Slumdog Millionaire

Twitterverse had been buzzing about this movie for a few weeks now. And I couldn't hold myself any longer. When I realized that I won't be able to download a good print of the movie off the internet anytime soon, I decided to look up which theaters it was playing in. I asked (who else?) Doni to go with me, and he (reluctantly) agreed even though He'd rather go watch Valkyrie.

I am going to describe and rave about the movie extensively here,(if you want the plot, go to IMDB) and I might unwittingly post some spoilers. So people who haven't seen the movie, proceed with caution. I will, however, try to color the spoilers blue so that it blends in with the background.

Let's first talk about the crew. There are very few Indian people involved in the making of this movie apart from the cast. Actually even the Actor who Plays 18 year old Jamal, Dev Patel, isn't Indian. He's from U.K. His parents were born in Kenya (Thanks @kg86 ) The Director of the movie is Danny Boyle (British) and Co-Director in India was Loveleen Tandan (Indian). None of the producers are Indian, Not Screenplay, not cinematography(which was beautiful, BTW) Production Design, set decoration, costume design, Makeup, sound department, Visual effects... The list goes on.. without Indian names. Still, the movie feels very Indian, and true to reality. I can't think of any other movie which has portrayed India without any embellishment making it more glamorous or more gritty than it actually is.

The movie starts off with amazing editing cutting from the shots of Jamal Malik sitting on the set of KBC and being interrogated/tortured by the police. One can easily assume the KBC part is the flashback and police torture is the present. On KBC, Anil Kapoor makes fun of Jamal's profession, a call center assistant. Calls him a Chai walla. I don't think either of the hosts(SRK or Big B) of the Indian version of Who wants to be a Millionaire would do such a thing and have the audience laughing at the contestant's expense. (That was for "Kamzor Kadi Kaun"). Something that one might find a little awkward in the beginning is hearing the actors speak 'hinglish'. Dev Patel's accent is not very Indian, (because he's british and he doesn't speak hindi) like the other Indian actors. Which can be explained by the plot(He worked at a call center and probably picked it up there.)

The police wants to know how he got all the answers right on KBC. How did he cheat. Did he have a wire? did someone give him all the answers? Jamal stays calm and composed despite the torture, and tells the cops he just knew all the answers. Then we go into the flashback of his life, which the movie is really about. The scene of the kids playing cricket at the airport immediately brought a smile to my face. Everything was shot/portrayed so 'honestly'.. the cops coming to shoo them away, all the kids running for their lives through the slum 'gully's and rooftops. The background music that is playing during this song is amazing. I got home and immediately downloaded the soundtrack of the movie. I marvel the way they shot the chases so smoothly through the slums. And after all that, it was all really beautiful too.

All the scenes in even the dirtiest, grittiest places, the mumbai slums, red light area, shores of the Yamuna river in Agra etc. are so beautifully composed, that you are in awe of them at all times. The events in his life are the key to the answers to the questions on the show. But the first question, anybody could answer. And has a very perky light hearted story attached to it. Of how he got Amitabh Bacchan's autograph. The second one however, turns the movie right around, and you get to see the dark side of life. As his mother is killed by a mob of hindus in the communal riots.

Some things, having lived in India, and watching the news everyday, hearing the grown-ups talk, one just gets to know about the life of these kids in the slums and on the streets.. so when I saw a van with 'orphanage' written on it, I could predict where the movie was going. But I hope for people who didn't know this dark underbelly of Mumbai, this was a pretty involving twisted plot. I was really glad that Salim does the right thing and they make a run for it, to escape the people from the orphanage who were making them beg for money.

And the rollercoaster ride continues, the movie takes an upbeat pace again. With M.I.A. song 'Paper Planes' playing while the kids earn money hawking stuff in the trains, travelling on the train tops, between two compartments, etc. The scene where they try to steal passenger's food is hilarious yet scary. Then they are in Agra, posing as tourist guides. Again, I believe people who don't know the history of Taj Mahal missed out on a few laugh out loud moments as Jamal screws up and tells the foreign tourists fake stories about Taj Mahal and everything related to it. You don't feel anything's wrong even when the kids are shown stealing money, or back in mumbai now, working at a hotel, re-sealing mineral water bottles..

