think they would work outside the movie.

After the break, for a few minutes the movie tends to be slow. They could have cut a song there. Story & script wise, the tussle between Manoj & Sikh lorry driver was too superficial. To develop the conflict in Manoj's character, a more natural setup would have been very good. Another one is when Manoj Bajpai, who initially tries to escape without even warning the hundreds of people in the hospital about the impending danger, has a change of heart when he sees a pregnant lady. Agreed that he has some past scars regarding unborn babies but still it appeared a bit forced. One more thing is when some body dies at a huge explosion, I think that the faces should not be recognisable. But the above points are very minor, and by the end of the movie this is a very satisfying experience.

All in all, this is a must watch. This is going to win a lot of awards next season. The general perception is that an award winning movie tends to be a boring art movie. This is true in many cases but once in a while there comes a really good drama without boring you and this is one of those. I was absolutely thrilled by the time the movie was over because of mainly 2 reasons. One reason was because the movie was very good & the second one was because I rarely see such well made movie in Telugu. So my humble request is don't miss this.

Verdict: 9/10

Finally, a triple thumbs-up (if such a word is there) for the director Krish and the producers Devineni Prasad & Yarlagadda Shobhu.

p.s Could someone clarify me regarding the crediting of Manchu Manoj as Guest appearance because I felt his role was of a proper protagonist.

Would love to hear your views about Vedam or my review,

Kites (2010)

2010-05-22T19:21:00.000+05:30

Kites is directed by Anurag Basu, produced by Rakesh Roshan & stars Hrithik Roshan, Barbara Mori, Kangana Ranaut, and Kabir Bedi amongst others. Story by Rakesh Roshan, Screenplay by Anurag Basu, Robin Bhatt and Akarsh Khurana, Music by Rajesh Roshan, Cinematography by Ayananka Bose.

My review is for the 130 minute Indian version. For your info, next week a 90 minute international remix version of Kites is going to be released which was re-edited under the supervision of Brett Ratner (director of Rush Hour series and X-Men:The Last Stand).

Some of the reactions that I observed in the theater. At the 80 minute mark, the person adjacent to me is whispering in a tired voice "Oh my God! how much more time is the movie going to last?" At the end of the movie, I saw a group of friends waking one of their friends. There are uniform sighs of disappointment from the audience by the time end credits started rolling. You may guess now in which direction this review is going to be.

I saw the trailer of Kites a couple of months ago and was not at all impressed by it. So I went to the screening with a bit of low expectations. But the movie was worse than my already lower expectations.

If the purpose of the movie is to entertain the audience, then the movie failed miserably. The romance between the leads appeared very forced to me. I love love stories but this romance didn't touch my heart at all. Baring a couple of scenes, the comedy too appeared as if it is placed because it has to be there. As far as the actions sequences goes, I don't know how many of my fellow movie lovers felt they are good but I felt more thrilled while playing NFS than watching these action pieces. Since when does American police cars have become crackers which explode at the slightest crash? Every day you can see atleast one movie in HBO or Star Movies whose action sequences are better than these. Are there many dance sequences in the movie? Nope. There is one at the beginning which by now should have been present at YouTube or some other such site.

I couldn't believe that 4 people are involved with the story and screenplay. I can guess their initial thought process here. Rakesh Roshan got the idea about a love story where the lovers don't understand each other's language. Then he commissioned others and they wanted to make this love story an epic with great romance and great action. But neither of them, especially the romance part is not at all interesting and the worse thing is that it is boring. I think that on every page of the script, there is only a poster of Hrithik and how to cash his name and nothing else. Basically what you have in the movie is a romantic scene - action scene - romantic scene - action scene. After a while it really is a torturous experience to hear the dialog between Hrithik and Barbara and I was thinking "Oh no! not another romantic dialog please".

You know your supporting cast acting was bad when Kabir Bedi gives a robotic performance. It is also time for Kangana Ranaut to say no to such repeat roles of psychologically damaged woman. This is some serious talent caught in an image which is damaging the career.

So what are the good points of the movie. Undoubtedly Hrithik Roshan. This is a Hrithik show allover & he is fantastic. Nobody in his generation in Bollywood has his screen presence. In the single dance sequence of the movie, he dances superlatively. His performance is also very good. Much has been written about Barbara Mori. She is beautiful no-doubt and she is good in her role. The music is average fare but the cinematography is good.

I strongly think that it is high time Hrithik comes out of his 'khandaani' films (films that have anything to deal with Rakesh Roshan) and select some good subjects outside. It feels bad to see the wastage of such a talent. Most of his films depend on his style but style is temporary. I'm very sure that Mithun Chakraborty was a style icon in 80s but who cares about his films and style now except the judges and contestants of Dance India Dance. The style of Hrithik is going to be outdated in 20 years and so would be films such as this or Dhoom series because by then more trendy movies and some other cool hunk will appear. One should admire Ranbir Kapoor for his job as far as selecting the movies is considered.

This movie is strictly for girls or gays who are absolutely delirious & crazy about Hrithik. Since I am neither of those, Kites didn't work for me at all. A movie could be anything but boring which Kites sadly is. I really hope that the international version being released next week isn't as boring as this although I'm not very optimistic about it.

Verdict: 3/10

p.s: The really best part of the 130 or so minutes that I spent in the theater didn't came from this movie but rather from the trailers of Vedam and Raavan which were shown in the interval. My friends know that Maniratnam is one of my all-time favourite Indian directors. With a fantastic music, I think Raavan is going to be an excellent watch. I'm actually dying to see this in Telugu rather than Hindi because I think Vikram is a far better actor than Abhishek Bachchan and he is going to rock as Veera. But the real surprise was the trailer of the Telugu flick Vedam which I absolutely loved. Telugu film industry needs some good multi-starrers. Lot of politics and factions right now. By the trailer, Vedam looks like a movie without too much artificiality. Vedam is directed by Radhakrishna (Gamyam fame) and the cast includes Allu Arjun, Anushka, Manoj Manchu, Manoj Bajpai, Brahmanandam. The performances and the dialogs in the trailer were great. Check this dialog by Anushka who portrays a prostitute "In any job, the more the experience the more the pay. But in our job, the less the experience the more the pay". Hope the movie lives up-to my expectations. A couple of Vedam posters below.

Love to hear what you thought about Kites or my review,

Iron Man 2 (2010)

2010-05-09T20:36:00.000+05:30

The movie is written by Justin Theroux who previously cowrote that fantastic comedy Tropic Thunder. Director of the movie is Jon Favreau who also acted in the movie as Tony Stark's bodyguard.

The trailer first. The beauty or the not so beauty thing about this trailer is that you can get a really good idea of almost all of the plot points of the movie in this.

Not difficult to guess the best part of the movie. Sometimes you feel that a particular role was destined to be played by a particular person. You can't seperate the role and the person. Robert Downey, Jr. is Tony Stark. He is so convincing that if not for the backlash of the fans you may very well change the name of Tony Stark to Robert Downey, Jr. He is absolutely enjoying this role and it shows on the screen. Also Mickey Rourke is an excellent casting choice for Ivan Vanko / Whiplash. He is really cool. I read that it was Downey who initially proposed Rourke's name for Whiplash.

Gwyneth Paltrow as Pepper Potts is good. But I thought the cheeky romance between Stark & Pepper in the first movie was not so great here. They could have improved the dialogue between them. Sam Rockwell plays Justin Hammer, the rival weapons manufacturer to Tony Stark. On one hand I was seeing Downey, Jr. absolutely enjoying his role but on the other hand I thought Rockwell was somehow not into the role and was somewhat disinterested. Rockwell is such a fantastic actor and especially after last year's Moon, I think it's time for the studios to make better use of him. Scarlett Johansson as Natasha Romanoff / Black widow is arresting as usual but her fight scene is the only action piece in the film that was rather boring to me. It was there to please Scarlett's fans but the makers should have taken more care about it and made it a tad more interesting. And Don Cheadle is brilliant in his role as Lt. Colonel James Rhodes / War Machine.

The Iron Man was such a fun movie because it was novel and also there was a cute charm to it. Iron man 2 repeats it, so somewhere the novelty is lost and this is not as charming as the first part. Nevertheless Iron man 2 is a very engaging watch. All the action sequences are cool especially the piece on the race track. Once again, I hated Scarlett's fight sequence. When I saw all those drones at the climax, I was afraid for a while that this might turn out to be torture to ears like Transformers 2 but thank gosh there is not much metal clanking. The final showdown between Iron Man and Whiplash was surprisingly a low key affair, I mean they could have put a few seconds more there.

All in all this is a really fun watch & you won't regret spending money on this.

Verdict: 7/10

There is a special clip at the end of the credits. For those of you who haven't seen the clip, you can see it below. For the fans of Thor, this would be thrilling.

I'm seeing a full blown invasion of the screens by the Marvel characters in the coming years. With Thor coming in 2011 and Avengers probably in 2012, Marvel fans would be licking their lips. I don't know what else will be coming in the next 10 years. The coming decade could very well be a decade of superheroes if DC also joins the fray.

I've actually got a crazy weird idea for a movie whereby Marvel heroes attack DC headquarters with the help of DC villains and in the sequel DC heroes attack Marvel headquarters with the help of Marvel villains. Just imagine Team 1: Superman, Batman, Green Lantern, Whiplash, Galactus, Dr. Doom vs Team 2: Spiderman, Ironman, Hulk, Lex Luthor, The Joker, Thor. Anyone's interested?

Love to know your thoughts about Iron Man 2 or about my crazy idea,

30 ROCK Season 1 (2006-07)

2010-05-09T15:27:00.000+05:30

30 Rock is the name of an American comedy series which Tina Fey created partly based on her experience at Saturday Night Live. So here we have a fictional live sketch comedy show called as "TGS with Tracy Jordan" (initially called as The Girly Show) whose head writer is Liz Lemon (played by Tina Fey). We see what happens behind the production of this TV show along with knowing about the various persons/characters involved with it.

