Desicritics Category: Media: Films - Hollywood

Movie Review: Avatar - A Movie for the Theater Audience

Aditi Nadkarni — Sun, 7 Feb 2010 04:40:11 EST

Finally watched Avatar. Sat in a chilly theater with a pair of terribly ugly 3D glasses awkwardly balanced on my nose. I did not know what to expect from the film so my mind was blank, consumed by the most bourgeois of things. I was worried if the diet Coke would make me want to pee during the film, and if the whole 3D thing would get me motion sick. Then all too suddenly, within minutes of the film having started, I was transported into a world where all these petty concerns of mine, sheepishly shrunk and right before my eyes turned into luminescent little seeds of the Eywa tree.

I was in Pandora and I did not want to leave. One minute it was scary and dangerous, coming at you, teeth bared and the next moment it was lit up, fragile and beautiful, just like Neytiri, the brave and lovely heroine of the film. It is easy to see why Zoe Saldana is the star here. She brings emotion and authenticity to a character which otherwise might have seemed cartoonish. The magical world that James Cameron delivers does not have a Disney or Pixar like unbelievable quality. Not at all. He creates a world that you truly want to believe exists. The creatures and the flora are all wildly colorful but still very much alive. Pandora is the planet of our imaginations, the one where we hope scientists will finally discover life one day.

Lets face it, Cameron films have never been known for their plots and his direction is not subtle. The plot is usually predictable and the story is peppered with romance. Nothing wrong with that. It's just that this tale of a white man transforming into the much awaited hero for a race and saving them from other terrible white people is a bit old and borrowed from the many films about the fate of Native Americans. Anti-imperialism is the political favorite of the masses and of award committees as well. Everyone wants to be that one white guy, the hero who stepped in and saved people from tyranny. Unfortunately, in the context of history it is too late because Native Americans, Indians and Africans all fought their own wars against forced colonialism without a white Toruk Makto.

The tough military guy as the penultimate villain and the bulldozing of the Navi homes in the quest of "unobtanium" are familiar themes which have appeared in other less spectacular films. For a film with such a revolutionary style used in its making, Cameron could have employed a more memorable and unique plot just so that his remarkable effort did not seem like a gimmick or become outdated years from now. But the film left an impression on me. It gave my imagination a wild ride and then some. I will likely dream of Pandora tonight or wake up with a jolt as I fall off my Ikran. And ultimately I think Cameron's film making strategy might just be about delivering a memorable experience for the audience at the movie theater.

As I walked out of the theater, I thought to myself, James Cameron could easily be the crowned king of Bollywood for he excels at the one philosphy that scaffolds our commercial film industry in India: escapism.

Movie Review : Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes

Anuradha Prasad — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 07:23:57 EST

Guy Ritchie delivers another impressive movie by transforming Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson. The movie was nowhere close to Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels or even Snatch but it is an enjoyable movie experience.

Far from the sophisticated, stuffy, and propah detective and doctor duo that Doyle gave us, Ritchie's Holmes (Robert Downing Jr) is eccentric, shoots off one liners wearing a poker face and is a goofy slob. His brilliance was retained as was the pipe. The deerstalker cap and cape were passé.

Watson (Jude Law), on the other hand, far from being mild, is always cross with Holmes and in love with Marie (Kelly Reilly).

The movie starts with a bang. Hooves and shadows and cobbled streets. The sorcerer Lord Blackwood (Mark Strong) is about to claim another victim in a ritual when Holmes intervenes. After handing him over to the police, Holmes takes to holing up in his room inventing worthless inventions and depressed about Watson's impending marriage. Blackwood's resurrection and Irene Adler's (Rachel McAdams) re-appearance in his life gets him back on his feet. Adler looks luscious and is still one step ahead of Holmes.

It is Holmes' logic versus Blackwood's taunts of the supernatural. A potent weapon is about to let Blackwood rein supreme. Holmes' powers of deduction win but not before a few deaths and clashes with fists, axe, and grey cells.