At one point, I actually felt that the life of these kids is SO BADASS! I wished I had a childhood like that. Because even though they did get into a little bit of trouble, they always came around. They drink, they walk into a red light area, they rescue their old friend Latika... but here comes the disturbing part again.. Elder brother Salim is carrying a gun. And he shoots the orphanage owner! Then meets up with the gangster/don of their slum. I guess we all knew the big brother was the type.

Here on, the movie doesn't hit you in the face as much.. Because no more slum shots, Jamal is working in a call center, his brother is a rich gangster, And Latika lives in a nice house with the Gangster of the slum(I can't remember his name) He goes to meet her, and sees her condition, here is when the movie takes a little romantic turn. Jamal finally tells Latika he loves her. The scenes in VT again bring back the little hustle and bustle and life of mumbai back into the film.

We also see in the later half how the host himself gives Jamal an answer, but his guts tell him to not to listen to the host. And he answers the question correctly. That's what drives Anil kapoor to turn him in to the cops. The news channels are buzzing about this. And all of India is shown glued to their tv sets.. I remember it really used to be like that back when KBC first came on air. Because the biggest prize in 'Kaun Banega Cororepati' is the highest prize in the world in terms of standard of living. The difference from living in a slum to winning 2 crore rupees, is unfathomable!

Okay, enough disclosing the plot of the movie. I will just say, that in the end, there's finally a bollywood style song and dance sequence with the credits. Done very 70's bollywood movie style. I stayed and watched that even though I had to pee really bad. Final verdict, ***** 5 stars! Awesome movie! I love how the slums are portrayed as a very energetic, lively place instead of how people would generally look at it with pity and sorrow.

Some people Clearly have trouble understanding wall-E

The following is a comment meant for Aayush's blog post. He said Wall-E was a pretty disappointing movie and I was outraged. I typed out this whole thing without even blinking an eye(Figuratively speaking). But his annoying comments form wouldn't let me publish it because now for about 6 times, it think that the word verification I typed is incorrect. So I say 'fuck you image verification.' I have my own place to voice my opinion and I will publish it there.

Dear Friend Aayush,

I don't know whether I should laugh and snicker or blow up with rage! I mean, I would love to say 'I told you so' about pixar not being the best at making animated movies but this is definitely one of their better movies. (Cars was one of their less than stellar movies.)

Let's see the 'other aspects' you mentioned.
The story: A completely new and original plot. Unlike the obviously cliché'd Cars story. (Actually I read the story pretty closely resembles Doc Hollywood) How do you not appreciate the creativity and imagination that went into conceiving a plot about how the human race ended up in space and a ROBOT of all things comes to the rescue while fighting another robot/computer?

Characters: Wall-E himself is one of the best characters ever conceived. He is not shallow and one dimensional. He has a very enchanting personality. And other characters also come into their own as the movie progresses. Have you seen the short Burn-E? Even that robot has a personality, he feels disappointment, shame, failure,motivation... I could go on.

Acting: are you blind? Wall-E's performance is the best ever, bar none. R2D2, ET, and numerous other robots and alien characters that I can't even name right now.

Dialogue: sure it didn't have much literal dialogues but the sounds the machines make, convey their emotions. Think back to the old charlie chaplin movies and try telling me movies have to have dialogues to be entertaining.

Agreed Ratatouille had the best 'character animation' in any movie to date. But this movie had a different set of physics to play with.. Humans were fat and jelataneous in this movie and the rest were robots who were not meant to be very elaborate machines, just functional. Similarly, the universe of cars was very different. you can't compare them to each other.

101 Dalmatians

I am not sure if the name of the movie was spelled that way...with an 'a' instead of 'o' in dalmations, but the spell checker says dalmatians is the right spelling. Anyways, you can all go ahead and say 'God! yash, you are so stupid.' So as soon as you're done with it, lets move on. Yesterday, as I was working on my room drawing, Mickey was watching like parts and clips from old disney classics. Animated movies like The great mouse detective and 101 Dalmatians. I was pretty intrigued and very distracted... but I think it was a good thing.