Season 1 was nominated for 10 Emmy awards. Apart from the writing, the really best part of the series is actors. Casting was absolutely fantastic. Alec Baldwin, Tracy Morgan, Scott Adsit, Judah Friedlander, Katrina Bowden, Keith Powell, Lonny Ross, Maulik Pancholy everyone was great in their roles.

But the 2 people who really stood out for me are Jane Krakowski as attention seeking star of TGS and Jack McBrayer as the ever happy, obedient, stupid NBC page. For me, these two and Tina Fey of course are the real stars of 30 Rock.

The comedy is top notch. If what you want is plain don't-use-much brain comedy, this is the thing for you. As far as the characters are concerned, they make me laugh very much but somehow I'm really not concerned about what happens with them except Liz Lemon. But my liking towards Liz Lemon might have to do more with Tina Fey than Liz Lemon (also I guess there might be a lot of similarities between Fey and Liz Lemon). With other characters, it's more like you make me laugh but I don't care if you are out of the show because someone else is going to do the same job. But once again the comedy is really good.

Verdict: 8/10

Some of the episodes that I felt to be very very good are episodes 13, 14, 18, 20 which are Up all night, The C-word, Fireworks, Cleveland respectively. But my top 5 favourite episodes are

1. The Head and The Hair (episode 11)

2. Corporate Crush (episode 19)

3. The Rural Juror (episode 10) & Black Tie (episode 12)

5. Jack meets Dennis (episode 6 )

Love to know your favourite ones,

LIFE IN THE UNDERGROWTH - Part5: Supersocieties (2005)

2010-05-08T23:57:00.000+05:30

Successfully completed the wonderful wonderful series Life in the Undergrowth. Although my favourite episode of the series is the 3rd one named The Silk Spinners (mostly because of my love towards spiders), this episode Supersocieties is a very very special one because of the similarity to our society and these societies of superorganisms.

After watching this episode, you really feel that at some point of time there was some connection to us. I mean, apart from intelligence there are a lot of similarities between us and these superorganisms. (It is another matter altogether that by seeing some of the actions of our species, I some times feel that we are less intelligent than some of these invertebrates.)

At the start of this episode Attenborough states that "The superorganisms such as ants, bees or termites are not the blindly mechanical robotic slaves that we once thought they were, indeed we now know every insect society is full of conflict, power struggles & mutinies".

Power struggles & mutinies! I never thought that could happen in other species apart from ours.

So in this episode we go into these super societies to see how they work. There is one superb footage showing the rise (from scratch) of a bumblebee society, its functioning and finally its end when the worker bees revolt and kill the queen bumblebee.

The wood ants squirting Formic acid when threatened is another good shot. After a flood, the mud ants quickly saving their eggs and moving them to a higher ground is another thrilling sequence in this episode.

The specialty of this particular episode is that most of the sequences in this episode are like from a thriller movie. Check this clip and see whether this reminds you of an old James Cameroon movie.

Or check this clip to see the power of unity displayed by the Central American army ants. Beastly.

The giant structures in the following snap belong to the termites. The specialty of these termite hills is that every one of these are pointing to the north-south direction aligning to the earth's magnetic field. This is to control the heat inside the structure.

They shot a full blown battle between the termites and matabele ants which once again reminded me of our battles. After the battle, the winning ants carry the dead termites to their home. The following snap shows a few of the thousands of ants collecting the dead bodies.

All in all, Life in the Undergrowth is one of the best science documentaries that I've seen in my life more so because never before were the invertebrates shot in such an amazing detail.

The closing statement for the series from Sir David Attenborough is

"If we and the rest of the back boned animals were to disappear overnight, the rest of the world would get on pretty well. But if they were to disappear, the land's ecosystems would collapse. The soil would lose its fertility. Many of the plants would no longer be pollinated. Lots of animals, amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals would have nothing to eat. And our fields and pastures would be covered with dung and carrion. These small creatures are within a few inches of our feet, wherever we go on land — but often, they're disregarded. We would do very well to remember them."

You can watch the best bits from Life In The Undergrowth as chosen by the TV production team at this BBC page.

Also some snaps/clips from episode 1 Invasion of the Land.

Few snaps/clips from episode 2 Taking to the Air.

Few snaps/clips from episode 3 The Silk Spinners.

Some snaps/clips from episode 4 Intimate Relations.

LIFE IN THE UNDERGROWTH - Part4: Intimate Relations (2005)

2010-05-08T20:25:00.002+05:30

In this 4th episode of the wonderful series Life in the Undergrowth, we are dealing with the relationships developed by the invertebrates not only towards their own kind but also towards plants. Most of us know that generally plants and insects depend on each other. But the kind of footage that they have shot for this episode is unbelievable.

This clip shows how a Gall wasp uses an Oak tree for the development of its egg.

In the following snap, there are 3 invertebrates. You can recognize the ants. The small black insects are aphids. The ants herd & protect the aphids from any other predators (such as the colorful ladybug in the snap) because aphids secrete honeydew which is a favorite food for the ants. In this snap the ants are trying to drive away the ladybug which came to eat the tiny aphids.

The following clip showing a botfly using a housefly to put its larvae inside a cow's skin is one of the best scenes that you would see in this series. This clip is definitely not for the weak hearted.

By the way, there are many cases were the above larvae have used humans as the hosts. Painful to imagine, isn't it?

This beautiful looking creature is called a feather legged bug.

The following clip involves Methocha and a beetle larva. The care taken by the Methocha to see that its young has enough constant supply of food is wonderful.

The 1st snap below is of a stick insect (if you carefully observe). The 2nd snap is of a baby stick insect taking its first steps.

Another great episode from the Life in the Undergrowth series. Once again, this is a 1 hour program and the clips that you've seen here forms only 10 minutes, so you can imagine the beauty that's in store in the full episode.

You can watch the best bits from Life In The Undergrowth as chosen by the TV production team at this BBC page.

Also some snaps/clips from episode 1 Invasion of the Land.

Few snaps/clips from episode 2 Taking to the Air.

Few snaps/clips from episode 3 The Silk Spinners.
Some snaps from the episode 4 Intimate Relations.

LIFE IN THE UNDERGROWTH - Part3: The Silk Spinners (2005)

2010-05-06T23:59:00.002+05:30

As the title says, in this episode of the Life in the Undergrowth series, we are dealing exclusively with the invertebrates which produce silk.

If you are thinking that spiders are the only invertebrates which produce silk then you are wrong because there are a whole lot of other beings which produce silk, of course apart from silk worms.

Check this clip to see the amazing fungus gnats, from the Waitomo Caves of New Zealand, building beautiful chandeliers to trap prey. This is a truly truly beautiful clip.

The following is another beautiful video showing the care that a mother lacewing takes to protect her eggs. A really wonderful clip.

If you are new to the amazing world of spiders, then the following clip would leave you in awe. In the program, prior to the following clip, there is a brilliant slow motion footage of a spider weaving it's web but I thought this part will really show you the amazing talent that they possess.

Just imagine how it would be if they had a brain as big as ours.

Some of the other wonderful events in the program include i) footage of one of the ancient spiders called as a Trap door spider, ii) a small spider stealing the food of Nephila, one of the largest spiders. This part was really great, iii) a hyptiotes catching its prey, iv) gladiator spider using its web as a fisherman uses his net, v) the construction of 3 dimensional web by a redback spider and its working mechanism. This is another part which is hard to believe until you see. vi) hunting by a bolas spider which believe it or not uses a bola with its hand to capture prey, vii) a dangerous mating session where after the mating, the female kills and eats the male spider, etc,.

This final clip is for those who are afraid/hate spiders. Don't miss this.

The reason that I've got no snaps for this program is that seriously everything here is to be watched in the whole to capture the full effect. Pics will do a great disservice to this particular episode, which is one of the most thrilling science documentaries that I've watched in my life & believe me I've watched quite a few.

Infact the 3 videos that I've posted here comes in the first 20 minutes of the program. You could estimate what would be in the whole 60 minutes. So don't miss The Silk Spinners which I think is the best part of this series.

You can watch the best bits from Life In The Undergrowth as chosen by the TV production team here.

Also some snaps/clips from episode 1 Invasion of the Land.

Few snaps/clips from episode 2 Taking to the Air.
Some snaps/clips from episode 4 Intimate Relations.
Some snaps/clips from episode 5 Supersocities.

LIFE IN THE UNDERGROWTH - Part2: Taking to the Air (2005)

2010-05-04T23:04:00.003+05:30

Since I've given a minute introduction to this series in my previous post, I will straight away give a few snaps from this episode.

As the title shows, here we deal with the invertebrates in air such as butterflies, dragonflies, wasps and a lot lot more.

There are a lot of metamorphosis videos shown in this episode but the best of the lot is the following one of a dragonfly. You wouldn't believe that the initial monster looking creature has changed into such a beautiful one.

Hmmm... You know what's happening in the below snap. So the next time you are in a field & you see something like this, DON'T DISTURB THEM. Due to my childhood interventions, I can't even imagine how many of them have cursed me.

No wonder this is called a damselfly. Beautiful.

Everything isn't so beautiful here. Don't get charmed by the beauty of a dragonfly. Here's a dragonfly larva eating its own kind.

The 1st snap below has a wasp injecting it's eggs into a butterfly's caterpillar. At the time of injection nothing happens to the caterpillar. Once it grows, then the young wasp caterpillars come from inside it (2nd snap). Looks like that Alien movie, isn't it?

This may look like a monster from another galaxy but this is only a tiny beetle. By the way there are over 300000 species of beetles on our planet.

