THE party and wedding season is here, and pretty soon (if not already) you will be attending lots of social dos. Side by side, also, think diet and detox. Here's what you can do to lose the excess flab, fight stress and stay mentally and physically healthy.
Don’t worry, be happy
To begin with, don’t look at the weighing scale with obsession. According to nutritionist Sushila Sharangdhar, even if you have gone the whole hog during the festival, you are not likely to gain more than one or two kilogrammes.
Take a few dietary precautions and you can shed off those pounds. "You can include fibre-rich foods and anti-oxidants such as leafy vegetables, foods with Vitamin A and Vitamin such as citrus fruits, to battle the bulge," advises Sushila.
Think H2O
Shikha Ahuja, 33-year old cabin crew member for a popular airline swears by the magical 'water therapy'. She confesses, "Diwali makes your eating go ballistic, which in turn affects your skin too. Drinking lots of water helps to keep your skin radiant and glowing."
Water helps to flush out toxins from your body. Besides, a glass of water every hour will also help to make your stomach partially full, thus helping you reduce your food intake.
Eat often, but eat little
Television actor Shweta Keswani’s ideal diet plan comprises five to six small healthy portions a day, with lots of salads and fresh veggies. Long breaks between meals leads to a drop in blood sugar levels and increases the level of cortisol (a stress hormone), which is linked to the storage of body fat around the abdomen.
A lower blood sugar helps
The rate at which food is broken down into sugar and absorbed into the blood stream is called the Glycemic Index (GI). A lower GI ensures a slower raise in blood sugar
from that food. Sushila suggests you can include proteins (sprouts, dals, eggs, fish etc.) in your diet to keep the GI intact.
Do things you love
Put your tennis shoes on. Dust off your old bicycle. Pull out your swimming trunks. What could be more fun than enjoying what you do and in the bargain, looking great too! Shweta loves to dance and thinks its one of the best ways to remain fit.
If you do not find time to hit the gym, do some brisk walking everyday. An after-meal walk, taking the stairs instead of the lift, an outdoor activity such as playing with your kid on the beach, can do wonders to counteract those calories.
Simple bending and stretching exercises for as little as 20 minutes a day, helps to keep your metabolism going. If you are more enthusiastic, get a proper workout at the gym, like actor Salil Ankola, who follows a strict 6-day gym regime.
Fitness expert and nutritionist Vandana Talwalkar says, "You can alternate between cardio exercises and weight training to burn fat." You can even join a group kickboxing or a spinning class along with your friends she suggests. It’s a fun way to say good-bye to those calories. Vandana stresses that a warm up is essential before you begin any form of gym exercise.
Yoga, the new age fitness mantra
Shilpa Shetty loves to gorge on mithais during Diwali. This svelte and sexy actor gives a lot of credit to yoga, apart from a strict fitness regime, to keep her body toned. Yoga helps you to achieve a fine balance between your mind, body and soul.
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Saturday, February 16, 2008
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| Disney has pulled off a bit of a doozy with this amusing parody of its own oeuvre. Ostensibly a freewheeling blend of the Snow White, Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty fairytales, Enchanted begins in conventional, animated Disney territory where Giselle is being courted by Edward, her Prince Charming. His witchy mother, however, has an evil scheme on the boil and banishes Giselle to twenty-first century New York City. At this juncture, the film flits from animation to live action just as Giselle (now Amy Adams), dressed to the nines in a flowing ball gown, emerges from a manhole into a world of bustling humanity. Her first real-world encounter is with divorce lawyer Robert Philip (Patrick Dempsey), who, despite sensing correctly that she’s well away with the fairies, relents to her request for shelter and begins to fall for the scatty lass. When Edward eventually appears (in the guise of James Marsden), Giselle is left facing a typically predictable rom-com dilemma. At first glance, Kevin Lima’s contemporary urban fantasy looks hideously twee. It’s only when the story hits the streets of New York City and Adams starts hamming it up that we start seeing the fruits of a grand spoof. Giselle is clearly on another planet; she swans around singing inane songs and delivering amusingly mundane fantasy lingo in a shrill voice. Had Adams not hammed-up her performance to such a degree and, more pertinently, had the film taken itself seriously, one might otherwise have felt compelled to torch the screen. Instead, Enchanted is one of the better family films of this year. | |||||||||
The Nanny Diaries
The Nanny Diaries
Director : Shari Springer Berman & Robert Pulcini
Cast :
Scarlett Johansson, Laura Linney, Paul Giamatti, Chris Evans, Alicia Keys.
Fascinated by the pecking order in Upper East Side Manhattan, aimless graduate Annie Braddock (Scarlett Johansson) spies an opportunity when she’s mistaken for a nanny. Moving from New Jersey to take up a post in a rich household, she soon gets a bird’s-eye view thanks to her preening employer, Mrs X (Laura Linney). Looking after son Grayer is just the first of Annie’s tasks as her boss’s demanding nature becomes apparent. Annie has to cancel her personal life, and woe betide her if she forms a relationship.
If it sounds familiar, it should: Annie’s unreasonable, socially powerful boss is much like Meryl Streep’s character in The Devil Wears Prada. But The Nanny Diaries doesn’t have the perky pacing or witty punch of last year’s hit chick flick. The tone is confused: Annie has daydreams about flying up into the sky like Mary Poppins (one of many references to the iconic nanny film), but these aren’t whimsical enough to deliver.