Because in the night, after I had done dinner and was too lazy to draw, we decided to watch a movie, and I suggested lets continue watching that movie. And I was so impressed that I decided to blog my thoughts about it. Plus, its a nice change from blogging about Taare zameen par. But before I get going about the animated 101 dalmatians, I'd like to tell you about a funny incident that happened a few years go when the live action 101 dalmatians movie was released. I was in seoni, during the summer vacations and we decided to get a movie to watch. I think it was me and harsh who went, and got 101 dalmations. When we got back home, we told nikita we were gonna watch 101 dalmatians and asked her to call ruchi didi while we set up the video cd player and stuff downstairs.

She went and told ruchi didi but when they came downstairs, ruchi didi looked really confused. She asked me 'what movie did you get?' I looked at her confused and said '101 dalmatians, you know, like the breed of dog...' She laughed and said "Nikita told me you guys got 101 dimensions. And I was not really sure what its about.. Because I started thinking dimensions like 2D or 3D? But there are only 3 dimensions.. what does the title mean? maybe dimensions like measurements?" And even I started laughing... much to the embarassment of nikita. I'm pretty sure that now she can look back and laugh at it.. like I can laugh at 'kisne roba mera tobat'

The animated feature was much different than the live action movie. I really liked how the dog refers to the human as his pet. Which I think is pretty appropriate. I bet this point has been made a lot of times... Humans picking up the dog's business, humans feeding the dogs, washing them, grooming them... doesn't sound like we're the masters... LOL. Anyways... I really liked the seargent and captain and kernel characters too. The scene where the puppies are walking over ice, is pure genius! The way they are slipping and skidding on the ice is so natural and believable. Plus, all the puppies have a different action. It doesn't look like they cut corners and repeated the same action or animation at places. They look SO SUPER CUTE! I wish I could pull off something like that someday.

I know a couple friends who haven't seen it, and because mickey gave me the movie, I can show it to them too. Everyone must watch it! Oh! And before I close, I'd like to say I did look into the spelling of dalmatians, and the correct spelling IS the one with 'a'. That's because the breed of dog is believed to have originated in 'Dalmatia' in the 18th century. Hmm... I'd never even heard of a country by that name... 

solomon island story is fake?

After that awful movie review to close the last year, I am really happy that this year is starting off with a movie such as Taare Zameen Par. I actually watched it before 31st, but this is what's going to impact the rest of my year. The movies that are gonna come next are gonna be invariably compared to this one. And the opinion of that movie is gonna be affected by the same thing. 

This movie is brilliant in every way! Remember I was pissed about the child actor performance in the last movie? In this one, within 10 minutes of the movie, I was like "give this kid every friggin award in the world!" Darsheel kinda looks like my cousin sagar... ahem... yeah, I had to mention that. His is the part that could make or break the movie. And for that, i must congratulate the person in charge of the casting. But I can't say I'm equally happy about his brother. LOL. I started hating his guts the moment he comes in the house saying "sab subjects mein FIRST MOM!.." ("I'm first in every subject! mom!") Or maybe its just my eternal hatred for geeks! Or bullys... the kid who gets into a fight with Ishaan.. He keeps repeating the same thing... Ah! who cares. he was there for hardly a minute. 

I could really relate to the story and the character. Infact, I couldn't have stopped laughing if my dad accidentally hit mom while threatening me. That scene was Hilarious! The immediate laugh was perfectly timed. But wait, there's a moment... if you have the movie, watch the scene before he swings... The mom looks at his hand for a split second with a scared look. Hilarious I say! I used to just sit with my glass of milk for really really long and just not drink it. I would be getting ready for school, put on one sock, and just forget everything and sit with the other in my hand until mom prompts "Kiska intezaar kar raha hai? Kya soch raha hai? Moja pehnu ke nahi pehnu?"(What are you contemplating? 'whether to wear the sock or not' ? ) I was always and I stress ALWAYS, looking outside the classroom. LOL...Doing animal noises... ahem.. lets not get into how bad a student I really was.

The special effects meant to show the things he imagines like in the song Lage raho and Bheja Kum are really amazing. Even the animation in the title and when he's doing the math test are really well done. I wasn't really expecting to see those things in the movie. They were a pleasant surprise. The alphabet spider that he smashes leaves behind white goo like a real one would. The animation is very lively and expressive. Which is also because of the awesome voiceover by Darsheel. 

