The Dark Knight Rises

There is no secret that I am a big fan of Batman and the latest series of the Christoper Nolan. And if there is one day I want to come soon in 2012, it will be July 20th, 2012. The final part of the movie going to get released on that day.

Trailer of the movie was released on 16th December 2011 along with MI: Ghost Protocol. One word about the trailer: FANTASTIC.

Here’s my version of what the story might be after watching the teaser and the trailer:

The story seems to be picking up after 8 years from the ending of ‘The Dark Knight’ and now Bane (Villain) trying to unleash his own form of terrorism in Gotham city. With Batman fell out of favor of public of Gotham after taking up the blame for killing of 5 police officers, Bruce Wayne was reluctant to take up Batman suit. On Gordon’s request he comes back as Batman but gets badly punished by Bane and gets locked up in some prison. There he tries to gain strength by training again and faces Bane to save Gotham to fall again into mayhem. THE DARK KNIGHT RISES.

On first impression Bane looks so imposing with all those stuffs on the head. Its really frightening and standing before him batman looks like a kid. Its like Bane taking all the calculated steps and Batman just reacts. Batman seems to get some serious kicking and all I hope is, they don’t kill him as part of EPIC conclusion. It would be really sad. But knowing Nolan’s way of film making anything is possible.

Well, these days only past time of mine is watching this trailer as many times as possible. I will update once I find anything new in that

Club football

The thought is always with me, how a person from some other region can love a football club? Or for that matter any region-based clubs? Our own country – understandable. Our own state – understandable. But to love a club which is not originated from your locality? It’s located somewhere which you never visited in your life.Something you didn’t even imagined?

Whether I love any football or interested in watching any club based football match?

If you have asked the above question last year I would have said, ‘R u mad? How one can love a club? Whats there in it to love? We never knew about it. The players are not somebody we know. They don’t even belong to that country. So I can’t watch it on that basis.

Players? Players from different countries play together and they change from one season to another. This option also goes out. Then for what reason I can watch it?

Pure entertainment? Without taking sides I can never enjoy a match. There you go. There is no reason for me to watch club football matches’

But lot of things were changed in the last 6 months with me following English Premier League as much as I can. Its all happened when I started watching this year’s Copa America, a tournament which is competed by South American countries. I usually watch the country-based football matches. During last year’s world cup I found the website goal.com to follow the live action in text. As the whole world is playing football there were no news related to clubs. But this year there were news about the transfers happening in them and I developed some interest in it.

For some reasons which can’t be explained, I started following the English club Liverpool. I just had a feel for them. One of the greatest comebacks in Liverpool’s and Football’s history was their win against AC Milan in 2005 champions league final. They came back from 3-0 and won it in penalties. And there was some great feeling when I watch the below video where the commentator say @ 5:35 minutes ‘40, 000 Liverpool fans hold their breath inside here and hundreds of thousands hold their breath at Merseyside‘.[Click on the link to go directly to that part].

And since then I have seen most of their matches. Also I am sure there is no news I left unread about them. This experience is really rewarding with me knowing the nuances of football more. I am watching many more matches of Champions league, Spanish league and what not. I love this very much as I am able to get to know lot of great clubs, their histories and also many, many players.

I will update my thoughts on matches I watch here

Here are some of the finest goals and assists I have watched over 6 months:

Messi’s one great pass [MUST WATCH]

Goal from Messi in the same match – GENIUS

Larsson’s Kick – WONDERFULLY HIT

http://www.goalsarena.org/video/england-barclays-premier-league/13-08-2011-liverpool-sunderland_en.html

Fletcher’s goal – WELL EXECUTED

[LINK]

Suarez’s great curler:

7am arivu – [2011] – Tamil

Note: I went 10 minutes late for the movie, so my comments are for the remaining parts.

Bodhidharma…

Genetic engineering…

DNA memory…

Operation Red…

Well, these are the terms used to elevate the expectations of the viewer whose expectations already high for a movie which is directed by A.R.Murugadoss, who is yet to deliver a flop in the eye of box office and a bad movie in the eye of critics and have Suriya in lead role, who is the only star soaring high with each of his new releases in the last few years.

Beautifully designed title. It only raised my interest in the movie.

5th- 6th Century A.D.

Bodhidharma was a prince in Pallava kingdom, well versed with one of the oldest Indian martial art Kalaripayathu and also in medicine. On his mother’s wishes he travels to China where he cures an incurable disease with his medical skills and also saves the people when attacked by people from other regions with his martial art skills. He also teaches those people the skills he possesses. On their request, he dies in China itself which is against his wishes of travelling back to visit India.