England of centuries ago looks perfect and many scenes are shot on the Tower Bridge still under construction. It is shot in a twilight quality creating a subdued, eerie effect for the supernatural angle in the script.

The dialogue delivery was smooth but at times incoherent. Hans Zimmer's background score was haunting and exciting in turns, and the performances were good enough to score a few fans. The exchanges between Holmes and Watson gave the movie its light moments while Holmes' future with Adler remains a mystery.

Unlike Ritchie's previous movies, this one was structured for the most part, frames going back and forth occasionally giving it that edgy feel. The story, however, led to a hackneyed climax.

If you are a hardcore Sherlock Holmes fan, the revamped version of the sleuths comes across as absurd and will take a little getting used to. If you forget the book and stop exclaiming "But this is nothing like what I imagined them to be", you may even enjoy the movie.

As the movie ends, you get the feeling you've not seen the last of Ritchie's tango with the detective. Why? Elementary, my dear!

Movie Review: Avatar

Anjana Menon — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 11:56:41 EST

Patience pays. Having waited nearly 10 long years to bring out Avatar, James Cameron has clearly set a precedent in movie making history.

Sometime in the future, Jake Sully, a paraplegic marine, is one of the many joining a human camp on Pandora following the death of his twin brother. The human camp sends out expeditions of 'avatars' (beings created as a mix of human and native humanoid Na'bi DNA) of personnel from the camp, who explore life on the planet. Classified as 'jarhead', the scientists, military and the corporates find absolutely no use for Jake, and so he simply tags along on sample-collecting missions, experiencing a new world through his Avatar that can walk. On one such mission, he happens to lose his way in the jungle. He is saved by a native girl, Neytiri, who recognizes divine signs and decides to spare his life. He then embarks on a process of being inducted into the tribe, which allows him to provide inside information to the human camp. But things take an ugly turn when he begins to question his loyalties to either camp.

I don't want to say too much about the movie. Mostly because it's a simple story, with characters indicative of the nameless stereotypes we carve out of society every day. The extrapolations from the present into a possible situation in the future are rather straightforward; this allows the story to be told in such a way that it is completely understood. Complexity is only brought in on the details. That way, Pandora leaps up in front of our eyes as a very, very real world.

While on the matter of extrapolations, the world of Pandora is visualized in a similar way. Here you find the native Na'Bi, human-like, except they're blue and twice our size. Well, they also have tails and an intelligent appendage protected within the braids of their hair, through which they form 'bonds', be it with some other beings of Pandora, or their God, Eywa. But apart from that, their culture and clothing cues appear to be taken from the Masa'i tribe of Africa. It probably isn't a coincidence either that armored and charging beings resemble rhinos, and surely, the black monster that chases Jake through the jungles is nothing but creative liberties taken on a tiger (or lion, it's hard to tell, but is undoubtedly a big cat). You find dramatic twists to Pandora's horses, hyenas, touch-me-nots, fireflies, butterflies, etc. Actually, that's not fair. Everything about Pandora is dramatic. Nightfall on Pandora is the most dramatic, where leaves, vines, creepers and the floor of the jungle lights up like LED lights when walked upon. In spite of all the surrealism surrounding it, Pandora is still a beautiful place, and almost reminds you of all that Earth is not, but probably was millions of years ago. It's no surprise to see the humans doing to Pandora, what they're doing to Earth right now.

Avatar is unpretentious in its futuristic portrayals of a world like our own, which is rather modest for a movie that has taken so many years and resources to see the light of day. And, as a movie projected to be the trend setter of CGI henceforth, this one is a must-watch.

The Best Movies of the Noughties, 2000-2009

Aaman Lamba — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 14:14:31 EST

Picking a list is always hard, and readers are bound to have contrary opinions. Its like laying out a garden of flowers and having the Middleton Ladies Society peer disapprovingly at individual blooms, deeming them unworthy. Nevertheless, here goes, in no particular order, my selection of the best movies of the decade:

Gamer: This movie stretches the envelope, blurring the definitions of movies, games, and reality. In the best sci-fi tradition, it postulates a scenario that is all-too-likely and plausible. Condemned criminals are put into a virtual world that has them play as Slayers, tracked and egged on by vicarious players in the ultimate reality show. Reminiscent of Battle Royale, Gamer has razor sharp editing and dark imagery, although its ham-handed stereotyping of the gaming universe bears some criticism.