The teachers are really well portrayed. They are very believable. Infact, so believable, that I could even name what film teachers look like which real teacher I've had. The habits, the traits of the teachers' personalities are not just stereotypical, but real. Even the parents, and their mentality of saying whatever the teachers say too far is sadly, true. If only parents would not start yelling "so you're saying my child is a RETARD!" at every little thing, the situation would be much better off....for everyone. Even my dad would threaten me that he'd send me to a boarding school if I didn't study/behave.... Oh! there I go again, comparing myself to the movie... I think that's because a big part of the movie plays on making you feel the kid's plight, making you feel as if you're in his place, see the things going on from his perspective... And it wouldn't have been this way had it not been for the amazing direction.

One thing that bugged me was the story of solomon islands. I paused the movie where he mentioned that, and went googling for that. I tried every possible search term. Even researched over dyslexia. But nothing! Its not so much that they lied in the movie... Its that if someone were to tell me something like that, I would not immediately believe it or even consider his point.. I would ask for proof that this thing is real. I would not fall for it like Ishaan's dad did. But I say, it is possible that the trees die out from the 'bad sound/noise'. (The movie mentions that to clear a land for farming, the tribals would just gather around a tree/forest and curse it, say bad demeaning words to it and eventually, the tree would wither away) I had learned in moral science (those not familiar with the indian education system will find this weird) class that, plants that are exposed to sweet music grow better than the plants that are kept in silence. I even remember that little illustration in the book of a flower gyrating to music playing on a walkman... So I guess the opposite would work too...

The other problem I had with the movie was I wished it didn't end. I wanted it to go on and on. I was enjoying it SO much that I didn't want to go back to my boring lonely pathetic life. But there are many other real reasons to keep the movie going.... We didn't really see Ishaan's progress in tests, exams, and his graduation from being a sad loner to a friendly outgoing kid. I didn't think Amir Khan got enough credit for what he did. There could have been more instances of the dad or mom talking to Amir khan, and...I don't know... talk about dyslexia or something... like say... Ishaan's progress! I wonder what kind of parents are they who never come up to check on the condition of their kid throughout the semester.. only come at the end! Plus, the movie wasn't 3 hour long.. which usually is the length of hindi movies.... hehe..

Anyways, I feel everyone should watch this movie. If you can't understand hindi, get it with SUBTITLES! Don't get a dubbed version. Because the original voice and the emotion in the voice is really crucial, and the dubbed voice may not be able to carry that across. On a lighter note, I feel that now on, every kid will start trying to take advantage of this knowledge of a 'learning disability'... Kids will just start saying "teacher the words are dancing" or start writing invertes S and expect to be let go. Yeah.. kinda like that episode of south park... LOL. Anyways. Have a positive outlook and always look up in the new year!

I am SO going to regret these two hours of my life!

Today, I downloaded and started to watch 'my friend Ganesh' the movie. 3 minutes into it, I realized I couldn't sit through it! I knew I was gonna regret the next two hours of my life I was to spend watching this dumb Indian live action-animated indian movie. I don't think anyone over the age of 6 years could enjoy this movie. ok, at least humor me here. I remember when I was 7, I was in he 2nd grade and wasn't entertained by such mediocrity. But if today's kids in school are into this, I really doubt India's future. LOL ok, ok, just kidding...

I did spot the imac computer in their home ;) nice! Ok, back to the topic - the movie! The moment she entered, I knew the 'gangu tai' character was gonna be a very silly, slapstick one. And how dumb do the parents have to be to send their kid to the school with the gawar 'bai'! The stupid sequence in the kid's school was SO lame! I would rather watch tom and jerry or looney toones. Also, out of almost a billion people, they couldn't find ONE other decent actor? Wait... do they even need to act? Kids tease other kids naturally right? I guess I'm just pissed that harry potter guys have the best child actors, but we don't. Anyone else WITH me here?

The advisor who comes into his office with the proposal, WHAT THE HELL IS UP WITH HIS ACCENT? I've been in mumbai, and I NEVER met anyone who speaks like that! Now, the story -  When I saw it was raining, I figured  story would go something like the kids get trapped in traffic due to the heavy rain, like the flash flood that happened in mumbai a couple years go. And then it would be his journey back home filled with adventures and trials and tribulations, and he makes new friends (including ganesh) and end of story! I would have LOVED THAT! because its more fast paced, more EXCITING, and would obviously make more sense than him going out and putting a rat in a bucket! with water!....Ok, even if he makes little holes for the water to get out, the mouse is TRAPPED!

