I'm Off, Suckahs!

So, what are y'all up to on New Year's?

Bet you a million bucks it's nothing like what I've got planned, hyuk hyuk hyuk. I'm off to Boston tomorrow, my pretties.. that's right, eat your hearts out. MIT and Harvard and ... Boston, people! Staying with sister-in-law's husband's brother and his wife. No, I'm not as much of a weasel as you're thinking, I've known this SIL's H's B's W for a while, independently; she's a friend of mine, and a sweet one too. (You never know who's reading this blog... ;D)

Anyways. You people make sure you do something fun with yourselves, and try not to be too jealous. HAPPY NEW YEAR, a couple of days in advance!

PS: I watched The Wicker Man (awesome), The Long Good Friday (snoozefest), Lakshya (decent), Parinda (surprisingly good) and A Streetcar named Desire (brilliant). And may I just say:

HUBBA HUBBA.

Addendum: My jealous husband in a fit of pique defiled this picture. I say, PTHOOOOEY - dude STILL looks hot. :P

Movie Review: Goblet of Fire (finally!)

Allow me to turn schizo for a moment, because Potter movies always require me to don two very different hats when I review them.

The Movie-Goer Review
The better a novel, the harder it is to make movies out of it. Novels are too much material for a movie to handle. Short stories - they haven't enough material (cases in point: In the Bedroom, A.I., etc). I think best movies based on the printed word come from novellas. Cases in point: Shawshank Redemption, Minority Report.

My theory is borne out by Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. The movie sheds the richness of detail and complexity of the characters in the books in favour of telling its story (though a damn good story it is), and in doing so, it loses the mainstream audience to sheer incomprehensibility. The first two movies of the Potter franchise were simple enough to be adapted easily to screen, even by the moronic Chris Columbus, and the third was butchered by Alfonso Cuaron who examplified the phrase "all style and no substance". This fourth movie, to its credit, does a better job by several orders of magnitude, but it still falls short. I think it's some consolation, though, that I don't think it could have been done better.

And that's the end of all my cribbage about HP&GoF, the movie. Most everything else about it was right. The atmosphere drips with atmosphericity. The costumes are gorgeous. The special effects were well done, and more importantly, used to great effect rather than allowed to overshadow the purposes of the movie itself.

The movie, just as the book, is structured around the three tasks of the Triwizard Tournament set for the champions selected from each of the three wizarding schools in Europe. Mysteries and odd happenings propel this plot forward: who put Harry's name in the Goblet of Fire, forcing him to compete as the fourth champion? The headmaster of Durmstrang school, Igor Karkaroff, is hiding a dark past - what is he up to now? Who conjured the Dark Mark at the Quidditch World cup? And are Harry's dreams, featuring Wormtail and Lord Voldemort, real?

The plot serves as the perfect background for the growth of the main characters as teenagers discovering the opposite sex, and facing the most daunting task of all: asking their paramours to the school dance, the Yule Ball. The Yule Ball sequences are hilarious and charming in turns. Ron looks suitably ludicrous in frilly dress robes, and Hermione looks gorgeous in her pink and frilly dress... and it turns out Harry himself cleans up pretty nice.

The three leads continue to smoothly chart the evolution of characters who must learn lessons fast to survive. Also returning are Alan Rickman (yum), as anal and crabby as ever as Professor Snape; Robbie Coltrane as Hagrid, given the task of wooing Frances de la Tour's even taller Headmistress of Beauxbatons, Madame Maxime; Maggie Smith as the ever-practical Professor McGonagall; Timothy Spall, still looking satisfyingly rodentlike as Wormtail aka Peter Pettigrew; and Tom Felton, the representation of upper-class hauteur and cowardice as Harry's archenemy (thought that might be an overstatement) Draco Malfoy. The one role left stranded is Rita Skeeter, a gossip journalist played by Miranda Richardson, whom the movie easily could have jettisoned.

Meanwhile, the final Triwizard Task brings Harry into his first contact with Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes), the reptilian personification of pure evil. Coming in the fourth movie, the much-anticipated confrontation does not disappoint, oh no, my precious. Voldemort emerges from a boiling cauldron, born again into poisonous hatred for humanity with the help of Harry's own blood, feeling power surge once more through newly formed muscles and tissue. Ralph Fiennes plays the role of this psychopath with a touch of madness that makes the cold venom of Lord Voldemort send that many more shivers down the spine. The graveyard scenes were truly spectacular.