Dev.D: This nouveau remake of the classic Devdas gives us a jaded, debased Devdas, one that is rather true to the original, although contemporized, and a no-nonsense, me-first Paro. Post-modern to the core, the characters meander through a moral wasteland as stark as their commitment to each other. Love is not a purely redeeming force, though, it comes at a high cost and the happy ending that gives an essential twist - the state of permanent junoon, as it were.

Finding Nemo: Children's films have been revitalized this decade and the new mythologies have effectively supplanted the classics, most of which were based on ancient myths. The new array of iconic characters might still draw on familiar memes but their reinvention has led to children's imaginations being rekindled to the possibility of their own ability to create magic. Finding Nemo epitomizes the new breed. The perfectly done animation is best illustrated by the water, as it breaks and swirls around. The film made it cool to be green before green was cool.

Underworld: Never was the ancient conflict between vampires and werewolves rendered more beautifully than in Underworld. Another film that tapped into the grand mythos to contemporize it, the movie helped foster the growing trend that has permeated popular culture.

Coraline: The quintessential horror movie for kids, it has garnered much appeal with adults, even those unfamiliar with Neil Gaiman's beautiful book. It stretches film-making by choosing to use stop-motion shot in stereoscopic 3-D, the first of its kind, and its dark tale of mangled family relationships, alternate worlds that are more warped than Oz ever was, and personality traits too close to reality make this a memorable film.

Taare Zameen Par: More than bringing tears to most viewers' eyes, this film brought a fresh and necessary perspective to the way special children are handled in India. Many children were enabled to get the attention they need after their caregivers, teachers, and other close ones saw this film. As a film, it has a charm all its own. From urban India to classical boarding schools, and with strong well-defined characters, there is a lot to appreciate in TZP, and Aamir's mercurial charm enlivens the serious theme.

Lost in Translation: The movie of the flat world, this globalized ennui-filled romance has a certain air that, for me, at least, epitomizes the Noughties, or at least some key facets. From anonymous hotel rooms to hopeless bars, from neglect to unhappiness, driven by the need to keep going. Bill Murray's finest work, the character studies and urban imagery are what make this film a modern classic.

Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith: The final reckoning and the dark conversion were expected, as were the grand space battles, but the internal weaknesses of the Jedi Order, Anakin's weak ratiocinations in the face of inevitable doom, and the shocking slaughter of innocents make this a great film. More than this, it gave closure to a generation of movie-goers, finalizing a chronicle that spanned a galaxy and gave rise to much iconic memories.

Kill Bill: The oddity of splitting the film might be seen as a commercially craven decision, or it might represent the director's intent to separate the denouement from the set-up with an over long intermission, either way, this duology works best, and perhaps only if, it is treated as a unit. The glorious stylized violence, the homage to diverse genres, and the single-minded focus of a Bride out for revenge combine to produce a masterpiece of film.

Mulholland Dr.: This 'Love Story In The City Of Dreams' is another urban film, although it choose obtuseness over depression, noir over romance. It is one of those films that seems to symbolize the crushing & voyeuristic nature of cinema, and the ambiguity of individual action. Naomi Watts is the natural centerpiece, but the beautiful Laura Harring and Justin Theroux are critical to whatever resolution there is in the plot.

Let the Right One In This unusual Swedish film of a nascent vampire, unclear of the boundaries between our world and its own, and the strange friendship that develops into a predatory game is perfectly done. The children act exceedingly well and the Swedish gloomy winter setting is just right for the tone of the film.

The Dark Knight might be the film of the decade, with its nihilistic anti-hero/villain who just wants to see the whole world burn, is a true post-9/11 film, to borrow that hackneyed phrase. The films excels in most other departments too, from the perfect casting to the vivid cinematography.