Johansson is merely capable as the slightly frumpy Annie. Saving the day is Linney as the socialite who has it all – apart from the attention of her distant husband (Paul Giamatti). She makes simple scenes genuinely affecting, belying her icy exterior with a hint of excitement when dressing up for an anniversary date you know is going to leave her crestfallen. The conclusion is trite, but Linney’s performance helps this comedy – based on a novel by two nannies – feel like a credible peek behind very expensive curtains.
Director : Shari Springer Berman & Robert Pulcini
Cast :
Scarlett Johansson, Laura Linney, Paul Giamatti, Chris Evans, Alicia Keys.
Fascinated by the pecking order in Upper East Side Manhattan, aimless graduate Annie Braddock (Scarlett Johansson) spies an opportunity when she’s mistaken for a nanny. Moving from New Jersey to take up a post in a rich household, she soon gets a bird’s-eye view thanks to her preening employer, Mrs X (Laura Linney). Looking after son Grayer is just the first of Annie’s tasks as her boss’s demanding nature becomes apparent. Annie has to cancel her personal life, and woe betide her if she forms a relationship.
If it sounds familiar, it should: Annie’s unreasonable, socially powerful boss is much like Meryl Streep’s character in The Devil Wears Prada. But The Nanny Diaries doesn’t have the perky pacing or witty punch of last year’s hit chick flick. The tone is confused: Annie has daydreams about flying up into the sky like Mary Poppins (one of many references to the iconic nanny film), but these aren’t whimsical enough to deliver.
Johansson is merely capable as the slightly frumpy Annie. Saving the day is Linney as the socialite who has it all – apart from the attention of her distant husband (Paul Giamatti). She makes simple scenes genuinely affecting, belying her icy exterior with a hint of excitement when dressing up for an anniversary date you know is going to leave her crestfallen. The conclusion is trite, but Linney’s performance helps this comedy – based on a novel by two nannies – feel like a credible peek behind very expensive curtains.
The Golden Compass
The Golden Compass
Director : Chris Weitz
Cast :
Nicole Kidman, Dakota Blue Richards, Danile Craig, Ian McKellen, Sam Elliott, Ian McShane, Eva Green.
Bland and bereft of magic, New Line’s corporate sanitisation of Philip Pullman’s exciting, provocative fantasy novel, The Northern Lights, strips the book of its humanity and soul.
Just as the church-like Magisterium and the glacially glamorous Mrs Coulter (Nicole Kidman) are rumoured to be severing pre-pubescent children from their animal daemons (an external “familiar” representing their inner soul), so this clinical dissection of Pullman’s vividly imagined parallel world cuts away the warm flesh and leaves only the bare bones.
While zeppelins float above an alternate Oxford’s dreaming spires, wilful 12-year-old orphan Lyra Belacqua (Dakota Blue Richards) swears to rescue her kitchen-boy friend Roger from his child-cutter abductors. Lyra’s epic quest takes her to the frozen wastes of the Arctic Circle. Here, with the help of Lord Faa’s good-hearted Gyptians, ferocious ice bear Iorek Byrnison (voiced by Ian McKellen), cowboy aeronaut Lee Scoresby (Sam Elliott), witch queen Serafina Pekkala (Eva Green) and a precious truth-telling instrument called an alethiometer, she confronts her enemies: the corrupt king of the ice bears, Ragnar Sturlusson (Ian McShane), the cruel Mrs Coulter (Kidman and hordes of Tartar henchmen.
What’s missing is a sense of Lyra’s exhilarating but perplexing journey from childhood innocence to incipient adulthood. In the book, we see everything from Lyra’s point-of-view, sharing her sense of wonder, her doubts and fears, her love for her shape-shifting daemon Pantalaimon. As with the scary Mrs Coulter, the film should possess “a scent of grown-upness, something disturbing and enticing at the same time”. Instead, it’s a synthetic product that lacks the subversive tang of Pullman’s source novel.
Director : Chris Weitz
Cast :
Nicole Kidman, Dakota Blue Richards, Danile Craig, Ian McKellen, Sam Elliott, Ian McShane, Eva Green.
Bland and bereft of magic, New Line’s corporate sanitisation of Philip Pullman’s exciting, provocative fantasy novel, The Northern Lights, strips the book of its humanity and soul.
Just as the church-like Magisterium and the glacially glamorous Mrs Coulter (Nicole Kidman) are rumoured to be severing pre-pubescent children from their animal daemons (an external “familiar” representing their inner soul), so this clinical dissection of Pullman’s vividly imagined parallel world cuts away the warm flesh and leaves only the bare bones.
While zeppelins float above an alternate Oxford’s dreaming spires, wilful 12-year-old orphan Lyra Belacqua (Dakota Blue Richards) swears to rescue her kitchen-boy friend Roger from his child-cutter abductors. Lyra’s epic quest takes her to the frozen wastes of the Arctic Circle. Here, with the help of Lord Faa’s good-hearted Gyptians, ferocious ice bear Iorek Byrnison (voiced by Ian McKellen), cowboy aeronaut Lee Scoresby (Sam Elliott), witch queen Serafina Pekkala (Eva Green) and a precious truth-telling instrument called an alethiometer, she confronts her enemies: the corrupt king of the ice bears, Ragnar Sturlusson (Ian McShane), the cruel Mrs Coulter (Kidman and hordes of Tartar henchmen.