Cut to present.

Subha Srinivasan… A genetic engineering student who believes the skills and talents possessed by a person will be transferred through DNA, generations after generations and when stimulated we can bring those skills to present. She takes Bodhidharma as the person to bring back those skills.

Aravindan… A circus artist who fells in love with Subha.

Dong Lee… A Chinese hitman who trained excellently in Martial arts and hypnotism. He is sent to India to introduce bio-war and also to kill Subha to  prevent her from bringing back the Bodhidharma’s skills.

The film then answers the questions…

• Did Subha able to bring back Bodhidharma? Or Dong Lee gets ahead of her?
• Did Bio war is introduced?
• Did India able to face the Bio-war situation?

With an interesting plot and interesting questions, all we get was, a movie which was less entertaining and less inspiring. The movie was for sure runs well without pushing us to boredom but the end product was just not memorable.

Suriya for once was not at the forefront of things happening in 7-am arivu. His role is more subdued as Aravindan. Its an effective performance from him. But he can reduce his showing of bare body acts. Shruthi Haasan has done her role well but her Tamil makes it look like somebody dubbed for a Hollywood movie. Dong Lee got the most powerful role in movie he did very well striking fears in audiences mind.

Cinematography could have been surely better with none of the scene created a WOW factor in mind. Music from Harris Jayaraj was a complete let down. Only ‘Yamma yamma’ is good due to the voice of SPB. Other song which goes well with movie is ‘Innum enna Thozha’. Background score was nothing short of horrible.

Murugadoss should be lauded for his effort on reminding our glorious past and also pointing out our mistake of forgetting it. But he did missed the mark the below mentioned things:

• The opening sequences of Bodhidharma are shot well but lacks in depth. It looked like some scenes were inserted just to show his prowess in medicine and martial skills. And then there is no concrete reason why Bodhidharma dies at their request there itself. Is he developed such bond with those people? If so, it is not evident in the movie.
• Dong Lee kills every person he meets on screen and most of them were policemen. But no action is taken against him by Police and they are not even searching him. Quite laughable.
• Climax could have been surely better as it is at the most predictable best.
• There are sequences in the movie which tells about the greatness of Tamil language and Tamil ancestors which are true but when it is explained by the broken Tamil of Shruthi Haasan it didn’t created an impact in me.
• Director says that we forgotten our Tamil ancestors. But he could have chosen a better person than Bodhidharma who certainly spent his fruitful years in China. In my eye, he was a NRI who got his education here and servicing his skills at foreign land. All the skills were taught to Chinese people. When he questions the people in India about Bodhidharma and they didn’t know about that, is not something to be ashamed of, I felt.

In this internet age, the information provided by the director should be accurate. But the details provided on screen about Bodhidharma was not true except he traveled to China. Others were just the theories made up. With a complete inaccurate depiction, Murugadoss lets himself down along with the movie.

7-am Arivu – It won’t be remade in Hindi.

Trailer (Which promised much):

From the point of no return

Well, that’s what I thought when I started to think of blogging again as the days turned into weeks, which in turn turned into months. There used to be a time when I used to write 2 or 3 posts at a stretch and schedule them. I am crazy at that time. Every other day I used to post. I couldn’t believe its been over 3 months since I posted something and in this whole year I have posted only 11 posts 11 in 10 posts. Quite a pathetic number

Before getting into what all happened with me over these months, let me say to myself, ‘let me be aware things happening around. Let me have enough sense to comment about them.’

So that I can blog

What’s about my life story in the 3 months passed? It’s story didn’t even came close to a episode of MEGA serial There you go

Change during hibernation:

From a crazy cricket fan, I have become a equally, if not more, crazy football fan. You could have seen them in my FB posts. Football domination even in the sparsely status updates. I never thought I will love the club football but I am now addicted. No day goes without reading some dumb editorials from goal.com and I almost ignored cricinfo, where India’s loss or crushing loss made me to stay from it for quite sometime.

Worries during hibernation:

India’s test series whitewash to England. When the former England players said the same during the start of the series I laughed. I thought all it will take is 1 test to get acclimatize to the conditions. But I was proved wrong with Indian team hit new lows with every passing test from 2nd one. In T20 and one-dayers also we lost. But there are fine as we given some fight. But in tests just a meek surrender.