This list could go on forever, and this decade has been truly a decade of popular culture as much as it has been a decade of change. Chime in with your own lists. The best entries stand to win prizes.

Movie Review: Julie and Julia - For The Love of Julia

Harsha Goolya — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 21:58:10 EDT

Yes! It's been over a month since THE RELEASE (Julie and Julia) and it's a movie that is running very successfully, and no, I haven't stopped talking about and probably never will!

I am absolutely in love with Julia and Meryl Streep's near perfect portrayal of her. There is simplicity, humor and a certain charm that makes this movie have the effect of a warm donut in chocolate sauce.After compiling the responses of friends who have watched this movie, I must say they were left feeling the following:

* Very hungry-complete recall of all the delightful and perfect food that becomes the essence of the movie
* Weather transforms to a balmy romantic night where there's a song on your lips and the smiles of a stranger would seem like an extension of the warmth that envelops you
* Passion overflows- the search for the absolute love of life resumes.All the dull, boring routines don't seem like a burden anymore as the higher purpose beckons!

Yes, Julia invites you to a world that is cheerful, familiar and innocent! An old world yesteryear movie appeal blankets you.

It is a story of two remarkable women- Julia Child every bit a legend who brought French cooking to a servantless America (a term she coined herself, while looking for ways to present her cookbook) along with her ingenious and supportive husband Paul Child who played multiple roles in making a success of her passion for cooking and TV show. He could've gotten himself a business methods patent in the present times for his inventiveness in preparing part of the dish before the show. This was a first in the history of food television.

The other central character of the movie is the author of the book Julie & Julia - Julie Powell who took on the daunting task of making 512 recipes in a year. As indicated by her, she had a regular existence as a Government servant whose writing career went nowhere and was freaking as the thirty year age mark approached. At this juncture in life, she found the Julie Julia project gave her strength, sustenance and a responsibility to make every day newer through the recipes she replicated. Isn't that one heck of a storyline - a story in a story to inspire another. That's the effect it will have on you.

About the acting - the effervescent Julia Child could only be played by one of the greatest living actresses Meryl Streep! She gained 15 pounds to play the rule of Julia and had to wear very high heels throughout the filming as the real Julia towered at a 6 ft 2''. Meticulous as she is, Meryl has perfected the lilt in Julia's voice and makes it as authentic that friends who watched the original Julia child swear that she was perfect. Is there a higher benchmark for the woman with the highest number of Oscar nominations?Maybe not, only the next nomination would say!

The movie also left me with a thought, about our love for food, every Indian's love for food. If Bollywood would cash in on our craze for food and make an inspired version of this movie (apparently a first movie on a blog) would the movie be called Tarla aur Sarla in honour of our cooking legend Tarla Dalal or would there be a spin and dramatization of the story a possible East west masala where the movie would be Indra aur Sandra after the popular food blogger Indra of Mahanandi fame whose blog has become the quintessential guide to many Americans interested in Indian cuisine?

Warning! Many such questions may spin in your head after watching this movie! Do not deprive yourself - Bon Appetit!

PS: A video with Julie Powell

Movie Review: Antichrist by Lars von Trier

Aaman Lamba — Mon, 7 Sep 2009 00:47:09 EDT

Lars Von Trier's latest shocker film Antichrist drifts far away from his Dogme 95 movement, with its shock special effects, audio effects and musical overtures, and yet stays true to his expanding ouevre in terms of an unflinching honesty of expression, even if it be of the psychotic variety.

*** WARNING - SPOILERS ***

The film opens with the pelvic thrusts of William Dafoe ("He") and Charlotte Gainsbourg ("She"). The music is appropriately enough Handel, the master of effect and of the Messiah, and the antithesis of the Nativity is foreshadowed by three figurines on a table, the Three Beggars, bearing the names Pain, Grief, and Despair. Barely seconds later, we see an infant clamber out of his crib and totter towards an open window, only to fall to the icy ground as his parents climax.