What’s missing is a sense of Lyra’s exhilarating but perplexing journey from childhood innocence to incipient adulthood. In the book, we see everything from Lyra’s point-of-view, sharing her sense of wonder, her doubts and fears, her love for her shape-shifting daemon Pantalaimon. As with the scary Mrs Coulter, the film should possess “a scent of grown-upness, something disturbing and enticing at the same time”. Instead, it’s a synthetic product that lacks the subversive tang of Pullman’s source novel.
Eastern Promises
Eastern Promises
Director : David Cronenberg
Cast :
Viggo Mortenson, Naomi Watts, Vincet Cassel, Armin Mueller-Stahl.
Just as the shivering ghost of Francis Ford Coppola’s Godfather hovers over the gruesome opening barbershop murder in David Cronenberg’s impressive, if flawed, London-set mafia thriller, so can you can detect the influence of Paul Schrader in the samurai-ethics of its novitiate hero, Nikolai (an outstanding Viggo Mortensen), a chauffeur with useful taxidermy skills, whose formidable forbearance and steely-strength mark him out as a man of ambitions. Good influences on a great director, undoubtedly; but as Cronenberg’s thoughtful, atmospheric, meticulously-directed and slyly analytical film progresses – and as Nik becomes torn between his feelings for feisty midwife Anna (Naomi Watts) and duty to boss Semyon (Armin Muller-Stahl) whom she enlists to translate the diary of a dead Russian prostitute – it’s magpie intelligence make your body ache for shots of pure Cronenberg.
When they come – and they do, not least in the sordid symphony of slips, steel, blood and bare-flesh Cronenberg choreographs Nikolai doing gut-wrenchingly realistic battle with Chechen rivals on the wet tiles of Finsbury baths – it’s a pleasurable shock. It’s fascinating to watch Cronenberg apply his uniquely transgressive, dualist gaze to the Thameside alleys, velveteen private clubs and the psychological battles and shady internecine struggles of old and new Londoners. But his is a morally-complex vision seemingly at odds with that of the script provided by Steve Knight, whose penchant for mechanistic and self-cancelling moral correspondences and ambiguities provides a birth for every death, for every racial, social or moral presumption, a clever qualification, reversal or inversion. The marriage of the two minds – the one fissive, the other more domesticated and politically correct – has produced a slightly hesitant, slightly undercharacterised and gently compromising, hybrid: an oddly diplomatic dip into the demi-mondes lurking behind London doorways, lacks either the immersive compulsion of his first London film Spider or the graphic power of his similarly-themed A History of Violence. Yet, Eastern Promises offers something new and intriguing from Cronenberg, an ironic but undeniably romantic comment on the uncertain return on moral capital.
Director : David Cronenberg
Cast :
Viggo Mortenson, Naomi Watts, Vincet Cassel, Armin Mueller-Stahl.
Just as the shivering ghost of Francis Ford Coppola’s Godfather hovers over the gruesome opening barbershop murder in David Cronenberg’s impressive, if flawed, London-set mafia thriller, so can you can detect the influence of Paul Schrader in the samurai-ethics of its novitiate hero, Nikolai (an outstanding Viggo Mortensen), a chauffeur with useful taxidermy skills, whose formidable forbearance and steely-strength mark him out as a man of ambitions. Good influences on a great director, undoubtedly; but as Cronenberg’s thoughtful, atmospheric, meticulously-directed and slyly analytical film progresses – and as Nik becomes torn between his feelings for feisty midwife Anna (Naomi Watts) and duty to boss Semyon (Armin Muller-Stahl) whom she enlists to translate the diary of a dead Russian prostitute – it’s magpie intelligence make your body ache for shots of pure Cronenberg.
When they come – and they do, not least in the sordid symphony of slips, steel, blood and bare-flesh Cronenberg choreographs Nikolai doing gut-wrenchingly realistic battle with Chechen rivals on the wet tiles of Finsbury baths – it’s a pleasurable shock. It’s fascinating to watch Cronenberg apply his uniquely transgressive, dualist gaze to the Thameside alleys, velveteen private clubs and the psychological battles and shady internecine struggles of old and new Londoners. But his is a morally-complex vision seemingly at odds with that of the script provided by Steve Knight, whose penchant for mechanistic and self-cancelling moral correspondences and ambiguities provides a birth for every death, for every racial, social or moral presumption, a clever qualification, reversal or inversion. The marriage of the two minds – the one fissive, the other more domesticated and politically correct – has produced a slightly hesitant, slightly undercharacterised and gently compromising, hybrid: an oddly diplomatic dip into the demi-mondes lurking behind London doorways, lacks either the immersive compulsion of his first London film Spider or the graphic power of his similarly-themed A History of Violence. Yet, Eastern Promises offers something new and intriguing from Cronenberg, an ironic but undeniably romantic comment on the uncertain return on moral capital.
I Know Who Killed Me
I Know Who Killed Me
Director : Chris Siverston
Cast :
Lindsay Lohan, Julia Ormond, Neal McDonough.
Now would be the perfect moment for Lindsay Lohan to knock us out with the kind of performance she’s capable of. As it happens, the bizarre thriller I Know Who Killed Me is ten times more fascinating as an accidental piece of private exposure, one that ends with Lohan literally digging her own grave to find another dark-haired, husky starlet staring up at her.
