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12 September 2004
A Preview of Coming Attractions
One of my favourite pastimes is to check the trailers posted on Apple's website. The website has previews of even movies that open as late as a year from current date. While doing my rounds of preview-hunting over the weekend, I noticed that there are at least three movies slated for release that star Dustin Hoffman, three that star Jude Law, one that stars both, one heist movie, one based on Ian McEwan's novel about the de Clarembault syndrome, one well-timed John Sayles movie on political intrigue surrounding a Coloradan running for governor, a hilarious documentary about the Yes Men, potential Academy Award contenders like I ♥ Huckabees, The Motorcycle Diaries, The Incredibles, after several vesions of Peter Pan, now a movie on the man who created Peter Pan, the by-now regular Chinese colossal war/martial arts epic, a musical documentary on Tom Dowd, and yet another biopic on Alfred Kinsey, sex doctor. Whew!While on movies, it can often be tiring to read movie reviews from the same set of harried, ageing film "afficionados". It is hard to blame them too for their repetitiveness and blunting of language seeing as there are so many movies that a single epithet or line could apply to that it vexes the mind to conjure up new ones and simultaneously beat the deadline. From the point of view of the artless reader, a review is often either too abstracted, self-indulgent, convoluted or dumbed-down, equivocal and can get as bad as reading one's horoscope or the weather forecast. In such times as these, it is a credit to IMDb for posting weekly meta-review roundups of popular movies. In doing so, the folks at IMDb give us the advantage to compare across-boards the mildly amusing writing styles of Roger Ebert, A.O. Scott, Stephen Hunter, Michael Wilmington. There are such gems as "sustains a maniacal energy that explodes off the screen in blinding electrical zaps" or "an unexpected beauty, a use of color and form that makes it one of those rare movies where I wanted to sit in the front row and let the images wash out to the edges of my field of vision." or "an honest, unpretentious, well-made B picture with a clever, silly premise, a handful of sly, unassuming performances and enough car chases, decent jokes and swervy plot complications to make the price of the ticket seem like a decent bargain". God bless them that serve up the studio briefs at IMDb.
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For those fond of the Eighties and nostalgic of the times when the white Fiat or Ambassador were the only cars one got to see on Indian roads and Amul butter cost seven rupees, Vishal Patel's website relives some of the most glorious moments of that golden age. There are clips from Pran's Chacha Chowdhary, the Poppins action strips, Champak and Giant Robot. A visual and literate treat.