Talking to the Air is another wonderful episode from the series Life in the Undergrowth. Since they are dealing with the creatures which have an amazing wing flap speed, they have shot footage whereby they slowed the motion to 400th of a second. You should see the episode to really see the behavior of some of the invertebrates while they are flying.

See the unbelievable feeding habit of a lantern bug which you wouldn't witness otherwise.

The episode finishes with the breeding cycle of Cicadas which is special because it is once in a 17 year ritual. The series makers have done a superb job in capturing it. You should watch this episode for atleast this part if not for anything else.

What I've posted here is nothing compared to what is there in the actual episode.

You can watch the best bits from Life In The Undergrowth as chosen by the TV production team here.

Also some snaps/clips from episode 1 Invasion of the Land.

Few snaps/clips from episode 3 The Silk Spinners.
Some snaps/clips from episode 4 Intimate Relations.
Some snaps/clips from episode 5 Supersocities.

LIFE IN THE UNDERGROWTH - Part1: Invasion of the Land (2005)

2010-05-04T21:51:00.005+05:30

I've seen many programs about various wonderful forms & variety of lives on our beautiful planet. But until Life in the Undergrowth there hasn't been a program that dealt about invertebrates in such a great depth.

Narrated by the one and only incomparable Mr. Who Else, this is a series par excellence.

More than 95% of all animal species on Earth consists of Invertebrates. For every one of us there are more than 200 million of those. As David says in the following intro clip, if we backbone creatures disappear suddenly, everything goes on normally for them but if they disappear, we are going to disappear with them.

The following clip consists of the first 200 seconds of the program. Observe that at some level we do have some similarities.

The first episode Invasion of the Land consists of the behavior of many invertebrates where David draws parallels to the ones that are present now and the ones that first came to land hundreds of millions of years ago. I'm not going to explain anything from the program but I'll give you a few snaps of some of the interesting creatures from the program just to build your curiosity.

Many of you might have seen a normal centipede (1st snap) but what about a giant centipede capturing and eating a bat (2nd snap).

Springtail is one of the most beautiful creatures but check its size in the 2nd snap below. The object to its side is not a nail but only a small pin. The size of the below springtail is actually less than half a millimeter. They shot a footage of a bathing springtail.

By the way we really need very advance equipment to shoot such videos which is the reason why invertebrates have been neglected before. But with the current equipment, they made this in a superb fashion. It took 2 years for filming this entire series.

If you think males running behind females is special to only our species, then think again. In the below clip, the top most one is a female which is trying to escape from the 3 EVIL males running behind it. You should actually see the video as this snap doesn't give you the full gravity of the situation.

A snap of a beautiful crustacean.

Ever enthusiastic David watching a leopard slug.

When you are studying any species, a large amount of time is given to study their mating practices. There are some of those in this episode but the most beautiful one is the mating ritual of the leopard slugs (below clip & don't miss this). By the way, poor slugs, THEY ARE GOING TO HELL BECAUSE THEY ARE HOMOSEXUALS (though not technically).

My final snaps are related to the most important of all the invertebrates. This perhaps contributes more to our ecosystem than any other species. This is the EARTHWORM. The below pics are of a cocoon of a giant earthworm. Check the youngling inside the cocoon in the 2nd pic.

I've given just a glimpse of the program. A velvet worm hunting which was shot in slow motion using an IR camera, violent scorpion making out session are just some of the many amazing stuff that you will find in this superb episode.

Technically this is of the highest quality. The background score is great. A collector's series.

If someone is afraid or hate even viewing the invertebrates, I've got just one thing to say. Don't be afraid or don't hate these because believe it or not, we are related and we have a common ancestor albeit a long time back.

You can watch the best bits from Life In The Undergrowth as chosen by the TV production team here.

Also some snaps/clips from episode 2 Taking to the Air.

Few snaps/clips from episode 3 The Silk Spinners.
Some snaps/clips from episode 4 Intimate Relations.
Some snaps/clips from episode 5 Supersocities.

1940 lo Oka Gramam (2009)

2010-05-01T18:03:00.000+05:30

In an interview, Narasimha Nandi, the director of this movie gave the following statement. “I held 30 shows for distributors but no one seemed interested in buying the film". After watching the film, I can easily see why this happened. I will bet my laptop that each one of those distributors were sleeping soundly by the end of the movie.

1940 lo Oka Gramam has won 3 Nandi awards & a national award for the best regional (Telugu) language film. As the title says, the film is about the superstitions & class discrimination by the upper caste Brahmins in a village in the year 1940. This film is adopted from the book Ghosha by Gurazada Appa Rao.

The film starts with an intense scene where a man from a lower caste is castrated because of his love with an upper caste woman. So I know (atleast thought) that this is going to be an intense thought provoking film. But by the end of the first 30 minutes, I understood that this is going to be one of the most agonizing & torturous experiences that I will have. Dheekshitulu is a 65-70 year old brahmin widower with no children. He sees the beautiful 16 year old Susheela & goes to her parents to ask her hand. Though her mother is angry with this proposal, Dheekshitulu says that he will give them a lot of kanyasulkam to which they finally agree.

(To my friends in other countries who don't know about kanyasulkam, kanyasulkam roughly means brideprice whereby sometimes an old brahmin would buy an young bride by giving the bride's parents money as an exchange for the bride. This was prevalent in some areas of South India prior to the 1940s. Thankfully, like smallpox, this practice was completely eradicated only to be overtaken by a more horrendous practice called dowry system which, like AIDS, is unfortunately yet to be eradicated.)

So our 70 year old grandpa marries 16 year old young girl. On the very first night she comes to know that her old husband is neither interested nor capable of making love. Also in the village is the hot headed intelligent XYZ (didn't remember this name) who belongs to a lower caste & is not even allowed to enter the village temple. We have a nice premise & everything is fine until this point. We know after the first 15 minutes that by the end i) our XYZ & Susheela are going to be united and ii) there is going to be a change in the beliefs of the upper caste people of the village.

The journey that takes place in between & the showcasing of the change should be what actually makes this an interesting watch. But the worst part is that all that we have in the movie is preaching preaching preaching & nothing else. Our young couple have an extramarital affair due to which Susheela becomes pregnant, Dheekshitulu sends her out of the house, village council shaves the heads of XYZ & Susheela as a punishment, Dheekshitulu has a change of heart & conducts the marriage of the young couple, finally the village elders have a change of heart themselves when all the lower caste people refuse to do any work for them.

Every scene in the movie is being forced into your brain. The amazing turn that Dheekshitulu character takes at the end is unbelievable. For a hard core chauvinist to change to the opposite end of the spectrum, he should have some soft spot in his heart or there must be a really strong motivational factor. With neither of these things, his change of heart is absolutely stupid. The same goes for the village elders. In a prior scene, just for drinking water from their well, they make a lower caste person drink their urine. While he is drinking urine, they laugh like some sadistic lunatics. I can't believe that they have this change of heart & become the most noblest of men just because others don't work for them. I didn't have an iota of empathy or care for the characters. This is what differentiates crap like this & such gems such as Sankarabharanam or the highly underrated Saptapadi.

Except the performance of Baladithya (who plays the role of XYZ), there is not a single thing good about the movie. Ya, it has decent background score but that's it. One of the things that annoys me beyond hell in any movie is bad lipsync. The dubbing is horrible. At no point did I get the feel that I was watching a movie which was supposed to be in 1940. Neither the dialogue nor the cinematography did any help to authenticate the 1940 setting. The director has manufactured the scenes. I can literally see that the director has made the characters as puppets who are dancing to his tunes without any logic. There is nothing special in Mukkuraju's portrayal of Dheekshitulu but he got a Nandi award as best character actor. I don't know what is wrong with our awards system. I may not agree with all the winners at Oscars but atleast they have a really good democratic system in place.

At the end of it there is neither entertainment nor message (there is no empathy towards the characters to really get the message). With a better director and in a different era, this could have been a better movie.

This is exactly the kind of a film that a critic prays every morning that he should not be subjected to. For voting this, every person in the national awards jury should be made to watch this movie for a 100 times after which I'm sure they themselves would ask to be fried in hot oil rather than watching this. I mean what about the really funny Ashta Chemma or the highly entertaining Arundhati or the message oriented Gamyam. Each of these is a 100 times better film than 1940 lo Oka Gramam.

As far as the Nandi award for Best film on national integration goes, I have an interesting advice to anyone out there who wants to get an easy Nandi award. Just follow the following steps.

Step 1. List some 5 to 6 good moral advices such as for e.g, Don't tell lies, All people are equal, Untouchability is a crime, Taking dowry is bad, etc,.

Step 2. Take some actors (your family members will suffice) and make them shout these messages as loud as possible for 2 hours. Don't worry about acting or story or screenplay. The jury is anyway not going to watch your film.

Step 3. Just to make sure that this is not an absolute teaching class, put some background score (anything will do) & add a couple of songs.

Step 4. Send this to the Nandi awards. (You can also send this to national awards because who knows how your luck is going to be.)

Step 5. There is 95% chance that you will get the Nandi award fot Best film on national integration.

Step 6. Don't forget to give me a big party.

I gave this a 3, only because the director definitely had some good intentions & the film has heart (but sadly nothing else).

Verdict: 3/10

Seriously people, even if somebody forces you, don't watch this. Instead, go once again for that amazing 1955 film Kanyasulkam starring N.T.R as Gireesam and Savitri as Madhuravani (Unforgettable performance). I said once again because I assume you have seen it atleast once & if not, see it within the next week or else you are an idiot.

Love to know if anybody really really felt this as an interesting watch,

The Office: Season 1 (2005)

2010-04-30T20:27:00.002+05:30

Completed the season 1 of The Office. Point to be noted is there are only 6 episodes in season 1. Of course I'm talking about the American version. For those of my friends who doesn't know what this is, The Office is a mockumentary comedy series showing the daily lives of office employees working in a branch of a company called as Dunder Mifflin Paper Company. So you have all the variety characters that you assume would be present in a typical boring office.

