Featured Pleasures

It's a relief! Tiring week that. After coming through unscathed with a few scars, it remains to be seen if things go to plan. You know the kind of plans people make during extremely busy periods for the good times that are just round the corner? The things students say while preparing for their semester exams, that they will do in the summer break. The kind of a perfect world they paint in their minds... the books they will catch up on, the movies they will watch, the new instrument they will learn... pretty picture indeed. Only for the said break to come and sleep to take over the canvas.

But hell, we still love painting in our minds don't we? Not very different from our rock star alter egos in the shower. Just that, yours truly decides to document them in this post. So like most real graduate student life goes, in a heavily cash strapped first semester, a daily $4 meal might be viewed as better investment than a trip to either a cinema hall or a barber shop. Monetary reasons apart, there really weren't good movies that I could look forward to last sem. The next couple of months at least gives me some hope. There are at least three movies that I would want to watch in the not to distant future and I wish you might also want to check them out.

300.

Releasing this Friday, I have a lot of expectations from this movie. Partly because I've read the graphic novel it's based on (it is supposedly a shot by shot version of the Frank Miller classic), partly because I've heard some good buzz about how it is actually well adapted. In case you didn't know, it is Miller's take on the Battle of Thermopylae fought between the Spartans, led by King Leonidas, and Xerxes' Persian hordes. The graphic novel itself is inspired by the 1962 film, The 300 Spartans. Interesting also because, unlike Sin City, the novel is rich in color with some really good artwork (I admit I am a novice as far as recognizing good artwork goes, but sometimes it is hard to ignore good sketches. Like Spider Jerusalem lighting up in Warren Ellis' Transmetropolitan. By the way, if you ever come across those novels dive straight in. You will thank me. I haven't seen such style in a comic book before!)

TMNT

Sorry, but some habits die hard. The child in me would still love Michaleangelo's 'Cowabunga', the sight of the grossly disgusting Krang, the absolute incompetence buffoonery of Rocksteady and Bebop and the staid seriousness of Splinter. Oh yes, I needed a pizza after every episode of the TMNT cartoon series. I believe the movie is more based on the Manga series than the cartoon, so here's hoping something like a Batman Begins rather than the joke that were the other ones.

Grindhouse

I've never been an absolute head-over-heels fan of Quentin Tarantino unlike some of the people I know. Yes, he is good, and I liked Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, but the Kill Bills were a bit over the top as far as indulgences go. Nonetheless this is not one movie - as the trailer says in a rather desi way, "Two movies for the price of one!" - but two back to back movies! The first one being 'Planet Terror' directed by QT's best bud, Robert Rodriquez and the second one being 'Death Proof'. In between the two movies will be short trailers showing some fake movie trailers. The movie promises the usual from a QT or an RR movie, loads of style, lots of gore, tons of wit and references to some genre of film. This time it is the ghetto/zombie style, more like those B, C or Z grade movies you get to watch in those mold infested theaters in the ghettos that show extreme gore and sex. In fact that is the definition of Grindhouse. Apparently they want to bring that genre to the mainstream. Tell that to stalwarts like Kanti Shah (of Gunda fame). Do you really want IMDB links to Gunda?

Anyway, my picture is painted pretty well (I can see a certain Spiderman 3 crawl in too) for the foreseeable future. Till then watch these trailers from Grindhouse. They are really good. The first one I guess, shows fake trailers of some movie called Machete (that might be shown in the movie). Enjaai!

[Warning: Not explicit but lot of gore. Actually, it isn't even all that gory... just my duty to warn the huge number of people who frequent this blog anyway]