A hallucinatory psychodrama that owes a great deal to David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive, the movie has Lohan straddling two roles (as in life): Good girl Aubrey, a piano student and football player’s crush, suffers a particularly gruesome abduction that costs her an arm and a leg; she then takes on the identity of bad girl Dakota, a former pole dancer and man-eater. Aubrey’s parents tear themselves apart during her unravelling, detectives scowl, and “Dakota” decides to hobble her way to her torturer’s identity.
The imagery is filled with feverish symbols of lost potency: multiple hand-loppings, a hairless cat, Lohan’s own excessive profanity and desperate grinding. This will undoubtedly be the key film of her career: a scared expression of total meltdown
Director : Chris Siverston
Cast :
Lindsay Lohan, Julia Ormond, Neal McDonough.
Now would be the perfect moment for Lindsay Lohan to knock us out with the kind of performance she’s capable of. As it happens, the bizarre thriller I Know Who Killed Me is ten times more fascinating as an accidental piece of private exposure, one that ends with Lohan literally digging her own grave to find another dark-haired, husky starlet staring up at her.
A hallucinatory psychodrama that owes a great deal to David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive, the movie has Lohan straddling two roles (as in life): Good girl Aubrey, a piano student and football player’s crush, suffers a particularly gruesome abduction that costs her an arm and a leg; she then takes on the identity of bad girl Dakota, a former pole dancer and man-eater. Aubrey’s parents tear themselves apart during her unravelling, detectives scowl, and “Dakota” decides to hobble her way to her torturer’s identity.
The imagery is filled with feverish symbols of lost potency: multiple hand-loppings, a hairless cat, Lohan’s own excessive profanity and desperate grinding. This will undoubtedly be the key film of her career: a scared expression of total meltdown
Bee Movie
Bee Movie
Director : Steve Hickner, Simon J. Smith
Cast : Jerry Seinfeld, Renée Zellweger, Matthew Broderick, Patrick Warburton, John Goodman, Chris Rock, Kathy Bates, Barry Levinson, Larry King
Give points for thoroughness to the drones behind DreamWorks’ latest bid for blockbuster toon supremacy: If there’s a joke that can be harvested from the secret life of bees, they will suck every last ounce of comic nectar out of it. Everything, from our fuzzy friends’ short life spans devoted to hard labour to making nature’s couture of yellow and black stripes look chic, becomes fodder for “funny.” Wink-nudge pop-cultural references swarm the proceedings; if you imagine that Sting won’t show up to be gamely mocked, think again. And all similarities between these born-work-die hive denizens and their clock-punching counterparts in the human world are underlined in bold. Wow, bees…they’re so like us, right?
Corny puns and beating anthropomorphism to death are standard operating procedures for most animated features, of course. But who’s kidding whom? Bee Movie doesn’t really care about anything – a narrative cohesion, character arcs, emotional resonance – associated with savvy modern family entertainment. It’s just a 150 million-dollar setup for Jerry Seinfeld to do a weak version of his didja-ever-notice? stand-up act. The suspension of disbelief is stretched to the breaking point, starting with Seinfeld’s Barry B Benson chatting up a human female (Renee Zellweger) for a potential interspecies romance (seriously!) and ending with barely connected vignettes involving courtroom showdowns, floral apocalypses and landing an out-of-control 747. You might have been able to get away with stuff like this in the pre-Pixar age. Not anymore.
Director : Steve Hickner, Simon J. Smith
Cast : Jerry Seinfeld, Renée Zellweger, Matthew Broderick, Patrick Warburton, John Goodman, Chris Rock, Kathy Bates, Barry Levinson, Larry King
Give points for thoroughness to the drones behind DreamWorks’ latest bid for blockbuster toon supremacy: If there’s a joke that can be harvested from the secret life of bees, they will suck every last ounce of comic nectar out of it. Everything, from our fuzzy friends’ short life spans devoted to hard labour to making nature’s couture of yellow and black stripes look chic, becomes fodder for “funny.” Wink-nudge pop-cultural references swarm the proceedings; if you imagine that Sting won’t show up to be gamely mocked, think again. And all similarities between these born-work-die hive denizens and their clock-punching counterparts in the human world are underlined in bold. Wow, bees…they’re so like us, right?
Corny puns and beating anthropomorphism to death are standard operating procedures for most animated features, of course. But who’s kidding whom? Bee Movie doesn’t really care about anything – a narrative cohesion, character arcs, emotional resonance – associated with savvy modern family entertainment. It’s just a 150 million-dollar setup for Jerry Seinfeld to do a weak version of his didja-ever-notice? stand-up act. The suspension of disbelief is stretched to the breaking point, starting with Seinfeld’s Barry B Benson chatting up a human female (Renee Zellweger) for a potential interspecies romance (seriously!) and ending with barely connected vignettes involving courtroom showdowns, floral apocalypses and landing an out-of-control 747. You might have been able to get away with stuff like this in the pre-Pixar age. Not anymore.