The rest of the film deals with the progression of his and her grief into descending levels of what can only be described as hell, the tranquil light notwithstanding. He is a therapist and decides to apply theoretical principles to healing his wife's mental condition, persisting even when she rails against his arrogance. While there is early catharsis, this does not last, and his probing discovers her fears center around a cabin in the forest of Eden where she spent time last summer with their deceased son, Nic. She was supposed to be writing her thesis at the time on gynocide and the witch hunts of the middle ages, but as it turns out, the thesis never got written and the readings failed to translate to insight, being taken quite literally by Her.

They journey to the cabin and along the way he encounters another horrific sight, a deer caught in childbirth, her dead calf hanging from her body. Later in the film he finds a fox disemboweling itself as it intones "Chaos reigns." These unnatural scenes are set against Her fear of nature, with her inability cross a wooden bridge to the cabin and constant unease, which She tries to suppress by repeated attempts to have sex with Him. The psychotherapy sessions continue, doomed to failure by the relationship between the therapist and his patient.

In the darkest part of the film, Despair, we are confronted by the dark horrors of genital mutilation, both His and Hers, and bloody masturbation. He finds that her researches into misogyny and witch hunts had led her, irrationally to embrace the thesis that women were inherently evil, and that pleasure was a sin. Much like the classic Handel aria from Rinaldo which opens the film, She weeps for Her chains of sufferings and wants Him to experience the same, by physically bolting a millstone to his leg after mutilating his penis.

The Three Beggars appear towards the end of the film in the form of the crow, the deer, and the fox, and her mounting madness leads her to carry out a clitoridectomy on herself. The darkness is most profound when He frees himself from the millstone and kills Her, burning her body on a pyre. As an epilogue, we see him walking back towards the cabin as hundreds of women come up the hill surrounding him, evidently representing the scores of women who have died and burned for their beliefs or for their sufferings, as it were.

The film was made in the midst of Lars von Trier's own depression and must be also seen in the light of his complicated parental relationships, wherein his mother revealed to him on her deathbed that his father was not who he thought he was, and his subsequent embrace of Catholicism. The dark beauty and the graphic horrors in both nature and the protagonists' lives serve to highlight that hell is within us. A video game, Eden, is reportedly under development, which will be 'a self-therapeutic journey into your own darkest fears', not a new phenomenon in video games.

The film received an 'anti-award' from the ecumenical jury at Cannes this year, with Charlotte Gainsbourg getting the Best Actress award.

Movie Review: Inglourious Basterds

Aaman Lamba — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 10:31:54 EDT

Quentin Tarantino takes another fork in his oeuvre with his latest film, Inglourious Basterds set "Once upon a time in Nazi occupied France " It twists between war film, slow-paced 50s talkie, slapstick Italian comedy, true romance, social commentary, and the ultimate wish-fulfilment fantasy.

Quentin Tarantino draws on a deep understanding of film, standing on the shoulders of giants, as it were, and his films typically reference other films as a means of interpreting reality. Much like Woody Allen looks at the meaning of reality, and Ang Lee's characters take on greater responsibility while keeping a secret identity, Tarantino's films are cycles of vengeance, spiralling outward.

Inglourious Basterds opens with cruel Nazis hunting down and killing a family of Jews hiding beneath the floorboards of a French farmhouse, with only one survivor, a teenage girl escaping through the woods, watched coldbloodedly by Colonel Landa. We are then introduced to the equally cruel Inglourious Basterds, a group of Jewish American soldiers, led by Lt. Aldo Raine, who declaims, "We will be cruel to the Germans, and by our cruelty they will know who we are." and demands a bloody claim of 100 dead Nazi scalps from each man in his command. This is perhaps the only slim reference to the original 1978 Italian film by Enzo Castellari.

