Views on Anything & Everything: 2010

Monday 2 August 2010

Just needs a pinch of Salt….

When you walk out of a movie thinking hard to find its goofs… then my perception is that it was a good movie. But that sentence had nothing to do with SALT… I walked out after watching SALT, smirking… actually laughing at the plight of the much publicized ‘unbreakable’, future-proof’, ‘we spend more than a gazillion billions on it’ US security system! This next few words may be a spoiler but when Leiv Schreiber actually slaps the President of the United States (SIR YES SIR!!) in his own high security, so far unknown bunker, I couldn’t help but feel a small sense of relief that… albeit only in movies, but a set of patriotic American citizens actually greet the concept of US presidential security with the same empathy as a bunch of very drunk British football hooligans do, when they meet a lone opponent supporter in a dark lawless alley! Laughable, actually pitiable!!

Now that I got that out of my system… the movie was actually pretty good. Angelina ‘Anorexia’ Jolie carries the movie on her feeble looking shoulders and delivers the much needed buoyancy to keep the film not only afloat but sailing through ‘Inception’ filled seas. She presents an explosive action performance which to equate to a male portrayal would need Jackie Chan-Matt Damon-Bruce Lee-Tom Cruise-James Bond-Spiderman rolled up into one. What’s very different to her Lara Croft hash is that Agent Salt speaks an amazing lot through her expressions, something you were left crying for, in the Croft Chaos. Agent Evelyn Salt is a super spy, who has infallibility as her super power and while she does get scratched a few times, she leaves a trail of bodies of erstwhile very burly baddies… Male chauvinists – cry your heart out! She is a lone female battling in and against a male dominated villains club.

Anyway, sequence one is her being led back from the confines of a North Korean prison with a swollen left eyelid… obviously an attempt to relate to the current set of the US ‘I don’t like you’ countries but the rest of the movie is about cold war Russian maniacs who can’t let go of the past. It’s almost like the world forgot to tell them that the cold war’s over and they continue to perform their duties of destruction like programmed robots. Anyway, back to the scene – her mushier than mush German husband (Mike Krause) is waiting for her… and if you thought – that’s a bit too mushy for a killing machine wife who can bring down whoever, whatever, whenever… no! The fact that he is an arachnologist (Spider scientist geek) just pushes you over the edge! His character is a real misfit in this otherwise swashbuckling roller coaster.

Hmm… the plot you dare ask… and I dare write - A strange ragged old man claiming to be a Russian spy Vassily Orlov (Daniel Olbrychski) walks into the CIA headquarters and seeks to defect and in return reveals that Ms. Salt is actually a Russian spy and will be killing the Russian president in a few days time…the rest of the movie is how Ms. Salt absconds to prove her innocence. There’s a quick crash (literally) course on how to jump from one speeding truck to another on an American freeway, maniac bike riding, using a fire extinguisher and a couple of metal table legs to create a bazooka, advanced stun gun usage techniques – driving a 4X4 special, surviving a sub zero swim after a 1000ft jump from a helicopter, extracting spider venom to use in an explosive device, dog walking on a 25cm ledge outside the 40th floor, cross dressing to look ugly, etc. and most importantly on how, with the right amounts of speed, technique (and payment) 6 foot 300 pound baddies who can kill you with their toe nail can collapse worse than a pack of cards when kicked by an anorexic and injured spy.

As a sub plot, it turns out that Evelyn Salt was actually trained by the Russians in a special spy school for kids by Vassily Orlov but her bug loving husband’s love has made her a good American rather than a bad commie rooskie. Philip Noyce who is adept in playing mind games with great hits like ‘Clear & Present Danger’, ‘The Bone Collector’ and ‘Patriot Games’ does it again with a ‘is she? /isn’t she?’ plot. The Kurt Wimmer script also delivers a punchy and racy albeit thin storyline. All in all, it was pure enjoyment for the mindless action seeker.

None of the main protagonists of the flick live to see the sequel if there is one except for Chiwetel Ejiofor, who does a lot of nothing in this venture. I felt that Salt 2 is necessary… as Ms. Jolie is yet to prove her innocence to her world and like Mr. Bourne could have bigger fish to fry before coming clean.

One question kept creeping back into my head… if Vassily trained Evelyn to be the ultimate Russian spy who has successfully infiltrated the CIA system and now is on the verge of completing her assignment of killing the Russian President…. Why the F-ing hell does he walk into the CIA HQ and reveal the plot??? Kurt, Philip… anyone… can someone please throw some sense into that…. Or am I daring for too much!

Tuesday 20 July 2010

Knight and Day... A Hit & A Miss!

