V For Violence

I'll come right out and say this: I love screen violence. The bloodier the better. Mind you, I can appreciate bloodless CGI enhanced smackdowns a la The Matrix , Spider Man and the X Men flicks. I can dig hyper stylized wire-fu aided battles as exemplified by countless wuxia epics like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon ( and given an added patina of poetic elegance by Zhang Yimou's recent forays into the genre), but there's no substitute for honest to goodness blood spattering, brain blowing, flesh searing and limb hacking carnage. Of course, there are movies a plenty whose sole existence is the depiction of gore in its various forms. Slasher flicks like Saw, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Hostel are "gore porn" in it's most basic form: regular porn exists for the sole purpose of relieving its actors of their clothing to get them engaging in all manner of sexual gymnastics while gore porn relieves its actors of every vestige of dignity to inflict all manner of pain and torture upon them. The former ends with a violent orgasm while the latter finishes with violent death. While I can watch and even enjoy these films, for me violence for violence's sake doesn't hold any long term appeal.

No sir, for me bloodshed needs to come wrapped inside the familiar tropes of an honest to goodness action flick. I suppose what got me ruminating on this subject is the hotly debated topic in the IMDB (Internet Movie Data Base) forums on the possibility that Die Hard 4.0, one of the hotly anticipated summer flicks this year may get a PG-13 instead of an R rating. For those unfamiliar with the antecedents of this much loved action franchise, the above statement would have all the novelty of an announcement that the next Harry Porter flick would feature broom sticks and wands.

For those, like me, who grew up watching testosterone laden action behemoths in the 80's and 90's, the scaled down PG-13 rating for what is easily a landmark action franchise of the late 80s to mid 90s is a slap in the face. A kick to the groins. It's the equivalent of making an Elm Street movie with a de-clawed Freddy. Or a Friday the 13th with a socially well-adjusted Jason who frolics with his camp mates instead of dismembering them with his machete.

Ok..... maybe I exaggerate.

But I grew up on and devoured macho action flicks during an era when Sly Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger strode like muscular kings across a dystopian landscape littered with debris from exploded buildings, burnt out skeletal husks of damaged vehicles and corpses of unfortunate sods who stood in the way of their righteous vengeance.

Stallone, The Governator and their lesser incarnations Jean Claude Van Damme and Steven Seagal hacked, stabbed, shot, kicked, punched and cursed their way to R-rated glory and everlasting immortality (at least as long as people like me keep dipping into their DVD collections and customers continue frequenting the action section of Video Ezy).

This was before action movies decided to get brainy and philosophical, before some one decided that Keanu Reeves looked cool doing Kung Fu, before blonde caucasian women went on a roaring rampage of revenge, before CGI heralded the age of comic book violence(even when the source material wasn't actually based on a comic) and especially before studios became obsessed with slapping on a PG-13 to any potentially lucrative summer popcorn flick.

See, it's a matter of simple economics:

This rating ensures that kiddies will flock to see this movie (and their parents who will no doubt be springing for the tickets and popcorn) since the rating does not SPECIFICALLY prohibit them from viewing the film. It merely advices that some material may be inappropriate .

Contrast that with:

This rating on the other hand, prohibits the Under-17s from viewing the film unless accompanied by an adult guardian. That means the majority of parents aren't exactly going to make a movie with this rating their first choice for a family outing at the cinemas. Meaning less revenue, where the studios are concerned.

Such a myopic view precludes the understanding that there's a big enough adult audience out there who can and will pay money to see slightly more mature fare. Sigh!

Out of a sense of nostalgia, I raided my DVD collection over the weekend and had me a jolly old marathon of all 3 Die Hard flicks. While certain elements of it are charmingly anachronistic (check out the brick sized cell phones and cassette players in limos), they still remain, in my humble opinion, dynamite action yarns that pack a wallop.

The first, the original and naturally the best, Die Hard, not only catapulted Bruce Willis from wise cracking TV star to mega movie stardom, but practically invented the Hostage-Terrorist sub-genre within action movies. Subsequent imitators like Die Hard on a train (Under Siege 2), Die Hard on a bus (Speed), Die Hard on a ship (Speed 2), occasionally rivalled but rarely topped this dynamite actioner that managed to be exciting, intelligent, claustrophobic and funny without sacrificing its action movie roots via eye-popping action set pieces while still managing to suffuse its hero with an aura of vulnerability. Willis' John McClane, jet lagged, barefoot and tired, has to play a deadly cat and mouse game with high tech European thieves atop a high rise.

He has to stay one step ahead of them while figuring out a way to rescue his hostage wife and convince bone headed police and FBI officials that he's one of the good guys. Via walkie talkie McClane establishes 2 relationships, a warm camaraderie with Al Johnson, the sole cop who believes he's trying to help and an antagonistic repartee with chief crook Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman, an actor who should come with a sign saying "Warning! I may steal the movie away from the lead!"). McClane and Gruber are evenly matched, one armed with streewise cunning, the other suave intelligence but both ruthlessly efficient in dispatching impediments to their progress. Their banter, with Willis' American idioms puncturing Rickman's German inflected classical musings is rib tickling stuff. In an era of invincible muscle men,Die Hard dared to let its protagonist get increasingly beaten and bloodied as the movie hurtles towards an explosive finale. In an age of laconic he men who only opened their mouths to spew the odd one liner, Die Hard gave you a verbose and wise cracking hero. For its time, it was an original. And it's rarely been bettered.

Not even by its sequels.

Die Hard 2 piled on twice the action and plot twists galore in an equally enclosed environment, this time an airport where our intrepid hero races against time to stop a band of lethal mercenaries from flying off with an extradited drug baron while ensuring his wife's flight lands intact. It's audacious set pieces includes an horrific plane crash and a final showdown that takes place on the wing of a moving airliner! It's never dull, yet Willis' lack of vulnerability and the absence of a charismatic villain like Hans Gruber makes this a lesser effort in the series.

Die Hard With A Vengeance(DHWAV) opens up the claustrophobic confines of the previous 2 movies by having McClane race around New York city but recycles the original formula of having Euro thieves as its villains, with yet another Brit thespian made to mouth lines in a German accent. Jeremy Irons' character is even made to be the brother of Rickman's Hans Gruber! DHWAV even pays a nod to that other enduring action franchise of the 90s, the Lethal Weapon series, by having the white McClane team up with a black Samuel Jackson. With a few re-writes, they could be Riggs and Murtaugh!

Violent and profane , the Die Hard movies earn their R rating. With a vengeance.

I await with bated breath for the new installment. With the PG-13 tag bound to neuter much of its action scenes, one can only hope its plotting, pacing and intelligence isn't watered down along with the blood letting.

And the swearing. What's McClane gonna say as he dispatches the baddies now, I wonder: Yip-ee-kay-yay Monkey Fellow??

Oh! What a tangled web they weave!

The success of a super hero tale, be it in the written or celuloid form, isn't so much dependant on an ability to 'shock and awe' us as we stand on the outside gawking at their near celestial powers, but largely on its ability to draw us in by commiserating with an ordinary human being navigating the pitfalls and dangers of his/her new found powers.

The success ( upwards to a billion dollars in worldwide box-office grosses) of Spider Man 1 and 2 with Part 3 set to follow suit,was largely due to the fact that it wasn't so much about high school nerd Peter Parker celebrating his arachnid abilities, but COPING with them. And Sam Raimi's genius, in the opening film , was to depict his hero's transition from young man to crime fighter as a rite of passage to adulthood; after being bitten by a genetically enhanced spider ( an update from the radioactive version in the comics), Parker awakes to find his body undergoing changes and starting to secrete sticky substances, he learns that his great powers come with an even greater responsibilty and he nurses an initial unrequited crush on next door neighbour and high school mate Mary Jane Watson. As Peter Parker juggles crime fighting with completing high school assignments on time, part time jobs to pay the rent and romantic pitfalls over the course of 3 movies, you aren't merely mesmerised by the CGIed sight of a web slinging Spider Man navigating sky scrapers, but sympathising with the all too real problems of an Every Man.

Spider Man

High School science whiz and social nerd Peter Parker is bitten by a genetically altered spider and gains wall crawling and web shooting abilities. Just in the nick of time too, as best friend father Harry Osborne's father Norman experiments with performance enhancers, turns schizo and psycho and riding a jet glider, proceeds to torment our hero. As if he doesn't have enough problems, guilt over preventing the death of his beloved Uncle Ben and a monumentally unrequited love on childhood crush Mary Jane Watson also weigh heavily in our hero's mind...

Apart from working as an extremely well crafted origins tale, what really makes this first entry into an astoundingly profitable franchise is that, at heart, it's an unabashed love story. And that most beloved of all love stories to boot: that of the shy, inarticulate nerd winning the heart of his gorgeous lady love. And with his boyish looks, voice seemingly on the verge of cracking and wide eyed innocence, Tobey Maguire is the most perfectly cast actor to step into a superhero alter ego since the late great Christopher Reeve. His Peter Parker is a pitch perfect study of adoloscent angst and longing. His furtive declaration of love to MJ in a hospital scene is romantic syrup of the sweetest kind; to be indulged without a whiff of cynicism. Which is why the action scenes, particularly Spidey's increasingly brutal showdowns with the Green Goblin is, for me, a jarring tonal shift to its emotional core. Their final climactic fight is especially nasty, with punches connecting with jaws in blood splattering crunches. But it has an air of lethal intensity which the sequels' CGI heavy smackdowns lack. Kirsten Dunst is a fine actress, and her MJ's emotional scenes with Peter carry genuine heft but it's a character that is written poorly. Amazingly flighty, Mary Jane flits from first bully boyfriend Flash Thomson to Harry, then nurses a crush on Spider Man, cruelly dumping Harry before settling on Peter as her main squeeze. It's a flaw that's never quite addressed in subsequent movies, unfortunately and it's to Dunst's credit that we can still believe (somewhat) that MJ's a girl worth getting your webs and hormones tangled over.

Raimi was still finding his footing with this first movie, juggling CGI heavy action with a story that resounded with real human issues of love and loss. Fortunately he found it in the 1st sequel.....

Spider Man 2

Peter Parker struggles to keep a job, attend college and express his feelings to long time crush Mary Jane Watson. Best pal Harry Osborne hates him as he's the official Spidey photographer, blaming the Web Crawler for his father's demise. The stress is eroding his Spidey powers and if that weren't bad enough, brilliant scientist Dr. Otto Octavius mutates into Dr. Octopus when four tentacle-like steel arms are fused to his body when an experiment goes horribly wrong. Controlled by his artificial intelligence infused arms, Otto's bad, mad and wants Spidey's blood...

