I stumbled upon this British series, and loved it. Having seen the American knockoff with the same name, I can confirm what other have already said, the British original is hillarious! (but sadly the accent is so hard to follow without subtitles).

Gareth, as a self righteous ex-miliatary assistant (to) manager, make the whole show shine. And then there is Ricky Gervais whose timing, both as the director and actor, is impecable. They take themselves so seriously that its so funny to watch. Seriously funny, but not in a Larry David way, but great fun nevertheless.

5/5

 

Club Dread was directed by Jay Chandrasekar, one of the only 2 NRI directors (directors of Indian Origin) who do studio movies (the other is obviously M.Night Shyamalan).

True to its name, it was a dreadful movie! Coming back from the moderate BO success (and super success with under 20s) from Super Troopers, the Broken Lizard team has made a movie devoid of any dry humor – infact any humor at all – dry or otherwise, which made the first one a runaway hit in college campuses.

I suppose it was a satire? I couldn’t tell for sure..

2/5

Iranian film Kandahar received 88% positive reviews in RottenTomatoes (a wonderful site where u can gauge popular crictical opinion about movies), which should make it a wonderful movie. But sadly it falls into the familiar trap, western reviewers viewing a 3rd world film spotlighting on the problems which are unheard of in their native land. Seeing a film (sitting pretty in an airconditioned theater with plush velvett seats) with all the sufferings, pain and oppression, they write the review with a guilt ridden pen, hailing the movie (condesendingly so) as a masterpiece, without any qualifying merits.

Though the movie took us to a world unknown and unseen, it fell flat as a drama. It used mostly stereotypical characters (except for a little boy; somehow kids shine in Iranian movies), injects a false sense of urgency, and generally manipulates its way to Kandahar. Interestingly the film makers chose to use South Indian Carnatic music base in lieu of real Middle Eastern music. Maybe Klasik, a derived Afghan-Hindustani music, is getting popular in Middle East, as Carnatic Music is in Africa.

A reviewer has to review what he sees, not what he doesn’t. The underlying thought maybe noble, but that doesnt make it a good film, maybe a good documentary.

3/5