“Oh Harry!”

Right. So I saw Harry Potter 5, and no, I didn’t take a pencil and a notepad with me, but I didn’t love the movie either. It was a midnight-er, as in a midnight show, a-weird-Dubai-“premiere” type of thing. Anyway, Romit was really excited and was hitting falsettos quite often. Tejas was there and Ali wasn’t. 3 girls accompanied us – woohoo, yeah? But two were out of place and made the third feel out of place, so you do the math.

Anyway, the movie was okay-ish. The script was poor and Emma Watson cannot act. Nor can Danny-boy. So if your leads are messed up, it is, in no way, going to be a good movie. Emma is supposed to be hot, or well “cute” and supposedly “smart” in her role, but here she is more like a blond-ish bimbo saying some cheap, corny lines. Very disappointed, Emma tut tut. I think it’s high time you learn from Megan (Fox, you can’t-relate-to people). Yes Radcliffe was better than before, but if his previous exploits were rated Z, his current one would be given an F- : an improvement; but still crappy. Rupert Grint is the savior, or well would have been the savior if he had more lines. Crappy acting, marred with major plot holes and pure ignorance, Harry Potter fans should be quite disappointed.

On the positive side, I loved the camera-work, and the cinematography was quite brilliant. Obviously, it was nothing compared to Transformers, but the Voldemort v/s Dumbeldore was beautifully done; props to the director on that.

So I’d say, watch HP5. Hell, watch it in the theatres! Not because it’s great, but because it’s Harry Potter. It’ll help you make conversation, and also gives you a fun topic to blog on.

Yeah, recently, this blog is more of a movie-review website than anything else, and I apologize to those readers that have still remained faithful. It’s just that there is so much going on at present, that I cannot choose something concrete enough to blog on, as in without sounding too cheesy or too melodramatic in my posts. Movie reviews seem safe. Or I’m just being lazy. No no, I have too much to do!

I am going to try and get back to reading HP6 now. I have restarted that darned book to get into the whole “Potter Mania” again. It’s just that I have been faithful to Rowling, and want to finish the saga with as much enthusiasm as I read HP1, i.e. continue to be faithful [hint hint]. Also, it could also be that I have forgotten most of what happened in the 6^th book, so I want to get a heads up before the 7^th one arrives. But that’s similar to the whole getting into the “Potter Mania” bit, yeah? Damn. “Whatever”.

Till more personal posts.

P.S. At least this update was faster than the earlier one.

by Anish Malpani

Transformation

Yes, I haven’t blogged in quite a while – a thousand apologies.

Yes, I said I would get back to you on the best-est film of the recent past “Transformers”, so here I am.

Yes, I have been a tad bit lazy with the blogging scene, and I am a little late with the “Transformers” review, but screw that.

Yes, here come a bunch load of “I”s.

I attended the midnight show at Al Ghurair with a few friends and Ali, the biggest Transformers fan ever [please contact me if you wish to contest that statement, seriously]. I made it a point to sit next to him to absorb all his enthusiasm and it paid of. I clapped for the movie, I clapped. It has been a while since I have really enjoyed enjoyed a movie, but “Transformers” changed all that. From the beginning to then end, you cannot take your eyes of the friggin’ screen. The movie draws you towards it like the legs of sexy lady. The humour, the direction, Megan Fox, the acting, the heart and the out-of-this-world cinematography will hit you so hard, that there is nothing else you can do but clap or stare in disbelief or stare in awe or act as if you have suddenly become the biggest “Transformers” fan in the world.

“Transformers” has set a new, as-tall-as-Burj-Dubai high standard of film-making; if not for film-making then definitely for special effects. The intricacy and the accuracy with which each frame is done is mind-blowing. 38 hours to do render each frame of CG – that itself says a ton. Hats off to Industrial Light & Magic for pulling off the near impossible. The way these Autobots and Decepticons transform is sublime. The sound effects and the animation is beautifully intertwined to pull off a magnificently pleasing look. How the bloody hell can you make robots lovable [besides cartoon/animation – that doesn’t count]?