Critics and the public went ga ga over this sequel and it's not hard to see why. Striking a near perfect balance between awesome action sequences with enhanced and more realistic CGI (although you never believe for 1 second that it's NOT computer generated figures causing computer generated carnage across a computer generated landscape), and an even more emotionally resonant tale, it never loses sight of the fact, that in spite of it's title, this is very much a story about the man behind the mask.

This, obviously isn't good news for action hungry fans who want more Spidey and less Petey. There are 2 major action set pieces, both involving Spider Man and Doc Ock, including an absolute stunner of a set piece on top and side of a speeding subway train. The rest are minor skirmishes and the climactic duel lacks the hard hitting intensity of the Goblin-Spidey showdown of the first movie.

But Raimi nails the human aspects of the tale with aplomb. No scene feels unnecesarily padded or tagged on. Peter's growing distress in juggling his dual life and it's subsequent impact on his relationship with MJ and Harry and his web swinging and wall crawling abilities are wrenching. Sans the powers, Peter could be any one of us; he struggles to get to classes on time, hang on to a part time job, do laundry without having colours running and smearing his whites, pay rent and muster the courage to tell the woman he loves how he feels.

If I have a complaint, is that there's too much angst. Throughout the film, Peter is scolded, chastised, ticked off and harangued by college professors, landlords, customers, best friend and lady love. As Spider Man, his reputation is frequently besmirched in print by hard nosed Daily Bugle editor J.Jonah Jameson ( a superb performance by J.K.Simmons) . It all gets to be a bit much. And when best friend Harry, in a drunken rage, publicly slaps Peter, twice, at a party , and our boy wonder just accepts it stoically, you long to plant another two upside his head for his sickening passivity. And the MJ character is still in full flighty mode, this time latching herself onto the eligible astronaut son of Jameson's, before dumping him, at the altar ( whoever thought that having a heroine who leaves a groom on the wedding day after his parents' have splurged on the event and run out of church in her bridal dress is romantic needs to have all four of Doc Ock's iron tentacles jammed up their ass) to run back to Peter and mouth this execrable line "I've always been standing in your doorway". Retch!

One may argue that Spider Man 2 takes a full 2 hours to basically expound Uncle Ben's "With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility" philosophy (something the first movie dealt with in far more effective brevity) and it's "hero willing to give up his powers to lead a normal life" arc is a rip off from "Superman 2", but a multi million dollar big budget superhero franchise willing to ground it's high swinging hero long enough to espouse a human tale of facing up to your responsibilities and sacrificing what you love to do what is right in addition to delivering eye-popping action is a rare beast indeed.

Raimi struck a perfect tone in this movie. And then went a little off key in the third and final installment.....

Spider Man 3

All is finally right in Peter's world. Spider Man is beloved by an adoring public, long time love MJ is finally his girl. But MJ's disastrous Broadway debut and a looming romantic rival in classmate Gwen Stacy threaten to derail his romance. With mass adulation going to his head, a still troubled relationship with best friend Harry Osborne and a relationship heading down Splitsville Road not to mention new found knowledge that his Uncle Ben's killer is still at large makes Peter a walking repository for negative emotions, the perfect host for an alien symbiote to latch onto. Add ex-con turned Super Villain Sandman and the symbiote's next host, Peter's photographer rival Eddie Brock who transforms into Venom and Spidey's in for a busy time.....

Given the fact that it was an unholy fascination with piling multiple villains into a superhero flick that practically guaranteed the demise of the earlier Batman franchise (thank you Christopher Nolan for so brilliantly resurrecting this dark Lazarus 2 years ago) , it's odd why Raimi chose Joel Schumacher's fatally flawed concept of "more is better" for this third and probably last installment, (at least for this director) . Given the preponderance of baddies and sub-plots and sub plots, I can only write a cohesive review of this review by breaking it down to its various plot threads.

The Sandman

Thomas Haden Church is an actor I've long admired, from his brilliantly narcissistic turn in short-lived sit com Ned & Stacy to his hilarious potrayal of a womanising soon-to-be married actor in the marvellous Sideways. And he gives Flint Marko's Sandman an aura of melancholia that is almost tragically touching. The Sandman robs banks to finance his estranged daughter's medical bills. And his transformation from flesh and blood man to granular particles is an eye-popping special effects achievement of the highest order. It's easy to see Raimi and team spending a great deal of time and moolah on this character, an acknowledged favourite of the director's. Ditto Sandman's battles with Spidey, stunningly executed set pieces. But with Sandman invested with such gravitas, it's hard to cheer our web-crawler during their many showdowns. If you feel not hate, but sympathy for the baddie, it robs the fights of much needed tension. And re-writing Uncle Ben's demise to involve the Sandman was a mis step even if it feeds into the overall forgiveness theme this movie is built around.

Green Goblin 2

Foreshadowed at the end of Spider Man 2, it was inevitable that Spider Man 3 would see Harry Osborne don daddy's digs to take on Spidey/Peter whom he still blames for his father's death. The first major action sequence is between Gobby 2 and Spidey and it's first rate roller coaster stuff although it sets an unhealthy precedent of having Spider Man unmasked most of the time in subsequent fights. Spider Man 3 brings closure to the Harry Osborne character albeit through a ridiculous contrivance: had a certain character opened his mouth sooner, the whole Harry-Spidey misunderstanding could have been averted way earlier, like in Part 2, leaving this flick a little less cluttered with super villains.

Venom

Pressured by fans and studio in including this much liked baddie, Venom makes an appearance only in the last 20 minutes and his showdowns with Spidey lack serious bite.A clear indication that, unlike the Sandman, Venom wasn't a labour of love for the director. As Venom's alter ego Eddie Brock, Topher Grace is effective but isn't given much material to work with.

Dark Spidey

My favourite bit in this plot crammed movie. After seeing Peter relentlessly bullied over the course of 2 movies, sit back and enjoy as Peter gets in touch with his Dark Side:

• Upon being harassed by his greedy Polish landlord for the rent he snarls, "You get the rent when you get the door fixed". Go Peter!


• Kicks the crap out of Sandman reducing him to pasty non-solid goo. Go Dark Spidey!


• Finally gives Harry the well deserved beating his bratty ass has been asking for. His parting shot to a beaten up Harry "What're you gonna do now Goblin Junior? Cry?" is priceless. Go Peter!


• Humiliating Eddie Brock after the latter uses underhanded tactics to cheat Peter out of a full time gig at the Bugle. Go Peter!


• Finally shows MJ she ain't the only fish in the pond by unleashing some nifty dance moves in front of her with romantic rival Gwen Stacy. You show her Peter!

Not so cool: Dark Peter's ridiculous Hitler style comb over and Saturday Night Fever John Travolta swagger on the sidewalk.

The Women

Bringing in Bryce Dallas Howard as Gwen Stacy, MJ's romantic rival was a clear mistake. Not only is her character barely there for a couple of scenes, she provides nil dramatic tension whatsoever, neither as Peter's date nor as Eddie Brock's girlfriend. Oh well, there's always another Night Shyamalan movie for her to look forward to I guess.

And MJ.....predictably she flits from current squeeze Peter to ex-flame Harry at the first ripples in the romantic pond. Apparently a failed Broadway stint and petty jealousy at your boyfriends' hot class mate is all it requires to dash off for breakfast with an ex. Sigh!

Overall, I liked the action and the pace and the darker shades to our mild mannered hero. And I enjoyed the sense of closure Raimi brings to many of the ongoing story lines carried over from the previous movies. But a movie crammed with so many plots show tears at the seams and prevents this last installment from ending on the high note this consistently watchable series so richly deserved.

Umrao Jaan

In the list of Unreasonable Demands On A Lover, the one placed by Nawab Sultan (Abhishek Bachan) on Umrao Jaan (Aishwarya Rai) pretty much tops it: She is not only to become his lover but must remain faithful, emotionally AND physically as well.

A common requirement in most relationships but Umrao Jaan is a courtesan in 19th century Lucknow, the prized "tawaif" in the brothel run by Madam Khanum Jaan .

Like Geishas in Feudal Japan, courtesans were not whores who slept with the next paying customer, but were accomplished singers and dancers whose virginity was traded for the best price.

Although the Nawab becomes the lucky customer who gets to de-flower Umrao Jaan and she subsequently falls in love with him, the film asks us to accept the fact that she manages to remain chaste even after her penniless lover ( disinherited after a row with daddy who forbids the union) is embarrasingly ejected from the brothel.

The kind but hard as steel Khanum Jaan (a superb performance by Shabana Azmi) accepts no compromises where money is concerned, as evidenced by her cold haggling over the price of a kidnapped young girl who is brought to her, young Amiran who is christened Umrao Jaan and instructed in the art of Pleasure. And yet, after the Nawab's departure, when the obscenely wealthy Faiz Ali ( a perennially under used Suneil Shetty) comes a calling and is rebuffed by Umrao, she shrugs with a "what can you do" air that belies her nature.

And director J.P. Dutta makes a few missteps in updating this remake of the 1981 hit which starred Rekha in the titular role:

In the original, Nawab Sultan leaves Umrao to marry a girl of his father's choice. Faiz Ali subsequently woos and wins Umrao's heart.

In the current version, Dutta plots a "Only One Man For Me" trajectory for his Umrao, who, in the time honoured tradition of Indian Film Heroines, continues to pine for her lover, which unfortunately makes her subsequent treatment of Faiz Ali, selfish and even a tad cruel. Even when Faiz Ali's shady past is revealed and he retaliates against Umrao upon discovering he was being used, one is still hard pressed to sympathise with her.

And when a reunion with the Nawab has him doing a Rama and questioning her chastity, you'd be hard pressed not to roll your eyes. She isn't Sita, you feel like telling the dolt, and if fidelity was high on your list of requirements, perhaps choosing a woman trained to pleasure men for money as your inamorata wasn't really the way to go.

And capitalising perhaps on the growing Abhishek-Ash pairing in real life, Dutta chooses to bring an already langurously paced movie to a screeching halt to focus on the Nawab-Umrao romance.