I've started to love the title music. Most of us when we love a program & hear the music related to it, we have this mixed feeling of warmth, pleasure & nostalgia. You know what I mean. As soon as I hear that initial music I'm having the same feeling. So I guess I'm starting to love the show & the characters.

I haven't watched the British version. So naturally I don't have any benchmarks to compare with, which is really great. All the characters are excellent. I'm remembering their names though not all of them yet.

Michael Scott (Steve Carell) is the most irritating, idiotic, lunatic boss that I've ever seen. Carell is funny in some scenes & downright irritating in many. It would be interesting to see how am I going to empathize with this character in future. Right now I have an intense dislike for Michael Scott. This character, atleast in season 1, is not for every one. Steve Carell is great in the role.

All the characters are wonderful. If I have to name two people who nailed there characters, that would be Rainn Wilson as Dwight Schrute and Jenna Fischer as Pam. I could really see the pain in her job/role. John Krasinski is sweet as Jim.

As far as the background goes, there is one thing that I should mention here. It is the complete lack of any music (including laugh track) which increases the reality setting & cramped feel by many folds.

The writing is great. Definitely better than the first 6 episodes of 30 Rock that I've watched until now.

In the final episode there is Amy Adams, probably in her pre-popular days. Am I the only one who is seeing a great deal of resemblance between her & Jenna Fischer?

Also can some kind soul explain to me that line "Would you like some googie googie?" & how it's racial in the episode 2 Diversity Day. I didn't get the word googie googie at all.

Over all, a fine start to the series I would say. I would recommend this to you. I reckon season 2 would be much more fun.

Since there are only 6 episodes in season 1, I would list my top 3 favourite ones. There is a tie for the 3rd place.

1. Health Care (episode 3)

2. The Alliance (episode 4)

3. Diversity Day (episode 2) & Basketball (episode 5).

Verdict: 8/10

Would love to know your favourite episodes,

Pilot episodes of The Office & 30 Rock

2010-04-28T00:26:00.000+05:30

Last year at this date, I didn't knew that there were two comedy series by the names of The Office & 30 Rock. In the last 6 months, I've read a lot of praise for these two series. One of my friends got the dvds for these shows, so finally I've decided to watch these comedies from today.

After watching the pilot episodes, these are my initial thoughts & reactions about these.

In The Office, we follow the chronicles of people working in a fictional company by the name Dunder Mifflin Paper Company.

It is like one of these cluttered govt offices where people are so bored. They appear kind of content but not content. You know what I mean. I am introduced to some of the key characters neatly such as Michael Scott (Steve Carell), Jim Halpert (John Krasinski), Dwight Schrute (Rainn Wilson), Pam Halpert (Jenna Fischer), etc,. All of them looked really good in their characters. Steve Carell was sometimes funny but mostly I felt his character was kind of irritating & slightly lunatic. I wanted to throw paper weight on his head after his practical joke on Jenna but that is the reaction they wanted from audience I suppose. It would be interesting to see how these characters are going to develop in my view. Especially Carell's after that irritating sketch in this episode.

The title music is good. But the thing that surprised me was that all through the episode there wasn't any background score and the effect was amazing. With the cramped settings, camera positions & zero background score, I literally felt like suffocating. So that part of showcasing the mood of the office is very well done.

The writing is good. All in all an interesting start & looking forward to complete the season 1. But I'm surprised that it has only 6 episodes.

For a change, instead of wrtiting about this after watching the episode, I will write wahtever I thought as I was watching this.

Before watching 30 Rock the question in my mind was, How much can I relate to 30 Rock because in India we don't have any live sketch comedy series at all. It would be interesting if anyone starts something like Saturday Night Live here. In fact until Fey's imitations of Palin (which I probably saw a thousand times), I myself didn't knew anything about SNL.

For me the best thing about deciding to watch 30 Rock is obviously Tina Fey. No other comedienne's sight brings a smile to me as her's. I thoroughly enjoyed Date Night my only regret being she should have wrote it.

30 Rock is about all the people involved in a fictitious comedy sketch show called as The Girly Show. We see the behind-the-scenes happenings of all the actors & technicians involved with The Girly Show.

Title song was decent not great. Tina Fey attacks as soon as the program starts. That first scene (hotdogs) is good. Introduces me to some of the important characters. All the casting looks good. Alec Baldwin was really great in his intro scene. I think there are going to be a lot of fights between Fey & Baldwin. Tracy Morgan was fantastic in his role. His intro hotel scene was hilarious. Great mannerisms. Tina Fey dancing on the podium :) Just 2 weeks ago I saw her do a pole dance with Steve Carell. Looking forward to see some magic from Kenneth Parcell & Jane Krakowski in future episodes.

Writing is good but good is not enough for Fey. I'm expecting great from the future episodes. Overall another interesting pilot episode.

Both The Office & 30 Rock deals with showing people in a work place but with completely different backgrounds and fields. It would be interesting to see which one would I like the most by the end.

The Maltese Falcon (1941)

2010-04-25T18:52:00.003+05:30

Verdict: 9/10

The Maltese Falcon is written & directed by John Huston and adopted from Dashiell Hammett's novel of the same name. The movies star cast includes Humphrey Bogart as private investigator Sam Spade, Mary Astor as Brigid O'Shaughnessy, Peter Lorre as Joel Cairo, Sydney Greenstreet as Kasper Gutman, Lee Patrick as Effie Perrine, Elisha Cook Jr. as Wilmer Cook, Gladys George as Iva Archer amongst others. There is a special cameo by Walter Huston.

The Maltese Falcon received Oscar nominations for Picture, John Huston for Adapted Screenplay & Sydney Greenstreet for Supporting Actor.

I won't give any plot details here except that this is a wonderful crime mystery that started the classic film noir period of Hollywood. The movie starts with these lines scrolling.

"In 1539, the Knights Templar of Malta, paid tribute to Charles V of Spain, by sending him a Golden Falcon encrusted from beak to claw with rarest jewels ----- but pirates seized the galley carrying this priceless token and the fate of the Maltese Falcon remains a mystery to this day ---".

So we know that we have to find the falcon & in the process we deal with lies, murders, characters full of deceit & cunningness. You know the typical film noir settings.

The Maltese Falcon is the first movie directed by John Huston who in his illustrious career was nominated for 15 Oscars. John Huston hated the two previous movie adaptations of the novel The Maltese Falcon. He thought that there is a lot of scope for improvement. The beauty of the film is that there is not a single waste line nor a single waste shot nor a single waste performance. Everything is so perfect & each character is very well developed. I felt Huston has filtered the movie like water, over & over, until it became so perfect.

The performances in the movie were of the highest order.

Brigid O'Shaughnessy is not your typical film noir femme fatale as this is only the start of bigstudio film noir. In fact I felt that Brigid O'Shaughnessy was the perfect template for the future femme fatales where the writers had this template to work on & develop a perfect femme fatale such as say Double Indemnity's Phyllis Dietrichson or Vertigo's Madeleine Elster. Although Brigid was responsible for the deaths of 3 people she never appears as a threat to the protagonist Sam Spade. Astor was very good in the movie. She keeps her best for the climax confrontation with Bogart.

Peter Lorre as Joel Cairo gave an amazing performance. His intro scene is great. You can see the power of his performance in the climax where he goes from delighted look while opening the package - exploding on Gutman after knowing the truth about Maltese Falcon - controlled dialogue & expression after Gutman says that they will revisit Istanbul. Simply brilliant. The combination of Lorre & Greenstreet was such a success that they have worked in 9 movies after this.

Sydney Greenstreet enters the movie only around the 50 minute mark. He was 60 years old, this was his debut performance & he was nominated for Best Supporting Actor. His years of stage experience shows in his portrayal of Kasper "Fat Man" Gutman. Those subtle expressions & gentle laughs. Simply wonderful. Elisha Cook Jr. in one of his early roles as Wilmer "Little Boy" Cook, the cold assistant to Gutman is good. Do the words Fat Man & Little Boy ring anything in your mind?

Bogart lived the role of Sam Spade. That he didn't even get an Oscar nomination for this is quite a puzzle for me. Either the real nominees have given all-time greatest performances or the Academy is dumb. Bogart's Sam Spade is one of the meanest, ruthless heroes that you will see. I heard that the original Sam Spade in the novel was a 6 feet heavy built figure. Bogart is not a big person physically but he more than makes it up with his voice & mannerisms. See that scene where he mocks his partner's widow by saying "You killed my husband Sam. Be kind to me". His clap, his smile & his subtle expressions in that scene were as mean as you could see anywhere. Or that scene where he says "Ya with $10000 insurance, no children & a wife who doesn't like him" about his dead partner. Or the scene where he says "When you're slapped, you'll take it & like it" and slaps Joel Cairo. Bogart's Sam Spade is arguably the most ungenerous & masculine character until Marlon Brando gave that tour de force performance as Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar named Desire. In a way, even Sam Spade was not a complete film noir protagonist because he was always in control of the situation except for that one scene in which he is intoxicated. Even there I didn't felt that he could be harmed.

Think about the fact that Bogart was not even the first choice to play Sam Spade. Only after he started playing this role that he & John Huston became friends & they made 5 more movies which includes The Treasure of the Sierra Madre & The African Queen.

Cinematography is by Arthur Edeson, who was one of the founders of the American Society of Cinematographers. Edeson has worked for almost a 100 movies prior to this & he also did Casablanca later. He used some very innovative angles. You can observe that for most part of the film, the position of the camera is at the waist level. So we have a lot of low-angle shots which were made more famous later in Citizen Kane. The low-angle makes the already sinister characters more sinister.

