Monthly Archives: June 2006

Superman Returns

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Superman

Bryan Singer’s Superman has a great start, great characters, and a great climax…and another climax..and another sappy climax…and another false weepy climax..and the final funny one..and at last… the real ‘The End’ – but you never can be sure – so I stuck around to see if the Titles roll – yes, it did – the movie did finally end.

Don’t get me wrong – the final was great entertainment fodder – a perfect flying start to relaunch Superman – but alas, the ending was just a drag..just like I drag here…repeating the same thing over and over again, till I nail it to your head that the ending is long, too long, probably the most weakest point of the whole move is that the THE END didnt come sooner – you got the point didnt you? if not read my lips – the climax drags on… LOL I am out of steam here :)

Now the postive points – I liked the new guy – he looks like Clark Kent I know from back in the 80′s. The screenplay (written by the XMen team) cleverly layers all his history without the aid of flashbacks. Nice adrenaline packed action sequence (which is a must have in superhero movies) kickstarts the movie. Then some romance, or lost romance, some funny bits and the super villain with a earth shattering plot (?). Frankly I didnt understand what Kevin Spacey’s masterplan was… to build a new land? thats it? why over USA a measly 5million sq.miles? when there is 60 million sq.miles of Pacific Ocean waiting to be built upon. I read somewhere that Superman was rewritten to tone down political references – my guess is that the old screenplay talked about Kryptonite laced Missile Defense Shield over US or something of that nature (to deter Superman entering airspace..of course)

The special effects aren’t that spectacular, in fact it looked lazy - When Superman helps a plane to take off- it would have been cool if he bends his back and throws the plane (like a slingshot) - not just stands there are lazily nudges it. Same with his flying – there is no real drama in his vertical take off and vertical landing, there was no sleek action in his flying – he just looked sleepy and lazy. Some of his feats looked ridiculous, even for Superman.

Casting was perfect – except the villains group of baddies were a disgrace to baddies (Indian Kal Penn included) – they just stood there blinking. Kevin Spacey as usual was magnificent.

First and Second Act was great - 3rd was not.

4/5

First Film to be shot with a Cellphone

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Cellphone film   Nokia N90

An Italian Director has completed a full 90 min movie using his cellphone. Amazingly no post production work done to the footage to cleanup the aliasing or to bump up the resolution.

Shot with a Nokia 90 in the MPEG-4 codec with a miniscule budget of mere $1000+, this movie is an assimilation of interviews about love and eroticism shot on Italian beaches. They didnt use any special lighting – just a small pocket light did the trick most of the time.

The writing was on the wall ever since cellphones were able to record more than 15 sec movie clips. My 2003 $500 Sanyo used to record video without sound, now even a entry level camera has a video camera in it.

Can’t wait to see a bootleg copy of the film, shot inside the theater with another camera phone :)

Stereoscopic 3D Monitors

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sharp_3d.jpg

Sharp has introduced a 3D Lappie. Wow!

What are the big boys up to, a company roundup:

  • Philips has actual 3D consumer monitor.
  • Toshiba has a prototype 3D monitor that doesn’t require glasses.
  • Sanyo has come up with a prototype glasses-less 3D monitor that can simultaneously provide two different TV programs–one for a person on the left and one on the right.

I guess it would be great for advertizing – mmm… pizza

Lara-Dhoni episode

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Well, I saw the match live – and Lara has been unfairly portrayed in the media and elsewhere. They same Lara, who is one of the few guys who has a reputation of being a walker (without waiting for a verdict from the umpire, if he knows he is out – other being Adam Gilchrist). He has done so when he was 91*, and even when he was given not out for caught behind (Lara was 91* he was caught by c N.Mongia b V.Raju when Umpire Venkat ruled him NOT OUT – he walked!).

When the Umpire & Dhoni didn’t believe Daren Ganga’s version that the catch has been cleanly taken – he was pissed that there is no sportsmanship – and angrily snatched the ball from the umpire Asaf to give it to Dave Mohd to continue blowing to Dhoni. This after the fact that Dravid signaled from Pavilion that he had declared.

Update: ICC has now issued a clarification of the rules in its website: “Lara did not cross the line”

It is in India’s best interest that they declare as soon as possible. So the blame is squarely on the indecisiveness of the umpire’s. Why did they call for 3rd umpire when Dravid declared and Dhoni is walking off his grease?

In other words:
If Dhoni says, I hit a clean six – then Lara should believe him. But Dhoni cannot.
If Ganga says, I took a clean catch Dhoni should believe him. Thats sports. Even ICCI says, the umpire can tap into fielders version of what happened when a conclusion cannot be reached.

Now, only one of them can conclusively say what happened – and that is Ganga – so when the people in the middle call him a liar – the spirt of the game is lost!