Movie Review - Definitely Maybe

I realize this is my third movie review in a row but while writing the words about narration in "I hate love stories" I was reminded of this movie that I recently re-watched. And I can watch it again in a few days.

I won't do a full review of the movie as it's a simple love story but the most interesting thing about this movie is the organization of the material, the continuity. Or in this case, the narration device.

Story starts with this young girl about 10 years old, being picked up from school by her father. And guess what she learnt in school today...yes, you guessed it, about sex. She steers the conversation towards how her father and mother met. So, after a couple more scenes, he starts to tell her the story of his life. Only he changes the names of the girls in the story.

Mainly it's a story of the 3 girls who came in his life and one of them is his daughter's mother, which she has to guess. While he's telling the story, movie keeps moving in and out of flashback for the daughter to make a comment or raise a question. I like that because this little girl is just so cute...she's adorable! She's the oversmart, a 10 year-old-granny type girl and I just love those. I like how she wants her father to be happy. The father-daughter relationship has been portrayed beautifully. He's a single dad and his daughter wants his mother and father to be together.

The plot is quite good, it goes through some twists, some of which are predictable, but still treated well by the director.

The dialogues are smart and witty, not clichéd. My favourite dialogue from this movie would be a line spoken by (surprise!) the little girl, "Tell her story, like you told me, then she'll know!" Even if this weren't a plot-turning dialogue, I'd still love it. The eagerness in the little girl's face, her deep desire to set things right for her father...man, that's something to watch. I love it! Another one of my favourite is also by the same character, yeah, the little girl asks her father, looking right into his eyes, "What's the boy word for 'slut'?". Makes me laugh, every time.

Oh, did I mention is has Isla Fisher as one of the 3 main girls?! That was the whole reason I watched it the first time. I adore Isla Fisher, not just for her beauty but her personality. I have watched a couple of her TV interviews, damn, she's sexy and fun!

The hero is Ryan Reynolds, from "Two Guys a Girl and a Pizza Place" but who cares. No, seriously, he's done a good job.

So, my point is, that the narration device is so wrapped up in the story that it's not just a narration device but a part of the story and when the flashback finishes, this part of the movie continues and reaches the climax.

Since it's Hollywood, it's a happy ending, but it goes through some nice twists that make sense and are logical based on human psychology.

Conclusion: Definitely watch it, no maybe.

What do you know, I did write a full review.

P.S.:
1. The little girl is played by Abigail Breslin. She's an amazing actress.

2. Here's the trailer for this movie -

I hate "I hate love stories" (Movie Review)

If you are a regular reader of my blog, you'd know that only two types of movies inspire me to write a review the ones I love and want people to see, and the ones I absolutely hate and want to save everybody else's time.

Let me say that this one was a struggle to watch it to the finish. I finished it only so I could write a fair review otherwise I was sick of it in about 20 minutes from the starting point.

I am going to tear it apart piece by piece.

Story: With a title like that you'd expect the movie to be a love story and it is. This predictability continues right through the movie to the end. It's a formula film without nothing new to offer in the way of story or creativity. It's chock-full of cliche'd situations that are right out of a movie-making text book. 

Plot twists: There are lots of twists in the story, but none that a 5-year old bollywood fan cannot write all out in advance. You give this kid the basic layout of the film and he or she would be able to write down the whole plot in detail. Here's the basic setup - the hero is an assistant director who hates making love stories and works for a director who makes only love stories. The heroine makes sets for these love stories, has a steady, parents-approved boyfriend. I am sure you can predict the climax. 

The Cast: In lead roles are Imran Khan and Sonam Kapoor. Both absolute failures. Hindi film heroes used to be selected for their macho personality, then came the chocolatey heroes who had good looks, this guy has nothing. His dialogue delivery makes me want to jump off a skyscraper (as long as I can land on his head). Sonam Kapoor looks pretty in revealing, western type clothes, in normal clothes she looks absolutely ordinary, very lacklustre and not worth being a heroine. Actually I have seen sexier extras in Bollywood movies. Her dialogue delivery is better than the hero but still nothing to clap and dance about.

Hero's friend, Kunal, I don't know his real name, a bearded fat guy whose only job is to give the hero bad advice, is a better actor than Imran Khan but has been cursed with bad dialogue.

The character I liked best was the director that the hero works for. He's an actor who does character roles like husband, son, businessman etc..this is a different role for him and he's done justice to it.

Dialogues: I strongly suspect that all the dialogues have been stolen and translated from Hollywood movies,
maybe all from a single movie or from several different ones. It's easy to see when you see the kind of humour that is used in American sitcoms. You can predict the punchline of most jokes.

Narration: There is an ongoing narration throughout the film in the voices of the hero and heroine, God knows why, because it doesn't add anything to the movie, isn't necessary at all and is most of the time very annoying.

Music: Music is normal, no soul-searing melodies here. And the lyrics are the same psuedo-poetic type that are common in new movies in Bollywood and for which I look down on the English pop music. The songs always slow down the story without exception and the lyrics make me want to puke.

