A Round-Up Of My TV Show Recommendations

A Round-Up Of My TV Show Recommendations

So the newest season of Game of thrones has started off as expected – John Snow has been brought back to life which was pretty much anticipated and eagerly awaited for, the only question being how he would he resurrected from the dead. Episode 2 has revealed that his spirit had escaped into his direwolf Snow as his body was being stabbed multiple times and from there it returned back to his human body when the Red Woman, Melisandre the sorceress of the Light-cult, worked her magic on his wounds. The other character, the only other character we sympathize with and hope to see survive the Game Of Thrones, Daenerys is well on her way to acquiring her promised bridal gift- the entire dothraki nation to rally behind her cause. Just to recall, Khal Drogo, he who was prophesied to be the father of the stallion which rules the world and hence always fucked daenerys from behind (like a stallion?), had promised the use of the dothraki hordes against the westeros as a marriage gift to daenerys to regain her throne, but as he unfortunately dropped off dead and daenerys couldn't hold on to what was left of the khals army she had to go and recruit eunuch warriors and mercenaries who all proved inadequate to the upcoming campaign against the might of the seven kingdoms across the dothraki sea to finally put a targaryen on the throne.

Another interesting show I regularly watch, the latest season (season 3) of Penny Dreadful has got off to a kick-ass beginning as well. Count Dracula, the main villain is back on the show after disappearing for most of last season leaving the field open to minor witches and monsters and he has finally hooked up with Renfield, his future nemesis Dr. Seward's confidential secretary. And Adam, the Frankenstein's monster at last lives up to his name by twisting off the head of a ten year old child before walking back to england all the way from the arctic where he was marooned on a sunken ship bound in the ice field, at the end of last season. And the protagonist of the show Miss. Ives played by the delectable Eva Green, has at last got out of the stupor of a broken heart and is out and about, ready to face up all the evils of the night which haunt 1880's London, most of whom she has had sex with in the previous two seasons. All in all the show promises to send more than a few heartbeats racing (and i dont mean just in the horror sense) this season as well.

I have also finished watching the entire season 1 of the latest BBC adaptation of Dr.Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and I have to admit that I can't wait too long for season 2 to start. The TV show has added a new interpretation to the traditional story by making sure that although played by the same character, Robert Jekyll’s alter ego Hyde is shown in a delightful new avatar of understated villainy instead of the usual over the top villainous antics we are used to seeing in previous adaptations. The show again has ended in a flaming season finale and we can't wait long enough to see Robert Jekyll get up and show his other side in season 2.

Dickensian season 1 has ended in BBC one, leaving a half hour void in my night time TV schedule. For those not familiar with the series it is an adaptation of all the Charles dickens novels in an amalgamation where all the various characters interact with one another in un-looked for ways. We are shown the beginnings of Miss. Havisham's hatred for men with the love affair which caused it ( from Great Expectations) along with the death of Jacob Marley and the coming into fortune of his sole partner Ebenezer Scrooge ( from A Christmas Carol) and Fagin and gang, the likes of the Artful Dodger, Bill Sikes and Nancy (of Oliver Twist) who are suspected of killing Marley on behalf of Scrooge – all in all an interesting mish mash of characters and situations all intertwined together.

So to fill up my half an hour nostalgia tv show slot I have recently started binge-watching Blanding's, the show based on the P.G. Wodehouse novels of the same name. The antics of the Earl of Emsworth and his prize pig the Empress of Blandings have been hilariously brought alive on TV for the first time. Throw in Aunt Connie, Emsworth's sister and Freddie Threepwood his son and an assortment of wodehousian favorite characters like Sir Roderick Glossop, who keep dropping in and out of the show, you have a crackerjack of a comedy masterpiece crammed inside half an hour. Highly recommended for a last show before bed night time slot to leave you with a pleasant smile on your face as you sleep.