Fred Claus
Fred Claus
Director : David Dobkin
Cast : Vince Vaughn, Paul Giamatti, Miranda Richardson, Kevin Spacey, Kathy Bates, Elizabeth Banks, Ludacris
Too good to be true, this. Paul Giamatti, Kevin Spacey, Rachel Weisz, Miranda Richardson and Kathy Bates, plus Vince Vaughn reteamed with Wedding Crashers director David Dobkin. Way too good to be true. Early on, Vaughn’s face-smashing donnybrook with an army of charity Santas bodes well. But he’s on autopilot here, rolling out his patented hustler-with-heart shtick as narky Chicago repo man, Fred, whose little brother happens to be St Nick. Tough to blame Vaughn: slaloming between gooey seasonal cheese and near-the-knuckle sourness, this comedy struggles to stir knockabout kiddie fun with spiky adult themes of resentment and sibling rivalry. Lost on the wrong side of Elf and Bad Santa, the script sleighs Fred to the North Pole to help his brother with the Yuletide push, hurdling reality checks with all the grace of a three-legged reindeer.
Big laughs go missing and about 30 minutes should have been cut like deadwood – preferably Weisz’s rub-a-dub London accent and Vaughn’s “dancing”. But there’s no beating that cast. All sausage fingers, frazzled hair and morbid obesity, Giamatti is the first Santa to admit to acid reflux and sleep apnoea. No guessing if Spacey’s glacial contempt is simply for his role as an efficiency expert trying to shut down.
Santa – either way, it works a treat. What’s more, Dobkin’s film is lit up by a couple of genius scenes: first, a sibling support-group attended by Frank Stallone, Stephen Baldwin and Roger Clinton; second, a superb in-joke triggering Spacey’s redemptive thaw-out, stoking a festive glow against all the odds.
Director : David Dobkin
Cast : Vince Vaughn, Paul Giamatti, Miranda Richardson, Kevin Spacey, Kathy Bates, Elizabeth Banks, Ludacris
Too good to be true, this. Paul Giamatti, Kevin Spacey, Rachel Weisz, Miranda Richardson and Kathy Bates, plus Vince Vaughn reteamed with Wedding Crashers director David Dobkin. Way too good to be true. Early on, Vaughn’s face-smashing donnybrook with an army of charity Santas bodes well. But he’s on autopilot here, rolling out his patented hustler-with-heart shtick as narky Chicago repo man, Fred, whose little brother happens to be St Nick. Tough to blame Vaughn: slaloming between gooey seasonal cheese and near-the-knuckle sourness, this comedy struggles to stir knockabout kiddie fun with spiky adult themes of resentment and sibling rivalry. Lost on the wrong side of Elf and Bad Santa, the script sleighs Fred to the North Pole to help his brother with the Yuletide push, hurdling reality checks with all the grace of a three-legged reindeer.
Big laughs go missing and about 30 minutes should have been cut like deadwood – preferably Weisz’s rub-a-dub London accent and Vaughn’s “dancing”. But there’s no beating that cast. All sausage fingers, frazzled hair and morbid obesity, Giamatti is the first Santa to admit to acid reflux and sleep apnoea. No guessing if Spacey’s glacial contempt is simply for his role as an efficiency expert trying to shut down.
Santa – either way, it works a treat. What’s more, Dobkin’s film is lit up by a couple of genius scenes: first, a sibling support-group attended by Frank Stallone, Stephen Baldwin and Roger Clinton; second, a superb in-joke triggering Spacey’s redemptive thaw-out, stoking a festive glow against all the odds.
The Jane Austen Book Club
The Jane Austen Book Club
Director : Robin Swicord
Cast :
Mario Bello, Emily Blunt, Maggie Grace, Jimmy Smits, Kathy Baker, Lynn Redgrave, Amy Brennenman.
Die-hard Austenites might shudder at the idea of a Jane Austen fan club in modern-day California, but Karen Joy Fowler’s source novel fared well enough to give rise to this adaptation. Director Robin Swicord has cast actresses best known for reliable supporting roles: Emily Blunt is uptight teacher, Prudie; Kathy Baker is oft-divorced Bernadette; Maria Bello is match-making Jocelyn; Amy Brenneman is recently separated Sylvia. Together with a lesbian and a bloke – for balance, presumably – they form a group to read and discuss Austen’s novels.
When their lives start mirroring those of the writer’s heroines, Austen readers may find themselves torn between enjoying the references and finding them crass (“You’re such an Emma,” Jocelyn is told at one point). But Prudie’s problems, which include a drug-addled mother and a flirtatious pupil, lend enough colour and humour to help this muddle along just fine in a sentimental, mainstream kind of way. Although by constantly referencing Austen’s sharp wit and characterisation, this can only ever come up short in comparison.
Director : Robin Swicord
Cast :
Mario Bello, Emily Blunt, Maggie Grace, Jimmy Smits, Kathy Baker, Lynn Redgrave, Amy Brennenman.
Die-hard Austenites might shudder at the idea of a Jane Austen fan club in modern-day California, but Karen Joy Fowler’s source novel fared well enough to give rise to this adaptation. Director Robin Swicord has cast actresses best known for reliable supporting roles: Emily Blunt is uptight teacher, Prudie; Kathy Baker is oft-divorced Bernadette; Maria Bello is match-making Jocelyn; Amy Brenneman is recently separated Sylvia. Together with a lesbian and a bloke – for balance, presumably – they form a group to read and discuss Austen’s novels.
When their lives start mirroring those of the writer’s heroines, Austen readers may find themselves torn between enjoying the references and finding them crass (“You’re such an Emma,” Jocelyn is told at one point). But Prudie’s problems, which include a drug-addled mother and a flirtatious pupil, lend enough colour and humour to help this muddle along just fine in a sentimental, mainstream kind of way. Although by constantly referencing Austen’s sharp wit and characterisation, this can only ever come up short in comparison.