Max Steiner gave good background score for the movie. Editing is one of the key things for a crime mystery. Owen Marks did a fantastic job with editing. I only found one bad cut in the entire movie where Spade sends off Iva Archer before he gets a call to meet Gutman.

All in all with one of the best ensemble performances that you would see in a film noir, superb script & directing, great technical achievements this is one of those films that you shouldn't miss.

In fact, I was so engrossed & immersed in the story & the performances the 1st time I viewed this that I completely forgot about the other aspects of the film. I rewatched this immediately to concentrate on the other technical aspects. For me the movie, the protagonist & the femme fatale are not the ideal film noirs but rather the initial models which were developed into more defined figures for the next 2 decades of film noir.

So, in a line, what is The Maltese Falcon?

The stuff that dreams are made of & the stuff that started an amazing style of film making.

If you are interested in film noir, see my brief review of the BBC program The Rules of Film Noir.

Love to hear your thoughts about The Maltese Falcon,

The Rules of FILM NOIR (2009)

2010-04-23T03:22:00.002+05:30

The music in background is the nostalgic classic jazz. Everything is in black & white. Matthew Sweet gets out of a car & says this "Dark, isn't it? You better get used to it. For the next hour, this is how the world is going to be. THIS IS THE WORLD OF FILM NOIR. It's a dark American place with a fancy French name. A place where the sun has died & people get buoy with Neon, where the only pleasures to be had are from bourbon & the satisfaction of knowing that life is a cheap little game in which everyone plays dirty". I immediately knew that the next hour is going to be a superb fun ride & boy! Am I delighted by the end of the programme.

This BBC programme, narrated by Matthew Sweet, deals with the wonderful world of film noir. The word film noir invokes different things to different people. If I have to say 3 things that flash in my mind in a nanosecond, they would be unbelievable shadows, tobacco smoke & Put the blame on Mame. Isn't Rita Hayworth ravishing in Gilda? I would love to know the 3 things that come to your mind first when you hear the word 'film noir'.

In the programme, we get a brief history of film noir & the things that make a film noir unique. Some of the people involved with film noir telling about their understanding & also walking through few of their memorable scenes. You could see the names of the people in the programme here. Matthew Sweet sure loves talking about film noir.

Also in the one hour, there are scenes from a minimum of 25 films which makes you completely nostalgic after seeing this. I actually wanted to mention all the names of films in this but saw no point in it because this covers almost all of the classics.

Coming to the title of the programme, most of the people have their own rules for film noir. What we have here are the following 5 rules of film noir according to Matthew Sweet.

Matthew Sweet's ending lines for the programme were "In film noir, life seems to get cheaper by the minute. It's every man & woman for themselves and that's horrifying but it's intoxicating too because maybe a little part of us believes that that's how the world really is & that's why we can't tear our eyes from the shadows & why more than half a century later we keep on staring into the dark."

This is a must see programme for all film noir connoisseurs. Seeing most of the stars of the film noir in 1 hour is really great. Even if you don't know anything about film noir, you could learn a few things about the wonderful style of filmmaking that is film noir.

Warning: Since the programme contains many clips from so many films, some of the clips may act as spoilers for you if you haven't watched them. In fact I'm yet to see many of these movies. So I skipped when they were showing scenes from the movies that I'm yet to see. So watch with discretion.

You know what I'm going to do now? I'm going to watch The Maltese Falcon.

Serendipity (2001)

2010-04-21T07:41:00.002+05:30

Verdict: 9/10

How many of us doesn't like a good love story with some humour & some melancholy. I think the romcoms of the 30s, 40s & 50s are amongst the best in Hollywood history. We have such precious gems such as Adam's Rib, Roman Holiday, It Happened One Night, My Man Friday & the list goes on. The next 3 decades saw a decline in this genre save some rare exceptions such as Annie Hall. But the last 2 decades saw a revival of sorts. I think the success of When Harry Met Sally & Pretty Woman has a lot to do with this.

I like many romcoms from the last 2 decades but if you ask me to name 3 movies that I absolutely adore from the last 21 years, I would say 10 Things I Hate About You, My Sassy Girl (not the English version but the Korean version Yeopgijeogin Geunyeo) & Serendipity.

I actually saw Serendipity for the 1st time only a year after its release. At that time I haven't seen many rom-coms & also I wasn't thinking about movies in a critical way analysing their good, bad & ugly. It was just some rom-com which I was seeing to waste some time. But by the first 15 minutes, I started to love the movie. One reason was due to the interesting start & another reason was due to Kate Beckinsale about whom I never heard of before & who will always remain my 1st Hollywood crush.

Serendipity is directed by Peter Chelsom & written by Marc Klein.

While shopping for Christmas, strangers Jonathan Trager (John Cusack) & Sara Thomas (Kate Beckinsale) try to buy the same pair of gloves at a store. After Jonathan leaves them to her, they feel some kind of attraction towards each other although they already have their lovers. So they spend some time with each other by eating & skating. When the shamelessly flirting Jonathan proposes to exchange their numbers, Sara has a better idea. She makes him write his name & number on a $5 note & changes that note in a shop. She says that she will write her name & number on a book that she will sell the next day. So if they are destined to be with each other, they will find other's contact someday. They leave each other after this AMAZING BRILLIANT idea.

After a few years, Jonathan is engaged to Halley Buchanan (Bridget Moynahan) & Sara is about to get engaged to Lars Hammond (John Corbett). All these years they do think about each other but they don't even know their full names to find each other. After seeing some 'signs', both of them decide to try one last time to find each other. Jonathan has his friend Dean Kansky (Jeremy Piven) to help him & Sara has her friend Eve (Molly Shannon). Do they find each other? If so will they leave their respective partners who are such good people? See the movie for answers although I know anybody could guess what happens at the end of a rom-com.

John Cusack & Kate Beckinsale have little screentime together but whenever they do share a scene, they share good chemistry. Their roles are not meant to win an Oscar & they deliver what's required. The best part in acting comes from the supporting cast. I loved the role of Dean Kansky. Molly Shannon as Eve was also very good. Eugene Levy has a very funny cameo as sales man in the movie.

Another thing for which I like the movie so much is its score. It is composed by 2 time Academy award nominated Alan Silvestri who is one of the busiest in the business. This is not his best by any means. He has given background to such movies as Forrest Gump, Back to the Future series, The Polar Express amongst others. But the music in Serendipity is different & it caught my attention.

If at all there is one thing to improve, it is the dialogue of the movie. It is kind of mishmash wherein some scenes I like it & in some other scenes I hate. Some of the dialogue at the start is so sugary that you wouldn't eat anything sweet for a few hours.

Coming to the story, the only problem with the story is the probability of its occurrences. It's all fate-destiny-fate-destiny in the movie. In fact IMDB has this movie under fantasy genre & rightly so. You would never see so many coincidences in a story to move it forward. They could have mentioned in the movie that the main purpose & existence of the universe is to somehow unite Jonathan & Sara. If you don't give much thought to the improbability of the story, you will definitely enjoy this.

I always felt this is one of those movies which was quite underrated. Many of you may disagree with my rating, but it's like a first love to me where the good things always appear magnified & the faults diminished.

Special Message to Miramax: This movie is remade into a Tamil film called Jay Jay. So Miramax, if they haven't bought the rights from you (which I'm very doubtful of), it would be great if you sue them. There is too much plagiarism going on here.

Love to hear what you have to say about Serendipity,

Most of our Universe is Missing (2006)

2010-04-18T02:34:00.001+05:30

From here onwards, to encourage my readers to watch the science videos, I've decided to include a few screenshots in my posts. Hope this encourages you to give some of your time for knowing about some interesting things that are happening around you.

Most of our Universe is Missing is another episode in the long lasting series BBC Horizon. This episode is narrated by Academy Award nominated actor Sir Ian Holm.

I will give a brief intro about what this episode deals with.

Do you know that around 96% of our universe is missing? And I'm not talking about the vast emptiness that we see. All the galaxies with stars, planets & other debris that you see has a total mass of only 4% of our universe.

Prior to 1970, everything in our universe is accounted for. Or that is what most people thought. But in the 1970s Prof. James Peebles & Prof. Jeremiah Ostriker, who were working on the stability of the galaxies & universe, found that with the notions of total mass existed at that time, the stability of the galaxies is difficult to achieve. They were thinking of some missing matter that is unknown to us & they came to know that forty years earlier Prof. Fritz Zwicky had the same ideas about missing matter. Thus our Dark Matter was discovered in theory. But the problem for others to accept this is that neither dark matter could be seen nor it was discovered practically. So, many of the others dismissed it as speculative.

The key breakthrough was given by Dr. Vera Rubin. At that time when most of the cosmologists are working on blackholes, she was working on the rotational curves of galaxies especially the outer parts of galaxies. You see, generally the farther a body is from a heavy object, the weaker the gravity & the lesser the speed. For e.g., in our solar system, Sun exerts more gravity on Mars than Pluto. The greater the gravity, the more the speed of the rotating body. So the speed of Mercury is larger than Pluto. If Pluto has a speed of Mercury, it will escape Sun's gravity. By the same principle, the stars at the end of the galaxy should have very slower speeds compared to stars at the center of the gravity. But Vera Rubin found that the stars at the end of the galaxy have almost the same speed as other stars (below pic). So something else was helping them & this was a massive shot in the arm for dark matter. In fact it is established now that not only the stars but Hydrogen clouds at the end of galaxy are also travelling at the same speeds.

So why is it difficult to find dark matter. The reason is that although it has mass, it is not made up of atoms. In a simple line, it is everywhere but can't be seen (atleast until now). Many scientists are trying to find a particle called as neutralino which might be the dark matter. In fact there is a group led by Prof. Tim Sumner who have been working for the past 16 years to find this. Hope they will soon crack this.