The last show i want to talk about is the BBC adaptation of the sequel to Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice novel -Death Comes To Pemberley. The book which was a gripping whodunit murder mystery solved by Elizabeth Bennet of the Pride book had me salivating at the opportunity of watching a TV adaptation. And it didn't disappoint as it stuck pretty much to the template of the book. But if there was one thing which soured my pleasure of the TV adaptation it was the casting. Every character was aptly cast except for the lead one, the heroine, Elizabeth Bennet. If you remember reading Pride and Prejudice you would remember that Miss Elizabeth Bennet was a saucy little beauty who made not only the proud Mr.Darcy fall madly in love, but also carries on a brief fling with the much experienced ( in a ladies way) man about town – George Wickham the eventual villain of the novel. But the tv show has erred erroneously in casting an ugly old hag has elizabeth bennet. Granted it's been a few years since her wedding and she is now the mother of a five year old child, but i cant help thinking that elizabeth would still be a milf oozing sexuality and not such an ugly old has been especially after remembering Keira Knightley in the film adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. God only knows what the makers were thinking when they cast the characters. Maybe they were looking to make it on a low budget and this waas all they could afford to hire? I leave it to you dear readers.

Film Review – Batman Vs Superman: Dawn of Justice -3D

Film Review – Batman Vs Superman: Dawn of Justice -3D

With great expectations come great disappointments...i dunno who said that and I am guessing its not Tobey Maguire from the first spider-man movie but it aptly fits the film I am going to be reviewing this week. Batman Vs Superman – Dawn of Justice has been in the works for almost a couple of years and has aroused great expectations from all film aficionado's. And not only because of the interesting premise- the clash between two do-gooders, two superheros, but also because of the interesting cast choice- Ben Affleck as the batman. Now there were a lot of detractors who prophesied that casting an over the hill actor like Affleck in a role requiring a macho action star was going to have a disappointing end and they have been proved right. Ben affleck does indeed look completely out of place as the suave Bruce Wayne but considering the storyline features a washed out version of batman who has been fighting crime- unsuccessful at that- for twenty years, Ben Affleck with his negligible screen presence fits the role of an afterthought superhero. Unfortunately he gets more screen time than the more popular superman character played by Henry Cavil. Which contributes a lot to the overall disappointment of the film.

The storyline is simple – batman feels superman is reckless and is not worried about collateral damage to the hundreds of civilians (dead civilians) who get caught in between when superman is fighting super-villains. On the other side of the equation superman is worried that batman is a lone vigilante who doesn't care about law or justice and simply hunts down criminals as a vendetta. So superman wants to bring batman to justice while batman simply wants to kill off superman to remove any alien threat to the planet. And just when you think the movie gets interesting and the two heroes face off for a showdown the plot  borrows from countless Indian movies which utilize the “mother sentiment” to have a dramatic turning point.

In this instance it is a dying superman who is critically weakened by batman's kryptonite bullets shouting his mother's name- Martha, which coincidentally is also batman's dead mother's name, which means ultimately that batman doesn't kill him but embraces him as brother. At least they stopped with that. Any more clichéd and they could have released it as a straight Tamil movie. Superman's girlfriend Lois Lane who is a reporter discovers that the whole showdown was orchestrated by Jesse Eisenberg who plays a young Lex Luthor and the two superheros join hands to find Luther who has by now found himself a convenient super-beast made from alien DNA. The climax involves a motley group of beaten down metahumans like superman and the wonder woman joined by a lone normal human batman in battling the  creature. Ultimately superman makes the supreme sacrifice of killing the creature with a kryptonian weapon and in the process killing himself off.

Director Zack Snyder who made the eminently watchable 300 has badly erred in making the farce of a superhero movie which cannot hold the audience's interest beyond the first few minutes. An interesting plot goes haywire in execution.

Verdict- watch for the TV premiere.

Star Wars- The Force Awakens (2015) – Film Review.

Star Wars- The Force Awakens (2015) – Film Review.

Director:  J.J. Abrams   Stars: Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Harrison Ford. 

The new Star Wars movie, the J.J.Abrams directed latest installment of the Star Wars franchise raised a lot of new hopes but ultimately failed to measure up to standards. Leastwise to my standards. I believe that the excessive hype pre-release raised up expectation to such a fever pitch that the resultant movie on screen turned out to be an anti-climatic finish. Anyway the duty of a good reviewer is take the good with the bad and thankfully in this instance its not all bad, but good in patches. The best scene of this movie comes a half an hour after the movie begins when Harrison Ford playing Han Solo enters with Chewbacca inside his old Correlian freighter The Millenium Falcon. Till then the movie is all yawn worthy and suddenly with Han Solo's entry the screenplay picks up or it seems so due to Harrison Fords imposing screen presence. And that shows up the biggest Achilles heel of this movie- casting disaster. Casting relatively unknown actors in important starring roles is a welcome step, but only if they have the acting chops to pull it off. In this case they dont. I am not sure why with such a big budget film they too the risk of it all imploding spectacularly with such a casting disaster and I can only think of two reasons- either there was a pressure on the producers to be politically correct by casting an african american and a woman as the main protagonists in complete antithesis of the usual Hollywood white anglosaxon male domination or they believed that with the power of the star wars franchise actors didnt matter and anybody, any  robot faced cipher could just coast along in a crucial part and people would still be cheering in the theatres with the memories of the original trilogies making them view everything in a nostalgic haze.

