hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy

The story behind the making of the celluloid version of Douglas Adams’ well-beloved intergalactic space spoof is well worth a separate saga in itself. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was born as a radio series and since then has been a BBC series, an increasingly inaccurate named trilogy of five novels, a musical, a record, a computer game, a comic book and a line of towels.
Adams was involved with the movie for 20 frustrating years and it is unfortunate that a heart attack claimed the writer before he could see his dream realised. He wanted Hugh Grant to play arthur dent! Too good looking i say what
there was a point of time when Jay roach was supposed to direct the movie, then that fell through
there was dan akroyd on board in the early days
i like slartibartfast
i like the thought of adams playing around with rude words till slartibartfast was born!
the strange thing is the heart of gold space ship is not in the shape of a sneaker.
i always thot it was
For all Hitchhiker fanatics, the good news is the movie works. Naturally all that is in five novels and a six part telly series do not find a place in the movie, but the spirit of goofiness, and fondness for bizarre names are faithfully reproduced in the movie.
Considering all the trouble the makers had condensing the books into a two-hour film, a plot outline in limited words is going to be quite tough! Anyway here goes – the movie starts with Arthur Dent lying in front of the bulldozer that is about to demolish his home. Arthur realises he has more to worry about when his friend Ford Prefect, tells him Vogons (a particularly nasty piece of work) are going to blow up the earth. Ford, who is a researcher for The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, takes Arthur on a ride through the universe, where he meets the two headed president of the Galaxy, Zaphod Beeblebrox, the beauteous Trillian, the designer of planets, Slartibartfast and of course the paranoid android Marvin with a brain the size of a planet. you think you've got problems
Through his travels, Arthur also finds out truths about the earth, creation and existence and the significance of the number 42. The film uses animation creatively and thankfully does not have the anaesthetic look and feel of most big budget blockbusters. The money shot is definitely the tour of the planet factory.
The narrator floats along in all his self-importance and the Vogons are decidedly hideous. There was no need to spend as much screen time on the romance between Arthur and Trillian (played with vim and vigour by Zooey Deschanel.) Adams introduced some neat new stuff like the character played John Malkovich – the religious leader Humma Kavula, and the point-of-view gun invented by frustrated housewives across the galaxy. As far as casting goes Martin Freeman makes an everyman Arthur while Mos Def plays Ford the right side of weird. Sam Rockwell plays Zaphod as a degenerate rock star type .
i liked the second head in the telly series -- this one only comes out once in a while
i like with two heads and three hands
that is nice
The special features include a Making of… feature, Additional Guide Entry with the bit of "God disappearing in a puff of logic," Deleted Scenes, which are there in the film and Really Deleted Scenes, which have Arthur dressed like Rambo ready to take on the galaxy!
The restaurant at the end of the universe is referred to the end of the movie so unfortunately there is no cow that comes to the table and offers to shoot itself!
in the telly series, the cow is not like an earth cow but some sort of wierd mutant pig kind of cow
But that is okay, for if you are a Hitchhiker fanatic, you can enjoy a little meeting with old friends and for those who know nothing about the books and the brilliant mind of Douglas Adams, this movie serves as the perfect introduction. So long and thanks for all the fish!

posiedon

Director Wolfgang Petersen insists that Poseidon is "a journey into madness… marching right into hell." That seems a tad hyperbolic to describe a film about a cruise ship that capsizes after being hit by a 150-foot rogue wave. It would not have seemed out of place to describe Paul Gallico’s novel, The Poseidon Adventure in those words. The book, classified under science fiction, described the survivors’ nightmare journey through the many levels of the ship, which had more than a passing resemblance to the circles of hell described by Dante. The book inspired an all star cast film in 1972, which Petersen has chosen to remake.
The premise is the same – rogue wave hits liner and turns it upside down. Most people stick around with the captain in the ballroom and wait for help while a group decide to climb up to the hull (it is upside down right?) and get out of the ship.
The effects push the envelope technically, while there have not been any creative envelopes pushed. So while for sheer sense of scale the rogue wave looks menacing and as it hits the ship, is an undisputed money shot, it is not something you would remember once you step out of the hall.
The characters are so woefully underdeveloped that you could not care less if they made it or not. There is the gambler who is leader (Josh Lucas), the over-protective dad (Kurt Russell), single mom, child in peril, couple in love, stowaway, crewmember and gay architect (Richard Dreyfuss).
With Petersen deciding to come down firmly on the side of political incorrectness, his treatment of Richard Dreyfuss’ character was puzzling.
The film can be enjoyed on a thoroughly surface level – with its efficiently choreographed action set pieces and SFX pyrotechnics. Only do not go to the film expecting answers to the meaning of life. Anyway since when did we go to the movies for answers

