KING KONG - THE MOVIE (2005)

The ever so popular story of a Beauty killing the Beast, thats what King Kong is all about.
The newest installation, a respectable remake at that, is a story pretty close to the 1933 classic,but the treatment is entirely different here.
Desperate to keep his place in the depression ridden New York, Carl Denham (Jack Black), a master showman, is on a last ditch effort to convince his investors about an expedition to the famed-for-all-the-wrong-reasons Skull Island. The inverstors are not ready for a wild-goose-chase, but Carl is bent on risking anything to shoot his next film. While running from his investors, he finds out that his lead actress pulled out of the picture, in his desperation he comes across the unknown performer, Ann Darrow (Naomi Watts) and convinces her to drop everything to star in his film.
Lying to the entire production crew as a trip to Singapore for shooting, Carl sets on to discover Skull Island.



A lot of care is taken in primarily building a credible plot, be it in how Carl gets the play writer, Jack Driscoll (Adrien Brody) to come along and building the romantic interest between him and Ann and of course the journey itself; the crew coming to know of his ridiculous and dangerous filming interest in the Skull Island, the ensuing war of words and eventually finding themselves in the force of the island itself, before they can change the course back home...So it is quite sometime till you actually get to see the beast. No wonder the movie is 3hrs and 5 mins long.

When the crew finally gets to Skull Island, the film really takes off and sort of falls apart at the same time. Jackson spends a lot of time on Skull Island, we see all sorts of mysterious and strange things, like Huge Dinosaurs, T-Rex's, there's a really creepy scene where the crew are trapped at the bottom of a cliff and are attacked by the Island's numerous insects.
The graphic work and special effects are quite a treat, especially the dinosour stampede scene and the fight between T-Rexs' and King Kong are quite impressive, but they tend to get on one's nerves when they tend to prolong, just when one feels he's had enough.

Unlike other beasts in earlier installments of King Kong or be it other beastly movies, King Kong here is actually a beauty. The director has taken too much of a care in getting all sorts of expressions of the gorilla right and , it is something to watch indeed. The scenes involving the growing softness between Ann and the gorilla are made with some poetic perfection.

The ending sequence is truly breathtaking, the aerial photography makes one feel as if he was really at the top of the Empire State Building.

In conclusion, King Kong can probably be called as an accomplistment in spectacle film-making and for this reason alone allow yourself a rollercoaster of a ride.

The Maltese Falcon - book review

THE MALTESE FALCON (1930)

Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon is arguably one of the best detective novels ever written.
The setting is a typical San Fransisco of the 30s where money is everything and people go beyond limits to pursue their greed.

Sam Spade, a private eye and partner with Spade & Archer’s detective agency, is not surprised when the beautiful and unsuspecting Ms Wonderly walks in his office with a made-up case to find her lost sister; the rolled-bills are laid and in no time does Spade find his partner Archer killed and himself in a mire of events.
Enter Joel Cairo and to Spade’s chagrin (of not having recognized her earlier), Ms Wonderly actually turns out to be Brigid O Shaunessey…all in pursuit of the priceless Maltese Falcon, a treasure of invaluable worth. The turn of events get chillier when gangster Gutman enters the scene. The stage is then set for a series of nail-biting events mixed with some ruthless sleuthing by Spade, defining his own but questionable code of ethics.

Dashiell Hammett’s writing style, though simple, brings out the thrills and chills quite effectively and is something to be admired. So is his ability in portraying a corrupt 30s San Fransisco; nobody is spared and nobody is good. At times one would wonder if Spade is really our hero. To an avid reader, The Maltese Falcon could turn out to be unputdownable.

The book features in one of the 100 best read books and the movie version of the same doesn’t stay far. Starring Humphrey Bogart as Samuel Spade, the 1941 movie, titled same as the book, went on to become critically acclaimed, also features in the 100 best movies made in Hollywood.

The "Firsts " Trip - New Mexico Trip

Did the title keep you guessing??!!! Then good , it was intended to :) . I am not a person who does not believe in secularism, but neither have i ever thot of celebrating festivals other than ones pertaining to the hindu religion. But 2005 was an exception, I did celebrate christmas ... yes in New Mexico.

The best thing about being in US is the things that you get to do here and .. yes friends, you dont think about the dough here much , when you want to go around and see places!!! We were given 3 days off for christmas. It was planned almost a month ago that we would go to new mexico although i wasnt sure if i wanted to go , i jus let myself in at that time !!!! Typical of me isnt it?? But then as usual i have no regrets , the trip turned out to one of most memorable ones that i had been to.

It was on 24th of the dec that we set off the journey !!!! Quite a travellers way of starting a story but nothing too lengthy as that;) It was a short and sweet trip. Ignore the cliché, after all its the mortal thats writing. We started off to Amarillo, a city in Texas but which is very close to New mexico. The places in agenda were Santa Fe, Taos and Alburquerque. It was the sheer cost cutting measure that forced us to book flight tickets to Amarillo, rent a car in Amarillo and then drive for 6 hrs to reach Santa Fe. Quite an intelligent move i would say. Infact Sara and a few others wanted to drive straight 13 hrs to New Mexico but some little souls like me for instance, who knew the perils of driving better than its pleasure, staged a rebellious dharna before the plan was buried and decomposed for ever.