Dutta does try for substance notably in a few scenes where through Khanum Jaan, he makes the point that the closed in society of the brothel is still far more protective of its people than the cold, cruel world out there. Umrao faces rejection, prison, ostracism from family and derision from her own village but comes back to love and acceptance from her courtesan family and mother figure. But these scenes are too few are far between.

But if you're in the mood, this is a gorgeous throwback to old fashioned Cinema, with eye-cathing sets (most of it shot in and around Jaipur and its various forts and palaces), dazzling costumes and poetry suffused dialogue
And the ever luminescent Aishwarya Rai is always easy on the eye.

They don't make films like these anymore, that's for sure.

Next

My review of Michael Crichton's Next was published in The Star today. It's always a good feeling to see what you wrote up in print and especially nice when the discovery is made on a lazy Sunday morning, ensconced in a comfy couch sipping your morning cuppa.

Reviewing a book isn't as easy as I thought it would be. To condense a 500 page novel into cohesive thoughts debating its merits and drawbacks, while adhering to a 500 word limit not to mention making the whole endeavour entertainingly readable requires a bit of effort, for this writer at least.

Funny thing is, upon finishing a book or movie, my head is usually bursting with words,ideas, thoughts and views of the item(s) just read or seen, sentences, snippets and soundbites jostling for space in a chaotic mind. And it all happens at the most inopportune of moments, when I'm brushing my teeth, sitting on the toilet or having a shower, activities not exactly conducive to writing. Books and magazine are welcome in my bathroom but I draw the line at placing pen and paper in there.
For one, I'm a wet bathroom kinda guy, you know, the type that covers every square inch of tile with water at the end of a shower( a fact that still drives my Immortal Beloved bonkers!) and a laptop's lifespan would be severely shortened under such damp conditions not to mention the stoutest of paper wilting under conditions resembling a humid Amazonian jungle after one of my scalding hot baths.
And more importantly, I have been known to spend a little additional time in the loo, long after I've finished what I went in there for, if a certain article or chapter has captivated me, sitting on the throne far longer than is practically necessary, until my visibly annoyed Beloved is compelled to stage a coup to topple my reign (switching off the lights and banging on the door being preferred de-throning methods).
So, adding writing to reading in the wash room is a recipe for Marital Disaster.
Therefore, it's a quick dash to the laptop the next time I get a juicy thought or two for a potential review or notebook and pen in pocket when I'm out and about.
Or hope that inspiration strikes me in drier locales....

LA Confidential

Well, to be honest, the weekend past wasn't all work and no play.

Saw LA Confidential after a 7 year gap, my last viewing was via a less than stellar VHS copy. Seen with renewed clarity via a Remastered Special Edition DVD, it's a joy making it's re acquaintance.

My first James Ellroy book was LA Confidential, my introduction to his dark, murky and twisted take on LA circa the '50s. It has all the familiar Ellroy trappings of bent cops, mysterious femme fatales and truly Machiavellian bad guys circumnavigating the seedy underbelly of the City Of Angels.

Director Curtis Hanson generally stays faithful to the book in his movie adaption but out of necessity, some parts of Ellroy's densely plotted book had to be trimmed out to fit a manageable running time. Even then, the twisty turns its plot takes demands your attention.

A dream cast of Russell Crowe, Guy Pierce and Kevin Spacey flesh out Ellroy's 3-man narrative arc that proceeds on a twisted, blood soaked trajectory as they become involved in cases that intersect, bisect and finally collide in a spectacular bullet-riddled mass. Kim Basinger, Danny De Vito and James Cromwell give able support.

Damn if it doesn't make me wanna pick up the book again.

After my exams of course.....

Swotting Weekend

Imagine giving up (or, to be perfectly honest) curbing your twin cravings of books and movies. Well, it's a goal I have set for myself, on account of an exam I will be sitting for at the end of this month. Given the fact that my Immortal Beloved is also taking a test this week (tomorrow, in fact) meant the last weekend saw the both of us transformed into regular swotters, hunched over books, taking notes, eyebrows meeting in frowning concentration.

"Aren't you a little old to be taking a test?" went one cheeky sms from a friend. It followed a confession on my part that I hadn't started Neil Gaiman's "American Gods" which is to be our Book Club choice of the month for April on account of my newly imposed book sobriety.

Well, when passing this exam means an extra RM200 in my paycheck monthly, that's a heck of an incentive to hit the books, I say! Not to mention the extra moolah means the odd indulgence or 2 the next time I trawl book shops!

To my Immortal Beloved, best of luck in your test tomorrow ,darling!

The Dahlia Dissected

Book Club/ Coroners Division.
Autopsy Report DR#65-538-991
[Crime Fiction]
Victim: The Black Dahlia/Novel/ Age:20yrs.
Year of publication: 1987

The scene:

Sri Hartamas/Upper Middle Class/All residential,
A house, large/pristine/ classy.

Coroners number 9.

Dinner: A sumptious banquet, idle chit chat, wine consumed, wings demolished.

Adjourned to the scene of the crime/spacious living room.

Dissection begins:

Lead Coroner KayKay begins dissection on the victim, juiced on its perpetrator, one James Ellroy (born Lee Erle Ellroy) March 4, 1948, Los Angeles, California.

Demon Dog of American Crime Fiction, Ellroy was pure LA native, he sifted its data and transfigured its diverse shit. He spun noirish tales of crime, violence and death, looped through the connecting threads of corruption and obsession.

Obsessing over the death of his promiscuous mother, the Dahlia was Ellroy's chance to mourn her death once removed. She betrothed him to crime, the victim his valediction in blood to her.

Chief Coroner KayKay:

First made acquaintance with the victim almost 10 years ago. He revisited her. She still captivates him, her savagery excites him, her tale hyperbolic/ blood drenched/sex obsessed blitzed his imagination. But there are blemishes in the once flawless cadaver: she makes him wait, takes her time to make an appearance, is often hysterical, her female characters slutty, unreliable. Hyper emotional, subtlety sledgehammered into subservience. But...slowly but surely, she reeled him in once again, her prose sharp, its rhythms hypnotic, marching to its own cadence as the killer's blade arced....

Coroner 1: Sharon:

Admired victim,hopped on the carefully constructed caper. It was well written, very dark/atmospheric/ horrifically scary...
Characters come to life...

Ixnay: A Bloke Book, Explicated Explicitness a turn off.....

Coroner 2: Animah

Didn't complete autopsy.

Difficult jargon a hindrance..
Characters defined by dialogue:Good
Explicitness doesn't stoke the imagination. .it butt-fucks it to raw redness:Bad

Coroner 3: Jessica:

Juiced on Tarantino and Scorcese, the dialogue sizzles..
Thrilled to vicarious vivisection of violence...
Images replayed in the mind as morbid, malign montages...
Loves the pieces falling into place,
Loves the gore and accepts the reality of the turbulent times it trawls in.

Coroner 4: Uma

Loved it, wouldn't have picked it up otherwise..
Took it's time, fingering the mind cells to wetness, before ploughing through it with penetrating hardness..

Coroner 5: Sarab

Buckys obsession was impenetrable, the language a mind fuck.

Coroner 6: Parvin Hamidah

A Crime Fiction virgin, The Black Dahlia popped her cherry with vicious violence, jarring jargon and lascivious language...and transported her to another world.

Coroner 7: Sashi

Wasn't what she expected, plot, not the language was the ultimate mindfuck.
Lee's early exit an effront.
Bent blokes and twisted trim...nobody' s straight.

Coroner 8: Renata

Preferred movie to book,
Two thirds was pleasurable before ejaculating a few nice lines and going limp in the third half...

Remember, dear reader, you heard it first here: off the record, on the QT and very Hush-Hush... .........

Hannibal Rising

Thomas Harris re-boots his mega-bucks franchise with this Origins Tale of thriller-lit's most celebrated serial killer and gourmand,Hannibal Lecter. After all, a back to basics approach worked wonders for Batman and James Bond recently so why not the good psychiatrist from Baltimore, Maryland with a penchant for cannibalism?

Whether Hannibal Rising works or not largely depends on which camp you belong to: the ones who think Lecter works best taken in small doses, a sneering, malevolent figure circling the outer fringes of the main plot(as in the first 2 installments Red Dragon and The Silence Of The Lambs) or those who delight in his elevation from psycho-killer to death-dealing avenger( a la Hannibal). Rising firmly belongs in the second category, with Lecter continuing to occupy centre-stage, charting his childhood and adolescence in a Blitzkrieged Lithuania and Post-War Paris.

The book's slender 324 pages(in hardback) and it preceding it's screen adaptation by a mere 2 months is a telling fact that Hannibal Rising originated as a screenplay for the movie and was then fleshed out to novel-length by Harris. The results are apparent, as unlike Harris' multi-layered and complex plots for Dragon and Silence, and an intricate and knotty meshing of genres in Hannibal, Rising is a pretty straightforward revenge tale, an European Death Wish with Lecter going Charles Bronson on a group of singularly revolting Hilfswillige,or Hiwis (local Lithuanians who volunteered to help the invading Nazis) in the aftermath of World War 2.

"Nothing happened to me ,Officer Starling.I happened.You can't reduce me to a set of influences ," Lecter intones in Silence, and yet this is precisely what his progenitor sets out to do in Rising, charting the events that shaped the Most Celebrated Serial Killer in crime fiction.

Lecter-philes(and count this writer as one of them) will slurp in glee as Harris gives you the origins behind Hannibal's many quirks:

Hannibal's cultivated and exotic tastes in food(oysters,sweetbreads not to mention the odd human liver,thymus and prefrontal lobe), wine( Chateau Petrus bordeaux and Batard-Montrachet) and music(Bach's Goldberg variations) ?
He's of a lineage with European aristocracy,you see. A direct descendant of Hannibal the Grim, who defeated the Teutonic Order at the Battle of Grunwald, son of a count father with a title dating back to the tenth century, with a mother, a scion of two famous Milanese houses, the Sforza on one side and the Visconti on the other,not to mention an artist uncle with an elegant Japanese wife. There are also references in Hannibal of a cousin being the artist Balthus, a filiation that's abandoned in this book.

Hannibal's prodigious artistic talents that saw him sketch from memory the Palazzo Vechio from a cell in the Baltimore State Hospital for the criminally insane?
A gift from childhood that was nurtured and refined in adolescence, sitting at the back of the class,sketching dissected frogs and watercolour washes of birds with equal dexterity.

