All the engineers out there from the gazillion engineering colleges that dot our country know everything that is said and preached in 3 idiots. There may even be 3 million idiots who have gone through the same grind to realise it themselves. I know I am one. (I needed 4 years of engineering and 1 1/2 years of PG to realise what I actually wanted to do) All this said and done, I wondered how many non engineers would like it. I guess they would. There are enough gags, suspense and sentiment to please any average hindi movie goer. Some lines are hilarious, others bring on a smile. Though not a mass pleaser like Munna Bhai, Hirani does bring sparks of brilliance to this movie. All the actors have atleast 2 decades separating them and their college days, yet they manage to somehow convince us, a feat in itself. And Aamir Khan, although I must say is a pain in the wrong place off screen, is a delight on it. Boman Irani as always makes us forget the actor and only see the character. Madhavan proves his mettle as a able support yet again and Sharman Joshi is great too.
The story revolves around ICE, a prestigious engineering college run by a tyrannical Boman Irani nick named predictably as Virus. Aamir Khan is a revolutionary genius who challenges the "by heart" method taught in all our colleges and manages a few inspiring dialogues on the same. There is a suicide, a girl and ofcourse the hero saving the day. But that is only one half of the story. Madhavan is there because his dad has sacrificed everything to make him an engineer, though he wants to be a wildlife photographer and Sharman is a poverty stricken religious boy whose whole family including an unwed sister is waiting for him to get a job and save them. The black & white sequences showing his family plight are a delight! The little jokes sprinkled here and there apart from Omi, the golden boy in college who hates Aamir are like icing on the cake. The story then takes the suspense path and though the ending and the consequent story is a tad predictable, its timepass and in the tradition of great Hindi mass movies takes us through the gamut of human emotions and a few underwear clad butts too. Kareena did not impress except in a few scenes and I was thankful she had very little screen time. All in all a 6/10.
Monday, December 28, 2009
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Why Avatar can not be the next star wars...
Every article written about James Cameron's Avatar touts it to be the next best thing, the next Star Wars to be precise. It is not. The attention to detail is the same, but after a truckload of sci fi movies that have been dumped on us throughout the decade and before that, Avatar does not inspire the same awe and excitement that Star Wars initially did.
It is a great movie, it is a great story and it is path breaking but to the average joe on the ground, its just another great animated movie. I personally loved it. I had read about the attention to detail, including the animals anatomy (the breathings holes that provided direct flow to the lungs) the fact that every bolt and nut on the machines had to be explained, the colours inspired from the deep during his work on Titanic etc so I noticed and I admired. But what about people who had not read all this, they just saw a weird alien looking animal and some cool machines like any other sci fi/fantasy movie. The saving grace here was the visual appeal. Cameron managed to make us gasp and hold our breath at the beauty of Pandora. It took him 12 years to complete and in those 12 years the audience had grown jaded. We will love Avatar, but not with the same intensity that we did Star Wars.
There is another important point against Avatar. Though the story is great, the characters did not have many dimensions to them. In Star wars there was passion and politics and family and intrigue and sentiment and comedy and full on entertainment. With Avatar it gets overcome by the visuals. There is a linear story with mostly one dimensional characters. And with the amount of money spent on the animated characters the least they could have done was to hire a good dialogue writer to make those animated characters sound better and more relatable. Every cliched sentence has been used and abused in the movie.
After all the hype has died down, I wonder where we will place this movie, especially after the same technology spreads and is adapted for better scripts.
PS: I am anyways going to watch it again.
It is a great movie, it is a great story and it is path breaking but to the average joe on the ground, its just another great animated movie. I personally loved it. I had read about the attention to detail, including the animals anatomy (the breathings holes that provided direct flow to the lungs) the fact that every bolt and nut on the machines had to be explained, the colours inspired from the deep during his work on Titanic etc so I noticed and I admired. But what about people who had not read all this, they just saw a weird alien looking animal and some cool machines like any other sci fi/fantasy movie. The saving grace here was the visual appeal. Cameron managed to make us gasp and hold our breath at the beauty of Pandora. It took him 12 years to complete and in those 12 years the audience had grown jaded. We will love Avatar, but not with the same intensity that we did Star Wars.
There is another important point against Avatar. Though the story is great, the characters did not have many dimensions to them. In Star wars there was passion and politics and family and intrigue and sentiment and comedy and full on entertainment. With Avatar it gets overcome by the visuals. There is a linear story with mostly one dimensional characters. And with the amount of money spent on the animated characters the least they could have done was to hire a good dialogue writer to make those animated characters sound better and more relatable. Every cliched sentence has been used and abused in the movie.
After all the hype has died down, I wonder where we will place this movie, especially after the same technology spreads and is adapted for better scripts.
PS: I am anyways going to watch it again.
Friday, November 13, 2009
This is it
2 weeks limited release, last moments of Micheal "wierdo" Jackson on stage etc etc. It was too ghoulish for me to even think of going. Besides I could catch it on DVD and if the producers were greedy (as they always are) it will run again. But on the last day, for the last show, I was convinced to go watch it. Now I must mention here that I watched it at Inox Chennai and it had the worst screen in my experience, dirty, splotchy and grainy. For 30 rupees I have watched many a movie on a better screen, in my thatch roof movie hall in Angadipuram.
Back to the movie or documentary or obituary or whatever it was. It started with a Star War like description . I was already fidgeting in my seat, wary about what was going to come on next. I was always immensely discomfited by Micheal's (I'm on some other planet) interviews and scary plastic face. A black man turned into a zombie from one of his earlier Thriller video turned into chimpanzee lover, elvis son in law, brooke sheilds date etc. Plus there were all the pedophilia rumors and lawsuits. He had turned into one of the worst examples of celebrity excess and scandals.