Now lets get to the animation part. And that's about all I want to deal with. You know... there's only so much beating one little movie can take. haha...Now, in the title sequence itself, Ganesh stood out as the worst animated character! maybe even worst drawn... But the mouse was REALLY good. probably because they've had a lot of reference mouse animation to look at in the past. haha! The lipsync is SUPER AWFUL! I'd say tenali raman, a TV show had better lipsync than this. But because obviously, it was dubbed into multiple languages, your milage may vary depending on which version you saw. Ok, forget the dialogs... even the loud evil laugh wasn't very convincing. Not talking about exaggerating it to very cartoony levels for a human character, but I know humans can have more powerful laugh than what was in the movie. I just think the animators got LAZY!

So just 40 minutes into the movie, I say I can't take it anymore. utter rubbish! TRASH!

Chaddi pehen ke phool khila hai

I was just watching the japanese anime tv show based on the jungle book, that used to be telecasted on the indian channel doordarshan in the early 1990s. And besides being really nostalgic, I was also going 'man! I've heard those voices at a lot of other places for sure.' But the first actor I could recognize was nana patekar as sher khan. I confirmed that by going online and searching for sher khan jungle book nana patekar on google. But I wasn't satisfied there. I wanted to know about the other voice actors too.

I googled the names in the end credits, and was led to the IMDB pages of those actors....most of the actors. You also have to consider that those people might not be spelling their names in the same way I decided to spell them in english, because the names in the credits are in hindi/devnagri script. So here's the list, of all the people I could find, the same order as in the credits.

Deepa Sahi - IMDB

Virendra Saxena - Veerendra saxena IMDB

Uday Sabnis - IMDB page

Vinod Kulkarni - only two movies...

Surf's up review

I believe I'm taking a big risk by posting this review here, as my art of cinema teacher is strictly against plagiarism and if she ends up searching my submission on the internet, and finding this, I'm gona have to explain to her that the blog is mine in the first place. LOL. But, it was just such a great movie, that I can't help myself. So here goes!

The CG animated movie surf's up, is a mocumentary. Probably the first ever animated one. The film crew follows the journey of Shiverpool resident penguin Cody maverick(voiced by Shia Lebouf...hope I spelled it right) from his home, to the town of pen-gu and through the 'Big Z memorial surfing contest'. They take interviews with other people like his mother and his brother, some elders of shiverpool, kids on the beach and so on. And as obvious, the camera crew follows all the other characters involved capturing all kinds of antics.

The Movie starts off with a old film footage(obviously staged... need I remind you this is a FAKE documentary?) of the surfing legend, big Z(voiced by Jeff bridges) during his heydays.

damn! this post has been in the drafts for so long.. I don't even remember the art of cinema class.. and I am not in a mood to finish the article off now.. still, I'm just gonna publish it.

Shrek 3 was a gut buster!

I was planning to go see it on Monday, but I was talking to mickey on friday and he said he's going to Toronto tomorrow and will go see Shrek 3, so I shamelessly tagged myself along. We had lunch, then were window shopping around the scotiabank theater for a while, and got back to the cineplex at around 3:10 to be able to grab good seats before they were all taken. Then we waited. The movie didn't start until 20 minutes after it was supposed to!

Spoiler alert.

I don't think I need to go through the whole story, as you might already have heard that elsewhere. What I would like to get u excited about is probably something u didn't foresee. You all know that scene from the trailers where shrek gets puked upon by a creature in a pram... That pram has an ogre baby. Yeah! That was the potential spoiler. Fiona tels shrek that she's pregnant and that he's about to become a father. And as you'd expect, shrek is not ready. yeah yeah, the typical concern, whether I will be a good father for my children or not... but in his case, its different because he's an ogre. He is worried his kids will be ashamed of calling an ogre their father. I really felt for that poor guy in the particular sequence where he's talking to donkey about it.