Knight and Day is a fun filled journey into the unreal, ordained with quite a few potholes. These when ignored results in a great movie experience. I suggest that you leave your grey cells to hibernate for 109 minutes and enjoy the rollercoaster.

Why the crew preferred the title rather than calling it ‘June & Roy” is an intriguing thought, maybe best left for later. Roy Miller (Tom Cruise) easily stands out as the ‘Atlas’ who carries this movie, all the way through. Miller’s role definition is done before your seat gets warm – he is a very charming yet mysterious someone surely associated with either the FBI or CIA types. The way he visually stalks to find his prey before spotting the innocent Ms. Diaz, does add a dark thought or two, if you went in without knowing what to expect.

Talking about ‘charm’ – that is something Mr. Cruise is born with and generally doesn’t have to try very hard to usher in but being on the extremely wrong side of 40, actually shows in this comic action caper. He looks old and tired, either there wasn’t enough money left to hire a good make up artist or it was a case of plain old wrinkles… but it shows! June Havens (Cameron Diaz) saves the day for Mr. Cruise in the looks department, she looks pretty anemic, pretty similar to how Julia Roberts did in Ocean’s Twelve but at least the latter had a recent maternity to point fingers at… Ms. Diaz looks so haggard that some of her action stunts look beyond belief. At places where ‘looking sexy’ was the intent, she ends up looking like someone who needs to make sleep rather than love.

Anyway so much so for reviewing their looks, now let’s relish the action. The locales, stunts, crashes, chases, hand to hand combat and application of technology makes it worth the trip. The first sequence inside a commercial jet, which strangely starts out as a Airbus A320 and crashes as a Boeing 747, is pretty fast paced and funny and sets the tone for the next 90 swashbuckling minutes.

June Havens is a girl next door; carrying spares for an old car that she wants to finish building (her father, now dead, used to) to gift it to her sister April Havens – much too deep, emotional, sensitive and mushy for a action movie one would think… but you’ll love it when she finishes building the car and you get to see a lot of it at in the last 10 minutes. Her quite boring, normal, no boyfriend, car building life gets intertwined with that of the main protagonist, Mr. Cruise – a true action hero, who knows only to save the day (and earth) from marauding meanies, resulting in a simple yet interesting script.

Every possible moving machine is put to good use - there are crashing planes, murders on trains, car chases, bike escapes, helicopters, boats and if that was not enough you have enraged bulls running amok. All this because our dear Mr. Cruise is supposedly a secret agent who has turned rogue and has kidnapped the nerdy inventor Simon Feck (Paul Dano) who’s claim to fame is inventing a battery like object, called the zephyr which is allegedly a never ending source of energy. I agree that one needs to be much more than a genius, almost God like, to have created something that important but I had only one question for Simon Feck’s character – Can’t you F@*#ing shave???

Agent Fitzgerald (Peter Sarsgaard) and Director George (Viola Davis) are after the rogue Roy… they pluck Ms. June and prove it to her that Roy is bad news and she does fall into their trap, albeit briefly. Anyway, poetic justice is meted out and as even my 3 year old toddler would have predicted, Peter’s the bad guy, Tom’s the protector and Director George, well… is merely a fool! Now if Agent Fitzgerald was the only bad guy, it wouldn’t be fun and what could a rogue CIA field agent actually achieve without a larger shark aiding him?

Lo and behold… Mr. Antonio (Jordi Molla) the Spanish arms dealer arrives and he is the big bad wolf who, as always, dreams of world domination! So we are whizzed through Florida, Massachusetts, Austria, Spain and a very beautiful tropical island inhabited only by Mr. Cruise, in ‘Tom & Jerry’ like fashion. However powerful and wily the bad guys are they are always outwitted by the good guys. In their numerous attempts to kill Roy, June and Simon – their own numbers do get tragically reduced as Mr. Cruise can kill as smoothly as he can kiss.

Anyway, let’s cut directly to the last few minutes… What Mr. Simon Feck actually invented is only an useless over heating battery, which explodes! With a bit more intensity than your run of the mill Duracell… intensity enough to blow up the villain’s (Agent Fitzgerald) get away plane but one is not as saddened as one should be when the nerdy genius (idiot) is shot in the process. So in essence, numerous people and bystanders and shot, maimed and/or killed by either our cute (and aging) couple or the bad guys for something that was utterly useless in the first place.

Many segments of the movie do give you the feeling that the unit was running out of money as they lack the necessary depth of explanation or character build up. The audience is expected to use their imagination to fill these gaps which is very strange for a movie directed by James Mangold, the very genius who gave us fantastic flicks including the Oscar nominated ‘3:10 to Yuma’ and ‘Walk the Line’ which won Reese Witherspoon her academy award.