The acting is decent too – Shia Labeouf, the lead guy, is funny and more importantly NOT annoying. The robot voiceovers are spot on and the evil, tiny spy Decepticon so cleverly crafted that I want to personally blow the beetles out of him. The only minor flaw that I can maybe point my dirty little finger on is the direction in some of the fight scenes. Mr Bay, a few long shots of these giant robots wouldn’t have done any harm.

A special paragraph must be devoted to Megan Fox. Megan Fox is pure hotness. Her heat blew the life out of me. She is beautiful and sexy. WOW! I would go watch the movie only for her! No seriously, Megan is the next, big thing. Okay well the next, petit, nice, hot, beautiful thing or woman to take Hollywood by storm. Screw Hollywood, the world! I can imagine Bin Ladin and crew enjoying her every move. Ahh Megan, if only every woman was like you. Piss off Ali.

However, everything wasn’t woo-hoo-haa-haa. The movie de-motivated me when it comes to film-making. It was so, so well made, as a film, that any budding film-maker would either be highly inspired or go how the hell can anyone pull that off? I am in the latter phase, maybe sometime later I’ll switch to the former. But for now, I really need to go watch this movie again, in the theatres, because it is a must.

P.S. Talking about “transformation”, life’s current transformation is finally sinking in. Shit. I will blog soon. Mother promise.
Also, Harry Potter 5 is next.

by Anish Malpani

Fantasticated!

Okay, this time there was no crazy build-up and there were no freaky-fun occurrences before we entered Cinestar Cinema 01 to watch Fantastic Four 2 – Rise Of The Silver Surfer on the fate-less 15^th night of June, apart from the race in which Tejas kicked our asses because he took a less crowded route. We had Rohit Kataky in our company, and his crazy-hippie appearance did turn a few heads towards us. We smuggled in some drinks that we had previously bought from Carrefour, and Romit was bamboozled when he found out that his 500 ml Coke was 2 dirhams compared to the 1 dirham that my 1500 ml Aquafina water cost. Also, Romit bought pop corn and almost missed the trailers – almost.

So basically, I am going to jump right into the “review”. Fantastical the Second is worth a watch! It’s much better than Spiderman 3 in the sense that it’s much shorter, more gripping, and more exciting. The action and the cinematography is as good as the Spidey flick if not better. Yes, there are a few corny dialogues, but it’s a superhero movie so that’s rather expected. The acting is okay. Jessica Alba is a Goddess dropped from the great heavens above. Truly, God bless you, and God, bless yourself too for creating Her. Also, the movie was genuinely funny at times. Silver Surfer is super-cool! Dr Von Doom is an idiot. The Human Torch kicks some real ass. Basically I really enjoyed it on the whole - a really good Superheroes flick to kick off the crazy block-buster-filled summer up ahead. Harry Potter 5, Transformers [ALI!], Shrek The Third, Ocean’s 13 and so on are all very exciting prospects.

Ooh, one to watch out for is Transformers. Apparently it won the most anticipated summer blockbuster MTV Movie Award over Fantastication, Harry Puther and the other rot. Apparently Michael Bay has cut out the corny-ness and made Transformers more real, shrewd, mature and hopefully cinematographically and brilliantly brilliant. I am looking forward to it, but I don’t think anyone is looking forward to it more than Ali Yar Khan is.

Okay, that was short and quick, so basically my ultimate message is: WATCH IT! And it’s a theatre movie so, WATCH IT IN THE THEATRES!

Till transformation!

P.S. Ali missed the Fantastic Four 2 experience. Idiot.

by Anish Malpani

Aerosmith Was AEROSMITH BABY!

We should have done as our tradition has always told us to do: We should have come a good 8 hours before the concert and created “the line” outside the venue, and made sure that we got ramp-standing space, right in the front. We should have over-enjoyed the freakiness and the sexual nature that Stevie Tyler brings along with his Aerosmith. We should have over-enjoyed Joe Perry smacking his guitar with his shirt, mocking the aspect that his guitar was on fire. Ali should have gotten Joe’s pick! But we didn’t follow tradition. Thanks to Modern High.