The episode also shows some of the view points of the doubters of the dark matter theory. A key person among the sceptics is Prof. Mordehai Milgrom. I've included his screenshot below because I love people who question authority. You would be bewildered if I say what he is questioning. He is actually questioning Newton's gravity laws for very very heavy objects such as galaxies. The beauty of science is that you may face opposition from your community if you are a rebel & contradict the existing rules but you are never stoned to death nor you are scorned upon. (I remembered a small incident happened to Prof. Dawkins which I will post at the end of this article). Prof. Mordehai Milgrom has his sound logic too for his arguments.

A few years back it was discovered that our universe is continously expanding & this requires enormous amounts of energy which is now called as Dark Energy. So we now have a cosmology standard model (pic below) which is being accepted by a vast majority of cosmologists & scientists.

The only part that I disliked in the episode is when they showed that segment related to the computer simulation & the minor debate around the effectiveness of it. That runs for around 6-8 minutes. If they have cut that & instead showed something regarding the current experiments & research being done for dark matter & dark energy, it would have been great.

Coming to the incident which happened to Prof. Dawkins, once when Dawkins was a biology student, his professor has been working upon a research for almost 15 years. But his research was not coming to any conclusions. Then another professor from another place visited his University & gave a seminar on the same research which he himself has successfully completed. Dawkins' professor's research for the past 15 years has all been wrong. Imagine what you will do when you know that 15 years of your life's work was for nothing. 15 years, people, is an enormous time in a person's life. But Dawkins' professor stood up, went to the other professor & said with tears in his eyes "I'm so proud & glad that you did this & proved me wrong." I've heard this a long time back. So please excuse me if any minor discrepancies have crept above.

I couldn't resist this screenshot. I hope some day, I will visit this place.

Love to hear your thoughts,

How to Train Your Dragon (2010)

2010-04-16T21:08:00.002+05:30

Verdict: 8/10

How to Train Your Dragon directed by Chris Sanders & Dean DeBlois is a big budget CGI animation film from the DreamWorks Animation stable.

The story is set around the ancient & mythical Viking land where the glory of a man lies in becoming a dragon slayer. Dragons occasionally raid the Vikings & take the livestock & any other available food which invariably results in a fight. The protagonist of the movie is Hiccup (Jay Baruchel), son of the chief of Vikings (Gerard Butler). As with any other Viking, Hiccup wants to be a dragon slayer but is constantly discouraged by his father because he is 'different' read not muscular. So at one of the dragon raids, when Hiccup injures a most feared dragon called Night Fury, noone believes him. He goes to the adjacent woods to find & kill it, but when the time comes he couldn't do it because he realizes that it is as much afraid of him as he is of it. So he releases it & an unlikely friendship is forged. Gradually Hiccup finds that dragons are not harmful unless provoked & he tries to change the perceptions of Vikings especially that of his father. With the help of his lady love Astrid (America Ferrera), how he achieves his goal & brings peace between Vikings & Dragons forms the rest of the story. By the way, the intro of Astrid is hot, literally. There are enough action pieces & aerial fights in the film. The Big Daddy at the climax looked like a hybrid between T-Rex & Archaeopteryx. Imagine a flying T-Rex breathing fire.

The basic structure of the story is not at all new. Infact after watching the movie, you would feel that you seen this kind of a story a 100 times where a misunderstood teenager/kid meets a misunderstood character/animal - they become friends - with the help of allies they make a difference in their surroundings - you know it. So what differentiates such movies? The characters & the settings which are new in "How to Train Your Dragon" & what more, they are beautiful. The tale is touching with enough thrills to keep you engaging although in the middle, for a few minutes, you feel that the pace has slowed a bit.

As far as animation goes, the level of detail is unbelievable. Infact if there are no animated characters in the movie, you would think that the movie is not animated at all. The shadows & the colours are superb adding amazing depth to the animation. Since it's entrance, Pixar has been running with major revenues as well as acclaim leaving Dreamworks in its trail. With only Toy Story 3 from Pixar in 2010, this got to be one of the leading contenders at the Oscars 2011. Already this has got the highest score for a Dreamworks Animation film at Rotten Tomatoes. Come on DreamWorks, we need some good competition to Pixar. Bring more movies like this.

All the voice cast is good. I think Gerard Butler is a Viking in his previous birth as his voice somehow suits it well. John Powell's score complements the movie well. Technically a very well made film.

If you are one of those, who felt cheated after watching the 3D versions of Alice in Wonderland & Clash of the Titans, this movie will not disappoint you. I've mentioned in my Clash of the Titans review to not see it in 3D, but How to Train Your Dragon is a movie which you should see in 3D. The movie is also being screened in 2D version but there is no point in seeing this in 2D. Although the 3D is not as superlative as say Avatar, this has some cool scenes & definitely ranks in my all time top 5 3D animation films.

If you have kids or you want to impress kids, take them to the movie & wouldn't regret your decision. They would absolutely love this. In fact I would say this is the best family movie this summer & I actually beg you to take your kids to "How to Train Your Dragon" if you haven't already done so. Since I'm stressing on kids, don't think that this is not for adults. If you have a kid some where in you, you would enjoy this.

Love to hear what you thought about the movie or my review,

Män som hatar kvinnor / The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009)

2010-04-14T23:58:00.002+05:30

Verdict: 9/10

The movie has some nudity & violence.

"The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" directed by Niels Arden Oplev, is adopted from the 1st book of the hugely popular "Millennium Trilogy" series written by Stieg Larsson. Spare a thought for Larsson because he died before any of the trilogy books were published. The movie is the biggest ever Scandinavian movie & the highest grossing movie of Europe in 2009. There are 2 more sequels to this film which have been already released in Sweden & will be released in U.S in the coming months. I didn't read the novel but as the movie is gradually unfolding, you can actually feel like reading the book. The literal translation of the swedish title is Men who hate Women.

Henrik Vanger (Sven-Bertil Taube) is a retired former head of a business empire as well as the head of a big dynasty. 40 years ago his niece Harriet has disappeared & her body was never found. Henrik, for whom Harriet is like a daughter, is convinced that she is murdered by some one from his own family & he employs a tainted journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) to find the murderer. Mikael gets an unlikely partner in the form of the antisocial computer hacker Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace) who is fighting some demons from her own past. They form an unlikely detective pair & together they must find the murderer before they themselves became the target.

For a movie to be a good crime thriller, in my opinion, you need good screenplay & editing along with great story & performances. Decent music doesn't hurt either. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is a perfect package of all the above.

The plot is not as simple as I've mentioned above. There are many layers to the story. Characters in the movie are not some simple paper caricatures but are filled with real meat & flesh. Michael Nyquist as the disgraced journalist has done a very good job. All the supporting cast are good.

But the performance of the movie goes to the girl with the dragon tattoo Noomi Rapace. Hers was the toughest job. She played the role of a young woman who has been abused since childhood by society & most of the people that she knows. So she develops a kind of apathy towards the society. Even when she finally finds a man whom she loves, her troubled past means she can't trust him. Also she is afraid to take the next step & can't express her love. Lisbeth Salander is one of the more complex characters that you will see this year. In an interview Rapace said that she knows Lisbeth in & out. It shows in her performance. After the movie I googled Noomi Rapace & I was astonished with the difference between the real Rapace & reel Lisbeth. If I give you the pictures of Rapace & Lisbeth, you would think they are completely different persons. A double thumbs-up for Rapace. Of late, I've heard that some idiots are remaking this. Whoever takes her role has really huge shoes to fill in.

Nikolaj Arcel & Rasmus Heisterberg have done a good job in adopting the screenplay to the big screen. Anne Østerud has done an exceptional job with the editing. With appropriate background score & good cinematography the movie was very well made.

Niels Arden Oplev has handled the 150 min movie very well without letting loose the grip anywhere. Of course the screenplay definitely helped him.

I was dangling whether to give this 8 or 9 but since I'm not witnessing the release of many good crime mysteries these days & I love strong feminine characters, I went with a 9. Without a doubt, this will be one of the best crime mysteries that you will see this year.

Love to hear your views,

Date Night (2010)

2010-04-12T23:52:00.002+05:30

Verdict: 8/10

Ads before the movie in theatre:

1. New Samsung 3D. The ad was amazing on the big screen although I doubt the real effect of the T.V.

2. Trailer of The A-Team, which was rather uninspiring with the only inspiration being Liam Neeson's face.

3. Insipid trailer of The Bounty Hunter starring Jennifer Aniston & Gerard Butler. I found the comedy rather bland. Never a fan of Aniston.

Date Night is directed by Shawn Levy whose previous credits include The Pink Panther & Night at the Museum movies amongst others.

The movie stars Steve Carell & Tina Fey as the married couple Phil and Claire Foster living in New Jersey with 2 children. They are one of those couples who lead the same monotonous routine life, day in & day out. Although they do love & admire each other, they feel nothing "special" or magic in their relation as well as life. Every week they go on a date night to the local restaurant where they make jokes & amuse themselves by imitating other couples' talks & guessing their stories. But even this has become a tiresome experience now. When their best friends inform the Fosters about their divorce by saying that they no longer feel like couple but good room mates, Fosters feel the same about themselves. So in order to rekindle their romance Steve takes Claire on a date to a costly Manhattan restaurant.

But they don't get a table. A couple by the name of Tripplehorns reserves a table there but they don't show up, so our Fosters assume their name & sit at that table. The original Tripplehorns have a flash drive containing some secret information related to the district attorney (William Fichtner, I just completed season 4 of Prison Break in which Fichtner has a key role) who has connections with the local mobster Joe Miletto (Ray Liotta). So Joe sends 2 of his men, who are also cops, to fetch the flash drive from The Tripplehorns. From hereon your normal game of mistaken identity starts. Fosters explain that they were not Tripplehorns but since the 2 men doesn't listen, they escape & their date night becomes an adventure filled run night. With the help of Holbrooke Grant (Mark Wahlberg), who is a past client of Claire, they track the Tripplehorns (James Franco & Mila Kunis), get the flash drive but lose it again, & finally with some help from Grant & police, trap the district attorney & mobster redhanded.