Lecter's surgical skills which saw him butcher man and deer identically in Hannibal, removing sirloin,loin and small fillets from both with neatness and economy?
A legacy from being the youngest student admitted to medical school in Paris, nights spent performing cranial dissections in its anatomy lab culminating in an internship at the Baltimore State hospital.

But there are also disappointing gaps in the Lecter psycho-pathology.The Hannibal at the end of Rising is a killer of men who richly deserved their fates, his dead sister's God-less avenging angel but Harris frustratingly refuses to provide the genesis of Hannibal The Cannibal, murderer of 9 victims(presumably inncocent) and crippler of 2 when we first see him in Dragon, killer of a further five upon his escape in Silence.

That and a pedestrian plot that refuses to transcend it's dog-eared origins( something the last installment could never be accused of) makes Hannibal Rising a less than stellar installment in the Lecter tetralogy.

Still, it's a breezy read,boosted by a propulsive pace, vicious baddies whose comeuppance will be savoured with sadistic glee and brought to life via Harris' masterly prose(Notre Dame is described as "a great spider with its flying buttress legs and many eyes of its round windows...scuttling around town in the darkness") although it's one that occasionally turns Purple when describing Hannibal's courtship of his Japanese Stepmother:

Lady Murasaki: I fold cranes for your soul,Hannibal.You are drawn to the dark.

Hannibal: Not drawn,when I couldn't speak I was not drawn into silence,silence captured me.

Lady Murasaki: Out of the silence you came to me and spoke to me.I know you,Hannibal,and it is not easy knowledge.You are drawn towards the darkness, but you are also drawn to me.

Hannibal: On the bridge of dreams.

There may yet be life in this series. After all, the Lecter we meet in Red Dragon is near fifty.The young Hannibal on a train to America at the close of Rising is 20. That's a 30 year gap to be filled.
If Harris is hard at work even now on the next installment, may I suggest the rather apt title of "Cannibal Rising"?. There are still rooms to be filled in the Hannibal Lecter Mind Palace,Mr.Harris.

Hannibal

What happens when you create a fictional character who transcends the written page to enter the rarefied domain of pop culture iconism? The Thriller industry-standard benchmark for virtually every grotesque,ghoulish,malevolent and sadistic killer every aspiring thriller writer(and quite a few old hands) trot out ever so often?
If you're Thomas Harris, you eschew the temptation to bang out yet another Hannibal Lecter psycho thrill-fest and take the character in an entirely different and increasingly bizarre direction.
All criticisms against Harris' move to bring Lecter front and centre are justified. The good doctor loses much of his allure when he's allowed to roam free and his homicidal nature given a motivation(one explored in more detail in Hannibal Rising, reviewed here) and you miss the Lecter/ Clarice interplay as they only meet much, much later in this lengthy book. And the Florence section does drag on.
But credit goes to Harris for refusing to saturate an already over-populated field with yet another by-the-numbers Hunt, Chase and Confront psycho-thriller. Instead we get a dizzying cocktail of Grand Guignol, Revenge Thriller and Love Story all buttressed with Harris' intricate mastery of Criminal Investigative procedures and Forensic Science.
The much reviled ending goes over much better upon a second reading and you realise the Lecter/Starling relationship and where it was headed was foreshadowed way back in The Silence Of The Lambs.
I'll probably have a Lecter-thon of reading all 4 Hannibal books sometime in the distant future, until then there's always the anticipation that some writer is going to best Harris at the thriller game. But I won't be holding my breath.

The Prestige(Book review)

Oh God! Note to self: The next time you read a book or watch a movie, write the damn review immediately! I opened this post weeks ago when I finished the book and let it lapse. And now all I have are fragments of vague memory to guide me. But I sure as hell don't want to pick up the damn book again and I don't have the heart to delete this blog so will make a go of it to the best of my abilities.
Reading Christopher Priest' novel after watching the movie robs you of the jaw-dropping surprises the twisty narrative takes. But luckily, apart from the central characters and the twists, Nolan jettisoned much of Priests' book for the film, leaving the reader with sufficient material that's new. For instance, the movie omits the present-day plot involving the descendants' of Borden and Angier which book-end the main narrative detailing the magicians' bitter feud. Also, unlike the movie, Borden and Angier never started out as colleagues, the catalyst for their enmity not the death of Angier's wife in the film( here she's happily alive until the end) but a ruined seance ( conducted by the latter, ruined by the former). It's still a terrific tale of duelling magicians, a study of the profession in the late Victorian era and a riveting story of obsessions taken to the extreme. And like the movie, Priest' narrative sleight-of-hand rivals Nolan's cinematic one. And he does it without running timelines through a blender!

The Book of Lost Things

In John Connolly's world, the dead co-exist with the living. With unresolved issues, they create fissures in the world of the living, never letting go, hovering in their sub-concious.

It's the weight of the dead that the living carry inside themselves that make Connolly's thrillers so much more potent, his heroes somehow more haunted, seemingly straddling two worlds, belonging to both and yet, not quite fitting in either.

His 5 crime thrillers featuring Maine private eye Charlie "Bird" Parker were exemplary works, seamlessly fusing crime procedural with elements of the supernatural in prose of haunting cadence.

Like Bad Men and Nocturnes, his short story collection, The Book Of Lost Things marks a departure for Connolly from his regular series, but he brings the same dark gifts to this fantasy tale. it's 1945, the advent of World War Two and David, the young boy hero of the tale, like Parker, is haunted by his dead mother's spirit, whose voice he hears calling out to him from the shadows of the sunken garden outside his bedroom, telling him she's alive. And there are other voices. The numerous books in David's room speaks to him "in dusty, rumbling tones".

It's these books David takes refuge in, sulking over the death of his mother and his father's subsequent re-marriage, a union that produced, to his increasing dismay, an unwanted step-brother. And to top it all, he sees visions of a bent, mocking figure, The Crooked Man....

When an aeroplane crashes into the garden, David scrambles through an opening in the sunken half and enters a bizarre, fantasy world. It's a world peopled with dark characters and darker events, ruled by an ailing king, his kingdom beset by a vicious horde of hybrid wolf-men called Loups. David must battle them and other strange creatures while tarrying across a dark foreboding land to the King's castle in search of The Book Of Lost Things, his passport back to his world. And all the while the Crooked Man watches. And waits...

Like its chief antagonists, The Book Of Lost Things is a hybrid. Part fantasy quest, part Wizard Of Oz, part coming of age tale, all given a vicious edge thanks to Connolly's cheeky perversions of popular fairy tales. Snow White is a fat, slovenly shrew waited on by disgruntled, Socialist propaganda spewing dwarves, the Centaur legend is given a twisted Frankenstein-ish treatment and The crooked man is Rumpelstiltskin at his most demented.

Those thinking that the violence quotient will be toned way down given the books fairy tale antecedents and a first quarter that hints at a tale geared towards younger readers may well be in for a shock. The book turns increasingly nasty and notches up a respectable body count replete with beheadings, stabbings and disembowelings which may hurt it's marketability somewhat. It's too intense for younger readers and mature,long time Connolly fans may skip this owing to its fantasy elements while awaiting the next Parker installment.

More's the pity, as The Book Of Lost Things is a rollicking good read, re-affirming the writer as a master story teller. Connolly breaks no new ground, but his lyrical prose makes the road well travelled a journey worth taking again.

Booker Bore

Turgid, over-written, ponderous and depressing, The Inheritance Of Loss re-affirms my eroding faith in "literary" tomes that come bedecked with critical plaudits and trailing awards in its self-important wake.
It's the Umpteenth NRI take on the Indian sub-continent, that's peopled with degenerate natives who still wipe snot on curtains and take to the streets chanting slogans or take up arms to further their cause. Not that this isn't what's happening. Intead, I ask, is this the ONLY depiction we need to keep being treated to? I suppose I should outline the plot, dissect its characters and ponder its message, but honestly I can't be fucked with all that. Instead allow me to direct you to Jim Crace's no-bullshit digested review of it here. Hell, he gives you the low-down on ALL of last years Booker Nominees for those, who like me, will blissfully be giving the lot of them, a miss. Enjoy!

The Religion

If Tim Willocks' prose were a man, it would be huge, muscular, lusty and frequently caked in blood and gore. And yet, it's the perfect medium to bring to life this epic tale of The Siege Of Malta, one of the greatest mis-matched battles in medieval history, pitting 48,000 troops of the powerful Ottoman Empire against less than 7,000 warrior-priests of the Knights of Saint John who called themelves The Religion.

Anyone who's read Willocks' previous books, the prison-riot best-seller Green River Rising, and the less well received but nevertheless hugely entertaining Southern Goth thriller Blood Stained Kings knows the man doesn't do subtle. The sex is frequently explicit and the violence boosted to Grand Guignol levels.

But the irony is that, while Willocks's books, in their unexpurgated form, would be near un-filmable, his narrative arcs are firmly anchored to the tropes of modern day action adventures.

While The Religion, throughout its hefty 627 pages, details the impact of the siege, the battles, lives lost, and its toll on the tiny island on the Mediteranean in exquisite detail, it's no battle treatise for the military scholar. It's a medieval action thriller, the Siege seen through the eyes of Mattias Tannhauser, warrior, trader, war profiteer and lover.

Tannhauser is co-opted, against his rational misgivings, into the search for a Maltese Noblewoman’s illegitimate son on the besieged island and is sucked into the bloody fray in no time. The fact that said Noblewoman, the Lady Carla, is a beauty with “irises green and rimed, as if with ink, by thin black circlets” wearing a dress that “clung to her body like oil, like lust… buttressed her breasts…into exquisite hemispheres” may have been a persuading factor, along with her exotic, mysterious, Spanish companion Amparo. They are aided by Tannhauser’s blood thirsty and steadfast companion Bors, and thwarted by the fanatical Inquisitor Ludovico Ludovici, plenipotentiary to His Holiness, Pope Pius IV, secret agent of Michelle Ghisleri, Inquisitor General of All Christendom, and father to Carla’s missing offspring.

The Religion is a meaty tome, jam-packed with so much medieval information that to swallow it in one sitting is not possible, neither is it recommended. Willocks paints a broad canvas, doling out Renaissance era politics, battle strategies, love story and the nature of war coupled with larger themes of birthright, redemption, obsession and religion, all shot through Willocks’ blood-spattered prose, with generous helpings of sex and carnage.