Adolf Hitler rants on the Bear Jew, one of the Inglourious in a scene that will doubtless be given subtitles soon enough along the lines of the by-now classic one from Downfall. He is told of the decimation, quite literally, of a German squad by the sole survivor, Pvt. Frederick Zoller. To keep this a secret, he orders a grand film made, titled Nation's Pride

The story takes a leap into 1944, with the impending release of Nation's Pride under the auspices of Goebbels' Reichsfilmkammer. This section is also Tarantino's ode to the movies, with classical references to everything from Linder to King Kong. Much like Michael Bay might propound American military power today, Goebbels as the Minister for Propaganda and Popular Enlightenment ordered German filmmakers to wholeheartedly support the Nazi regime. Directors like Fritz Lang and Douglas Sirk fled Germany when the Nazis came to power, but others such as Leni Riefenstahl provided creative impetus to cinema under Nazism. Film goers exceeded a billion in the period, and prominent Nazis like Hitler were often seen in the company of actresses like Olga Tschechowa and Lil Dagover, with Hermann Goring marrying star Emmy Sonnemann.

Pvt. Zoller charms the svelte owner of a little French theater, and convinces Goebbels to host the premiere of Nation's Pride there, with major Nazis, including Adolf Hitler to attend. We discover she is the survivor from the first gruesome murders, and that she plots to burn the theatre to the ground during the premi�re. The Basterds are inevitably and somewhat inexplicably part of the plot, with the final scenes a grand inferno of nitrate-rich film stock, and the fantastic gunning down of Adolf Hitler. There is a final twist, as it were, still to come.

While staple Tarantino plot devices are present, notably the Mexican standoff and the foot shot, he draws from a different palette in the pacing of the film. It is mostly long scenes, about 10 or so, and the slow-paced dark settings of the 1950s. A variety of long-time German actors are leveraged, as are old favorites Eli Roth and the very skilled Brad Pitt, who is allowed to run wild, and shows himself, thus to be the perfect director's actor, since that is what he does, with his larger-than-life insouciant performance.

The film is simultaneously escapist and taut with tension, social commentary ("When I arrived in America was I displayed in chains? Yes. Am I the story of the Negro in America? No? Then I must be King Kong!"), and victims-turned aggressors. A literalist might consider the film "Holocaust denial" and term this mere science fiction, but it is the very distortions that recall for us the true horrors of the war, and it is through the distortion of the lens that the Nazis are revealed as petty Inglourious Basterds themselves, with their fetish for remaking history as fiction to suit a false ideology. The opening scene alone, with a calm French farmer unable to resist the seductive persuasion of a Jew hunter, is sufficient horror.

The power of pop culture is to create illusions of alternate realities where everything turns out all right in the end, until we emerge into the blinding glare of the bleak, dark world when the game, the movie, the fairy tale ends, and there are no happily-ever-afters.

30 Second Summary - August '09 Edition

Fleiger — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 08:22:48 EDT

In today's busy world, the attention spans are getting shorter and shorter. In the world of information superhighways and consequent information overloads, people don't have time to read long pages and pages of reviews of the movies they want to watch, when they can just as well spend that time doing something else.

Now, thanks to us, you don’t have to worry about losing the thread of the post you were reading just because your boss dropped by for a “quick discussion”. Or you don’t have to choose between a long (but interesting) movie review and that floor-mate you want to talk to so much, who just walked over to the coffee machine.

So, dive into this August (as in month, not the other meaning) Edition of 30-second Summaries:

Love Aaj Kal:

They say the dhai akshar prem ke of yore have been replaced by 2 syllables of “Love” today (And if posters are anything to go by, the syllable loss has come with some serious damage to the wallet.)

They also say Saif Ali Khan looks like young Hrishi Kapoor from certain (camera) angles.

Agyaat:

For completely agyaat reasons,

film crews continue to go into creepy forests with no means of quick escape.

and against all reasonable laws of jungle, young females continue to go into deep forest quite alone, often wearing nothing more than bikinis or shorts.

ditto for men, although, praise the gods, they do it dressed more sensibly in most cases.

RGV continues to use loud background music in places where silence would have served a whole lot better.