I've been waiting for this movie for quite sometime & the movie didn't disappoint me at all. There are many good things about the movie. First & important one is that Tina Fey & Steve Carell are absolutely perfect as the bored couple. As the Fosters, they are made for each other. Performances of everyone involved in Date Night are pitch perfect. Like the scene at their initial datenight where Tina Fey looks for a second at a kissing couple & her expression says everything about their current relation. Infact every time a new character enters, rest assure laughs guaranteed. The whole intro scene of Mark Wahlberg is super funny. I didn't know that James Franco was in the movie. His & Mila Kunis part & that whole scene was one of the best parts of the movie. There was one good lengthy action piece involving two cars attached to each other.

Even in the scenes which are supposed to be calm, the leads made sure that there is not a dull moment with their earnest performances. Their conversations come through honest & interesting in serious scenes & absolutely funny in the comic scenes. Credit & thumbs-up to both director Shawn Levy & the writer Josh Klausner.

The only bad thing about the movie was that based on the promos I thought this would be a romcom with slight action but this turned out to be an actioncom with romance. Might be my fault to have a wrong expectation. In an Indian movie, generally you have an interval around the 75 minute mark. Date Night runs for around only 85 minutes & I felt the movie was over in 40 minutes which shows how much I enjoyed it.

Oh, I forgot to mention the line which was in every headline about the movie. There is a talk that without this line you can't mention Date Night. Here it comes. Mark Wahlberg has no shirt in the movie. Now my review is complete. You want to target teenage girls. Make Taylor Lautner shed his shirt. You want to attract young women. Make Wahlberg shed his shirt. You want to attract old women. Make ________ shed his shirt. You can fill in the blank in the comments.

There was not an yawn inducing moment in the movie & the grin never left my face right from the very first scene to the last kiss scene at the end credits. Gosh! I would love a sequel.

My advice to the couples. Go to the movie. You'll enjoy this unless you hate Tina Fey. Then go to a restaurant & start imitating the people there.

Finally I have a couple of messages.

Tina Fey, if you ever read this, I love you (sorry Jeff). [I am hearing the voice of Tina Fey calling me from the theatre for another view.]

Oscar organizers, let Tina Fey be the host next year, pleeeease.

Love to hear your views,

Jesus Camp (2006)

2010-04-10T20:46:00.000+05:30

Verdict: 10/10

This is one of the most terrifying horror documentaries that I've seen in the recent past. Leave aside your exorcists, grudges & halloweens. I've seen Gin gwai 2 a couple of days ago & as far as horror is considered, Jesus Camp actually beats it. If this documentary doesn't send even a single chill through your brain, I promise I will stop seeing any horror movies in the future.

A couple of quotes from the documentary.

Becky Fischer: It's no wonder, with that kind of intense training and discipline, that those young people are ready to kill themselves for the cause of Islam. I wanna see young people who are as committed to the cause of Jesus Christ as the young people are to the cause of Islam. I wanna see them as radically laying down their lives for the Gospel as they are over in Pakistan and Israel and Palestine and all those different places, you know, because we have... excuse me, but we have the truth!

(If I erase "The Book" from your mind Becky, Where/What is the truth that you are talking about?)

Becky Fischer: I can go into a playground of kids that don't know anything about Christianity, lead them to the Lord in a matter of, just no time at all. They are so usable in Christianity.

(Usable! Since when did Kids became some junk stationary.)

Jesus Camp directed by Rachel Grady & Heidi Ewing is a critically acclaimed documentary film which received an Oscar nomination but lost the award to Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth.

In a nut shell the documentary is about a radical summer camp for Evangelical Christian kids run by Becky Fischer who is a Pentecostal children's minister. While showing the various activities being carried out at the camp, the documentary mainly concentrates on three children 13-year old Levi, 9-year old Rachel & 10-year old Tory. It also gives the views (which are very fundamental) of Becky & shows how children are systematically brainwashed into submission to god.

A few minutes into the documentary, I saw my 1st shocking image which is of a 5 year old kid crying while praying. What kind of an intense brainwashing should make a child do that? When Becky was watching the tape and said the following words about the crying/praying child "She is not in a trance. She is well aware of what is going on. She is just hooking up with the spirit", I really wanted to cut Becky's tongue. I mean, Come on! What does a 5 year kid know about spirit? What does she know about sin or deliverance? My foot. You actually have to see the documentary to know how the above mentioned 3 kids talk & think. Their views & thoughts are unbelievable for a person of that age. Another disgusting image is the distribution of small plastic pieces of unborn fetuses to children. You can see how far they are going in order to destroy the minds of kids. In the righteous government scene, I dearly hoped for one of the kids to use the given hammer & broke the head of that idiot instead of a cup.

If you are thinking that I have something against Christianity, you are wrong because I follow no religion & more importantly I think every person on the planet is related to every other (including me) albeit by a distance.

One more reason the documentary was so shocking for me is that while watching it I couldn't stop thinking about the simple yet systematic brainwashing of kids that happens in every home of every religion of every country. Is only radical brainwashing dangerous? I think indoctrination of any kind is harmful because no matter how much you shout that your particular belief system teaches "love everybody", at the end of the day it only acts as another layer of separatism among people.

See my other short note regarding the same subject.

After the release of Jesus Camp, this is what happened to that summer camp. But you really have to think above a single summer camp because this is not the question of a summer camp. This is the question of corruption of a young mind which happens in most of the homes.

Read what a person says about his experience in a Pentecostal Christian School.

I have another thing to say. People, WE are in a right time of human history where we can see what is true & what is false. In 1800 a.d there is not much against religion to disbelieve. If I was born then, I would have been a strong believer. In 2200 a.d, there will be nothing going for religion & very few will be believers. But 2010 is at the centre, with the choice in your wise hands or should I say wise brains.

This would be a sample conversation in 2200 a.d

Person ABC: I always had this doubt.

Person XYZ: What doubt is it ABC?

Person ABC: I can understand that people of 1800 or before are strongly religious because they didn't know much about say evolution, astronomy or germ theory. But how can most of the people of early 21st century, with all the knowledge at their disposal, couldn't take a proper decision? What were they afraid of?

Person XYZ: Oh ya, I too am having the same doubt.

On a finishing note, If someone's sentiments are hurt by this or my previous post, I'm absolutely unapologetic. Once again Please don't brainwash your kids. They are your responsibility not property. If you are unable to come out of your blind beliefs, it's fine but at least spare the kids.

NO TITLE FOR THIS POST

2010-04-10T07:25:00.003+05:30

Oh yes. There is no title for this post because honestly I thought about it for a while but nothing appropriate flashed in my brain. When I started my blog, I only wanted to post whatever movies (plus occasional documentaries & science videos) that I've seen from mid-March 2010. I wanted to keep my personal beliefs/opinions regarding anything other than movies away from the blog.

If somebody asked me now what is my religion, I would say I had no religion at my birth, then I am brainwashed to be a Hindu because I was born in a Hindu family (I would have been a Muslim if somebody kidnapped me at birth & sold to a childless Muslim couple), finally came to my senses after 20 years & now I again assume my religious position at birth which is no religion. Mind you, once a person is brainwashed in a religious way (which most of you are) it is very difficult to come out of it, which explains why there are so many suicide killings, honour killings (based on both religion as well as caste). I am proud to come out of such brainwashing.

I had friends in my class who are afraid to mingle with my friends of another religion. I have friends whose family members, in case of a medical emergency, only take blood from within their relatives because they think that other's blood makes them impure. But when you accept evolution as a fact, there will be no place for any type of discrimination in your heart because everybody is related to everybody. You (whoever is reading this now from whichever place on Earth) are related to me, & we both are related to every other person on the planet albeit by a distance. When you think of every other person as your distant relative, you may not love them but at the same time you won't hate them. For e.g., I love & adore my sister. I also love my first cousins very much but not as much as I love my sister. My love towards my second cousins is far less than that towards my first cousins. I actually don't know about my third or fourth or any other cousins. But if somebody comes to me & says that he is say my fourth cousin, I may not love him but I definitely won't hate him. So when you think that every person is related to every other, believe me when I say, the whole perception of your world changes.

One more thing I wanted to add was this brain washing of kids. I have a question which you need not answer here but just answer to yourself. Are kids the property of their parents? (or) Are they the responsibility of their parents? I believe children are not some kind of stationary/property on which parents can start brainwashing their religious beliefs & customs. They are only the responsibility of parents until they have enough maturity. Please don't treat your kids like some property. Teach them the facts & leave them the freedom to choose their lifestyle when they are mature enough.

Check this video on YouTube although this is not exactly related to the above subject.

Also check these winners of Project Reason short film contest. The 2nd one is nice but the 3rd one eats the cake.

So why am I Posting all this? It is because I saw a documentary Jesus Camp. I almost cried after seeing that. I completed it at 2 a.m & now it is 5 a.m but I am unable to sleep. I have to let go my frustration of not being able to do anything except lying on my bed & thinking. Now that I vented some of feelings, probably I will sleep. I will post about Jesus Camp in my next post.

Gin gwai 2 / The Eye 2 (2004)

2010-04-09T22:46:00.000+05:30

Verdict: 6/10

It was 1 a.m. My roommate was already sleeping. No disturbances. I closed the windows & it was my perfect setting for watching a horror flick. The downside of loving & watching too many horror thrillers is that nowadays unless I have the above said perfect conditions, it is becoming increasingly difficult to get my thrills.