It’s almost a tradition. I NEED to blog about the concerts I attend. But this one is more about what happened before and after.

What a wonderful day it was going to be! Prize Day, and then Aero-friggin-Smith! The morning swept past by me digging myself into the most high-profile project that Redial Entertainment has ever received. I then got ready for the most prestigious, but boring day in the Modern High calendar: Prize Day. I tried my utmost best to fix my hair, and partially recover from the disastrous hair cut that I had had the day before. I was loving my hair till then - it was longish, but I couldn’t possibly have attended Prize Day with hair like that, I mean it would have been “such a sin”. I was reminded thrice to cut my hair, for this great, prestigious day. ONE day.

Anyway, this was the plan: Prize Day would finish at 7:30 PM, and the seven of us would immediately transport our battuties to the Aerosmith arena in two cars - simple and cool!

I entered school with my parents and my grandmother, and the first thing the Admin staff of our school did was blatantly disrespect and insult my parents. And something like that hurts, when you have given 9 years of faithful service to the school, and when you are also winning one of the most prestigious special awards of the school. Ahh, well, life! I was visibly disturbed by this, and exhaustion and work-stress made everything even worse - apologies to those who did see my reaction.

Anyway, the “plan” hadn’t even begun as yet, and things were not smooth. Then the “Prinicpal’s Address” kicked in and lasted an entire hour. It was 7:15 PM and Prize Day was no where close to getting over. When a gazillion little children had received their awards, and when the special awards were out of the way, the clock hit 8:30 PM. Brilliant. The after-Prize-Day celebrations/confusion when everyone greets everyone [aww, how sweet] and when the guys can officially mingle with the girls without too many eyebrows being raised. At 9:00 PM we found out that or other transportation wouldn’t be able to make it, and obviously we hadn’t left yet. So it left us with one small car, seven people and one hour to reach the concert in heavy truck-filled traffic.

Now 6 of the 7 people that were in the small car were in no way small. Tejas was the tiny one, so he got onto Ali’s comfortable lap, and Romit put me on his lap. And thus began the journey. Our joy was unprecedented, we fitted in! But then traffic hit us like a bolt from the blue. Ali hit depression, and I started panicking. We got frantic phone calls from friends already at the concert: Where the fuck are you guys? Sonu [he was spotting, as in spotlighting Stevie Tyler – WOW]!

The concert was supposed to begin at 10, and we reached there only at 10:15 PM. Shit. But Dubai has a habit of being late in general, so the concert began only at like 10:30. We had decent tickets, so we pushed our way into a decent spot, and enjoyed the concert. Cryin’ and Miss A Thing were brilliant! Dream On was also good, but could have been better. Stevie, the sexual beast that he is, was seemingly up to his best. Humping anything and everything he could, and screaming and dancing whenever he could, he is a true entertainer, and the soul of Aerosmith. And the funkiest thing about him is that he makes even the stupidest thing look cool. Now that’s talent. His voice is brilliant, and his vocal chords are clearly the strongest chords in the world. He screams like a banshee which only inspires the audience to try and do the same, and he does this without an after-damage to his voice. Yeah, he was entertaining. Joe Perry is a handsome man, but after what Ali said, it’s like he is trying too hard. Oh, and they had these fans on stage, blowing onto their faces, and blowing their long hair in an outward direction. Basically it made them look really cool. Amidst the craziness of Stevie, the concert did have a few lows. They didn’t play “Pink” nor did they play “Rag Doll” nor did they play “Janie’s Got A Gun”, so that left a few disappointed. It was friggin’ hot, but somehow I enjoyed sweating that day - it gives you the whole “wet”, you-are-enjoying-the-concert look.

The concert finished. More shit happened, and the highly eventful shitty-good day ended.

P.S. Contradictory emotions are bad because the good seems to fade away. At least it did on this day.

by Anish Malpani