Oh, almost forgot, before this talk, there is a nightmare sequence which involves hundreds and thousands of little ogre babies just gushing into his house. It starts off with the one in the pram. And lemme tell you, he's really CUTE. they did a really nice job on the character design and modeling. Then there are 3..5..8...15... and so on. They are destroying the house, getting themselves into trouble and all that. Kinda reminds me of the tom and jerry episode where tom is baby sitting a baby. LOL. Then the number just 'explodes'! They are coming in from the windows, the door, chimney(huh?) etc. I wonder how much computing was required for rendering that crowd of detailed babies. Great job there!

Then the puss and donkey being changed into each other is just a gimmick and lends itself to a few gags in the movie, but it doesn't have any solid purpose like donkey turning into a steed in the second movie. But it can easily be ignored. The rest of the movie is really funny. I was laughing from the first scene to the last dance sequence. Even the death of the frog kind sequence was comic! Other sequences that I really liked include the fateful events that happen on th day shrek and Fiona are filling in for the kind and queen. Some of them you've seen on the tv, but there is a big shot that they are keeping reserved for the movie only. so don't miss it, GO WATCH IT!

Hoodwinked

Before you go on & read my post I want to direct you to this blog It's a review of Disney's meet the Robinsons I would totally love to know what you thought of it. I was just shocked to know that there are people like him who could hate Disney animation so much. I being the animation aspirant that I am, thought I could never hate any animation that is, until I saw hoodwinked. I had heard about how bad this movie is from some people before, but was doubtful about whether I would end up thinking the same way too. But I recently discovered, how sub standard the movie really is. The animation and rendering is so 'low budget'. I was told that its an indian production but I believe Mickey meant that some parts of its work were outsourced to India. The story is nothing like an Indian could ever come up with. But well, at some points I did feel like the movie was a bollywood production!

The little red riding hood character was very poorly done. I can't imagine what the makers had in mind for her... She acts like a teenager but she doesn't look like a teenager at all. And the scenes between her and her grandmom were plain pain in the ass. They tried to have the emotional aspect to it that many Disney movies have but it just wasn't done good enough so it ended up being plain sloppy. Then the song sequences. Even they were just as irritating as bollywood song and dance sequences. I wished they had just kept away from all that. In comparison to that, the other part of the movie was way better.

The best character was the goat who could change horns. Nice, perky, awesome design and thought. I also liked the song he sings. If at all, you end up with a copy of the movie, just watch it for the goat part. He's awesome! the rest, was plain boring... come to think of it, the goat part was the thing that made me not HATE the movie. Hate is too harsh a word. I just didn't like the rest of the movie is enough.

Thoughts about TMNT

I watched the movie in famous players Mississauga the day before yesterday and I thought it was pretty cool! Even though its a studio which I had never heard of before, that's nothing to fret about. The guys at IMAGI studios have done a damn good job! The environment looks very real in places and parts. I'd say even better than 300! The turtles are so detailed, especially during the fight sequence between...(oh I guess I shouldn't mention that...it'll be a spoiler..well, there are more to come in the latter part of the post so I wouldn't recommend reading it unless you hve seen the movie or are prepared to know the story beforehand) So, that brings me to the fight sequences.. so amazingly done. The action really makes your adrenaline pump hard. I was at the edge of my seat when the turtles were kicking butt! Oh, not only the turtles, the human characters April and KC too were amazing. I liked the ninja female... HOT! hehe...

Oh well, the story? I couldn't exactly get the part in the beginning where they are explaining that the general opened a portal to another dimension and thus 13 monsters were released into this world. Also, his brothers were turned into stone and he was immortalized. (spoiler alert!)He lived on through the ages and is now preparing to capture the 13 monsters and send them back to the other dimension, break the curse and finally, DIE! so you might want to know that before you enter he theaters or else you could be scratching your head halfway through the movie too. Well, I only have one thing to point out, if the monsters had been plaguing the world since 3000 years, why didn't we ever see them before? But I'm ok living with that since it was such a rocking movie.

Oh ya, that reminds me, the music is amazing too. I'll be getting the soundtrack soon. I'll leave ya with this teaser trailer. A better trailer is at the TMNT website TMNT.warnerbros.com have fun!

300 Accoding to yash

I just don't know where to begin. There are just so many people voicing their opinions about the movie and so many different opinions on it that its not easy to be original. I am trying to think what are people who are reading this, trying to get from this.. But me being an aspiring animator and also knowing a lot about sfx, I am basically gonna be looking at the technical/visual aspects. Also, the thing that I heard last night in the 4th year animation studio is gonna help me guide myself through this.

