Musings From New York

Noooooooooooooooooooo ...

... oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

The Illusionist 7/10

What is cinema? A succumbing to the seduction of alternate reality, a willing suspension of disbelief, and perhaps even a return to childlike innocence and perpetual wonder. Can magic tricks be realized in an environment where the audience does not come prepared with a healthy dose of scepticism? My answer, after seeing this movie, is "Yes"

The Illusionist is a thoroughly entertaining movie, adapted by the short story Eisenheim the Illusionist by Steve Millhauser. The story is of love lost and regained, a blending of illusion and reality, of political intrigue and a cat-and-mouse game ... and some honking good magic tricks. If there is one thing about the tricks, it's that they still evoked gasps from the theater audience. Now that's saying a lot about people that have endured CG-heavy movie summer blockbusters, such as Pirates 2.

Of the acting, one performance is noteworthy - Rufus Sewell as Crown Prince Leopold. The Prince is impatient, ambitious, jealous, and quick to anger. Sewell continues his streak of being strong-willed men of dark ambition. Lookup his IMDB profile if you will. All bad guys. He also looked uncannily like Jude Law for some reason. The rest of the cast does an admirable job as well, with Paul Giamatti shining as usual.

I count four possible Oscar nominations for this movie: Best Screenplay (Adaptation), Best Original Score, Best Art Direction and Best Costume Design.

Want to get over the summer blockbuster blues? Go watch this movie!

My head exploded!

When they decided to name the website "Cute Overload" ... they weren't kidding! Check out the kittens & puppies section. You'll see what I mean.

Oh, and there's a really cute video of a sleeping kitten on that site somewhere.

Prepare to say "Awwwww" for the rest of the day ... Enjoy!

Independence Day ...

Had 30 minutes left to make this post ... damn what a day!

Weekend Update

So a few things happened over the weekend to warrant a post ...

The planets, stars, sun and moon finally aligned themselves in an auspicious position for my mother to purchase her air tickets to come over to the US. She'll be arriving mid-September and staying for about 6 weeks. I hope her travel isn't disrupted too much by any upcoming new security measures (especially since India was named as a target).

Then, last night, I watched Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna. Someone asked me as we were in line why I hadn't watched a Hindi movie for year (not strictly true, I watched a couple on DVD). I daresay the question was answered over the next three hours. This movie has more twists than a corkscrew ... I think at one point, it was attempting to become the Bollywood's first Mobius strip! What posessed Karan Johar to write this movie, let alone make it, is beyond me. Of course, it wasn't all bad - there  were some fairly funny moments ... mostly Amitabh Bacchan's scenes, though. There are a few one line zingers thrown in for good measure. But still ... time-pass stuff, all told. Oh, and there was an interesting song sequence that (IMO) blatantly whacked the whole colored canvas concept of Hero, but without understanding the reason for the technique.

Lastly, I retired Bheema, my paladin in WoW, this weekend. It just wasn't fun playing anymore ... my guild had become a hardcore raiding guild, with some intense pressure to perform according to a strict gameplan. I figure I get enough of that at work, I should be able to play to relax. Which is not to say I'm giving up WoW (I think I need to speak to a shrink about that) ... I am playing other characters on other servers, to give myself a clean break from my old "life". But it was still a bit of a sad moment, giving up something that I had invested time and effort over the last 18 months, ya know?

New airline travel policies

So we've all heard of (in great detail) the various new restrictions on carry on items - the latest knee jerk reaction to a foiled terrorist plot. The way things are going, I wouldn't be surprised if, at some point in the future, we'd arrive at the airport, strip and change to airline issued orange jumpsuits, shackled to our seats with armed guards walking the aisles.

Yes folks, it's "Con Air", gone crazy.

For all you PC gamers out there ...

Gamespot's tested a bunch of games against the latest beta build of Vista. The results are scary for someone (ie: me) who plays a bunch of older games.

However, Vista's still in beta, so there's no reason that these problems won't be fixed by January.

Idle Hollywood hands ...

Makes the Devil ask questions like ... "What is John Stewart ran for president?", and then commission a movie to find out.

Talladega Nights 6/10

I must admit, I'm a bit of a Will Ferrell fan. The fan-ness started when I first saw the cowbell sketch from SNL, and solidified when I watched the SNL: Best of Will Ferrell DVD. The man, I felt, is a comic genius.

Note the past tense.

Its not that Talladega Nights is a bad movie. There are some good laughs there, but to me, the true test of a comedy is the ability for a viewer to remember the good bits later ... to regurgitate the comedic cud for future relish and mastication. Sadly, there is very little in this movie. Sacha Baron Cohen (aka Da Ali G) is ... chuckle-worthy, at best, what with that ridiculous supposedly French accent. But I suppose to the average American audience, that'd go unnoticed amidst the hilarity on-screen.

When I left the movie theater, I was wondering if Will Ferrell made a good comic lead in a movie. For some reason, I could only recall a few funny characters - Frank from Old School, the SNL skit above, Mustapha from Austin Powers, and Mugatu from Zoolander. You'll notice that only none of the above have him cast as the lead, but have him playing a comic foil (is that the right term? God knows, I never took film classes :p) to the main character. A quick search on IMDb showed me that he did a pretty good lead job in Elf and Anchorman. But I still wonder - should he contiune to be the leading man?

I think not.

Pandora seems to be paying off ...

I bought 3 tracks from iTMS last night, solely based on a single listen on Pandora. That's how bloody good that service is :-)

1. Zanzibar by Shah & Laruso Present Global Experience, from the album "Around the World In 80 Days (Exclusive iTunes Edition)", 2006
2. Octane by Saturated Fatty, from the album "Clublife.4 (A Collection of Today's Best Dance Tracks)", 2005
3. Beat Break by Peas from the album "Filters", 2004

As some of you might have guessed, they all played on the Electronica radio station. :-) ... I think Kartik, Rags & Freshie would appreciate tracks 1 & 3 the most - they're very trippy lounge music. Track 2 is straight on Trance.

PS: The AllMusic sample of Zanzibar sucks. If you have a streaming music on demand, check out the track in all its glory.