G. I. Joe:

Seriously? you want the story of G. I. Joe movie? ~~A young man finds himself torn between his duty to his country and his lost love, the tragic love story painted on the canvas of today’s world full of hate and violence, betrayal and greed.~~

All right, here’s the straight and narrow: G. I. Joe foils the plans for world domination by the ruthlesss terrorist organization Cobra, led by Cobra Commander, who is supported by Destro and his M.A.R.S. Industries. EOS. Yo, Joe!

Till next time… go on, she is still stirring some sugar in her coffee.

Virtually Real - How Life Imitates Art

karachi khatmal — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 08:16:25 EDT

(This post was written earlier in the year, in the aftermath of the latest subcontinental chicken dance. With events as they stand now, it makes for an intriguing look.)

How many of you remember Hollywood movies making jokes about masturbation before the movie There's Something about Mary came out? I can’t seem to think of any other movie making such a blatant reference to it – in fact, I remember thinking back in the day that the only reason people were so excited about that movie was that gag involving Cameron Diaz’s hair “gel”. Otherwise, was it really THAT funny?

iMDB says *drum roll* 7.2

That’s not really worth the hype generated about it in 1998, when the movie came out. I remember the sheer awkwardness of it all when the movie was chosen by people in their cousin get together movie-thons - when younger and even older family members would turn and ask the person laughing what the joke with her hair was about.

Just a year later, American Pie came out. Till then, summer movies about teens falling in love and all that shit was as American as American pie. By attempting to fornicate with the pie his mother made, Jason Schwartz’s character deliberately desecrated the clean-as-pie image of the summer movie.

Ten years later, EVERY summer movie, and every teen movie is just about getting laid and its associated pains and little else. (Look up Euro Trip, Road Trip, Superbad, etc)

I’m not complaining, but I was trying here to trace out a path of the time mainstream entertainment felt it was ok to bring sexual misadventures into the non-taboo realm.

(Of course, it goes without saying that the original summer teen movie is Dazed and Confused.Don’t watch it now, because you’ll find it too boring. Why? Because every joke in that movie has been repeated ad fucking nauseam. Its iMDB rating is 7.5, which I think is reflective of people who heard about what a classic it was, and then were disappointed when they saw it. However, the fact that it came out six years before American Pie, and that everyone else expropriated all of its gags says a lot about how ahead of its time this movie really was.)

The point I am trying to make is that humor slowly brings that which is taboo towards acceptance. But equally importantly, that process doesn’t necessarily make things better. An avalanche of movies with jokes about semen and masturbation and messed up sex haven’t done much to change sexual behavior or make it more responsible. Some would argue that mainstreaming these things has actually allowed people to be more comfortable with disgusting and irresponsible attitudes towards sexual behavior.

But what do I know, I’m just a model.

Even if I don’t know much, I am aware of the long running debate over the amount of profanity, violence and perceived vulgarity in movies. The same argument has also been extended to video games, which also involve an unholy amount of sex, drugs and violence within their confines.

Few games however have gained the level of notoriety as that veritable series – Grand Theft Auto. Each installment of the game unleashes a tsunami of controversy. And each installment is so goddam good, so terribly addictive and enjoyable that even if you oppose the graphic content within the game on principle, once you play the game you can’t help but be hooked.

The first version I played was the one in which you had a bird’s eye view and could run over a line of jogging Hari Krishnas.
The last version I played involved the indefatigable CJ and his Grove Street bro’s. And playing GTA IV – San Andreas was literally a ritual while we were in college, with CJ’s endless adventures a continuous source of stress relief and humor in equal measures.
Ahh, the good old days.

An argument trotted out in defense of GTA (an argument made its most recent entry into our collective consciousness in the lead-up to the release of GTA-IV, where you could beat up strippers and such) was that people who played such games were well aware that the whole thing was just a fantasy. Anyone who was inspired by a video game to commit such acts probably would have committed such acts anyway, and blaming the video games was just a convenient excuse.

In fact, the whole fun was the insanity it allowed you to propagate.

Imagine the fun when loaded up with weapons you managed to steal a police car. Immediate upgrade to two stars on the police radar. Now you can drive around the city, running over people at random and shooting them up all over the place.