An important observation regarding the title is that there is absolutely no relation between the movie & the title. I felt cheated because going by the title, I thought this movie has some connection with Gin gwai/The Eye which was one of my favourite movies. Since the first movie was a hit, just to cash on the success, the directors Pang Brothers named this movie as a sequel but the story is completely new one. As the story isn't bad at all, they should have kept an independent tile. The second thing which I hated immensely was the background score in the 1st half. Random usage of heavy music was actually distracting although in the 2nd half the situation improved. As a whole I would say job not well done as far as background score was considered.

The movie stars Shu Qi (from The Transporter) as the depressed lover of a married man. Feeling that she is being rejected/neglected by him, she attempts suicide but is saved in time & finds that she is pregnant. She also begins to see dead people especially a dead woman who keeps on stalking her. She believes that this woman is after her unborn child. Who is this woman? Why is she after her baby? Does what she is seeing are really ghosts? Watch the movie to find the answers.

The movie initially seems to be a simple routine horror flick but as it goes towards the climax, it tries to go into the realms of psychology. Infact the movie scores with its intelligently woven structure. The good thing about original Asian horror including this movie is that they have very good stories. The movie belongs completely to Shu Qi. She is present in almost every frame of the movie & the movie is completely dependent on her. She does a very good job.

The main purpose of a horror thriller is giving some scares & Gin gwai 2 has a few chills packed neatly. All in all a decent attempt. I would have given slightly better rating had the makers not cheated me (I am still angry) by giving a false title to the movie.

If you like horror movies, go for this. You will get your money's worth.

How Many People Can Live on Planet Earth? (2009)

2010-04-07T17:17:00.008+05:30

Do you know the following facts?

The current world population is just under 7 billion.
Every year 80 million babies are born.
Each additional being needs water, food & energy.
Already more than a billion people don't have access to safe drinking clean water.
A can of beer uses of 150 litres of water. Production of a cotton shirt takes 3000 litres of water.

These are some of the important facts shown in this programme.
Along with the brief description of the programme, I posted a few thoughts of mine below.

How Many People Can Live on Planet Earth? is an episode of BBC Horizon series & is narrated by the one & only, ever indefatigable Sir David Attenborough. In the programme David discusses about the affect of population growth on our ability to obtain food, water & energy. Also the danger to the environment due to rapid population growth is discussed. David also talks about the duty of individuals to commit to smaller families & to change the way they live for the sake of humanity and planet Earth. He makes an interesting but true observation which is although we humans do care about our near ones, thinking about our species as a whole was never our strong point.

There is a prediction of 9 billion humans (which I believe is a very minimum estimate) by 2050. But the sad thing about our water resources is that amount of water on earth is always a constant. It has remained the same since the evolution of humans. For thousands of years the human population on earth was below 1 million. Check the image below. Difficult to believe, ain't it? It raised slowly to 1 billion by 1800 a.d. Then the industrial revolution peaked & more importantly germ theory was established which resulted in better medicine & the population exploded. The reason for me putting the below image is for you to check the population growth & at the same time note the most important thing which is neither the area on earth nor the amount of water are increasing. Somehow I see wars in future not for oil but for water & land.

There was a lady from Mexico City in the programme saying how they have to flush the toilet after 2-3 people use it. Just picture this in your home with you being the 3rd person. Don't read, just imagine. Image is a little disgusting, isn't it? And think about the water in a full bathtub. There are areas where a family will use water full of a bathtub for a whole week. So, Am I saying that since some people are having worst living conditions, everybody should live in the same way? Of course not, but there is a difference between using resources wisely & wasting the resources. How do we define waste in our daily life? That I leave to your commonsense. Becoming a little preachy?

Actually the programme length is 60 minutes but it took me 180 minutes to complete. That is because so many thoughts were generating in my mind that I have to pause it many times. I strongly recommend to google this & watch in your spare time. A very interesting & thought-provoking programme.

Another thing discussed by Sir David is the relation between water, food & energy. Everything is related to everything. An affect on one parameter will have consequences on others. The current exploitation of African countries for food is quite startling & disturbing. I wonder when they will be left in peace. Probably when people with honesty & integrity take over the African Countries.

Coming to the main point of the programme which is population growth, I strongly think that 2 should be the limit for a family & an even better thing is to adopt 1 of the 2 children. Governments all over the world should ban couples from giving birth to more than 2 children from 2011. A couple of days ago, I was seeing some random blogs from the navbar at the top of the page & there was this blog of a lady from America (I don't remember the city). She has this beautiful photo with her husband & 4 daughters (all are under 10). There was a caption below that photo after reading which, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Although I don't remember the exact caption, it was something like this "I am giving birth to a boy in a few months which would complete our happy family". Get ready for another sermon. I know advising people on the number of children they should have is highly personal as well as offensive to them. In India there are/were a couple of famous politicians who have some 13 or 15 children each. When I was young & naive, I asked my Mom whether these particular politicians are humans or some kind of buffaloes. My Mom laughed & told me that a few decades back there is no family planning or contraception. So we can excuse them. But what about now? I can understand if the people are uneducated or from underdeveloped countries. There are some moronic medieval "you know who" forces working against contraception, condoms & family planning especially in the African countries. But any person with basic understanding & education should seriously think about controlling the population growth. It is actually a moral obligation towards humanity. Even in India, I don't see a single educated person in the last decade who has more than 2 children. I hope the future America & England doesn't become like the present China & India. There are some actions which have immediate consequences such as shooting a person in the brain. But the effect of population is not instant. The repercussions of today's actions will be affecting future generations. I guess that's enough torture for you.

Coming to the actual question "How Many People Can Live on Planet Earth?", I'm not giving the answer to you. If you really want to know, see the programme (which I recommend) & find yourself.

Before leaving, once again see the above image & think for a couple of minutes about the poulation level on earth for the last 100,000 years, current population, where it is going in the future, the strain it is putting on the resources (as I said area & water on Earth are constant), what can you do about conserving resources. Think for a couple of minutes.

Clash of the Titans (2010)

2010-04-04T10:08:00.001+05:30

Verdict: 6/10

The first thought that came to mind after watching Clash of the Titans was What an opportunity wasted!

Now the movie isn't bad by any means & is an easy one time watch. But it could have been so much more.

The Greek mythology is as rich as the Hindu mythology. Titan is the term for god in Greek mythology. Although the Greek gods are nothing more than a myth now, it would be wise to know that once upon a time they were thought to be real & a great civilization has worshipped them for centuries. There are many wonderful stories in Greek mythology & the story of Perseus, son of Zeus (Zeus like our Indra is the head of gods) is one of them.

Based on the heroics of Perseus, Clash of the Titans was first made in 1981. With the current advances in visual effects, it's a nobrainer to remake it & so we have the current movie directed by Louis Leterrier starring Sam Worthington (Avatar fame) as Perseus, Liam Neeson as Zeus, Ralph Fiennes as Hades (god of underworld & brother of Zeus), beautiful Gemma Arterton as Io (kind of guardian angel to Perseus), Alexa Davalos as Andromeda (princess of Argos) among others.

The movie starts with a brief intro of current Titans & the rescue of baby Perseus floating in a coffin by a fisherman. How & why the son of a god was floating in the sea was narrated later in the movie. For now he grows as a simple man. When soldiers of the city Argos destroy a statue of Zeus thus declaring war on gods, Hades kills most of them & the family of Perseus who were just passing by. Remaining soldiers capture Perseus & take him to Argos. Hades appears at Argos & warns that if they don't sacrifice princess Andromeda in 10 days he will release Kraken (kind of huge monster with tentacles) on to the city. Although initially percieved as an enemy, Perseus was released by the king of Argos seeing his anger towards the gods & realising that they need him to defeat Kraken. Io who has been watching Perseus all his life advises Perseus to defeat Kraken. So Perseus & a small group of soldiers start their adventurous journey in which they face a lot of CGI enemies including the snake haired Medusa which finally ends with the defeat of Kraken & Hades being sent into the underworld.

By the way, I always thought that Pegasus was white. Is it really black or white? Any Greek scholars reading this, clarification would be much appreciated. And why is Worthington having a military haircut? It suits well for Avatar or Terminator. But it is awkward with the skirts that he wears in the movie.

Louis Leterrier's previous movie was The Incredible Hulk which I enjoyed immensely. Unfortunately he could not replicate the same here. At the end of it, Clash of the Titans is nothing more than a few action set pieces. If you only concentrate on the action sequences leaving aside proper story & character development, you can't have a diehard or an incredible hulk. 300 was an exception but it was very stylish & it works once. Perhaps Clash of the Titans should have been made by a better suited director for fantasy genre.

This is the 3rd heavy budget action flick in the last 2 years for Worthington after Terminator & Avatar. He is alright as Perseus. Liam Neeson in that silver costume & beard was highly misfit in the role of Zeus. But I think he would superbly fit into the role of Lincoln which by all means Spielberg is going to direct in future. Ralph Fiennes is perfect as Hades & I guess his experience as Voldemort has helped him. I couldn't stop thinking about Deathly Hallows. I have a thing for British actresses & Gemma is very beautiful in the role of Io.

All the technical aspects including cinematography & visual effects are very good. The action pieces are good & you will get your money's worth if you see this in 2D.

I saw the movie in 2D although it is also released in 3D. There are 2 types of 3D movies. The 1st type are the ones which are actually shot using 3D technology. Avatar or Up or The Final Destination falls into this category. The 2nd type are the ones which are shot normally but are converted into 3D in post processing at the last minute by the greedy studios in order to increase the collections as 3D tickets cost more. Clash of the Titans falls into this category. So 3D viewing is unnecessary & you are not going to miss anything if you watch this in 2D. An extra benefit is that you will save money.

It feels a little painful when what could have been a potential classic was made into an average popcorn flick. If you like action movies see Clash of the Titans but I don't expect you to remember the movie after a while.