In Custody
In Custody
Director : Ismail Merchant
Cast :
Shashi Kapoor, Om Puri, Shabana Azmi, Sagar Arya
As the long-time producer of the Merchant Ivory partnership, Ismail Merchant should have understood the problems of adapting literary texts to the cinema. All credit to him, then, for having the sang froid to choose for his first feature as director, Anita Desai’s spare, uneventful novel about a once-revered elderly Urdu poet. The film follows the efforts of a pedantic college tutor, Deven (Om Puri), to record his hero, the poet Nur (Shashi Kapoor), reciting his own work. On a visit to the city of Bhopal, Deven finds Nur living in seclusion, drinking and over-eating, or bickering with his two wives, tired of casting pearls before swine. Deven is no master of technology: the tape-recorder is a mystery to him, and much low comedy is extracted from his incompetence; and the arch, awkward quality of these scenes typify the film. Kapoor as the embittered, decayed poet is, regrettably, made to carry more weight than any man can bear - to symbolise a whole tradition: the neglect of the Urdu language and the oral tradition with its philosophies of authority and respect. Wally Hammond
Director : Ismail Merchant
Cast :
Shashi Kapoor, Om Puri, Shabana Azmi, Sagar Arya
As the long-time producer of the Merchant Ivory partnership, Ismail Merchant should have understood the problems of adapting literary texts to the cinema. All credit to him, then, for having the sang froid to choose for his first feature as director, Anita Desai’s spare, uneventful novel about a once-revered elderly Urdu poet. The film follows the efforts of a pedantic college tutor, Deven (Om Puri), to record his hero, the poet Nur (Shashi Kapoor), reciting his own work. On a visit to the city of Bhopal, Deven finds Nur living in seclusion, drinking and over-eating, or bickering with his two wives, tired of casting pearls before swine. Deven is no master of technology: the tape-recorder is a mystery to him, and much low comedy is extracted from his incompetence; and the arch, awkward quality of these scenes typify the film. Kapoor as the embittered, decayed poet is, regrettably, made to carry more weight than any man can bear - to symbolise a whole tradition: the neglect of the Urdu language and the oral tradition with its philosophies of authority and respect. Wally Hammond
The Game Plan
The Game Plan
Director : Andy Fickman
Cast :
Mario Bello, Emily Blunt, Maggie Grace, Jimmy Smits, Kathy Baker, Lynn Redgrave, Amy Brennenman.
Following in the testosterone-sculpted footsteps of Vin Diesel and Arnold Schwarzenegger, former World Wrestling Entertainment champ Dwayne Johnson tackles a Disney romp about a tyke-challenged muscleman. Fans of the Rock’s comic chops and considerable Samoan charm might be tickled by his turn as an egocentric quarterback suddenly confronted with an eight-year-old daughter (Madison Pettis) he unwittingly fathered. But this Hail Mary pass at a pro-football family comedy fumbles
Director : Andy Fickman
Cast :
Mario Bello, Emily Blunt, Maggie Grace, Jimmy Smits, Kathy Baker, Lynn Redgrave, Amy Brennenman.
Following in the testosterone-sculpted footsteps of Vin Diesel and Arnold Schwarzenegger, former World Wrestling Entertainment champ Dwayne Johnson tackles a Disney romp about a tyke-challenged muscleman. Fans of the Rock’s comic chops and considerable Samoan charm might be tickled by his turn as an egocentric quarterback suddenly confronted with an eight-year-old daughter (Madison Pettis) he unwittingly fathered. But this Hail Mary pass at a pro-football family comedy fumbles
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| With this being his first post-Harry Potter effort, viewers might expect to see newly angular Daniel Radcliffe making an effort to lose those stifling Hogwarts robes and assure his fan base that he’s not headed down the same precipitous career path that threatens even the most talented of child stars. Set in Australia in the 1960s, Misty, Maps, Spark and Spit are four orphaned scamps known as the December Boys for the odd reason that they were all born in December. When their orphanage receives an unexpected cash windfall, they’re packed off on holiday to the coastal idyll of Lady Star Cove where they fall in with the lovably eccentric locals. Misty overhears the plans of one couple (a daredevil stunt driver and his buxom French wife, no less) to adopt one of the boys before thy leave, and so the film dutifully subverts the delicate process of adoption into a must-win struggle for maternal acceptance (sample dialogue: “We’ll just line’em up and pick the best one!”). With its series of tonally awkward plot developments which seem to have been engineered specifically to meet Radcliffe’s various portfolio needs, the bet that could be said of this lazy Stand by Me lookalike is that the actor’s next move should be to talk to his agent. If, however, you merely want to revel at the sight of Radcliffe smoking rollies and prancing around in a tight T-shirt, December Boys works just fine. | |||||||||
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| A terrifically stupid film, this Middle East-set actioner thinks it’s Syriana but plays like Black Hawk Down. The drama begins with a car-bomb attack on a fortified compound in Saudi Arabia that’s populated by the employees of an American oil company. That tragedy causes the FBI to send in a four-person crack team – Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Garner, Chris Cooper and Jason Bateman – who act like violent outlaws to get the job done, defying the protestations of oily US diplomat Jeremy Piven (playing his character in Entourage). The film may offer a dig at the American government’s foreign policy, but this is in favour of a far more brutal, interventionist approach. And the attempt in the final scenes to balance out the pain and suggest that we’re all suffering equally on this planet – especially babies – would be laughable if it wasn’t so horribly cynical. | |||||||||