And Oh! What carnage! Chests speared, armpits maced, limbs hacked, heads severed, privates stabbed, arteries spraying blood like fountains, swordcut to the thighs, backstroke to the guts; Willocks describes these scenes with such unabashed glee that one suspects he regrets not having been there to witness it in person.

The numerous sex scenes are a welcome respite from the frequent blood-letting as Tannhauser takes time out from battle to couple lustily with Amparo as a frustrated Carla takes refuge serving the wounded. But if Willocks’ prose is flowery during battle, it’s positively Purple in the bedroom. Sentences like “ he was afflicted by a burgeoning tumescence that nothing in Creation could forefend” and “ his yard throbbed monstrously between his legs. He felt it pant like a hell dog on a gossamer leash “call for a moratorium against Renaissance era romps in books.

Mattias, born a Saxon but trained as a janissary to the Emperor of the Ottomans, navigates both worlds with effortless ease, but realizes in the end that “all cults sought only power and the submission of peoples. The people themselves… were no more than grist to their mill.”

In the Knights use of the Lord’s prayer to rally men into battle, and the Turks’ invocation of the “surah” to exhort the Faithful to slaughter, Willocks’ message is an old one : In times of war, men conveniently cover themselves in the cloak of Religion, for to pillage, conquer and destroy in the name of God gives it credence.

But in today’s political climate, it’s frighteningly current.

Crime Spree

Like I said earlier, note to self: Review a movie AS SOON as you finish watching it damn it! Else, you're faced with what I'm facing now: Having seen all 3 of the above over a weekend or to be precise, several weekends ago, they now exist as random, out-of-sequence snapshots in my head. So, I need to tap into residual feelings and hazy memories in summing up my thoughts of them:

The Departed sees Martin Scorsese back at his gangbusting, guns blazing, profanity spewing best. And yet, it suffers in comparison to its original, HK crime flick Infernal Affairs. I racked my brains throughout viewing this flick, wondering why, in spite of a dream cast that's also perfectly cast (Leo exhibiting intense, nervous energy, Matt Damon in slippery form, Jack Nicholson in full out scenery chewing mode and an incendiary Mark Wahlberg taking over Joe Pesci as The Foulest Mouth On Screen) I was merely entertained rather than shaking with delirious sweaty palmed excitement that Scorcese has abandoned turn of the century gang warfare and biopics of eccentric billionaires to return to familiar turf. It dawned on me later why. The Departed is big, flashy and loud. But the story it seeks to tell is in effect an intimate one.

Infernal Affairs was as much about identity as it was a crime thriller. It's tale of a gangster's man who infiltrates the police department and an undercover cop who weans his way into the gangster's confidence was knuckle-biting cat and mouse stuff which also took time out to focus on its 2 protagonists' angst at maintaining their dual-facade, especially Tony Leung's tortured undercover cop,his mole assignment known only to his immediate superior and living in perennial fear that his cover will be blown. The roof of a building, which is a frequent meeting point between Leung and his superior, also functions as metaphor to his alienation from the life he wishes he had as he frequently stares across it's vacant expanse at the sprawling city below which reinforces his isolation and sense of dislocation.

In The Departed, the roof is merely a functionary device, a backdrop, a setting much like any other. Leo's meetings with Charlie Sheen and Wahlberg(his superiors) could just as easily have been conducted in a bar and his final showdown with Damon could have taken place in a vacant parking lot.

The Departed required subtle brush strokes, but Scorcese splashes paint across a canvas far too big for this taut and intimate tale. But the fact that it's done so by a Returning Master is reason enough for jubilation.

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Michael Mann doesn't so much return as continue his cynical and relentlessly brutal dissection of a dystopian world peopled with hard-edged professionals, be they cops or criminals. It's drenched in his by now patented blue hue, giving it a cold and calculating sheen, much like it's ice-cool characters. But why hobble the movie with a connection to his stylish 80s TV series? For, never was a movie more handicapped by its title. Anyone expecting this to be yet another big screen version of a once hot TV show is bound to howl in rage. The key characters bearing their small screen predecessors' names is about the only nod this movie makes to its original incarnation. Which in itself is a miss step for Mann. Why should this Vice bear any resemblance to the original when this Mann himself bears no resemblance to the creator of a glossy TV show that increasingly sacrificed substance for style.?This Mann is now an ace crafter of cool as ice crime dramas that marry style with substance in ways the show could only have dreamed of. Miami Vice the movie is a logical progression from Heat and Collateral. Its characters could be called anything instead of Crockett,Tubbs, Castillo, Gina and Trudy. It could have been titled anything instead of Miami Vice. While a passing familiarity with the original source material usually enhances the viewing pleasure of a remake, this is one instance when a complete memory wipe of Miami Vice the TV show becomes essential to fully appreciate Miami Vice the movie. It's not merely the deconstruction of a TV show, it's the evolution of Mann.

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And finally Layer Cake, the weakest and yet strangely, the most enjoyable of this trio of blood soaked crime flicks. Matthew Vaughn who produced the Guy Ritchie directed Lock,Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch (or as I prefer to collectively title them, The Brits Trying To Do Tarantino Cool) now takes on the helmer's chair for this very British, very gritty and by now very familiar crime drama that seems to come out of the other side of the Atlantic periodically. Like the previous 2 Ritchie flicks, this one features a large cast of characters propelling one central plot which rapidly spider-webs into a dozen others with attitude, humour, menace and copious amounts of swearing draped in Brit lingo and slang which in itself is a joy to hear. The multiple sub-plots are sometimes tightly linked, sometimes loosely connected, occasionally brush off tangentially with one another and rapidly fades from memory minutes after you eject the disk from your player. It's got one major bonus though: a pre-Bond Daniel Craig in top form easily convincing you why he snagged the 007 mantle.

My Super Ex-Girlfriend & Talladega Nights

Making comedies that feature at its centre, characters who are basically unpleasant require a deft hand. It requires the character(s) to be fleshed out, some explanation as to why they act the way they do, a certain amount of come-uppance meted out to help the audience empathise and supremely charismatic actors to inhabit the rule, digging deep to uncover some intriguing personality facet that notches the characters' negativity a few rungs above loathsome to intriguing. And since the genre IS comedy, whatever bad after taste left behind by the Unpleasant Lead's selfish,moronic or mean-spirited nature needs to be mitigated by hefty doses of laugh out loud moments of inspired humour and brilliant gags.

In that sense, Talladega Nights:The Ballad Of Ricky Bobby works (to an extent) and My Super Ex-Girlfriend fails remarkably.

Talladega Nights (henceforth abbreviated to TN) is a Will Ferrell comedy through and through. And like his previous collaboration with director Adam McKay,"Anchorman:The Legend Of Ron Burgundy", TN takes a tried and tested(and abused) plot-line and zaps it with moments of bizarre,surreal comedy spiced with a nasty irreverent edge that conveniently helps you forget,albeit only occassionally, of its dog-eared origins.

Take, for instance the quote that opens the movie:

"America is about speed. Hot, nasty, badass speed"
Immediately after that you learn that the quote supposedly originated from...ELEANOR ROOSEVELT!!!!

Not a frame of film has been seen and it's already elicited one hearty chuckle from me!

It's that kind of perverse OUT THERE humour that keeps TN from tipping over into generic hog wash. For, going by the plot alone TN isn't worth the beer-stained napkin it was scribbled on.

Ferrell is Ricky Bobby,the name and the first scene showing his delivery in a souped up car driven by a Southern-Accent spewing Gary Cole(who's always a pleasure to watch)travelling at top speed on a country side back road effectively signalling its clear cut intention to lampoon all things red-neck.

And what better milieu to stage this in than that most hallowed of all Southern-Fried institutions:NASCAR which is where a grown up Ricky thrives in as a celebrated racer(after taking to heart one of his absentee and frequently high-on-weed dad's dictums:"if you ain't first,you're last").

Digs at Drag Racing, its pervasive corporate sponsorship that has Ricky spewing Chinese to sell Oriental crackers, Ricky's mansion with multiple SUVs parked in front, his blonde,bitchy trophy Wife, foul mouthed sons called Walker and Texas Ranger ("If we wanted 'em to be wussies, we woulda named them Dr.Quinn and Medicine Woman") and delinquent weed-smoking father so consistently take the mickey out of the Red States that it's US148mil gross at the box-office is astounding( did the very people who no doubt formed its core audience know they were being lampooned?)

As mentioned,the plot's about as disposable as day-old soiled nappies.

Since Ricky is an arrrogant,selfish and shallow person,letting his potty mouthed kids insult their maternal grandfather hogging the lime-light while refusing best friend and team mate Cal Naughton Jr.(John C. McGinley) a shot at the title and who sportingly comes in second, part of a routine they call "Shake 'N' Bake" which allows Ricky to win every time, we know come-uppance that sets him on the road to humility is just around the bend.

It comes in the form of a very French and very GayJean Girrard(Played by Sacha "Ali G/Borat" Baron Cohen sporting not so much a French accent as a French Accent Americans think the French have), a rival driver hired by Ricky's team owner to put him in his place. And after a spectacular crash that puts Ricky out of action, that place is in a hospital where Ricky experiences psycho-somatic symptoms of being paralysed. If the last sentence sounds morbid, trust me when I say it's stretched to hilarious form in TN. Beginning with Ricky's imaginary "I'm on fire" reaction to his stripping to his undies(in front of a capacity crowd) and running around yelling "Help Me Jesus! Help Me Jewish God!Help Me Tom Cruise! Use your witchcraft to put out this fire!" and culminating in a hospital stay that sees him stab himself(with 2 knives) to convince his friends he's paralysed, it's Ferrell firing on all comedic cyliners.

Note I've digressed from the plot again and that's because it's simply not what keeps this movie cooking.

YOU KNOW.....Ricky's going to lose house,wife and kids on account of not being able to get behind a wheel of a car and be reduced to a penury existence delivering pizzas.

YOU KNOW..... that the dead beat dad is going to show up playing Obi-Wan to Ricky's Luke Skywalker,helping him overcome his driving fear(by among other tactics, getting him to drive with a live cougar in the passenger seat and after that, riving blindfolded ["you don't need to see to drive son. FEEL the car"]

YOU KNOW.....he overcomes his phobia to race again to reclaim what he's lost.

It's the moments of inspired humour that keep you hooked:

-A dinner table saying of Grace that teeters on the brink of sacrilege.
"Dear 8 pound 6 ounce newborn infant Jesus, hasn't even said his first word yet..."