We reached Amarillo and went straight to the car rental shop. We were one short of a dozen , so nothing else would have suited us but a ford explorer and a chevrolet suburban. There were 5 of us in the Ford explorer. Sara took the wheels for about an hour and then our lady subashini came to the rescue... oooops i bet the people inside the car would have used some other appropriate vocabulary to fit the context. Infact to say the least all of them were s#$% scared that i took the wheels!!!!! But yes friends I did drive an SUV !!!! The experience was nothing less than ecstatic. I was on the Interstate highway zooming at an average of 70- 80 mph!!! Which is less compared to the average the guys hit but nevertheless, it was the pride of a young girl trying to keep the tempo of the guys ( Okie you can stop coughing and cursing). I would have driven for an hour and a half and then Ranjith took over, i got into the back seat and then friends, everything was a dream.

It took us around 6 hrs to reach Santa fe and we crashed for some 3 hrs and started off to Angel fire resort at around 10.00 clock in the morning. I was insistent on the fact that i would take the wheels. Guys, you must drive that SUV , i bet you guys will go bananas!!!!!! Also to add to the fact that i was driving on narrow hilly roads that was twisting and turning!!!! boy!!! it was exciting!!!

We reached Angel fire only to find out that there was nothing much to do.. so then what else jus loiter around. The best part of the story is the restaurant in which we had our lunch. Ok ppl, time to be honest. Rapid fire round.. what would you do if you saw Catherine Zeta Jones in person???? hmm hmm.. nono.. er... you need not be too descriptive, please like the gentlemen that you are, subtly keep the answer in your mind. Okie we did not meet Zeta Jones but guys, the person who waited on us was almost a look like, drop dead gorgeous. Now how can Sara help it ?? No one can win over nature and like the good guy he is, it was only God's will that after lunch he went to her to find out the places in the vicinity, only to come back after an hour and tell us that she spoke greek very well ;)

Anways to all of them who have seen the fotos that i have sent, this was the point of time that we went to the eagle lake. You have to be there to feel it and believe it. The best part was that the lake was frozen as is. You could jus visualize how the waves would have hit the shore and made an angle with shore before it was frozen. Honestly i find it hard to put in words the various colors that the sky emitted during sunset. It was just brilliant!!!!!!

The evening was busy as we came back to watch the some beautiful fireworks. The evening we went and crashed like logs just to be prepared to land up in the skiing resort at 10.00 AM next day!!!!.

Skiing, guys, believe me, is strenous!!! And thats the least adjective i can think of. The shoes themselves are so heavy that you can barely walk with them on you !!!!! Skiing was a day long event. Do you know something guys, that you start off as a beginner, trying to stay calm , trying to learn tricks of the trade, puffing and panting with the heavy boots and skiis on you, slowly taking one step at a time to reach a point that is a lil elevated so that your skiing(read falling) will be gradual and smooth, jus when you reach the elevation and get the feeling as though you have won the championship, swooooooooooshh........!!!!! a lil toddler, barely 5 years old will jus "excuse" itself away from you and skiiiiiiii away to glory !!!!:) Kids are so good at learning this.. they have jus NO fear !!!!!


Everyone should do skating or skiing once in life , you know why , thats becoz you will relive the period where you fell and fell again before you could walk... Does any of you remember the struggle that you put up as a toddler to make that 2 damn feet to stay on ground?? I bet you dont, so guys try one of these, it will give you a feeling of how miserable you felt when you were 10 months old and trying to take the road on your own.

All of us were drained by evening and thot we would go straight to the hotel, but someone suggested that we could go to a temple which was right there!!!! We drove and drove , from highway to a state road to a small street to a tiny weeny strecth , that was supposed to be a lane!!!! None of us believed that we would find the temple but Sara was this confident guy who kept his cool and so reassuringly asked us to enter that creepy lane.. and lo we found the temple!!!! I was seriously impressed with Sara to have shown such unaffected state of mind inspite of constant cribbing, nagging and cynical comments that came from some of them at the back seat!!! Kudos to Sara.. !!!

We went inside the temple and guess what we saw?? We saw that there were 2 Americans who were singing hindi bhajan!!!! I was totally impressed. The caretaker of the temple was also an American who was talking about bhakti and Karma!!!!! I was zapped and was crashed to see the multiple print outs of hanuman chaleessa lying on the table in the entrance!!!! It was a great experience friends. I felt like an insignificant moth who didnt know about her own religion.. okie guys brush it off.. no need to pay attention to that statement.

We punished ourselves later for this ignorance, by going to an indian restaurant :).. ufff!! food food , finally some good food!!!

The next day was a balloon ride and then the tram ride.. and then back at home to san antonio!!!
A very experimentative trip, where I got to walk on ice for the first time, ski for the first time, take a balloon ride for the first time and and and.. drove the Ford explorer SUV with sweaty passengers , up and down the mountains for the first time!!!!!!!!

my new year gifts

...stand me for the entire fools' month, just like the other 4000 odd people :-)



and....our yearly handbook feature...half a leaf for my review...



HAPPY NEW YEAR