Anyway to get back to the story, the film opens with the exact same scene as the original star wars- an important secret, a secret vital to the success of the rebel alliance, is hidden inside a droid named BB-8 - a cute adaptation from the hit movie Wall-E (in tribute?) and the droid's owner is captured by the First Order, the evil successor of the old Sith Empire. The droid is rescued by a spare parts scavenger called Rey who then teams up with a reformed storm trooper called Fen, a character who channels his inner Chris Rock (and fails pathetically to) in an effort to play the comic side kick to Rey's warrior woman. Together they end up escaping in an old abandoned spaceship which turns out to be the iconic Millenium Falcon and in search of which Han solo soon turns up. From then on its a Harrison Ford show as he takes over the search for the missing Luke Skywalker the last of the Jedi who alone can defeat the evil First Order and its dark side adherents. The film ends on a poignant note, with Han Solo's death at his son Ben Solo's hand, for Ben solo is the new Sith apprentice to the Chairman of the First Order. And Luke Skywalker is discovered standing amidst the ruins of the deserted Jedi temple as the credits roll promising more films to come in the future.

Director Abrams does a fair job by not going overboard with special effects but keeping the CGI scenes at the same level of technicality as the original trilogy which somehow makes it all believable. And by giving the best lines of the movie to the old pair of Han Solo and Princess Leia he shows he knows the pulse of the audience and satisfies the fan boys. Now if only he had stuck his foot down with the studio and the casting director what seems to be a fair movie would have become a good movie. A good storyline, excellent special effects let down by bad acting is what we feel as we the movie ends.

Our verdict- just passable and worth a single watch. Or better wait for the DVD. 

Crimson Peak- Film Review

Crimson Peak

[Directed by : Guillermo del Toro  Starring: Tom Hiddleston, Mia Wasikowska, Jessica Chastain ]

Guillermo Del Toro along with Alfonso Cuaron and Roberto Rodriguez remains my favorite directors far more than crowd-pleaser like say a Christopher Nolan or a Steven Spielberg or even a Quentin Tarantino. I have made my view clear, more times than I can count on this blog, that I dislike too clever by half film making like Nolan does and just don't get the point of trying the audiences patience in the name of re-inventing genres. If you want to reinvent genres there is no better example than and you can quote me on this, the new Sherlock Holmes series directed by Guy Ritchie. For a guy who made something like Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, to go onto make Sherlock Holmes is the definitive example of reinvention. Anyway tongue-in-cheek aside, Del Toro's latest Gothic thriller Crimson Peak sticks to all the tropes of a successful goth mystery and makes a eminently watchable movie. There are no surprises here, no multiple climaxes with multiple viewpoints,no characters spoofing off dark, angst-ridden dialogues, in fact there is nothing that is out of place in a clichéd goth movie and yet, and yet, the movie hits the sweet spot of a perfect goth-genre thriller. Much of the credit for this should go to the perfect casting - especially the hero, Tom Hiddleston, the actor last seen smiling sinisterly as Thor's brother Loki in the mindless froth that was Thor-2, a series killer of a movie if ever there was one. What a fine character actor like Tom Hiddleston was doing in such a movie like Thor makes the mind baffle, but maybe being in such a froth helps refine the acting chops I guess. In the way of, if I can be Loki for a couple of films, then the paycheck means I can act to my hearts content in better and more meaningful movies for the rest of my life.

