I saw half of Fashion at Fame Adlabs yesterday, killing time while waiting for people to show up for GIR (which incidentally had great sound and awesome performances by Sahg and Freak Kitchen playing to a total audience of around 200 because everybody else had gone to Arhan Fuckhtar's 'Rock On' show).

Like most of Madhur Bhandarkar's previous movies this one was full of totally mediocre and unimaginative scenes, which only the most naive and stupid variety of people would find 'meaningful'. Yea, Priyanka Chopra is hot and she is a hard worker that does well within her limits as an actress. Everybody else in invovlved with this complete Fagolas movie you wanted to slap repeatedly till they agreed to end their lives.

Yeah, can't stand that fuckers movies. But that Mugdha Ghodse woman in this movie is damn hot no?

Not my type.

Thanks

The Last Wave by Peter Weir. Here a white Aussie lawyer is defending a group of aborigines accused of killing one of their fellow-abo's. He starts getting weird dreams and begins to realize that he may have more of a connection with the aborigines than he previously thought. Although there are some good moments and kickass visuals this follow-up to Picnic at Hanging Rock was really quite patchy and nowhere as well-realized as it should have been.

saw Hazaroon Khwhaishien Aisi...just brilliant.

Ah yeah, that's a great film from Sudhir Mishra.

saw Religulous, Tropic Thunder and School for Scoundrels.

Meh, except for TT - which was loads of fun.

At the bhalla's very impressive residence at Kandivli, we saw two fantastic documentaries on metal back to back. First up was Heavy Metal in Baghdad a documentary that traces the lives and the stop-start career of Acrassicauda, Iraq's only heavy metal band. It begins near the collapse of the Saddam regime finding the band guardedly optimistic about the future, but not really interested in politics or conflict, preferring to concentrate on playing metal. With every successive visit, Iraq is more completely fucked and the band finds that politics and conflict barging right into their lives. They are forced to flee to Syria and eke out a hand to mouth existence and yet keep the band alive however they can. The guys come across as pretty likeable and pretty genius musicians by Indian standards. It's a sad, heart-warming documentary and one made by people with a very genuine affection for the genre. And probably the best Iraq docu I've ever seen, staying away from the cliched grim marine with misgivings, wailing mother of dead child and fanatical diatribe spouting maulvi cliches.

After this we were quite sure Sam Dunn's Global Metal wouldn't measure up but were pleasantly surprised. More anthropological than the 'fanboy meeting his idols' shtick of A Headbanger's Journey, the docu examines metal as a cultural export and force of globalisation trying to see how it fits into cultures that are very diverse. India comes off as the lamest of the lot with bands and people who have nothing much to say, and are not even freakish enough to present an entertaining spectacle though Nolan does manage to draw a few laughs with his confessional about how Priest moves him to tears. Very entertaining overall.

Also managed to squeeze in a couple of horror movies. Pit and the pendulum is probably the lamest Stuart Gordon film - more pits than pit, really. It was devoid of the pace and much of the OTTness that makes his films so enjoyable. It's a terrible rewriting of a Poe story about a very hot woman accused of being a witch and tormented sexually by Torquemada who is impotent and lustful all at once. It could have been a decent film, but just played out in a very uninterested contractual obligation manner.

Basket Case proves that not all the so-called 80s horror classics are worth watching. This was a phenomenally slow and boring film that squandered a very interesting premise away. There are vast reams of dialogue between smartass New Yorkers; unfortunately none of it is interesting and the actors are all rank amateurs. A waste of time but not as unmitigated a waste of time as Pit

Saw Tropic Thunder and it more than lived up to all the hype. Robert Downey Jr. and Tom Cruise are complete ownage in this film and the rest of the cast isn't far behind at all. Also saw Wallace & Gromit - Curse of the Were Rabbit which was pretty alright time pass with some funny bits.

^Ditto @ Tropic Thunder. Much fun was had watching that one. I thought the film lost steam after the first hour or so though. The gags just seemed to wear thin after a relentlessly funny streak of jokes and it could have done with more gore in the final sequence. But a really cool movie anyway and very surprising coming from such a mainstream Hollywood team.

Screwed up with Tropic Thunder and watched it without subs - must have missed half the jokes (most of Rob Downey Jr.s), but some of the stuff I caught was awesome.

"I wrote the book as a tribute! I'm a patriot!"
"Yeah, you're the Milli Vanilli of patriots, okay?"

"WHERE IS YOUR FARM?!"
"I'm a lead farmer, motherfuckers."

And the panda scene - brilliant. Rewatch shall occur soon.


Watched Iron Man recently as well - pretty enjoyable since it dwelled less on the sentimentality that plagues most superhero movies, and just focused on big expensive toys that blow shit up. Fantastic character designs - I saw the concept artist's sketches on this art forum where I lurk, and those schematics were uber-detailed.

Also saw Burn after Reading. Clooney and Pitt seem like they agreed to go to the other spectrum from Ocean's Eleven and ham nonstop. Even Frances McDormand was belting out a whopper. The script was bizarre and went for the most absurd laughs till it got to a point where you were chuckling at people being shot in the head and axed to death. It's a pretty haphazard movie and definitely sub-par output considering who made it, but it was sort of fun watching it as well.

Got a 720p rip of Band of Brothers (well, first 4 episodes). Should be great going back to that.

Saw Burn After Reading. What a weird fucking movie. Brad Pitt is damn fucking irritating although I thought his scene with Malkovich in the car was brilliant. Clooney's quite irritating and over the top too till that scene where Tilda Swinton says she's divorcing her husband and expects Clooney to do the same with his wife. That bedroom scene was priceless. Malkovich is brilliant, Frances McDormand is great and I think Tilda Swinton is super hot as the cold stuck up bitch. In fact I liked all the characters apart from Brad Pitt's moron gym instructor and there are some great gags right through but overall I'm not sure what to make of this.

watched quantum of solace- an almost two hour epilogue to casino royale. essentially, it's a string of chase sequences with some sort of vague storyline about oil fields and bond going batshit thrown in for good measure. gadgets too are few and far between (not counting severely battered aston martin in the opening sequence). there are a few sequences that with more detail, would've raised the narrative to an all new level but failed to do so. craig daniel provided an interesting performance as batshit bond and olga whatsherface was far from memorable. in short, tepid.

Saw this incredibly good vampire flick from Sweden called Let the Right One In. It is about a developing friendship between a marginalised bullied kid Oskar and his neighbour Eli, a vampire. The relationship is rendered beautifully and the vampire parts are handled in a very fresh and original manner. I think saying anything more will be tantamount to spoiling the film, so just watch it. It will probably be slow going for some people but since it has some truly brilliant parts, I would suggest to give it a good shot.