The Twilight Saga – Breaking Dawn Part 1

What is it that could make 20 tweenage girls (people between the ages of 17 and 23 if you didn’t know) scream out in public for a good 10 seconds as if they were having the most gut wrenching orgasm ever in their lives? What is it that can get the quietest and the most simple girls out of their closets and bare themselves as if they were the most vulnerable to any external stimuli? No we are not talking about the latest stimulating device that has hit the market place. The answer my friends and I am sure you weren’t aware of it – ROBERT PATTINSON. Duh. Robert who? What? Where? When? Why? How? If these 6 questions flashed through your mind then my dear friends – Welcome to my tribe. My first tryst with the white ghost was in a movie titled Water for Elephants where he personified the term “eye candy”. My 2nd intervention was about 3 days back when I almost mistook him for a white plastic cupboard. Even cupboards would have more expressions than this so called heartthrob.

Needless to say, I had to really struggle through the 90 odd minutes that the director – whose family name can be easily mistaken for a birth control measure – puts us through. Bill Condon (with an n and not an m) is best known for his musical called Dream Girls (which I haven’t seen). And after the first part of Breaking Dawn, I am convinced on a few points – Dream Girls could have at best been average & I would need a few hundred horses to drag me to the screen when Breaking Dawn 2 releases.

Honestly, I was conned into watching this one by a friend (who I have since disowned) who told me that she had picked up tickets for “In Time”. Now the concept of Twilight is completely the kinds that I would like. I am, as you would be aware if you are a regular reader of my blogs, definitely into Fantasia and that’s the best way I can describe the Twilight Saga. Anyone who would tell you that its about a lethal mixture of romance and action doesn’t quite know his left arse from his right. Its just pure Fantasy which would, in the hands of a specialist director, turn into a superb reality. That I hadn’t read the series didn’t help much with my lack of appreciation. So as you would have gathered by now, I was dead pan bored 15 minutes into the movie and only wondering how I could take advantage of the weak legged women who were around me. But my sleep got the better of me.

There is no perceivable reason I can ask you to watch The Twilight Saga – Breaking Dawn Part 1. Maybe if you are a die-hard Twilight fan, you could take the risk. I wouldn’t be surprised if you still don’t like it much. 3 on 10 from my side.

Watch the trailer at http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi2052299801/

Water For Elephants

In these days of exceptionally brilliant and new concepts that keep cropping up, it is indeed a welcome change to watch a sloppy old school drama in a manner of speaking. One that is filled with romance, animals, a circus, heart break, action, tears, a despicable villain, a happy ending – in short, the whole shebang. A fail safe combination that most of our local directors and even the international ones have utilized to the hit but it was only director Francis Lawrence who was obviously smarting from his previous experience with science fiction (I am Legend) who found this to be the only method to kind of redeem himself. And he has done so quite reasonably. Not a brilliant movie by any stretch of imagination but definitely watchable and quite well made. Mind you, don’t get your expectations too high or inclined towards Oscar glory etc. This is just a nice movie to watch with the family (with some parental advice through in for good measure) on a Sunday afternoon / Saturday evening. Apologies in advance for not posting the review earlier so that you could have caught up with the movie today. Do try and catch up with it during the week if possible. I doubt it would survive till next week.


“Ladies and Gentlemen and children of all ages – Welcome to the most extravagant of extravaganzas”!!!! That’s how August (Christoph Waltz), the owner of the Benzini Brothers Circus welcomes his audiences in every town, way back in 1931. He takes over the business when the Benzini Brothers decide to give up on it and manages to take it to a respectable level in the market. However, he is still a long way off from making profits consistently. His star attraction is an acrobatic display on horses that his wife, Marlena (Reese Witherspoon) conducts. Things take a bad turn when they realize that the lead horse, Silver Star, has developed what they fear is an abcess. And it only gets worse when a stowaway Jacob (Robert Pattinson) joins them. Jacob is a drop out from the Cornel Veterinary School. His parents pass away in a car accident on the day of his finals and he is unable to complete the course due to the resultant financial situation. However, he knows when its curtains for Silver Star and much against August’s wishes puts him down. And along the way also falls for Marlena since both of them share their love for animals and don’t like how August ill treats most of them as well as the humans who are part of the show. The replacement for the lead attraction is a 53 year old gorgeous elephant who turns out to be an instant hit. But along with it, the initial attraction that Marlena and Jacob have for each other goes to the next level and love blossoms. August obviously isn’t too pleased.

Standard love story as mentioned earlier with some good stunts thrown in with animals. If Reese Witherspoon has done her stunts then I must say it is quite commendable. Working with animals surely can be tricky. Robert Pattinson is definitely in the movie only for providing eye candy for the female audiences. Christoph Waltz is superb to say the least – as always. The movie is made just about well enough to deserve a 6 on 10 rating from my end. Not that there could be something out of this world that could be done with an average love story. The narration could have been done better – maybe we allow the luxury of long romance movies only to Baz Luhrman these days. But then Luhrman does stuff to hold you riveted for over 150 minutes. Lawrence on the other hand could have chopped off a clean 15-20 minutes of this 2 hour attempt. Worth a dekko for certain. But even DVD would be fine.

Watch the trailer at http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi1397594649/