Anyway to get back to the movie, crimson peak starts off as a conventional ghost film but set in 1887.  A young girl Edith Cushing, played later on by the fragile looking Mia Wasikowska, goes to her mothers funeral and later that night she gets a visit from the just buried mother. The revenant warns her to beware of crimson peak but does not offer any further detailed explanations before disappearing. Cue to twenty years or so later and the little girl is now all grown up and is a serious aspiring writer. On one of her numerous attempts to get the manuscript of, get this, ghost stories she has written published, she runs into an impoverished aristocrat from England, Sir Thomas Sharpe, who is on a funding raising tour of New York to finance his recent invention of an automatic clay mining engine. Naturally he charms the skirts of the heroine who despite the stern warnings of her father proceeds to fall head over heels in love with the dark brooding hero played by Tom Hiddleston who makes his noble poverty despite his baronetcy his major attracting point besides dancing the waltz like a pro. The fly in the ointment- the heroines father is soon dispatched off by a mysterious hand and the couple now united in matrimony fly back to the ancestral seat of the baronet, called naturally, wait for it, Crimson Peak.

Thrown in an old creaking mansion half exposed to the elements, a senile half crazy retainer of the family who seems to know a lot of buried secrets, an always snowing weather which sets the scene for premeditated crime and a brooding spinster sister of the hero, played with panache by Jessica Chastain, who show signs of too much possessiveness, read, psycho-level possessiveness and you have the perfect atmosphere for a kick ass gothic noir thriller. Not to mention, ghost after ghost after ghost who keep appearing to the heroine alone begging her to flee the mansion before she gets chopped up like them and you have the right build up to the climax. The last half is when it all comes together when the heroine investigates and finds out the gore filled past of her husband and the basement filled with the dead bodies of his previous wives. As she is about to become the latest occupant of the basement she is saved by her longtime beau and once rejected suitor who has expressly traveled down from America to expose the sisterinlaw as the murderess of her father and who in turn almost becomes the latest casualty.  The end is a bloody girl on girl action when the heroine Edith faces off against her sister in law Lucille Sharpe, for the right to sleep with her husband who happens, just happens, to come in the middle of the two ladies and gets conveniently killed.

Now it wouldn't be far for me to give any more spoilers away and I suggest you watch the movie when and if it releases in India or get your hands on a DVD if you happen to visit Ritchie Street, like I did. Happy watching.

Hindi Film “Tamasha” - A Review

Hindi Film “Tamasha” - Review

[Movie Review - Tamasha starring Ranbir Kapoor, Deepika Padukone, Dir- Imtiaz Ali]

Why do we travel?  Seriously why? Do we travel just to see more of the world? Or do we travel to find out more about ourselves? I would say the second was more true for me. Atleast on the evidence of my most recent trip abroad. I am sure everyone of us knows first hand that every single trip is different- every time we leave the comforts of our home to go off and slum somewhere  we are challenging ourselves to forsake all the comforts we are used to. But some trips do more than that, they push you to the limit, they redefine what challenging is to your own mind, take you to such extremes that you never thought existed and demand that you give more than you ever thought possible. Such trips re-define yourself to your own eyes. A trip like that shows you what you can be if you weren't what you are right now.

There i was in the middle of the Indian ocean , well at least on a tiny part of it, wearing a mask and snorkel and peering about underwater starring at rocks and tiny little fish darting around and all i could think of right then was why the hell am i spending all this time with these rocks, while i could be comfortably spending some time with a vodka on the rocks. That was a moment of revelation for me and all the way back on the boat to the shore i was promising myself that never again would i go for a vacation which involves any action, except to lie on a beach somewhere with a drink in my hand- that is my kinda vacation. Its these epiphanies which travel brings out in us and holds a mirror to our true selves like nothing else does and the least  we can do is to at least  hold on to these memories even if we dont do anything else with them in our lives.  But sometimes some people do- they take these lessons and make them work in their lives. They re-invent themselves and start a new life post the trip.

Like in the movie Tamasha starring ranbir kapoor and deepika padukone which i  started out to actually review here on the blog before i got sidetracked into  my own reminiscences. There is a ten minute sequence at the start of the movie where the hero and heroine – strangers to each other who meet by accident  at a corsican resort and become acquaintances- decide to live out their fantasies for the ten days they stay there on vacation and instead of living their own true lives they take on the persona’s of their favorite film stars.