- Ricky's wife tearfully telling the doctor she's decided to pull the plug, in spite of the fact that he's merely taking a nap

- Jean Girrard earning the wrath of patrons in a bar by playing jazz on the jukebox.
" We don't play jazz here'" retorts an irate patron
"Then why do you have it in your jukebox," enquires the Frenchman
"We keep it there for profiling purposes," dead pans the bartender.

There are many more of such inspired moments scattered throughout this flick so grab a beer , sit yo' ass down and help yourself to a heaping helping of Southern Fried Humour. TN is what Dukes Of Hazzard should have been (and missed by a long mile).


And speaking of misses..

My Super Ex-Girlfriend had all the potential to be a comedic gem. Superhero Angst, while dealt with effectively in its more dramatic incarnations (Hulk,Spider-Man) has rarely been subject matter for a comedy. Which is surprising, for it's a fertile Laugh-Pool to be mined.
Take for example, the premise of a tall,leggy,blond and beautiful super-heroine who is also by turns neurotic,jealous,needy and clingy. The paradox alone, in the hands of a capable director, is potential COMEDY GOLD. And My Super Ex-Girlfriend(henceforth referred to as MSEG) has one with outstanding, albeit dated, pedigree. Ivan Reitman, who gave us the inventive Ghostbusters flicks and 2 superior Schwarzenegger comic vehicles(Twins & Kindergarten Cop) before faltering with the 3rd one(Junior) , is a director supremely suited to the comedy genre and in Uma Thurman, you have one of the most interesting actresses(in my humble opinion) next to Rachael McAdams working today.

So,what went so bloody wrong?

After all, Uma Thurman nails her role,both as blonde superhero G-Girl and her mousy,bespectacled alter-ego Jenny Jones. She especially fleshes out,with sometimes creepy intensity, her characters' deep-seated insecurities which cause havoc and ultimately destroys her relationship with Architect Matt Saunders(Luke"Brother of Owen" Wilson).

Firstly, insecurity in a realtionship is no laughing matter and to transform it into one, one of 2 things need to be accomplished effectively.
Firstly, a credible enough reason needs be there to convince you why a girl who looks like she could qualify for next weeks' Vogue spread, who can fly to and suck the fire out of a burning building all in the time it takes for her date to be convinced she just stepped into the ladies, is so wracked with doubt and uncertainty.

Secondly, the object of her affections and later,her scorned wrath needs to be sympathetic and genuinely likeable.

Neither happens.

G-Girl's self doubt is never adequately explained and it doesn't help that her origin back-story doesn't occur until well after the movies' half-way point and does nothing to shed light on the matter(she's a nerd, touches a crashed meteor, turns blonde,gorgeous and super-powered and is nerd no more.So..is it Delayed or Dormant Insecurity we're dealing with here?)

Wilson's character is an insipid jerk, nursing a crush for a colleague who is attached, latches onto our heroine , then dumps her on the advice of a horny friend and quickly hops into the sack with the colleague once she's (conveniently) un-attached.And in a destestable move later,he even collaborates with the villain to strip G-Girl of her powers! Oh the cad! As a result, we don't quite feel the empathy we should even when she almost fries his pet-goldfish with heat-vision, puts his car on a geo-synchronous orbit into space,crashes through his ceiling twice, ruins his presentation while stripping him naked in the process and tosses a live shark into his living room. (It's Hell Hath No Fury..type Bitchy and Vindictive Woman Stereotype will earn it no kudos among feminists either)

Throw in a lame villain, a lamer love triangle( although the Other Woman is an admittedly sweet Anna Faris) and a limp rag of a climax, and this superhero take on"Fatal Attraction " unlike it's caped heroine,never takes off.

Casino Royale

Call it irony,if you will. Watching the opening scene of the 21st installment of the latest James Bond flick, I was struck by a scene from an earlier big-budget actioner that was,in essence an homage to Agent 007. I refer to James Cameron's True Lies, the Schwarzenegger vehicle that told of a super-spy trying to keep his true occupation a secret from a long-suffering wife.Not it's plot thread,which was ripped off by last summer's "Mission Impossible 3" along with its famous bridge blowing scene. I refer,specifically to a brutal bathroom brawl between the Governator and an Arab terrorist. After clobbering the swarthy killer,Arnold proceeds to bash him repeatedly on the head with a hand-dryer ripped from the walls and then ramming him head-first into a urinal. A scene whose brutality is tempered in the very next second by Arnold turning on the urinal tap and quipping to the now comatose assailant "Cool Off!". It's the sort of throw away line Bond, in his various incarnations as Connery,Lazenby,Moore,Dalton and Brosnan would have tossed of with insouciant panache.
And yet, Casino Royale, which opens with a similar brutal fight between Bond's 6th Avatar,Daniel Craig and an unnamed antagonist in an anonymous Men's Room,offers no such relief. The scrape ends viciously when Bond drowns him in a sink.The man slinks down to the floor, Bond looks at him and ...nothing. Just grim exhaustion etched on his face.
So, we've come full circle in the now 43 year old franchise. The Bond films,once the hall mark of big budget,high testosterone action, then widely imitated( and subsequently parodied) by movies which upped the budget and boosted its testosterone level by substituting humour with increasing levels of violence,now have to ape its successors' rough-edged brutality to stay current.
That the opening scene is shot in black and white and DOES NOT begin with the famous Opener of Bond staring down a gun barrel to John Barry's signature surf-guitar laced theme is the first warning shot director Martin Campbell fires at you,signalling loud and clear, that this Bond is a very different creature indeed. It's a Back to Basics approach, this Bond re-tooled and re-jigged for an audience far more accustomed to the travails of that other spy who shares his initials. It's James Bond for the Jason Bourne crowd,a Batman Begins-style franchise Re-Boot that not so much invigorates it as wipes it clean of Memories of Bonds Past.
Forget what you know of Bond, is what Campbell tells you. This is a Bond who,as the movie opens has just earned his 00 Licence to Kill via the bathroom and another less messier kill (it takes 2 you see) .As embodied by Craig's tough visage and sapphire blue eyes,this Bond is in the words of M(a returning Judi Dench) "a blunt instrument",a killer just earning his stripes but at this stage already demonstrating the steely determination to get his prey at any cost, as a virtuoso action set piece that opens the film post credits demonstrates superbly.
In Madagascar,Bond gives chase to a bomb maker on foot, not an easy task as his quarry is an expert in the sport known as "parkour" or free running, dodging,jumping and vaulting over obstacles with effortless ease. As choreographed by the actor playing the bomb maker,Sebastian Foucan, it's a stunner of an action set-piece, 100% stuntwork undiluted by CGI.As Foucan clambers over walls,construction sites and mile-high cranes, Bond keeps up a relentless pursuit,ending in an embassy where he cold-bloodedly executes his prey and blows up the building for good measure. That he overlooks the numerous security cameras which lovingly record his "wet work" is the first intimation this James Bond is a diamond in the rough,albeit one who even at this early stage demonstrates the type of collossal cheek we all love,by breaking into M's apartment no less!
Given a dressing down and sent to the Bahamas where he continues to track down the bomb makers contacts, Bond worms his way into the confidence(and arms) of Solange,wife of the shadyAlex Dimitros, and discovers Dimitros' plot to blow up an airliner,which he promptly foils after another explosive action scene. The plane's failure to go up in flames puts La Chiffre,Dimitros's boss, firmly in the red. The fact that the money used by La Chiffre,international "banker to the terrorists", to speculate against the airlines' stocks comes from a homicidal Ugandan warlord means the money must be recovered in record time, leading to a prolonged poker match in Montenegro held in the titular casino where he hopes to win back the lost moolah, and where Bond must beat him at the game to stop that happening.
The fact that La Chiffre(played with oily relish by Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen) is not some megalomaniac bent on world domination and is instead a shadowy money man is one of the movies' numerous nods to gritty realism, as is its penchant for putting Bond through ordeals that see him getting punched,kicked,slashed and in the movies' most uncomfortable scene,brutally tortured,his Cojones getting a wince inducing workover.
This Bond is a Bleeder who gets cut and scars that are still visible several scenes later,an effective kiss-off to the perrenially unruffled Brosnan.Thankfully for us, he's also a Bruiser who gives as good as he gets and the movies single biggest success is in depicting his ice-cold determination and pig-headedness that would make him MI6's most lethal weapon in future adventures. Bond may,at this stage, be uncomfortable wearing a tuxedo and NOT give a damn whether his vodka martini is shaken or stirred,but can still brutally dispatch assssins,change his shirt and resume play. He's poisoned to have a heart attack,but is still resourceful enough to stumble to his Aston Martin, retrieve a de-fibrillator from the glove compartment,get shocked back to health,get back to the table and quip "Sorry but that last hand almost killed me".
Bond afficionados,used to ticking off items on the Bond Checklist had best prepare toUN-check a few of them this time around.
With Moneypenny and Q nowhere in sight, Bond is largely Infatuation and Gadget free although the ubiquitous use of cell phones and laptops more than compensate in the latter department. Just don't hold your breath hoping to see the Aston Martin DBS go invisible.
The Babe quotient is way low on the Bond Shag-O-Meter starting from the Female Silhouette free opening credits to 007 only sowing his wild oats with the main Bond Girl, Vesper Lynd played by the beautiful Eva Green, and its not a one night stand but a full blown love affair,one that is tainted by treachery and sets the tone for Bond's rakish behaviour with subsequent women.
Both Craig and Green walk away with honours; one for invigorating Bonds' iconic persona with a rough-hewn and complex edge, the other for giving us one of the most fully realised Bond Girls ever to strut across 007's field of vision, and she does it without once donning a bikini!Vesper is intriguing,smart,complex and vulnerable, the last adjective being the only one previous Bond girls could lay claim to.
There are jarring tones: the movie goes on a good 30 minutes more than it should,made more difficult by the protracted romance sub-plot coming right after the protracted poker game before getting back to familiar territory in an action-packed finale set in a rapidly sinking Venetian mansion.And the odd bleeding eye aside, Mikkelsen's La Chiffre lacks the singularity that marks your traditional Bond Baddie.
Still, the odd discordant note in no way ruins this Re-Energised Symphony of Action,Sex and Exotic Locales.
As the final scene unspools and Bond stands over his fallen enemy and finally mouths the line we've been waiting a 144 minutes for: "The Name's Bond,James Bond" and the Signature Bond theme, heard only in teasing snatches throughout finally erupts into it's Full Throttle Orchestral Roar,we sigh with relief and say, "Indeed you are. Welcome back 007. Looking forward to your 22nd outing"

BOND BEGINS!