1408
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| A polished Stephen King adaptation from Swedish director Mikael Håfström (Derailed), whose taut psychological chiller is tarnished only by outstaying its welcome towards the end. It’s virtually a one-man show for John Cusack, as a jaded debunker of paranormal phenomena whose curiosity is piqued by an anonymous postcard about Room 1408 at New York’s Dolphin Hotel. So he checks in, dismissing as sales patter hotel manager Samuel L Jackson’s forceful warning that “it’s a an evil fucking room”. Once inside, however, the cynical Cusack is assailed not only by malevolent supernatural forces, but also his own inner demons – painful memories of the death of his daughter and the subsequent collapse of his marriage. His increasing paranoia and psychological unravelling therefore have an affecting emotional dimension, although the flashbacks and a badly misjudged false ending take us out of the room and undercut the sense of claustrophobia. Håfström stages the set-piece scares with skill, helped by Benoît Delhomme’s imaginative cinematography and some nice creepy touches: notably, a clock radio that only plays The Carpenters’ “We’ve Only Just Begun”. | |||||||||
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| Loosely based on a screenplay by American playwright bard Neil Simon, The Heartbreak Kid follows the lovelorn antics of arch singleton Eddie Cantrow (Ben Stiller) and deals with the hazards of getting married too quickly. At the insistence of his friends and family, Eddie puts his various commitment issues on hold and chooses to embark on a whirlwind romance with Lila (Malin Akerman), a kooky blonde he meets outside a laundromat. As quick as you can say, “Hang on, isn’t this The 40-Year-Old Virgin?”, they’re waltzing arm-in-arm down the aisle and headed for a life of wedded bliss. It’s en route to their honeymoon in Mexico, however, that the nightmare begins, as Lila – via a 180° change of character – decides to slowly reveal the details her sordid past. On something of a lull after their lacklustre 2005 effort, A Perfect Catch, the strong opening 30 minutes of ‘The Heartbreak Kid’ suggest that the Farrelly brothers are aware of the fact that their patented brand of big heart/small brain comedy is being given a twenty-first-century overhaul by Judd Apatow and Co. Alas, just as you think the directors have finally grown out of the fat/puke/piss gags, there they are, rolled out by the barrel-load. The film’s best moment by far comes from Eddie’s under-the-thumb buddy Mac (Rob Corddry), who advises that the key to a healthy marriage is to ‘plaster on a smile and wait patiently for the sweet embrace of death. | |||||||||
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Transformers...an over-the-top experience
Transformers...an over-the-top experience
Direction: Michael Bay
Now I've been a fan of the Transformers ever since I was a kid. In fact I used to own a whole bunch of those Transformers toys, which one could twist and turn and fold and change shapes to become different things.
So you can imagine I was pretty excited when I read that they were making a Transformers film, and then when I saw that fantastic trailor a few months ago, I started counting the days until the film's release.
Now the film, Transformers which opens at cinemas across India this weekend, was always going to be a treat for fan boys like myself because it's like going back to your childhood and seeing your favourite toys come to life on this giant cinema screen, it's really quite surreal, the feeling.
But then when you consider that the film's been directed by Michael Bay, Hollywood's favourite blockbuster-movie director, you can be sure it's going to be an over-the-top experience, because that's Michael Bay's trademark style.
Think about it, what do you remember about films like The Rock or Pearl Harbour or Armageddon or The Island. I'll tell you what you remember, you remember the explosions, you remember cars being tossed around in the air like doughnuts, you remember buildings being blown up -- that's what you remember.
So you can see why I went in to see Transformers with a little trepidation. I didn't want my favourite childhood memory to be ruined by Michael Bay's over-enthusiasm.
Right off the bat, let me explain to the uninitiated that these Transformers are giant robots that disguise themselves as cars and trucks and jet-planes and just about anything that they like including a music-CD player.
In this film, there are two kinds of Transformers, the good ones and the bad ones. The good ones are the heroic Autobots and the evil ones are the Decepticons.
Both have been hiding out on Earth after they fled their own planet Cybertron. One of the protagonists of this film is this nerdy school-kid played by Shia LaBoeuf, whose father gets him a second-hand yellow Camaro for his first car.
Now this car turns out to be one of these cool Transformers who's been sent to protect this kid from the wicked robots who've begun wreaking havoc around the world.
Incidentally both sides, the Autobots and the Decepticons are searching for the Allspark, which grants total power to anyone who possesses it. Now as luck would have it, the Allspark was found many, many years ago by this very teenager's great-grandfather in an Arctic expedition. So you see, this kid's ancestor plays a very significant role in this good versus evil battle that's going on between these hulking robots.
The special effects in Transformers are some of the best special effects you have seen in years. Nothing's looked this slick before. That scene in which one of the evil robots attacks a US military base in Qatar is truly spectacular because nobody can understand what's going on.
Even those battle scenes between the Autobots and the Decepticons are quite stunning - metal clashing against metal with humans running helter skelter, unable to escape from the scene.