Climax: No big surprises there, after an airport scene, they get together.

Conclusion: If you respect yourself, stay away from it.

Movie Review - The Expendables

Just finished it watching it. It's a pure adrenaline movie, action from beginning to end, with a little romance to provide the motivation sometimes.

The name and cast were so intriguing that even though I converted it to portable MP4 format, I didn't watch it on my 4.3" big screen Android phone. It was really worth watching properly. I have always liked Stallone as an action hero, and then combine him with Jason Statham and it's a double treat. Jet Li I could take or leave, the other characters are quite good in their roles, even if not superstars like Stallone and Statham.

As you could probably guess from the title it's about a team of tough-guys, mercenaries, who do all kinds of rough stuff for money. In typical Hollywood style, the movie starts with one of their missions where they make a dramatic entry. Then the second mission becomes life and death and ends with the movie.

The action is pretty much non-stop throughout, with some gaps for the story to connect the dots. I like Jason Statham's confident, badass style, even when he's talking to his girlfriend, but without being a jerk.

Soundtrack is very good for action scenes. The touch of comedy is present in a few scenes, but they haven't tried to overdo it. The plot twists are not very complex and fairly predictable but still enjoyable.

I like Charisma Carpenter as Jason's girlfriend but the lead girl, Stallone's romantic interest, Giselle Itie, is not really pretty, well not in my eyes anyway. Still, she's a good actress and does her part well.

Oh, there's Bruce Willis in a small role. He fills it well, but it's too small to be anything comment-worthy.

I like the climax, it is long, sustained  action as expected and even though it's a happy ending, it's not a shrink-wrapped type end.

It's the kind of movie that you want to watch again right after you finish it. Maybe I will watch it again soon.

Conclusion: If you are a guy, definitely go for it. If you are a girl, give it a wide berth.

Android Vs. iPhone

I don't know if this is making fun of iPhone or Android but it's a hilarious video.

Three's Company - Party Game from season 5

I just love this TV show. Can you imagine it's almost 40 years old and still so funny. A lot of credit goes to John Ritter but his co-stars are also great. I loved this scene for its mimicry-based humour but also, Priss and Jenilee look so sexy in this scene. And the dumb blonde girl whose name I didn't google yet. Enjoy.

Spinning Dancer - Left Brain vs. Right brain

You can see  a lady spinning in this picture.
If you see her spinning clockwise, apparently it means that your right brain is active and vice versa. And I can assure you that it is possible to see both directions.
You can even change her direction wilfully if you try and focus. I can do it. Can you? :-)

If you don't see her spinning click on the picture.
If you don't see the picture at all, see an optician.

Two and a half men - Charlie Waffles concert

Oh, this is just too funny for words, you have just watch it! I love the kids in this scene, and I kept wondering how on Earth would they have managed a shooting day with so many kids on the set. LOL!

Everything you didn't want to know about - sex!

Just watch it, it's funny!

Guitar Post - Ek haseena thi

I wanted to play this tune from the movie Karz for a long time, finally found the right (easy) tabs.

How chicks make a fool out of an otherwise intelligent man!

Self-explanatory

[Clip from season 3 episode 13 of Two And a Half Men. ]

Who's crazy?

Salman Khan recently sang (lip-synch'ed on screen) "Loveme, loveme, loooveme, your mama says you love, your papa says you love...oh, love me baby, loveme!" And tonight I am standing in a club in Second Life and the song is playing, "your mama says you are crazy..." and so on and so forth, the exact same tune. I asked the DJ, it's called Pitbull-Crazy.

Bollywood is great, what?

Run, Buddy, Run!

Today I finally restarted my running regime. One thing that helps me and motivates me in my running is an application called BuddyRunner that's installed on my Android phone, my Nexus One. It's a free app but it has great features that you'd need in a fitness app. One, tracking your time and distance, two, mapping your running route on the map using GPS tracking, three, storing your results in a way that you can see them (it uploads to a web-based dashboard), four, creating charts and graphs from this run data. It's very simple to use as well - click Start when you leave home, click End when you finish workout. On the route it vibrates and speaks the distance in my ear at every half-mile mark. Since I already have the headphones in for music, that works very well.

So, back to today, I was not expecting much from myself today having not done anything in the last few months, (except an all-day Salsa class last Saturday, that was brutal!) but I was pleasantly surprised. I have 2 main markers to gauge my performance during the run. First one is the half-mile mark from my house. Crossing the road at a certain traffic signal, after a few more steps is half a mile from my doorstep. Of course, I have BuddyRunner on my phone screen to get the exact mark. I try to hit this mark in one breath. Today I was not expecting that. But not only did I hit the mark, I was not even completely exhausted yet! So I kept on going and touched 0.60 miles. (Yeah, not going to the New York marathon with that stamina, I know.)