Mission impossible 3

If this movie needed a tag line it would Run Tom Run or maybe it could be see Cruise run. The film is busy and has lead actor/producer Tom Cruise run determinedly, hither, thither, helter-skelter with a manic gleam in his eye and a creepy grin that threatens to split his face in two; leaking out all the madness and weirdness within. The Mission Impossible films have come out once in six years. The first one was Brian De Palma’s incendiary cerebral one in 1994, then there was John Woo’s slo mo, flying pigeons and climatic battle on bikes with wheelies (really) in 2000 and now we have the third instalment, which continues in the silly vein with latex masks and messages that will self-destruct in 10 seconds or whatever. Biblical conspiracy theorists could have field day in the succession of sixes and Cruise’s penchant for scientology. All that is beside the point, there is high octane action, the soundtrack that makes Cruise look uber cool even if he is just answering the phone and lot of satisfying bangs, choppers blowing up, suspension from great heights and a mad rush against time to save the world from something called the Rabbit’s Foot. The last time we heard of a bunny was when Neo (remember him from the Matrix movies?) decided to follow the rabbit and see where that got him.
Cruise looks absolutely divine as a priest in the Vatican – that would surely solve all the church’s problems. With priests looking like Cruise, churches would be packed. The movie is only disappointing in the way it has wasted an actor of the calibre of the academy award winning Philip Seymour Hoffman as the regular run of the mill psychopath gunrunner. Otherwise the film delivers on all counts

gingerbread man

the gingerbread man reminds me of the book of fairy tales and run run as fast as you can you cannot catch me i am the ginger bread man
how cool is that
dont even find those books nowadays and the zulu twins
how cinderella in the ball gown was the money shot
cinderella is supposed to be a chinese story
and the glass slipper is supposed to be something else
and the feet were cut or stretched to fit the slipper nothing fairy tale about that
the shanghai squeeze for which Edward abdicated is all about judicious use of vaginal muscles
hmm interesting
and i was thinking it would be fun to be a traffic cop chasing speedsters in a ferrari
suppose money is done away with then wonder what we will do with the mint and all
turns my stomach -- the dahlia
i guess the main reason why the web did not tell much about it is because then it would be kind of vicarious
tomorrow is breakfast at kerala spice
must check if they have pathiri
if they do then good
no film today is good
otherwise that would yet another thing to do
so much to do and only so many hours
the british library is kind enough to let us keep dvds for three weeks
cant even remember half the things i wrote like that whole discussion on me, meera
i dont remember writing all that
the last stuff i remember writing was about dylan
surprisingly i enjoyed writing it and did not take too long either
i am snowed in with work and the normal thing to do would be to finish off at least the damn cd reveiws instead of writing the blog
guess the witching hour is upon us and there is no escape
time to go
are you feeling ok?
is there anybody out there?
and the mind sure is restless
at least unlike arjun i am not standing across the battle field with uncles and cousins that need killing

a perfect image of a feast

what a meal only
beaujolais, herb butter, rissoto, cannaloni and a frigging tiramisu
oh my goodness! I am drunk on food
smashed on it
quite a killer to come and work and all plans of the many stories to finish up have not happened as i have to trot out again to meet japanese designer over cocktails
i am so living the life
then there is club opening
ooops should have booked tickets for driver ashok for return
hyderabad would be fun
i know
even if it isnt it is alright
it's alright ma i am only bleeding
the poor reporter who dared to ask dylan about how many protest singers were there
136 or 142?
i would never want to be that reporter
it was so hot so hot
now it looks cloudy
damn i have so much to do and only so many frigging hours in a day
suddenly they stumble on the black dahlia
i mean i was not expecting it
i know the book is called the black dahlia and it is about elizabeth short's murder but i somehow got all involved in lee and the other guy and the kay and forgot all about the dahlia and then suddenly to have it pop out so totally freaked me out
i wonder how de palma would do it as a film
i guess in the film the dahlia would make an appearance sooner rather than later
but this had that crazy totally unexpected thingie that socks you right between the eyes
like that
like john travolta dying bang in the middle or is it the end of pulp fiction?
quite freaky that ellroy's mum was murdered when he was 10 and so he would obsess abt the dahlia

