I Candy = Idiot Candy

Recently, Hollywood, at least as far as the critics and intelligent moviegoers were concerned, experienced a phenomenon where they finally grew fed up of the mindnumbing, brain battering assault of CGI extravaganza. A new tool and element which should have added to their storytelling arsenal, it was exploited as an end unto itself. All manner of story, coherence went

out of the window as film after film piled situations to exploit their Fantasy world creating and visual extravaganza fueled scenarios.

Until of course, Avatar came along. It took technological exploits to new heights, raised the benchmark in CGI inspired storytelling and introduced some groundbreaking visual effects and techniques. 3D effects and CGI were used not for their gimmicky value but because they were integral to storytelling. Cameron put the effects to genuine use to tell a story that would have been impossible to tell some years back - at least not with such grandeur.

But to the average Indian viewer it was just another special effects extravaganza. They embraced previous efforts like Transformers, 2012 because of all the eyecandy. But they failed to notice that Avatar was special among them. To them, it was just another CGI loaded film. And thats just like saying Na'avi Blue and Navy blue are the same. They are not. Only a

fool would not get the not-so-subtle takes on the American Economic-Imperialist tendencies or the climate issue. Or maybe they didnt find the subtexts because they have been brainwashed by nonsensical hindi films to not bother looking for underlined issues/causes. Escapism at work again.

Escapism is not only appreciated, it is revered and preferred. People would rather have a series of Deus Ex Machina, a series of oh so fortunate coincidences. Coincidences that would put Archer's epic novels to shame. A new trend is starting up. The discover yourself genre. Which is an improvement over other trends seen in our film industry. But sadly the genre conveys nothing worthwhile. No useful message. No helpful advice. Lets take Wake Up Sid. Super rich boy, purpotedly lazy and a procastinator. If the journey is about finding yourself about discovering your talents and aptitude, put some effort into it. Make it a worthwhile, gruelling journey like it always is. Within days chappie meets girl, discovers life, and turns photography hobby into a career, starting as intern at a prestigous magazine/weekly or whatever. ABE HALWAA HAI KYAA SAALON????!!!!!! People change courses several times and yet are unable to find their true aptitude. The struggles and fears that they face even when they know their calling, because it is a lesser trodden path - those aspects are conviniently swept under the proverbial rug. How ruggedly Rughoo like, all talk and no substance.

A new movie has come up Three Idiots. As I am yet to see, i shall reserve my comments. But I must say this - It is ironical, that the people who enjoy these self discovery movies about people overcoming pessimism, self doubt or whatever weaknesses, are best enjoyed by talented, happy go lucky, naturally gifted people who happen to be well settled in life for one reason or the other. True strugglers can only laugh their mirthless ironic laughter. We dont empathise with such films. (And in any case while I am looking forward to seeing it, I am looking forward to Sherlock Holmes much more). Its like the classic throwback to eighties cinema. Where the plight of the poor, streetsmart common man was "accurately depicted" and all the middle and upper class enjoyed watching it over a tub of popcorn.

On an unrelated note, Mr. Bhagat quit whining over the credits in the movie. You deserve no credit. If the movie were actually faithful to you book, it would have been the most sinfully boring, pompous, self centred, OOH ME IIT, ME IIM, ME SO GREAT, type of movie that woudlnt be worth the 15 second promo that heralded it. And lastly, to all those gleefully

celebrating the decade end. The new milleneum started with 2001 and so the first decade ends with 2010, not 2009. Samir and his ordinal, cardinal, ordinance, cardiac, oracle, cuticle, cardinal sinfully boring theories be damned. Crappy New Year for me most probably, Hopefully a Happy one for you guys. See ya next year.

Review by the Female Species are oft More Deadbeat Than the Male

Why female movie reviewers suck. Female movie reviewers suck. I know what you are going to say. That I say this because I only like the mindless, CGI loaded action/thrillers. In which case you would be wrong. My reasons are entirely different.

Females have this habit of turning everything into gossip and idle chatter. To see how terrible they are, try catching the Sony Pix show Chicks on Flicks. Only thing worse than a female reviewer is two female reviewers sitting together, wearing skimpy skirts and then crossing and huddling their knees together so as to not overexpose to the camera. Goes to show how bloody brilliant they are to begin with.