So, lets begin. I will start with what's most obvious first. The film employs a lot of use of the particle system. With the start of the movie, you see extravagant and totally 'out there' depiction of snowfall. Its moving even when the rest of the frame is still. Nothing could make it look more fake. No hint of any attempt at simulating it to look natural. The film makers wanted it that way. Maybe to keep it easy for the sfx team. Yes, there are a lot of cutting corners. And by the way, whatever I just said about snow, also goes for the fire thingys. the little sparks.. I am not exactly sure if that's the accurate word for it. Flares? fiery specks? Oh well, never mind.

Next thing I'm gonna talk about is in the movie logo too, perhaps you have noticed it. (if you're not colour blind that is!) I'm talking about the blood splatter! There's just so much splatter when they're in combat, cutting people's limbs and heads but I didn't see that much blood actually flowing or accumulated anywhere. When you say bloodbath, you expect to see people covered with blood but that was hardly the case. People with arrows through their bodies or stuff are totally clean and the wounds surprisingly don't seem to be bleeding at all! In almost every scene, the backdrop or the ground is totally clear of any blood. What the heck?!!!

I suppose there's just one more thing to say, The backgrounds. In certain scenes, they actually had depth to them and had depth and were awesome! But in other places, there just didn't seem to be any connection of the background to the actors and people. One case in point, a scene where the kind is giving a speech...(yeah right that's so exact!) oh, well, I don't remember what he's saying in that particlar scene, but the camera pans with him and one part is a blue stone wall and the other, you see the orange sky. THAT particular sky looked as it it was painted and put back there. There was no suggestion by means of the lighting on the king or the army there that said that they're in the same place. Now if you get what I mean and agree, well and good. If you don't, I don't give a damn so don't comment.

Open season Review

Thanks tracey for showing interest in the movie review, but unfortunately, when I visited the multiplex, I found out they had stopped screening the ant bully. But they were showing "Open season" instead. Now I had seen the promo and was equally excited about this movie too. so me and my friend decided to go watch that.

The movie start was very unusual. Unusual in a funny way. The bear(Boog voiced by Martin Lawrence) is shown as a jolly happy go lucky guy living out his life in the city with the park ranger (Beth voiced by Debra Messing) who has domesticated him since the time he was a little cub. But he runs into a deer (Elliot voiced by Ashton Kutcher) and helps him escape from the mullet-sporting hunter (Shaw voiced by Gary Sinise) And thats where it all goes haywire.

Elliot turns up at boog`s house and persuades him into going outside. They go and wreck a store that night and Boog gets busted leading people to believe that he`s gone wild. That belief is further confirmed when at his show, Elliot turns up and as he tries to get rid of Elliot, The crowd sees a totally different thing happening through the curtain. This misunderstanding leads Beth to be compelled to leave Boog in the forest again.

The story takes various twists and turns from there which are best enjoyed first hand. Thats why I wont be mentioning that here. The movie really gets captivating here onwards. All the voices are very well done. The animation is top noch, specially Boog`s fur. Some animals are rather cartoony, like the duck for instance, but is totally enjoyable for all age groups. A must watch movie which I`d recommend to every animation fan and others. GO WATCH IT!

Gonna watch The ant Bully!

(I have always experienced, that if I press preview before publishing my post in which I have embedded youtube.com video, it displays some error. if you experience the same thing, let me know plz)

I was really really excited about going to see this movie. But pranav had said 'no' in college. Thats because he had some other stuff to do. But I told him I felt I`m never gonna get to see this movie in theater. (because when you move up in life, you never wanna go back to the way things were in the 'miserable' time of your life.) I have stopped going to movies alone since I found pranav to go to movies with me. And if he didnt find time in his schedule, I am doomed to a life of my pc and dvds. Plus I couldnt possibly handle the "MORE" waiting time of the dvd release or the download time...which I know would be totally wrong!

The excitement levels are back up again as he has said yes and I`m going to go see this movie in 2 hours. I`ve heard its great from arjun bhaiya and I know he`s almost never wrong about movies. I`ll try to write a review when I`m back.