The rest of the movie is about showing the boringly routine real life of these two characters- especially ranbir kapoor who is trapped in an everyday corporate job with an overbearing evil boss and an extraordinarily demanding father who insists on responsibility before anything else. Crushed under the weight of his mundane existence he runs into the heroine again after a gap of a few years and she tells him that his everyday life is a mask while his real self was the one she met on vacation.  That flips him and he turns violent with her- for of course, if you have spent years in denial and self repression, to be shown the truth of it all is maddening to say the least and acceptance is very very hard and almost impossible to get over the self delusion.

The rest of the movie is about how the hero casts aside the mantle of being responsible and goes back to his real carefree self and in the process rekindling the romance with the heroine which ends in the alls well that ends well genre favored of our directors. But although the ending is as cliched as they come, the middle half of the movie where ranbir kapoor shows all the angst of a sensitive soul crushed under family and societal responsibilities is as outstanding a piece of cinema as i have watched all year long.  Tamasha gives a lot of lessons in a jolly tamasha way. Its  worth a watch and a re-watch. Highly recommended.

மேட்டர் டிவி திரை விமர்சனம் - பாகுபலி திரை படம்

பாகுபலி படத்தின் கிளைமாக்ஸ் காட்சியில் ஏழும் கேள்வி "கட்டப்பா ஏன் பாகுபலியை குத்தினார் ?" பதில் ....https://soundcloud.com/ganesh-puttu/a3grrtemkvop

கட்டப்பா ஏன் பாகுபலியை குத்தினார் ????

MatterTv Film Review- Evannuku Thannilla Condom

இவனுக்கு தன்னியில கண்டம்.....திரை விமர்சனம்

எப்போதும் விமர்சனம் எழுதியே பழக்கபட்ட எனக்கு இம்முறை ஒரு ஆடியோ விமர்சனம் பண்ணலாம்னு தோனிச்சு. அதான் ஒரு புது முயற்சியா இருக்கட்டுமேன்னு இம்முறை இந்த படத்த என் சொந்த குரல்ல (கரகரப்புக்கு மன்னிக்கவும் – தொண்டை கட்டிக்குச்சு) ஒரு ஆடியோ விமர்சனம் செஞ்சுருக்கேன். கேட்டு ரசியுங்கள். அப்படியே உங்க பொன்னான கருத்துக்களயும் சொல்லுங்க. 

இதை சவுண்ட்களெட்(Sound-cloud)‘ள்ள கேட்க்க – கிளிக் செய்யவும்:

https://soundcloud.com/ganesh-puttu/bztcd95czhbj

Katthi Vs Tropic Thunder…Which Is The Real Spoof On The Audience?

Katthi Vs Tropic Thunder…Which Is The Real Spoof On The Audience?

So last weekend I spent watching two movies back to back- the Tamil film kathhi starring actor Vijay and the English film tropic thunder starring Ben stiller. The reason I watched them one after the other immediately is because they both run on a single topic- the second one being a spoof on the first. And the theme if you haven’t guessed it by now is “action stars Oscar aspirations”. Now I know that’s a mouthful but nevertheless that’s the theme of this post. Now we all know – in fact its never been a secret - that be it Hollywood, Bollywood or Kollywood- some big stars – action stars especially often have unfulfilled fantasies of turning thespians and giving in the performance of their lives- acting chops wise- to earn the adulation of carping critics and be recognized winners of the best actor awards rather than the most popular actor awards. This fever (or madness) more or less affects almost all big stars at one time or the other in their career- be it Schwarzenegger with his Kindergarten Cop, Stallone with any of his non-Rocky movies, Statham with his non-Transporter movies and even Jackie Chan with the Jaden smith starring Karate Kid.

What these stars seem not to realize is that the audiences come to watch their films precisely because they have a well defined sensibility of giving what the audience wants and not to watch pure acting or method acting or the ten hankies were drenched with tears kinda acting. And when the star becomes too trippy for his own good and forgets the audience and decides to satisfy only his critics he ends up doing a disaster movie of epic proportions which falls flat between two stools satisfying neither – the audience nor the critics. After all if the star had movable facial muscles he wouldn't be doing slam-bang action movies right from the start of his career would he? Audiences know the stars limits - their acting talents or lack thereof and still turn up to watch their movies for other things and so it’s quite tragic when the stars themselves don’t know their limitations or forget it in their ego-filled trips and choose awards over their audiences.