With a good review, you get some idea about the movie, and whether you would want to watch it. With female reviewers, you get a female perspective on things. What one wants is a reason to see or not see the movie and decent reviews provide that perspective. But with female reviewers all you get is why they wouldn't watch it or why they would drool all over it. Maybe its their latent passive aggressive tendencies to fight against what they percieve as a male dominant entertainment industry, which manifests as a need to show everything from a female tinted glass (okay, i dunno what that is exactly but you get the point.). And when you do get perspective, its a narrow biased perspective. They probably overcompensate for not getting

their voices heard so often. And end up ruining their one chance to shine. And, true to their penchant for impracticality they will let absurd personal biases hinder them from delivering a neutral stance. In short, the resultant opinion is skewered in so many ways, you end up being more confused and frustrated than you would if you were to watch a rehash of RGV's Aag interspersed with Akshay Kumar scenes from Tashan and CC2C.

Another instance of their malfeasance occured when they were reviewing a decent to average action flick and a mediocre romantic comedy. They ended up vouching for the romantic comedy and trashing the action flick, even though on an unbiased level, the action movie was overall much better. But hey, female perspective right? Trust me, irritating people are quite irritating in general, but nothing irks more than an irritating female. The most irritating of those irritating qualities is probably the fact that they pretend to talk like they actually know what they are talking about. Barring the old veteran female reviewers who happen to write for The New York Times and other such dailies, these women are immature bubbleheads picked more for their looks than their ability to critique the cinematic arts. They have no knowledge of real cinema to

compare from, no idea of what constitutes a good or a bad film and hence no benchmark to go by. They are as lost as the characters in....well, Lost. Sugar coating and candy floss is fine, but let it stick to the movies. Not the reviews.

Someone needs to teach women the difference between Chat Show and Opinion. And between opinions and useful opinions.

I Feel Lazy, Send in My Avatar

Some time ago, a sci fi movie Surrogates, based on a cyberpunk graphic novel of the same name was released. Bruce Willis toplined the feature. It came and went, largely unnoticed. But the frightening fact is, the plot of the movie, or rather the crux of it, could soon be a reality.

It deals with a future where humans live in isolation from the rest of the world and communicate externally through the use of SURROGATES (hence the title, in case ya didnt realise).

We are imperceptibly, gradually getting socially detached. Ironic, considering the array of stay in touch gadgets/widgets splayed at our disposal. Personal contact, face to face interaction is slowly subsiding as video conferencing, chatting and virtual socialising come to the forefront. People shy away from all forms of actual interaction and then promptly enroll in contactotherapy as a cure for their chronic "shyness'. We prefer to go out and socialise using Second Life Avatars. A culture that was possibly parodied intentionally or unintentionally in James Cameron's Avatar.

Slowly and surely we are building a shell around ourselves, brainwashed by mindless entertainment, kept busy by silly fade-in-a-minute crazes and fads. And its not like we are utilising this privacy, this time away from the maddening crowd to self analyse or introspect. We are busy dulling our brains on gimmicks created out of boredom by other numbskulls.

We can exist days, even months, on end without leaving our house. We have almost everything delivered at our doorstep. With almost everything and accessible through the web many of us can and in fact do work from home. Actual interaction with the outside world is not at all necessary to survive - at least, in theory. And if we could have and experience all the pleasures and joy in life from the relative comfort of our own abode, why wouldn't we. As far as we can percieve, there seem to be no pitfalls or flipsides to such an arrangement.

Pleasure and comfort are the hardest to resist. Which explains the influx of entertainment and comfort technologies that we welcome eagerly into the fold. Adaptation to such will of course leave us weak and incapable of facing anything but the mildest and meekest of climate/environment. The illusion of being able to control our world and surroundings is what is at the core of this fatal attraction.

So, I hypothesize that we will all end up staying at home, waiting for the next bit of pleasure to come our way, indirectly interacting with others (but viciously so, because the pleasures of commenting and status updating are overpowering to most). Indulging in artificial exercise and therapy to keep ourselves fit and natural and sustained. And no doubt, some enterprising blighter will use this opportunity to invent an interaction simulation, where we will gladly and gleefully indulge in "realistic and immersive" interaction with other beings.