All in all, a thoroughly enjoyable movie, but one that should be watched in the company of someone who has read the book and is willing to be interrupted with requests for explanations to the incomprehensible parts of the movie.

The Potterhead Review

*EEEEEEEE*!!! I watched it I watched it I watched it I watched it!!

And OH MY GOD was it spectacularissimo or WHAT?!!

Best lines evah:

• Neville: "Oh no, I've killed Harry Potter!"


• Hermione: "I am not an owl!"


• Harry: "I love magic."


• Ron (on writing to Hermione): "You know I won't."


• Cedric Diggory: "How are you?"
  Harry: "Spectacular."


• Snape (showing Harry a bottle of Veritaserum): Know what this is?
  Harry: "Bubble juice, sir?"


• Harry (talking about Gillyweed): "So this'll last me for an hour?"
  Neville: "In theory."
  Harry: "In theory??"
  Neville: "Well, there's some debate among herbologists about its effectiveness in fresh water as opposed to salt water."


• McGonagall: "Is that a student?"
  Moody: "Technically, it's a ferret."


• Ron: "... and she was just walking along... You know how I like it when they walk..."


• Voldemort: "Kill the spare."

Best bits evah:

• Barty Crouch Jr., and his insane tongue-flick.. *shiver*


• Voldemort... touching his face and scalp with long, spidery, death-pale fingers.


• Cedric Diggory (YUMMM, and I don't care if it's age-inappropriate).


• That jaw-dropper of a Quidditch World Cup stadium.


• FERRET!


• Ron's idea of "warning" Harry about the dragons... and Harry saying, nobody could have figured it out, that's completely mental.


• GINNY!


• Flesh, blood and bone...

The Meh Bits:

• Dumbledore. Whole new definition of butchery there. Who is this weird hippie freakout fellow they've got in these movies?


• Would it have killed them to put Hermione in periwinkle blue for the Yule Ball?


• And speaking of Hermione, what is up with Emma Watson and her Eyebrows of Doom? Talk about overacting.


• Madame Maxime - ugh. "Handsome, olive-skinned woman, hair in a neatly coiled bun." Hello?
  
  THAT is Madame Maxime.

That's all.

Update

Because I haven't done it in such a long time...

Well. I've been sitting at home for the past week or so, and it's amazing how easy it is to fritter time away. I've literally been too busy to post here. Actually, scratch that. I've been too busy finding things to do so I can say I didn't have time to post because I haven't had anything to say. (Yes, my early new-year resolution is to tell harsh truths.)

Turns out I'm in a "nothing to say, nothing to write" phase. only the Harry Potter fanfiction has been coming along. :P

Anyways, I hope you guys had a good Christmas and Hannukah and all the associated days off. (I refuse to say "holiday", what is up with all this utterly random political correctness anyway? It's a Christmas tree, people, and calling it a holiday tree won't suddenly mean Jews will start buying one for Hannukah. Bah.)

And if I don't see you before New Year's (coz I'm off to Boston for the weekend, me pretties), happy new year also. See you soon!

Parineeta Reconsidered

As I was telling my husband about Parineeta - that it was a same-old same-old love story that's very well done - he picked up on something in my tone of voice, I guess, and insisted I had really liked it but wasn't admitting it.

I hate to say it, but he was right. I find myself thinking back on the little things that were beautifully done, the big things that were subtly conveyed, and I find I like this movie, really, quite a lot.

When the source material for a movie is a literary classic, there's a ready-made bedrock of internal unity and external finesse to build on, and given Saratchandra Chatterjee's play, Pradeep Sarkar, the director, does build on it. Sure, the plot is one that has been overdone in Bollywood. Shekhar, a rich, bratty young man and his childhood friend Lolita are in love with each other without knowing it. Enter rival love interests - Lolita's older benefactor Girish and rich heiress Gayatri Tantia - complications are already setting in. Throw in an avaricous businessman as Shekhar's controlling father, money problems for Lolita's family, a few giggling siblings here, a sultry special appearance by Rekha there, and you have the whole story. But I have begun to look beyond the obvious irritants in this bare-bones plot (greedy capitalist dad as the villain, I ask you?). In the telling of any story, execution is everything, and here it is quite marvellous.