Or maybe it’s the bad editing; Quincy Gunderson and Michael McCusker must have done their deed after a night out drinking lots of bad whisky. It surely does show symptoms of someone working through a massive hangover. A lot of the action sequences end up being quirky and quite too much to palate BUT who cares… my grey cells were in deep slumber to analyse and sift between the logical and the crazy.

I guzzled the movie down, as it was served and frankly I was left with a nice after taste… I liked it and, sensing from the murmurs of the crowd leaving the theatre… everyone else also did.

It will not get into any top10’s or into any action classics list but will remain as that ‘smile’ whenever you think of it.

Farewell to you

I don't want to say goodbye to you,

but still know you should go.

This is a time of sadness, a time of joy,
a time to say farewell and goodbye.

A time of despair, for you and me
but let’s see it from the other side.

Let’s put our emotions to rest
as they lose out to the test of time

Time and money are the real world
where emotions are a game and gain...fame.

Take care my friend and get through to last
as moments fly by and our time wears thin

I say, with a heavy heart, a tearful eye
a drooping brow, yet a smiling face

Farewell... farewell to you.

- Vinay Kalyan Parakala

Tonight

I want to be among the stars tonight

I know it's too far from you...
To hear you smile,
To feel you talk,
To see your eyes...

I wish I were among the stars tonight
Maybe you'll walk down the lane
like we've done a thousand times
and look up at the sky
and smile at me...

That'll do for a lifetime
my love…for my lifetime.
A smile will do if it's from you.
I want to be amongst the stars tonight,
It's cold and it's lonely…
But your smile will do.

I wish I were amongst the stars tonight.

- Vinay Kalyan Parakala

Monday 19 July 2010

Kluney Manor - Fit for Royalty

The Kluney Manor is everything one would expect, when on a long awaited weekend beak. The wife and me wanted an escape to a picturesque locale, cool climate, excellent food, an element of luxury and access to very many interesting sightseeing spots… yes we wanted all the boxes ticked, after all it was a quick break after many months. Kluney Manor lived up to our expectations to a very commendable 80%.... It doesn’t mean that it lost out on 20% it’s just that I’m a bit stingy with my marks!

Let me dispense with the borderline negatives because it will be a quick and short, as there were very few issues. The approach… one could expect a travelers award if they locate the route to Kluney Manor, within the first 3 tries – it is tough but the very patient front office manager is more than happy to receive your frantic call any number of times to guide you in. The height of the King size bed, you do feel closer to the stars than Mother Earth. So if you have a toddler, like we do, you do tend to get a bit psyched. The minimalistic interiors approach does make the room feel large but it could do with a working table and a few more chairs, especially to sit in front of the fireplace, would be nice. Umm… that’s it! That was it on the negatives.

Right from the second we arrived, the friendly staff made us feel at home, Kluney Manor is located far from the madding crowd of the Ooty town centre, high up on a hillock. This gives you both an excellent view and the much needed privacy. We stayed in a classic cottage, which had a living area, a large bedroom with a delectable fireplace and a 21” TV (I thought LCDs are becoming a standard!) and a vintage almirah with a full size mirror on the front, a small dressing room and a decent bathroom. The classic cottages had their own private lawns in front where my little chap had a great time chasing birds, the lawn has a protected place for an evening bonfire and a couple of log benches to laze on… and of course an amazing view of Ooty town.

The food was probably one of the best that we had. Both of us are pretty choosy and fussy when it comes to food on a holiday and Kluney met with our approval. We are veggies (eggs allowed) and hence can’t comment on the entire menu. While breakfast does make one feel like you are back in your hostel canteen (very limited fare) taste and quality were very high up. The ala carte lunch and dinner menu gives you very good choice and that satiated smile after the meal.

Advertised as a Victorian resort, Kluney Manor does live up to that image. Whenever we are in Ooty next, I don’t expect to stay anywhere else. The long weekend has made us lifelong fans.

Friday 16 July 2010

Raavan... really!!!

Raavan is best described as a delectable morsel only though…if you were an aged vulture. It was dead… I wanted to append that phrase with more vocabulary but those three words encapsulate my thoughts in full. My disclaimer is also the very truth – I am a die hard Mani Ratnam fan… but a lot of us variety morphed into merely dying fans after this offering.

As we sat through the despair and excruciating disappointment of the first half, another poor sod from the back benches consoled his dear with the words… “Don’t worry the second half is great”. I suppose the subconscious in trained to latch on to any straw of hope, spit in your direction when faced with inevitable doom. We latched on to that statement and as the second half unfolded… renaissance was left shunned as we were subjected to more mental molestation.