So naturally the effects, the CGI is the best thing about the film. But having said that let me also add that my initial fears weren't unjustified - the film is just way too long at two hours and twenty minutes, and although the action scenes are nothing short of stunning, they're still a bit of an overdose.
Some bits are extremely clever, like that scene in which those giant Autobots accompany Shia LaBoeuf home and then hide from his parents. Extremely funny, extremely clever. Even that scene in which Shia LaBoeuf's car, Bumblebee, performs wheelies after being insulted by his girlfriend. These are those rare moments in a film like this that make you smile.
So I'm going to go with three out of five for Michael Bay's Transformers. The film's got some great moments, and you're sure to be hooked from the moment the lights go out, but there's a very good chance you'll leave the cinema with a migraine because it's all so loud and because you've had enough.
It's like that feeling you have in your tummy when you've eaten too much ice-cream. You enjoyed the ice cream very much, but you wish you hadn't been so greedy.
Rating: 3 / 5 Good
American Gangster is truly engaging
Actor: Denzel Washington, Russell Crowe, Chiwetel Ejiofor
Director: Ridley Scott
Forget everything else and head straight to the multiplex this weekend to catch a screening of American Gangster, director Ridley Scott’s remarkable film about real-life drug-lord Frank Lucas, played by Denzel Washington.
An extraordinary entrepreneur who takes over the Harlem heroin business when his boss dies, Frank Lucas emerges one of the biggest dealers during the 70s when he figures out a foolproof way to obtain his product directly from the suppliers in South East Asia.
This enables him to sell the purest material available at the cheapest possible price, hence forcing other suppliers off the streets. American Gangster is the story of Lucas’ amazing rise to power - a man worth more than 150 million dollars at the time of his arrest.
It’s also the story of another man’s stubborn determination to bring down the drug mafia in New York. That man, played by Russell Crowe, is police detective Richie Roberts, possibly the last honest narcotics cop in the city, who nails Lucas eventually and takes down his empire in a thrilling climax that’s superbly intercut between a bloody massacre and a church service.
Fans of the gangster-film genre will notice several references to the best gangster films - Godfather, Scarface, Serpico, even The Sopranos - and it’s true American Gangster doesn’t deviate too much from the structure of a typical gangster film, but it’s remarkable nonetheless because of the two sterling performances that turn this film from ordinary to extra-ordinary.
Denzel Washington shines as Lucas, adding little nuances to the character that make him both real and relatable. But my vote goes to Russell Crowe, the supporting player in this film, who not only physically transforms himself to play Roberts, but turns in a solid performance as the almost desperately determined detective.
It’s a shame neither Denzel Washington nor Russell Crowe landed Oscar nominations for their work in this film.
I’m going with four out of five and two thumbs up for American Gangster, it’s one of those immensely engaging films that’ll keep you glued to your seats from start to finish. Despite its daunting length - some two hours and forty minutes - this is a film you cannot miss.
Rating: 4/5 (Very Good)
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Aliens Vs Predator 2
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National Treasure 2
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Reservation Road
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We own the night
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American Gangster
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Tuesday, February 5, 2008
27 Dresses (2008)
  Watch the Trailer |
| Also Known As: | Twenty-Seven Dresses |
| Production Status: | Released |
| Genres: | Comedy and Romance |
| Running Time: | 1 hr. 47 min. |
| Release Date: | January 18th, 2008 (wide) |
| MPAA Rating: | PG-13 for language, some innuendo and sexuality. |
| Distributors: | 20th Century Fox Distribution |
| Production Co.: | Birnbaum/Barber Productions, Outlaw Productions, Spyglass Entertainment Holdings, LLC |
| Studios: | Fox 2000 |
| U.S. Box Office: | $45,107,889 |
| Filming Locations: | New York New York, USA Rhode Island Rhode Island, USA |
| Produced in: | United States |
Rambo (2008)
 Watch the Trailer |
| Also Known As: | John Rambo Rambo 4 Rambo IV Rambo IV: Blood Ties Rambo IV: End of Peace Rambo IV: Holy War Rambo IV: In the Serpent's Eye Rambo IV: Pearl of the Cobra Rambo To Hell and Back |
| Production Status: | Released |
| Genres: | Action/Adventure, Thriller and Sequel |
| Running Time: | 1 hr. 33 min. |
| Release Date: | January 25th, 2008 (wide) |
| MPAA Rating: | R for strong graphic bloody violence, sexual assaults, grisly images and language. |
| Distributors: | Lionsgate |
| Production Co.: | Nu Image/Millennium Films, Emmett/Furla Films, Equity Pictures Medienfonds GMBH & Co KG, The Weinstein Company |
| U.S. Box Office: | $18,203,876 |
| Filming Locations: | Mexico USA Thailand |
| Produced in: | United States |
Meet the Spartans (2008)
 Watch the Trailer |
| Also Known As: | Hunting & Fishing Hunting and Fishing |
| Production Status: | Released |
| Genres: | Comedy |
| Running Time: | 1 hr. 24 min. |
| Release Date: | January 25th, 2008 (wide) |
| MPAA Rating: | PG-13 for crude and sexual content throughout, language and some comic violence. |
| Distributors: | 20th Century Fox Distribution |
| Production Co.: | New Regency Productions, 3 In the Box |
| Studios: | 20th Century Fox |
| U.S. Box Office: | $18,505,530 |
| Produced in: | United States |
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