The important things are all conveyed with great restraint and style rather than the clobber-over-the-head style of most Bollywood fare. The rivalry between Girish and Shekhar is never a shouting match cum tug-of-war with Lolita as rope... instead, it is amply communicated in Shekhar's light rebuke of Girish for serving cold rotis. The nearly wordless love scene between Shekhar and Lolita is the entire statement of their devotion to each other. Shekhar is freely irrational when emotional, as real people often are. No textbooks hero there. Lolita's only acknowledgement of her jealousy over Gayatri Tantia is to repeat Shekhar's father's dictum, I won't waste time on an unprofitable venture. No passionate entreaties, no wringing hands, no teary-eyed damsel in distress, and you've got to admire this movie for that. The only exception came in the end, when Shekhar physically breaks down the brick wall separating him from Lolita. What pushes this scene over the edge into cheap melodrama is the wedding party around him, which turns into a cheering squad: Break it down, Shekhar, break it down! But that was five minutes. In the larger balance, it doesn't upset things too much.

The sountrack, like everything else in the movie, is elaborate but nicely understated. If that sounds like a contradiction in terms, let me put it this way: the music is lavish and very sweet, but it is used as merely a setting for the characters, rather than the other way around. I really like Soona Man Ka Aangan, and the breathy eroticism of Hui Mai Parineeta.

It was easy to look at Parineeta with a critical eye at first, and dismiss it for its flaws. I'm sure the parenthetical narration by Amitabh Bachchhan had a little to do with it, as did the superfluousness of many characters (I hate it when the law of economy of characters isn't observed). But really, it's a sweet tale, beautifully told. The actors - Saif in particular - were brilliant, never allowing their star personas inhibit their portrayal of the character. The direction is great, the sets superb. I don't know what I was complaining about before.

Not So Dead

I was looking at the nominees and winners of the 1995 Oscars: now there's one year when the judges seem to have picked winners earmuffed and blindfolded! Take a look. In a year when both Shawshank Redemption and Pulp Fiction were up for Best Picture, guess who got the Oscar? Forrest Gump. (My thoughts on that godawful movie were very lucidly expressed by Fernwithy.)

I was scrolling down in disbelief, looking at who won for Best Director (Forrest F***ing Gump) and Best Actor (Forrest F***ing Gump again), and something I saw in the list of Best Supporting Actor nominees drove the rage at Forrest Gump out of my mind.

Included in that list was Samuel L. Jackson for his role as Jules in Pulp Fiction. Nominee - not winner, mind - for Best Supporting Actor.

You might think Pulp Fiction is Vincent Vega's story, but as I see it, it was Jules all the way. Jules simply satisfies all the requirements of the hero's role. Consider the following:

1. The protagonist is supposed to mirror the audience's cluelessness at the beginning of a story: Vincent Vega is the man who holds all the answers in both major opening conversations, the Quarter Pounder With Cheese and the Foot Massage.


2. The protagonist, after being educated a little during the segue-in, must show a strong, cool side of his/her personality in the course of his/her daily activities, before the plot begins to happen: it is Jules who truly "gets into character" and takes over in the living-room scene with Brett.


3. The protagonist must not die in the middle of the movie, especially not in a completely unnoticed way: self-explanatory.


4. The protagonist must face a crisis and a moment of choice at the movie's climax and handle it alone: self-explanatory.


5. The protagonist must have an epiphany: Vince never does change in the movie (except perhaps for getting that little crush on Mia, but that's not big). Jules is the one who has the moment of truth.


6. The protagonist's epiphany must change his/her life in a way that is relevant to the plot: Jules would be dead along with Vince if it weren't for him quitting.

There is no mistaking it. Pulp Fiction belongs to Jules. Even Tarentino recognises this - wasn't he going to make another movie titled Vincent Vega? There wouldn't be a reason to do that if Vince's story had already been told in Pulp Fiction.

No, there's only one reason why John Travolta got lead actor billing in this movie, and Samuel L. Jackson got stuck with supporting actor, and that reason is ugly.

Living in USA has shattered a number of my naive illusions about the way people are and the way life works, but none so thoroughly as my pre-USA-days belief that racism was mostly a blight of days past. I am constantly surprised when it surfaces - sometimes subtly, sometimes merely in an unofficial way that is quite blatant nevertheless. I've seen it, first hand, many times. I'm not a very social creature, especially not here, but even I've noticed how in little ways and big ways, black people come up against discrimination in the most insidious forms.

But I'm no one to point fingers, because (here's a big confession) I myself have started being wary/steering clear of black Americans I meet. I am beginning to see that their culture is different from that of white America and even that of minorities in America - and not in a good way. The black kids I've met in college have been uniformly dull, rowdy (to put it politely) and offensive in the worst ways.