Happiness during hibernation:

1. Indian team is doing well against England in India. After the whitewash in England, the least I wanted is, a defeat to our team in our home. But glad, we are paying back in style. For once I feel deaf as I couldn’t hear the comments of Boycotts, Hussains on how pathetic Indian team is. Well, I think they can take care of their own business now.

2. My favorite actor Ajith was back with bang in Mankatha. Its an average film but with extraordinary villainy performance from Ajith with the mix of class and mass. Be its style, dance or acting he rocked. Loved his intro and dialogue delivery. Yuvan has delivered a theme which elevated even a ordinary scene to exciting levels. A sample below which has some slick editing work.

Funny moment during hibernation:

The planning commission’s evaluation of 32 rupees/day in cities and 26/day in villages is enough to lead a normal life and the people are not poor. What a joke!!! I don’t know whether they are fools or we are, for being managed by them. The best way to test the above evaluation would be to give the same amount to money to our dignified officers and ask them to live merrily.

Hoping to be regular here

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2

The first part movie of the Harry Potter and the deathly hallows exceeded my expectations and raised my expectation for the final movie a bit. Being a Potter fan, I decided to give it a shot on the opening show. Yes, I got to watch the movie by Thursday evening itself  Theater atmosphere is nothing short of festive minus 15 feet Harry Potter standing with garland around his neck For the first time I have seen lot of foreigners in the theater.

Now to the movie:

Earlier part ended with Harry, Ron and Hermione escaping with the help of Dobby and Lord Voldemort possessing the elder wand from Dumbledore’s tomb. The story continues from there with all the three goes on their mission of finding Horcruxes. Lord Voldemort with the collective strength of all his dark forces tries to find Harry Potter and kill him. As Harry, Ron and Hermione enters Hogwarts to find the remaining Horcruxes, Voldemort too reaches there summoning Harry which will result in no-harm to anybody else. But the Hogwarts professors helps Harry in search of Horcruxes stopping the Dark forces for some time. When Harry hears the truth through Snape’s memory its shocking and shattering not only to him and us also. Harry confronts Voldemort only to be…. Well enough of story.

What I liked:

• As with the case of first part, this time too the filmmakers largely stuck to the book avoiding the curses of the fans of the book And they have done very well by not dwelling into the past of Dumbledore which would have slowed down the movie very much.
• The casting is so perfect with all the lead characters giving consistent performances. For once Ralph Fiennes as Voldemort looked frightening. Alan Rickman as Snape for the first time in the movie series has given a weak performance. It maybe because of the kind of fast cut sequences he has involved.
• Each of the beloved characters of the book were given enough screen time, brought cheers from the crowd.
• First half of the movie was swiftly paced with no time to get breath. Very well written and brought on the screen.
• The visuals are anything but stunning. Usually Harry Potter movies are always a winner in technical terms and this time its no different. I loved the sequences where the protective charm was laid all over the Hogwarts castle and Snape’s disappearance while dueling with Minerva Mcgonagall.
• I liked the 3D effect of the movie but still would have liked to see in 2D.
• Another surprising thing is there at the end, which I never thought will be filmed. I loved it. Don’t want to reveal it here for first few weeks. Enjoy

What I didn’t like:

• First and foremost, the ineffectiveness with which Snape’s episode pictured. While reading book we will be moved by the bravery of the man but in movie it just passes us without affecting us. I may be partial but surely it didn’t had half the impact of the book. Considering it is the most important part of the book, it should have got same treatment of Dobby’s episode and ‘Tale of three brothers’ episode in first half.
• While the first half is well built with fast paced action, the climatic battle between Harry and Voldemort is not worth remembering. It could have pictured in a grand way.
• The battle of Hogwarts could have been paced better with the visual freedom they have.

Overall:

I liked the movie as it tried to stay true to the book and managed to bring in all the important characters of the book. Hagrid, Neville, Snape, and Mcgonagall all got cheered from the crowd. But the biggest cheer was reserved for Hogwarts castle. People loved to see it after a movie David Yates who brought the series down with those dumb adaptations of 5th and 6th book, redeemed himself with almost perfect ending. Take a bow!!!

Its quite sad that there won’t be anything I could expect more from Potter series, I just wish JKR writes something more about Voldemort’s schooling life and the fight between dark forces and order of the phoenix before the birth of Harry.

PS: Going to catch the movie again in biggest screen in Chennai. All excited again guys