They have stolen a police car and were driving around shooting, and the police took a taxi and were chasing them and they were shooting each other and as they were passing the main road a guy was sitting there watching and he was shot

Once you get bored with the police car situation, you can get off at some place, any place really - like a train station maybe -

and start mowing people down. Take out your big guns and just randomly kill all the people you see. Especially when those huge pools of blood splatter all over the place. You can literally waste hundreds without even pausing to think.
By this time, the heat would be really on. I mean this is the part the choppers start appearing, and the national guard is called out. The only way to survive is to hide inside some building or something. Once inside, its easier to take pot shots at all those trying to nab you and you can make your survival last much longer. Plus you can kill loads of civvies just to pump up the fun.
Of course, your health bar might be going down – so you can take food, or better yet, drugs.

That should allow you the superhuman strength needed to last for a really really long time. Because by now the cops and the commandos and the rest are gonna be all over you.

They’ll be storming from the roofs,
and they’ll be firing from all angles,
and they’ll be surrounding you from all ends. This is when the game gets most intense, when it’s really not about the game anymore but just firing your way to oblivion. If you get really lucky, and you keep up the intensity, you can actually make it last for really long. But of course, you know there’s no way out. Which induces an even greater sense of fatalism, a sense to fight it out until the bitter, bitter end.
But of course, all this only happens in video games.

Movie Review: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Fleiger — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 09:51:37 EDT

Continuing the tradition started with Order of the Phoenix, I went ahead and watched Harry Potter and Half-Blood Prince almost a day before it is released everywhere. Since it is hard to review a film like this for me, here are just some of the thoughts, fresh from watching the movie.

First, for those who haven’t read the book, here’s a short story, with minimum spoilers: Due to events at the end of Order of The Phoenix, Harry Potter finds himself once more the darling of (most of the) wizarding world. While Harry and his friends return to Hogwarts for their sixth year, the war within the magical community continues to escalate, and even spills over in muggle world. So while romance is the order of the day for the teens at the school, Harry also needs to prepare for his impending clash with Lord Voldemort. Meanwhile, nobody will believe Harry that Draco Malfoy is up to something sinister.

The movie opens with a shot of destruction of what most “spoiler-free” articles are referring to as “a prominent London landmark” (I did too, though anybody who has seen the trailers will know which one). This is immediately followed by a scene where Harry is flirting with a waitress in a cafe. This basically sets the tone for most of the movie, where the darker scenes, with Deatheaters and Harry’s quest, are interspersed with lighter ones, with romantic comedy between the various pairs.

The Half-Blood Prince subplot seems heavily curtailed, and you may miss its significance entirely if you haven’t read the book(s). Indeed, many subplots from the book progress more in the dialogs from different characters, than on actual screen. Even two memory-trips from the book don’t find a place here, one actually important, another not so much. In fact, the whole movie seems to rush towards the climax, and the end even starts towards the next movie.

This doesn’t mean the parts which are kept back, or added are not interesting. The lake scene is all it promises to be on paper, so is Ron’s unfortunate acquaintance with a love potion. Ginny is, as in the book, much more aggressive and confident. And though Ron does the "hit by the love" impression perfectly, Harry with Felix Felicis behaves more like he has had a few fire whiskies too many.

Ron finally gets his day in the spotlight, not just as a quidditch hero, but as a prominent presence in most of the romantic scenes. Though the Ron-Lavender story is used to its utmost comic potential, it doesn’t really matter if he is a part of the pair in question for him to be there.

Although the last battle is heavily reduced, it doesn’t take anything away from the movie overall, and the impact of climax is still the same. But given some of the changes and omissions over the movie series, I am wondering how they can tie up some inevitable loose ends at the start of first part of Deathly Hallows.

You may ask what is, at the end of the day, my biggest grouse with the movie? Well, the answer is: We did get to see Weasleys Wizarding Wheezes in all its glory and Arnold the pygmy puff, but where are the posters for “U-No-Poo”?