Then there is a hill that I have to walk up, it's quite steep, don't think I'll ever be able to run up that slope. But right from the top point there I run down the slope and take a right then cover some more distance on a level road. That's my second mark, to do that whole L-shape piece in one breath. Today, I not only did that but kept going and did 0.70 miles before resorting to walking. My best run is from the start of that L-shape route to my doorstep, which is a full mile.

But today I got 1.3 miles of solid running in my 2.2 mile route, and I am happy with it.

The lesson here is that you need to try, even if you don't think you will be great, you still need to try, you maybe pleasantly surprised. If not, you will still build up to do better and better every time you try it.

X-Men 3 - I hate anti-logic scenes

It's pet peeve of mine to witness scenes where the movie director tries to put one over on the audience, be it something related to technology or just plain logic. And my blog, well this is my forum to bitch about everything that bothers me. :-)

Let me lay the groundwork for it before I point out the flaw in reasoning.

1. The movie is about mutants. These people have special powers due to the mutant gene in their make up.

2. In this third movie of the series, a company invents a cure for this condition (I don't buy that mutation can be reversed by an injection, but it's their story, so whatever.)

3. There is one mutant, Jean Grey, a class 5 mutant, played by Famke Janssen. She is more powerful than any other mutant and can literally wreak havoc when her power is loose. She has two sides of her personality - the sweet, loving side and the ugly, power-mad side. She cannot control her ugly side.

4. There is a teenage boy, who is the source of the cure, and any mutant's powers don't work around him.

5. The villain, Magneto, with his army of rogue mutants decides to capture this kid from the factory where he is being kept.

6. The good guys find out about Magneto's plan and come to the factory to support the soldiers who are already there loaded with plastic guns full of injections of the "cure" that can be fired like bullets. Any mutant that gets hit by it becomes immediately powerless and just like a normal human.

There is a big fighting scene in which a lot of rounds of the "cure-bullets" are fired and the good guys are finally winning. They whisk the boy away out of the factory successfully. They even manage to neutralise the big boss Magneto but then Famke lets loose with her power and suddenly everything is chaos all around now.

And here's the scene I don't like. This one hero, called Wolverine (Hugh Jackmen), goes up to her, he can heal quickly that's one of his powers, so even though he keeps getting damaged as he walks closer to her, he heals and keeps going.

So, Hugh walks up to her, delivers his little speech, says I love you, hugs her and sticks his long blades into her that come out of his knuckles (his main power).

Now, here's my beef with this scene. Right here, on this same property where everything is going on, there is a boy who can "cure" or suppress a mutant's power just by standing next to them. And right here, on this property, are countless injections of the "cure" lying around that can permanently change a mutant into human.

So, why didn't they send the boy to Famke, he could walk right up to her easy as eating pie and the chaos would stop. And then somebody, anybody, could shoot an injection into her and fix her for good.

Since she was a nice person apart from her power-crazy split-twin, she was worth saving. So why didn't they?

I can understand what the director was trying to do there. He wanted to create a tear-jerker scene there by virtue of this lost love and sacrifice for the greater good. He failed in that miserably and pissed me off at the same time by going this illogical route. Don't do that again, Brett.

TAHM quote

"Alan, staple-guns don't staple shoes to coffee tables. Idiots do." -Charlie Harper, Two and A Half Men

Guitar Post - Melody 1

Don't expect too much from this video, I am just learning. It's a melody from a Hindi movie. The song is called "Tujhe dekha to yeh jaana sanam".

My purpose in posting these (yes, I will post more) is not to torture my audience but to create a reference point, you know like "before" and "after"... because I AM learning and I WILL get better.

Enjoy!

My sentiments exactly

One more sunset

Not from India, this is London, photos taken from a train window.

Photo Challenge 2010

Not an official challenge, just me challenging myself. And I should start by quoting that "If you have never failed, you have not challenged yourself." Yeah, as you can guess I could not meet the challenge.

My colleague Derek had taken 2200 photos in his 4-day visit to a car show. I wanted to match that number in my 4 weeks of India. But try as I might, I could do only 1600-odd photos in that time. But I am happy with that outcome and also, with that experience behind me, I know now how to take 2200 photos in that time or less. :-)

It would be bad to talk about photos so much and not give a couple of examples, so here are a couple of unedited (except resizing) photos from my trip. More later.

Click on them for a proper view esp. the last panorama.

I am back

So I am back from India. It was a good trip, longest I have had in a while- 4 whole weeks! But it was all fun.

Most importantly, I am free to write about the one topic that I had been keeping for surprise for my India trip - my guitar! I have been learning guitar for last few months and didn't want my kids to know that from my blog before they saw it in my hand.

That was done, and they were duly shocked and now I can continue to share my guitar-learning related experiences here, as and when.

More later...

Photo editing

I made this blurred-background image myself in GIMP. After all, a really good photographer knows how to create great photographs even after the shutter release has been pressed. So, I am learning. :-) 

Btw, this was my first time doing anything in GIMP and I have to admit, it wasn't hard to do this. Before this I have always used Photoshop.