I was pleasantly surprised. It was not a documentary or an obituary or a movie. It was just Michael, doing what he does best - sing, dance, innovate and entertain. All done very professionally, creatively and with a lot of passion and politeness. In all the stomach turning revelations and wtf moments we had forgotten his genius. The songs that we would have played a hundred times, the moves that every kid on every street corner in the world had memorised. We had forgotten his creativity and his breaking of barriers. For the length of this homage, when song after song that made him what he was, played, I forgot to hate him and be repulsed by him, but just enjoyed, got entertained and of course, felt the love.
The very few snatches of conversation there are, just illustrates (deliberately edited by the director or not) that he still had it. Ideas that seemed brilliant in contrast to the stupid choices he made in life. He was polite and surprisingly agile for his age. He danced with the best dancers in the world unintimadated and still shone. I must say though it is very weird to see a white looking man dancing very black, if you know what I mean. He didn't have the manic energy that characterises a usual Micheal Jackson show but he was great. I'm disturbed to say, I loved every moment of it. I tapped my feet, sang along and laughed. God Bless You, Michael wherever you are.
Back to the movie or documentary or obituary or whatever it was. It started with a Star War like description . I was already fidgeting in my seat, wary about what was going to come on next. I was always immensely discomfited by Micheal's (I'm on some other planet) interviews and scary plastic face. A black man turned into a zombie from one of his earlier Thriller video turned into chimpanzee lover, elvis son in law, brooke sheilds date etc. Plus there were all the pedophilia rumors and lawsuits. He had turned into one of the worst examples of celebrity excess and scandals.
I was pleasantly surprised. It was not a documentary or an obituary or a movie. It was just Michael, doing what he does best - sing, dance, innovate and entertain. All done very professionally, creatively and with a lot of passion and politeness. In all the stomach turning revelations and wtf moments we had forgotten his genius. The songs that we would have played a hundred times, the moves that every kid on every street corner in the world had memorised. We had forgotten his creativity and his breaking of barriers. For the length of this homage, when song after song that made him what he was, played, I forgot to hate him and be repulsed by him, but just enjoyed, got entertained and of course, felt the love.
The very few snatches of conversation there are, just illustrates (deliberately edited by the director or not) that he still had it. Ideas that seemed brilliant in contrast to the stupid choices he made in life. He was polite and surprisingly agile for his age. He danced with the best dancers in the world unintimadated and still shone. I must say though it is very weird to see a white looking man dancing very black, if you know what I mean. He didn't have the manic energy that characterises a usual Micheal Jackson show but he was great. I'm disturbed to say, I loved every moment of it. I tapped my feet, sang along and laughed. God Bless You, Michael wherever you are.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
The Hollow Man by Dan Simmons
I actually bought this book fueled by Mr Stephen (I have written and sold a million books and movie rights) King's blurb. The description at the back was intriguing and it was a rainy evening, perfect for a cup of hot coffee and a semi intelligent book.
Well, for once(and maybe the last time) I thanked my higher mathematics education, for about 2/3'rds of the book was pure mathematics. Sine waves, and fourier forms and equation struggled with the written word, just as the protagonists wife did. It was a sci fi, fantasy, drama, mind reading rollercoaster rolled with a thick layer of hardly believable mathematics. But he did hold my attention and some of the theories seemed good. The science in the science fiction or rather maths fiction was great, the garnish or religious comparison was reasonable(I even went a step further and compared it with Hinduism- with the same results)
The plot in itself is ok, its a very badly stitched together character driven story, sometimes looking very laboured.A mind reading couple torn apart by death. The man leaving everything and going on a journey that puts him through hell and back, all the while going back to the story of him meeting his wife and his mathematical research into explaining every damn shit on earth. It all holds together -but barely. The ending was not surprising. All in all 5/10
Well, for once(and maybe the last time) I thanked my higher mathematics education, for about 2/3'rds of the book was pure mathematics. Sine waves, and fourier forms and equation struggled with the written word, just as the protagonists wife did. It was a sci fi, fantasy, drama, mind reading rollercoaster rolled with a thick layer of hardly believable mathematics. But he did hold my attention and some of the theories seemed good. The science in the science fiction or rather maths fiction was great, the garnish or religious comparison was reasonable(I even went a step further and compared it with Hinduism- with the same results)
The plot in itself is ok, its a very badly stitched together character driven story, sometimes looking very laboured.A mind reading couple torn apart by death. The man leaving everything and going on a journey that puts him through hell and back, all the while going back to the story of him meeting his wife and his mathematical research into explaining every damn shit on earth. It all holds together -but barely. The ending was not surprising. All in all 5/10
Kandein Kathalai
A very faihful translation of a Hindi movie into Tamil. If you have seen Jab we met, then ignore this movie. Even Kareena's costumes are copied by Tamannah, who if it wasn't for her fresh looks and peaches and cream complexion(thanks to ponds cream)would have been the most irritating actress in recent movies. Bharat is the usual with an extra 5 kgs of biceps and triceps. I got the feeling he was trying to imitate surya- the corp head in Ghajini. The other thing about Bharat,I dont know if you have noticed are certain very weird protrusions on his face. Namely the nose and lips, both look like they have been stung by bees. Bee stung lips may be the craze, but among the female of the species, darling Bharat. And rhinoplasty could be savior, since you already seem to be enjoying the benefits of lip plumpers.
Back to the movie, Santhanam saves the day and if you did not pay for the overly priced, last row tickets like I did, you may even go back home satisfied at a timepass movie.
Back to the movie, Santhanam saves the day and if you did not pay for the overly priced, last row tickets like I did, you may even go back home satisfied at a timepass movie.
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