the x files

now i am going to od on sex and the city
everyday that is all i seem to do -- wake up and watch it go to work return and watch it and then have dinner and watch it and then watch till i sleep
what a sad life only!
read five point someone which reminds me so much of hostel and campus and univ it is not funny
so much that it hurts
so much that suddenly i feel old and tired
questions for john abraham
what a life what a life
am reading black dahlia
i can see the movie happening in front of me
ellroy seems to have these pairs of men
homoerotic and all i guess
there was the guy pierce character and Russell Crowe character and now there these two guys who both like the same woman
then there are so many books to be read and only so many hours in a day
apart from the hours i spend goggle eyed in front of telly watching carrie and friends negotiate single woman status in new york
guess gotta go and sub wretched stuff abt football and drinking beer
how delightfully low how awfully common and everything
that was henry higgins
oh i am going through a stanley kubrick phase
watched eyes wide shut
which i thot was okay
i mean it was too good looking for its own good
how can tom cruise and nicole kidman be the average american couple -- they are too good looking for that!
and that weed they smoked must def have been frigging mindaltering to have those long conversations and all!
but like spielberg would say kubrick's craft is impeccable
that is true
the frames are so beautiful
gotta go and get coffee

cellular

What glorious fun this film is! The tag line goes "if the line goes dead, so does she…." Delightfully B movie schlock and that is exactly what you get in this efficient 89-minute telecommunications thriller. If the film reminds you of Phone Booth about a psycho sniper who pins smooth talking city slicker Stu (Colin Farrell was uber cool) to a phone booth, it is but natural, as Larry Cohen has writing credits on both the films.
The film starts with Jessica, a science teacher, (if we had teachers that looked like Kim Bassinger, we would be a nation of Einsteins) who sees her son off to school and returns home only to be kidnapped by wicked kidnappers led by the evilest of them all, Ethan (Jason Statham). She is whisked away to a safe house and held captive in an attic. There is a wall phone in the attic, which Ethan smashes with a hammer. Jessica is not science teacher for nothing and she manages to connect a couple of wires together and place a random call to Ryan, a beach bum immersed in bikini research on the beach.
Something about Jessica’s voice convinces Ryan to help. Then starts cat and mouse game involving the high-octane car chases that would have been brain numbing by itself. It is the sly humour and believable situations and reactions that make the movie a happy viewing experience.
All of us are so connected and use the phone to do gazillion things. Here the cell phone is a character, a plot point, a device and hey you can also make calls. All with cell phones know the horrors of bad signals and batteries dying, cross conversations, static, sundry tunnels and lack of a charger will totally empathise with the difficulties Ryan faces. Ryan also has to contend with officious people who ask you to take a token and wait your turn and stuffy lawyers with pompous number plates.
The film is well acted – Statham looks suitably cold-eyed, Bassinger is lovely and vulnerable and Chris Evans does a star making turn as Ryan. Last but not the least is wonderful William H. Macy as the world-weary cop. The plot is gimmicky but on the right side of believable. All in all 89 minutes of unadulterated fun

inside man

As the credits roll, there is Sukhwinder and Sapna Aswathi singing Chaiyya Chaiyya. There is Rahman’s music and the one and only Gulzar’s lyrics (uski zubaan urdu ki tarah) so where is Santosh Sivan’s gorgeous cinematography? Oh well, we are in Manhattan. But never mind instead of King Khan and the super-lissom Malaika Arora Khan, we have wonderfully charged Denzel Washington, a smart, sassy, sexy Jodie Foster, an edgy Clive Owen, a stately Christopher Plummer and a competent Willem Dafoe. Instead of terrorist and human bombs we have a heist/hostage scenario.
The film opens with Clive Owen as bank robber, Dalton Russell, asking us to listen well as he chooses his words carefully and never repeats himself. The film starts off with four guys dressed at painters, taking over Manhattan Trust. All hell breaks lose and suddenly there is a hostage situation.
Detective Frazier (Washington) is assigned the case. Captain John Darius (Dafoe) of the Emergency Services Unit is also at hand.
While there are negotiations and pizzas floating by (What is it about Dog Day Afternoon?), the bank chairman and philanthropist Arthur Case (Plummer) contacts Madeline White, a behind-the-scenes powerbroker. There is something in a particular locker that Case does not want to fall into the wrong hands.
Frazier, who is facing an enquiry about a cocaine bust and some missing money, learns soon enough that he is up against a formidable enemy and also that he is being jerked around. The movie is taut and keeps one involved through out its running time. It is also sly and witty and acutely observed. The Sikh, Vikram Walia, who works in the bank makes astute comments about 9/11 paranoia. The film is ekdum paisa vasool. For the tight script, great acting (Foster is sexy and charming not obsessive single mom) and there is Chaiyya Chaiyya as the end credits roll as well!