THE PRESTIGE

THE PRESTIGE

Illusion. Sleight Of Hand. Legerdemain. Misdirection. Leading the audience to think or look in one direction while the magician performs the switch or trick or deception in places he KNOWS you're NOT looking bcause he has successfully misdirected your attention elsewhere. It is the basic building block of a conjuring trick.

Successful mystery writers like Agatha Christie practiced such deceptive sleight of hand writing for decades, engaging the reader in deception, making them look at the butler while it was the vicar's wife who was up to mischief.

Today's master practicioner of twisty narratives in books,Jeffery Deaver, so enjoys pulling the rug out from under you, one is liable to experience a concussion from having fallen on ones' back once too often as yet another "conjuring" narrative trick is revelaed.

In films, M.Night Shyamalan's "The Sixth Sense" is still the best narrative trick, the shock ending not only knocking you backwards with the reveal, but it's flash-recap of all that took place before also slyly telling you that "Hey, the clues were all there..but you just weren't paying attention" and following at a close second is Christopher Nolan's "Memento", a narrative trickery based on the unreliability of one's memory compounded by it's reverse-order telling of the tale.

Since Nolan's latest flick opens with a voice-over saying "Are you watching closely?" , expect to be misled, deceived and obfuscated by it's diabolically delicious tale of 2 duelling magicians in early 20th-century England.

The 2 conjurors, Rupert Angier (Hugh Jackman) and Alfred Borden(Christian Bale) are put on a collision course in professional rivalry when the former blames the latter for the death of his wife in a performance gone horribly wrong.

As each tries to upstage the other( and engage in some very unprofessional sabotaging of the others performance), hatred spirals into obsession especially on the part of Angier when he feels he must, at all cost, find out the secret behind Borden's incredible Transported Man trick, disappearing and then re-appearing somewhere else. It's an obsession that has him "pimping" his lover cum assistant Olive ( a rather plastic Scarlett Johansson) to Borden in a bid to find out his secret, a ruse that back fires when she falls for the latter (On a side note, in these liberated times, why do film makers still think it's engaging to have a female character,supposedly the heroine, flit from one man's bed to another in rapid succession? Doesn't work guys. See Kirsten Dunst's Mary Jane from the Spidey flicks and more specifically Kate Beckinsale's nurse in Pearl Harbor).

Angier also travels to Colorado to meet the Engineering whiz behind Borden's famous act, the renowned scientist Nikolai Tesla( a terrific David Bowie) , in a bid to find answers. And here Nolan sets up a similar rivalry between Tesla and that other great scientific mind of that time, Thomas Edison, mischieviously suggesting that rivalry between 2 great minds in a similar field is a given. But there are differences. While Tesla and Edison were possibly equals in the genious department, our battling magicians are not. Borden is clearly the better magician with Angier being the better showman. Borden is cold and calculating while Angier is obsessive. As Tesla warns Angier, "No good can come of this" and he and we know the movie is hurtling towards an ending that is anything but happy. But it's the ride Nolan takes you on that ensures you're strapped in for the full duration.Complemented with powerful performances by the 2 leads, ably supported by the ever reliable Michael Caine, a peek into the world of magic and a narrative arc choc-a-bloc of tricks(like Memento Nolan juggles timelines like the 3rd unseen conjuror of this tale), The Prestige is a must see. WATCH CLOSELY now.....

I READ......

Sightseeing by Rattawut Lapcharoensap

A collection of short stories set in Thailand. Gentle snap-shots of a Thailand we don't often see or hear about elevate this collection. Still,one wishes for some resolution to the stories, be it a son's journey with his mother before she goes blind or a Cock Fighter's fued with a local bully. It would have made the tales sting with the spice of a tom yam instead of going down gently like Green Curry.

ALSO SAW....

BLACK RAIN

This 1989 Ridley Scott actioner, remastered on DVD still packs a wallop, thanks to great atmospeheric photography and well choreographed action scenes.

CURRENTLY READING...

THE PRESTIGE BY CHRISTOPHER PRIEST

The Proposition

Plot: The titular deal is offered to the 2nd of the Murderous Outlaw Burns Brothers,Charley, by English soldier Captain Stanley: Ride out to the outback, find his vicious elder sibling Arthur and kill him, and in return, he will not hang his younger one Mikey come Christmas day.
Moral conflicts ensue,as Charley is in no mood to off big brother once he finds him, and back home townsfolk bay for the younger Burns blood as Stanley's concience stand in their way....

A slow,languorous pace, lots of wide-eyed vista shots of the arid Australian landscape, close-ups of dirty,unshaven faces,brief bursts of intense violence followed by looooong inert mood-setting scenes of drama punctuated by furtive glances, minimalist pseudo-intellectual discourse scored to dirge-sounding bush ballads: Welcome to the Arty Western, done Down Under style.

It's the sort of movie where scenes of a man being flogged is inter-cut to one of another singing "Peggy Gordon" ,said scene meant to underscore the point that it's not just about violence you see, it's also a lyrical medidation of it; But then.. you get a close up shot of a bare-back ripped to pieces after the whipping and the Whipper actually wringing blood off the instrument and you wonder... why not stick with loving close-ups of the flogging exercise a la Passion of The Christ and leave the Celtic ballads in the new Corrs CD?

I'm in mixed minds about this gritty,brutal but nevertheless well made Antipodian Western. It's a fairly effective study in morality, much like Eastwood's Unforgiven. But where that Oscar Winner had a plodding Mid-Section which was compensated by a powerfully charismatic star-cast, The Proposition often mutes it's equally talented thespians. Guy Pierce, the so-called "hero" of the piece is so low key he only comes alive in the bloody climax. Danny Huston as the Villain spends far too much time in philosopher mode. The extremely talented Emily Watson(as Stanley's wife) is a study of imploding grief and dread when the character could have used at least one Serious Outburst Scene. It's up to Ray Winstone to carry the show, and he does so admirably. His Captain Stanley, who comes across as the villain in the movie's opening scene(especially after a brutal pistol-whipping he delivers) is a wonderful study in conflict, his sense of a Man on a Mission to civilize the barbaric Outback slowly but surely compromised by his resolute stand on Justice, of being a Gentleman who keeps his word,even if the promise was made to criminals, a promise which the town folk and his superior ( a slimy David Wenham, iradicating the dashing Faramir in LOTR once and for all) have no intention of letting him keep.

The struggle to maintain civilized behaviour in a brutal land, as driven home Sledgehammer style, by a scene depicting Stanley and wife, dressed in their finest, sitting down to a Christmas dinner,table replete with the finest cutlery, and exchanging pleasant talk in polished tones, contrasted against the barren landscape outside their homes populated by unwashed and grimy folk and impending violence, is an apt theme for a revisionist Western. But one wishes that these tough 'ole boys would tone down the pontificating a notch, strap on their pistols and let their bullets do the talking.

Listening to John Hurt's erudite bounty hunter gas-bagging about Darwin's Theory of Evolution, one does wonder, if guys really talked as much as these fellers back in those Bad Old Days, they would probably have been the first lot be culled under Nature's Grand Natural Selection Plan, gently nudged along by an Aboriginal spear or two.

A little less Bark and a lot more Bite would have made this Proposition more palatable....

Over The Hedge

Having bought a whole bunch of animated flicks for my nephew when I see him at the end of this month in Mumbai, the child in me was tempted enough to watch one of them last night.

Over The Hedge, the latest CGI animation from Dream Works , is delightful from the get go.

Plot: A group of animals fresh off hibernation are about to begin storing food for the upcoming winter ( a mere 274 days away) when they discover, to their shock that much of their beloved woodland has been demolished for a 54-acre housing estate that is separated from the jungle by the titular hedge. Verne, the cautious turtle and leader of the animals is quickly upstaged by the appearance of a wily raccoon RJ who sweet-talks the group into going over the hedge into suburbia where food is a-plenty. Verne is, understandably, tail-tinglingly suspicious of the new member. And for good reason as RJ has a hidden agenda.....

While Pixar still reigns supreme in this field, for me the added bonus of a Dream Works offering is their use of high profile stars to give voice to the numerous animal cast. So Bruce Willis' smarmy tones fleshes out RJ the raccoon's street-smart coolness while comedian Garry Shandling is perfect as the straight arrow Verne. Look out also for a hilarious William Shatner as a possum, Nick Nolte as mean bear Vincent and last but definitely not least, a scene stealing Thomas Haden Church as the Verminator, Animal exterminator extrodinaire. And let's not forget the always dependable Steve Carel as IQ challenged squirrel Hammy.Although after a similarly moronic turn in Will Ferrel's Anchorman, playing a moronic dim wit is something the 40-Year Old Virgin could do in his sleep. And there's a Persian Cat voiced by an actor whose name I can't recall who'll crack you up! He's that good!!

There's the usual story-with-a-moral wrap up that is endemic to these films( they are made primarily for kids of course) but with enough in-jokes for the adults, a bristling pace and gorgeous animation, chalk this up as a winner for Dream Works after the less than satisfying Madagascar.

My guilty pleasures

There are times, I must admit when the philistine in me rears it's unwashed head and I seek out movies that offer not one iota of originality or inventiveness in its narrative, choosing instead flicks that wallow in mediocrity, embracing every cliche with affection and wearing it's B-Movie tag like a badge of honour as it inundates the viewer with plots that could be regurgitated onto a paper napkin by a 5 year old in the time it takes him to finish a bowl of cheerios.

There are also films I return to time and time again, like re-visiting an old friend, that now, seen through older eyes, show the cracks of time, the creaks of technology now obsolete, which nevertheless suck me in on sheer charm and narrative power.

Lastly there are the "Big Dumb Actioners" of the 80's and '90s that continue to enthrall me with the sheer momentum of their pace, never mind the fact that I've seen it so many times, I could tell you that the 4th person in a 30 second, 10 man gunfight has a mole in the upper left corner of his mouth.

So, sit back and relax as I raid my DVD collection to give you a guided tour of my guilty viewing pleasures. Fans of "Memento", Merchant Ivory Flicks and Iranian Cinema need read no further:

ROAD HOUSE

How much do I love this B flick? Failing to get a copy here, I made my Immortal Beloved scour DVD stores on her trip to the US to locate one, which, bless her heart, she did and it now occupies a special place in my collection.

