Casino Royale: Bond or Rambo?

Hey, It's Rambo in a Tux!

That about sums up the Casino Royale effect. Is it a genre shifting of Bond? It sure is. The makers have given the pure cool headed impeccable Bond who could come out of any situation wholly intact – as cool as a cucumber – the royal snub and instead is the miserable amalgam of Rambo and Bond. A bloody Rambo who does not do it the Rambo way and a very uncool Bond who does not get his Bond right. The new Bonding effect – all that gore and the less mint attitude- is disconcerting and hard to swallow.

The Big Chase

An African runs up the steel frames like a lizard nay a Steel Monkey (high rise jockey?) and you begin to wow the guy. Then you watch Bond in a floral shirt in hot pursuit and your jaw drops. Its not the style, but the lack of style that makes the jaw drop. Bond sloppily scrambles up after him- more like the canine in the Hutch ad. Tsk, tsk!

Cut to another scene- Bond chases the bad guys and smashes up his car real bad. And he deserves all the credit there. He does it single handedly with no help from the bad guys.

Her Classic Act

The world over, they have been revving the raves of the new Bond for a while now. And drooling over Eva Green as the Bond diva. The one emotional line she had to say: about Bond being more of a man even if only his little finger was left (whatever, don’t remember the exact words) comes out so constipated that it was pathetic. And at that precise moment Kochi audience Booed her and I loved them for it. Then Bond replies with a supposedly sexy line about his little finger and her reaction is downright silly.

The Famous Martinis

Forget his martinis. A messy Bond looks both shaken and stirred after each battle. What next? What are they going to do with this guy? Maybe a Mad Max image will help in the next flick!

The Viewer Trap

I asked a 17 year old viewer what he thought of the film.
He replied: The Best Bond movie ever!
I asked: How do you know that?
He said: I saw it.
Yes he did. At the bottom of every poster is the same line. They have us believe it is the best Bond movie ever.
Ah! The power of advertisement.

Comments

Book Review: An Autobiography Of A Sex Worker by Nalini Jameela

I am 51 years old. And I would like to continue to be a sex worker.” This is how the candid and defiant opening statement in Nalini Jameela’s autobiography in Malayalam, Oru Lymgika-thozhilaliyude Atmakadha, goes. It at once throws a challenge at society’s double standards — harsh on prostitutes and soft on the clients. Nalini Jameela, who is the coordinator of the Kerala Sex Workers’ Forum, reveals her sordid story with no trace of compunction. Nalini was a 24-year-old widow when she entered the profession to feed her two children. At that time she did not think about the repercussions of her act. She writes, “I was earning Rs 4.50 at a tile factory near Trissur. My mother-in-law served me with an ultimatum to either give her five rupees a day to look after my children or leave the house. I recounted my woes to a friend, who introduced me to Rosechechi. Rosechechi promised me Rs 50 if I spent time with a man. The first thought that came to my mind was that my children would be looked

Kochi Muziris Biennale: Whorled Explorations

London-based artist Hew Locke was in for a bit of shocker when he reached the Kochi-Muziris Biennale 2014 site, Fort Kochi in Kerala. His installation, Sea Power , was apparently crafted from his imagination of what the historical kingdom of Cochin would have been. Indeed, he had yoked his imagination to that of a 17th century German printmaker. The printmaker had in turn conceived the kingdom of Cochin based on the tales of another. “My work is imagination based on the imagination of an image that was perhaps real. It was double fiction and I thought the prints were elaborate romantic imagery...but I discovered when I arrived in Cochin that this double fiction has elements of reality. People still wear lungis and walk around bare-chested,” says an amazed Locke. Hew Locke’s beaded frieze of mythological and historical figures that gently sway in the wind is a response to the biennial theme, ‘Whorled Exploration’, and suggests blips in the seminal movements of history. Whorled Exp

SnooTea: Just My Style

(Photographs by Minu Ittyipe) It began on a lark to spiff up my morning cuppa. Oh well, I just wanted a change from what I had been drinking all my life. I am not complaining about the faithful brew that I stir up with tea dust, it does merrily improve with two extra spoonfuls of sugar but I was just plain bored with the regular. My concept of a cup of tea was corralled in the traditional Indian style- coppery coloured liquid topped with plenty of milk and sugar but now there was in me this undeniable thirst for a more delicate bouquet. Tranquilitea, Coonoor Curiously, though grown in our own backyard, few of us have heard of the orthodox leaf tea, forget the Silver Tips, Golden Tips and the White Tea etc.. that quietly find their way to the export market. To make a foray into this relatively unknown terrain, I headed for Tranquilitea, a tea lounge in the Nilgiris, for a cup of “Tippy” tea. On a sober note, you are cautioned not to confuse “Tippy” with the more commonplace “Tipsy” for

Krazy Kochi

Search This Blog