This aspect of the ego-trips stars take to end up in disaster is showcased in one of the greatest spoof-movies Hollywood made- Tropic Thunder where Ben Stiller spoofs this oscar mania in a movie-within- a movie called “Simple Jack” wherein he tries to show off his acting abilities to get that elusive Oscar award which is nevertheless denied to him for being , wait for it, too realistic a portrayal of retard…and as Robert Downey Jr advises him in a pivotal scene in the movie- never go full retard man, they don’t like it-  which advice is apt for all these action stars- never go full actor man- they don’t like it. This extreme limits to which actors go to be recognized by critics and peers as a, well an “actor” in inverted caps is what lifts Tropic Thunder from your average spoof movie into far higher realms. Every time you watch the film you get to see layers and layers peeled off the hides of action stars who want “respectability”. The movie ends very poignantly with a message- “know yourself man, know who you are and stay true to yourself”. Which advice is eminently applicable to actor vijay and director murugadoss and the entire katthi team.

When you go to watch a vijay movie you have certain expectations- the bare basic expectation of being entertained for the next two hours being the most primary one. But with Katthi the actor or maybe the director has forgotten this basic commandment and moved into award territory. They have taken a worthwhile issue and using a faulty screenplay which sags and drags for a large part of the movie and a wholly cinematic ending involving the hero fighting 50 bad guys etc have managed to shake the audience faith in the vijay “genre” formula. I am not saying that vijay shouldn't act in such films- after all as an individual its his right to decide the movies he is gonna make but as a member of the pay for tickets and watch in theatre public, I for one will hesitate to watch a vijay movie in the future without reading all the reviews- because now I know that it may or not be a typical vijay movie and can even be a preachy- social issues-artsy movie starring vijay as one of the characters.

This diminishing of the stars “star value” for want of a better term is what saddens me as a vijay fan and and as a fan of potboiler mass masala movies. If even vijay can compromise for the critics sake what hope is there for the average movie fan like me who expects and demands a non-intellectual “no-issues only entertainment” movie with the mandatory 3 duets and 4 fights screenplay? Or maybe I should just stick to watching Telugu movies henceforth- at least Mahesh Babu and Pawan Kalyan will never betray their fans like this. Or wait for the next Ben Stiller movie with bated breath – for there’s an actor who knows himself.

300 Rise of an Empire - Film Review

300 Rise of an Empire - Film Review

I have just now watched Part 2 of 300 titled Rise of an Empire and I am writing this review on my journey back from the theatre. I usually don’t operate so fast especially not for movie reviews as I prefer to take my own sweet time to watch a movie and then let the immediate effects dissipate a bit before I start writing a review about it. But for once I feel justified in writing this review as soon as I can for two reasons- first, I was lucky enough to watch this movie first day first show on its global release and so I am racing against time to get my review out there before others and secondly this movie is worth writing a fast review for. It is my kind of movie and I totally enjoyed the experience of watching it especially as going to this movie was a spur of the moment decision made this afternoon by a friend and we got tickets just ten minutes prior to the start of the film.

Let me get the basic facts out first- there is no story, no backstory, no flashback, no hero, no heroine and no romance in this movie.  So what else is there you ask? Action. Unbelievable action scenes running continuously for a little over two hours is what you get for your tickets price. The story runs in a parallel timeline to the first part – 300 – where King Leonidas and his Spartans defend the Hot Gates from the Persian King Xerxes and die for it. This one tells the story of yet another Greek city state the Athenians who fight a sea war to prevent the Persian fleet from landing on the Grecian mainland and invading Athens. By the end of the movie the Athenians are defeated and killed almost to a man and Athens is burned to the ground by King Xerxes and his Persian army. 

In the beginning of the movie the Athenian leader Themistocles (or something like that) goes around all the independent Greek city states begging for Greek unity to fight the invading Persians. He is snubbed everywhere and especially in Sparta by  Gorgo, Queen of King Leonidas (part 1) who says the Spartan warriors wont fight beside the Athenian Pacifists as they know nothing about war while the Spartans are all warriors from cradle. So the Athenians who face a sea borne invasion of the Persians go out to fight them alone. The Athenians are all farmers, artists, poets and as unwarlike as they can be (in contrast to the Spartans of the first part) and they choose to fight the Persians on the sea before they land an army on Grecian soil. 

