Casino Royale

This low flying Bond is your average beer guzzling guy rather than a savvy martini sipping secret agent. Daniel Craig with his scraggy construction worker looks and oddly blond hair and recently buffed-up body is a different 007. In fact he is so heavy that between the James Bond and Ethan Hunt scale he is almost fully tilted to the right. The film is big with large actions scenes intercepted by awful card playing scenes that aim to attract the brainless sloth out there that spends sunny Sunday afternoons watching poker on TV.

Eva Green is certainly a different Bond girl as well. This Bond while flaunting lack of emotions is actually more a slave to them than probably anyone before him. His whole deal with Green is actually quite cloying and again shows how different this film is and specially how different this Bond is. While Green is quite good the whole affair just pulls the film down and out.

In general the film is fun to watch. It clearly marks the end of the Bond franchise as you know it.

Borat

Borat may end up being one of the most overrated, overhyped, overeverything film of recent times. The film is a mediocre comedy at best and not because it is offensive, which it is only very mildly, but because its jokes are old and merely amplified versions of what would generally get covered in the first hour of any half-decent stand-up show in New York . Critics are finding deep social commentary which of course isn't there. Critics ar calling it a 'bold' film. What is bold is, not Cohen because he is merely irritating, but Fox for agreeing to launch a film given its (Fox's) overt conservative agenda in the country.

It is when you see stuff like this that you realize how much better Sienfield is in almost all respects.

Water

Deepa Metha's "Water" is a conceited, contrived piece of film-making that marks most of the parallel Indian cinema in recent times. "Water" tells the story of the plight of widows in one of the most poor and orthodox societies in rural India. While the film tries hard to energize and juxtaposes questions of right and wrong in context of religion in an overly religious society, it fails because the viewer takes from the film individual episodes rather than a congruous lyric.

This is essentially an affected piece of film-making that uses society's ills to warm the tea parties of the rich and foreign rather than a genuine feeling of despair for the down-trodden. The film is more about the capacity of Deepa Mehta to raise her stake than that of her characters.

Casting Lisa Ray as a poor widow is just one of Mehta's conceits. Showing a rather weak and affected Gandhi is another. Anachronistic dialogue, characterization and just lopsided editing are other faults which put into question Mehta's commitment to this film consider how well crafted her last film in the "elements" series, "Earth: 1942" was. Jerky but gorgeously filmed Water is still much above the usual trite melodrama served by Indian cinema and must be respected for that more than anything else.

However, Meta who claims to bring about originality and wants to serve a film mostly to foreign audiences should at least take enough care to get her swastikas right. She draws the left and right swastikas as mirror images of each other making the left (on the screen) appear like the Nazi swastika.

Exclusive rental deals

"Blockbuster signs deal to be exclusive renter for Weinsteins"


This is the kind of stuff that makes living in the modern world so hard. So now what is a guy like me to do who wouldn't even want to look at Blockbuster?

1. Open an account with blockbuster and forever deal with their mailers and their pathetic staff (famously referred to as baboons by Tony Soprano)
2. Watch in the theatres while I can
3. Watch it via some other medium (iTunes, pay-per-view or so on)
4. Avoid the movie completely

I am somehow inclined to go by the last choice given how hard some of the other choices are.

Why doesn't business ever make anything better?

The Captain and the Kid - Elton John

Please stop, Elton. Don't you realize that you are singing songs about Richard Nixon? Do you know that this is Bush-detesting time?

This anachronistic, utterly boring album is just another money-making endeavor from an old-as-hills rock star. Nothing surprising there. I should have known better than to waste my time listening to this.

Meath Loaf: Bat Out Of Hell III

Trite, tedious, anachronistic drivel that wants to pass off as generation or epic rock. While the last album was indeed amazing, this one is nothing but an overcooked dud.

Makes you wonder: did you like the first one because you were just out of your teens and anthems meant something to you?

A Prairie Home Companion

Not sure why exactly Robert Altman made this film. Only mildly entertaining, grudging documentary that laments the loss of a culture that it actually pokes in the rib. Not sure so many characters ever got wasted in a film. The songs are fun and the music is alright. Meryl Streep is fantastic and Garrison Keillor is himself. I've listened to this show on NPR many times but cannot even sit through one on the radio while doing other stuff. Altman continues on his downward spiral.