In the end, it did not matter anymore… the theatre embarked on a self help and self heal trip, the squeal of ‘Sita’ or the vagaries of ‘Hanuman’ were drowned by the multiple conversations that dawned as defense mechanisms against the silver screen’s tirade. It became a gathering, a party, except for the fact that we sat chained to our seats, we chatted, joked and argued as one would in happier times.

Let’s now analyse individual performances… yes I did drug myself before I said that!

Mr. Raavan A.K.A Abhishek Bachchan’s performance was a distressing comeuppance juxtaposed with, desperation reverberating through the annals and the echelons of the throng. In simpler words, it stank! His suave appearance and distinct pedigree should have been best left at home to portray the role of an eccentric evil man. His evilness should have defied logic or need, Heath Ledger’s depiction of the same was scintillatingly effective in ‘The Dark Knight’. Abhishek failed… his eccentricity was more comic than frightening, it soon became a burden that we had to live with, similar to the cartoon segments in ‘Hum Tum’. One felt extremely satiated that this character did not come with ten heads!

Moving on quickly to Mr. Ram A.K.A Vikram, he was a personification of the famous Stonehenge in UK with a moustache in need of a mower and a Ray Ban bought off the sticky peddler at any Indian traffic signal, equally boring and one is yet to discover why it exists?!? By the last scene, when the whole of the Indian police force ‘encounters’ Beera A.K.A Raavan A.K.A Abhishek, one strongly wishes that Vikram also was caught in some friendly fire!

Mrs. Sita A.K.A Aishwarya Rai Bachchan must have contracted pneumonia if not at least a bad cold as she was under or over water for most of her role. Being fair, she did her best to showcase bewilderment, love, despair, ecstasy, sorrow, anguish, shock and strength but well the fact is that a miracle needs to happen for India to win the soccer world cup, so one is left feeling sorry for her until a catalytic moment plummets her into the group above… Let me depict probably the funniest shot in the movie…Sita rushes to a police officer (Lakshman A.K.A Nikhil Dwivedi), denuded, tonsured, beaten and buried unto his neck in the ground and cradles his head in her soft hands and shrieks – ‘are you okay?’. I earned for an audience with the princess of Bollywood to shriek… if she was!

A quick mention of Mr. Hanuman A.K.A Govinda and Mr. Vibheeshan A.K.A Ravi Kishen, quick only because they excelled in their marginal roles and do not deserve to be paraded with the above notoriety or included in this caustic review. Govinda was remarkable to bring his trustworthy steed called ‘comic timing’ as a catalyst to his otherwise miniscule role. Ravi Kishen emoted like this was his role of a lifetime, both probably poignant displays of gratitude for being chosen by Mr. Ratnam himself to participate in his opus, I dare say.

Finally, Surpanaka A.K.A Priyamani, who has a growing fan base for the wrong reasons, showed us all that she can act and act well at that, one only wished that Ramayana had a larger role for the sister…it might have paused the fall for a bit.

Talking about pausing the fall (or should we promote that word to THUD), the cinematography and visuals were breathtaking; Manikandan and Santosh Sivan have added another feather to their caps. There have been numerous movies with the Indian wild as the background but none more an ambassador than Raavan. It is a great tourism advert for our forest department; maybe they can pay to help reduce the losses that numerous distributors and theatre owners have repeatedly incurred (remember Kites!)

Oh! How dare I miss out on our Oscar winning musical maestro Padma Bhushan A.R. Rahman. His ensemble was intriguing to say the least… Gulzar, Ratnam & Rahman is a potent combination and possibly if one listens to the songs with eyes closed, they sound terrific. ‘Beera Beera’ and ‘Thok De Killi’ reminded me of Dil Se, I truly can’t say why! And what does Thok De Killi mean anyway? My indepth research found me the phrase ‘The last nail in the coffin’?!? If that really is the meaning, its pretty amusing but very apt message to the audience! ‘Behene De’ and ‘Ranjha Ranjha’ stand out as the best dishes or maybe my ears were earning for something soothing; ‘Kata Kata’ and ‘Khili Re’ were nice but more fillers.

The success of the audio album is pretty deserved. Gun to my head if I have to choose the best song, I will have to go with ‘Ranjha Ranjha’… who knows, it might win Raavan its only award!

I hate to admit it but Mr. Ratnam lost this one... but one single strand of failure in a thicket of successes can be forgotten and ignored… maybe it was a case of 23rd time unlucky! I remain one amongst his millions of fans, awaiting his next attempt ardently.

Mr. Ratnam, just a humble suggestion for your next venture from another nobody…. Do you know of a certain Mr. Aamir Khan?

Views on Anything & Everything