The movie is one long sea battle after another continuously. The naval warfare is richly picturised with plenty of breathtaking visuals (hats off to CGI) and grand strategies. It’s a sight to watch a 1000 ship armada being fought to a standstill by a handful of Athenian triremes. The victory of the Athenian fleet is solely due to the intelligent tactics deployed by their Admiral Themistocles. In contrast the Persian fleet is under Admiral  Artemisia (Eva Green) who, hold your breath, is a Greek lady who was raped sold as a slave and whose whole family was slaughtered by fellow Greeks leading her to swear vengeance on all Greece and goes over to the Persians and leads their navy for King Xerxes. 

In a series of naval battles including one where Themistocles rides a horse over a ships which have dashed against each other the Athenians manage to destroy fleet after fleet of the Persians till King Xerxes even questions his Admiral’s battle sense and loyalty to the Persian cause. Admiral Artemisia is so enraged by the Athenian tactics of fighting and running away that she chooses to chase the remaining four Greek warships to the narrow bay of Samara.  Here the Athenians fight back with no hope of survival and they are destroyed one by one till the last person standing alive is Themistocles himself facing Artemisia. And then in a final twist the vengeful Spartans who have just leaned of the death of King Leonidas by King Xerxes army in Thermopylae bring their whole fleet and attack the rear of the Persian fleet destroying it in a perfect ambush. The movie ends with Themistocles along with Queen Gorgo the widow of King Leonidas (remember part 1?) along with the Spartan army chasing after the remaining Persians which leads one to believe that a part 3 is definitely in the future. 

The outstanding performance of the movie is by Eva Green of James Bond fame who plays a chilling murderess who leads the Persian navy. The best dialogue belongs to her too when she says “you fight harder than you fuck” to Themistocles who does both by the way. 300- Rise of an empire is a movie worth watching for the visual spectacle alone. The naval battles will remain long in memory for their sheer magnificence. And it’s a movie to be watched only on the big screen in 3-D just to feel the blood spraying all over your face every two minutes. 

My Verdict – Go watch as soon as possible. 

The Hobbit Part2- In 4-D - An Unexpected Visit

The Hobbit Part2- In 4-D - An Unexpected Visit

Last weekend I watched the movie- "The Hobbit Part 2- Desolation of Smaug" in a 4-D version. If you are your average 3-D movie go’er and haven’t ever seen a 4-D movie before allow me a moment to dance and caper in your face. Ok, gloating done, let me share my 4-D experience in detail, especially on how I ended up watching a new release on the second day itself. On Saturday I found myself with a little free time on hand- at the awkward time between noon and late noon when there is not much to do or see in the city. As I was on my way back home ready to do some serious TV watching, I happened to notice accidentally that the recently released film The Hobbit- 2 was running in my neighborhood theater Sangam.

Now for those who don’t know Sangam it’s an old theater (predating modern multiplexes) on Poonamalle High Road near the erstwhile Dasaprakash Restaurant (now turned into luxury apartments). It’s on my route back home and as I had a window seat on the bus I could see the hoarding with all the latest Tamil films running at the theatre and in one corner, the bottom right hand corner, there was a small, very small poster of The Hobbit.

Hold on, I thought is the hobbit running here? If so what would be the probable timing of the show? Will they have any show running now or will the fact that it is an English film (clearly not meant for the masses) would have consigned it into a late night show for the English film watching “hoi-polloi” crowds. Do I take a gamble to get off the bus at the next stop and walk back to the theatre to ask if they have a show right now or if it’s already begun or if they even have tickets or whether they were all sold out or should I keep going on the bus in my right comfortable seat till my stop came and I could watch the film next week after pre-booking a ticket? That’s the dilemma I had to resolve within the next one minute.

But hey, you know that I like to live life dangerously, so I abandoned my seat (in that crowded/standing space only bus) without a pang and jumped out at the Neyveli Lignite Corporation House bus-stop to walk back to Sangam theatre with a hope and a prayer. Being a Saturday the theater was overflowing with crowds and i hoped that I wasn’t too late for the show and end up missing a few opening scenes.

But at last I reached the ticket booking counter after and I asked for a ticket to The Hobbit and was told that only the front row tickets were available and was I sure I wanted one? What the heck after coming this far, I wasn’t going back empty handed was i? So I said yes, I would take any damned seat in theater if I could enjoy the movie on the opening weekend- for I am frankly sick of all the one-line film reviewers on social media who keep spoiling films for us- the average viewers who usually cannot catch any release in the first week.