Any movie that starts with pair of long legs attached to a lithe body squeezed into a dress 2 sizes smaller gets my vote from the get go. Said body walks into a night club. Inside said nightclub is Dalton(Patrick Swayze), Man with No First Name, the best bouncer in the business keeping an eye on things.

Dalton is approached by Frank Tilghman(Kevin Tighe), to clean up a bar he's just purchased in Jasper, Missouri called the Double Deuce. "Used to be a sweet deal, now it's the sort of place where you sweep up the eye balls at closing time", Frank says and that's just one of many delicious one-line zingers that pepper the script. Dalton accepts and heads down to Jasper.

His first visit to the Double-Deuce bar is a whopper of a mood-setting piece. I know it's sacriligeous to even consider making a comparison to Coppola's "Godfather" but consider this: That epic masterpiece had a loooong opening wedding scene that among other things set the mood and tone for the rest of the film. At the end of the scene you KNEW 2 things beyond the shadow of any doubt: This was a traditional Italian American family who nevertheless were involved in some dark endeavours. Dalton's initial encounter with the red and rough necked employees and patrons of the Double-Deuce achieves a similar effect. At the end of the scene you KNOW beyond the shadow of any doubt that: Dalton has his work cut out for him; a bouncer recklessly flings an inebriated patron across the room, the performing live band sits behind a caged fence for a reason as audience participation is often in the form of flung bottles, one yahoo offers to let another fondle his girlfriends tits for 20 bucks, a waitress deals drugs on the side and the barman skims from the till. It's a tinder box of violence where "power drinkers, 40 year old adolescents and keepers of Modern Chemistry" come as much to punch each others lights out as to down a pint.

Dalton quickly starts putting things in order and this brings him on a direct collision course with resident Bad Guy and Town Big Shot Brad Wesley(Ben Gazarra), a situation not helped by the fact that our laconic hero meets, dates and beds the town's hot,blonde doctor and the object of Wesley's infatuation (Kelly Lynch) in record time.

In structure,plot and pacing, Road House is a Western in modern clothes. Instead of a cattle stampede, you have a Monster Truck smashing through an auto-dealesrship in one of the movie's many delightfully over the top action scenes. In place of shoot outs, there are niftily choreographed martial arts fight scenes that will have the fan boy in you whooping with delight as Dalton beats the living tar out of Wesley's hired goons. The Western connection is compounded when you realise one of the actors is called Red West and the director's first name is Rowdy!

And I haven't even mentioned Sam Elliot's Wade Garrett, the tough, grizzled veteran of the Bouncing industry. He's Master to Dalton's Grasshopper. Elliott has that tough, leathery,lived in face which, complemented by a sandpaper voice, exudes a menacing,lethal presence that no amount of gym-honed pretty boys can ever hope to match and I for one would have enjoyed a climactic showdown that had both Dalton and Garrett double-team to take on Wesley and his crime cadre. But alas, his character meets a tragic end, a plot point that serves as a springboard for a Dalton Rampage of Rage that sees him single-handedly taking on and wiping out the bad guys in their lair.

Road House is so blissfully unaware of its blatant sexism, that it's a guilty pleasure: Wesley's dumb-blonde girlfriend openly propositions Dalton with the charming line"What say you and I go back to my place and fuck?" , a remark that earns her a black eye from Wesley. She later proceeds to do a strip dance right in the centre of the bar to the strains of "Hoochie Coochie Man". Wade Garrett looks at Dalton's girlfriend and remarks," That girl's got way too much brains to have an ass like that".

And the fight scenes have an air of lethal authenticity to them. They're not overly choreographed wire-enhanced exercises in balletic grace. They're tough, intense affairs, punches and roundhouse kicks delivered to knuckle crunching, wince-inducing effects.

This is one Road House I don't mind stopping over every once in awhile for my predictable meat and fries.

HIGHLANDER

Road House had a line that went something like this:

Upon seeing the legendary Dalton, one smart-ass remarks, "You know, they told me you had balls big enough to come in a dump truck but you don't look like much to me"

To which our hero deadpans, "Opinions vary".

That line aptly sums up the extreme reactions people often have about Highlander, Guilty Pleasure No.2.

Director Russell Mulcahy once commented, "People either see this 6 times or never"

I've seen this sword clanging epic many many times multiplied by 6 but my Immortal Beloved simply cannot see what the fuss is all about.

Seen today, Highlander's effects are hopelessly out-dated(at one point you can actually see Christopher Lambert suspended by wires as he supposedly levitates!), it's numerous sword battles slow and clunky and it's been hopelessly rubbished by 3 inferior sequels and a mediocre TV series.

But it's bold and cheeky concept and director Mulcahy's time altering-narrative still packs a punch. If ever a movie dazzled and continues to do so on sheer story telling verve, it's this one.

How many action flicks can boast of the following opener: A wrestling match that cuts to a spectator walking out to the parking lot, to engage in a sword-fighting duel, at the end of which he decapitates his opponent, experiences an energy-absorbing sensation whereby he blows out the lights and half the cars in the lot and then runs out of the building as the camera pans upwards and onto.......medieval Scotland where aforementioned sword-fighter is now a kilt-wearing Highland warrior!!!!

Sword fighter is Connor McLeod(of the clan McLeod) who is mortally wounded by the Kurgan(Clancy Brown), a vicious warrior during battle with a rival clan. Expected to die, he recovers which is a definite no-no in medieval times when any miraculous recovery is automatically attributed to a pact with the devil. Stoned, beaten and hounded out of his village, Connor meets Ramirez( a very Scottish Sean Connery naturally playing a...... Spaniard) who tells him he's an Immortal, that he can only be killed by decapitation and that all Immortals must fight until ONLY ONE REMAINS TO CLAIM THE PRIZE. Ramirez is killed by the Kurgan who then proceeds to hunt for Connor through the centuries until the final showdown in present day New York.......

Russel Mulcahy's imaginative cross-cutting between past and present, stylish camera moves, a sizzling soundtrack by Queen and one of the most menacing and gleefully over-the-top villains ever to grace the screen(Clancy Brown, you rock!) all make Highlander a delicious viewing experience. Forget the crappy sequels, as the movie's Immortal tagline claims:

"THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE"

DIE HARD 2

It can well be asked why, in the hugely successful Die Hard Franchise, do I commonly reach for the much maligned 2nd part rather than the commonly acknowledged superior original and it's equally well-received 3rd part, whenever I need a quick Action fix in my viewing diet?

Very simply because, by doing away with character arc and needless exposition,piling on relentless action and elevating Bruce Willis' John McLane character from its' "Underdog Caught In Wrong Place At A Wrong Time" to "Rambo On A Mission" persona, director Renny Harlin successfully crafts one hell of a B-Movie on an A list budget.

McLane is in Dulles International airport awaiting the arrival of his wife (Bonnie Bedelia) on Christmas Eve, it's snowing to near-zero visibility levels, and his car's(borrowed from mom-in-law) just been towed away. To add to his woes, a team of ex-Special Forces grunts headed by the vicious Colonel Stuart takes over the Airport's control systems including its plane landing capabilities, threatening to crash one if the Authorities attempt to land any. All runways are to be kept clear for 1 plane, carrying Noriega like General Esperanza, a Latin American Dictator. With planes circling overhead unable to land and rapidly running out of fuel and one of them being the one carrying McClane's beloved missus,he springs into action......

McLane may mouth lines like "How can the same shit happen to the same guy twice" but you know without a shadow of a doubt that he's relishing the opportunity to take on the Rogue soldiers and kicking their Military butts. While McClane was hurt and vulnerable in the original, often doubting his abilities to take on 12 armed European baddies in a high-rise, here he's Super Cop on a mission and while Director Harlin sticks to the original's premise of having him get increasingly beat up and bloodied as the movie puts him through escalating action set-pieces, one gets the feelings that all those cuts and bruises are just wearing him down temporarily while he catches his breath before strapping on his armour to do more battle.

Die Hard 2 is hard-core action in glorious R-Rated tradition; its dialogue is laced with enough profanity to do Scorcese proud, it's fight scenes are brutal(see McClane pick up ice pick, see McClane ram pick into baddies's eyeball) and one major action set-piece that sees the chief baddie crashing a plane just to show he means business is something you'd be hard-pressed to find in today's market of neutered PG-13 actioners. How many action movies actually introduce their chief villain doing martial arts moves...in the nude????

Give in to its over-the-top action and hyper-tensed narrative, and at the end of its explosive fueled climax(that takes place on the wing of a moving 747!), you may well feel like echoing McClane's (in)famous catchphrase:

Yipeeekaiyaaaay Motherfucker!!

OTHER GUILTY PLEASURES

COBRA

Stallone goes Dirty Harry(Eastwood side-kick Reni Santoni and Psycho baddie Andy Robinson from that movie are here as well, re-inforcing this flicks' antecedents) and takes on knife and axe-wielding psychos.

Plus Points: Superb action sequences and with a running time of under 90 minutes,it's crammed full of them.

Major Plus Points: Stallone's catch phrase: "You're a disease,and I'm the cure".

Minus Points: Brigitte Nielsen

Special Mention: Villain Brian Thompson. When he salivates while uttering the line "I want your eyes pig!" , it's easy to believe that if he said that standing in front of you in real life, you'd crap your pants in 5 seconds flat!

COMMANDO

Baddies kidnap Arnold Schwarzenegger's daughter(future hottie Alyssa Milano) and hold her hostage. The deal:Arnie assassinates the current leader of a Latin American country to enable a coup by Chief Baddie Dan Hedaya and in return they won't mail his daughter back to him in separate pieces.

In one corner: Baddie on an island filled with his own private army and his psychotic right hand man Vernon Wells.

In the other corner: An armed to the teeth Governator.

Poor baddie.... he never stood a chance......

Plus Points: A relentless pace that never let up, balls-to-the walls-action capped with zinging Arnie one-liners ("Remember when I told you I'd kill you last? I lied").

Minus points: Rae Dawn Chongs' annoying squeals for the 1st hour. Shut up bitch!

Special Mention: Vernon Wells as psycho right hand man to Baddie. Any actor who can convince you that in spite of being chunky and pot-bellied he can still give a ripped Arnie a bloody fight gets my vote!