Does this mean I think black people are more likely to, say, jump me than other minorities and whites? Probably. Will I view back people with more suspicion than I do other minorities and whites? Sometimes, I suppose - when it comes to people of the lower social classes. Am I going to discriminate against black people professionally? NO WAY - not even to the extent of having preconcieved expectations of them.

So here's the question: do I blame white Americans for their racist attitude?

The answer is yes. As I see it, white Americans draw from their specific experiences to make broad, negative generalisations about the black community. That's always wrong. Even if there are such things are "common community characteristics", there are always going to be exceptions. Every culture has its iconoclasts. And to give credit where it's due, the black media, at least, seems to be aware of the negative aspects of black culture, and there are explicit movements away from these attitudes, which guarantees that there will be significant numbers of black people who defy their stereotype. As far as I have seen, this doesn't seem to matter to white Americans. They're eager to tar the whole community with the same brush and be done with it.

And that leads to spectacular injustices like Samuel L. Jackson being denied the title of lead role despite having played it, simply because a white actor alongside him had a significant enough supporting role to get away with the title of 'lead'. It's not right.

That's all.

PS: Yeah, yeah, it's not politically correct to say the things I'm saying, yadda yadda yadda, but look, I can back up everything I've said with solid reasoning, so I'm standing by it without apology. If it's true, somebody's got to say it.

Salaam|Namaste && Parineeta

Watched both Salaam|Namaste and Parineeta. Wanted to do proper reviews, but, aiyah, no mood lah.

Inspired by the timeless romance(TM) of Ross and Rachel, Salaam|Namaste is actually funny in places - I'd expected just wannabe-funny (which is what it disintegrates to in the end). Loved that this movie had common sense, definitely a first for any Hindi fillum... though they just had to give the couple that unrealistically gorgeous beach house, didn't they, on rent the two kids can supposedly afford? Ah well. Minor issues. It was entertaining enough.

Parineeta was sweet. I guess it is to the typical love-story Hindi movie what the recent remake of Devdas is to the other Devdases that have been made: it's so much prettier. I liked the love scenes... very tastefully done. Though - did anyone else cringe at that dream-sequence love scene, where you truly see the contrast between the beautiful Vidya Balan and the haggard Sanjay Dutt? She must be half his age. Eurgh.

I'm going to watch Ramji Londonwaley tonight. I'm on a roll.

PS: What is up with the sudden proliferation of non-heroine females named Tanya in these new movies?

Preventing Arthritis

There's something about having a birthday that makes you think about how you're going to grow old. Even if the birthday is a 24th birthday. :P

So I was thinking: I take after my dad's side of the family, physically speaking. My grandmother has arthritis (the osteo kind, rheumatoid is for sissies). My dad's sisters all have osteoarthritis. AFAIK, it's been in the family for generations. It's a pretty safe bet I'm going to have it.

Point Number One: Arthritis sucks.

Point Number Two: The kind that's in my family really sucks, because my aunts have all been slowly losing mobility since they turned 50. By the time they're 75 they're going to need a wheelchair all the time.

Point Number Three: You can bet they're going to live to see 75, and more. Longevity also runs in the family, too - grandmother is 90-something. So cross "quick, merciful death" off my list of coping strategies.

My thinking is, people, I don't want to have this disease. The internet, however, is woefully inadequate when it comes to how to prevent arthritis. They have diets and exercise regiments and everything planned out for heart disease, and I was hoping something along those lines for arthritis, too, seeing as how it affects 80% of the population over 50... but nada. Nothing.

I did have some site tell me I shouldn't do exercises that put repeated, jerky pressure on my knees (like running), but I already knew that.

So anyone here know anything about the exercises to do and the foods to eat that'll gently encourage my cartilege and inter-jointal fluid to hang around till I'm definitely dead?

Cute Animal Meme

Who knew a duck's personality was so like mine? As a rule, a good meme is a funny meme because it can't be much more, but this one, hey, I actually got results that fit me. :)

You Are A: Duck!

Found in many lakes and ponds, ducks are a common sight the world over. Known for their famous quack, ducks tend to congregate in flocks or go off on their own in pairs. As a duck, you may seem friendly at times but will not hesitate to bite if someone is bothering you. Your love for travel and your ability to swim are some reasons why you are a duck.

You were almost a: Mouse or a Parakeet
You are least like a: Chipmunk or a GroundhogCute Animals Quiz