Once inside the theatre seated in the very second row in front of the big screen with my 3-d glasses on I experienced the well you could say the experience of my lifetime (my young and youthful lifetime ok?) as the film begun on screen. It is a unique experience to watch a 3-d film when you are on the very edge of the screen. Unlike normal 3-d where the images just leap at you in front of you, the edge of screen experience means that the images often enfold you, immersing you inside them at times -like you were living inside a holographic projection.

There were scenes when I turned around to see if the hideous orcs were sitting right beside me (on my left hand seat there indeed was one) and it was an out-of the mind experience. I have never enjoyed 3-D in any theatre as much as I enjoyed the 4-D experience of the hobbit. At times I flinched when the arrows shot by the Elf Lord Legolas almost passed over me in the front seat to go hit the orcs seated behind me. When the were-wolves of the Orc chieftain Azog the Terrible jumped out of the screen i bent my head to let them overshoot me and pass behind. At one time i very nearly pulled out my magical sword and started stabbing and hacking the spiders all around me (I hate spiders btw) before I realized I was causing a mini riot in the theater and calmed down. 

For those of you who still have not watched the movie and don’t mind a few pointers here are my wiki-leaks. The movie starts from where it left off in the first part (logical right?) as the hobbits are being chased by the orc-hordes under Azog and they take refuge in the house of Beorn the Shape-shifter who takes the form of a humongous gigantic bear and protects them through the night from the chasing goblin hordes. Come morning the dwarfs and Bilbo flee into the relative safety of the large forest Mirkwood but which is now overrun by gigantic spiders (who knew spiders were soo loathsome on close up view?) which capture them and tie them up.

Bilbo as befits the hero of the tale frees the dwarfs from the spiders and takes them onwards deeper into the forest where they are next captured by the wood elves under their fearful lord Thranduil who says that all he wants is to be left alone without being disturbed by each and every passing traveler knocking on his front door. Bilbo again (with the help of his magical ring this time) frees the dwarfs from the elf prison and they escape through an underground river riding on empty barrels. The movie closely follows the book till this point.

In the second half the movie departs from the book version and expands into new territory which is surprisingly good. The dwarfs reach the newly re-built town of dale - the old one burnt by the dragon in the past and there they get the help of Baud the Bowman (spoiler alert) the future dragon-killer who helps them reach the slopes of the Lonely Mountain - the once-home of the dwarfs. After getting there it’s again the ingenuity of Bilbo which helps them find the back door into the mountain only visible on a full moon's light on Durin's day and as a reward Bilbo gets to go inside and find out if the dragon is still alive and kicking so to say.

Turns out the dragon Smaug is indeed more than alive and after some funny interludes with Bilbo (Seriously I don’t want to spoil your pleasure if you have still not seen the movie) the dragon and the dwarfs get into a fight over the ownership of the mountain and the pissed off dragon decides to go after an easier prey -the men of the floating city Dale at the foot of the mountain rather than fight with crusty old dwarfs who pour boiling gold on it, coating it and turning it into a golden dragon for a brief while. The rest as they is - for the next part- part 3. 

To say I enjoyed this movie would be an understatement- I really, really enjoyed the movie- despite my initial misgivings. For when i went inside the theater I did not know whether I would be watching the movie in the original English or a dubbed Tamil (the local language) version with all the characters speaking in local patois. Thankfully they screened the movie in English but with the addition of English subtitles (a first for me- watching an English movie with English subtitles) at the bottom of the screen which did not irritate me much as the movie sucked me into itself with nonstop action sequences. At one point i even enjoyed reading the translations of orc talk running at the bottom of the screen as subtitles- words like hmmfff, angg, faffff translated directly from Goblish into English.

The Graphics (CGI) was top class in the film and you can almost believe that there is a middle earth somewhere out there in the real world. The acting for the most part was top notch with the dragon Smaug a cinch for an Oscar award this year. All in all it was a totally enjoyable experience for all that it was unexpected. And finally- if you haven’t seen it yet- go immediately to watch. And book an extra ticket and call me- I wouldn't mind watching again with you.

P.S.- And in future if you want to enjoy a similar 4-D experience buy a front row ticket for a 3-d movie and watch it on a big screen - you'll love it.