Sunday, August 26, 2012
Friday, August 24, 2012
Thursday, August 23, 2012
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
Monday, August 20, 2012
Sunday, August 19, 2012
Saturday, August 18, 2012
Friday, August 17, 2012
The Dictator- Did he make a kill yet again?
After, Ali G Inda House, Borat and Bruno, Sacha Baron Cohen is back with His Majesty's latest project. Has the man worked his magic or have his jokes become old and over-done?
'The Dictator' takes us through the tale of The Supreme Leader Aladeen, who is obsessed and spoiled by power, and will do whatever it takes to ensure that his dictatorship remains. He ensures that democracy will never overthrow him in his beloved Wadiya. Betrayed by his uncle played by Ben Kingsley (who was the rightful heir to his father's throne),barely escaping a murder attempt(though losing his beard in the process) and replaced by a look alike who has a thing for goats, Aladeen must now find a way to break his uncle's plan of bringing democracy to his country so that he can sell off to the oil companies. And in between comes his unusual love for Zoey(Anna Faris).
If you are a lover of Borat and Bruno and expect to be entertained to the same extend, you are in for a disappointment because this movie barely cuts it and can never be placed along the leagues of the above mentioned movies. Unlike Borat and Bruno, this a fully scripted movie, with its usual set of SCB humor.
But the punchlines fail to hit home a lot of times and the juvenile funny scenes seem overdone and you find yourself waiting for it be over (like the scene where he crosses the building from top by doing a high-wire act. How many times have we seen that??)rather than expecting it to get better. There is of course a lot of intelligent and subtle humor(the film begins with a dedication to Kim Jong II; then there is confusing statements arising from Aladeen having over 300 meanings, the multimedia game showing the Munich Olympics assassination, the news anchors having no clue and speculating and so it goes on). But the anti-semitic jokes that SCB can do because he is Jewish and the meant to be funny racism, are getting seriously overdone and unfunny. And of course the usual battalion of crude stuff-this movie has them too- the big-boobed body guard who makes her asset a lethal weapon, the dead guy's head antics, the delivery of a baby in Zoey's store. And a lot of it seems vaguely familiar. Am I the only one who thought the helicopter scene was familiar to the Airplane scene from 'Harold and Kumar goes to Guantanamo Bay'. Am I? So, I have to say this movie is a disappointment for SCB fans although it does carry a few laughs. What can I say. We expect more. Otherwise and if you haven't seen that many offensive funny movies, it ain't bad. I would give it 3 stars out of five.
Wednesday, August 15, 2012
Monday, August 13, 2012
Sunday, August 12, 2012
Revolution 2020- My take
The cover of the book as seen here, summarizes the story for us.
The story follows the life of Gopal, a 17 year old boy, living in Varanasi with his debilitated father, who through sickness and poverty dreams of making his boy an engineer. The boy of course finds friendship and love in Aarti, his best friend since childhood and being an average student, does not make it in the gruesome entrance exams. To make things worse, his buddy Raghav makes it in the JEE. Disappointed and frustrated by his father's disappointment in him, he finds himself lost in a world where one's worth is assessed by success in exams. Through these testing times,the only ray of hope is his friendship with Aarti, which he tries without success to make into something more deep and meaningful. To fulfill his father's dreams, he sets out to Kota, to get through the exams the next year.
Lives of the three friends change in this one year and at the end of it, we find a heartbroken, orphaned and hopelessly lost Gopal, Raghav discovering his passion in journalism and Aarti falling in love with Raghav. From this turning point the story evolves through corrupt politics, a broken friendship, a complicated love story, a man's passion to make the world a better place and another's to conquer love and wealth. LOVE.CORRUPTION.AMBITION, as proclaimed by the cover.
The tale is not bad and i found could relate to many parts of it. But i think the author attempted too many things in the book. There is a father-son relationship that doesn't find closure, exploration of a corrupt system that is at best superficial, Raghav's passion for journalism and change finding just a couple of mentions here and there (despite the book carrying the title of his independent paper) and the love story itself. Aarti's character has not been explained in adequacy, despite the entire book being about Gopal's love for her. She appears as a true friend who cares at first, then as a friend who needs a shoulder to cry on, then as a friend who is impressed by success/money(?), as a confused lover and finally as a cheating lover who finally becomes of sure of who to spend the rest of her life with, only to be chased back into the arms of the lover she cheated on!
I also have a problem with Gopal's implied nobility, which leads to the climax .Gopal's sacrifice in the end seems unnecessary in the extend to which it was done. Raghav, whose passion was his newspaper, had understood that his relationship was in turmoil and would not last much longer. Gopal's action of getting him a job was noble and quite frankly the only thing he needed to correct. His act of pushing Aarti back into Raghav's arms leaves me confused. This was a woman he chased for so long, played mind games with and finally won after making her cheat on her boyfriend. And after making sure that she had got her ex-boyfriend 'out of her system', he breaks her heart after coming with an elaborate plan involving hookers on his 24th birthday and then lives a heartbroken life, after making sure Raghav got the girl. For someone whose 'devotion to her is more than that of all the priests' of Varanasi combined', that was just plain stupid. His need to become a better man is understandable, but why let go of his love which was the only true thing in his life??
So, in the end, Raghav becomes a politician, Aarti keeps looking beautiful and Gopal keeps staying miserable(the pained millionaire).
In conclusion, my take is that Mr. Bhagat tried too many things with the plot and failed to explore any of these to perfection. He could've done a better job. This book is definitely not one of his best!
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